In the middle of Egypt’s desert, there is a Valley of Whales which is millions of years old

There is an ancient Egyptian desert, once a vast ocean, that guards the secret of one of the most remarkable transformations in the evolution of life on planet Earth. Egypt is known as the land of Pyramids, Pharaohs, and golden sands. Countless jewels have been excavated from beneath Egypt’s sands, revealing a treasure trove of a time long gone. Archaeologists have discovered pyramids, temples, entire cities, and finds whose value is incalculable.

But there’s more to Egypt than the Sphinx, the Pharaohs, and its incredible pyramids, and there is more to this wonderful land than the Valley of Kings. Some 160 kilometres southwest of the Pyramids at the Giza plateau is a treasure trove of history. There aren’t any pyramids, temples, or mummies buried there, but it is a site of great importance. In fact, Wadi El Hitan was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

The reason? Hundreds of fossils of some of the earliest forms of whales, the archaeoceti (a now extinct sub-order of whales), lie buried beneath the desert sand.

The story of Wadi Al Hitan is worthy of the most impressive tales. Some 40 million years ago (give or take a few), massive beasts swam in the vast prehistoric Tethys ocean. It was home to numerous creatures that have long since been forgotten. One of these massive animals, over 50 feet long, had massive jaws and jagged teeth. It looked unlike anything living inside Earth’s oceans today. The creatures eventually died, sinking to the prehistoric ocean seafloor. Tens of thousands of years went by, and a fine protective mantle of sediment eventually built up over the beasts’ bones.

The prehistoric sea receded. The former seabed transformed into a vast desert as powerful winds armed with fine grains of sand began covering the surface little by little, eventually preserving the whales that would remain hidden for time to come. Eventually, it became another one of the many secrets hidden beneath the golden sands of Egypt. Time passed by, and the planet’s geology and geography warped. The planet’s crust smashed India into Asia, giving birth to the breathtaking Himalayas.

Humankind came into existence, and Africa saw the first humans stand straight, evolve, and eventually build a civilization that would forever become imprinted in history. The mighty Kings of Egypt build incredible mastabas, which evolved into massive pyramids. Egypt flourished and fell, and the land of Pharaohs was no more.

Then, more than one hundred years ago, massive fossils of long-gone beasts were revealed by the wind, which delicately preserved and revealed the fossils since time immemorial.

The site is so important that scientists argue the site reveals evidence for the history of one of the greatest mysteries in the evolution of whales: the species’ appearance as an ocean-going mammal from a previous life as a land-based animal. Today, the site is a desert covered with geological features that make it even more unique. But in the distant past, Wadi El Hitan was a massive ocean where whales swam, hunted, and reproduced.

As the site is dubbed, the Valley of the Whales is the most important site in the world to demonstrate the above-mentioned evolutionary process. The way of life of these mammals is accurately portrayed during their evolution.  The number, concentration, and quality of fossils are unique to Wadi El Hitan, a time capsule providing evidence of millions of years of coastal marine life and evolution. These remains show these animals losing their hind limbs, hydrodynamic bodies (like those of modern whales) while presenting primitive bone structure aspects. Other fossil materials found at the site allow reconstructing the environment and the ecological conditions of the time.

Wadi el Hitan portrays the form and way of life during the transition from land animals to ocean-going mammals.

Although the fossils discovered at the site may not be the oldest, their great density in the area and the quality of their preservation is to the degree that even some stomach contents have remained intact.

Thanks to the discovery of fossils of other early animals like sharks, crocodiles, sawfish, turtles, and rays, scientists have been able to reconstruct the environmental and ecological conditions of the site accurately.

The site and the first fossil skeletons of whales were discovered at the Valley of Whales in 1903. But for more than 80 years, the site was forgotten, mostly due to the difficulty of accessing the site.

However, in the late 1980s, as all-wheel-drive- vehicles become widely available, people started visiting and documenting the site. Eventually, the Valley of Whales would attract scholars, fossil collectors, and even tourists. People would go there and collect fossils without properly documenting or conserving the fossils. This led to the disappearance of many fossils from the site, prompting warnings for the site to be adequately conserved.

One of the most important discoveries at the site was the largest fossil discovered there, with 21 meters in length. The fossil showed clear traces of five-fingered flippers on its forelimbs and an unexpected existence of hind legs, feet, and toes, features that were precisely unknown in an archaeoceti. The site exceeds the values of different similar sites in terms of the number, concentration, quality of its fossils, and their accessibility, found in an attractive and protected landscape.

The site includes an impressive assemblage of fossilized skeletons of Archaeoceti (primitive whales documenting cetacean transition to marine life), sirenians. It also includes well-preserved fossils of reptiles and shark teeth that date back to around 40 million years ago. Scientists have identified the fossils of crocodiles, sea turtles, and the fossilized remains of sea snakes at the site. Many species of bony fish, sharks, and rays are represented at the site, but the largest number of fossils are isolated small teeth, which are often inconspicuous. There are also larger fish fossils, including the rostra and pegs of sawfish. In fact, the site features a sawfish rostrum of 1.8 meters long.

Wadi El Hitan is also home to a wide variety of fossilized shells and disc-shaped nummulite fossils. According to scientists, the strata in Wadi Al Hitan belong to Middle Eocene, and it includes a vast mass of vertebrate fossils within 200 km2 of the desert. While researchers have identified many whale fossils, they have also catalogued and reported sea cows’ fossils, among over one hundred different fossils. Scientists were able to reconstruct their origin and conclude their form was serpentine, and the animals were carnivorous.

The site has been found to feature typical streamlined bodies from modern whales and shows us clear evidence of some of the primitive aspects of skull and tooth structure. In other words, the valley of Whales in Egypt is a unique site not only because of its diverse fossil library but because of the examples of fossils and their respective age.

The site has managed to remain well-protected because not many people access it. In fact, it is believed that between 1500 and 2000, tourists venture out and visit the site, which is accessible through unpaved and unmarked desert roads. The tourists who decide and come to the site are mostly foreigners who then camp in the valley.  Wadi El Hitan lies within the Wadi El Rayan Protected area, but part of the site has been turned into a tourist venue, and there are walkways placed in between the main fossils. Small shelters were also built at the site.

In addition to its vast collection of fossilized remains, Wadi El Hitan is home to more than 15 different species of desert places and 15 different types of mammals, including the red fox and the Egyptian mongoose. The site is mostly frequented by the Gennec Foxes, who tend to visit the campsite at night searching for food.

The six foot one Pharaoh who could be the world’s oldest case of Gigantism

The supposed remains of Sa-Nakht, a pharaoh of ancient Egypt, maybe the oldest known human giant, a new study finds. Myths abound with stories of giants, from the frost and fire giants of Norse legends to the Titans who warred with the gods in ancient Greek mythology.

However, giants are more than a just myth; accelerated and excessive growth, a condition known as gigantism, can occur when the body generates too much growth hormone. This usually occurs because of a tumour on the pituitary gland of the brain.

As part of ongoing research into mummies, scientists investigated a skeleton found in 1901 in a tomb near Beit Khallaf in Egypt. Previous research estimated that the bones dated from the Third Dynasty of Egypt, about 2700 B.C.

Prior work suggested that the skeleton of the man — who would have stood at up to 6 feet 1.6 inches (1.987 meters) tall — may have belonged to Sa-Nakht, a pharaoh during the Third Dynasty.

Previous research on ancient Egyptian mummies suggested the average height for men around this time was about 5 feet 6 inches (1.7 m), said study co-author Michael Habicht, an Egyptologist at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Evolutionary Medicine.

Ancient Egyptian kings were likely better fed and in better health than commoners of the era, so they could be expected to grow taller than average. Still, the over-6-foot-tall remains the scientists analyzed would have towered over Ramesses II, the tallest recorded ancient Egyptian pharaoh, who lived more than 1,000 years after Sa-Nakht and was only about 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall, Habicht said.

In the new study, Habicht and his colleagues reanalyzed the alleged skull and bones of Sa-Nakht. The skeleton’s long bones showed evidence of “exuberant growth,” which are “clear signs of gigantism,” Habicht said.

These findings suggest that this ancient Egyptian probably had gigantism, making him the oldest known case of this disorder in the world, the researchers said. No other ancient Egyptian royals were known to be giants.

“Studying the evolutionary development of diseases is of importance for today’s medicine,” Habicht said.

In the early dynasties of Egypt, short statures were apparently preferred, with “many small people in royal service,” Habicht said. “The reasons for this preference are not always certain.”

Still, because the alleged remains of Sa-Nakht were buried in an elite tomb, there may have been no social stigma attached with gigantism at the time, the researchers said.

The scientists detailed their findings in the August issue of the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Smuggled Old Kingdom Statue Returned to Egypt

According to an Ahram Online report, an Old Kingdom statue depicting the priest Nikau-Ptah has been returned to Egypt from an art gallery in the Netherlands.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, in collaboration with the Egyptian Embassy in Amsterdam and the concerned authorities in the Netherlands, succeeded in repatriating an ancient Egyptian statue of an Old Kingdom priest Nikaw-Ptah that was stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country of Egypt.

The statue has arrived safely in Egypt and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has handed it over to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, the general supervisor of the Repatriation Antiquities Department, explains that the statue was put on sale at the annual European exhibition of fine arts, Tefaf, in Maastricht, Netherlands.

He added that the statue was illegally excavated and was not from the collection of any museum or archaeological site of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

He pointed out that the statue is legless and features the priest standing and wearing a short skirt. His name is engraved on his right hand.

Sunken Ship, Ancient Greek Graves Found at Underwater Ruins in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) – Divers uncovered the unusual remnants of a military vessel in the ancient submerged city of Thônis-Heracleion – once Egypt’s greatest Mediterranean port – as well as a funerary complex indicating the presence of Greek merchants, the country said on Monday.

The city, which controlled the entrance to Egypt at the mouth of a western branch of the Nile, dominated the area for centuries before the foundation of Alexandria nearby by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.

Destroyed and sunk along with a wide area of the Nile delta by several earthquakes and tidal waves, Thônis-Heracleion was rediscovered in 2001 in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, now Egypt’s second-largest city.

The military vessel, discovered by an Egyptian-French mission led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), sank when the famed temple of Amun it was mooring next to collapsed in the second century BC.

A preliminary study shows the hull of the 25-metre flat-bottomed ship, with oars and a large sail, was built in the classical tradition and also had features of Ancient Egyptian construction, Egypt’s tourism and antiquities ministry said.

In another part of the city, the mission revealed the remains of a large Greek funerary area dating back to the first years of the 4th century BC, it said.

“This discovery beautifully illustrates the presence of the Greek merchants who lived in that city,” the ministry said, adding that the Greeks were allowed to settle there during the late Pharaonic dynasties.

“They built their own sanctuaries close to the huge temple of Amun. Those were destroyed, simultaneously and their remains are found mixed with those of the Egyptian temple.”

The mummified ‘giant finger’ of Egypt: Did giants once really roam on Earth?

A 15-inch long human finger has been found in Egypt and pictures of it are being released for the very first time.  BILD.de broke this story, and it is spreading like fire all over the Internet. 

According to BILD.de, the pictures of this finger were taken by a researcher named Gregor Spörri in Egypt in 1988.  The mummified finger would be considered to be human except for the fact that it is way, way too large to have come from a human hand. 

As mentioned earlier, the giant finger is 15 inches long.  It is projected that the person that this finger came from would have been more than 16 feet tall!  You can see more pictures of this amazing find on BILD.de.

 

As you can tell from the picture above, the fingernail is clearly visible.  This truly is a remarkable specimen.  So is this really a finger of a giant that once lived in Egypt?

Unfortunately, this finger is not housed in a museum in Egypt.  The researcher that took the pictures reportedly had to pay “an old man from a grave robber dynasty” 300 dollars to see it and take pictures of it.

So unfortunately this discovery cannot be independently verified at this time.  Hopefully, all of this publicity will flush this finger back out into the public so that authorities can examine it. 

This is potentially an incredibly important part of our history and it would be a shame if these photos are the only evidence we ever get to see of it.

But when it comes to giants, we already know that there is so much other evidence out there.  Recently I wrote about the Nephilim mummy that was found in Peru and about the giant footprints and giant skeletons that have been found all over the world.

But a mummified human finger from a giant in Egypt would be absolutely mind-blowing.  It would be a direct challenge to everything that is commonly accepted about the ancient history of Egypt.

Hopefully, all of this will spur more digs and more research.  The era when the Great Pyramid was constructed in an era that is shrouded in great mystery. 

Humanity is only now developing technology that would allow us to construct a similar structure today.  Nobody really knows for sure who built the Great Pyramid or how it was constructed.

There is just so much about ancient Egypt that we simply do not know.  Hopefully, the floodgates will open and much more evidence will emerge soon.

Excavation of King Khufu’s Second Solar Boat Completed in Egypt

Ahram Online reports that the excavation of the second Khufu solar boat discovered in a pit next to the Great Pyramid of Khufu in 1954 has been completed by a joint Japanese and Egyptian team of researchers.

Sakuji Yoshimura, the head of the Egyptian Japanese archaeological mission and president of Higashi Nippon International University, and Professor Emeritus of Waseda University have completed the excavation of the second Khufu Boat from the pit in which it was discovered beside Khufu pyramid in the Giza plateau.

Issa Zidan, the director-general of executive affairs for restoration at the Grand Egyptian Museum and the supervisor of the restoration work of the second Khufu Boat, explained that nearly 1,700 wooden pieces were extracted from 13 layers inside the pit, noting that the registration and documentation of all pieces have been done, as well as the initial restoration of most of these pieces was completed.

He also added that, so far, 1,343 pieces were transferred to the Grand Egyptian Museum, where preparations are underway for starting the second phase that includes the final restoration work, as well as conducting the necessary studies for assembling and re-installing the boat that will be displayed next to the first one inside the new building dedicated for King Khufu’s boats, which is now being constructed at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

Omura Yoshifumi, the chief representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Egypt Office, said that the JICA will provide a $3 million grant for completion of the final restoration work and reassembly of the boat for its display in the museum, in addition to the $2 million grant that was provided in 2013, which supported the excavation and extracting process of the wooden pieces of the boat from the pit.

The project of restoring and extracting the wooden pieces of the second Khufu Boat is one of the largest restoration projects that represent the aspects of fruitful cooperation between Egypt and Japan, with the support of the JICA.

Cooperation between Egyptians and the Japanese in the Grand Egyptian Museum project started in 2006, when the JICA provided financial support through two soft loans of official development assistance for the construction of the museum at the request of the Egyptian government.

Since 2008, the JICA has been providing technical cooperation through the Egyptian Japanese joint conservation project for the restoration, documentation, packaging, and transfer of 72 artefacts — among which were some of King Tutankhamun’s collection — from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir and other sites to the Grand Egyptian Museum.

About 90 Japanese experts participated in this project, and a number of high-tech technical equipment were provided within the project, such as a digital microscope, a portable X-ray machine, and an electric forklift to carry heavy artefacts safely.

Ambassador Noke expressed his appreciation for the fruitful cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities led by Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Enany and the sincere efforts of Major-General Atef Moftah — the general director of the Grand Egyptian Museum project — and the surrounding area to realise all this progress, stressing that the Grand Egyptian Museum is a symbol of Egyptian Japanese friendship.

From his side, Yoshifumi expressed appreciation for the Egyptian government’s strong leadership in making such great progress in the Grand Egyptian Museum’s construction and related works towards its opening, emphasising that he is proud that the JICA takes part in preserving the world’s treasures in Egypt to the future generations through this project.

Farmer Digs Up Stone Egyptian Stele Saluting Sixth Century BC Pharaoh

A farmer living near Ismailia in Egypt has uncovered a 2,600-year-old stela erected by pharaoh Apries, who ruled from about 589 B.C. to 570 B.C., the Egyptian antiquities ministry reported. 

The farmer found this ancient slab of sandstone while preparing his land for cultivation, about 62 miles (100 kilometres) northeast of Cairo; he then contacted the Tourism and Antiquities Police about the discovery, the ministry statement said.

The stela is 91 inches (230 centimetres) long, 41 inches (103 cm) wide and 18 inches (45 cm) thick. 

At the top of the stela is a carving of a winged sun disk (a disk that was sometimes associated with the sun god Ra) with a cartouche of Pharaoh Apries, with 15 lines of hieroglyphic writing below that, the statement said.

Apries, also known as Wahibre Haaibre, reigned during the 26th dynasty of Egypt (688 B.C. to –525 B.C.), a time when Egypt was independent and its capital was often located at Sais in northern Egypt. 

Efforts are underway to translate the stela.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the stela appears to be related to a military campaign that Apries undertook east of Egypt. 

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (lived ca. 484-425 B.C.) claimed that Apries fought a losing war against the Phoenicians that left many Egyptian soldiers dead and sparked a civil war in Egypt that ultimately led to Apries being killed and replaced as pharaoh by a man named Amasis. Whether this stela will shed new light on these events is unclear. 

Ancient Egyptian Head Cones Were Real, Grave Excavations Suggest

Most of the garments depicted in ancient Egyptian art are relatively straightforward to decipher, but there’s a particular wearable article that has baffled archaeologists. In statuary, murals, funerary stelae, coffins and relief sculptures dating between 3,570 and 2,000 years ago, people repeatedly appeared wearing cones on their heads, a bit like party hats.

Now, for the first time, archaeologists have actually identified two such cones, crafted out of wax and adorning the heads of skeletons dating back some 3,300 years. The finds were excavated from the cemeteries of the city of Akhetaten, also known as Amarna.

This discovery may finally help to resolve several hypotheses over the meaning of these head cones, and what their function may have been back in the day.

“The excavation of two cones from the Amarna cemeteries confirms that three-dimensional, wax-based head cones were sometimes worn by the dead in ancient Egypt, and that access to these objects was not restricted to the upper elite,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

“The Amarna discovery supports the idea that head cones were also worn by the living, although it remains difficult to ascertain how often and why.”

Akhetaten itself is a curiosity. The city was set up by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, who famously went religiously rogue, setting up his own cult to the sun-god Aten. He established Akhetaten as his capital city in around 1346 BCE, but his attempt to steer Egypt to a new religion was not popular, and Akhetaten was abandoned not long after the Pharaoh’s death in 1332 BCE.

In art discovered in the city, as well as Egypt at large, the head cone makes a not-infrequent appearance. It’s often depicted on the heads of guests at a banquet, or tomb owners participating in funerary rituals or being rewarded by a king.

The cones are also found in depictions of people fishing and hunting in the afterlife and playing music. And the somewhat unusual headgear seems to have a particular association with childbirth, fertility and healing.

The two skeletons found wearing the cones at Akhetaten belonged to a woman around 29 years of age, and an individual whose sex has not been determined, aged between 15 and 20 years.

The woman, excavated in 2010, was in good condition, still intact as she had been laid to rest. She still retained her hair; tangled up in it was the cone, broken apart and burrowed through by insects, but recognisable.

Interestingly, a pattern imprinted on the inside of the cone seemed consistent with fabric weave, as though the interior of the wax structure had been lined.

The grave of the second individual, excavated in 2015, had been robbed, leaving the skeleton jumbled together at the foot of the grave. However, it too had retained hair; and in this hair, the researchers identified a second cone.

Although these discoveries don’t reveal the purpose of the cones, they do narrow things down a bit. For instance, both burials were simple and uninscribed, from a cemetery interpreted as belonging primarily to labourers.

This could mean that either the head cones were not just for high-status members of society but for everyone; or, as also inferred from a recently discovered burial, that the workers copied what they saw the nobility doing.

It also casts some light on hypotheses regarding the purpose of these cones. One idea suggests that the cones were symbolic – like the halos that appear around the heads of Western saints – and not actually a real object. Obviously, this discovery of two actual cones puts that one to bed.

Another hypothesis considered the cones to be solid lumps of scented unguent, or filled with scented fat, which would melt and leak down out of the cone, scenting the wearer’s hair and body in a ritual purification practice. Careful analysis of the cones, however, found no traces of either fat or perfume, nor was there any melted stuff in the wearers’ hair.

Rather, the cones seemed to have been a hollow shell, shaped around or reinforced by fabric. It is possible that they were “dummy” cones created just for burial purposes, and that hats worn by the living were constructed differently, but it also seems possible that the cones could have been a type of formal ritual hat.

“There is no reason to assume .. that hollow – or perhaps textile-lined/-stuffed – cones of wax were not also worn in life. Even if scented, they may not have been intended to melt en masse and moisturise, serving more to mark the wearer as someone who was in a purified, protected or otherwise ‘special’ state,” the researchers write.

“In the case of ancient Akhetaten, we can probably interpret head cones as part of a suite of personal accoutrements deemed appropriate for use in a range of celebrations and rituals for, and involving, the living, the dead, the Aten and other deities.”