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Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilisations By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent (Filed: 04/11/2001) SCIENTISTS have found the first evidence that a devastating meteor impact in the Middle East might have triggered the mysterious collapse of civilisations more than 4,000 years ago. satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide impact crater caused by a meteor Studies of satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide circular depression which scientists say bears all the hallmarks of an impact crater. If confirmed, it would point to the Middle East being struck by a meteor with the violence equivalent ...

Thursday, 26 July, 2001, 12:12 GMT 13:12 UK Disaster that struck the ancients The pharaohs of the Egyptian Old Kingdom had built the mightiest legacy of the ancient world - the pyramids at Giza. But after nearly a thousand years of stability, central authority disintegrated and the country collapsed into chaos for more than a 100 years. What happened, and why, has remained a huge controversy. But Professor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, UK, wanted to solve the mystery, by gathering together scientific clues. His inspiration was the little known tomb in southern Egypt of a regional governor, Ankhtifi. ...

EXACTLY what drove two men to pretend to be archaeologists and hack off pieces of the Great Pyramid? Atlantis. It's a tale of cranks, conspiracies and an ancient cartouche. The Great Pyramid of Khufu (also known as Cheops) on the Giza Plateau is the largest pyramid in Egypt and the only surviving example of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The cartouche? It's an ancient red-pigment scribble deep inside the Great Pyramid said to be the linchpin in identifying who it was actually built for. Is it an authentic ancient Egyptian depiction of his name, or a 19th century...

Vassil Dobrev stated that the pyramid may actually be a solar temple. However, Baud dismisses these claims.... Nearly 4,500 years ago, in the time of the Old Kingdom, the pharaoh Khufu built one of the greatest monuments on earth -- the Great Pyramid. His pyramid was actually a complex of monuments at Giza. Using up 2.7 million cubic meters of stone, it incorporated three queens' pyramids, a satellite pyramid and hundreds of mastaba tombs for his officials. At a height of nearly 147 meters it was the tallest human-made monument in the world -- up until the construction of the...

The missing pyramid of an obscure pharaoh that ruled Egypt some 4,300 years ago could lie at the intersection of a series of invisible lines in South Saqqara, according to new astronomical and topographical research. Connecting the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the 6th Dynasty between 2,322 B.C. and 2,151 B.C., these lines would have governed the sacred space of the Saqqara area, in accordance with a number of criteria such as dynastic lineage, religion and astronomical alignment. "We are talking of meridian and diagonal alignments, with pyramids raised at their intersections. The only missing piece in this...