Giza - a different view
Horus leading Priestess Anhai
To view an interesting variety of videos on Egypt, click on the link below 🙂
A video for you all from Andras, who says:
“I have been working on Egypt and Giza for the past 8-9 years. Based on my research I have concluded some new and interesting facts that will make the real purpose of the existence of the pyramids clear.
This week I have put a film about Giza, and the time of Giza on youtube in English. I believe it should be interesting for You and for Your readers as well. I would greatly appreciate if you would take time to watch the 40 minute long film and perchance reflect on it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmHFBgfl7G0
Sincerely András Gőczey Architect from Hungary
EGYPTIAN OBELISKS ‘LOST’ AROUND THE WORLD (photos):
http://members.tripod.com/obeliscos_egipcios/images_en.htm
The Cleopatra Obelisk from Alexandria
“Cleopatra’s Needle” (Obelisk) was sent from Alexandria to England in 1860. Huge cylindrical steel casing, in which it was transported to England, was close to the shore with the two paddle tugs that were waiting to take it in tow. It was, subsequently, lost in transit during a heavy storm in the Bay of Biscay, off the west coast of France, but eventually it was retrieved again by an English fishing ship and finally brought to London and into the River Thames. It still stands between two magnificent sphinxes on Victoria Embankment, overlooking the River Thames, in London.
The obelisk arriving at London in 1960
Cylinder ship built around the obelisk “Cleopatra’s Needle”
Oil painting, ‘The Cleopatra Cylinder Vessel’, Edward William Cooke, 1878.
The obelisk today standing between two guardian sphinxes on the Victoria Embankment in London
HERACLEION, the City of Heracles, Egypt.
I have brought these two picture here, with respect, purely for the purpose of promoting the amazing work of the archaeologists, divers and photographers who have brought to light the remnants of this lost and splendid city, dedicated to Heracles and once protected by Hapi, the God of the Nile and Fertility (see picture above)
For the full story and many more wonderful photographs by Christoph Gerigk, please go to Frank Goddio’s website, which is too good for me to replicate:
Frank Goddio, Underwater Archaeology; Projects; Sunken Civilisations; Heracleion
Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) and other Greek and Roman writers described a magnificent labyrinth in Egypt, containing three thousand rooms on two levels. Pliny the Elder (first century A.D.) related that the Egyptian labyrinth was already 3600 years old in his time. Since the nineteenth century, the Egyptian labyrinth has been identified with an area on the southern side of the Middle Kingdom pyramid of Amenemhet III (circa 1845 B.C.) at Hawara in the Fayoum District.
Herodotus writes:
“The Labyrinth has 12 covered courts -six in a row facing north, six south. Inside, the building is of two stories and contains 3,000 rooms, of which half are underground, and the other half directly above them. I was taken through the rooms in the upper story, so what I shall say of them is from my own observation, but the underground ones I can speak of only from report, because the Egyptians in charge refused to let me see them, as they contain the tombs of the kings who built the Labyrinth and also the tombs of the sacred crocodiles. The upper rooms, on the contrary I did actually see, and it is hard to believe that they are the work of men; the baffling and intricate passages from room to room and from court to court were an endless wonder to me, as we passed from a courtyard into rooms, from rooms into galleries, from galleries into more rooms, and thence into yet more courtyards. The roof of every chamber, courtyard and gallery is, like the walls, of stone. The walls are covered with carved figures, and each court is exquisitely built of white marble and surrounded by a colonnade.” He went on to say “It is beyond my powerto describe. It must have cost more in labor and money than all public works of the Greeks put together – though no one would deny that the temples of Ephesus and Samos are remarkable buildings. The Pyramids too are astonishing structures, each one of them equal to many of the most ambitious works of Greece; but the Labyrinth surpasses them.”
Reconstruction of the Egyptian Labyrinth by Athanasius Kircher (copper-plate engraving) 1670
catacombs in lower level of labyrinth?
In 2008 the ‘Mataha Expedition’ discovered amazing proof of the Labyrinth’s existence. Using GPS instruments, the team found “the presence of a colossal archaeological feature below the labyrinth ‘foundation’ zone of Petrie’s record, which has to be reconsidered as the roof of the still existing labyrinth.”
“Should this discovery become substantiated as Herodotus famed ‘Labyrinth’, (and the roof rather than the base), then it will rank alongside other great discoveries of our times, and will become another architectural jewel in Egypt’s crown.”
The Mataha Expedition Video:
3D Animation:
Here is Hakim giving a lecture in 1998:
Hakim’s son, Yousef Awyan, and his wife Patricia, continue the Khemitology tradition and are participating in a special tour in April, 2013.
Their web-page is:
Their pdf newsletter is here:
http://khemitology.com/Newsletter/February_2013_Newsletter.pdf
A discussion on Red Ice Radio:
http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2013/01/RIR-130124.php
Khemit School of Ancient Mysticism on FaceBook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Khemitology/
Infinite Connections PR Tours on FaceBook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Infinite-Connections-PR/133764580032156
Hypatia of Alexandria was a woman of grace and eloquence, of beauty and wisdom. She was born before her time, and she died before her time. Regarded as the first woman astronomer, Hypatia was also an accomplished mathematician, an inventor, and a philosopher of Plato and Aristotle, She lived during the late 4th, early 5th centuries–a time of great change. (More HERE)
Socrates: “The daughter of the philosopher Theon, Hypatia made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions.” (More Here)
Damascius: “In addition to her expertise in teaching she rose to the pinnacle of civic virtue. She was both just and chaste and remained always a virgin. She was so beautiful and shapely that one of her students fell in love with her and was unable to control himself and openly showed her a sign of his infatuation. Uninformed reports had Hypatia curing him of his affliction with the help of music. The truth of this story is that she demonstrated the not-so-lovely side of being a woman, to teach him about the folly of his infatuation, and he had a change of heart and went away a better man.” (More HERE)
Hypatia: “All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final. Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.” (More HERE)
The struggle for women to speak out, study, obtain knowledge or be recognised for their own wisdom is a very old one and, although it has been improved in many circumstances, still continues today. Hypatia’s story must encourage other women to follow their own truth, and be a demonstration to all men to never allow the dreadful demise of Hypatia to happen again.
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Pharaohs (list)
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Pyramid Power
Thanks to many independent researchers, it is now thought that the Egyptians of the old civilisation used electricity. The Great Pyramid, and possible all the large pyramids around the rest of Egypt…and the World… may have been used as power stations, not tombs.
This electricity was not produced by burning fossil fuels, like we do today, but from an understanding of how to use natural materials to produce FREE ENERGY. It has been known for thousands of years, but kept secret, that there was a special crystal housed in the Great Pyramid, and this crystal was a generating power source. Together with the design of the pyramid, the stone used, and the water below the pyramid in aquifers, electricity gave Egypt its benefits of lighting, technology and energised water to produce healthy and abundant food. There may have been many other benefits from the power systems yet to be fully understood.
The so-called ‘sarcophagus’ in the so-called ‘King’s Chamber’ in the Great Pyramid was not for a body to lie in but to house the Arc of the Covenant! When Moses fled Egypt with the Hebrews (Israelites), He took the Crystal and secret documants with him. If we now read the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament of the Bible, we can understand all the strange manifestations that took place. After this Crystal was stolen, Egypt fell into decline and the seat of power moved into the Middle East.
But how did the Egyptians learn about this Crystal? It is now believed that the Crystal arrived in Egypt with the survivors of Atlantis. And where did the Atlanteans learn about Crystal Technology, Pyramid Power and Free Energy? – not from the monkeys in the forest, that’s for sure!
Lost knowledge of our true history is returning to us after many thousands of years. We have been a people lost like children in the dark trying to find our way, but I believe we have to accept that there was some higher purpose in this. Now, we can learn quickly with these memories and knowledge returning. It is time to utilise this technology again – with care, caution and wisdom, to help return our Home Planet – Mother Earth – to a state of health and happiness.
Much mystery surrounds the great library that was established in Alexandria. We do know that it existed and was an important centre of learning and we know that it was destroyed. There are some who suspect that many ancient documents were stolen away by the Roman Empire and may still be hidden in the library of the Vatican, but what is certain is that its decline and fatal destruction came about with the rise of the new Christian Church of Rome and finally with Islam’s invasion of Egypt. Today, there is a wonderful modern library in Alexandria designed to be more than just a library, also a contemporary monument and a work of art.
Unashamedly, I have brought this wonderful news here from ARCHAEOLOGY.ORG
It is not only exciting but an important detail to add to the mysterious history of Egypt’s past. Egypt’s enlightened civilisation, with their incredible building skills, art and spiritual depth, is a vital link between those great civilisations that have risen and fallen since, in our known history, and the lost worlds that have slipped out of our memories. As far as we can know, it is now believed that Egypt grew as a phoenix from the ashes of the lost world of Atlantis, and the more we can understand this connection, the more we will be able to understand ourselves and our future.
I introduce the Chantress, Nehemes-Bastet (‘may Bastet protect her’)…
A newly discovered burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings provides a rare glimpse into the life of an ancient Egyptian singer
A wooden coffin holding the remains of a temple singer sat inside a tomb undisturbed for nearly 3,000 years. It is the first unlooted burial to be found in the Valley of the Kings since 1922. (Courtesy © University of Basel Kings’ Valley Project)
On January 25, 2011, tens of thousands of protestors flooded Cairo’s Tahrir Square, demanding the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. As the “day of revolt” filled the streets of Cairo and other cities with tear gas and flying stones, a team of archaeologists led by Susanne Bickel of the University of Basel in Switzerland was about to make one of the most significant discoveries in the Valley of the Kings in almost a century.
The valley lies on the west bank of the Nile, opposite what was once Egypt’s spiritual center—the city of Thebes, now known as Luxor. The valley was the final resting place of the pharaohs and aristocracy beginning in the New Kingdom period (1539–1069 B.C.), when Egyptian wealth and power were at a high point. Dozens of tombs were cut into the valley’s walls, but most of them were eventually looted. It was in this place that the Basel team came across what they initially believed to be an unremarkable find.
At the southeastern end of the valley they discovered three sides of a man-made stone rim surrounding an area of about three-and-a-half by five feet. The archaeologists suspected that it was just the top of an abandoned shaft. But, because of the uncertainty created by Egypt’s political revolution, they covered the stone rim with an iron door while they informed the authorities and applied for an official permit to excavate.
A year later, just before the first anniversary of the revolution, Bickel returned with a team of two dozen people, including field director Elina Paulin-Grothe of the University of Basel, Egyptian inspector Ali Reda, and local workmen. They started clearing the sand and gravel out of the shaft. Eight feet down, they came upon the upper edge of a door blocked by large stones. At the bottom of the shaft they found fragments of pottery made from Nile silt and pieces of plaster, a material commonly used to seal tomb entrances. Those plaster pieces, together with the age of other nearby sites, were the first sign that the shaft might actually be a tomb dating to between 1539 and 1292 B.C., Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty. The large stones appeared to have been added later.
Although stones blocked the entrance, there was a hole just large enough to admit a small digital camera. Bickel, Paulin- Grothe, and the chief of the Egyptian workmen each took turns lying on the ground, head pressed against the shaft wall, one arm through the hole, snapping pictures. The surprising images revealed a small rock-cut chamber measuring 13 by 8.5 feet, filled to within three feet of the ceiling with debris, leaving little doubt they had found a tomb. On top of the debris rested a dusty black coffin carved from sycamore wood and decorated with large yellow hieroglyphs on its sides and top. “I’ve never found a coffin in as good condition before,” Bickel says.
The hieroglyphs describe the tomb’s occupant, named Nehemes-Bastet, as a “lady” of the upper class and “chantress [shemayet] of Amun,” whose father was a priest in the temple complex of Karnak in Thebes. The coffin’s color and hieroglyphs match a style that dates to between 945 and 715 B.C., at least 350 years after the tomb was built. The coffin shows that the burial chamber had been reused, a common practice at the time.
The only other artifact dating to the same period as the coffin was a wooden stele, slightly smaller than an iPad, painted with a prayer to provide for her in the afterlife, and an image that is believed to be of Nehemes-Bastet in front of the seated sun god Amun. The white, green, yellow, and red paints hadn’t faded a bit. Bickel says, “It could have been taken from a storeroom yesterday.” The rubble that filled the chamber held the remnants of the original Eighteenth Dynasty burial, she adds, including pottery, wood fragments, and parts of the unwrapped and dismembered mummy who first occupied the tomb. It also must be noted that before the discovery of Nehemes-Bastet’s, the last unlooted tomb found in the valley was the famous burial of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.
The coffin was carved from sycamore wood and decorated with hieroglyphs. (Courtesy © University of Basel Kings’ Valley Project)
People have been claiming there was nothing new left to find in the Valley of the Kings for almost as long as they have been digging there. The Venetian antiquarian Giovanni Belzoni believed he had emptied the last of the valley’s tombs during his 1817 expedition. Theodore Davis, who excavated there a century later, came to a similar conclusion—right before Tutankhamun’s burial was found. Of course, other discoveries have been made in the valley. In 1995, a team led by Kent Weeks, now retired from the American University in Cairo, was investigating a tomb used by the family of Pharaoh Rameses II.* They found previously unknown corridors, leading to the resting place of Rameses II’s sons, which extended to more than 121 rooms. Unfortunately, the rooms had been looted in antiquity and damaged by flash floods. In 2005, a team led by Otto Schaden of the Amenmesse Project discovered an unlooted chamber, which held seven coffins and 28 jars containing mummification materials. The chamber, however, contained no bodies, so it is unlikely that it was a tomb.
Before Bickel’s team could take Nehemes-Bastet’s coffin out of the burial chamber for further study, they had to open it to make sure that nothing inside would be damaged when it was moved. It took a professional restorer a day to remove the nails that held the lid closed. Inspector Ali Reda and Mohammed el-Bialy, chief inspector of antiquities of Upper Egypt, joined Bickel and Paulin-Grothe for the opening. Inside they found a carefully wrapped female mummy, about five feet tall. It was blackened all over—and stuck to the bottom of the coffin—by a sticky fruit-based syrup used in the mummification process.
Even in the short time since its discovery, the tomb is already providing intriguing insights into the life of the woman who was buried there. The time of Nehemes-Bastet’s burial (sometime between 945 and 715 B.C.) was long after Egypt had reached the peak of its power and influence. The Great Pyramid was more than 1,500 years old, and the prosperous days of the New Kingdom were gone. Nehemes- Bastet lived during the Third Intermediate Period, a time when Egypt was split by intermittent wars between the pharaohs in Tanis and the high priests of Amun in Thebes, who rivaled the traditional rulers in wealth and power. “It must have been a pretty unsettling period,” says Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist and research assistant at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. “There was fighting among these factions around her time.”
“It’s interesting that in this period even a wealthy girl was buried with quite simple things,” Bickel says, comparing Nehemes-Bastet’s coffin and stele with the elaborate pottery, furniture, and food found in earlier tombs. “Her wooden coffin was certainly quite expensive,” she says, but nonetheless, it lacked the elaborate inner coffins found in similar burials. More details on Nehemes-Bastet’s daily life can be drawn from a wealth of paintings, texts, and reliefs carved on statues and stelae of the time, says Teeter. As a chantress, or singer, in the temple of Amun, she probably lived in the 250-acre Karnak temple complex located in Thebes. Her name, translated as “may Bastet save her,” indicates that she was under the protection of the feline goddess and “divine mother” Bastet, the protector of Lower Egypt. Nehemes-Bastet’s occupation, however, was to worship Amun, the king of ancient Egyptian gods.
Music was a key ingredient in Egyptian religion. Teeter explains that it was believed to soothe the gods and encourage them to provide for their worshippers. Nehemes-Bastet was one of many priestess-musicians who performed inside the sanctuaries and in the courts of the temples. “The hypothesis is that these women would sing, act, and take part in festivities and big ritual processions that were held several times a year,” Bickel says. The musical instruments that chantresses typically used were the menat, a multi-strand beaded necklace they would shake, and the sistrum, a handheld rattle whose sound was said to evoke wind rustling through papyrus reeds. Other musicians would have played drums, harps, and lutes during religious processions.
An inscription states the name and title of the coffin’s occupant— Nehemes-Bastet, Chantress of Amun (Courtesy © University of Basel Kings’ Valley Project)
“For years people have debated what kind of music it was,” says Teeter. “But there’s no musical notation left, and we’re not sure how they tuned the instruments or whether they sang or chanted.” Some scholars have suggested it may have sounded like an ancient ancestor of rap, she adds. The emphasis was definitely on percussion. Images often show people stamping their feet and clapping. Examples of song lyrics are recorded on temple walls. This one from Luxor refers to the Festival of Opet, when the cult images of the gods Amun, Mut, and Khonsu were brought by boat down the Nile to renew the pharoah’s divine essence.
Hail Amun-Re, the primeval one of the two lands, foremost one of Karnak, in your glorious appearance amidst your [river] fleet, in your beautiful Festival of Opet, may you be pleased with it.
The title “Chantress of Amun” belonged to women of the upper classes, Teeter says. Genealogies show multiple generations of women held the title, with mothers probably teaching the profession to their daughters. “It was a very honorable profession,” says Teeter. “These women were well respected in society, which is why [Nehemes-Bastet] was buried in the Valley of the Kings.” As was the case with the priests, temple singers were paid from the income generated by the huge tracts of land that Amun “owned” across Egypt. Some priests and priestesses served in the temples only a few months out of the year before returning home. There’s little information about what women like Nehemes-Bastet would have done while at home, Teeter says, but it probably wasn’t too different from other women’s traditional duties of the time: running the household, raising children, and supporting their husbands.
To learn more about Nehemes-Bastet, Bickel’s team needed to move the mummy to their lab. After reinforcing the coffin and securing the mummy, Bickel’s team carefully removed them from the burial chamber and transported them across the Nile to Luxor, where they are being fully restored. Theteam has emptied and sealed the tomb, but plans to return to complete an architectural analysis so they can learn more about its construction. The bodies from both of the tomb’s burials will be examined in detail. Bickel hopes to find the name or at least the title of the tomb’s original Eighteenth Dynasty occupant. In addition, a CT scan of Nehemes-Bastet is planned for later this year or early 2013. Preliminary reports will be published by the end of 2012, she says, but final analyses of the tomb and its artifacts will probably take four to five years. As surprising as finding Nehemes-Bastet’s tomb was, archaeologists believe it probably isn’t the last major discovery that will be made in the Valley of the Kings. “The valley has many nooks and crannies,” says Otto Schaden, “so it is still premature to set any limits on the possibility of finding more tombs.”
Julian Smith is a contributing editor at ARCHAEOLOGY.
*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Donald Ryan of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington led a team to investigate the tomb of Rameses II’s family. Kent Weeks led the project to excavate that tomb.
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