Free Republic

National Geographic today released never-before-seen footage from within ancient Egypt's first known fully intact funeral home. In conjunction with Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, a team of archaeologists led by Dr. Ramadan Hussein from Germany's Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen, uncovered the burial complex, dating back to 600 BC, deep beneath the sands at the Saqqara necropolis less than an hour's drive south of Cairo. The new, four-part series KINGDOM OF THE MUMMIES produced for National Geographic by BBC Studios follows the team as they explore the subterranean chambers and open four sealed, 2,600 year-old sarcophagi to unlock secrets...

The reign of Ramesses III, the second pharaoh in Egypt’s 20th dynasty, was not the most stable chapter in the empire's history. There were endless wars with the “Sea Peoples”... which drained the treasury, bad weather that interrupted food supplies, along with political unrest... In 2012, eminent Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and Cairo University radiologist Sahar Saleem scanned Ramesses III mummy and revealed that an assassin cut through his esophagus and trachea, killing him almost instantly. But a new book by the pair... makes the story a little more complicated, suggesting that the pharaoh was likely murdered by multiple assailants. The...