The History Room
Egypt gives up more of its secrets. This time in Aswan.
Tomb of a forgotten queen is one of several new stunning Egyptian discoveries
Pyramid of an Unknown Queen Found Near King Tut’s Tomb
A century after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, a team of archaeologists unearthed several coffins, mummies, and artifacts, a series of interconnected underground tunnels, and the pyramid of a never-before known ancient Egyptian queen.
The team discovered her name was Neith, and she has yet to appear in the historical record according to Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former state minister for antiquities. Therefore, more work will have to be done to learn about her rule and story.
Archaeologists have been digging at a site about 20 miles south of Cairo called Saqqara. The recently discovered trove of coffins and mummies, possibly belong to some of King Tutankhamun’s closest advisors and generals. The boy pharaoh ruled from about 1333 BCE until his death in 1323 BCE, and the discovery of his untouched pyramid in 1922 grabbed headlines around the world.
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Egypt’s oldest tomb oriented to winter solstice
About a month before this year’s winter solstice on December 21, a team from Spain’s University of Malaga and the University of Jaen announced the discovery of Egypt’s oldest tomb that is oriented towards the sunrise on the winter solstice. Every year on the shortest day, the sun’s rays cover a spot that was meant to hold a statue of a governor of the city of Elephantine, who lived at the end of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, around 1830 BCE.
In a paper published in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry last week, the team explains that in order to achieve a perfect orientation with the sun, an Egyptian architect used a two-cubit pole, around three feet long, a square, and some robes, to calculate the orientation of the entire chapel and the location of the governor’s statue.
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A “Geometric Miracle” tunnel
During ongoing excavations and exploration of a temple underneath the ancient city of Taposiris Magna on the Egyptian coast, Kathleen Martinez of the University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and her team uncovered a tunnel 43 feet underground. The roughly six-foot-tall tunnel had been built through 4,281 feet of sandstone. The team called the design a “geometric miracle.”
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities says the design is similar to Greece’s Tunnel of Eupalinos, a Sixth Century BCE aqueduct on the island of Samos.
Parts of the Taposiris Magna tunnel are submerged in water, and its its purpose is currently unknown.
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