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Dutch Archaeologists Uncover Earliest Egyptian Temple [2000]
Science News ^ | January 21, 2000 | adapted from Netherlands Organization For Scientific Research

Posted on 01/26/2008 6:59:13 AM PST by SunkenCiv

During excavations at Tel Ibrahim Awad in the eastern Nile Delta, Dutch archaeologists discovered a large Middle Kingdom temple. Beneath this building, which dates from around 2000 BC, there were traces of five earlier temples, the earliest dating back to around 3100 BC... The ground plan of the earliest of these temples is unlike anything previously discovered in Egypt, and no other sites are known where a similar series of temples was built one on top of the other and which date back so far. The archaeologists do not yet know which gods were worshipped in the temples. In the third-earliest, they discovered about a thousand "disposable ritual objects", including statuettes of baboons and pottery... Alongside the temple, a burial ground was discovered containing 50 small-scale tombs from various periods. Excavation of a large First Dynasty tomb (about 3000 BC) uncovered rich finds of pottery and of stone and bronze vessels.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs
Dig Offers a Rare Peek at 'Pre-Dynastic' Egypt
by Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post
Monday, April 17, 2000
So far, excavators have unearthed six temples built atop one another on the site at Tel Ibrahim Awad, about halfway between Cairo and Suez in the eastern delta. The deepest of these is dated to 3100-3200 B.C. and has a ground layout unlike anything ever before discovered in Egypt... Moreover, drillings last year detected yet another, even deeper temple that may date as far back as 3400 B.C... Archaeologists discovered Tel Ibrahim Awad during a survey in the mid-1980s... Soundings detected a Middle Kingdom temple (around 2000 B.C.), traces of at least five other temples, and a First Dynasty (about 3000 B.C.) tomb and cemetery with traces of a nearby settlement... van Haarlem and a changing cast of colleagues have shaved the site layer by layer. The newest temple was 125 feet long by 47 feet wide, but as the team went deeper, the buildings started to shrink. The last excavated temple is only 23 feet long by 13 feet wide... the uniqueness of the oldest excavated level may be explained because construction took place before Narmer unified Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt and established the pharaonic dynasties that ruled the country for nearly three millennia... Egypt had at least a partly agricultural economy as early as 5000 B.C., and archaeologists have uncovered royal tombs dating back as far as 4000 B.C. By the time Narmer unified Egypt from his base in southern Hierakonpolis, local chieftains had evolved into the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt.

1 posted on 01/26/2008 6:59:14 AM PST by SunkenCiv
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Dynasty 0 (Egyptian colonies in Canaan)
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/ | Francesco Raffaele
Posted on 11/28/2004 12:48:47 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1289651/posts


2 posted on 01/26/2008 6:59:48 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__________________Profile updated Wednesday, January 16, 2008)
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To: blam; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 49th; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
This is a new topic, but the underlying story is from eight years ago.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

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3 posted on 01/26/2008 7:00:35 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__________________Profile updated Wednesday, January 16, 2008)
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To: SunkenCiv
Only five percent of Egypt is habitable

Perhaps that explains a lot of what's going on over there.

4 posted on 01/26/2008 7:11:20 AM PST by mtbopfuyn (I think the border is kind of an artificial barrier - San Antonio councilwoman Patti Radle)
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To: SunkenCiv

How interesting! A First Dynasty temple. Always new stuff turning up in Egypt.


5 posted on 01/26/2008 7:33:56 AM PST by Tax-chick ("Gently alluding to the indisputably obvious is not gloating." ~Richard John Neuhaus)
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To: SunkenCiv

Unless they’re talking about something akin to paper plates, wouldn’t the ‘disposable ritual objects” like statuettes be more properly explained as sacred offerings which is why they weren’t disposed of?


6 posted on 01/26/2008 7:53:26 AM PST by wildbill
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To: SunkenCiv

From the article: Only five percent of Egypt is habitable, so that archaeological research has to compete with land cultivation, infrastructure and urban expansion.”

Egypt continues to be an economic basketcase in the modern world whose major assets are it’s past and the exploitation of its known and unknown archeological finds.

Considering the poverty, why doesn’t Egypt just assign each Egyptian a specific hectare of subsurface land for his exclusive right to lease out to archeologists for digs.

This would be sort of like the people who own mineral rights in Texas and can lease them out to oil exploration companies.

You could rotate the ownership so everyone would have a turn at leasing out the ‘bonanza’ areas of interest and end the poverty.

Hawas could be the new land commissioner with almost Pharonic powers.

Sundance to Butch: You just keep on thinkin’ Butch. That’s what you do best.


7 posted on 01/26/2008 8:03:54 AM PST by wildbill
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To: Tax-chick
Always new stuff turning up in Egypt.

Hmm... Technically, it is very old stuff. :-)

8 posted on 01/26/2008 8:19:39 AM PST by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: coconutt2000

Yes, I remembered that just when it was too late to fix it!


9 posted on 01/26/2008 8:22:07 AM PST by Tax-chick ("Gently alluding to the indisputably obvious is not gloating." ~Richard John Neuhaus)
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To: wildbill

“Unless they’re talking about something akin to paper plates,”

Uh, shouldn’t that be papyrus plates?......;]


10 posted on 01/26/2008 9:03:14 AM PST by Salamander (And don't forget my Dog; fixed and consequent.......)
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To: SunkenCiv

3100-3200 BC, huh? That’s just a few years after Newgrange was started. If they keep digging in both places, they’ll find Atlantis exit visas.


11 posted on 01/26/2008 9:49:29 AM PST by CholeraJoe (HMS Thunderchild 2, Martians 1. Well fought, Thunderchild.)
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To: SunkenCiv; blam; All
Maybe all of my super informed buddies here can tell me why ancient tombs, temples, shrines, treasure etc could be built and used for long periods of time but we have to have heavy duty pumps just to view them. Higher water tables? If so, how can that be? Thanks in advance.

Nam Vet

12 posted on 01/26/2008 12:58:31 PM PST by Nam Vet (I'd rather be waterboarded than vote for John McCain.)
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To: Nam Vet

If they’re in northern (”lower”) Egypt, that’s the Delta area, and it’s always been marshy. Water table is high, channels shift, etc.

If they’re in southern (”upper”) Egypt, the Aswan High Dam has raised the water levels, stopped the annual Inundation, and put some of the ancient monuments under water or nearly so.


13 posted on 01/26/2008 1:18:34 PM PST by Tax-chick ("Gently alluding to the indisputably obvious is not gloating." ~Richard John Neuhaus)
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To: SunkenCiv

good one!


14 posted on 01/26/2008 5:15:08 PM PST by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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To: SunkenCiv

If it is that long before Narmer (and nearly 1000 years before the pyramids at Giza), then it is before the 0th dynasty so-called King Scorpio, IMHO.


15 posted on 01/27/2008 3:54:50 AM PST by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Mike Huckabee: If Gomer Pyle and Hugo Chavez had a love child this is who it would be.)
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To: Nam Vet

Sealevels rise and fall due to natural climate cycles (which last centuries) and changes in elevation (tectonic stress, isostatic rebound, whatever).


16 posted on 01/28/2008 11:57:09 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__________________Profile updated Wednesday, January 16, 2008)
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To: ken21

Thanks.


17 posted on 01/29/2008 10:54:19 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__________________Profile updated Wednesday, January 16, 2008)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Glassmakers key to Egypt’s status
BBC | Friday, 17 June, 2005 | staff
Posted on 06/24/2005 12:31:27 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1429834/posts


18 posted on 01/29/2008 10:57:03 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__________________Profile updated Wednesday, January 16, 2008)
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Ruins of 7,000-year-old city found in Egypt oasis
Source: ABC (Australia) | January 30, 2008 - 9:47AM | U/A
Posted on 01/30/2008 12:36:38 AM EST by Fred Nerks
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961826/posts


19 posted on 01/30/2008 11:05:19 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__________________Profile updated Wednesday, January 16, 2008)
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