Ancient Egypt
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This year is a leap year, when tradition has it that on 29 February we women are permitted to propose to the men of our choice. Well, I doubt that much of that goes on these days, not least because marriage itself seems to be on the decline. Oh, and if you were born on…
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Today a hundred years ago, George Herbert, fifth Earl of Carnarvon, died, about five months after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, which he funded. Herbert was also, of course, the surname of the Earls of Huntingdon/ Pembroke, who included Richard III’s son-in-law William. The earlier of these families dates from the fifteenth century,…
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According to this article there have been five interesting archaeological discoveries in the past decade. First among them, of course, is the finding of Richard III’s remains:- “….When King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, he was buried in the church of the Grey Friars. In 2012, The Richard III Society…
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The Pharaoh Tutankhamun seems to have been part of our lives forever, so it’s hard to believe that his tomb was found just hundred years ago on 4th November 1922. Even the discoverer, Howard Carter, had no idea what lay within the tomb, only that it didn’t seem to have been got at by…
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“Until relatively recently in human history nobody saw the color ‘blue.’ “ and “the evidence for people not seeing blue dates all the way back to the 1800s.” Um, I don’t quite understand these statements. If they couldn’t see blue, what did they see when they looked up at the sky on a clear…
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Lordy, the theories about the Great Pyramid continue to multiply. I suppose it just won’t do to think maybe its position “in the centre of the earth” is purely accidental? Oh, hush, Sandra! Wash your mouth out. I recently saw a long TV documentary that theorised the pyramid was actually an immense water pump. Anyway,…
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Well, the above reconstruction of Tutankhamun is a revelation, not only that he was so unlike his wonderful funeral mask, but also because….oh dear, you couldn’t make it up. Here’s an extract from this article :- “….What King Tut Really Looked Like….They conducted DNA studies and found out how frail the pharaoh was. He was…
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Last night I settled down to watch a two-hour documentary I’d recorded from the History Channel. No, it wasn’t about Richard III, or even the English medieval period, but about the Fourth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Specifically about the discovery of the long-fabled fourth pyramid, some five miles from Giza: here Unfortunately, I haven’t been…