What is this Bizarre structure found in the Egyptian desert?
To some viewers, it looks like a landing strip for extraterrestrial spacecraft — or perhaps the portal to a parallel universe, if not an ancient monument to a benevolent deity who had a keen eye for design and symmetry.
But what people are actually seeing in the desolate reaches of the Egyptian desert, just a short distance from the shores of the Red Sea is in fact an environmental art installation. And it’s been baffling tourists and armchair travelers since it was constructed in March 1997.
Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou, and Stella Constantinides worked as a team to design and build the enormous 1 million square foot (100,000 square meters) piece of artwork — called Desert Breath — to celebrate “the desert as a state of mind, a landscape of the mind,” as stated on the artists’ website.
Desert Breath, as seen on Google Maps.
Constructed as two interlocking spirals — one with vertical cones, the other with conical depressions in the desert floor — Desert Breath was originally designed with a small lake at its center, but recent images on Google Maps show that the lake has emptied.
The entire structure, in fact, is slowly disintegrating as the sand that forms the art piece slowly blows off its cone-shaped hills and fills in its depressions, making it “an instrument to measure the passage of time.”
The art piece joins other mysterious images and environmental artworks that fascinate viewers on Google Earth, Google Maps, and other online platforms.
For example, the wind-blown steppes of Kazakhstan are home to a large pentagram etched into the Earth’s surface on the shores of a desolate lake.
The five-pointed figure bedeviled viewers’ imaginations until it was revealed to be the outline of the roads in a Soviet-era park.
The star was a popular symbol in the U.S.S.R., and Kazakhstan was part of the former Soviet Union until that union dissolved in 1991.
And etched onto the desert floor of New Mexico are two large diamonds surrounded by a pair of overlapping circles.
This is reportedly the site of a hidden bunker belonging to the Church of Scientology, according to the author of a book on the religious group.
The creators of Desert Breath have no political or cult-like aspirations, however: “Located … at the point where the immensity of the sea meets the immensity of the desert, the work functions on two different levels in terms of viewpoint: from above as a visual image, and from the ground, walking the spiral pathway, a physical experience.”
Egyptian mummy believed to be of a male priest turns out to be a pregnant woman
According to the AFP, X-rays of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy kept at Poland’s National Museum since 1917 showed the remains of a woman with long, curly hair who died between 26 and 30 weeks pregnant.
Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, an anthropologist at the Warsaw Mummy Project, was examining a CT scan of a mummy at the National Museum in the Polish capital when she spotted something peculiar.
“When I looked at the lesser pelvis of our mummy I was interested in what was inside… I thought I saw a tiny foot,” Ozarek-Szilke said.
X-ray images showed a little foot in the belly of the world’s first pregnant Egyptian mummy
She asked her husband, an archaeologist who also worked on the project, to take a look.
“My husband looked at the picture and as a father of three, he said: ‘Well, that’s a foot’. At that moment … the whole picture started to come together,” Ozarek-Szilke told Reuters.
The mummy came to Poland in the 19th century when the nascent University of Warsaw was creating an antiquities collection. For decades, it was thought the mummy belonged to an ancient Egyptian priest named Hor-Dehuti.
However, in discovery revealed in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Thursday, scientists at the Warsaw Mummy Project said the mummy was in fact a woman in her twenties who was between 26 and 28 weeks pregnant.
The cause of death is not clear, but Ozarek-Szilke said the pregnancy may have had something to do with it.
“It is possible that the pregnancy itself contributed to the death of this woman. Now we have modern medicine, women who are between 20 and 30 weeks pregnant and something happens to the pregnancy, they have a chance to be rescued. It used to be impossible,” she said.
The discovery sheds some light on the little-known role of children in ancient Egypt and the religious beliefs of the time, but also raises many questions, according to Wojciech Ejsmond, co-director of the Warsaw Mummy Project.
“What was the status of this child in the Egyptian religion? Did it have a soul, could it go to the afterlife on its own, could it be reborn in the afterlife… if it was not yet born?”
Ejsmond said scientists would study the mummy further to determine the cause of death and establish why the foetus was left in the body.
More Than 100 Burials Uncovered in Egypt’s Nile Delta
According to an Ahram Online report, 110 burials containing the remains of adults and children have been found at the Koum el-Khulgan archaeological site in the Nile Delta region of northern Egypt.
Some of the graves discovered at the Koum el-Khulgan archaeological site in Dakahlia province were found still carrying the human remains inside.
The tombs were located approximately 150 kilometres northeast of Cairo, the ministry said, adding that at least 68 of these oval-shaped tombs belonged from the Predynastic Period that spanned between 6000-3150BC.
Ancient burial tomb unearthed recently with human remains
As many as 37 rectangular-shaped tombs from an ancient era known as the Second Intermediate Period (1782-1570BC) were also unearthed. This dated back to the period when the Semitic of Hyksos ruled ancient Egypt, the ministry informed.
The remaining graves were found to belong to the Naqada III period that thrived between 3200BC to 3000BC.
Inside these ancient mystical tombs, archaeologists found human remains of adults and children as well as the funerary equipment and pottery objects, the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said.
Artefacts found at the site include pottery, scarab amulets and jewelry.
Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr Mustafa Waziri said in a Facebook post that this discovery is an important historical and archaeological addition to the site, where among the tombs found are 68, dating back to the period of the civilization of Lower Egypt.
And as many as five tombs from the era of Naqada III and 37 tombs from the era of Hyksos were dugout. “The excavations will continue to reveal more secrets from this region,” he said.
An ancient burial tomb unearthed recently with human remains and and pottery
Uncovered remains of a baby
Meanwhile, the head of the Egyptian antiquities sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Ayman Ashmawi, said that tombs are oval-shaped pits cut in the island’s sandy layer and contain people buried in a squatting position, most of whom lay on their left side with their head pointing westward.
Archaeologists uncovered the remains of a baby buried inside a pottery vase from the Bhutto 2 period, a small pot of spherical pottery was placed with it.
A pottery coffin was found inside a burial ground for a child, two brick tombs in the form of a rectangular building with the children’s burials and some funeral furniture, including a small pottery vase and silver rings, as well as the remains of a baby buried inside a large pottery pot were also excavated.
The funerary furniture was placed inside the pot, which was represented in a small black pottery vase.
The graves were found at the Koum el-Khulgan archaeological site in Dakahlia province.
Mysterious Giant Objects Discovered Near The Egyptian Pyramids On The Giza Plateau
It would seem that near the famous pyramids in Egypt, everything has long been known. But, thanks to new technologies and clear high-quality images from space, new details began to be discovered.
At first glance, it seems to be nothing ordinary – pyramids, like pyramids…
But this is only at first glance. If you enlarge the details of this image, then you can find the barely guessed outlines of giant, clearly artificial rectangular formations that are located opposite the famous pyramids.
What are these incomprehensible huge geometric objects protruding through the sand dunes?
It may well be that in the thickness of the limestone plateau, ancient artificial underground structures of the disappeared Egyptian civilization of the pharaohs are hidden from prying eyes.
We are sure that the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt is well aware of these objects.
Therefore, permits for archaeological work are issued only in strictly designated places and not at all free of charge, and the more promising such a site is in terms of finds, the larger the contributions (and the contributions, judging by a number of publications, are not at all weak).
In addition, excavations at a number of sites are generally prohibited.
So the Egyptian land will keep its secrets and mysteries for a long time from ordinary inhabitants – you and us.
Anunnaki Metropolis More Than 200 Thousand Years Old Was Discovered In Africa And Rewrites History
The Great Pyramid of Giza, which is just 5000 years old, is believed to be one of the world’s oldest structures. The megalithic temples in Malta, carbon-dated to 3500 BCE, are said to be the world’s oldest structures.
Right up until now, these were known as the first advanced civilizations. Michael Tellinger and Johan Heine have discovered a sight in Mozambique’s Maputo that dates back 200,000 years.
The site is thought to be part of an ancient city that spans 10,000 kms. It has roads joining complex circular structures with agricultural areas which indicate that it belonged to a highly advanced civilization.
They were always there, people noticed them before, but no one could remember who made them and why. Until recently, no one knew how many there were, now they are everywhere, there are thousands of them; no, hundreds of thousands!
Michael Tellinger said:
When Johan introduced me to ancient stone ruins in southern Africa, I had no idea about the incredible discoveries made in a year or two, the photographs, artifacts, and evidence that no doubt accumulated by a lost and never seen civilization that predated all others, not for several hundred years, not for several thousand years, for many thousands of years. And these discoveries are so amazing that they are not easily digested by the current historical fraternity. It will require a complete paradigm shift in how we view our human history.
The Anunnaki metropolitan area is important due to the amazing amount of gold deposits
In the words of Michael Tellinger:
Thousands of ancient gold mines discovered over the past 500 years point to a lost civilization that has lived and mined gold in this part of the world for thousands of years. And if this is indeed the cradle of humanity, perhaps we are observing the activities of the oldest civilization on Earth.
This place is about 150 km from a superb port where sea trade could help support such a large population, but remember that we are talking about a metropolis almost 200,000 years ago. Some ruins of the metropolis, mostly stone circles, were buried in the sand and are visible only from a satellite or from an airplane. Some have been eroded by sand melting, exposing walls and foundations.
Coordinates of the metropolis on Google maps
When explorers first encountered these ruins, it was assumed that they were built by nomadic tribes such as the Bantu people as they moved south and populated the land throughout the 13th century.
In early history, there was no record of any civilization capable of building a larger, populous community. Little effort was made to explore the site because the size of the ruins was not fully known.
Over the past 20 years, people like Kirill Gromnik, Richard Wade, Johan Heine, and others have discovered that these stone structures are not what they seem. In fact, it is now believed that the age of the ruins of ancient temples and astronomical observatories of a vanished ancient civilization is hundreds of thousands of years.
The circular ruins stretch over a huge area and can only be truly appreciated from the air or with the help of modern satellite imagery. Many of them are almost completely destroyed or covered with soil due to agriculture and climate change. Some of them have survived quite well, demonstrating large dimensions: the original walls in some places reach almost 1.5 meters in height and more than a meter in width.
Ruins of the Anunnaki metropolis
As for the entire city, or metropolis, it is obvious that it was a well-planned community, created by a highly developed civilization. The number of ancient gold mines suggests why the community chose this site.
Roads have been found, some of which stretch for hundreds of kilometers, connecting settlements and terraced agriculture, very similar to those found in Inca settlements in Peru. But the answer to the question has not been found: how could this have been achieved by humans 200,000 years ago?
When science is silent
The explanation for this mystery can still be found, however, not among the official scientific postulates, but among others. The theory of ancient astronauts, Zecharia Sitchin, which speaks of the Anunnaki and their “mining work” on Earth, points to a possible explanation for this ancient metropolis.
This is Sitchin’s theory, which speaks of time and civilization that existed on Earth long before all officially recognized ones, such as Egyptian, Sumerian, and so on. According to the generally accepted version of human history, the first civilization on Earth was the Sumerian, which appeared in southern Mesopotamia in 5000 BC.
According to Sitchin’s theory of ancient astronauts, the history of the Earth begins with the arrival of the Anunnaki on our planet, approximately 450,000 BC.
Zecharia also claims that the Anunnaki came to Earth in search of gold, which they needed to “restore” the atmosphere on their home planet – Nibiru. Long and difficult wars on Nibiru damaged the atmosphere, which began to threaten their lives.
Study Suggests Hominin Could Walk and Swing Through Trees
Gizmodo reports that a new study of a human ancestor’s shoulder blade and collarbone suggests that Australopithecus Prometheus was able to swing through trees some 3.7 million years ago.
Discovered in South Africa in the 1990s, the fossilized remains of an individual known as “Little Foot” were carefully excavated from the concrete-like rock over a period of 15 years.
The specimen called StW 573 or Little Foot, was an Australopithecus Prometheus.
A cast of Little Foot in 2005. It would take over a decade for the real thing to be fully excavated.
The fossil was finally fully excavated in 2018, over 20 years after its discovery when palaeontologists finished extricating the fossil from the breccia it was encased in. Immediately, Little Foot offered a remarkable glimpse into human origins.
Research describing the shoulder joint’s morphology was published this week in the Journal of Human Evolution. The research team inspected Little Foot’s pectoral girdle: literally, the specimen’s shoulder blade and collar bone.
By comparing the girdle’s formation to that in other human relatives, including some of the great apes, the team sussed out how Little Foot and others in its species got around.
“By understanding how the shoulder joints of early hominins are structured, and more broadly how their shoulder blades are capable of moving on their torsos, we can understand how they used their upper limbs while interacting with the environment,” said Kristian Carlson, a biological anthropologist at the University of Southern California and lead author of the new paper, in an email. “This is a crucial question during this period of our evolutionary history.
In its subtle shape, the pectoral girdle of Little Foot indicated to the researchers that the hominin did exploit trees for its survival, perhaps for acquiring a meal or to avoid becoming one. That lines up with research last year on the specimen’s vertebrae, which suggested Little Foot was capable of head movements (useful for climbing) that go beyond modern human capacities. That said, Little Foot was still bipedal, featuring the upright gait associated with humans.
The new finding brings up an interesting comparison with Ardi (a specimen of Ardipithecus ramidus), a lesser-known ancient relative from 4.4 million years ago.
Paleoanthropologists recently suggested that Ardi’s hands were built for swinging in trees, though some experts disagreed, saying Ardi was more human-like than ape-like.
Though the fossil record is as ossified as can be, the conclusions drawn from the bones we pull from the ground remain fickle. It’ll take some time to see whether the interpretations of Little Foot’s lifestyle, drawn from these shoulder bones, stick.
Little Foot’s bones suggested it hadn’t lost its ability to swing through trees.
Little Foot’s pectoral girdle is the earliest evidence of such a skeletal structure so close to when hominins split off from ape and bonobo ancestors. That upper limb is a crucial piece of the puzzle, though Carlson said it can only tell us so much.
“As special as Little Foot is, it is only one individual,” he explained. “While we are still intensely investigating other anatomical regions of the Little Foot skeleton, we also must continue to appreciate the growing morphological variability that appears to exist within the early hominin fossil record, for example in Australopithecus.”
Based on their comparisons, Carlson’s team determined that Little Foot’s shoulder structure may be a good indicator for what that structure looked like in even older human relatives, in the 7- to 8-million-year-old time frame.
Such a discovery would make Little Foot look like a spring chicken. But until that happens, looks like we’re stuck with one of the most complete Australopithecine fossils ever found, the continued analysis of which reveals new details and theories with each pass. Woe is us!
Egypt breakthrough: How 2,000-year-old mystery was solved after ‘lost labyrinth’ discovery
The discovery was made in Dahshur, an archaeological site 90km south of Cairo, where the tattered remains of Pharaoh Amenemhat III’sBlack Pyramid can be seen today. The huge mortuary temple that originally stood adjacent to this pyramid is believed to have formed the basis of the complex of buildings with galleries and courtyards called a “labyrinth” by famed ancient Greek historian Herodotus.
With no visible remains, the story was thought to simply be a legend passed down by generations until Egyptologist Flinders Petrie uncovered its “foundations” in the 1800s, leading experts to theories the labyrinth was demolished under the reign of Ptolemy II and used to build the nearby city of Shedyt to honour his wife Arsinoe. But, in 2008, archaeologists working on the Mataha Expedition made a stunning find below the sands, researcher Ben Van Kerkwyk revealed on his YouTube channel ‘UnchartedX’ earlier this year.
He said in January: “It is a rare thing for ancient historical mysteries to ever be fully resolved.
“Great enigmas like the pyramids of Egypt seem to somehow resist the passage of time, unchanging as it flows around them like boulders in the river of history.
“Occasionally our civilisation makes some small incremental progress, a new tomb is found or some object discovered destined to become yet another piece in a museum.
The Black Pyramid is located in Dashu
“12 years ago, in 2008, a momentous discovery was made beneath the sands of Egypt, this wasn’t some small incremental step, but represented rather a huge leap forward – an opportunity for historical exploration and learning – the likes of which we have not witnessed in a century.
“The great lost labyrinth of ancient Egypt had been found.”
Mr Van Kerkwyk went on to detail what the area may have looked like some 2,000 years ago.
He added: “This was a gigantic and mythical structure, said by some to have surpassed the achievements of the pyramids, a huge array of thousands of underground halls, temples and chambers, dwarfing all known Egyptian temple sites several times over.
“This structure was visited and witnessed first-hand by the great historians of millennia past, yet ultimately, was lost to the sands of the desert and its physical presence remained unknown for more than 2,000 years.
A huge labyrinth is believed to be below the sand
“Unknown until 12 years ago, the discovery was suppressed and today the incredible potential of this site is being slowly and irrevocably destroyed by both inaction by authorities and by the water table in the area that’s rising.
“Compared with Giza or any of the other well-known ancient Egyptian sites, there really isn’t a lot to immediately take in.”
Mr Van Kerkwyk detailed how Mr Petrie first stumbled across the find.
He added: “Some fragments of once-mighty granite columns carved in palm or lotus shapes along with other small fragments of ancient stonework are left lying in a small, open-air museum.
“The site is dominated by the remains of the pyramid of Amenemhat III with only the mud-brick internal structure remaining to see.
Possible location of the tunnels
“The remains of the labyrinth have been discovered in the sandy areas to the south of the pyramid.
“The first to find any real evidence of this was the great Flinders Petrie, who, in the late 1800s, discovered the remains of a huge stone foundation, more than 300 metres broad around four metres beneath the sand.
“He concluded that this was the remnants of the foundations for the labyrinth, with the structure itself being long since quarried and destroyed.”
Archaeologists found evidence of a huge structure hiding below the sand in 2008, but Mr Van Kerkwyk said the area has never been excavated.
The monuments cannot be seen today
There are few ancient remains visible
He continued: “However, new evidence collected in modern times is challenging his conclusion and it now seems likely that what Petrie found was not the foundation, but instead was part of the ceiling or roof.
“These same areas were scanned in 2008, using ground-penetrating radar, by the Mataha Expedition, a collaboration between Egyptian authorities, the Ghent University of Belgium and funded by contemporary artist Louis De Cordier.
“The results of this expedition clearly indicate the presence of grid-like and ordered structures deep beneath the sand in levels much deeper than Petrie ever excavated.
“Although this expedition was conducted with the full cooperation and permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the official results and conclusion of this legitimate scientific study have never been released.”
Over 300 mummified crocodiles were found at the temple of Kom Ombo in Egypt
Kom Ombo is one of the more unusual temples in Egypt. Due to the conflict between Sobek and Horus, the ancient Egyptians felt it necessary to separate their temple spaces within one temple. The Kom Ombo temple has two entrances, two courts, two colonnades, two Hypostyle halls and two sanctuaries, one side for each god.
Location
Built to overlook the Nile, the temple is located in the city of Kom Ombo, about 30 miles north of Aswan. Its dual design is dedicated to Sobek and Horus and is perfectly symmetrical along its main axis.
Kom Ombo History
The Kom Ombo Temple was built between 332 BC and 395 AD, during the Ptolemaic period, by Ptolemy VI Philometer.
Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos continued the work and built the exterior and interior Hypostyle halls. The temple was built with local limestone by men who rode on elephants, considered to be a Ptolemaic innovation.
Little remains of the original structure. Unfortunately, a good portion of the temple has been destroyed over the millennia by earthquakes, erosion by the Nile River and builders who stole stone for unrelated projects. In 1893, a French archaeologist by the name of Jacques de Morgan cleared the Southern portion (the half dedicated to Sobek) of debris and restored it.
The Kom Ombo Temple
During the Roman period, additions to the temple were made in the form of decorations in the main court. At this time, an outer corridor was also added.
Augustus built an outer enclosure wall and a portion of the court, but those structures have since been lost. The Coptic Church took over the temple and converted it into its own place of worship. It was at this time that many of the ancient reliefs were defaced and removed.
Relief at Kom Ombo
Kom Ombo Temple Dedications
Kom Ombo was dedicated mainly to Sobek and Horus; however, some of their family members were part of the temple’s dedication as well.
The Southern portion of the temple was not just dedicated to Sobek, the god of fertility, but also to Hathor, the goddess of love and joy, and Khonsu, the god of the moon.
In this portion of the temple, there are many crocodile representations to pay homage to Sobek. This part of the temple is also called “House of the Crocodile.”
Depiction of Horus and Sobek
The Northern portion of the temple was dedicated mainly to Horus, god of the sun, and also Tasenetnofret, meaning “the good sister,” and a manifestation of Hathor, and Panebtaway, meaning “the Lord of two lands” which represented Egyptian kingship. In this part of the temple, there are many representations of falcons to pay homage to the falcon-headed god, Horus. This part of the temple is also called “Castle of the Falcon.”
Relief of Horus
Kom Ombo Temple Layout
Just after crossing the gate inside the temple, there is a small room dedicated to Hathor. Today, it is used to display the many mummified crocodiles that were found in the temple’s vicinity.
A well in front of the main entrance was once used as a Nilometer. The first pylon, which has since been destroyed, now consists only of foundation stones and a portion of a wall.
– Mummified Crocodiles at Kom Ombo
Entering into the main court, there are 16 painted columns, eight on each side of the court. A granite altar sits in the centre of the main court, likely where the sacred boat was placed.
On the rear wall of the main court are five lotus-shaped columns along with a screen wall. Two entrances, one for each deity, open up here. Through both entrances lies the first Hypostyle hall.
There are ten lotus-shaped columns here with the middle two separating the two halves of the hall.
Columns at Kom Ombo
Separate entrances guide visitors into the second Hypostyle hall known as “The Hall of Offering”. Beyond this Hall of Offering are three antechambers, now all nearly destroyed.
Curiously, the twin sanctuaries which are found beyond the antechambers are separated by a hidden chamber.
A dual passageway runs the perimeter of the entire temple and there are seven additional rooms along the interior passage. A staircase leads to the roof.
