CAIRO, March 2, 2009
3,500-Year-Old Egyptian Tomb Rediscovered
Ancient Pharaonic Official's Tomb, First Discovered In 1880, Was Lost For Decades
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Belgian archaeologists in southern Egypt have unearthed the 3,500-year-old tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer for King Thutmose III who ruled Egypt in the 18th Dynasty. The tomb had disappeared under sand after it was first discovered about 130 years ago. (AP Photo/Laurent Bavay)
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Fast Facts Egypt Learn about the people, economy and history.
Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement on Sunday that the Belgian team in Luxor uncovered the tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer for King Thutmose III who ruled Egypt in the 18th Dynasty.
The tomb was first discovered in 1880 by Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl, but it was later buried under sand until the Belgian team found it again this year.
Bavay said that because the tomb was first uncovered when archeological study in Egypt was in its infancy, the discovery and scientific analysis of a tomb such as Amenhotep's was likely haphazard.
"In the late nineteenth century at a time when Egyptology was not completely organized, and especially the study of this private necropolis, Theban necropolis, that is located between the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, the study was not really organized," bavay said. "And people, scholars were just coming there spending some time there discovering tombs, taking some notes, going back, publishing them, and then the tombs were forgotten."
On Monday, the head of the Belgian Archeologists team, Laurent Bavay, said he believed that properly excavating the tomb would be two or three seasons' work.
Bavay said the tomb had served multiple purposes throughout history. "These tombs were also re-used later in antiquity," Bavay said. "And especially in the late antiquity the tomb was re-used and transformed into a hermitage by Christians, by Coptic monks."
He said paintings on the walls themselves were in the most part destroyed but the ceiling inscriptions were in good condition.
"It seems that this destruction dates back to earlier in the 19th century, before the visit of this Swedish Egyptologist, and it was destroyed mainly by tomb robbers."
© MMIX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 23 Comments"Being a Christian is about what God did for us, not about what we've done for Him."
No, being a christian is about shoving your beliefs in a mystical sky fairy down everyone else's throat. There is no God. Stop believing in fairy tales and grow up and have a taste of reality.
You call it a neurological disorder, others call it faith. You mock the assumptions based on assumptions based on your own assumptions based on assumptions. You attack the church, saying it is anti-science, while if it hadn't been for the efforts of the church, the only sciences that would have made significant progress through the middle ages would have been astrology and alchemy. You are just like most religious zealots, secure in your "belief" and determined that every one else is wrong. Circular logic indeed.
Posted by spiritwalk at 11:38 AM : Mar 3, 2009
Naturalized at least. He lives in South Park.
Charlton Heston as Moses; Yul Brynner as Rameses
The good guy is played by an American; the bad guy is played by a Russian
No use of religion to promote a political agenda there.
Of course, when you think about it, Moses lead the people through the desert for 40 years to finally end up in the only place in the Mid-East without oil and getting people to follow you around in circles for years only to end up in a place where you were worse of than you started does mirror the last 40 years of political leadership in this country.
So maybe the bible is relevant for our times.
Posted by just_tired
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But Jesus is an American, isn't he?
Posted by just_tired at 10:22 AM : Mar 3, 2009
Not really. The Bible was written well after "the beginning".
Excellent post. Thank you.
Posted by rf35
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"Interested in Egyptology" is an "interesting" way to phrase it.
Jean Francois Champollion was the first man to with deciphe hieroglyphics, which he did while sitting in his apartment in Europe. When he was ready to actually go to Egypt to work on on the hieroglyphics in 1826 the Church interevend and prevented his going until he agreed to destroy anything he found that contradicted the bible. His one trip scared the Church so badly that he never was allowed to go again.
But, not all of this "interest" can be laid at the feet of the Christians. Jews are "interested" in Egyptology as long as it doesn't do anything to question the story of Moses. The same way that they were interested in the story of Masada until archeologists discoverd that the inhabitants of Masada had a main diet of pork, from al the piles of pig bones, thus questioning the whole idea of it being a Jewish enclave. As with Champollion in Egypt, there has been a tendency not to ask any more questions.
Then you have the Sphinx. The Egyptian government was funding major archeological studies of the Sphinx until the evidence started to point to it being built by some people who were there before the Egyptians. Not a single archeological project has been allowed since.
The interesting thing is that this is all lost on radical Christians including anyone who believes Jesus is the savior of mankind and takes the Bible literally, whether they choose to call themselves Christians or not. Their belief has devolved from possibly healthy spirituality to the level of a neurological disorder where they swirl in a maelstrom of circular logic that cannot prove one assumption without making another assumption. The most laughable example to me is the argument that ?the Bible is the literal history of the world because it is the infallible word of God.?
?How do you know it is the infallible word of God??
?Because the Bible says so.?
Really, how can you possibly reason with a thought process like that?
posted by spiritwalk
-The fossils scattered all over the earth are tremendous evidence for the Global Flood of Noah, actually, and have absolutely nothing to do with "billions of years". Thank you for pointing this fact out.
Posted by mdalerwill
That's impossible, because Christianity is not a religion, it's having a relationship with the Creator, the LORD Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the grave for our sins 2,000 years ago so that through Him we can be saved and have everlasting life.
Being a Christian is about what God did for us, not about what we've done for Him.
posted by arodrigz4
False teachers like yourself should not be tolerated when it comes to God's innerant Word, the Bible. Let's expose you, shall we?:
Let's first read what the LORD Jesus Christ said:
Matthew 18:9
And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
Mark 9:43
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
And here's some more talk of everlasting hellfire in the Bible:
Revelation 20:10
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
The Bible speaks more about hell than it does heaven.
Don't distort God's Word again. You are the one being a deceiver here by blatantly lying about the content of God's innerant Precious Word, the Bible
How do I know? Take the Christian God. If he is who they say he is, are we actually to believe that he would let a good person burn for eternity because he didn't believe in God, or (mon Dieu!) chose the wrong religion in life? That idea alone is enough to tell you that the Bible has ulterior motives for what it claims.
The fact is that religion is, and has always been, a scheme to give stupid people a meaning to their lives which they are too dim-witted to create for themselves, to give them a reason to be good (fear of divine punishment) that makes them easier to govern, and to make them happily put up with injustice and exploitation visited on them by the elites in exchange for a "paradise" in the next life.
It all works to keep the masses down, from asking too many questions, and keeps the rich and powerful firmly in place over their lives.
If Jesus wants me to turn the other cheek so that others can take advantage of me, then Jesus can go to h*e*l*l.
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