Archaeologists believe they have found Cleopatra’s tomb

One of history’s most famous love stories may finally be getting its ending — after more than 2,000 years. Archaeologists have teased a key breakthrough in finding Egyptian Queen Cleopatra’s final resting place — a hidden tomb where she is assumed to have been buried with ill-fated lover Mark Antony after their suicides.

The discovery was made during a “meticulous” dig in Taposiris Magna, a temple “honeycombed with hidden passages and tombs” on Egypt’s Nile delta, according to the Science Channel.

The scientists uncovered an “undisturbed tomb decorated in gold leaf” that a new documentary suggests “could be the answer to the 2,000-year-old mystery of Cleopatra’s final resting place” in 30 B.C.

“Their findings revolutionize our understanding of who she was and how she lived,” claimed the channel of the findings to be revealed in a two-hour special, “Cleopatra: Sex, Lies, and Secrets,”

The show follows the team led by Dr. Kathleen Martinez, who describes herself as a “Dominican archaeologist in search of Cleopatra” and has teased numerous breakthroughs on social media.

Cleopatra was the last queen of Egypt — having been crowned at just 18 — and is one of history’s most famous female rulers.

Yet she is “synonymous with seduction, beauty, and scandal,” the Science Channel noted, calling her “an icon of popular culture and one of the most elusive yet significant female figures in history.”

As well as the history books, her story is the subject of one of William Shakespeare’s greatest works, “Antony and Cleopatra,” as well as one of Elizabeth Taylor’s most iconic big-screen performances, with 1963’s “Cleopatra,” the most expensive movie of its age.

Even before her tragic love-story with Antony, she had a string of historic flings — having married and had a son with Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, according to History.com.

After Caesar was murdered in 44 B.C., Cleopatra went back to Egypt but was summoned to meet Roman general Antony to explain any role she may have had in the assassination.

She supposedly arrived on a golden barge rowed by silver oars, made to look like the goddess Aphrodite as she sat beneath a gilded canopy fanned by staff dressed as cupid, according to folklore.

Antony was instantly seduced, leading to three children — and the pair’s ultimate downfall.

Antony had been forced to prove his loyalty to Caesar’s successor as Roman Emperor, Octavian, by marrying his half-sister, Octavia — but soon dumped her to return to Cleopatra in Egypt, History says.

It sparked a war, which Octavian’s forces easily won in the Battle of Actium.

Antony famously fell on his sword when told his lover had killed herself — dying just as news arrived that it was not true.

Roman troops soon captured Cleopatra, and Octavian wanted to keep her alive to display her as a prize during a victory parade, according to llis Roxburgh, the author of “Cleopatra vs. the Roman Empire.”

Refusing to be used, Cleopatra killed herself — and is widely assumed to have done so by letting a snake poison her.

Dead at 39, she is believed to have been buried with her lover — sparking the more than 2,000-year mystery over the exact location of their tomb.

Skeleton of Teen Girl Found Buried Next to Mysterious Pyramid in Egypt

Egyptian archaeologists excavating the ruins of a pyramid 60 miles outside of Cairo have discovered the skeletal remains of a 13-year-old girl huddled inside a tomb.

Exactly how or when she died is a mystery, though the experts say the site itself dates back to the end of the Third Dynasty roughly 4,600 years ago.

The tomb was empty apart from the skeleton, which was buried in the squatting position, but the team also found two animal skulls and three ceramic vessels nearby that were likely placed as funerary offerings.

The skull offerings appear to have come from bulls, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities.

Researchers came across the burial during work on the partially-collapsed Meidum pyramid, where the team is excavating a cemetery built near the end of the Third Dynasty.

It’s thought that construction on the Meidum period began at the command of the Third Dynasty’s last pharaoh, Huni, and was continued by Sneferu, the first pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty.

Previous efforts at the site uncovered the tomb of Prince Nefar-Maat, Sneferu’s oldest son.

While the newly-discovered bones indicate the remains belong to a girl who was around 13 years old when she died, much about the burial and the offerings are still unclear.

Researchers do not know the identity of the buried teenager.

The latest burial was found surrounded by a partially intact brick wall, and the team is now working to restore and reinforce the structures.

Elsewhere, in the Sinai Peninsula, the Antiquities Ministry says it discovered an ancient workshop that was used to build and repair ships thousands of years ago.

The site dates back to the Ptolemaic era (332 B.C.-30 B.C) and was found during excavations in the Tel Abu Saifi archaeological site, which is said to have once been the location of the Roman fortress Silla.

The find includes two dry dockyards where the ancient ships were worked on.

Researchers say it dates to the Greco-Roman period in Egypt, which lasted from the arrival of Alexander the Great in the 4th century until the 7th century when the Islamic conquest swept the region.

How pharaoh Khufu boat was found ‘perfectly preserved’ near the Great Pyramid

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a boat, which believed to have been used by Pharaoh Khufu himself  “perfectly preserved,” which helped confirm theories over how the ancient society constructed their wonders.

Probably the most famous and well-known of the many ancient landmarks of Egypt, the Giza pyramid complex is comprised of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, together with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Of the three pyramids that still stand today, the Great Pyramid of Giza, or the Pyramid of Khufu, remains a spectacle to people all over the world, who marvel at how a society over 4,500 years ago managed to build such a colossal structure.

However, thanks to a find made more than half a century ago, archaeologists were able to slowly piece together what this ancient civilisation may have looked like and the ingenious way they worked together.

The 2014 series explained: “On this plateau, set on the edge of the desert, the story of the pyramids achieved its finest hour. “It is here that we best appreciate the grandeur and majesty of these constructions, and the organisational skills and methods used to erect them.

“The workers here were organised into teams that hauled blocks of stones on huge sledges mounted on logs of wood.

“Each team was made up of about 1,000 men organised along military lines and led by a master mason and various underlings.

“They were not slaves, they earned a regular wage, bed, and board and it is thanks to their work that these immense structures were ever completed.” The series continued, explaining the clever tactics used by the ancient society to haul together in the building process.

It added: “Even today, such imposing buildings would involve complex engineering problems.

“The Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was the first one to be built in Giza around 2500BC, has a base that covers over 12 acres (48,500 square metres).

“More than 2,300,000 blocks of stone were needed to build the base and weighed between two and 200 tonnes each.

“It may sound incredible, but this was once a lush green land, with neither desert nor buildings.

“Irrigation canals linked the areas to the Nile, and some of the stones used in buildings were transported on these canals.” The documentary went on to reveal how evidence of this was discovered more than 50 years ago.

It added: “A boat made with cedarwood built almost 5,000 years ago was discovered here in 1954 near the Pyramid of Cheops, still in a perfect state of preservation.

“Archaeologists found it belonged to the pharaoh Cheops himself, 140 feet long, equipped with 12 oars and was probably used by Cheops when he travelled along the Nile.

“On those occasions, his subjects could get a glimpse of their Pharaoh and pay homage to him.”

At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced with white “casing stones” — slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone. However, in 1303, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were taken away 50 years later to be used in the building of mosques and fortresses in Cairo.

Many other theories have been proposed regarding the pyramid’s construction techniques, disagreeing on whether the blocks were dragged, lifted, or even rolled into place. The Greeks believed that slave labour was used, but modern discoveries made at nearby workers’ camps associated with construction at Giza suggest it was built instead of thousands of skilled workers.

Czech archaeologist, Miroslav Verner, claimed that the labour was organised into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 100,000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 20,000 men each, which may have been further divided according to the skills of the workers.

Archaeologists discover a Perfectly Preserved 4,000-year-old tomb in Egypt

Archeological finds in Egypt never stop. This was made all the more apparent by the recent discovery in Saqqara of a vibrant tomb, home to some of the oldest pyramids in Egypt.

There are vivid wall paintings in the amazingly well-preserved tomb that look like they were made yesterday when in reality the tomb was created over 4,000 years ago.

To celebrate the discovery, Prof. Khaled al-Enani—Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities—recently led over 50 foreign dignitaries on a tour through the site.

It’s believed that the tomb, which is located within a large necropolis, was created during the Fifth Dynasty.

This period spanned the early 25th century BCE until the mid 24th century BCE and was known as a time when funerary prayers began to be inscribed on royal tombs. In this particular case, the exceptional tomb was created for a dignitary named Khuwy.

Several aspects of the tomb lead researchers to believe that Khuwy was a man of great importance. Architecturally, it has a tunneled entrance, which is a feature typically reserved for pyramids—the tombs of the pharaohs.

Artistically, the colors of the paintings are considered “royal colors” by officials. These clues bring into question Khuwy’s influence and his relationship with the Fifth Dynasty’s longest-ruling pharaoh, Djedkare Isesi.

Djedkare’s pyramid is located nearby in Saqqara and one theory is that Khuwy was a relative of the leader.

Others believe that the lavishness of the tomb was instead owed to the Djedkare’s reforms on funerary cults. Whatever the cause, what we’re left with are incredible examples of the artistry of ancient Egypt.

In addition to the tomb decoration, archaeologists also found Khuwy’s mummy and canopic jars—used to hold organs—scattered in several fragments.

Egyptologists hope that the newly discovered tomb will give them more insight into Djedkare’s reign, as the pharaoh’s own tomb was raided prior to excavation in the 1940s.

While Djedkare appeared to be held in high regard even after his death—he was the object of a cult until at least the end of the Old Kingdom—he is still a somewhat enigmatic leader.

Egypt unearths 7,000-year-old lost city

The discovery of the ruins of a lost city in Sohag, Upper Egypt Province, considering to be more than 7,000 years old has been announced by Egypt.

The Ancient City, found beside a nearby cemetery, dates back to 5,316 BC and is announced as a major archaeological discovery which predates the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt that began about 5 millennia ago.

During an excavation 400 metres south of the mortuary temple of Seti I, a pharaoh who ruled thousands of years later from 1290 to 1279 BC, a team of archaeologists from the Egyptian ministry of antiquities discovered the ruins of ancient huts and tombs.

Seti I’s temple is located in Abydos – one of the oldest known cities of ancient Egypt and the historic capital of Upper Egypt – and the newly found dwellings and graves could be parts of the long-gone capital now resurfaced, or a separate village that was swallowed by it.

“This discovery can shed light on a lot of information on the history of Abydos,” antiquities minister Mahmoud Afifi said in a press statement.

The recently unearthed structures are thought to have been home to high-ranking officials and grave builders.

In addition to the foundations of ancient huts, the archaeologists found iron tools and pottery, plus 15 giant tombs – the capacious size of which means their intended inhabitants must have been well-established individuals.

“The size of the graves discovered in the cemetery is larger in some instances than royal graves in Abydos dating back to the first dynasty, which proves the importance of the people buried there and their high social standing during this early era of ancient Egyptian history,” the ministry said.

It’s possible that these officials oversaw the construction of royal tombs in nearby Abydos, but the size of their own resting places outside the capital suggests they didn’t want to slum it in eternity either.

“About a mile behind where this material is said to be we have the necropolis with royal tombs going from before history to the period where we start getting royal names, we start getting identifiable kings,” Egyptologist Chris Eyre from the University of Liverpool in the UK, who wasn’t involved with the excavation, told the BBC.

“So, this appears to be the town, the capital at the very beginning of Egyptian history.”

According to the researchers, the ancient tools and pottery are the leftover traces of a once giant labour force that was engaged in the considerable feat of constructing these royal tombs – and if you’ve seen the kinds of structures we’re talking about, you’ll understand they had a pretty epic responsibility:

The nearby cemetery is made up of 15 mastabas, an ancient Egyptian tomb that takes a rectangular shape, made with sloping walls and a flat roof.

According to lead researcher Yasser Mahmoud Hussein, these mastabas are now the oldest such tombs we know about, pre-dating the previous record holders in Saqqara, which served as the necropolis for another ancient Egyptian city, Memphis.

We’ll have to wait for these new findings to be verified by other scientists, but we’re excited to see what new insights further excavations will bring.