Friday - December 20, 2019

Colorful Eternal Resting Place

While the bridge in the post below may be old, at a mere 4,000 years it’s a bit of a stripling compared to what was going on in Egypt.  They were already done with the Old Kingdom by that point, and well into the 8th or 9th Dynasties. The Great Pyramid of Kufu was nearly 600 years old, and although this very Egypt, the black land of Kemet, was entering a period of wobblyness now called the First Intermediate Period, they were still a great international military and economic power.

Towards the end of the Fifth Dynasty, late Old Kingdom era, when the pyramids were barely 120 years old, Djedkare Isesi was king, and a fellow named Kuwy was a high ranking member of his court. Kuwy’s tomb was found this past April, and the artwork inside is just as bright and amazing as the day it was painted, more than 4,300 years ago. The multi-roomed tomb is in nearly perfect condition, although some of the stones have been stolen over the many centuries.

Astounding vibrancy meets ancient legacy inside the tomb of one Khuwy, a senior official who was a nobleman during the period of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (circa 25th – 24th century BC). The incredible discovery, according to the country’s antiquities ministry, was originally made last month and then officially unveiled on Saturday (April 13th).  The kaleidoscopic tomb is situated in the grand necropolis of Saqqara, near Memphis, the ancient capital of Lower Egypt. According to the excavation team’s head Mohamed Megahed, the structure is L-shaped with a corridor leading to the antechamber and then on to the larger chamber. The colorful reliefs represent the owner himself seated at an table with offerings, and is complemented by well-preserved inscriptions.

It terms of design, the northern wall of the tomb was possibly influenced by the Fifth Dynasty’s royal pyramids, while its ritzy paintings “boast a special green resin throughout and oils used in the burial process”, as noted by the Egyptian antiquities authority. As for the tomb in itself, the structure is composed of white limestone blocks.

  

Sadly, Kuwy himself didn’t fare so well after he was iterned. Grave robbers were everywhere, and the politics of ensuing centuries often caused tombs to be ransacked and monuments to be defaced.

According to reporters at The Times of Israel , the design of the north wall and the entrance to the cemetery is an “architectural blueprint” of the royal pyramids of the Fifth Dynasty. The vast tomb, being called a “super structure”, has an L-shaped offering room and while the lower part is decorated with reliefs, the upper limestones were stolen for other building projects.

Part of the tomb has a descending corridor leading to a vestibule and its southern wall leads to a highly decorated antechamber; the north and south walls of which depict Khuwy sat in front of his offering table with an “offering list” was depicted on the east wall, opposite the palace-façade on the west wall.

Another burial chamber within Khuwy’s tomb contained a destroyed white limestone sarcophagus (coffin) and a set of miniature vessels constructed of calcite and darkstones. Professor Megahed uncovered Khuwy’s human remains “between the stones,” and he was also able to recover oils and resins used to embalm Khuwy in preparation for his journey into the afterlife.

Mohamed Mujahid, head of the Egyptian mission which discovered the tomb, posing for a “selfie” photograph

The ancient Egyptians never built bridges of any significance. They only had one river to cross, and it was far too wide for a bridge.

Sumer / Sumeria / Mesopotamia evolved at roughly the same time as Egypt, perhaps a few centuries earlier. Standard thought today starts Egypt at the Old Kingdom (which starts with the 3rd Dynasty), which began with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. But both halves had existed for perhaps 2500 years at that point. So both cultures as we know them go back to around 5500BC, when the post-glacial paleolithic peoples of the world went modern and got all neolithic, got tired of walking around forever and decided to settle down, invent wine and beer, take up farming, and build towns.  But they didn’t just show up then; people had been living in the areas for nearly 4,000 years already. On the Nile these were the Faiyum A people, and over on the Euphrates they were the Ubaid people.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/20/2019 at 12:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Archeology / Anthropology •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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