Radar reveals extent of buried ancient Egypt city

[Joanne98]

Source: AP

CAIRO — An Austrian archaeological team has used radar imaging to determine the extent of the ruins of the one time 3,500-year-old capital of Egypt's foreign occupiers, said the antiquities department Sunday.

Egypt was ruled for a century from 1664-1569 B.C. by the Hyksos, a warrior people from Asia, possibly Semitic in origin, whose summer capital was in the northern Delta area.

Irene Mueller, the head of the Austrian team, said the main purpose of the project is to determine how far the underground city extends.

The radar imaging showed the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gmlqU...

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This undated combination map overlay image released by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities on Sunday, June 20, 2010, displays a color satellite image with radar imaging in monochrome showing the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa, in Egypt. An Austrian archaeological team has used radar imaging to determine the size of the 3,500-year-old capital of Egypt's foreign occupiers, the Hyksos warrior people from Asia, the antiquities department said Sunday. (AP Photo/Supreme Council of Antiquities)

[closeupready]

1. Very cool.

K&R

[DRex]

2. Aaaaaawesome...

I love this kind of stuff, buried underworlds and hidden treasures. Tingles!

[crim son]

5. Me too! n/t

[xxqqqzme]

7. Agree. I am a total geek

when it comes to this stuff.

[Judi Lynn]

3. The article says archeologists have known about it since 1975, They have shown admirable restraint!

There's so much they could possible learn right down there. Hope it will happen in our lifetimes after they find a non-destructive way to learn more.

Thank you, Joanne98. This is something so important.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Interestingly the ancient city of Jericho was sacked and destroyed around

1570 b.c. Which might mean that the unrest in Egypt which developed when the rulers in Thebes battled and defeated the Hyksos pharoahs (eventually ushering in the New Kingdom) was related in some way to unrest in the Levant. Since the Bible says Joshua, successor of Moses destroyed Jericho, this raises the possibility that the Exodus might have had something to do with the civil war in Egypt. Would be interesting to see which form of Ba'al (which is just generic for "god") the Hyksos worshipped.

[Raksha]

6. That is the thesis of "The Hiram Key" by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas.

It's a research work into the origin of Masonic ritual, which the authors trace to ancient Egypt. It is their belief that the enslavement of the Israelites, and the Exodus that followed, came about because of a power struggle in which the native Egyptians were attempting to take back the kingship from their Hyksos overlords. The Hyksos were a Semitic people like the article says, among whom presumably were the Israelites.

[mistertrickster]

9. Problem is, the Egyptians were very careful historians, and there's no evidence they had slaves.

Michael Wood summed it up by saying, "they were not a slave society." The pyramids for instance were NOT built by slaves as depicted in Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments"--they were built by farmers during the off-seasons . . .

[Wednesdays]

11. That's quite a hobby!

[mistertrickster]

13. They were paid labor. nt

[Posteritatis]

17. Off-season labor was a tax in a lot of past societies

It lasted until really recently, too - I don't recall a specific date, but the 1500s through the 1700s in western Europe would probably still have seen some now and then. A lot of the general labourers would be that sort of thing, where they owed a few weeks of labour when they weren't tending crops. Others would be highly paid, organized and confident professionals; there were strikes at points during at least some of the Pyramids' construction over wages, for instance.

[struggle4progress]

12. There's plenty of evidence of ancient Egyptian slavery. It was not identical with

the plantation slavery of the antebellum US, but people were bought and sold in ancient Egypt and were brought into the country as war captives during the imperial period. And since ancient Egyptian history covers several millennia, perhaps one ought to avoid sweeping statements

A number of translated quotes from original documents can be found here: http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/sl...

[Raksha]

15. That's really fascinating - thank you for posting the link.

[No Elephants]

14. I thought there was no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.

I believe it happened, but I've been mocked bc of that belief.

[onager]

19. A few problems with that theory...

1. Jericho was sacked and destroyed many times, not just "in 1570 BCE." Not surprising since it sat on a major trade route, was constantly being fought over, and is one of the oldest human settlements. You can find a sacking and destroying of Jericho for just about any ancient time you want.

2. "Exodus might have had something to do with the civil war in Egypt..."

In thousands of years of recorded Egyptian history, there is exactly ONE mention of "Israel". On the Meneptah Stele, created by the son of Ramses II, who ruled around the 13th century BCE. I am lucky enough to have seen the Stele myself, since I lived in Egypt for 4 years.

(Travel Tip: do not try to impress your Egyptian tour guide with the Cecil B. DeMille Version of Pyramid-Building. They know better, and HATE that crap. The only that pisses them off even worse is telling them that space aliens built the Pyramids.)

According to the Stele, the Israelites didn't come to Egypt for some Bondage & Domination - Meneptah went to them. First he took his army west and put down a Libyan insurgency. Then he marched east, thru Palestine.

The Stele lists the cities and territories conquered, ending with: "The seed of Israel is crushed. It is no more." Which is pretty funny, considering the Seed of Israel is still sitting there annoying the Egyptians to this very day.

http://www.molon.de/galleries/Egypt/NatMuseum/Other/img...

Xian revisionists often say that Egyptians didn't mention the Exodus because they were "embarassed" by the loss of their army in the Red Sea, etc. But Egyptian history has recorded some even more embarassing episodes. Like the Pharoah who was killed by two of his harem girls.

3. Bonus Trivia - at least once in ancient times, Israel and Rome - yes, THAT Rome - fought as allies against Egypt. When Julius Caesar threw in with Cleopatra in 48 BCE, he was between a rock and a hard place. He was outnumbered nearly 10-to-1 by the Egyptian army of the boy-king Ptolemy XIII.

Caesar sent letters and messengers all over the Middle East, screaming for help. One of those appeals was answered by a respected Jewish community leader in the rich port city of Askalon. His name was Antipater, the father of Herod The Great.

Antipater not only raised a force of 3,000 Jewish infantry to help Caesar, he also enlisted the help of another influential leader - Hyrcanus bar Alexander, no less than the High Priest of Jerusalem (and also ethnarch, or Chief Magistrate, of Jerusalem.) Hyrcanus asked the Jewish elders to support Caesar with money, supplies and soldiers. Which they did.

A partial source for that trivia, BTW, is the Xians' favorite historian, Flavius Josephus. According to him, it was the Jewish forces who saved the day at a major battle in Egypt. One that Josephus called "the battle of the Jews' Camp."

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. So, it got buried how?

I'm guessing there was a massive flood that took centuries to recede.

[mistertrickster]

10. I think it is just a natural occurance from dust and windstorms over time. I live

in Kansas . . . if fence rows aren't maintained, barbed wire fences will be covered in dusty dirt to the point you can walk right over them in ten years or so . . .

[onager]

18. Not in that part of Egypt.

That's the Nile Delta, in Northern (Lower) Egypt. It's almost as green as Ireland.

From 2005-09, I worked in the Nile Delta and lived in Alexandria. The Delta is (depending on where you are) not far from the Mediterranean, and crossed by irrigation canals that date back to the time of the Pharoahs. All that moisture in the air makes it damn cold and foggy in the winter, and humid/soggy in the summertime.

The terminology gets confusing because the Nile VALLEY, to the south, is just a small strip of green surrounded by dust and sand.

In ancient times, the Delta was also cut by the "seven mouths of the Nile" which flowed into the Med. Over time 5 of the Nile branches silted up. The only two remaining today are at Damietta and Rosetta. Yep, where a famous Stone was found. That was one of my favorite places to visit. It was only about 20 miles from Alexandria, and seeing the Nile flow into the sea was an impressive sight.

[Posteritatis]

16. Unmaintained things can get buried astonishingly quickly

There's ruins of buildings and other things in and around my hometown from the 1700s and 1800s that are under a meter or two of dirt just from the passage of time. Add a nearby desert and three thousand years...

[Xithras]

20. Abandoned. Buried by plant life and silt.

There are a hundred reasons it could have been abandoned. Drought (without welfare, even a single local dry season could sent an entire population fleeing). War (ancient wars didn't recognize the concept of "civilian noncombatants"). Disease (it was astonishingly common for diseases to rage through entire towns for weeks, leaving only a handful of survivors to bury the bodies). With no maintenance, the roofs of ancient homes would collapse in only a year or two. Once the roof was down, plant life and wildlife would invade the interior of the structures and undermine them relatively quickly. The dirt roads would become overgrown and unrecognizable in only a couple of years.

The biggest factor in the destruction of ancient villages was usually other humans. Superstitious ancients often didn't like to move into abandoned towns, but that rarely stopped them from leveling the above ground structures for building materials. If they came across a weed filled, half collapsed village that had been empty for a decade or so, they'd have seen it as a source of building materials and stripped it. Only the foundations and the lowest courses of the walls would have survived to be completely buried.

[On the Road]

21. Inhabited Areas in the Middle East

were normally lifted over time so that the current ground level is well above the original settlement. In Israel it's common for ancient sites to be found on top of tells, which are plateaus formed by the accumulated debris of centuries. It's what makes archaeology possible in many areas -- the further you dig, the older the remains are.

Maybe that's not the reason, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.