Niebla y sombras

Lifting the lid on Roman secrets

2008-08-19T05:35:00.000-07:00

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have lifted the lid on a second coffin discovered at a dig site in Newcastle.
Two Roman stone sarcophagi were uncovered on land earmarked for development.The 1,800-year-old sandstone coffins are the first such find – and arguably the most impressive – in the area for more than 100 years.They are thought to have been used to bury members of a rich and powerful family from the nearby fort of Pons Aelius.One tomb contained the poorly-preserved skeleton of a child and the second sarcophagus held the remains of a female.They have been removed from the site by experts from Durham University.Other discoveries in Forth Street include cremation urns, a cobbled Roman road and a medieval well, the remains of the foundations of Roman shops and workers' homes, and the remains of flint tools from Stone Age hunter-gatherers.All the finds from the site will eventually go to the new Great North Museum in Newcastle, where the sarcophagi will be preserved for the public to see.
The full article contains 179 words and appears in n/a newspaper.

The Osirion at Abydos (Abtu)

2008-08-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

by Sir William Flinders Petrieand Margaret Alice Murray1904

The discovery of the Osirion (Osireion or Osiron)In the winter of 1901-2 Mr. St. G. Caulfeild undertook the further examination of the temple of Sety (Seti I) at Abydos (Abtu or Abdju). Our work there resulted in finding the temenos (enclosure) wall, and showing the connection between the planning of that temple and the Royal Tombs of the early kings on the desert behind it. These results, and his careful study of the plan of the temple appeared in the last volume of the research account. But he also made other discoveries which have been followed up during the next winter by Miss Murray with the results here issued in this volume.When Mr. Caulfeild began to excavate, I noticed some thick masses of crude brick, and suggested that they might be mastabas. He cleared along them and found that they formed a continuous wall, which we then identified as the temenos wall of the temple. I observed that parallel with this there was a slight long hollow on the surface, and proposed that he should clear it out. Some time after, on looking at the site I was told the men had found desert a few feet down. This seemed strange, and on looking at it I saw there was only blown sand. So they were told to go deeper. Again, after some time, on going there again, the same story of desert at the bottom was repeated; only this time about fifteen feet down. On examining it I found blown sand. So a third time they were told to go down, and soon after they struck some great blocks of limestone. The final result was that we found the pavement of the hall was forty-one feet under the surface; a depth filled with some Roman rubbish and much blown sand over it.After the excavations by Miss Murray and my wife, we realized that these great stones which we first found were the remains of the doorway to a limestone chamber near the north-west corner of the temenos, which had been entirely carried away for lime burning in Roman times. From the place of this doorway Mr. Caulfeild carried on excavations, continually expecting to come to an end of the entrance passage to the south, and find a door of approach to the subterranean constructions; but after continuing for a couple hundred feet this seemed as far off as ever; and the season being at an end nothing more was done.Miss Murray, then, entered on the work, with the certainty of a long inscribed passage to be cleared and copied, and its terminations to be found. Various attempts were made to settle the beginning of it by surface workings, tracing the filling of made earth which lay over it. And these resulted in showing that it turned at right angles, and led up towards the back doorway of the temple. But it could not be found at it's beginning owing to the immense rubbish heaps thrown out in Mariette's clearing of the temple halls. The work was therefore concentrated on a point where the filling seemed to be undisturbed over the construction, hoping to find there the roof intact, and so enter an unbroken part of the passages.But on descending we found that the filling in had only been left because there was no roof under it there; and the whole of the ancient roofing had been removed, so far as we were able to ascertain, excepting one cracked lintel. Thus nothing short of removing the whole forty feet of stuff over the whole construction can ever clear it. This season only sufficed for the trial working, and clearing the great hall, one chamber, and part of a passage. To do the whole clearance is beyond the slight resources of the Egyptian Research Account; and it is much to be hoped that the Department of Antiquities will undertake to open and maintain this unique hypogeum of Osiris as a part of the great temple which is one of the main attractions of Egypt.It was most fortunate that we had the knowledge of Miss Murray and the artistic copying of Miss Hansard available for such a work, which required long and tedious facsimiles to be prepared, with due attention to the inscriptions. The elaborate study of Osiris which Miss Murray has issued will, it is hoped, serve to clear up and emphasize the various aspects and connections of one of the fundamental deities of the Egyptian worship and beliefs.W. M. F. P. (Sir William Flinders Petrie)

Uncovering the OsirionSection 1. The excavations this year were carried on by Mrs. Petrie and myself (Miss Murray). Mrs Petrie managed the actual excavations, overseeing the men, paying the wages, in short, all the dull and uninteresting, though very necessary, part of the work, whereas I had the more congenial and amusing employment of copying the sculptures. Till the sculptures were sufficiently cleared for me to draw them, I spent my time in the Sety temple, making fac-simile copies of the Coptic graffiti on its walls. Then, when it was possible to draw in the hypogeum, I set to work there, but it was entirely owing to Miss Hansard's kind help that I was able to secure drawings of all the sculpture that we uncovered (with one exception, the sloping passage), before they were silted up. ....... In the previous season Mr. Caulfeild had partially cleared the long passage within the temenos wall; the passage itself had not been laid bare, but the great mass of sand had been removed, leaving a gigantic furrow like a natural ravine. The method of constructing this great hypogeum rendered it comparatively easy to discover that there was building below, though the depth at which it lay made it impossible to clear more than a small portion. The nature of the desert is that after removing from two to four feet of loose wind blown sand, the hard marl, called gebel by the workmen, comes into view. This is so firmly compacted together that it can be cut like rock. The ancient builders took advantage of this fact, and excavated passages and halls with steeply sloping, almost perpendicular, sides. These were lined and roofed with great blocks of stone, and the hollow at the top filled up with sand; the building was then completely hidden from the outside. In our clearance it was only necessary to descend a few feet till the rock-like gebel was exposed, and then to follow down the excavation; and the trial pits that we sunk within the temenos invariably showed that the gebel had been cut perpendicularly to admit of building below.We spent three weeks in hunting for a place where the roof still appeared to remain, and we were puzzled all the time at the number of right-angled turns which this extraordinary passage, as we thought it, appeared to make. These turns, as we now know, must be rock cuttings to hold chambers and halls. Finally we decided on a likely place, where the Roman rubbish, which had filled the part already cleared by Mr. Caulfeild, touched the clean marl filling of the desert. Here it was that we hoped to find the place where the roof was still intact. For days I carried candles and matches in my pocket ready to enter the passage as soon as there was a hole big enough to squeeze through; but they were never required. Throughout this excavation it was always the unexpected that happened; we expected to find a passage, we found chambers and halls; we expected to find it roofed in, the roof had been completely quarried away; we expected to find a tomb, we found a place of worship.Our first deep pit brought us into the South Chamber, which gave us the cartouche of Merenptah, and made us realize that we had found a building which has no known counterpart in Egypt. Then came the discovery of the Great Hall and then of the sloping passage. Here our hopes rose high, for the entrance of the passage had an enormous roofing stone still in position; but we soon found that was the only one that remained, the rest of the roof having suffered the same fate as the other parts of the building. I was able to copy only a very small portion of the inscriptions; for though we cleared the passage to the floor, two days of high winds silted it up to the level of the roof. The whole of the excavation was greatly retarded by heavy falls of sand, the Roman filling being so loose that there were continual rivulets of sand running down the sides; and high wind would bring down half a ton of sand and stones in one fall. To sit in a deep pit under an irregular but continuous fire of small stones, with the chance of a big stone coming down too, is an experience more amusing to look back upon than to endure.At the north end of the north passage we started another excavation, for it was there, beyond the temenos wall, that the big marl heaps stood. It was partly by these heaps that Professor Petrie had deduced the fact that a large building lay below the surface of the desert. They were not natural heaps, yet they were clean marl unmixed with any remains left by man. They were too far from the temples of Sety and Rameses to have been the rubbish removed from their foundations; they were too large to be from the excavations of an ordinary tomb; and as the ancient Egyptian never took unnecessary trouble, it follows that the tip-heap would be as near to the excavation as was allowable. Just inside the temenos wall, at a depth of about thirty feet, we came upon a vaulted passage of mud bricks which extended thirty-five feet northward, and was then apparently broken, for it was filled with sand. The thirty-five feet brought us to the north face outside the temenos wall, where we sank a large pit with this curious result:-The rock-like gebel at a distance of about sixty feet from the wall, was cut in a slope like a staircase from the surface of the desert, sloping down towards the wall. Two mud brick retaining walls had been built across it to retain the sand.At a distance of fifteen feet from the temenos wall we found a square shaft (of which the wall formed one side), lined with mud bricks, some of which bore the cartouche of Sety I. The vaulted passage, which we had entered from the other side, ended in a small arch in the temenos wall, and its floor was paved with blocks of stone. We reached a depth of over thirty feet, and came to undisturbed basal sand on which the walls rested. In the vaulted passage the pavement was lifted but with the same result -- undisturbed basal sand. This was during the last days of the excavations, and there was no time to make further research. As to the meaning of this extraordinary shaft I can offer no explanation, nor can I even hazard a guess. The great marl heaps lead to the belief that there is still a large underground building at that end, though our efforts failed to find it.

Section 2. This hypogeum appears to Professor Petrie to be the place Strabo mentions, usually called Strabo's Well. He describes it as being under the Memnonium; with low vaulted arches formed of a single stone, by which he probably meant that the stone beams went across the halls and chambers in a single span. Whether the entrance is really inside the Temple of Sety, thereby leading him to believe that it was under that building, or whether it was entered from the back door of the temple was not ascertained. As to the spring which he mentions it might well be that already the lower parts of the hypogeum were then below high Nile level, and that what Strabo saw was the remains of the inundation, which he mistook for a natural spring. Section 3. At first sight there was nothing to indicate the real nature of this building, but later two hypotheses presented themselves. The cartouche of Merenptah appeared in every place where it could be inserted, and we therefore had to consider the possibility of it being his tomb. The two points in favour of this hypothesis are that the walls are inscribed with scenes and chapters from the books of Am Duat and of the Dead, and that Merenptah is called the Osiris and "Maat-kheru". Now M. Maspero has pointed out very clearly that the epithet Maat-kheru can be applied to the living equally well as to the dead; one of his most convincing instances being taken from the Temple of Sety at Abydos, where the youthful Rameses II, destined to live to a very great age, is called Maat-Kheru. I have endeavoured to prove (chap v) that the king, in his lifetime as well as in death, was identified with Osiris; this being so, the fact of his being called Osiris does not of itself show that this was his funeral monument. We must remember also that Merenptah had a very fine tomb in the Valley of the Kings; he was hardly likely to make two of such magnificence, one at Thebes and one at Abydos.The other hypothesis was that this was the building for the special worship of Osiris and the celebration of the Mysteries, and this appears to me to be the true explanation, for many reasons. Each reason may not be convincing in itself, but the accumulation of evidence goes to prove the case. There is no tomb even among the Tombs of the Kings that is like it in plan, none having the side chamber leading off the Great Hall. Then, again, no tomb has ever been found attached to a temple; the converse is often the case, I mean a temple attached to a tomb; but this, as far as we can judge, is a kind of extra chapel, a "hidden shrine" as the mythological texts express it, belonging to the temple.It is only to be expected that Osiris, one of the chief deities of Egypt, should have a special place of worship at Abydos, where he was identified with the local god. And that it should be a part of the temple dedicated to the worship of the dead, and which had special chambers set apart for the celebration of the Osirian mysteries is very natural likewise. The building lies immediately in the axis of the temple; a line drawn through the temple and the desert pylon to the Royal Tombs passes through the sloping passage and across the centre of the Great Hall. This is not the result of accident, the temple being older than the hypogeum, but shows that both were dedicated to the same worship.The sculptures in the Great Hall are the Vivification of Osiris by Horus, and the offering of incense by Merenptah; between the two sculptures is inscribed chapter cxlii of the "Book of the Dead", the "Chapter of knowing the Names of Osiris". The other chapters of the "Book of the Dead" inscribed on the walls were pronounced by M. Maspero, when he saw them, to be the "Book of Osiris". The books of "Gates" and of "Am Duat", which are sculpted and painted on the north passage, were said by the ancient Egyptians to have had their origin in the decorations which Horus executed on the walls of the tomb of his father Osiris.Margaret Alice Murray.

(acendingpassage)

Roman Temple Uncovered In Ancient Jewish Capital Of Galilee

2008-08-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2008) — Ruins of a Roman temple from the second century CE have recently been unearthed in the Zippori National Park. Above the temple are foundations of a church from the Byzantine period.

The excavations, which were undertaken by the Noam Shudofsky Zippori Expedition led by of Prof. Zeev Weiss of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shed light on the multi-cultural society of ancient Zippori (also known as Sepphoris).

The discovery indicated that Zippori, the Jewish capital of the Galilee during the Roman period, had a significant pagan population which built a temple in the heart of the city center. The central location of the temple which is positioned within a walled courtyard and its architectural relation to the surrounding buildings enhance our knowledge regarding the planning of Zippori in the Roman era.

The building of the church on the foundation of the temple testifies to the preservation of the sacred section of the city over time. This new finding demonstrates not only the religious life, culture and society in Roman and Byzantine Zippori, but also that this was a city in which Jews, pagans and later Christians lived together and developed their hometown with various buildings.

The newly discovered temple is located south of the decumanus - colonnaded street - which ran from east to west and was the main thoroughfare in the city during the Roman through Byzantine period. The temple, measuring approximately 24 by 12 meters, was built with a decorated façade facing the street. The temple’s walls were plundered in ancient times and only its foundations remain.

No evidence has been found that reveals the nature of the temple’s rituals, but some coins dating from the time of Antoninus Pius, minted in Diocaesarea (Zippori), depict a temple to the Roman gods Zeus and Tyche. The temple ceased to function at an unknown date, and a large church, the remains of which were uncovered by the Hebrew University excavation team in previous seasons, was built over it in the Byzantine period.

North of the decumanus, opposite the temple, a monumental building was partially excavated this summer. Its role is still unclear, although its nature and size indicate that it was an important building. A courtyard with a well-preserved stone pavement of smooth rectangular slabs executed in high quality was uncovered in the center of the building, upon which were found a pile of collapsed columns and capitals - probably as a result of an earthquake. The decoration on these architectural elements was executed in stucco. Beyond a row of columns, an adjacent aisle and additional rooms were discovered. Two of them were decorated with colorful, geometrical mosaics.

Sciencedaily 11.8.2008
archeology news

Viaje a China

2008-08-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

China es un país excitante, me gustaron todas las ciudades que visité pero para mi una de las ciudades más atrayentes de China es Beijing, capital de China. Tiene una extensión de 16.808 km cuadrados y una población de 12 millones de habitantes. Esta ciudad tiene una antigüedad de 3000 años aunque solamente cuenta con 1000 años como capital imperial o real. Es una ciudad en la que se observan muchos contrastes..la modernidad y la cultura milenaria. Pekin es una ciudad preciosa y es necesario callejear por todas partes y empaparse de su cultura, observar a la gente, admirar la belleza de sus monumentos, de sus templos, e sus palacios, museos de sus casas , de los famosos hutongs, de sus jardines, de sus parques……. Adentrase por sus calles y callejuelas y observar a los vendedores con sus puestos en los que se encuentra todo tipo de cosas… Una de las cosas que más asombro me causó es ver los puestos de comida y como te ofrecían esas cosas tan raras. Te ofrecen pinchos de caballitos de mar (como si fueran pinchos morunos) ; cabezas con cuello de pollo medio asadas y pinchadas en palos, insectos, , etc etc El moverse por la ciudad es fácil gracias a los medios de transporte, el metro es muy rápido, los taxis son muy baratos, puedes también viajar e forma muy barata con cochecitos tirados por un caballo, autobuses… Otra de las cosas que también llama la atención es ver tantos militares y policías, además de construcciones militares por muchas partes. El nombre de esta plaza significa: de la paz celestial. Esta situada en el corazón de Beijing y tiene una capacidad para un millón de personas. Pasee por esta plaza montones de veces. Como no tiene asientos, la mayoría de los chinos llevan un trozo de periódico y cartón y así pueden sentarse en el suelo. Espectacular durante el dia y la tarde… llas paradas y desfiles militares, el cambio de guardia…. además por las tardes es maravilloso ver como los padres con sus niños hacen volar comentas… Me gustó tanto esta plaza!!!! Mao,proclamó la republica popular el dia uno de octubre de 1949 desde la puerta de Tiananmen. Esta puerta fué contruida el siglo XV y restaurada el siglo XVIII. Esta dividida en 5 puertas y frente a estas puertas hay 7 puentes sobre el agua. A traves de esta puerta se pasa a la CIUDAD PROHIBIDA. Alrededor de la plaza de Tiananmen se encuentran ,el Museo de Historia y de la revolución China, la sala del pueblo (donde se reune el congreso nacional el pueblo), la puerta Qianmen (al sur), el Mausoleo de Mao y el Monumento a los Héroes del Pueblo. Este monumento es un gran OBELISCO de 26 metrs de altura. El mausoleo de Mao está en la plaza de Tiananmen.Justamente detrás del Monumento a los héroes. Una de las cosas que no queria perderme en mi vista a Pekín era este Mausoleo. La entrada es gratis y se forman unas colas descomunales, por eso lo mejor es ir por la mañana temprano. No se puede entrar con bolsos,cámaras de fotos etc etc. Pero cruzando la calle , hay unas oficinas estatales que guardan las bolsas y te dan un resguardo para recogérlas. Bajo un estricto cntrol militar, la fila llega hasta la entrada, allí nos dividieron en dos filas, una a la derecha y otra a la izquierda y pasamos alrededor del cadáver de Mao. Solamnete puedo decir que cuando estuve visitando el Palacio de Verano todo fué precioso, increíble, alucinante!!! Está situado al oeste de Beijing, alejado del casco urbano y los jardines son preciosos, (uno de los jardines imperiales mas grandes de China). Las construcciones dentro del recinto son bellísimas !!!! Siempre esta lleno de gente, turistas algunos si, pero sobre todo esta lleno de de chinos que se reunen allí . Algunos cantan, otros bailan…otros juegan al dominó, los niños y adultos juegan con cometas…etc ect pasear por allçi es como pasear por un paraíso!!! hay algunos vendedores ambulantes..pero no demasiados. El Lago Kunming ocupa gran partedel parque -30 metros cuadrados de lago!!!!!- El salón e la benevolencia y la longevidad esta situado al final del lago en dirección a la puerta este. En este salón es donde el emperador trataba los asuntos de estado y recibía a las visitas. El gran corredor tiene 700 metros de largo y es una verdadera gozada pasear por el. Está situado en la orilla norte. En la Colina de la longevidad hay varios templos. El puente de los 17 arcos tiene 150 metros y se extiende hasta la Isla Sur del lago. En la mitad oeste del lago esta el Puente del Cinturón de jade. El jardínde la armonía esta en el noreste. CADA UNO DE LOS RINCONES DE ESTE PARQUE TIENE MONUMENTOS HISTÓRICOS. Este precioso parque está a 12 kms del centro de Pekín. Para visitarlo ,se puede ir en taxi o tomar el metro hasta la estacón de Xizhimen y allí coger un minibús, también hay autobuses que llevan hasta allí. También se puede ir en bici ya que en Pekin e alquilan bicis a un precio muy bajo. En el museo de Historia natural de Pekin hay de todo, flora y fauna china, animales, etc etc. Pero lo que realmente me impresionó fueron los miembros humanos en alcohol y los cuerpos humanos - y están conservados en alcohol- El museo esta a unos 40 minutos paseando desde el sur de la Plaza de Tiananmen. Cuando después de estar en Tiananmen cruzamos para dirigirnos a la Ciudad Prohibido, sentí una emoción muy intensa. Por fín iba a visitar una de las zonas mas bonitas de Pekín, la mítica ciudad prohibida. Entramos por la puerta, que se llama Wumen y es el lugar donde realizabas las ceremonias….. IMPRESIONANTE!!! La ciudad prohibida esta en el centro de Beijing.Es un conjunto de antiguos palacios, edificios palciegos,pabellones…y es el más importante complejo artístico y cultural de China. Fue llamada ciudad prohibida ya que durante 500 años fué realmente el pueblo no podia acceder a la zona. Fue la residencia de las dinastías Ming y Qing. Desde este lugar,los emperadores dirigian China. El Palacio fué construido por el emperador Yong Le en el siglo XV, y recucló a mas de un millón de campesinos como obreros. La ciudad prohibida sufrió, incendios, asedios,pillajes,asaltos … Por ejemplo enel año 1664, los Manchures tomaron la ciudad y la quemaron.Ademá de los edificios que desaparecieron se perdieron con el fuego, muchas obras de arte, libros, pinturas y pergaminos. En 1949, el koumintang, en vísperas de la llegada del comunismo se llevaron muchísimas obras de arte…que están expuestas ahora en Taiwan.

Puente de Carlos

2008-08-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Existen varias leyendas acerca de este famoso puente.
Hay que recordar que fue el emperador Carlos IV el día 9 de julio de 1357 quien colocó la primera piedra.
Una de las leyendas cuenta que durante la construcción del puente hubo muchos accidentes y los obreros tuvieron muchos problemas. El maestro de obras contrató a un joven bastante diligente para que le ayudara y durante el día se construía bastante y bien, pero al llegar la noche, el diablo lo derribaba. Entonces el constructor, al darse cuenta de que era el diablo quien destruía todo lo realizado en el puente hizo un pacto con el diablo, para así poder terminar el puente. Le dijo al diablo que si no lo destruía mas, podía quedarse con el alma del primer ser vivo que cruzara el puente, una vez acabado.
El diablo accede y el puente se termina sin problemas. El día de la construcción, el constructor ordenó que nadie debería cruzar el puente, ya él tenia la idea de soltar a un gallo que había comprado y así engañar al diablo. Pero como el diablo es muy listo y lo intuye todo… se acercó disfrazado de obrero a casa del constructor y le dijo a la mujer de este que su marido había tenido un accidente. Entonces la mujer llorando corrió hacia el puente y lo atravesó antes de que el constructor soltara al gallo. Entonces la mujer desapareció…. Durante bastante tiempo por las noches las personas que pasaban cerca del puente veían el fantasma de una mujer vestida de blanco lanzando unos gemidos desesperados, todos huían despavoridos al ver el fantasma. Pero un día un aldeano que vio al fantasma dijo: alma, que dios te ayude, que dios te de la paz eterna que necesitas!!! Y fue entonces cuando el alma subió al cielo y el fantasma dejó de pasearse por el puente de Carlos.

Praga es una de mis ciudades favoritas. Es una ciudad preciosa y tiene muchísimas cosas para ver: La torre de la pólvora, la zona judía con visitas a sinagogas y al antiguo cementerio judío), el ayuntamiento, el famoso reloj, el puente de Carlos.El castillo de Praga con sus preciosas vistas. Visitar Praga es como estar en un cuento de hadas, como si se viajara en el tiempo….

La parte más atractiva de Praga es el centro histórico, que hace de ella uno de los lugares turísticos más importantes del mundo.
Esta Dividida en dos partes por el río Moldava.Y hay que destacar el famoso y encantador Puente de carlota, coronado por dos torres barrocas, Este puente une las dos orillas de la ciudad.

Las partes más antiguas - Hradčany, Malá Strana, Staré y Nové Město, dejan al visitante extasiado envolviéndole en una atmósfera única y una cantidad de preciosos monumentos, por los que Praga es llamada la ciudad de las cien torres doradas o madre de las ciudades. El centro histórico está rodeado por los barrios antiguos, llamados la ciudad interior (Karlín, Smíchov, Vinohrady,Vršovice, Žižkov,…) . A ella se une la ciudad exterior con los suburbios y barrios periféricos de casas unifamiliares (Jižní Město, Jihozápadní Město, Bohnice,…) más allá la zona limítrofe con bosques y terrenos dedicados a la agricultura.

Rusia

2008-08-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

hay muchos sitios que dejan huella y Rusia es uno de ellos.
He viajado a Rusia en dos ocasiones. La primera vez estuve unos dias en Moscú cogí el tren nocturno hasta Sant petersburgo y allí estuve disfrutando de otros dias inolvidables.
La segunda vez, además de estar unos dias en esas dos ciudades, alargué el viaje con un crucero por los rios y canales de Rusia.
El crucero desde Moscú a Sant Petersburgo es algo increible!!!
Se visitan ciudades medievales rusas, Kaliazin, Uglich, Goritsy,Kiszhi, Mandroga...
Desde Moscú se navega por el rio hasta el canal Moscú volga, se llega al embalse de Rybinsk, se sigue navegando por el rio Sheksna hasta el lago blanco despues por el canal volga-báltico, río Kovsha hasta el lago Onega, después por elrío Svit hasta el lago Ládoga y después hasta el rio Neva...
Además en el crucero, como se navega durante muchas horas y son varios dias..se hacen todo tipo de actividades. Bueno, algunas no me gustaba y no las hacia (bingo, y cosas así) pero otras actividades eran curiosisimas (enseñar el idioma ruso, canciones rusas, cocina rusa, etc etc)
Además de actuaciones musicales y bailes rusos... aya ay que recuerdos!!!
Una de las experiencias más emocionantes que he tenido en este país es el estar allí durante las llamadas "noches blancas".
Cuándo estuve la primera vez era el mes de junio y los dias tenían tanta luz!!!! solamente había oscuridad durante unas pocas horas...

Amsterdam

2008-08-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

una de las ciudades más bonitas de Europa. es sin duda Amsterdam. Creo que quien va a Amsterdam por primera vez, se queda cautivado por su encanto y necesita volver una y otra vez . Bueno eso es lo que pasó a mi.
Hay una leyenda que habla sobre la fundación de esta ciudad, se dice que dos pescadores fueron los que se establecieron allí y todos sus familiares y parientes se unieron a ellos y entre todos construyeron la aldea en el lugar donde el rio AMstel confluye con el estuario del Zuider Zee.Levantaron un dique para contener el agua, dique en holandés se dice "DAM" y de esta manera se derivó el nombre de la ciudad Amstelledamme , que significa dique sobre el Amstel. Posteriormente este nombre se tranformó en la palabra actual, AMSTERDAM.

Así es que en 1270 surge un pueblecito de pescadores,que con el tiempo se ira haciendo cada vez más grande
He de confesar que de mis sitios favoritos en esta ciudad es la plaza Dam.
Esta plaza es el "centro" de Amsterdam, a pesar que ya no esta en el centro geográfico de la ciudad.
Durante el día,la plaza esta llena de gente..holandeses y visitantes que necesitan pasear o reunirse en esta plaza.
Es típico en los jóvenes el sentarse y reunirse en las escaleras que hay en el famoso Obelisco de la plaza. Este monumento conmemora a los holandeses caídos en la segunda guerra mundial. Es el obelisco de la liberación que está adornado con figuras alegóricas.
En la plaza Dam esta el el Palacio real, que tiene una torre octogonal con la cúpula (que tiene un techo verde) y un reloj.
tambien está la Nieuwe Kerk, que fué reconstruida en 1452 ya que en esas fechas hubo un gran incendio en Amsterdam.
Tambien en Dam square hay un sitio que a mi me gustó mucho, el Museo de cera de Madame Tussaud.
La verdad es que puede uno pasarse horas y horas, sentada alli en los bancos de piedra de la plaza Dam, y ver la gente que pasea,las palomas revoloteando, los niños dando de comer a las palomas........
Recuerdo la visita al museo...............El museo casa de Ana Frank es uno de los lugares que mas me ha gustado de Amsterdam.
Allí puede visitarse la casa de atrás, donde estuvieron escondidas las familias, además hay bastantes objetos personales y el diario de anna.
Visitando aquel museo, se comprende mejor todo lo que tuvieron que t que padecer aquellas familias allíencerradas ...y todo el horror que ha padecido la humanidad con hechos tan terribles como el exterminio nazi. A mi personalmente me impactó.
Y reeleer el diario de Anna es algo que realmente me hace derramar lágrimas siempre!!

La dirección del Museo es
Museo Casa de Ana Frank. Ana Frank Huis
Prinsengracht, 267.
Esta CIUDAD esta llena de coffeeshops, se ven por todas partes. Uno de los más famosos y visitados es Grasshopper, que es un edificio verde que esta muy cerca de la estación central, en la calle Oudebrugsteeg.
Una de las cosas que veo curiosas es que en los coffehops se puede beber todo tido de bebidas excepto bebidas alcoholicas.
Menudos recuerdos de esta ciudad.Una de las zonas más curiosas de Amsterdan es el famoso mercado e las flores.
El Muntplein es una plaza que esta en dos puentes, Amstel y Singel.
El distrito rojo o Wallen
Singel Canal , aparece en la foto ...menudas vistas desde mi ventana :)
Este canal es el mas interno de Amsterdam. Singel significa aro o cinturón y era el último límite de la villa medieval.
Antes del año 1600 el singel era un gran foso que separaba las murallas de la ciudad.

El Wallen es el distrito rojo de Amsterdam. Esta situado en el casco antiguo a unos pasos de la Plaza Dam.
Es u barrio pintoresco ,donde las edificaciones preciosas, los escarate llenos de mujeres y los shepshops son continuamente visitados.

Las mujeres en sus vitrinas, sentadas en un taburete o depie, sonriendo y miranto y a veces invitando a los transeuntes que, como es lógico..miran con curiosidad a esas mujeres. De dia y denoche hay actividad en el Wallen.
En la plaza está la torre de la Ceca, La Munttoren. Es u torreon barroco que fué construido en 1620 por Hendruck de Keyser.
Fué construda la torro en el lugar donde habia una e las antiguas puertas de la ciudad.
a la Munttoren te la encuentras cnontinuamente, ya es esta zona es una zona idea para callejear.
bscaré alguna foto para colgarla en el album.
Me gustó muchisimo, flores diferentes,plantas y sobre todo tulipanes,tulipanes y tulipanes!!!! preciosos.
Allí solamente se venden flores y semillas (y algunos recuerdos típicos para turistas-claro).
Esta abiero todos los dias de la seman excepto los domingos.
Esta situado en el tramo de arriba del singel.

La tradición de los pies de loto

2008-08-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

En Louyang visitamos una aldea. Allí vivía una de las pocas ancianas chinas con pies de loto.
Esta mujer vivía en una casa cueva donde las habitaciones estaban escavadas alrededor de un patio central.
Usaba zapatillas normales debido a las superficies sobre las que tenia que caminar.
Es curioso como esta costumbre tuvo una vigencia de dos mil años. Se realizaba en niñas de 4 años, antes de esta edad hubiera imposibilitado a la niña para poder andar, pero a partir de esa edad… los pies se reducían pero posibilitaban el movimiento ,aunque como es lógico las mujeres no podían caminar de forma normal sino dando pasitos.
Cuando la niña tenia 4 años de edad, la madre doblaba hacia dentro los dedos de los dos pies en forma de cuña y los vendaba. Comenzaba así la tortura para la niña, la cual sufría dolores tremendos. Finalmente y con los años los pies quedaban reducidos al haberse fragmentado los huesos.
A partir de 1911 comienzan las protestas contra esta bárbara costumbre y con la revolución cultural queda totalmente prohibida esta práctica.

Bélgica

2008-08-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

Recuerdo que en uno de mis viajes a Bélgica fui a las Ardenas y uno de los lugares que me gustó fue la abadía de Orval.
Esta situada en un valle profundo. Esta abadía fue fundada en 1070 y después paso a ser cisterciense en 1132. Fue destruida durante la revolución francesa y fue reconstruida en 1926. Y construyeron los monjes una cervecería para obtener fondos. Pero se conservan ruinas de los siglos XII y XIII… que son una delicia visitar. Pasear por la abadía en sumergirse en un remanso de paz y cualquier rincón es agradable. Me gustó mucho la fuente, el huerto de plantas medicinales era curioso al cultivarse allí bastantes especies.
Los monjes hacen pan, queso, cerveza…. La cerveza Orval es una de las mejores cervezas que he probado.
Y ahora una leyenda:
El año 1076, la condesa Mathilda -que era la soberana de la zona y duquesa de Toscaza-estaba paseando por la zona y se sentó al borde de una fuente. Sin darse cuenta se le cayó el anillo nupcial que era el recuerdo que le quedaba de su difunto esposo. Se sintió frustrada por haber perdido el anillo y le rezó a la virgen para poder recuperarlo. Entonces aparece una trucha en la superficie del agua que lleva en la boca su anillo.
Al ver esto,la condesa se quedó sorprendida y después se llenó de alegría exclamando: “¡He aquí mi dorado anillo, bendito sea el valle que me lo de volvió! A partir de ahora este valle se llamará Val d’or! ” y de ahí viene el nombre orval , además el símbolo de Orval es la trucha y el anillo.

Antwerpen

Tengo tantos recuerdos de esta entrañable ciudad!
Amberes, la ciudad de Rubens y del Escalda, la preciosa ciudad que te cautiva desde la primera vez que la visitas.
El centro neurálgico es la plaza mayor. Hay varios cafés restaurantes en los que se puede tomar algo- bueno la cerveza belga es muy buena - mientras se disfruta viendo pasear gente, rodeados de las preciosas casas gremiales del siglo XVI y XVII. Ahí en esa plaza esta la estatua del famoso Brabo. Según cuenta la leyenda, había un gigante que pedía dinero a los marinos para dejarles seguir navegando en el río, los que se negaban a pagar eran mutilados -les cortaba la mano- pero Brabo consigue vencerle y es entonces él, quien corta la mano al gigante y la arroja al río. De ahí el nombre de Antwerpen “hand werpen”(arrojar la mano) en flamenco, que dio nombre a la ciudad. Por cierto que una de las especialidades típicas son las manitas hechas de chocolate, yo siempre he comprado un par de cajas cuando he ido allí.
Antwerpen tiene muchas cosas para visitar, Museos ,como el Museo Rubens, el Museo Nacional de Navegación que esta en el Oteen. Las catedrales e iglesias son también muy bonitas, San Pablo,Iglesia de S.Pablo S.Carlos Boromeo, S.Jaime y sobre todo la Catedral de Nuestra Señora.

Mi viaje a Camboya

2008-08-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

Cuando cierro los ojos y pienso en Angkor, a mi mente vienen las imágenes de esos misteriosos templos escondidos en la selva y siento el mismo estremecimiento que sentí cuando los contemplé ,cuando admiré esos tesoros de piedtapor fuera y por dentro, cuando pasee por todos sus rincones , cuando subí y bajé por sus escaleras, cuando recorrí los pasadizos, cuando encontré a algunas monjas delante de pequeños y destartalados altares, el olor del incienso se mezclaba con el olor a humedad………..Visité: Angkor wat, prasat Kravanan, Sras Srang, Pre Rup, Banteay samré, Banteay Srey, Tapronh, la puerta de la victoria, Bayon, la terraza del rey leproso, la terraza de los elefantes y la puerta sur de Angkor Thom.Templos de Angkor, rodeados de vegetación, escondidos en la selva..vuestra imagen se ha quedado grabada dentro de mi para siempre.El origen de esta ciudad esta en el reinado de Jayavarman II (810-850) este rey fue el fundador del imperio khamer. El templo de Angkor Wat es una construcción ortogonal que mide 1.700 por 1.413 m. Esta compuesta por tres recintos concéntricos precedidos de un foso, que simboliza el océano que circunda la montaña del mundo, en el centro se eleva un templo coronado por cinco torres en forma de flores de loto, que recuerdan las cinco cumbres del Monte Meru . Los muros están decorados con preciosos bajorrelieves, en algunas ocasiones dorados o polícromos, que representan las hazañas de Visnú y sus ninfas celestiales. .

Camboya es un país dificil de olvidar. Pais de contrastes donde los paisajes de ensueños se mezclan con la miseria. Hay tantas cosas que recordar, hay tantas sensaciones vividas durante los dias en los que estuve alli…. su vida diaria, sus meercados, su vida en las casas flotantes del Tonle sap, su pagodas, sus museos, su comida, y sus habitantes.El antiguo nombre de Camboya , es decir “Kampu-chea” viene del que tenia el principado de los Kambujas , el cual se extendió hasta el Delta del Mekong entre los siglos VI y VII deC.Tailandia saquea Angkor en 1431 y se produce un conflicto entre tailandeses y jemeres. Este conflicto dura siglo y medio.Tambien hay que destacar que los españoles y portugueses llegaron a la zona y la población ,hasta de ese dominio se rebela contra ellos produciéndose la matanza de la guarnición española en Phon Penh en 1599. desde entonces y hasta el año 1863, reinan unos cuantos reyes. En el 1863 llegan los franceses y Camboya se convierte en protectorado francés , pasando a ser colonia en 1854. Los francees ponían en como rey a quienes ellos consideraban oportuno, y en el año 1941, es el príncipe Sihanouk quien es nombrado rey. Pero al igual que antes, siempre han existido conflictos y levantamientos del pueblo, pero en esta época son más y el poder colonial francés va decayendo debido sobre todo a la guerra entre Francia y Vietnam.Es en el año 1952 cuando se proclama la independencia de Camboya, que es confirmada en la conferencia de Ginebra del año 1954, aunque el rey Sihanouk permanece en el poder durante unos 15 años mas, para después ser derrocado por el ejército.Estados unidos, en el año 1969 siembra de bombas los puestos base comunistas. Como siempre pasa en estos casos, la población civil se convierte en víctima..mueren muchisimas personas. Y además este país se implica en la guerra de Vietnam. En el año 1970 los Estados unidos y los vietnamitas del sur invaden Camboya. Retroceden los jemeres rojos hacia el interior del país- Después los jemeres rojos toman la capital. Y ahí viene uno de los momentos mas terribles de la história de Camboya, ya que Pol Pot liderando a los jemeres rojos, consigue el genocidio sistemático de dos millones de Camboyanos.Sobre todo,los intelectuales fueron asesinados, y lo que realmente querian los jemeres es convertir el país en un país de campesinos, fácilmente manejables….Camboya queda aislada del resto del mundo. Hasta que Vietnam invade el país en 1978, y así los jemeres rojos tienen que retroceder y esconderse al lado de la frontera tailandesa. Y entonces es cuando vienen los ataques de las guerrillas contra el gobierno.En el año 1993, se celebraron elecciones generales, una nueva Constitución para el país y el renombramiento del rey Sihanouk.Los jemeres trata de boicotearlo todo y rechazan las conversaciones de paz. Se armaron y decidieron seguir atacando..Durante los siguientes cuatro años, los jemeres rojos, liderados por Pol Pot, asesinaron sistemáticamente a unos dos millones de ciudadanos, en especial intenectuales, en un intento brutal de convertir el país en una cooperativa agraria dominada por los campesinos. Se abolió la moneda, se interrumpió el servicio postal, la población se convirtió en mano de obra esclava y Camboya quedó prácticamente aislada del mundo exterior. En respuesta a las continuas incursiones camboyanas en sus provincias fronterizas, Vietnam invadió el país en 1978, forzando así a los jemeres rojos a huir al santuario selvático situado en la frontera tailandesa. Desde allí, durante las décadas de 1970 y 1980, dirigieron una guerra de guerrillas contra el gobierno, respaldado por los vietnamitas.A mediados de 1993, se celebraron elecciones generales supervisadas por las Naciones Unidas, que convergieron en una nueva Constitución y el renombramiento del rey Norodom Sihanouk. Los jemeres rojos boicotearon loscomicios, rechazaron las conversaciones de paz y compraron grandes cantidades de armas a los líderes militares camboyanos. En los meses que siguieron a las elecciones, la amnistía apoyada por el gobierno se aseguró las primeras deserciones de las filas de los jemeres rojos, que se mantuvieron hasta 1994, cuando La difícil coalición entre el Frente Unido Nacional del príncipe Ranariddh y el Partido Popular Camboyano de Hun Sen se interrumpió con violencia en julio de 1997 y, cuando la situación se aligeró, Hun Sen asumió en solitario el liderazgo de la nación. Las elecciones celebradas a mediados de 1998 le otorgaron una nueva victoria, a pesar de las protestas protagonizadas por candidatos de la oposición, que criticaban las turbias prácticas electorales finalmente el gobierno los declaró ilegales.Pol Pot muere en abril de 1998 de un ataque al corazon, nunca fue juzgado.

Recuerdo mi viaje a Camboya, y hay una parte que me causó un honda impresión: La visita del museo del genocidio: La Toul Sleng. Recorriendo las habitaciones -antiguas clases para estudiantes- donde se exponen camas y objetos de tortura, mi corazón se encogía. Al igual que cuando pasamos a las salas donde están fotografiadas las victimas. En la sala de las calaveras senti un estremecimiento…eran restos de seres humanos torturados y asesinados.El museo esta ahí para que no se olvide la historia, para que no se olviden los horrores que los seres humanos son capaces de realizar contra otros seres humanos.La inmensa mayoría de las familias camboyanas perdieron uno o varios miembros en el genocidio llevado a cabo por Pol Pot y los jameres(jamele,kameres) rojos

La violencia en la Tv y los niños

2008-08-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

La televisión puede ejercer una gran influencia en el desarrollo de un sistema de valores y en la formación del comportamiento de los niños y adolescentes, y en general los niños ven mucha televisión. La mayoría de las cadenas de televisión tienen normal a la hora de emitir ciertos programas de contenido violento, pero hasta ciertas horas…lo que implica que los niños sí que pueden ver programas de contenido violento si se les permite ver la televisión sin control por parte de los padres. Se han realizado muchos estudios sobre los efectos de la violencia en la televisión sobre los niños y adolescentes y se han encontrado lo siguiente: -Los niños pueden volverse inmunes ante la violencia. - aceptan de forma gradual que la violencia puede ser un modo de resolver los problemas. -Lo que ven en televisión puede tener un carácter mimético, así los niños pueden tender a imitar la violencia que observan en la televisión. -Pueden identificarse con ciertos caracteres, como agresores o agredidos. En general se observa que los niños que ven muchos programas violentos en la tv, tienden a ser mas agresivos. También hay que destacar que no todos los niños reaccionan de la distinta manera ante los estímulos, por ejemplo hay niños mas sensibles, niños con problemas emocionales, etc Esto no quiere decir que los niños tengan que estar encerrado en un mundo imaginario en el que no hay violencia. La violencia existe, y pienso que es cuestión de los padres el estar al lado de los niños y conversar con ellos acerca de situaciones violentas que han surgido en las noticias por ejemplo. También hay que comentar a los niños que en las películas, aunque los actores sean violentos, están solamente actuando y que en la vida real, si se hubiera producido muerte y dolor.

Ballana .Culture X

2008-04-18T04:06:00.000-07:00

"Beyond the gorge of Abu Simbil and Gebel Adda, the desert cliffs and Pleistocene gravel terraces recede from the vicinity of the river and leave plains on both banks of modern alluvium and upper Paleolithic silt. The scanty vegetation is mainly composed of a few palms and "sunt" trees, which border the river's edge.""We moved forward in extended order noting each possible site, and on November 3rd we came within view of a vast field of tumuli scattered over an area of more than two kilometres. As the tumuli partly obscured by banks of drift sand and decayed vegetation they did not at first appear to be anything other than natural formations, but as we drew nearer we noted that most of them were covered with large schist pebbles and were so regular in shape that their artificial nature was apparent.""On November 7th we received reports of plundering on the east bank of the river at Qustul, and visited the site consequence. We were amazed to discover a further series of tumuli directly opposite those on the west bank, at Ballana, which differed only in their smaller size and absence of pebble covering. Between some of the tumuli at the south end were a few small graves of the X-group period, and it was these graves which had attracted the attention of the plunderers.""Work was started on November 8th with 150 men and boys, and examination of depressions noted on the east side of most of the tumuli revealed the entrances to robbers' passages which had been cut below the ground level on which the mounds were built. The clearing of these passages revealed the fact that they broke into burial chambers of large tombs, which had been constructed beneath the tumuli. Although varying considerably in the size and number of the rooms one feature remained the same in all of them: the entrance of the east side was always found blocked and intact. And it was obvious that the plunderers had realised that beyond this blocking was an open court, or pit, and that the opening of the door would cause an inrush of debris into the tomb"."The few object and pottery left by the plunderers served to show us that these tombs were built for persons of considerable wealth, and were to be dated to the X-group period. The possibility of offerings, etc., left in the open court before the entrance persuaded us to risk a considerable sum of money to get to that entrance by the removal of the tumulus... And on November 10th we commenced the excavation of the Tomb No.2.""Some days were spent in the removal of the tumulus and by the end of a week a large pit was revealed which contained a vaulted chamber of mud brick. This chamber, which was connected with the main rooms of the tomb, had been spared by the plunderers and in it were found, comparatively undisturbed, a large amount of pottery and some leather bags containing dates.""Clearing the debris to the east of this pit we uncovered a ramp which led down from the surface to the entrance of the tomb. By November 23rd the bones of sacrificed horses with their silver trappings and harness were uncovered, and it was then that we realised the true value of the discovery. The excavation of Tomb No.3, which was completed early in the following month, yielded even richer rewards"."At Ballana and Qustul the method of burial and the design of the royal tombs was the same, varying only in the degree of richness and size, according to the importance of the owner. In the construction of the tombs the procedure was as follows: An inclined passage was cut in the hard alluvium leading down to a large pit and a series of brick rooms were constructed in this pit with a small open court into which the inclined passage opened. In some cases each of the brick rooms have been built in separate pits and are connected by short passages tunnelled in the alluvium. The roofing of each room was barrel-vaulted, and in the larger tombs the doors had stone lintels"."Due, no doubt, to the moisture of the ground at the bottom of the pits at Ballana the walls were built with stone foundations." It is evident that the owners of these tombs held to the Ancient Egyptian belief of the material survival after death of both animate and inanimate objects, for they buried with their dead wine and food, furniture, cooking utensils, jewels, weapons and tools and materials to make them, but in place of the ushabtis of the Egyptians they sacrificed their slaves and animals"."One room was usually reserved for the wine jars and drinking cups, and another was devoted to bronze and silver cooking utensils, lamps, jewels, weapons and tools. In the Tomb 80 at Ballana, for example, we found spears and axes together with metal working tools and iron ingots. In the larger tombs a separate chamber was reserved for the burial of the queen, who was undoubtedly sacrificed, with her attendant slaves. But in the smaller tombs the sacrificed queen was placed beside her consort.The king was placed in the chamber nearest the main entrance to the tomb, and it is evident that his installation was the last act before the final closing. His body was laid on a canopied wooden bier, below which were placed bronze and silver vessels for his immediate use. He was dressed in his royal regalia and weapons for his protection were left leaning against the foot of the bier, and at its head lay the sacrificed bodies of a male slave and an ox. An iron folding chair was frequently placed by the side of the bier. The entrance to the tomb was then blocked with bricks and stone and the owner's horses, camels, donkeys and dogs, together with their grooms and possibly soldiers, were then sacrificed in the courtyard and ramp. The animals were buried wearing their harnesses and saddles, the dogs in some cases had collars and leashes. The sacrificed humans met their deaths either by the cutting of the throat or by strangulation, and the animals were pole-axed. Finally the pit and the ramp were filled and a great earthen mound was raised over the tomb; in many cases offerings such as weapons, jewellery, vases, game etc., were buried in the mound. And at Ballana most of the mounds were covered with a layer of large schist pebbles"....
W.B. Emery, "The Royal Tombs of Ballana and Qustul", 1938.

La tumba de Mena

2008-04-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

La TT69 en Sheij Abd el-Qurna (Sheikh Abd el-Qurna) pertenece al escriba de los campos del señor de las dos tierras del Alto y el Bajo Egipto, Menna.

Menna, también tenía el cargo de supervisor de los campos de Amon. Probablemente Menna supervisó las tierras que pertenecían al templo de Karnak y el estado de los graneros. Trabajó posiblemente midiendo campos, inspeccionando el trabajo de la tierra, y controlando que no hubiera defraudadores a la hora de la entrega de las cosechas.Menna vive durante la dinastía XVIII y probablemente trabajó con los dos faraones Tuthmosis IV y Amenhotep III.Estaba casado con Henuttawy (Henut-taui) y posiblemente tenian varios hijos, uno de ellos continuó con la profesión de su padre, y además tuvo tres hijas, una de las cuales fue Amenemwaskhet.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD II

2008-04-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

the first part of it the deceased, after adjuring his heart, says, "May naught stand up to oppose me in the judgment; may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the sovereign princes; may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of him that keepeth the Balance!... May the officers of the court of Osiris (in Egyptian Shenit), who form the conditions of the lives of men, not cause my name to stink! Let [the judgment] be satisfactory unto me, let the hearing be satisfactory unto me, and let me have joy of heart at the weighing of words. Let not that which is false be uttered against me before the Great God, the Lord of Amentet."
Now, although the papyrus upon, which this statement and prayer are found was written about two thousand years after Men-kau-Rā reigned, there is no doubt that they were copied from texts which were themselves copied at a much earlier period, and that the story of the finding of the text inscribed upon an iron slab is contemporary with its actual discovery by Herutātāf. It is not necessary to inquire here whether the word "find" (in Egyptian qem) means a genuine discovery or not, but it is clear that those who had the papyrus copied saw no absurdity or impropriety in ascribing the text to the period of Men-kau-Rā. Another text, which afterwards also became a chapter of the Book of the Dead, under the title "Chapter of not letting the heart of the deceased be driven away from him in the underworld," was inscribed on a coffin of the XIth dynasty, about B.C. 2500, and in it we have the following petition: "May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of the trial (literally, 'lords of things'); let it not be said of me and of that which I have done, 'He hath done deeds against that which is very right and true'; may naught be against me in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of Amentet." From these passages we are right in assuming that before the end of the IVth dynasty the idea of being "weighed in the balance" was already evolved; that the religious schools of Egypt had assigned to a god the duty of watching the balance when cases were being tried; that this weighing in the balance took place in the presence of the beings called Shenit, who were believed to control the acts and deeds of men; that it was thought that evidence unfavourable to the deceased might be produced by his foes at the judgment; that the weighing took place in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of Amentet; and that the heart of the deceased might fail him either physically or morally. The deceased addresses his heart, calling it is "mother," and next identifies it with his ka or double, coupling the mention of the ka with the name of the god Khnemu: these facts are exceedingly important, for they prove that the deceased considered his heart to be the source of his life and being, and the mention of the god Khnemu takes the date of the composition back to a period coaeval with the beginnings of religious thought in Egypt. It was the god Khnemu who assisted Thoth in performing the commands of God at the creation, and one very interesting sculpture at Philae shows Khnemu in the act of fashioning man upon a potter's wheel. The deceased, in mentioning Khnemu's name, seems to invoke his aid in the judgment as fashioner of man and as the being who is in some respects responsible for the manner of his life upon earth.
In Chapter 30A there is no mention made of the "guardian of the balance," and the deceased says, "May naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of things!" The "lords of things" may be either the "lords of creation," i.e., the great cosmic gods, or the "lords of the affairs [of the hall of judgment] ," i.e., of the trial. In this chapter the deceased addresses not Khnemu, but "the gods who dwell in the divine clouds, and who are exalted by reason of their sceptres," that is to say, the four gods of the cardinal points, called Mestha, Hāpi Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf, who also presided over the chief internal organs of the human body. Here, again, it seems as if the deceased was anxious to make these gods in some way responsible for the deeds done by him in his life, inasmuch as they presided, over the organs that were the prime movers of his actions. In any case, he considers them in, the light of intercessors, for he beseeches them to "speak fair words unto Rā" on his behalf, and to make him to prosper before the goddess Nehebka. In this case, the favour of Rā, the Sun-god, the visible emblem of the almighty and eternal God, is sought for, and also that of the serpent goddess, whose attributes are not yet accurately defined, but who has much to do with the destinies of the dead. No mention whatever is made of the Lord of Amentet--Osiris.
Before we pass to the consideration of the manner in which the judgment is depicted upon the finest examples of the illustrated papyri, reference must be made to an interesting vignette in the papyri of Nebseni and Amen-neb. In both of these papyri we see a figure of the deceased himself being weighed in the balance against his own heart in the presence of the god Osiris. It seems probable that a belief was current at one time in ancient Egypt concerning the possibility of the body being weighed against the heart, with the view of finding out if the former had obeyed the dictates of the latter; be that as it may, however, it is quite certain that this remarkable variant of the vignette of Chapter 30B had some special meaning, and, as it occurs in two papyri which date from the XVIIIth dynasty, we are justified in assuming that it represents a belief belonging to a much older period. The judgment here depicted must, in any case, be different from that which forms such a striking scene in the later illustrated papyri of the XVIIIth and following dynasties.
We have now proved that the idea of the judgment of the dead was accepted in religious writings as early as the IVth dynasty, about B.C. 3600, but we have to wait nearly two thousand years before we find it in picture form. Certain scenes which are found in the Book of the Dead as vignettes accompanying certain texts or chapters, e.g., the Fields of Hetep, or the Elysian Fields, are exceedingly old, and are found on sarcophagi of the XIth and XIIth dynasties; but the earliest picture known of the Judgment Scene is not older than the XVIIIth dynasty. In the oldest Theban papyri of the Book of the Dead no Judgment Scene is forthcoming, and when we find it wanting in such authoritative documents as the Papyrus of Nebseni and that of Nu, we must take it for granted that there was some reason for its omission. In the great illustrated papyri, in which, the Judgment Scene is given in full, it will be noticed that it comes at the beginning of the work, and that it is preceded by hymns and by a vignette. Thus, in the Papyrus of Ani, we have a hymn to Rā followed by a vignette representing the sunrise, and a hymn to Osiris; and in the Papyrus of Hunefer, though the hymns are different, the arrangement is the same. We are justified, then, in assuming that the hymns and the Judgment Scene together formed an introductory section to the Book of the Dead, and it is possible that it indicates the existence of the belief, at least during the period of the greatest power of the priests of Amen, from B.C. 1700 to B.C. 800, that the judgment of the dead for the deeds done in the body preceded the admission of the dead into the kingdom of Osiris. As the hymns which accompany the Judgment Scene are fine examples of a high class of devotional compositions, a few translations from some of them are here given.
EGYPTIAN IDEASOF THEFUTURE LIFE
BY E. A. WALLIS BUDGE

THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD I

2008-04-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

The belief that the deeds done in the body would be subjected to an analysis and scrutiny by the divine powers after the death of a man belongs to the earliest period of Egyptian civilization, and this belief remained substantially the same in all generations. Though we have no information as to the locality where the Last Judgment took place, or whether the Egyptian soul passed into the judgment-hall immediately after the death of the body, or after the mummification was ended and the body was deposited in the tomb, it is quite certain that the belief in the judgment was as deeply rooted in the Egyptians as the belief in immortality. There seems to have been no idea of a general judgment when all those who had lived in the world should receive their reward for the deeds done in the body; on the contrary, all the evidence available goes to show that each soul was dealt with individually, and was either permitted to pass into the kingdom of Osiris and of the blessed, or was destroyed straightway. Certain passages in the texts seem to suggest the idea of the existence of a place for departed spirits wherein the souls condemned in the judgment might dwell, but it must be remembered that it was the enemies of Rā, the Sun-god, that inhabited this region; and it is impossible to imagine that the divine powers who presided over the judgment would permit the souls of the wicked to live after they had been condemned and to become enemies of those who were pure and blessed. On the other hand, if we attach any importance to the ideas of the Copts upon this subject, and consider that they represent ancient beliefs which they derived from the Egyptians traditionally, it must be admitted that the Egyptian underworld contained some region wherein the souls of the wicked were punished for an indefinite period. The Coptic lives of saints and martyrs are full of allusions to the sufferings of the damned, but whether the descriptions of these are due to imaginings of the mind of the Christian Egyptian or to the bias of the scribe's opinions cannot always be said. When we consider that the Coptic hell was little more than a modified form of the ancient Egyptian Amenti, or Amentet, it is difficult to believe that it was the name of the Egyptian underworld only which was borrowed, and that the ideas and beliefs concerning it which were held by the ancient Egyptians were not at the same time absorbed. Some Christian writers are most minute in their classification of the wicked in hell, as we may see from the following extract from the life of Pisentios, Bishop of Keft, in the VIIth century of our era. The holy man had taken refuge in a tomb wherein a number of mummies had been piled up, and when he had read the list of the names of the people who had been buried there he gave it to his disciple to replace. Then he addressed his disciple and admonished him to do the work of God with diligence, and warned him that every man must become even as were the mummies which lay before them. "And some," said he, "whose sins have been many are now in Amenti, others are in the outer darkness, others are in pits and ditches filled with fire, and others are in the river of fire: upon these last no one hath bestowed rest. And others, likewise, are in a place of rest, by reason of their good works." When the disciple had departed, the holy man began to talk to one of the mummies who had been a native of the town of Erment, or Armant, and whose father and mother had been called Agricolaos and Eustathia. He had been a worshipper of Poseidon, and had never heard that Christ had come into the world. "And," said he "woe, woe is me because I was born into the world. Why did not my mother's womb become my tomb? When, it became necessary for me to die, the Kosmokratôr angels were the first to come round about me, and they told me of all the sins which I had committed, and they said unto me, 'Let him that can save thee from the torments into which thou shalt be cast come hither.' And they had in their hands iron knives, and pointed goads which were like unto sharp spears, and they drove them into my sides and gnashed upon me with their teeth. When a little time afterwards my eyes were opened I saw death hovering about in the air in its manifold forms, and at that moment angels who were without pity came and dragged my wretched soul from my body, and having tied it under the form of a black horse they led me away to Amonti. Woe be unto every sinner like unto myself who hath been born into the world! O my master and father, I was then delivered into the hands of a multitude of tormentors who were without pity and who had each a different form. Oh, what a number of wild beasts did I see in the way! Oh, what a number of powers were there that inflicted punishment upon me! And it came to pass that when I had been cast into the outer darkness, I saw a great ditch which was more than two hundred cubits deep, and it was filled with reptiles; each reptile had seven heads, and the body of each was like unto that of a scorpion. In this place also lived the Great Worm, the mere sight of which terrified him that looked thereat. In his mouth he had teeth like unto iron stakes, and one took me and threw me to this Worm which never ceased to eat; then immediately all the [other] beasts gathered together near him, and when he had filled his mouth [with my flesh] , all the beasts who were round about me filled theirs." In answer to the question of the holy man as to whether he had enjoyed any rest or period without suffering, the mummy replied: "Yea, O my father, pity is shown unto those who are in torment every Saturday and every Sunday. As soon as Sunday is over we are cast into the torments which we deserve, so that we may forget the years which we have passed in the world; and as soon as we have forgotten the grief of this torment we are cast into another which is still more grievous."
Now, it is easy to see from the above description of the torments which the wicked were supposed to suffer, that the writer had in his mind some of the pictures with which we are now familiar, thanks to the excavation of tombs which has gone on in Egypt during the last few years; and it is also easy to see that he, in common with many other Coptic writers, misunderstood the purport of them. The outer darkness, i.e., the blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of fire, the pits of fire, the snake and the scorpion, and such like things, all have their counterparts, or rather originals, in the scenes which accompany the texts which describe the passage of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night. Having once misunderstood the general meaning of such scenes, it was easy to convert the foes of Rā, the Sun-god, into the souls of the damned, and to look upon the burning up of such foes--who were after all only certain powers of nature personified--as the well-merited punishment of those who had done evil upon the earth. How far the Copts reproduced unconsciously the views which had been held by their ancestors for thousands of years cannot be said, but even after much allowance has been made for this possibility, there remains still to be explained a large number of beliefs and views which seem to have been the peculiar product of the Egyptian Christian imagination. It has been said above that the idea of the judgment of the dead is of very great antiquity in Egypt; indeed, it is so old that it is useless to try to ascertain the date of the period when it first grew up. In the earliest religious texts known to us, there are indications that the Egyptians expected a judgment, but they are not sufficiently definite to argue from; it is certainly doubtful if the judgment was thought to be as thorough and as searching then as in the later period. As far back as the reign of Men-kau-Rā, the Mycerinus of the Greeks, about B.C. 3600, a religious text, which afterwards formed chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead, was found inscribed on an iron slab; in the handwriting of the god Thoth, by the royal son or prince Herutātāf. The original purpose of the composition of this text cannot be said, but there is little doubt that it was intended, to benefit the deceased in the judgment, and, if we translate its title literally, it was intended to prevent his heart from "falling away from him in the underworld." In

Dig Turns Up Surprises And Questions From Ancient Greece

2008-04-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

A little more than 100 years ago, two teams from the Greek Archaeological Service investigated the site of Mt. Lykaion, thought to be the birthplace of the god Zeus. Archaeologists found pottery, clay figures and animal bones at an altar of the Greek god, and were able to uncover remains of numerous buildings, including the hippodrome—a stadium for horses and chariot teams—an athletic stadium and bathhouse.
But a more recent excavation has uncovered evidence that could change how researchers understand the history of the cult of Zeus. That’s beacause a research team has found pottery remains and evidence of activity from an ash alter they believe was used as early as 3,000 BCE—about 1,000 years before Greeks began worshipping the god Zeus.
“That’s why we’re so excited,” says David Gilman Romano, a senior research scientist in the Penn Museum’s Mediterranean Section and one of the Mt. Lykaion site’s co-directors. “We didn’t realize that we would be finding things this early.”
Romano and the team don’t know exactly how the altar was used prior to worship of Zeus and if it was used in connection with natural phenomena such as wind, rain, light or earthquakes. The findings, Romano says, “have created so many new ideas that we’re still recovering from it.”
Among the items uncovered at the altar was an Arcadian League silver stater (pictured above) and a Late Minoan rock crystal seal bearing an image of a bull. This latter finding suggests an early connection between the Minoan isle of Crete and Arcadia—the Greek region that is home to Mt. Lykaion. Romano explains that two myths from ancient literature persist about the birthplace of Zeus. The first is that he was born on Crete—either Mt. Dikte or Mt. Ida—and the second is that he was born on Mt. Lykaion.
Centuries ago, people made a harrowing pilgrimage to this festival center, which held athletic games, much like the site of Olympus located only 22 miles away. Arcadia, explains Romano, is believed to be the earliest settlement of mainland Greece. “[Researchers] always thought the essence of Greek religion comes from Arcadia.”
Romano notes some similarities between the sites of Olympus and Mt. Lykaion—both have ash altars and ancient athletic games. “There may have been some imitation of one site,” he says. “We rather think we had the first one.”
The remote mountainous site has long been considered an important pan-Hellenic sanctuary site but wasn’t fully explored until Romano did a comprehensive topographical and architectural survey in 1996.
In the current project, which began in 2004 (excavations began in 2006), researchers have used digital cartography, geographic information systems, geophysical ground and geological surveys and remote sensing to uncover the site’s buried past. In the summer of 2007, 47 people from Greece, the University of Arizona and Penn dug 17 trenches, one of which held the pottery remains indicating activity at Mt. Lykaion as early as 3,000 BCE. Key to the project’s success, says Romano, is the collaborative nature of the work. “[We made sure] to collaborate with our Greek colleagues on everything and not just have a one-sided project,” he says.
Romano got in touch with several colleagues to aid in the excavation of the large site, including co-director Michalis Petropoulos, chief of the archaeological region, and Mary Voyatzis C’78, a University of Arizona classics professor whose father just happened to be born in the tiny village close to Mt. Lykaion. “They consider her to be a local,” Romano says.
This summer, Romano will return to the site with Penn students for more excavation, where he hopes to gain a better understanding of the building plans and expand the first trench in a number of directions. Getting to the mountainous site will be much easier, due to the construction of a new road. When Romano visited the site in 1977 for his dissertation, he had to hike three hours with his then-fiancé and friend to reach the ruins.
Despite Mt. Lykaion’s remote location, Romano knew he’d be back. “It was so beautiful and so quiet,” he says. “I wanted to come back here and work here.”
Source: By Heather A. Davis of UPENN. edu

Ancient weapons dug up in India

2008-03-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal have discovered small weapons made of stone which are around 15,000-20,000 years old.
The artefacts - dating to the Stone Age - were found during excavations in Murshidabad district, near Bangladesh.
Archaeologists say the find is potentially significant as it suggests man's presence in the area dates back much earlier than previously believed.
Finds such as this on the floodplains of the River Ganges are very rare.
However, there is ample evidence of stone age activity in India's upland regions.
'Raw materials'

The weapons - which include small axes - were discovered at Ekani-Chandpara village near Sagardighi, which is an ancient site.

Archaeologists say the weapons were found from a soil layer belonging to the mid-Pleistocene period - much below the Holocene layer where present human habitation takes place.
"We have not only discovered the weapons at this site, but raw materials and the scraps were also found," Dr Gautam Sengupta, director of the State Archaeology Department, told the BBC.
"This proves that the weapons were made at this place itself."
Another reason why the find is so significant, archaeologists say, is because Stone Age weapons are not normally found at such an old soil layer in the Gangetic alluvial plains.
However it is well known that raw materials for making weapons are easily found in the plateau region and most Stone Age discoveries are from this area.
Chance
So far, no human fossils or remains other than some charcoal have been found at the site.
Scientists have yet to confirm how old the charcoal is.

"The history of civilisation in this region has suddenly gone back by around 20,000 years," one archaeologist said.
After the discovery, two eminent geo-archaeologists - Prof SN Rajguru and Dr Bhaskar Deotare - visited the excavation site and confirmed that the weapons date back to the smaller Stone Age.
The discovery was made by chance, Dr Sengupta said.
"We were digging the site for some archaeological evidence of the Sultanate period. We were expecting some ancient artefacts related to Sultan Hussein Shah," he said - referring to a former ruler from the area.
"We did find those, but our archaeologists kept on digging to unearth some more historical evidence of that period and now we have found these Stone Age weapons," Dr Sengupta said.
After winding up the excavation at Ekani Chandpara in a couple of weeks, archaeologists are planning to launch a search for ancient human habitation in a wider area.
BBC news

12th century emple on verge of ruination

2008-03-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

The ancient Shiva Temple at Bholahat Upazila in Chapai-nawabganj stands on the verge of ruination after years and years of neglect. Locals allege that the temple, built during the Sen era of 1156-1206 AD, is gradually falling apart down due to sheer negligence by local authorities.The say authorities have never taken any steps to preserve this ancient structure that has huge archaeological and historical value.The Shiva temple is 19ft 10 inches in height, 19ft in length and has a width of 13ft. It has outer walls of brick structure covered with terracotta artworks depicting mythological tales and religious events.Today it almost resembles a thatch hut, with a tree growing through it. Part of its roof has collapsed.Cow dung cakes cover the lower half of the temple's walls on the outside.Deep cracks have developed on the walls of the 12th century structure while weeds have covered most of its body. Most of the terracotta tiles that once decorated the body of the temple have eroded. Others have been lost over the years. Thieves have stolen bricks, terracotta tiles and other valuable things from the temple situated only 200 yards away from Bholahat police station.Some locals blame the local authorities for never having taken any steps to preserve this ancient structure. Others make good use of the temple's abandoned stage.Local use the Shiva temples walls to dry these cakes for fuel. Some others have encroached the land on which the temple stands.They have built mud huts on the land of the archaeological site. One attaching house shares the temple wall, clearing putting pressure on the structure of the 12th century building.Dr. Majharul Islam Toru, a local historian and associate professor at the Chapainawabganj Govt. College, affirms that the temple was built during the Sen era of 1156-1206 AD. Devotees of Shiva built the temple to worship him.He claims that this Shiva Temple of Bholahat is one of the most beautiful Hindu temples in the northern part of the country. Local miscreants are taking advantage of the lack of vigilance by the local police or upazila administration over this archaeological site, he added. Some locals complain that the aesthetic value of the temple, not to mention its religious significance, has been seriously damaged by the use of its walls to dry cow dung cakes.They urge the government to take immediate steps for the preservation of the 12th century temple.Badrul Alam, field officer of the Archaeology Department of Rajshahi Division, has said that the preservation for the ancient Shiva Temple is not listed as a job for the department.However if the locals raise a strong demand for its preservation, the archaeology department may be able to take steps to consider their demand, he said

Thedailystar

¿Cómo es India?

2008-03-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

¿Cómo es India?

Ayer me preguntaste

Y yo, que aun llevo su povo en mis sandalias,

Y su luz, como un ascua, en la mirada,

Medité y no supe contestarte.

India es agua sucia y sol brillante,

Polvo grisáceo entre el oro y la plata,

Un viejo en cuclillas trenzando sin pausa

Y una niña de mirada penetrante.

Como una noria que gira incesante.

Un beso ardiente a la persona amada

Y un cuerpo que, en la tarde, se hace llama,

Poemas de amor y muerte en un instante.

Saris de colores deslumbrantes

Entre miseria de gente reposada.

Gente sencilla, religiosa y clara

Visitando monumentos de gigantes.

Impenetrable, de misterio llena,

No puedo definirla.

Se me escapa

Cual pájaro que eternamente vuela.

Un gran deseo se me ancló en el alma.

¡Volver! Volver de nuevo a aquella tierra

Antes de ser ceniza de la nada.

Sujan Sing Parnu

1,000-yr-old statue handed over to archaeology dept

2008-03-20T03:06:00.000-07:00

Rab yesterday handed over a 1,000-year-old statue, depicting two Hindu goddesses, to the officials of the Department of Archaeology.The members of Rab-1 found the artefact abandoned on a pavement near a plot on Road-91 in the capital's Gulshan-2 on March 12. The 18-inch tall black statue weighs about 26 kilograms. “We sent the statue to the Department of Archaeology for conducting necessary tests a day after recovering it,” said Major Saiful of Rab-1. He said after examining the artefact, the Department of Archaeology said the statue is of either 10th or 11th century.Artefact smugglers might have abandoned the statue on the pavement fearing arrest, said the Rab official adding that an investigation is already underway.

(The Daily Star)

Ancient temple discovered by German archaeologists in Marib

2008-03-20T02:58:00.000-07:00

MARIB, March 18 — A unique and well-preserved Sabaean temple was unearthed in a part of the ancient Sabaean town of Sirwah in the Marib province. The temple, whose existence was recently disclosed by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), was discovered during a restoration program carried out in the autumn of 2007.A team of 25 German and 100 Yemeni archaeologists worked together to find the temple and date it back to approximately the first millennium, B.C.The new temple has a monumental entrance decorated with pillars and contains a variety of rooms. The ground plan and the construction features of the temple are singular in Yemen; tower-like projections divide the exterior facade of the sanctuary and the building was constructed of both wood and stone.According to Dr. Iris Gerlach, the DAI director in Sana’a, the temple is still under excavation. The archaeologists theorized that it was one of the only exclusively religious-use temples in the Sabaean period. Further studies are still being conducted by German and Yemeni archaeological teams. “The new discovery will be included in the restoration of the ancient town that will be parallel to the ongoing excavations until its completion in 2009,” said Gerlach. “As the discovery is quite recent, we do not have specific details [about the temple], but it was certainly used for religious ceremonies.” Gerlach added that the Yemeni Social Fund will cover 50 percent of the excavation and restoration expenses, while the DAI will fund the remaining 50 percent. She mentioned that another recent archaeological find, Al-Maqah temple, is located in the same region. “Monumental ancient pillars of the huge Al-Maqah temple in Marib were re-erected by crane last week in Sirwah,” said Gerlach. “The pillars, which weigh up to 6 tons, were first analyzed by ultrasonic measurements to check for possible internal cracks,” said Gerlach. “The cracks were then fixed with steel dowels invisible on the outside, glued together and filled up with mortar. Seven other pillars were laid down by the crane to be restored in October this year.” According to researchers, Al-Maqah temple was dedicated to the most important goddess in the Sabean period. Four temples dedicated to the same goddess have been found in Marib. According to Gerlach, what sets Al-Maqah temple apart from the others is the celebrations and ritual meals that used to be held there for animal sacrifices to thank their god and demonstrate their happiness. The stones which were used for sacrificing the animals are still visible. The inscriptions on the temple’s walls depict the life of the Sabaean kings.“We will continue the excavations in order to find othe
r ancient places, as it is believed that in Marib there are still many more ancient historical places to be discovered,“ said Gerlach.The ancient town of Sirwah was located on overland incense trade routes, but was also connected to trade routes to southern Arabia, from the Yemeni highlands down to the old caravan kingdoms on the edge of the Ramlat Al-Sabatayn. Numerous cult installations provide evidence of intensive ritual procedures at the town’s sanctuaries, including altars, banquet areas for ritual meals, bone deposits of sacrificed animals and a treasure chamber for storing hundreds of votives. The focal point of the Al-Maqah temple was formed by two monumental stones featuring inscriptions from the time of two Sabaean rulers, Yithar’amar Watar bin Yakrubmalik (715 B.C.) and Karib `il Watar (685 B.C.). The over seven meter-long monolithic inscription stones report on both the warlike and the civil activities of these rulers.During the 1st millennium B.C., the most important center of the Sabaean kingdom was next to the ancient metropolis of Marib. The large Sabaean town was surrounded by a fortified wall, and included many monumental buildings, the most prominent being Al-Maqah Temple, which dates back to the 7th century B.C. and is currently undergoing restoration. Since 2001, the DAI and the General Organization of Antiquities and Museums have carried out excavations and restoration measures in Sirwah. For 30 years, Germany and Yemen have jointly conducted archaeological and restoration projects which have helped to preserve some of Yemen’s most valuable ancient sites.

(H. Thabed-yementimes)

THE TOMB OF QUEEN HETEP-HERES

2008-03-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

. time in the history of Egyptian excavations an
opportunity of studying the burial of a great
N March 9, 1925, the Egyptian Government personage of this significant period, about fifteen
announced the discovery of a large intact hundred years older than the royal tombs of the
tomb of the time of Sneferuw, by the Harvard- New Kingdom, and the discovery aroused im-
Boston Expedition in its excavations at the Giza mediate interest in the historical material which
pyramids. Sneferuw was the first king of Dynasty the tomb might contain.
IV, about 3000 B.C., and was supposed to be the At the time of the discovery I was in America,
father of Cheops. He himself built the first true where I had gone at the end of January to resume
pyramid, the northern stone pyramid at Dahshur, my periodical duties at Harvard University and
while his immediate descendants constructed the the Museum of Fine Arts. I had left Mr. Alan
great pyramids at Giza and that at Abu Roash. Rowe, assisted by Mr. T. D. R. Greenlees, the
In Dynasty III the great architect Imhotep had head-reis Said Ahmed Said, and the rest of the
constructed the Step Pyramid at Saqqarah with regular organization, to finish the work planned
its wonderful temple for King Zoser, and had ap- for the season. Thus it was my assistants who had
parently translated for the first time the highly the pleasure of the first view of the tomb. Lookdeveloped
crude-brick architecture of that period ing into the burial chamber from a small opening
into finely dressed small blocks of limestone. In at the top of the doorway, the excavators had
Dynasty IV, a few generations later, the unknown seen a beautiful alabaster sarcophagus with its
architects of Sneferuw and Cheops had substi- lid in place. Partly on the sarcophagus and partly
tuted massive blocks of limestone for the small fallen behind it lay about twenty gold poles and
blocks of Imhotep and had also begun the trans- beams of a large canopy; on the western edge of
lation of the limestone architecture into granite. the lid were spread several sheets of gold inlaid
It was the architectural use of this obdurate with faience; on the floor, a confused mass was
material which gave so archaic an appearance to visible of parts of gold-cased chairs and other
the temples of the Giza pyramids, in particular objects, - lion -legs, palm -capitals, decorated
to the valley temple of Chephren beside the Great arms, bars and beams, all showing the yellow
Sphinx, and limited the use of inscriptions and glitter of gold; and amongst these lay copper and
reliefs in those temples. Dynasty IV was, how- alabaster vessels, while further back a mound of
ever, not the beginning but rather the culmina- pottery hid the southern part of the deposit.
tion of the great creative period of Egyptian arts The sheets of inlaid gold seized on the attention;
and crafts, and the great pyramids of three of its for, in a moment, the inlays were observed to
kings at Giza mark the place of the activities of form an inscription with the royal cartouche of
the foremost architects and sculptors of the age. King Sneferuw, and the excavators realized that
Thus the intact Giza tomb presented for the first they had an intact tomb of a royal personage of
The Discovery of the Tomb.

Reisner -Metropolitan M

Heródoto

2008-03-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

Hasta el reinado de Rampsinito, según los sacerdotes, vióse florecer en Egipto la justicia, permaneciendo las leyes en su vigor y viviendo la nación en el seno de la abundancia y prosperidad; pero Quéope, que le sucedió en el trono, echó a perder un estado tan floreciente. Primeramente, cerrando los templos, prohibió a los egipcios sus acostumbrados sacrificios; ordenó después que todos trabajasen por cuenta del público, llevando unos hasta el Nilo la piedra cortada en el monte de Arabia, y encargándose otros de pasarla en sus barcas por el río y de traspasarla al otro monte que llaman de Libia. En esta fatiga ocupaba de continuo hasta 3.000 hombres, a los cuales de tres en tres meses iba relevando, y solo en construir el camino para conducir dicha piedra de sillería, hizo penar y afanar a su pueblo durante diez años enteros; lo que no debe extrañarse, pues este camino, si no me engaño, es obra poco o nada inferior a la pirámide misma que preparaba de cinco estadios de largo, diez orgias de ancho y ocho de alto en su mayor elevación, y construido de piedra, no sólo labrada, sino esculpida además con figuras de varios animales. Y en los diez años de fatiga empleados en la construcción del camino, no se incluye el tiempo invertido en preparar el terreno del collado donde las pirámides debían levantarse, y en fabricar un edificio subterráneo que sirviese para sepulcro real, situado en una isla formada por una acequia que del Nilo se deriva. En cuanto a la pirámide, se gastaron en su construcción 20 años: es una fábrica cuadrada de ocho pletros de largo en cada uno de sus lados, y otros tantos de altura, de piedra labrada y ajustada perfectamente, y construida de piezas tan grandes, qLa pirámide fue edificándose de modo que en ella quedasen unas gradas o poyos que algunos llaman escalas y otros altares. Hecha así desde el principio la parte inferior, iban levantándose y subiendo las piedras, ya labradas, con cierta máquina formada de maderos cortos que, alzándolas desde el suelo, las ponía en el primer orden de gradas, desde el cual con otra máquina que en él tenían prevenida las subían al segundo orden, donde las cargaban sobre otra máquina semejante, prosiguiendo así en subirlas, pues parece que cuantos eran los órdenes de gradas, tantas eran en número las máquinas, o quizá no siendo más que una fácilmente transportable, la irían mudando de grada en grada, cada vez que la descargasen de la piedra; que bueno es dar de todo diversas explicaciones. Así es que la fachada empezó a pulirse por arriba, bajando después consecutivamente, de modo que la parte inferior, que estribaba en el mismo suelo, fue la postrera en recibir la última mano. En la pirámide está notado con letras egipcias cuánto se gastó en rábanos, en cebollas y en ajos para el consumo de peones y oficiales; y me acuerdo muy bien que al leérmelo el intérprete me dijo que la cuenta ascendía a 4.600 talentos de plata. Y si esto es así, ¿a cuánto diremos que subiría el gasto de herramientas para trabajar, y de víveres y vestidos para los obreros, y más teniendo en cuenta, no sólo el tiempo mencionado que gastaron en la fábrica de tales obras, sino también aquel, y a mi entender debió ser muy largo, que emplearían así en cortar la piedra como en abrir la excavación subterránea?
Viéndose ya falto de dinero, llegó Quéope a tal extremo de avaricia y bajeza, que en público lupanar prostituyó a una hija, con orden de exigir en recompensa de su torpe y vil entrega cierta suma que no me expresaron fijamente los sacerdotes. Aun más; cumplió la hija tan bien con lo que su padre tan mal le mandó, que a costa de su honor quiso dejar un monumento de su propia infamia, pidiendo a cada uno de sus amantes que le costeara una piedra para su edificio; y en efecto, decían que con las piedras regaladas se había construido una de las tres pirámides, la que está en el centro delante de la pirámide mayor, y que tiene pletro y medio en cada uno de sus lados.
Muerto Quéope después de un reinado de cincuenta años, según referían, dejó por sucesor de la corona a su hermano Quefren, semejante a él en su conducta y gobierno. Una de las cosas en que pretendió imitar al difunto, fue en querer levantar una pirámide, como en efecto la levantó, pero no tal que llegase en su magnitud a la de su hermano, de lo que yo mismo me cercioré habiéndolas medido entrambas. Carece aquella de edificios subterráneos, ni llega a ella el canal derivado del Nilo que alcanza a la de Quéope, y corriendo por un acueducto allí construido, forma y baña una isla, dentro de la cual dicen que yace este rey. Quefren fabricó la parte inferior de su columna de mármol etiópico vareteado, si bien la dejó cuarenta pies más baja que la pirámide mayor de su hermano, vecina a la cual quiso que la suya se erigiera, hallándose ambas en un mismo cerro, que tendrá unos cien pies de elevación. Quefren reinó cincuenta y seis años.
CXXVIII. Estos dos reinados completan los 106 años en que dicen los egipcios haber vivido en total miseria y opresión, sin que los templos por tanto tiempo cerrados se les abrieran una sola vez. Tanto es el odio que conservan todavía contra los dos reyes, que ni acordarse quieren de su nombre por lo genera; de suerte que llaman a estas fábricas las pirámides del pastor Filitis, quien por aquellos tiempos apacentaba sus rebaños por los campos en que después se edificaron.
A Quefren refieren que sucedió en el trono un hijo de Quéope, por nombre Micerino, quien, desaprobando la conducta de su padre, mandó abrir los templos, y que el pueblo, en extremo trabajado, dejadas las obras públicas, se retirara a cuidar de las de su casa, y tomara descanso y refección en las fiestas y sacrificios. Entre todos los reyes, dicen que Micerino fue el que con mayor equidad sentenció las causas de sus vasallos, elogio por el cual es el monarca más celebrado de cuantos vio el Egipto. Llevó a tal punto la justicia, que no solo juzgaba los pleitos todos con entereza, sino que era tan cumplido, que a la parte que no se diera por satisfecha de su sentencia, solía contentarla con algo de su propia casa y hacienda; mas a pesar de su clemencia y bondad para con sus vasallos, y del estudio tan escrupuloso en cumplir con sus deberes, empezó a sentir los reveses de la fortuna en la temprana muerte de su hija, única prole que tenía. La pena y luto del padre en su doméstica desventura fue sin límites, y queriendo hacer a la princesa difunta honores extraordinarios, hizo fabricar en vez de urna sepulcral, una vaca de madera hueca y muy bien dorada en la cual dio sepultura a su querida hija.
Está vaca, que no fue sepultada en la tierra, se dejaba ver aun en mis días patente en la ciudad de Sais, colocada en el palacio en un aposento muy adornado. Ante ella se quema todos los días y se ofrece todo género de perfumes, y todas las noches se le enciende su lámpara perenne. En otro aposento vecino están unas figuras que representan a las concubinas de Micerino, según decían los sacerdotes de la ciudad de Sais; no cabe duda que se ven en él ciertas estatuas colosales de madera, de cuerpo desnudo, que serán veinte a lo más; no diré quiénes sean, sino la tradición que corre acerca de ellas.ue ninguna baja de 30 pies.

Heródoto ( en Euterpe)

Esqueleto indica operación quirúrgica cerebral en Grecia antigua

2008-03-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Esqueleto indica operación quirúrgica cerebral en Grecia antigua

TESALONICA, Grecia . Un grupo de arqueólogos griegos anunció el hallazgo de evidencias de lo que supone una operación de cirugía cerebral practicada hace 1.800 años a una mujer joven, que murió durante o poco después de la operación.Aunque abundan las referencias a esas intervenciones delicadas en textos antiguos, los descubrimientos de cráneos perforados quirúrgicamente son poco frecuentes en Grecia.

Ioannis Graikos dijo el martes que el esqueleto de la mujer fue hallado el año pasado en Veria, ciudad a unos 75 kilómetros (45 millas) al oeste de Tesalónica.''Interpretamos el hallazgo como un caso de cirugía complicada que sólo pudo haber intentado un médico entrenado y especializado'', dijo Graikos.Un experto en huesos que estudió el hallazgo dijo que el esqueleto pertenecía a una mujer de hasta 25 años de edad que padeció un golpe fuerte en la coronilla, dijo Graikos. La operación se realizó al parecer para salvarle la vida.Agregó que los contornos claramente definidos del orificio craneal eran signo de una operación quirúrgica relativamente adelantada.''Probablemente no sobrevivió a la operación, ya que la herida era muy grande y no hay indicios de cicatrización en los bordes'', explicó Graikos a la AP.El descubrimiento en Veria parece similar al de otros efectuados en escenarios del antiguo imperio romano, dijo Simon Mays, experto en esqueletos humanos de la organización English Heritage, que asesora al gobierno británico.''Ese tipo de operación data de mucho tiempo atrás... El ejemplo más antiguo es de hace unos 5.000 años en Europa'', dijo Mays, que no participó de las excavaciones en Grecia.En los primeros ejemplos se advierten orificios craneales rústicos que se van perfeccionando en tiempos romanos con instrumentos más precisos, agregó.''Sabemos que en el imperio romano se hacían operaciones (de cerebro) y algunas de las fuentes romanas dan instrucciones muy precisas acerca de cómo realizarlas'', dijo Mays.

Hipótesis de Construcción de las Pirámides del Valle de Gizeh IV

2008-03-15T03:25:00.000-07:00

Más imagenes

TEORIA elaborada por Carlos E. Rodríguez VaronaDámaso René Rodríguez Vives [Coautor]

Hipótesis de Construcción de las Pirámides del Valle de Gizeh III

2008-03-15T03:24:00.000-07:00

CONCLUSIONES
Esta técnica presenta varias ventajas y aportes respecto a las existentes anteriormente:
Posee un fundamento preciso y razonable respecto a las anteriores hipótesis existentes. Emplea las rampas de manera eficiente, utilizando medidas conocidas y una técnica concreta, sin presentar graves inconvenientes como son: constituir un riesgo para la seguridad personal de los constructores, ser demasiado costosa; no establecer de forma clara, sencilla y adecuada a las condiciones de aquellos tiempos, un procedimiento técnico fiable que garantice el proceso constructivo. A su vez, permite disuadir de pensar en recurrir a métodos o procedimientos tales como los de carácter sobrenatural o extraterrestre.
Conforma un modelo seguro y fiable que sirve como herramienta fundamental en el diseño y construcción de la pirámide, posibilitando planificar de forma exacta la misma, calcular el tiempo de construcción, la cantidad de recursos, personal y elementos técnicos necesarios.
Esta hipótesis acarrea implícitamente la posibilidad que el faraón contara con una técnica segura que le permitiera tomar la decisión de construir la pirámide.
Esta hipótesis, de validarse desde el punto de vista histórico, replantea el enigma de la construcción de la pirámide orientando la incógnita del enfoque investigativo dirigida a descubrir cómo fue calculada y diseñada la pirámide y cómo fueron elaboradas, colocadas y construidas todas sus piezas y secciones.
Este trabajo no descarta la posibilidad del uso de otras técnicas expresadas con anterioridad que pudieran servir como complementarias, pues pudieran ser aplicadas al realizar maniobras singulares o transportar elementos específicos como pudieran ser enormes piezas. Además, está dirigido a facilitar un estudio y comprensión de la arquitectura del antiguo Egipto. Es, en parte, un reconocimiento al desarrollo socio – cultural alcanzado por los antiguos egipcios. Es el motor impulsor de este trabajo fundamentar hasta donde sea posible, una hipótesis de carácter lo más razonable y cercano posible a las condiciones técnicas y socio – culturales que existieron en aquel entonces.
De esta forma quedan planteadas las rampas de esta hipótesis; las cuales a primera vista pueden resultar ineficaces debido a lo pequeñas que parecen con respecto a las dimensiones de la pirámide; pero que poco a poco, utilizándolas de forma sistemática, proporcionan una solución bastante consistente y satisfactoria respecto al dilema de la técnica utilizada para elevar las piezas, posibilitando utilizar estas rampas en la construcción de una pirámide con la complejidad y el tamaño que se desee, como se verá más adelante. Con una adecuada planificación y diseño, se pueden utilizar de forma efectiva colocándolas sistemáticamente paralelas a y sobre los escalones, de forma continua para conformar una trayectoria a través de una o varias de las caras – según el diseño del arquitecto – por donde se puede transportar los elementos.
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRAFICASI. Aldred, Cyril, Aparición de los reyes - dioses. Primer florecimiento del antiguo Egipto. / Piggott, Stuart, El despertar de la civilización. Los enigmas de las antiguas culturas revelados, Ed. Labour, S.A. Barcelona, España, 1963.II. Enciclopedia digital ENCARTA, Edición año 2000. Microsoft Corporation.III. Moreux, T. (Abate), La ciencia misteriosa de los faraones, Ed. Sabian, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1956.IV. Pijoán, José, El arte egipcio hasta la conquista romana / Summa Artis: Historia general del arte, Ed. Espasa - Calpe, S.A. Vol. III. Segunda edición, Madrid, Epaña, 1945.V. Sitio web: Touregypt: http://www.touregypt.net/antiq.VI. Sitio web: Biblioteca del Congreso de los Estados unidos: mailto: lcweb.loc.gov.VII. Sitio web: Biblioteca Universidad Zaragoza: http://wzar.unizar.esStadelmann, Rainer, Las pirámides, colosales obras de ingeniería, Rev. "El correo de la UNESCO", número El Egipto de los faraones, Ed. Maury - Imprimeur S.A., año XLI, Septiembre de 1988.
-ANEXOS-
TABLA DE DATOS PARA EL CÁLCULO DE LA UTILIZACIÓN DE LAS RAMPAS (SIN TENER EN CUENTA EL TIPO)
Cálculo para N-codos de altura, de la longitud de la rampa, respecto al ángulo de la pendiente (3.9 grados), teniendo en cuenta que la altura total no contiene a A1 (0.45 metros):Fórmula:Longitud (D) = (Altura)/(cot(ángulo))
Cálculo para determinar la altura hasta la cual se puede utilizar la rampa:Fórmula:Altura (A) = ((230.4/2)-(longitud de la rampa/2))/(146.6/(230.4/2))
Tabla de resultados:
Medidas
Altura(H)
Longitud(D)
Altura(A)
1 codo
0,45 metros
6,6008 metros
82,6697 metros
2 codos
0,90 metros
13,2017 metros
80,2314 metros
3 codos
1,35 metros
19,8025 metros
77,7931 metros
4 codos
1,80 metros
26,4034 metros
75,3548 metros
5 codos
2,25 metros
33,0042 metros
72,9165 metros
6 codos
2,70 metros
39,6050 metros
70,4782 metros
7 codos
3,15 metros
46,2059 metros
68,0399 metros
8 codos
3,60 metros
52,8067 metros
65,6016 metros
9 codos
4,05 metros
59,4075 metros
63,1633 metros
10 codos
4,50 metros
66,0084 metros
60,7250 metros
11 codos
4,95 metros
72,6092 metros
58,2867 metros
12 codos
5,40 metros
79,2101 metros
55,8484 metros

Nota: El ancho de la rampa dependerá de las necesidades para transportar los objetos, partiendo de un ancho mínimo equivalente al doble del que posee el objeto a transportar.
CALCULOS DE LOS PARAMETROS DE LA RAMPA PATRON
Cálculos de la rampaParámetros:Altura inicial de la rampa:A1: 0,4500 metrosAltura final de la rampa:A2: 2,7000 metrosLongitud de la rampa:B: 33,7500 metrosAncho de la rampa:L: 1,8000 metros
Fórmula para el volumen de la rampa:
Vr=((((A2-A1)*B)/2)+(A1*B))*LVr= 95,6813 metros cúbicos
Fórmula para hallar el ángulo de inclinación:
Ángulo(ƒ): (ƒ)= Arcot(B/(A2-A1)) = 1/Arctan(B/(A2-A1)); siendo: cot(ƒ) = (B/(A2-A1))cot(ƒ)=1/tan(ƒ)= 15,0000(ƒ)= 3,9054

Hipótesis de Construcción de las Pirámides del Valle de Gizeh (Giza)II

2008-03-15T03:17:00.000-07:00

SEGUNDO TIPO DE RAMPA
Consiste en aplicar el tipo anterior utilizando una nueva variante: usando rampas iguales pero de dimensiones mayores, combinadas con el cuerpo de la pirámide. Estas rampas serían las utilizadas a gran escala para realizar la mayor parte del trabajo, empleada para transportar la mayor cantidad de bloques y elementos constructivos. La altura está expresada por la cantidad de niveles que ocupan, la cual obedecerá a la exigencia de avanzar más rápidamente en el trabajo.
La longitud debe ajustarse para conservar el ángulo de la pendiente de 3.9 grados. El objetivo consiste en vencer la fuerza de rozamiento y no la fuerza de gravedad. Constituyen grandes y largas rampas construidas utilizando secciones tomadas de los bordes de los niveles, cercanas a los escalones de la pirámide, pero ubicadas sobre los niveles. Presentan grandes longitudes, cercanas a los 80 metros como se muestra en la tabla de medidas. Y la altura inicial es análoga a las del primer tipo: un codo de altura y una superficie superior conformada por bloques casi cúbicos con una pendiente de inclinación de 3.9 grados.
Las secciones de los bordes de los niveles –o de las esquinas, según el caso– literalmente son absorbidas por las rampas a medida que éstos últimos se van construyendo, utilizando como plataforma para soportar la rampa los niveles inferiores. Por lo que la pirámide se convierte en la vía para subir las piezas, sin necesidad de escalones ni plataformas.
Se toman los bloques de determinadas secciones de los bordes de los niveles para construir la base sobre la cual se construirá la rampa. La cantidad tomada disminuye horizontalmente en cada nivel a medida que se construye, pues la longitud de la rampa disminuye a medida que aumenta la altura: La dirección de las rampas dependerá de la trayectoria inicial tomada.
El volumen que ocupan las rampas propiamente es el conformado por la parte de la pendiente únicamente, o sea, el volumen correspondiente a la sección limitada entre la pendiente y el plano horizontal corresponde a la rampa propiamente dicha. El resto son los bloques de los niveles. El ancho de la rampa equivale al de varios bloques o escalones, para permitir transportar varios elementos a la vez u otros de mayores proporciones. La rampa se construye adentrándose hacia el interior de la misma a medida que se avanza en la construcción, mediante un trayecto que las interconecta, manteniendo la pendiente de 3,9 grados. Semejando una enorme escalera lateral con forma de zig-zag dentro de la pirámide. Esto permite trasladar cualquiera de las piezas que componen la pirámide, sin importar las dimensiones y/o la masa que posean, hasta cierta altura.
Si existe necesidad de variar el sentido de dirección porque se interpone algún obstáculo: un pasaje, una cámara, un fallo o accidente, una esquina, u otro detalle; se determina si es necesario cambiar el sentido, las dimensiones, continuar sobre una cara u otras, reemplazarlas por las del primer tipo, etc., brindando un proceso bastante dinámico. Pero teniendo en cuenta que una vez construidas no es posible volver hacia atrás pues los bloques que componen el cuerpo de las rampas no se pueden quitar ya que forma parte de lo que ha sido construido.
El segundo tipo de rampa resulta de fusionar las del primer tipo repetidas varias veces una al lado de la otra en varios niveles; aprovechando como plataformas de soporte para los elementos constructivos y para las anteriores rampas, los bloques que se encuentran al final de las rampas montadas sucesivamente y los que quedan por debajo de las secciones tomadas en los bordes de los niveles, respectivamente. Se utilizará para construir la mayor parte de la pirámide. Cuando se llegue a una altura donde no exista espacio para instalarlas se disminuyen sus dimensiones. Y cuando no se pueda seguir reduciendo las dimensiones, se sustituyen por las del primer tipo. Esto incluye además la posibilidad de combinar, temporalmente o no, los dos tipos de rampas para superar obstáculos o aplicar técnicas constructivas determinadas.
Resulta ventajoso destinar una sección o área fija de la cara para trabajar con las rampas. Esto facilita el diseño y la planificación del trabajo, pues las secciones empleadas son más fáciles de controlar, reservando la utilización de las restantes secciones para posibles problemas o variaciones del diseño.
Todo esto posibilita confeccionar una maqueta de la pirámide para determinar cómo va a ser construida, dónde van colocadas las rampas y cómo serán utilizadas.
Planificando acertadamente, se posee un margen de errores que facilita superar fallos o modificaciones necesarias, permitiendo ejecutar acciones acordes con las necesidades y posibilidades existentes.
Y al llegar a la parte más alta de la pirámide – que incluye el PIRAMIDON – se utiliza el primer tipo de rampas y finalmente se rellenan los espacios utilizados por las rampas del segundo tipo. Esta última operación se lleva a cabo de forma descendente empleando el primer tipo: el primer tipo de rampas se utiliza de forma permanente en la etapa final.
Este trabajo no pretende exponer un ejemplo concreto que muestre el procedimiento exacto para construir la pirámide, donde se especifique la utilización de los dos tipos de rampas, pues los dos modelos de rampas aquí expuestos pueden ser utilizados empleando disímiles variantes técnicas en cualquier construcción donde se empleen rampas. Se incluyen los anexos relacionados al final con este fin: utilizarlos como guía para elaborar un determinado y exacto procedimiento constructivo. El objetivo de esta hipótesis consiste solamente en transmitir la técnica; no el procedimiento.

Hipótesis de Construcción de las Pirámides del Valle de Gizeh (Giza)

2008-03-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

Hipótesis

sobre la construcción de pirámides

( Carlos E. Rodríguez Varona Dámaso)

INTRODUCCIÓN

La siguiente hipótesis pretende demostrar la probable técnica utilizada para la construcción, específicamente la elevación y ubicación a determinada altura, de los elementos constructivos que componen las pirámides egipcias del valle de Gizeh, en específico la pirámide de Keops. Se expone una teoría que utiliza dos tipos de rampas: las de carácter estático, situadas en el interior del cuerpo de la pirámide, construidas con el cuerpo de ésta; y otras más pequeñas de carácter dinámico, ubicadas sobre los escalones de los niveles, de estructura flexible y variable, fácil de trasladar y maniobrar respecto a las anteriores. Presentando ambas una ángulo de inclinación casi nulo en la pendiente.
Las piezas están colocadas en forma de aparejo al estilo soga de sillería, por lo que se encuentran sujetas – o mordidas – por la masa que se encuentra encima distribuida firme y uniformemente de forma permanente. En las referencias bibliográficas aparecen los fundamentos generales de las teorías anteriores.
Esta hipótesis presenta 4 rasgos que constituyen conceptos totalmente novedosos respecto a las hipótesis anteriores:
• Las pequeñas dimensiones que poseen respecto a las pirámides y el ángulo de inclinación casi nulo que poseen respecto al plano horizontal, de 3.9 grados.
• El espacio donde se desarrolla esta hipótesis lo constituyen los escalones y bordes que poseen los niveles de la pirámide.
• El primer tipo de rampas emplea rampas, plataformas y soportes, que van colocados sobre los escalones que conforman los niveles; cantidad que varia según la altura y el tipo de elemento a subir.
• El segundo tipo utiliza pequeñas secciones de los bordes de los niveles que aumentan en longitud y profundidad dentro del nivel según avanza la construcción de la rampa, acorde con las dimensiones que se requiere tenga la misma.
El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en enunciar la probable técnica utilizada para construir la pirámide mediante el uso de rampas para elevar las piezas, sin abarcar la totalidad del proceso constructivo de la misma; teniendo presente que éste constituye el aspecto fundamental para llevar a cabo la construcción: sin una técnica para transportar las piezas no es posible hacer nada.
PRIMER TIPO DE RAMPA
La construcción del modelo se realiza mediante el siguiente procedimiento: tomando dimensiones aproximadas a las de los bloques que componen la pirámide, utilizando formas geométricas básicas, un breve razonamiento físico – matemático y medidas de longitud comunes en aquella época; se escoge un ángulo adecuado para la pendiente que posibilite anular casi completamente la acción de la fuerza de gravedad; confeccionándose una rampa que satisfaga las dos condiciones fundamentales:• Transformar el trabajo de elevar los bloques en vencer la fuerza de rozamiento al arrastrarlos y no en vencer la acción de la fuerza de gravedad sobre ellos.
• Posibilidad de trasladar los bloques de manera cómoda, segura y rápida, haciendo posible realizar complejas maniobras con un mínimo de riesgo; aún cuando esto implique recorrer mayores distancias y trasladar un mayor número de piezas que componen las rampas debido a la necesidad de aumentar el volumen y las dimensiones de la misma.Estas dos condiciones, de obligatorio cumplimiento para los dos tipos de rampas, constituyen la premisa teórica que sustenta esta hipótesis.
Para el caso específico del modelo de rampa patrón confeccionado para determinar el ángulo de la pendiente, las medidas utilizadas fueron – empleando el codo bíblico como longitud:
• Altura inicial: 0.45 metros (1 codo),
• Altura final: 2.70 metros (6 codos, incluyendo la altura inicial),
• Longitud de la rampa: 33.75 metros (75 codos),
• Ancho (opcional): 1.8 metros (4 codos) – (el ancho varia según la altura en le caso del segundo tipo de rampas)
Mediante el Teorema del Triángulo rectángulo de Pitágoras, se determina el ángulo de inclinación que tendrá la pendiente, lográndose el resultado buscado. De forma aleatoria: no se utiliza algún procedimiento específico para calcularlo. Este procedimiento se refleja en los anexos. Las medidas se escogen según la necesidad de elevar los objetos hasta determinada altura y posición. Puede observarse cómo diseñar rampas de distintas longitudes conforme a lo anterior en los anexos. Las dimensiones y el ángulo de inclinación que poseen las rampas son mayores de lo que realmente pudieran haber sido. Esto es válido también para el segundo tipo de rampa. Esto evita discutir las cuestiones relacionadas con las medidas reales.
El primer tipo presenta un conjunto estructural complementario conformado por dos plataformas horizontales: la primera destinada para ubicar los bloques, como un lugar intermedio entre la rampa y el nivel al lado de la misma para colocarlos posteriormente sobre dicho nivel o elevarlos por otra rampa paralelamente ubicada; y la segunda como soporte para sostener las rampas y plataformas que sobresalgan de los escalones. Es característica fundamental el casi nulo ángulo de inclinación: 3.9 grados de pendiente respecto al plano horizontal. Esto equivale a trabajar sobre superficies casi totalmente horizontales. El mismo se obtiene a partir de dimensiones escogidas aleatoriamente.
Se obtiene un método eficaz para elevar objetos de cualesquiera dimensiones de un nivel a otro, empleando un sistema de rampas capaz de variar sus dimensiones rápidamente utilizando más de un nivel como soporte para ajustarse a las necesidades existentes. Esto permite combinar varios conjuntos con el objetivo de utilizarlos de forma alterna para elevar los elementos en secciones complicadas. Esto aparece ejemplificado en las figuras. Esta cualidad cobra gran validez en el caso de la construcción de las cámaras y habitaciones interiores y los niveles más altos de la pirámide. Este primer tipo sería fundamental en la construcción de la parte más alta – el llamado PIRAMIDON – utilizándose para esto varias caras, para realizar el acabado final de las caras, y para corregir desperfectos o rematar detalles durante el proceso constructivo; en la transportación de las joyas, símbolos y demás piezas funerarias; y en el sellaje de las cámaras y rellenado del camino. El proceso de rellenado de los escalones en la parte más alta, donde supuestamente no caben por la longitud tan reducida que poseen las aristas de los niveles respecto a la longitud que poseen las rampas, se realizaría de forma vertical. O sea: se rellenarán los espacios de los escalones inferiores donde se encuentra la rampa, de forma que las secciones rellenadas correspondan con el plano vertical de la misma.
La utilización de este primer tipo es esencial a la hora de concebir la pirámide debido a la cualidad que la caracteriza: es una estructura fácil de mover, aunque resulte considerable el número de piezas que la componen. Esto posibilita desmontarla completamente en cualquier momento de la construcción para colocarla en otro lugar. Deja de ser un objeto estático, posibilitando diseños de gran complejidad y dadas sus amplias posibilidades para variar sus dimensiones, se adapta fácilmente al lugar, posición y maniobra que se requiera durante el proceso constructivo.

Babilonia renace en el Louvre

2008-03-14T08:16:00.001-07:00

Los misterios del imperio perdido se instalan en París antes de visitar Berlín y Londres

El cruce de caminos entre lo real, lo mítico, lo artístico y lo literario en torno a los insondables misterios de Babilonia se ha instalado a lo grande entre las paredes del Museo del Louvre. La exposición Babylone permanecerá en París hasta el 2 de junio, antes de viajar al Museo Pérgamo de Berlín, primero, y al British Museum de Londres, después.

Se trata de descubrir lo que fue Babilonia entre los años 2000 y 75 antes de Cristo, fecha del último texto de la escritura cuneiforme. La muestra también intenta demostrar cómo la historia de Babilonia se prolonga a través de la tradición bíblica, de los textos de Herodoto o Estrabón, cómo los padres de la Iglesia la transforman en el reino de Satán, capital apocalíptica de todos los vicios. O cómo para Lutero es el espejo de la Roma corrompida de su época, centro cósmico de un poder temporal y espiritual vendido al diablo.
El ambicioso y fascinante conjunto de piezas desplegado en el Louvre describe, entre otras cosas, cómo el episodio de la torre de Babel -todo un desafío a Dios antes del XVI- cambia de signo y es una proeza de la razón y de la inventiva humana en el XVIII. Luego, durante el romanticismo, lo que seduce de Babilonia es su condición de imperio perdido, desaparecido, del que ni tan sólo quedan, tras tanto esplendor, unas ruinas.
La literatura, la pintura, el teatro o la ópera hacen revivir Babilonia, que resurge de debajo de toneladas de tierra y cascotes a partir de 1899, cuando los arqueólogos alemanes cierran el círculo y rescatan de las entrañas de la tierra la puerta de Ishtar, el templo a Marduk, los fundamentos del zigurat en que se fundó la leyenda babélica así como parte de la muralla de Nabucodonosor II. El cine también tiene su hueco en la aventura babilónica del Louvre, recordando cómo Griffith, en Intolerance (1916), hace revivir la ciudad a partir de los hallazgos y trabajos de los alemanes Robert Koldwey y Walter Andrae.
La exposición reúne casi 400 obras procedentes de colecciones de 14 países. La calidad de lo agrupado es dispar, pero su interés es indiscutible. El todo es coherente y estimulante. A veces, la síntesis entre deseo de conciliar mito y ciencia lleva a explicaciones formidables. El jesuita Athanasius Kircher explica e ilustra con sus cálculos y dibujos que Dios provocó el hundimiento de la torre de Babel porque, de haber sido esta aún más alta, su peso habría hundido la corteza terrestre, perforado el planeta y provocado el fin del mundo. Una vez más, Dios escribe recto con renglones torcidos.
La gran estela de basalto negro que contiene el célebre código de Hammurabi preside la primera sala. Es lógico, pues Hammurabi, con su reinado de 43 años de duración, es el fundador de un prestigio que ya ha durado casi 4.000. Reunió distintos pueblos, construyó y, sobre todo, dotó a su imperio de una ley común, el ya mencionado código. Durante siglos, los reyes querrán ser como él, se inspirarán en su figura de guerrero, jurista y urbanista.
Las pequeñas esculturas de carácter votivo, las joyas, un cetro de ónice, un cofre de terracota, sellos y estelas nos conducen hasta la sala de relieves de ladrillo vidriado. Son obras impresionantes, reconstruidas a partir de las acuarelas de Walter Andrae.
Luego, tras el momento de máxima expansión del que se nos ha transmitido una concepción de la historia, los diccionarios multilingües, descubrimientos científicos -el círculo dividido en 360 grados, el año en 12 meses-, una iconografía, leyes y una concepción arquitectónica, el amor por Babilonia se hace asfixiante. Alejandro Magno la conquista en el año 330 antes de Cristo y su admiración le lleva a helenizarla. El mito va a permanecer pese a que los partos y los romanos lo transforman en una realidad provinciana.
San Agustín confrontará Jerusalén, la ciudad de Dios, a Babilonia, la ciudad terrestre, la capital del orgullo y la confusión. La tradición judía no perdona tampoco a Nabucodonosor II el haber destruido Jerusalén. Todos celebran su hundimiento.
Benjamín de Tudela escribe hacia 1170: "Hoy las ruinas del palacio de Nabucodonosor son inaccesibles, y guarida de dragones y bestias venenosas". Hans Leonhardt Rauwolff, en 1574, no se queda atrás, al acercarse a las ruinas del edificio que "los hijos de Noé pretendieron hacer llegar hasta el cielo" pero renuncia a explorarlas ante "unos insectos que son, dicen, como nuestras lagartijas pero mayores y con tres cabezas". Para el utopista Étienne-Louis Boullé (1728-1799), la torre babilónica es un símbolo de fraternidad humana y, desde su filiación masónica, propone erigirle un monumento en pleno desierto, símbolo de una lejana edad de oro. La Babilonia del Louvre es menos remota y merece la visita.

O.Matí .Elpaís

Cinco milenios de historia con los burros

2008-03-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

Cinco milenios de historia con los burros
Descubren en una tumba de Egipto 10 esqueletos de estos animales
El hallazgo demuestra que ya se usaban como medio de transporte hace 5.000 años

FOTO 2: Fósiles encontrados en una tumba en el yacimiento de Abydos. (Foto: PNAS)
Actualizado martes 11/03/2008 12:41

ROSA M. TRISTÁN
MADRID.- Injustamente denostado por su cabezonería e ignorancia, el burro ('Equus asinus') lleva 5.000 años ayudando al ser humano en la dura tarea de acarrear pesadas cargas. Así lo acaba de desvelar un equipo internacional de investigadores, que ha encontrado 10 esqueletos que demuestran que su proceso de domesticación fue más lento y menos lineal de lo que se piensa.
Los arqueólogos, dirigidos por Fiona Marshall, antropóloga de la Universidad de Washington (Estados Unidos), han podido retroceder a sus primeros días gracias al hallazgo de los 10 esqueletos de burro en una tumba del complejo mortuorio faraónico de Abydos, al sur de El Cairo.
Se desconoce el nombre del Rey que quiso tenerles a su lado en la otra vida, aunque se sabe que vivió 3.000 años a. de C., en la primera dinastía, la época de los faraones Narmer y Aha.
Los sepulcros para enterarles fueron construidos con ladrillos de fango y cubiertos con madera, por los que estaban prácticamente completos. Tan sólo a uno de ellos le faltaba el cráneo, posiblemente por la acción de antiguos saqueadores de tumbas.

FOTO 1Vértebras lesionadas de los burros de Abydos. (Foto: PNAS)
Debido a su excepcional conservación, los arqueólogos incluso encontraron pelos y tejido para analizar el ADN y han podido realizar un análisis comparativo de sus huesos con los de los asnos salvajes africanos (somalís y nubios), con fósiles hallados anteriormente y con 53 ejemplares de burros modernos de diferentes continentes.
«La investigación nos dice que su origen es africano y que la domesticación fue previa a cambios en su esqueleto e incluso en sus genes», explica Marshall a raíz de la publicación del trabajo en la revista 'Proceedings of National Academy of Science (PNAS)' en su edición de esta semana.
Vértebras lesionadas
Lo cierto es que aquellos primitivos burros egipcios, que al parecer provenían de los asnos nubios, tenían lesiones en las vértebras causadas por el peso, así como otras patologías propias del confinamiento. Sin embargo, aún se parecían mucho a sus antepasados, algo mayores.
Se descubrió, también, que existían entre ellos numerosas diferencias individuales, lo que fundamenta la hipótesis de que su domesticación fue lenta, aunque ya se observa un cambio fenotípico considerable durante esa temprana dinastía.
Algunos investigadores mantienen que los pastores africanos comenzaron a utilizarles hace unos 6.000 años, cuando aumentó la aridez en el desierto del Sáhara. "Su capacidad de llevar cargas pesadas en tierras sin vegetación les permitía moverse más lejos y con más frecuencia", señalan los arqueólogos.
El hecho de que fueran enterrados cerca del faraón da idea del gran valor social que se les otorgaba por esta función que, de hecho, siguen ejerciendo en buena parte del norte de África y, en general, en las zonas más pobres del globo a las que no llegan los todoterreno.
No es de extrañar su prestigio durante la primera dinastía, cuando era habitual que al morir el faraón se enterrara, en otras tumbas cercanas, restos de animales u objetos que pudieran serles útiles en la otra vida.
Después, como recuerda el arqueólogo del CSIC Andrés Diego Espinel, cayeron en desgracia y se les relacionó con el dios egipcio del mal Seth. "Más adelante en el tiempo ya es raro encontrarlos en una necrópolis porque tenían un valor negativo".

Let's see

2008-03-09T06:39:00.001-07:00

THE SCIENT METHOD
Here are the facts, what conclusions can we draw from them?

THE CREATIONIS METHOD
Here are the conclusions
What facts can we find to support it?

Encuentran tesoros arqueológicos en excavaciones en Roma

2008-03-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

Una fábrica de cobre del siglo VI, cocinas medievales todavía provistas de ollas y restos de palacios renacentistas se encuentran entre los tesoros develados el viernes por los arqueólogos que hicieron excavaciones en Roma en preparación para la apertura de una nueva línea de trenes subterráneos
Los arqueólogos habían escudriñado las profundidades de la Ciudad Eterna en 38 excavaciones, algunas cerca de monumentos famosos o de avenidas. En los últimos nueve meses se han hecho varios hallazgos _incluyendo tabernas romanas y cimientos palaciegos del siglo XVI_ en la céntrica Plaza Venecia y cerca de los antiguos foros romanos donde se excava lo que será una de las 30 paradas de la tercera línea subterránea de la ciudad. "Los hallazgos medievales y renacentistas que salieron a luz en la Plaza Venecia son extremadamente importantes por su singularidad", dijo la arqueóloga Mirella Serlorenzi. Agregó que entre los descubrimientos más significativos en una cocina del siglo IX había tres ollas usadas para cocinar salsa. Es apenas el tercer hallazgo de su tipo en toda Italia. Las excavaciones arqueológicas sólo se necesitan en los sitios donde se instalarán las escaleras y los sistemas de conducto de aire, ya que los 25 kilómetros (15 millas) de túneles y estaciones se excavarán a una profundidad de 25 a 30 metros (80-100 pies), por debajo del nivel de toda habitación humana del pasado, precisaron los expertos. Sin embargo, la mayoría de las excavaciones todavía no han llegado a la capa que data de los tiempos romanos, donde los arqueólogos podrían recibir muchas sorpresas. Eso podría suscitar problemas entre planificadores y conservacionistas. "Es imposible que no haya situaciones de conflicto. Sabemos que en algunos casos el conflicto provocará la remoción de ruinas antiguas", admitió a la AP Angelo Bottini, superindendente de arqueología de Roma. Según las estrictas leyes conservacionistas de Italia, dependerá de Bottini decidir si algo deberá ser removido, destruido o mantenido dentro de las estructuras de la red subterránea. Los 2,8 millones de habitantes de la ciudad sólo tienen dos líneas de trenes subterráneos. Los planes de la tercera línea en el centro histórico de Roma habían sido postergados durante décadas por escasez de fondos y el temor a tener que detener las obras en el caso de encontrar tesoros arqueológicos. El proyecto de 4.600 millones de dólares debe completarse en el 2015, pero partes de la línea se inaugurarán en el 2001 para transportar a 24.000 pasajeros por hora con trenes automáticos.

noticia de lostiempos.com M.Falconi

La única momia de Macedonia será presentada al público en un museo de Skopje

2008-03-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

Un cuerpo momificado de hace quizás más de 20 siglos, la única momia que se conoce en Macedonia, será sacada del olvido para ser presentada al público en un museo de Skopje y ser salvada del deterioro.
Se trata del cuerpo de un hombre hallado por los obreros que trabajaban en la construcción del lago artificial de Lipkovo, en el norte de Macedonia, a mediados de la década de 1960.
Ahora, varias instituciones de este pequeño estado del sureste de Europa rico en arqueología, trabajan en un proyecto de presentación al público de esa momia, casi olvidada, que se guarda en el Instituto de medicina forense en Skopje.
"Queremos investigar la momia, conservarla y trasladarla al Museo central de la capital. Según unas primeras evaluaciones, se trata de un cuerpo del siglo 6 ó 4 a.C. Pero todavía queda mucho por ser analizado", declaró a Efe el arqueólogo Pasko Kuzman, jefe de la Dirección para la protección de la riqueza cultural de Macedonia.
Ese cuerpo pasó por un proceso de momificación natural gracias a la composición química del suelo arenoso y a un clima seco.
La momia, un cuerpo desnudo, tiene aspecto espantoso con su cabeza de boca abierta, los ojos oscuros de color café asomados a los etmoides, y el cabello, marrón, totalmente preservado.
En la boca se ven los dientes, todos enteros, rodeados de algo como cinta rojiza, a la manera de caries en mala condición, consecuencias del deterioro de los tejidos, que da a la momia ese aspecto que induce miedo.
"El cuerpo perdió el 70 por ciento de su peso. Es muy frágil, pero íntegro. Se trata de un hombre que falleció a los 40 ó 50 años de edad", explica a Efe el director del Instituto Nacional de Medicina Forense, doctor Aleksej Duma.
No hay documentación escrita sobre esa momia, indica Duma, y agrega que, según informaciones no oficiales, junto a ese cuerpo había otros dos también momificados, el esqueleto de un caballo y una lanza.
Según Duma, es posible que todo eso, excepto una momia, fuera trasladado a Belgrado, entonces la capital de la antigua Yugoslavia federativa, de la que Macedonia formaba parte como una de las seis repúblicas hasta que se independizó en 1991.
"Pero en las instituciones belgradenses no hay pruebas ni documentos en relación con esos hallazgos. Simplemente, como si todo se hubiera evaporado", dice.
Ese experto forense explica que en el cuerpo de la momia se pueden detectar las probables causas de su muerte, según la posición no natural de los dos pies, torcidos para dentro.
"Eso indica que hubo una interrupción en el funcionamiento del cerebro. Quizás esa persona padecía de meningitis, o sufrió la ruptura de una vértebra cervical", señala.
Los estudiantes de medicina que por la mañana, hacia las 10.00 horas, acuden a unas clases que tienen en el edificio del Instituto, prefieren pasar al lado de la momia.
"Lo llamamos El Testigo. Es quien mejor controla si llegamos con regularidad a las clases", dice entre risas una estudiante, Vera, de 20 años, mientras junto con su colega Katarina entra en el anfiteatro.
Pero las condiciones poco adecuadas para la conservación son una amenaza para El Testigo.
Su cuerpo se ve afectado por la micosis y tendría que ser trasladado de forma urgente a un lugar oscuro y fresco, con una temperatura de un máximo de 10 grados.
"Ese es nuestro plan. En el museo se adaptará un espacio al estilo de las tumbas de la antigüedad, con un ambiente adecuado para la preservación de la momia. ¿Ha visto qué mórbida y espantosa es? Seguro que se convertirá en una atracción para todos los visitantes de Skopje", dice con optimismo Kuzman.
Hace dos años, los medios macedonios informaron de que en la misma zona del norte, la población local, de etnia albanesa, halló otros dos cuerpos momificados.
No obstante, desde entonces, las autoridades albanomacedonias locales impiden que los científicos investiguen sobre el terreno.
La postura hace recordar el año 2001, cuando esa parte de Macedonia fue afectada por un conflicto armado entre una rebelde guerrilla albanesa y las fuerzas de seguridad estatales.

EFE - publicada por publico.es

Serapeum

2008-03-09T01:17:00.000-08:00

The Cemetery of the Sacred Bulls
by
AUGUSTE MARIETTE

THE SERAPEUM is one of the edifices of Memphis rendered famous by a frequently quoted passage of Strabo, and by the constant mention made of it on the Greek papyri. It had long been sought for, and we had the good fortune to discover it in 1851.
Strabo, in his description of Memphis, expresses himself thus:
One finds also (at Memphis) a temple of Serapis in a spot so sandy that the wind causes the sand to accumulate in heaps, under which we could see many sphinxes, some of them almost entirely buried, others only partially covered; from which we may conjecture that the route leading to this temple might be attended with danger if one were surprised by a sudden gust of wind.
If Strabo had not written this passage, in all probability the Serapeum would to this day lie buried under the sands of the necropolis at Sakkarah. In 1850 I had been commissioned by the French Government to visit the Coptic convents of Egypt, and to make an inventory of such manuscripts in Oriental languages as I should find there. I noticed at Alexandria, in M. Zizinia's garden, several sphinxes. Presently I saw more of these same sphinxes at Cairo, in Clot-Bey's garden. M. Fernandez had also a certain number of such sphinxes at Geezeh. Evidently there must be somewhere an avenue of sphinxes which was being pillaged. One day,- attracted to Sakkarah by my Egyptological studies, I perceived the head of one of these same sphinxes obtruding itself from the sand. This one had never been touched, and was certainly in its original position. Close by lay a libation-table, on which was engraved in hieroglyphs an inscription to Osiris-Apis. The passage in Strabo suddenly occurred to my mind. The avenue which lay at my feet must be the one which led up to that Serapeum so long and so vainly sought for. But I had been sent to Egypt to make an inventory of manuscripts, not to seek for temples. My mind, however, was soon made up. Regardless of all risks, without saying a word, and almost furtively, I gathered together a few workmen, and the excavation began. The first attempts were hard indeed, but, before very long, lions and peacocks and the Grecian statues of the dromos, together with the monumental tablets or stelae of the temple of Nectanebo, were drawn out of the sand, and I was able to announce my success to the French Government, informing them, at the same time, that the funds placed at my disposal for the researches after the manuscripts were exhausted, and that a further grant was indispensable. Thus was begun the discovery of the Serapeum.
The work lasted four years. The Serapeum is a temple built without any regular plan, where all was conjecture, and where the ground had to be examined closely, inch by inch. In certain places the sand is, so to speak, fluid, and presents as much difficulty in excavating as if it were water which ever seeks its own level. Besides all this, difficulties arose between the French and the Egyptian Governments, which obliged me several times to discharge all my workmen. It was owing to these circumstances (to say nothing of other trials ) that the work proved so long, and that I was compelled to spend four years in the desert - four years, however, I can never regret.
Apis, the living image of Osiris revisiting the earth, was a bull who, while he lived, had his temple at Memphis (Mitrahenny), when dead, had his tomb at Sakkarah. The palace which the bull inhabited in his lifetime was called'` the Apieum; the Serapeum was the name given to his tomb.
As far as we can judge by the remains found during our researches' the Serapeum resembled in appearance the other Egyptian temples, even those which were not funereal in their character. An avenue of sphinxes led up to it, and two pylons stood before it, and it was surrounded by the usual enclosure. But what distinguished it from all other temples was that out of one of its chambers opened an inclined passage leading directly into the rock on which the temple was built, and giving access to vast subterranean vaults which were the Tomb of Apis.
The Serapeum, properly so called, no longer exists, and where it stood there is now nothing to be "a but a vast plain of sand mingled with fragments of stones Scatted about in indescribable confusion. But the most beautiful and interesting part of the subterranean vault can still be visited.
The Tomb of Apis consists of three distinct parts which have no direct communication with one another.
The first and most ancient part caries us back as far as the XVIIIth dynasty and Amenophis II. It served as the burial place of the sacred bulls up to the end of the XXth dynasty. Here the tombs are separate. Every dead Apis had his own sepulchral chamber hewn here and there, as it were at random, out of the rock. These chambers are now hidden under the sand, and were never possessed of any very great interest.
The second part comprises the tombs of Apis from the time of Sheshonk I (XXIInd dynasty) to that of Tahraka (the last king of the XXVth dynasty). In this part a new system was adopted. Instead of isolated tombs, a long subterranean gallery was made, on each side of which mortuary chambers were excavated, to be used whenever an Apis expired at Memphis. This gallery is also inaccessible now, the roof having in some places fallen in, and the remainder not being sufficiently secure to allow of its being visited by travellers.
In approaching the entrance to the tomb of Apis by the ordinary path, one sees to the right, i.e., toward the North, a somewhat larger circular hole. Here are to be found the vaults which preceded those we are about to visit. This hole was caused by the falling in of a portion of the stonework. In blowing up the debris with gunpowder, we discovered, not an Apis, but a human mummy. A gold mask covered its face, and jewels of every description were arranged on its breast. All the inscriptions were in the name of Rameses's favourite son, who was for a long tune governor of Memphis. It may therefore be reasonably supposed that it was here this prince was buried.
The third part is that which is now so well known. Its history begins with Psammetichus I (XXVIth dynasty), and ends with the later Ptolemies. The same system of a common vault has been followed here as in the second part, only on a much grander scale. These galleries cover an extent of about 350 metres, or 1,150 English feet; and from one end to the other the great gallery measures 195 metres, or about 640 English feet. Moreover, granite sarcophagi have been used here. Their number throughout the whole extent of the galleries is 24. Of these only three bear any inscription, and they contain the names of Amasis (XXVIth dynasty), Cambyses and Khebasch (XXVIIth dynasty). A fourth, with cartouches without any name, most probably belongs to one of the last Ptolemies. As to their dimensions, they measure on an average 7 feet 8 inches in breadth, by 13 feet in length, and 1l feet in height; so that, allowing for the vacuum, these monoliths must weigh, one with the other, not less than 65 tons each
Such are the three parts of the Tomb of Apis.
It is well known that the exploration of this tomb has furnished science with unhoped-for results. For what the traveller now sees of it is merely its skeleton. But the fact is that, although it had been rifled by the early Christians, the tomb, when first discovered, still possessed nearly all that it had ever contained that was not gold or other precious matter. There existed a custom which had especially contributed to enrich the tomb with valuable documents. On certain days in the year, or on the occasion of the death and funeral rites of an Apis, the inhabitants of Memphis came to pay a visit to the god in his burial-place. In memory of this act of piety they left a stela, i.e. a square-shaped stone, rounded at the top, which was let into one of the walls of the tomb, having been previously inscribed with an homage to the god in the name of his visitor and his family. Now these documents, to the number of about five hundred, were found, for the most part, in their original position . . . and as many of them were dated according to the fashion of the time, that is with the year, month and day of the reigning king, a comparison of these inscribed tablets must necessarily prove of the greatest importance, especially in fixing chronology.
From Mariette's The Monuments of Upper Egypt (1877).

Flax, linun.....garments (Ancient Egypt)

2008-03-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

All clothes were almost always made of linen which is made from flax.
Flax: a plant having small leaves, blue flowers and stems about two feet tall.
Flax was pulled out of the ground, not cut.
This backbreaking work was done mostly by men.
Half-ripe flax stems made the best thread.
If the stems were too ripe, they were used for mats and rope.
Flax stems were soaked for several days.
The fibers were separated.
Then the fibers were beaten until soft.
The spinner attached the fibers to the spindle.
The fibers were twisted into strong thread.
The weaving was done on a loom.
A loom is a frame made of two beams held by four pegs in the ground.
White linen needed constant washing. It was washed in the river or canal, rinsed, then pounded on a stone, and, bleached in the sun.
Linen clothes needed to be repleated every time they were washed.
To do so they pressed the linen into grooves on a wooden board and let it dry.

LA CASA DE VIDA (en el A.Egipto)

2008-03-08T06:12:00.000-08:00

La mayor parte de los templos tenía escuelas en su recinto, no sólo escuelas donde los niños egipcios aprendían a leer y escribir, sino escuelas de aprendizaje donde se formaban los dibujantes, los grabadores, los escultores, que emplearían su talento en glorificar al Faraón y a sus dioses. También tenían una biblioteca, donde se conservaban los archivos del templo y los textos de toda clase redactados por un ejército de escribas, y también las obras de moral y de literatura que podían necesitar los escolares, y obras técnicas. El rey Neferhotep desea consultar los libros de Tum. Los cortesanos le dicen: "Entre Tu Majestad en las bibliotecas y que Tu Majestad pueda ver todas las palabras sagradas." El rey halla en efecto el libro de la casa de Osiris Khentiamentiu, señor de Abidos.45 Ciertos templos poseían además establecimientos más ambiciosos que se llamaban la casa de vida.46El rey Ramsés IV era —nos dice— un asiduo de la casa de vida de Abidos. Compulsando los Anales de Thot que en ella se hallaban pudo aprender que "Osiris es el más misterioso de los dioses. Es la luna. Es el Nilo. Es el que reina en el otro mundo. Todas las noches, el dios del sol desciende hacia él y forma el alma unida que gobierna al mundo y Thot anota sus órdenes." Compulsando esos anales, que conocía como si los hubiese hecho él mismo, se dio cuenta de la variedad de las materias que se trataban y de los informes que se podían recoger. Como deseaba para él un sarcófago de piedra de bejen del valle de Rohanu, en los anales encontró los relatos de las expediciones anteriores que habían traído, para la plaza
de la Verdad y para el templo, tantos sarcófagos y tantas estatuas. Cuando designó a los príncipes, militares y altos funcionarios que componían el estado mayor de su expedición, se cuidó muy bien de olvidar un escriba de la casa de vida como agregado. El Ramsés que recibió al embajador del príncipe de Bakhtan creyó que debía, antes de dar su respuesta, consultar a los escribas de la casa de vida. En tiempos de Ptolomeo Filadelfo descubrieron un nuevo carnero sagrado. Los mendesianos enviaron al rey una petición pidiendo que lo sometieran al examen de los escribas de la casa de vida. El decreto de Canopo nos entera de que esos escribas se ocupaban de astronomía. También se ocupaban de política. Así, dos escribas de la casa de vida entraron en la conspiración contra Ramsés III. De esos testimonios y de algunos otros, puede llegarse a la conclusión de que la casa de vida era una reunión de sabios, de teólogos y de eruditos. En ella se conservaban las tradiciones religiosas. Se redactaban las anales de los reyes y de los templos. Se registraban los descubrimientos científicos y los progresos técnicos. Se inventó la criptografía. Verosímilmente, en esas casas nacían esos progresos y esos descubrimientos.
El templo se nos presenta ahora como el centro de la vida egipcia. Ante todo es la casa del dios, es donde se le rinde el culto que merecen sus bendiciones. Es también un centro económico e intelectual. El clero ha creado en él talleres y depósitos, escuelas, una biblioteca. En el templo, y sólo en el templo, es donde podía tenerse la suerte que tuvo Platón de encontrar sabios y filósofos. En el templo, por último, es donde nacieron y se desarrollaron las representaciones cuyos temas los proveían las leyendas y que entre los egipcios sirvieron de drama y de comedia.

Pierre Montet
La vida cotidiana en Egipto en tiempos de los Ramsés

Mito

2008-03-08T06:06:00.000-08:00

El mito surge cuando los hombres, observando su entorno, se enfrentan con cuestiones a las que no saben responder. Al no encontrar una razón por la cual los suceden una serie de hechos tales como , los fenómenos atmosféricos, el sol que produce luz, la muerte..etc, entonces el hombre inventa mitos, convierte en dioses a los astros… intentando justificar lo que no comprende…así se crea una prefilosofia.Mircea Eliade destaca una serie de características esenciales del mito: 1) los mitos narran la historia de los actos de seres sobrenaturales. 2) Esta historia es sagrada (opuesta a lo profano) y se considera absolutamente verdadera; 3) su verdad se refiere siempre a una “creación”; 4) el mito se constituye en un paradigma o justificación de toda acción humana; 5) el mito se vive, es decir que al tomar contacto con el mito las personas son raptadas y dominadas por las mismas potencias sagradas que relata. Según Aristóteles, el filósofo puede en un cierto sentido ser amigo del mito, ya que entre mito y filosofía hay una cierta comunidad de temas y de problemas

REALIZE

2008-03-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

REALIZE

To realize the value of ten years: Ask a newly divorced couple.

To realize the value of four years: Ask a graduate.

To realize the value of one year: Ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize the value of nine months: Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize the value of one month: Ask a mother who has given birth to a prematurebaby.

To realize the value of one week: Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of one hour: Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of one minute: Ask a person who has missed the train, bus orplane.

To realize the value of one second: Ask a person who has survived an accident.

To realize the value of one millisecond: Ask a person who has won a silver medal in theOlympics.

Time waits for no one.Treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more when you can share it With someone special.

To realize the value of a friend: Lose one!

Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

2008-03-07T16:14:00.000-08:00

Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards (1831-1892),El relato del viaje por el Nilo, titulado “Mil millas río arriba” es un libro ameno que mezcla anécdotas con datos muy interesantes sobre Egipto. Describe de forma singular todo lo que observa en su viaje hay que reconocer las dificultades que un viaje así tenía para los egiptólogos de la época y especialmente para una mujer.Realmente fue casual el viaje de Amelia a Egipto, ya que cuando estaba con su amiga Lucy Renshawe en el sur de Francia buscando paisajes para pintar, decidieron debido a la lluvia cambiar de paisajes y decidieron ir a Egipto.Amelia tenía 42 años cuando realiza su viaje y solamente hizo un viaje a Egipto en toda su vida, pero lo que vio le marcó para siempre, ya que despertó en ella una pasión por la egiptología que influyó el resto de su vida.Precisamente en el libro que he citado antes se observa como hay un cambio paulatino desde el comienzo, cuando comienza a describir bazares y sitios musulmanes de El Cairo, hasta que visita las Pirámides.En su viaje observa el deterioro de monumentos egipcios y una vez de vuelta en Londres, funda la Egypt Exploration Fund, cuyo objetivo era intentar salvar monumentos y financiar excavaciones.

THEBES TO ASSUAN V

2008-03-07T15:36:00.001-08:00

And now, with that irrepressible instinct of rivalry that flesh – especially flesh on the Nile – is heir to, we quickly turn our good going into a trial of speed. It is no longer a mere business-like devotion to the matter in hand. It is a contest for glory. It is the Philæ against the Fostât, and the Bagstones against both. In plain English, it is a race. The two leading dahabeeyahs are pretty equally matched. The Philæ is larger than the Fostât ; but the Fostât has a bigger mainsail. On the other hand, the Fostât is an iron boat ; whereas the Philæ, being wooden-built, is easier to pole off a sandbank, and lighter in hand. The Bagstones carries a capital mainsail, and can go as fast as either upon occasion. Meanwhile, the race is one of perpetually varying fortunes. Now the Fostât shoots ahead ; now the Philæ. We pass and re-pass ; take the wind out of one another's sails ; economise every curve ; hoist every stitch of canvas ; and, having identified ourselves with our boats, are as eager to win as if a great prize depended on it. Under these circumstances, to dine is difficult – to go to bed superfluous – to sleep impossible. As to mooring for the night, it is not to be thought of for a moment. Having begun the contest, we can no more help going than the wind can help blowing ; and our crew are as keen about winning as ourselves.
As night advances, the wind continues to rise, and our excitement with it. Still the boats chase each other along the dark river, scattering spray from their bows and flinging out broad foam-tracks behind them. Their cabin-windows, all alight within, cast flickering flames upon the waves below. The coloured lanterns at their mast-heads, orange, purple, and crimson, burn through the dusk like jewels. Presently the mist blows off ; the sky clears ; the stars come out ; the wind howls ; the casements rattle ; the tiller scroops ; the sailors shout, and race, and bang the ropes about overhead ; while we, sitting up in our narrow berths, spend half the night watching from our respective windows.
In this way some hours go by. Then, about three in the morning, with a shock, a recoil, a yell, and a scuffle, we all three rush headlong upon a sandbank! The men fly to the rigging, and furl the flapping sail. Some seize punting poles. Others, looking like full-grown imps of darkness, leap overboard and set their shoulders to the work. A strophe and antistrophe of grunts are kept up between those on deck and those in the water. Finally, after some ten minutes' frantic struggle, the Philæ slips off, leaving the other two aground in the middle of the river.
Towards morning, the noisy night having worn itself away, we all fall asleep – only to be roused again by Talmany's voice at seven, proclaiming aloud that the Bagstones and Fostât are once more close upon our heels ; that Silsilis and Kom Ombo are passed and left behind ; that we have already put forty-six miles between ourselves and Edfû ; and that the good wind is still blowing.
We are now within fifteen miles of Assûan. The Nile is narrow here, and the character of the scenery has quite changed. Our view is bounded on the Arabian side by a near range of black granitic mountains ; while on the Libyan side lies a chain of lofty sand-hills, each curiously capped by a crown of dark boulders. On both banks the river is thickly fringed with palms.
Meanwhile the race goes on. Last night it was sport ; to-day it is earnest. Last night we raced for glory ; to-day we race for a stake.
"A guinée for Reïs Hassan, if we get first to Assûan!"
Reïs Hassan's eyes glisten. No need to call up the dragoman to interpret between us. The look, the tone, are as intelligible to him as the choicest Arabic ; and the magical word 'guinée' stands for a sovereign now, as it stood for one pound one in the days of Nelson and Abercrombie. He touches his head and breast ; casts a backward glance at the pursuing dahabeeyahs, a forward glance in the direction of Assûan ; kicks off his shoes ; ties a handkerchief about his waist ; and stations himself at the top of the steps leading to the upper deck. By the light in his eye and the set look about his mouth, Reïs Hassan means winning.
Now to be first in Assûan means to be first on the governor's list, and first up the Cataract. And as the passage of the Cataract is some two or three days' work, this little question of priority is by no means unimportant. Not for five times the promised 'guinée' would we have the Fostât slip in first, and so be kept waiting our turn on the wrong side of the frontier.
And now, as the sun rises higher, so the race waxes hotter. At breakfast time, we were fifteen miles from Assûan. Now the fifteen miles have gone down to ten ; and when we reach yonder headland, they will have dwindled to seven. It is plain to see, however, that as the distance decreases between ourselves and Assûan, so also it decreases between ourselves and the Fostât. Reïs Hassan knows it. I see him measuring the space by his eye. I see the frown settling on his brow. He is calculating how much the Fostât gains in every quarter of an hour, and how many quarters we are yet distant from the goal. For no Arab sailor counts by miles. He counts by time, and by the reaches in the river ; and these may be taken at a rough average of three miles each. When, therefore, our captain, in reply to an oft-repeated question, says we have yet two bends to make, we know that we are about six miles from our destination.
Six miles – and the Fostât creeping closer every minute! Just now we were all talking eagerly ; but as the end draws near, even the sailors are silent. Reïs Hassan stands motionless at his post, on the lookout for shallows. The words "Shamàl – Yemîn" (left – right), delivered in a short, sharp tone, are the only sounds he utters. The steersman, all eye and ear, obeys him like his hand. The sailors squat in their places, quiet and alert as cats.
And now it is no longer six miles but five – no longer five, but four. The Fostât, thanks to her bigger sail, has well-nigh overtaken us ; and the Bagstones is not more than a hundred yards behind the Fostât. On we go, however, past palm-woods of nobler growth than any we have yet seen ; past forlorn homeward-bound dahabeeyahs lying-to against the wind ; past native boats, and river-side huts, and clouds of driving sand ; till the corner is turned, and the last reach gained, and the minarets of Assûan are seen as through a shifting fog in the distance. The ruined tower crowning yonder promontory stands over against the town ; and those black specks midway in the bed of the river are the first outlying rocks of the Cataract. The channel there is hemmed in between reefs and sandbanks, and to steer it is difficult in even the calmest weather. Still our canvas strains to the wind, and the Philæ rushes on full-tilt, like a racer at the hurdles.
Every eye now is turned upon Reïs Hassan ; and Reïs Hassan stands rigid, like a man of stone. The rocks are close ahead – so close that we can see the breakers pouring over them, and the swirling eddies between. Our way lies through an opening between the boulders. Beyond that opening, the channel turns off sharply to the left. It is a point at which everything will depend on the shifting of the sail. If done too soon, we miss the mark ; if too late, we strike upon the rocks.
Suddenly our Captain flings up his hand, takes the stairs at a bound, and flies to the prow. The sailors spring to their feet, gathering some round the shoghool, and some round the end of the yard. The Fostât is up beside us. The moment for winning or losing is come.
And now, for a couple of breathless seconds, the two dahabeeyahs plunge onward side by side, making for that narrow passage which is only wide enough for one. Then the iron boat, shaving the sandbank to get a wider berth, shifts her sail first, and shifts it clumsily, breaking or letting go her shoghool. We see the sail flap, and the rope fly, and all hands rushing to retrieve it.
In that moment Reïs Hassan gives the word. The Philæ bounds forward – takes the channel from under the very bows of the Fostât – changes her sail without a hitch – and dips right away down the deep water, leaving her rival hard and fast among the shallows.
The rest of the way is short and open. In less than five minutes we have taken in our sail, paid Reïs Hassan his well-earned guinée, and found a snug corner to moor in. And so ends our memorable race of nearly sixty-eight miles from Edfû to Assûan.

Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards Capter XI . A Thousand Miles up Nile

THEBES TO ASSUAN III

2008-03-07T15:35:00.001-08:00

"By my Prophet!" said he, "am I a pig or a dog, that I should eat when the Sitt was fasting?"
It was at Esneh, by the way, that that hitherto undiscovered curiousity, an ancient Egyptian coin, was offered to me for sale. The finder was digging for nitre, and turned it up at an immense depth below the mounds on the outskirts of the town. He volunteered to show the precise spot, and told his artless tale with childlike simplicity. Unfortunately, however, for the authenticity of this remarkable relic, it bore, together with the familiar profile of George IV, a superscription of its modest value, which was precisely one farthing. On another occasion, when we were making our long stay at Luxor, a coloured glass button of honest Birmingham make was brought to the boat by a fellâh who swore that he had himself found it upon a mummy in the Tombs of the Queens at Kûrnet Murraee. The same man came to my tent one day when I was sketching, bringing with him a string of more than doubtful scarabs – all veritable "anteekahs," of course, and all backed up with undeniable pedigrees.
"La, la (no, no), – bring me no more anteekahs," I said, gravely. "They are old and worn out, and cost much money. Have you no imitation scarabs, new and serviceable, that one might wear without the fear of breaking them?"
"These are imitations, O Sitt!" was the ready answer.
"But you told me a moment ago they were genuine anteekahs."
"That was because I thought the Sitt wanted to buy anteekahs," he said, quite shamelessly.
"See now," I said, "if you are capable of selling me new things for old, how can I be sure that you would not sell me old things for new?"
To this he replied by declaring that he had made the scarabs himself. Then, fearing I should not believe him, he pulled a scrap of coarse paper from his bosom, borrowed one of my pencils, and drew an asp, an ibis, and some other common hieroglyphic forms, with tolerable dexterity.
"Now you believe?" he asked, triumphantly.
"I see that you can make birds and snakes," I replied ; "but that neither proves that you can cut scarabs, nor that these scarabs are new."
"Nay, Sitt," he protested, "I made them with these hands. I made them but the other day. By Allah! they cannot be newer."
Here Talhamy interposed.
"In that case," he said, "they are too new, and will crack before a month is over. The Sitt would do better to buy some that are well seasoned."
Our honest Fellâh touched his brow and breast.
"Now in strict truth, O Dragoman!" he said, with an air of the most engaging candour, "these scarabs were made at the time of the inundation. They are new ; but not too new. They are thoroughly seasoned. If they crack, you shall denounce me to the governor, and I will eat stick for them!"
Now it has always seemed to me that the most curious feature in this little scene was the extraordinary simplicity of the Arab. With all his cunning, with all his disposition to cheat, he suffered himself to be turned inside-out as unsuspiciously as a baby. It never occurred to him that his untruthfulness was being put to the test, or that he was committing himself more and more deeply with every word he uttered. The fact is, however, that the Fellâh is half a savage. Notwithstanding his mendacity – (and it must be owned that he is the most brilliant liar under heaven) – he remains a singularly transparent piece of humanity, easily amused, easily deceived, easily angered, easily pacified. He steals a little, cheats a little, lies a great deal ; but on the other hand he is patient, hospitable, affectionate, trustful. He suspects no malice, and bears none. He commits no great crimes. He is incapable of revenge. In short, his good points outnumber his bad ones ; and what man or nation need hope for a much better character?
To generalise in this way may seem like presumption on the part of a passing stranger ; yet it is more excusable as regards Egypt than it would be of any other equally accessible country. In Europe, and indeed in most parts of the East, one sees too little of the people to be able to form an opinion about them ; but it is not so on the Nile. Cut off from hotels, from railways, from Europeanised cities, you are brought into continual intercourse with natives. The sick who come to you for medicines, the country gentlemen and government officials who visit you on board your boat and entertain you on shore, your guides, your donkey-boys, the very dealers who live by cheating you, furnish endless studies of character, and teach you more of Egyptian life than all the books of Nile-travel that ever were written.
Then your crew, part Arab, part Nubian, are a little world in themselves. One man was born a slave, and will carry the dealer's brand-marks to his grave. Another has two children in Miss Whateley's school at Cairo. A third is just married, and has left his young wife sick at home. She may be dead by the time he gets back, and he will hear no news of her meanwhile. So with them all. Each has his simple story – a story in which the local oppressor, the dreaded conscription, and the still more dreaded corvée, form the leading incidents. The poor fellows are ready enough to pour out their hopes, their wrongs, their sorrows. Through sympathy with these, one comes to know the men ; and through the men, the nation. For the life of the Beled repeats itself with but little variation wherever the Nile flows and the Khedive rules. The characters are the same ; the incidents are the same. It is only the mise en scène which varies.
And thus it comes to pass that the mere traveller who spends but half-a-year on the Nile may, if he takes an interest in Egypt and the Egyptians, learn more of both in that short time than would be possible in a country less singularly narrowed in all ways – politically, socially, geographically.
And this reminds me that the traveller on the Nile really sees the whole land of Egypt. Going from point to point in other countries, one follows a thin line of road, railway, or river, leaving wide tracts unexplored on either side ; but there are few places in Middle or Upper Egypt, and none at all in Nubia, where one may not, from any moderate height, survey the entire face of the country from desert to desert. It is well to do this frequently. It helps one, as nothing else can help one, to an understanding of the wonderful mountain waste through which the Nile has been scooping its way for uncounted cycles. And it enables one to realise what a mere slip of alluvial deposit is this famous land which is "the gift of the river."
A dull grey morning, a faint and fitful breeze, carried us slowly on our way from Esneh to Edfû. The new bread – a heavy boat-load when brought on board – lay in a huge heap at the end of the upper deck. It took four men one whole day to cut it up. Their incessant gabble drove us nearly distracted.
"Uskût, Khaleefeh! Uskût, Ali!" (Silence, Khaleefeh! Silence, Ali!) Talhamy would say from time to time. "You are not on your own deck. The Howadji can neither read nor write for the clatter of your tongues."
And then, for about a minute and a half, they would be quiet.
But you could as easily keep a monkey from chattering as an Arab. Our men talked incessantly ; and their talk was always about money. Listen to them when we might, such words as "Khámsa gurûsh" (five piastres), "nûs riyâl" (half-a-dollar), "ethneen shilling" (two shillings), were perpetually coming to the surface. We never could understand how it was that money, which played so small a part in their lives, should play so large a part in their conversation.
It was about midday when we passed El Kab, the ancient Eileithyias. A rocky valley narrowing inland ; a Sheykh's tomb on the mountain-ridge above ; a few clumps of date-palms ; some remains of what looked like a long crude-brick wall running at right angles to the river ; and an isolated mass of hollowed limestone rock left standing apparently in the midst of an exhausted quarry, were all we saw of El Kab as the dahabeeyah glided by.
And now, as the languid afternoon wears on, the propylons of Edfû loom out of the misty distance. We have been looking for them long enough before they come in sight – calculating every mile of the way ; every minute of the daylight. The breeze, such as it was, has dropped now. The river stretches away before us, smooth and oily as a pond. Nine of the men are tracking. Will they pull us to Edfû in time to see the Temple before nightfall?
Reïs Hassan looks doubtful ; but takes refuge as usual in "Inshallah!" (God willing). Talhamy talks of landing a sailor to run forward and order donkeys. Meanwhile the Philæ creeps lazily on ; the sun declines unseen behind a filmy veil ; and those two shadowy towers, rising higher and ever higher on the horizon, look grey, and ghostly, and far distant still.
Suddenly the trackers stop, look back, shout to those on board, and begin drawing the boat to shore. Reïs Hassan points joyously to a white streak breaking across the smooth surface of the river about half-a-mile behind. The Fostât's sailors are already swarming aloft – the Bagstones' trackers are making for home – our own men are preparing to fling in the rope and jump on board as the Philæ nears the bank.
For the capricious wind, that always springs up when we don't want it, is coming!
And now the Fostât, being hindmost, flings out her big sail and catches the first puff ; the Bagstones' turn comes next ; the Philæ shakes her wings free, and shoots ahead ; and in fewer minutes than it takes to tell, we are all three scudding along before a glorious breeze.
The great towers that showed so far away half-an-hour ago are now close at hand. There are palm-woods about their feet, and clustered huts, from the midst of which they tower up against the murky sky magnificently. Soon they are passed and left behind, and the grey twilight takes them, and we see no more. Then night comes on, cold and starless ; yet not too dark for going as fast as wind and canvas will carry us.

THEBES TO ASSÛAN II

2008-03-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

TEMPLE OF ESNEH. (in the picture )

Two singular little erections, built in between the columns to right and left of the steps, next attract our attention. They are like stone sentry-boxes. Each is in itself complete, with roof, sculptured cornice, doorway, and, if I remember rightly, a small square window in the side. The inscriptions upon two similar structures in the portico at Edfû show that the right-hand closet contained the sacred books belonging to the Temple, while in the closet to the left of the main entrance the King underwent the ceremony of purification. It may therefore be taken for granted that these at Esneh were erected for the same purposes.
And now we look round for the next Hall – and look in vain. The doorway which should lead to it is walled up. The portico was excavated by Mohammed Ali in 1842 ; not in any spirit of antiquarian zeal, but in order to provide a safe underground magazine for gunpowder. Up to that time, as may be seen by one of the illustrations to Wilkinson's Thebes and General View of Egypt, the interior was choked to within a few feet of the capitals of the columns, and used as a cotton-store. Of the rest of the building, nothing is known ; nothing is visible. It is as large, probably, as Denderah or Edfû, and in as perfect preservation. So, at least, says local tradition ; but not even local tradition can point to what extent it underlies the foundations of the modern houses that swarm about its roof. An inscription first observed by Champollion states that the sanctuary was built by Thothmes III. Is that antique sanctuary still there? Has the Temple grown step by step under the hands of successive Kings, as at Luxor? Or has it been re-edified ab ovo, as at Denderah? These are "puzzling questions," only to be resolved by the demolition of a quarter of the town. Meanwhile, what treasures of sculptured history, what pictured chambers, what buried bronzes and statues may here wait the pick of the excavator!
All next day, while the men were baking, the Writer sat in a corner of the outer passage, and sketched the portico of the Temple. The sun rose upon the one horizon and set upon the other before that drawing was finished ; yet for scarcely more than one hour did it light up the front of the Temple. At about half-past nine A.M. it first caught the stone fillet at the angle. Then, one by one, each massy capital became outlined with a thin streak of gold. As this streak widened, the cornice took fire, and presently the whole stood out in light against the sky. Slowly then, but quite perceptibly, the sun travelled across the narrow space overhead ; the shadows became vertical ; the light changed sides ; and by ten o'clock there was shade for the remainder of the day. Towards noon, however, the sun being then at its highest and the air transfused with light, the inner columns, swallowed up till now in darkness, became illumined with a wonderful reflected light, and glowed from out the gloom like pillars of fire.
Never go on shore without an escort is one of the rules of Nile life, and Salame has by this time become my exclusive property. He is a native of Assûan, young, active, intelligent, full of fun, hot-tempered withal, and as thorough a gentleman as I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. For a sample of his good breeding, take this day at Esneh – a day which he might have idled away in the bazaars and cafés, and which it must have been dull work to spend cooped up between a mud-wall and an outlandish Birbeh, built by the Djinns who reigned before Adam. Yet Salame betrays no discontent. Curled up in a shady corner, he watches me like a dog ; is ready with an umbrella as soon as the sun comes round ; and replenishes a water-bottle or holds a colour-box as deftly as though he had been to the manner born. At one o'clock arrives my luncheon, enshrined in a pagoda of plates. Being too busy to leave off work, however, I put the pagoda aside, and despatch Salame to the market, to buy himself some dinner ; for which purpose, wishing to do the thing handsomely, I present him with the magnificent sum of two silver piastres, or about fivepence English. With this he contrives to purchase three or four cakes of flabby native bread, a black-looking rissole of chopped meat and vegetables, and about a pint of dried dates.
Knowing this to be a better dinner than my friend gets every day, knowing also that our sailors habitually eat at noon, I am surprised to see him leave these dainties untasted. In vain I say "Bismillah" (in the name of God) ; pressing him to eat in vocabulary phrases eked out with expressive pantomime. He laughs, shakes his head, and, asking permission to smoke a cigarette, protests he is not hungry. Thus three more hours go by. Accustomed to long fasting and absorbed in my sketch, I forget all about the pagoda ; and it is past four o'clock when I at length set to work to repair tissue at the briefest possible cost of time and daylight. And now the faithful Salame falls to with an energy that causes the cakes, the rissole, the dates, to vanish as if by magic. Of what remains from my luncheon he also disposes in a trice. Never, unless in a pantomime, have I seen mortal man display so prodigious an appetite.
I made Talhamy scold him, by and by, for this piece of voluntary starvation.

THEBES TO ASSÛAN

2008-03-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

HURRYING close upon the serenest of Egyptian sunsets came a night of storms. The wind got up about ten. By midnight the river was racing in great waves, and our dahabeeyah rolling at her moorings like a ship at sea. The sand, driving in furious gusts from the Libyan desert, dashed like hail against our cabin windows. Every moment we were either bumping against the bank, or being rammed by our own felucca. At length, a little before dawn, a huge slice of the bank gave way, thundering like an avalanche upon our decks ; whereupon Reïs Hassan, being alarmed for the safety of the boat, hauled us up to a little sheltered nook a few hundred yards higher. Taking it altogether, we had not had such a lively night since leaving Benisouef.
The look-out next morning was dismal – the river running high in yeasty waves ; the boats all huddled together under the shore ; the western bank hidden in clouds of sand. To get under way was impossible, for the wind was dead against us ; and to go anywhere by land was equally out of the question. Karnak in a sand-storm would have been grand to see ; but one would have needed a diving helmet to preserve eyes and ears from destruction.
Towards afternoon, the fury of the wind so far subsided that we were able to cross the river and ride to Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum. As we achieved only a passing glimpse of these wonderful ruins, I will for the present say nothing about them. We came to know them so well hereafter that no mere first impression would be worth record.
A light but fitful breeze helped us on next day as far as Erment, the Ptolemaic Hermonthis, once the site of a goodly temple, now of an important sugar-factory. Here we moored for the night, and after dinner received a visit of ceremony from the Bey – a tall, slender, sharp-featured, bright-eyed man in European dress, remarkably dignified and well-bred – who came attended by his secretary, Kawass, and pipe-bearer. Now the Bey of Erment is a great personage in these parts. He is governor of the town as well as superintendent of the sugar-factory ; holds a military command ; has his palace and gardens close by, and his private steamer on the river ; and is, like most high officials in Egypt, a Turk of distinction. The secretary, who was the Bey's younger brother, wore a brown Inverness cape over a long white petticoat, and left his slippers at the saloon door. He sat all the time with his toes curiously doubled under, so that his feet looked like clenched fists in stockings. Both gentlemen wore tarbooshes, and carried visiting canes. The visiting cane, by the way, plays a conspicuous part in modern Egyptian life. It measures about two and a half feet in length, is tipped at both ends with gold or silver, and is supposed to add the last touch of elegance to the bearer.
We entertained our guests with coffee and lemonade, and, as well as we could, with conversation. The Bey, who spoke only Turkish and Arabic, gave a flourishing account of the sugar-works, and despatched his pipe-bearer for a bundle of fresh canes and some specimens of raw and candied sugars. He said he had an English foreman and several English workmen, and that for the English as a nation he had the highest admiration and regard ; but that the Arabs "had no heads." To our inquiries about the ruins, his replies were sufficiently discouraging. Of the large Temple every vestige had long since disappeared ; while of the smaller one only a few columns and part of the walls were yet standing. They lay out beyond the town and a long way from the river. There was very little to see. It was all "sagheer" (small) ; "mooshtaïb" (bad) ; not worth the trouble of the walk. As for "anteekahs," they were rarely found here, and when found were of slight value.
A scarab which he wore in a ring was then passed round and admired. It fell to our Little Lady's turn to examine it last, and restore it to the owner. But the owner, with a bow and a deprecating gesture, would have none of it. The ring was a toy – a nothing – the lady's – his no longer. She was obliged to accept it, however unwillingly. To decline would have been to offend. But it was the way in which the thing was done that made the charm of this little incident. The grace, the readiness, the courtesy, the lofty indifference of it, were alike admirable. Macready in his best days could have done it with as princely an air ; but even he would probably have missed something of the Oriental reticence of the Bey of Erment.
He then invited us to go over the sugar-factory (which we declined on account of the lateness of the hour), and presently took his leave. About ten minutes after, came a whole posse of presents – three large bouquets of roses for the Sittàt (ladies), two scarabei, a small funereal statuette in the rare green porcelain, and a live turkey. We in return sent a complicated English knife with all sorts of blades, and some pots of English jam.
The wind rose next morning with the sun, and by breakfast-time we had left Erment far behind. All that day the good breeze served us well. The river was alive with cargo-boats. The Philæ put on her best speed. The little Bagstones kept up gallantly. And the Fostat, a large iron dahabeeyah full of English gentlemen, kept us close company all the afternoon. We were all alike bound for Esneh, which is a large trading town, and lies twenty-six miles south of Erment.
Now, at Esneh the men were to bake again. Great, therefore was Reïs Hassan's anxiety to get in first, secure the oven, and buy the flour before dusk. The Reïs of the Fostat and he of the Bagstones were equally anxious, and for the same reasons. Our men, meanwhile, were wild with excitement, watching every manœuvre of the other boats ; hanging on to the shoghool like a swarm of bees ; and obeying the word of command with unwonted alacrity. As we neared the goal, the race grew hotter. The honour of the boats was at stake, and the bread question was for the moment forgotten. Finally all three dahabeeyahs ran in abreast, and moored side by side in front of a row of little open cafés just outside the town.
Esneh (of which the old Egyptian civil name was Sni, and the Roman name Latopolis) stands high upon the mounds of the ancient city. It is a large place – as large, apparently, as Minieh, and like Minieh, it is the capital of a province. Here dragomans lay in provision of limes, charcoal, flour, and live stock, for the Nubian journey ; and crews bake for the last time before their return to Egypt. For in Nubia food is scarce, and prices are high, and there are no public ovens.
It was about five o'clock on a market-day when we reached Esneh, and the market was not yet over. Going up through the usual labyrinth of windowless mud-alleys where the old men crouched, smoking, under every bit of sunny wall, and the children swarmed like flies, and the cry for bakhshîsh buzzed incessantly about our ears, we came to an open space in the upper part of the town, and found ourselves all at once in the midst of the market. Here were peasant folk selling farm-produce ; stall-keepers displaying combs, looking-glasses, gaudy printed handkerchiefs and cheap bracelets of bone and coloured glass ; camels lying at ease and snarling at every passer-by ; patient donkeys ; ownerless dogs ; veiled women ; blue and black robed men ; and all the common sights and sounds of a native market. Here, too, we found Reïs Hassan bargaining for flour ; Talhamy haggling with a charcoal-dealer ; and the M. B.'s buying turkeys and geese for themselves and a huge store of tobacco for their crew. Most welcome sight of all, however, was a dingy chemist's shop about the size of a sentry-box, over the door of which was suspended an Arabic inscription ; while inside, robed all in black, sat a lean and grizzled Arab, from whom we bought a big bottle of rose water to make eye-lotion for L.'s ophthalmic patients.
Meanwhile there was a Temple to be seen at Esneh ; and this Temple, as we had been told, was to be found close against the market-place. We looked round in vain, however, for any sign of pylon or portico. The chemist said it was "kureiyib," which means "near by." A camel-driver pointed to a dilapidated wooden gateway in a recess between two neighbouring houses. A small boy volunteered to lead the way. We were greatly puzzled. We had expected to see the Temple towering above the surrounding houses, as at Luxor, and could by no means understand how any large building to which that gateway might give access, should not be visible from without.
The boy, however, ran and thumped upon the gate, and shouted "Abbas! Abbas!" Mehemet Ali, who was doing escort, added some thundering blows with his staff, and a little crowd gathered, but no Abbas came.
The bystanders, as usual, were liberal with their advice ; recommending the boy to climb over, and the sailor to knock louder, and suggesting that Abbas the absent might possibly be found in a certain neighbouring café. At length I somewhat impatiently expressed my opinion that there was "Mafeesh Birbeh" (no Temple at all) ; whereupon a dozen voices were raised to assure me that the Birbeh was no myth – that it was "kebîr" (big) – that it was "kwy-ees" (beautiful) – and that all the "Ingleez" came to see it.
In the midst of the clamour, however, and just as we are about to turn away in despair, the gate creaks open ; the gentlemen of the Fostat troop out in puggeries and knickerbockers ; and we are at last admitted.
This is what we see – a little yard surrounded by mud-walls ; at the farther end of the yard a dilapidated doorway ; beyond the doorway, a strange-looking, stupendous mass of yellow limestone masonry, long, and low, and level, and enormously massive. A few steps farther, and this proves to be the curved cornice of a mighty Temple – a Temple neither ruined nor defaced, but buried to the chin in the accumulated rubbish of a score of centuries. This part is evidently the portico. We stand close under a row of huge capitals. The columns that support them are buried beneath our feet. The ponderous cornice juts out above our heads. From the level on which we stand to the top of that cornice may measure about twenty-five feet. A high mud-wall runs parallel to the whole width of the façade, leaving a passage of about twelve feet in breadth between the two. A low mud-parapet and a hand-rail reach from capital to capital. All beyond is vague, cavernous, mysterious – a great shadowy gulf, in the midst of which dim ghosts of many columns are darkly visible. From an opening between two of the capitals, a flight of brick steps leads down into a vast hall so far below the surface of the outer world, so gloomy, so awful, that it might be the portico of Hades.
Going down these steps we come to the original level of the Temple. We tread the ancient pavement. We look up to the massive ceiling, recessed, and sculptured, and painted, like the ceiling at Denderah. We could almost believe, indeed, that we are again standing in the portico of Denderah. The number of columns is the same. The arrangement of the intercolumnar screen is the same. The general effect and the main features of the plan are the same. In some respects, however, Esneh is even more striking. The columns, though less massive than those of Denderah, are more elegant, and look loftier. Their shafts are covered with figures of gods, and emblems, and lines of hieroglyphed inscription, all cut in low relief. Their capitals, in place of the huge draped Hathor-heads of Denderah, are studied from natural forms – from the lotus-lily, the papyrus-blossom, the plumy date-palm. The wall-sculpture, however, is inferior to that at Denderah, and immeasurably inferior to the wall-sculpture at Karnak. The figures are of the meanest Ptolemaic type, and all of one size. The inscriptions, instead of being grouped wherever there happened to be space, and so producing the richest form of wall-decoration ever devised by man, are disposed in symmetrical columns, the effect of which, when compared with the florid style of Karnak, is as the methodical neatness of an engrossed deed to the splendid freedom of an illuminated manuscript.
The steps occupy the place of the great doorway. The jambs and part of the cornice, the intercolumnar screen, the shafts of the columns under whose capitals we came in, are all there, half-projecting from, and half-imbedded in the solid mound beyond. The light, however, comes in from so high up, and through so narrow a space, that one's eyes need to become accustomed to the darkness before any of these details can be distinguished. Then, by degrees, forms of deities familiar and unfamiliar emerge from the gloom.
The Temple is dedicated to Knum or Kneph, the Soul of the World, whom we now see for the first time. He is ram-headed, and holds in his hand the "ankh," or emblem of life.1 Another new acquaintance is Bes,2 the grotesque god of mirth and jollity.
by Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards (1831-1892) A thousand Miles up the NIle.