I got my new edition of National Geographic today. I read some of the articles, but just skimmed most and looked at the pictures. Pictures are definitely the best part of these magazines. “Extreme Dinosaurs” was too much science for me. “Bethlehem 2007 A.D.” was just depressing. “Wings of the Albatross” actually had some pretty cool photos, and so did “Frozen Ground”. I didn’t really like “Enduring Cowboys” though, which wasn’t really that interesting for me.
However, in the departments they had two stories on archaeology that were pretty interesting. A CT scan done by the Egyptian Mummy Project thinks they’ve come closer to uncovering the identity of the mysterious KV55 tomb. If you don’t know what KV55 is, it’s gold-plated coffin with royal titles, but the names had been chiseled off and part of the face was torn off. The dead’s identity has been debated upon since its discovery in 1907.
The scan discovered that the bones belonged to someone around the age of 60, which fits the description of a lesser-known pharaoh, Smenkhkare. Smenkhakre also fits the time period of other pharaohs around him, although another king also fits the criteria of that interval in Egyptian history known as Amenhotep IV or better remembered as Akhenaten.
Akhenaten is the pharaoh discussed in earlier entries as being known for establishing a monotheistic cult. Egyptians would’ve had motive for trying to damage the king’s grave, because he was generally considered radical and heretic by the people for trying to establish monotheism in a long-time polytheistic nation. As an example, imagine President Bush made it law that all Americans had to be Hindu (the first polytheistic religion that came to mind). The people would have to comply or suffer the consequences until he died (president for life =]). At that point the new president would bring back freedom of religion and we’d all go back to normal. I would bet a lot of people would like to get some revenge on President Bush, and desecrating his grave would be a likely response.
The second archaeology article was a little bit on the odd side, but none-the-less interesting, about an ancient prosthesis. Apparently an Egyptian woman had wooden big toe. It wasn’t only for looks as scuffing on the bottom of the replacement indicates. The artificial toe was found with the mummy’s body.
An awesome hybrid baboon in the wildlife department -
1 comment:
aww cute monkeyy :]
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