Archaeological Discoveries in Egypt

Egypt in the News ...

Rare Egyptian Mud-Brick Settlement Uncovered National Geographic - July 3, 2008

Ancient Egypt Settlement Sheds Light on Everyday Life National Geographic - July 3, 2008

Video: "Lost" Pyramid Found Buried in Egypt National Geographic - June 6, 2008
Saqqara: "Lost" Pyramid Found Buried in Egypt National Geographic - June 6, 2008
Photos: "Lost" Pyramid Found Buried in Egypt National Geographic - June 6, 2008

Mystery of Headless Pyramid solved MSNBC - June 5, 2008

Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Thursday he had identified a badly eroded pyramid south of Cairo as that of the 5th Dynasty Pharaoh Menkauhor, who ruled Egypt in the 24th century B.C. - 5th Dynasty

Archaeologists find ancient fortified city MSNBC - May 28, 2008

Partying in Ancient Times MSNBC - May 27, 2008

Part of Ancient Egyptian Fertility Temple Found in Nile National Geographic - May 27, 2008

Pyramids packed with fossil shells ABC - April 28, 2008

The authors suggest the stones that make up the Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos monuments must have been carved out of natural stone as they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4000 years ago, when the buildings were erected. "The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment," write Professor Ioannis Liritzis and his colleagues from the University of the Aegean and the University of Athens.

The researchers analyzed the mineralogy, as well as the chemical makeup and structure, of small material samples chiselled from the Sphinx Temple; the Osirion Shaft; the Valley Temple; the Cheops, Khefren and Menkaure pyramids at Giza; Osirion at Abydos; the Temple of Seti I at Abydos; and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum. X-ray diffraction and radioactivity measurements, which can penetrate solid materials to help illuminate their composition, were carried out.

The analysis determined the primary building materials were pinky granites, black and white granites, sandstones and various types of limestones. The latter contained numerous shell fossils of the genus Nummulites, simple marine organisms whose name means 'little coins'. "At Cheops alone they constituted a proportion of up to 40% of the whole building stone rock," the researchers write in the latest issue of the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

Nummulites that lived during the Eocene period around 55.8-33.9 million years ago are most commonly found in Egyptian limestone.

Fossils have also been unearthed at other sites, such as in Turkey and throughout the Mediterranean. When nummulites are bisected horizontally they appears as a perfect spiral. Since they were common in ancient Egypt, it's believed the shells were used as coins, perhaps explaining their name. Fossils of their ancient marine relatives - sand dollars, starfish and sea urchins - were also detected in the Egyptian limestone.

Intact fossils throughout the stone -- The fossils are largely undamaged and are distributed in a random manner within the stone, in accordance with their typical distribution at sea floors. So, Liritzis and his team argue that the large building stones used to construct the monuments must have been carved out of natural stone instead of cast in moulds. To further their argument, the scientists say the x-ray patterns detect no presence of lime, which would be expected along with the salt natron, which would indicate cast materials. They also point out there are no references of moulds, buckets or other casting tools in early Egyptian paintings, sculptures or texts.

Carved or cast? - Joseph Davidovits, professor and director of France's Geopolymer Institute, formulated the theory that natural limestone was cast like concrete to build the pyramids. Davidovits says that Liritzis and his team "should have taken into account the scientific analysis" he and other researchers conducted before backing the carved-not-cast hypothesis.

Robert Temple, co-director of the Project for Historical Dating and a visiting research fellow at universities in the US, Egypt and Greece, has also studied Egypt's monuments. He agrees with Davidovits about the casting. "There is no evidence known that suggests the ancient Egyptians had cranes," he says. "Without cranes, it is difficult to imagine how they could have lifted giant stones, some as heavy as 200 tonnes." Temple, however, agrees about the importance of the fossils. "Egyptian pyramid blocks of limestone tend to contain fossil shells and nummulites, often huge quantities of them, many of them intact, and many of them of surprisingly large size," he says. "Frankly, not many people pay attention to the shells, which I have always thought was a shame. 'Seashells in the desert' - a good story."

Pharaoh Seti I's Tomb Bigger Than Thought National Geographic - April 17, 2008

A Potted View of Ancient Geometric Imagery Thunderbolts.com - April 17, 2008

Karnak: The largest temple on Earth Philip Coppens - April 3, 2008

Intact Colossus of Egypt's Queen Tiye Found National Geographic - April 1, 2008

How Were The Egyptian Pyramids Built? Science Daily - March 29, 2008

City of the Dead Thrives National Geographic - March 29, 2008

Wild ass tamed, buried with Egyptian king MSNBC - March 10, 2008

Beasts of burden found nestled in graves dating back 5,000 years. One of the earliest Egyptian kings carried his "beasts of burden" into the afterlife.

Six New Prehistoric Bat Species Dating 35 Million Years Discovered in Egypt National Geographic - March 7, 2008

False Doors for the Dead Among New Egypt Tomb Finds National Geographic - February 26, 2008

New excavations at the tombs yielded three false doors, including one inscribed with the royal name Khety (right), that served as portals for communicating with the dead.

Rare Egyptian "Warrior" Tomb Found National Geographic - February 17, 2008

Egypt's Earliest Farming Village Found National Geographic - February 12, 2008

Surprise Egypt Tombs Yield Ornate Coffins, Dog Mummies National Geographic - January 30, 2008

"Beautiful" Mummies, Gilded Caskets Found in Egypt National Geographic - January 30, 2008

Video: Treasure Beneath My Home National Geographic - January 30, 2008

Video: Egypt's Curse National Geographic - January 30, 2008

Evidence of the brutal lives endured by some ancient Egyptians to build the monuments of the Pharaohs has been uncovered by archaeologists BBC - January 25, 2008

Rare Middle-Class Tomb Found From Ancient Egypt National Geographic - January 19, 2008

A Case for Mistaken Identity Thunderbolts - December 26, 2007

Ra was often lauded as "Lord of the Circles" and as "he who entereth [or liveth] in the circle." He was described as "the sender forth of light into his circle" and as the "Governor of [his] circle."

Surprise Finds at Egypt's Temple of Amun "Change Everything" National Geographic - December 17, 2007

A series of surprising discoveries has been made at the foot of Egypt's famous Temple of Amun at Karnak, archaeologists say.

Canal Linking Ancient Egypt Quarry to Nile Found National Geographic - October 24, 2007
Experts have discovered a canal at an Aswan rock quarry that they believe was used to help float some of ancient Egypt's largest stone monuments to the Nile River.

King Tut Died in Hunting Accident, Expert Says National Geographic - October 23, 2007

King Tutankhamun likely died after falling from his chariot while hunting ...

Snake-bird gods fascinated both Aztecs and Ancient Egyptians

Quetzalcoatl

Reuters - September 24, 2007

Ancient Mexicans and Egyptians who never met and lived centuries and thousands of miles apart both worshiped feathered-serpent deities, built pyramids and developed a 365-day calendar, a new exhibition shows. Billed as the world's largest temporary archeological showcase, Mexican archeologists have brought treasures from ancient Egypt to display alongside the great indigenous civilizations of Mexico for the first time.

The exhibition, which boasts a five-tonne, 3,000-year-old sculpture of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and stone carvings from Mexican pyramid at Chichen Itza, aims to show many of the similarities of two complex worlds both conquered by Europeans in invasions 1,500 years apart. "There are huge cultural parallels between ancient Egypt and Mexico in religion, astronomy, architecture and the arts. They deserve to be appreciated together," said exhibition organizer Gina Ulloa, who spent almost three years preparing the 35,520 square-feet (3,300 meter-square) display.

The exhibition, which opened at the weekend in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, shows how Mexican civilizations worshiped the feathered snake god Quetzalcoatl from about 1,200 BC to 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs.

From 3,000 BC onward Egyptians often portrayed their gods, including the Goddess of the Pharaohs Isis, in art and sculpture as serpents with wings or feathers. The feathered serpent and the serpent alongside a deity signifies the duality of human existence, at once in touch with water and earth, the serpent, and the heavens, the feathers of a bird," said Ulloa. Egyptian sculptures at the exhibition -- flown to Mexico from ancient temples along the Nile and from museums in Cairo, Luxor and Alexandria - show how Isis' son Horus was often represented with winged arms and accompanied by serpents. Cleopatra, the last Egyptian queen before the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, saw herself as Isis and wore a gold serpent in her headpiece.

Uncanny Similarities

In the arts, Mexico's earliest civilization, the Olmecs, echo Egypt's finest sculptures. Olmec artists carved large man-jaguar warriors that are similar to the Egyptian sphinxes on display showing lions with the heads of gods or kings. The seated statue of an Egyptian scribe carved between 2465 and 2323 BC shows stonework and attention to detail that parallels a seated stone sculpture of an Olmec lord. There is no evidence the Olmecs and Egyptians ever met.

Shared traits run to architecture, with Egyptians building pyramids as royal tombs and the Mayans and Aztecs following suit with pyramids as places of sacrifice to the gods. While there is no room for pyramids at the exhibition -- part of the Universal Forum of Cultures, an international cultural festival held in Barcelona in 2004 -- organizers say it is the first time many of pieces have left Egypt. They include entire archways from Nile temples, a bracelet worn by Ramses II and sarcophagi used by the pharaohs. Mexico has also brought together Aztec, Mayan and Olmec pieces from across the country.

Ancient Pharaoh Temple Discovered Inside Egypt Mosque National Geographic - September 27, 2007

Egyptian Tomb of Noblewoman Found National Geographic - August 16, 2007
Map National Geographic - August 16, 2007

Mummy Birds Recovered From Egypt Factory National Geographic - August 9, 2007

French architect offers a new theory on how the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid at Giza Smithsonian - August 6, 2007

"Gentrified" Egyptian Burial Chamber Discovered National Geographic - August 2, 2007

Ancient "Lost" City's Remains Found Under Alexandria's Waters National Geographic - July 31, 2007

Egypt's Largest Pharaoh-Era Fortress Discovered, Experts Announce National Geographic - July 29, 2007

Mummies' Fake Toes Could Be First Prosthetics National Geographic - July 29, 2007

Egypt's Oldest Known Art Identified, Is 15,000 Years Old National Geographic - July 11, 2007

Photo Gallery: Who Was King Tut's Father? National Geographic - July 10, 2007

Palaeolithic rock art, like Lascaux caves in France, discovered in Upper Egypt Al-Ahram - June 19, 2007

Ancient Gold Center Discovered on the Nile National Geographic - June 18, 2007

Ancient Egyptian City Spotted From Space Live Science - June 6, 2007

Images captured from space pinpoint telltale signs of previous habitation in the swatch of land 200 miles south of Cairo, which digging recently confirmed as an ancient settlement dating from about 400 A.D.

European Man Found in Ancient Chinese Tomb, Study Reveals National Geographic - May 26, 2007

Ancient Egypt Cities Leveled by Massive Volcano, Ash Find Suggests National Geographic - April 2, 2007

Great Pyramid Built Inside Out, French Architect Says National Geographic - April 2, 2007

Archaeologists have been unveiling the latest discoveries from the Saqqara necropolis, or city of the dead, south of Egypt's capital, Cairo. BBC - February 21, 2007

The Tassili n�Ajjer: birthplace of ancient Egypt? Philip Coppens - February 9, 2007

Alexander's Afghan gold Al-Ahram - February 7, 2007

Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid National Geographic - February 6, 2007

A sandstone lintel painted with gilded solar child deities was unearthed yesterday at the Temple of Mut in Luxor Al-Ahram - February 6, 2007

Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites - Drinking Festival MSNBC - October 31, 2006

Egyptian Dentists' Tombs Found by Thieves National Geographic - October 24, 2006
Thieves lead to discovery of Egypt tombs - Pharaoh's Dentists BBC - October 23, 2006

Mummy DNA Reveals Birth of Ancient Scourge Scientific American - October 9, 2006

Ancient humans 'followed rains' BCC - July 21, 2006
Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says National Geographic - July 20, 2006
Sahara Desert Was Once Lush and Populated Live Science - July 20, 2006

Theory of Continental Drift

The Great Rift Valley Wikipedia

Satellite Captures Creation of New Continental Crust Scientific American - July 20, 2006
A new sea is forming in the desert of northeastern Ethiopia.

Secrets of ocean birth laid bare BBC - July 20, 2006

Satellite Captures Creation of New Continental Crust News in Science - July 20, 2006
A new sea is forming in the desert of northeastern Ethiopia. Millions of years from now, the pulling apart of the Arabian and Nubian tectonic plates will allow waters to rush in and widen the Red Sea.

Scientists: Earthquakes causing Red Sea to part MSNBC - July 19, 2006

Arabian tectonic plate and African plate are moving away from each other

2,500 year-old sarcophagi uncovered CNN - June 26, 2006

Egyptian archaeologists have found two ancient sarcophagi close to the pyramids. The sarcophagi, found about a kilometer (0.6 miles) south of the pyramids in Giza, dated to the late 26th dynasty, or about 2,500 years old. Hieroglyphs referring to the ancient Egyptian gods Osiris, god of the dead, and the sun-god Ra were painted on the larger sarcophagus, which measured about 2 meters (6 feet 6.74 inches) tall, 70 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters deep and was painted red, blue and green, the report said. The name of sarcophagus' owner, Neb Ra Khatow, and ritual incantations to the gods were also painted on the sarcophagus. The second sarcophagus had a more human form and was found inside the first. Hawass said it was in good condition, and that a wreath made of plants encircled the mummy inside.

Egyptian Temple Yields 17 Statues of Lion-Headed Goddess' National Geographic - March 14, 2006

Huge impact crater found in Egypt BBC - March 6, 2006
A giant crater made by a space impact millions of years ago has been found in Egypt's western desert.

Giant Ancient Egyptian Sun Temple Discovered in Cairo National Geographic - March 2, 2006

Archaeologists discovered a pharaonic sun temple with large statues believed to be of King Ramses II under an outdoor marketplace in Cairo

Valley of the Kings KV 63
Ancient Flowers Found in Egypt Coffin in Egypt's Valley of the Kings "KV 63" National Geographic - June 30, 2006 - Follow-up to story below

Pharaonic tomb find stuns Egypt
BBC - February 10, 2006

Intact tomb found in Egypt's Valley of Kings
2 Part Story MSNBC - February 10, 2006

New Tomb Opened in Egypt's Valley of Kings
National Geographic

Archaeologists have discovered an intact, ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the first since King Tutankhamun's Tomb was found in 1922. The tomb contains five sarcophagi with mummies, breaking the nearly century long belief that there's nothing more to find in the valley where some of Egypt's greatest pharaohs were buried.

Found in the tomb was the red granite head of King Amenhotep III - father of the Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Researchers discover 3,400-year-old artifact depicting Queen Ti MSNBC - January 25, 2006

Egyptologists have discovered a statue of Queen Ti, wife of one of Egypt�s greatest pharaohs and grandmother to the boy-king Tutankhamun, at an ancient temple in Luxor, an Egyptian antiquities official said. The roughly 3,400-year-old statue was well-preserved. Ti's husband, Amenhotep III, presided over an era which saw a renaissance in Egyptian art. A number of cartouches, or royal name signs, of Amenhotep III were found on the statue, and the statue's design and features allowed researchers to identify it as a New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty statue of Queen Ti.

Akhenaten was the son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy, a descendent of a Hebrew tribe.

Queen Tiy wearing a double feathered crown

Ancient Egypt 'respected dwarfs' BBC - December 27, 2005

Glassmakers key to Egypt's status BBC - June 17, 2005

King Tut mania endures as artifcats return to the US ABC - June 9, 2005

The New World equivalent of the Gizeh pyramids may well be Teotihuacan
Its layout also mimics astronomical information, even that of Orion's Belt.

Ancient Pharaoh's Statue Found Discovery - June 6, 2005

Neferhotep was the 22nd king of the 13th Dynasty. The son of a temple priest in Abydos, he ruled Egypt from 1696-1686 BC. Buried for nearly 3,600 years, a rare statue of Egypt's King Neferhotep I has been brought to light in the ruins of Thebes.

In pictures: Egypt's most beautiful mummy ever discovered BBC - May 4, 2005

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri National Geographic - April 2005

Ancient necropolis found in Egypt BBC - April 2005
Archaeologists say they have found the largest funerary complex yet dating from the earliest era of ancient Egypt, more than 5,000 years ago

40 million year old whale found in Egyptian desert News in Science - April 2005

An American palaeontologist says he and a team of Egyptians have found what could be the most complete fossilised skeleton of the 40 million year old whale Basilosaurus isis in Egypt's Western Desert.

King Tut Liked Red Wine Science Daily - March 2005

King Tut Not Murdered Died from a Broken Leg Injury National Geographic - March 2005

Archaeologists Uncover Bead-Covered Mummy in Saqqara March 2005

"Inside one coffin was maybe one of the best mummies ever preserved," Hawass told reporters at the excavation site in the cemetery of Saqqara, a barren hillside pocked with ancient graves about 15 miles south of Cairo. "The chest of the mummy is covered with beads. Most of the mummies of this period about 500 B.C. - the beads are completely gone, but this mummy has them all," he said, standing over one of the mummies that was swathed in turquoise blue beads and bound in strips of black linen. The names of the mummies have not been determined, but the tomb is thought to be that of a middle-class official. Hawass said the wooden coffins, called anthropoids because they were in the shape of human beings, bore inscriptions dating to the 26th Dynasty, together with a statue of a deity called Petah Sakar. Petah was the god of artisans, Hawass said, while Sakar was the god of the cemetery. The door was hidden behind 4,200-year-old statues of a man believed to have been Meri, the tutor of Pepi II, and Meri's wife, whose name was not revealed.

Meri also was believed to oversee four sacred boats found in the pyramids, which were buried with Egypt's kings to help them in the afterlife, Hawass said. "I believe this discovery can enrich us about two important periods in our history, the Old Kingdom, which dates back to 4,200 years, and the 26th Dynasty, that was 2,500 years ago," Hawass said. According to tradition, Pepi II - the last ruler of the 6th Dynasty - ruled from 2278-2184 B.C., one of the longest reigns in ancient Egyptian history. Naguib Kanawati, the head of the Australian team from Sydney's Macquarie University, said the site had fallen into neglect after Pepi II's rule and was covered by 50 feet of sand, until it was used again as a cemetery 2,600 years later. "By that time the art of mummification was perfected to the extreme," Kanawati said.

The world's biggest meteorite field found in Egypt Pravda - October 2004

Egyptian Animals Were Mummified Same Way as Humans National Geographic - September 2004

Hidden tomb found in pyramid's shadow MSNBC - September 2004

Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, revealed a 2,500-year-old hidden tomb under the shadow of one of Giza's three giant pyramids, containing 400 pinkie-finger-sized statues and six coffin-sized niches carved into granite rock.

Archaeologists have uncovered the real life site of the fabled ancient university of Alexandria Al Ahram - June 2004

Hundreds of Mummies Found in Egyptian Caves at Saqqara - 26th Dynasty National Geographic - May 2004

Ancient Egyptian Love Poems Reveal a Lust for Life National Geographic - April 2004

Bubonic Plague Traced to Ancient Egypt National Geographic - March 2004

The bubonic plague, or Black Death, may have originated in ancient Egypt, according to a new study.

Mummified lion unearthed in Egypt BBC - January 2004 Archaeologists have uncovered the first example of a lion mummified by the ancient Egyptians, in the tomb of the woman who helped rear King Tutankhamun.

The Ibis - "Bird of the Pharaohs" Stages Comeback National Geographic - October 2003

Strange Egyptian mummy with four feet Science Daily - September 2003

U.S. Museum to Return Ramses I Mummy to Egypt May 2003 - National Geographic

Baseball invented by the ancient Egyptians SI - May 2003

Sakkara: 5,000 year old mummy found - oldest evidence of mummification BBC - April 2003

Rare Greek Scroll Found With Egyptian Mummy October 2002 - National Geographic

Opening Gatenbrink's Door National Geographic - September 2002

Egyptian royal tomb discovered

June 29, 2001 - Reuters - Cairo

In a first, a joint team of German and Egyptian archaeologists has unearthed a royal tomb dating back to the 17th Dynasty which likely belonged to a king whose great-grandsons swept out foreign rulers and paved the way for the New Kingdom - Ancient Egypt's "Golden Age". The German Institute of Archaeology in Cairo (DAI), in announcing the find, said they are convinced the 3500-year-old tomb belonged to Nub-Kheper-Ra Intef, a monarch of the late 17th Dynasty. A time of political turmoil and confusion, the 17th Dynasty has failed to provide archaeologists with a royal tomb for study - until now.

The tomb is located across the Nile from modern-day Luxor in the northern portion of the Theban necropolis, at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. The area, referred to as Dra' Abu el-Naga, has long been felt to be the burial place of kings and private individuals of the 17th and early 18th dynasties. According to archaeologists, the "remnants of the tomb consist of the lower part of a small mud-brick pyramid surrounded by an enclosure wall, also built of mud bricks."

In front of the pyramid lies a burial shaft where the toppled head of a life-size royal sandstone statue of the pharaoh was found. The pyramid-complex and the burial shaft is unequivocally that of Nub-Kheper-Ra Intef, according to Dr Daniel Polz, the lead excavator and deputy director of DAI.

Other discoveries included "a small funerary chapel of a private individual" adjacent to the pyramid, but outside the enclosure wall. The inner walls of the chapel were decorated with depictions of its owner, as well as his name and titles. According to these inscriptions the tomb owner, Teti, was a "treasurer" or "chancellor" of the king. On one of the walls, there remains a large cartouche (the royal name-ring) showing the name of king Nub-Kheper-Ra Intef. The 17th Dynasty at the end of the Second Intermediate Period - the era between the Middle and New Kingdoms - was characterized by the rule of the Hyksos, foreign invaders of an Asiatic origin who ruled in the northern part of Egypt contemporaneously with the kings of the 17th Dynasty in Thebes.

Following numerous military campaigns against them, the Hyksos rulers were eventually expelled from Egypt by Kamose, the last king of the 17th Dynasty and his brother, Ahmose, the first king of the 18th Dynasty which saw a unified Egypt rise to unprecedented wealth and power. It is believed that Nub-Kheper-Ra Intef, one of the immediate predecessors of Kamose and Ahmose, could actually have been their great-grandfather.

German archaeologist Polz and his team were led to the tomb by information obtained from a 3000-year-old papyrus and the works of an American archaeologist who made reference to the tomb, but never found it himself. The papyrus mentioned an attempt by robbers to plunder the royal tomb by digging a tunnel from another tomb belonging to a private individual. The robbers, however, failed to reach the royal tomb. Then in the 19th Century, another group of robbers found the royal tomb, removed the golden casket and sold it without disclosing where they found it - the casket eventually ended up in the British Museum in London. Polz and his team also found what appeared to be evidence of the removal of two obelisks from the tomb of King Nub-Kheper-Ra Intef. The obelisks were reportedly removed from the tomb in 1881 on orders of the then French director of the Council of Antiquities in Cairo, who wanted them transferred to old Cairo Museum. Unfortunately, the boat with the heavy obelisks sank in the Nile, some 10 kilometres from Luxor.

Egypt's Oldest Monastery

June 2001 - Egypt Revealed

In the middle of the fourth century A.D., a group of hermits, followers of St. Macarius, settled in the Egyptian desert west of the Nile Delta. At Wadi al-Natrun, this colony of anchorites (religious believers who choose to live in isolation) survived the harshness of the desert and the raids of nomads over the centuries and evolved into what was probably one of the first monastic communities of Egypt.

A team from Leiden University in the Netherlands has been excavating this site since 1995, and the results so far are beginning to paint a reliable image of how this evolution from hermits to monastery monks came about.

Initially, the settlement must have had a rather open, informal structure, similar to that of a village. The core of the settlement consisted of a church and a defensive tower. The remains of a church, excavated in 1999, are of a rather late date, probably the early eighth century, although an earlier church might still be found underneath it. Shortly after A.D. 700, the monasteries of Wadi al-Natrun were sacked by Bedouins, and this eighth-century church, apparently one of the first buildings to be reconstructed, is little more than a makeshift structure.

Remnants of a huge building were found immediately south of the church, in the southeast corner of the complex. It must have been a square tower about 16 meters (52 feet) on a side, with walls 2 meters (6.5 feet) thick and a height of as much as 20 meters (65 feet).

Much evidence suggests this tower existed in the fifth century and may date to the fourth century. The fact that blocks from a pharaonic temple were found in the debris of the church suggests that this tower was built to guard a settlement of workers producing salt and natron (sodium carbonate) from nearby lakes. Such a settlement would have included a temple and, if abandoned before the monks arrived, it might have served as a quarry for building materials.

The region was invaded by Bedouins over the following centuries, and the settlements were destroyed or heavily damaged several times. After the sack around 700 and the makeshift rebuilding effort, the monks apparently no longer relied on the crumbling tower for defense. But in the ninth century, the towers outer walls were reinforced and the core of the settlement was surrounded by a defensive wall, giving it the appearance of a real monastery. This new physical structure may have influenced the social structure of the community. Instead of living some distance apart in hermitages sprinkled over a wide area, many monks may have chosen to live within the safety of the enclosure wall. The result would have been a true monastery.

Fossil of Gargantuan Dinosaur Unearthed in Egypt

May 31, 2001 - Reuters

Fossilized remains of a gargantuan plant-eating dinosaur, the second most massive animal ever to walk the Earth, have been unearthed in a desert oasis in Egypt at a site that eons ago was a lush coastal paradise, researchers said on Thursday. The discovery of a partial skeleton of Paralititan stromeri was made by 31-year-old University of Pennsylvania doctoral student Joshua Smith, who went on a dinosaur hunt at a remote site that had yielded spectacular finds in the first half of the 20th century in expeditions led by German paleontologist Ernest Stromer von Reichenbach. But the fossils of the four new dinosaurs Stromer uncovered were lost to the world during World War Two when British warplanes bombed the Bayerische Staatssammlung museum during a raid over Munich on April 24, 1944.

Stromer's excavation site remained largely ignored in the decades since then.

Paralititan (pronounced pah-ral-ih-TY-tan and meaning ''tidal giant'') lived 94 million years ago during the middle of the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era. The long-necked, long-tailed quadruped looked much like the familiar Brontosaurus (formal name Apatosaurus) that lived tens of millions of years earlier, except that its back may have been studded with bony body armor as protection from predators.

The finding was published in the journal Science. "We think that a large individual might have massed about 70 tons, 75 tons maybe and it might have approached 100 feet in length. As far as tall, stack four African elephants on top of each other. That's about the height. It would look through a third-story window without much problem.'' The only dinosaur known to be heavier than Paralititan is Argentinosaurus, which looked much like the new dinosaur (both are classified as titanosaurid sauropods) but is estimated to have been about 7 percent more massive. The remains of only one example of these two colossal dinosaurs exist. Smith found the partial skeleton preserved in fine-grained sediments full of plant remains and root casts in the Bahariya Oasis in the Sahara desert some 180 miles southwest of Cairo. He said the evidence suggests that the arid Bahariya site once resembled the tropical mangrove coasts of Florida, a low-energy, shallow water area of tidal flats and tidal channels. He compares it to the Everglades. Based in part on Stromer's earlier finding of three massive carnivorous dinosaurs at the site, Smith said the area must have been teeming with life.

Smith believes the massive herbivore was standing on the edge of a tidal channel in very shallow water when it died. His team also found evidence that the carcass had been scavenged by a flesh-eating dinosaur, including a tooth that may come from Carcharodontosaurus, whose name means ''shark-tooth lizard'' and whose size, 45 feet (13.5 meters) long, was comparable to Tyrannosaurus rex. In addition, the pelvis was ripped apart as if it had been eaten. It's unclear whether Paralititan lost a life-or-death struggle with the predator or became a meal after dying for other reasons, Smith said. ``All we know is that the animal died and somebody came along and munched on it.'' Smith said the skeleton of Paralititan is only 20 to 25 percent complete. Most impressive is a humerus (upper forelimb bone) that measures 6 foot, 7 inches long. The remains also include several vertebrae, ribs and both shoulder blades. The Penn team also found fossils of fish, sharks, turtles, marine reptiles and other dinosaurs.

Dumb luck played a role in the discovery, Smith admits. He and University of Pennsylvania graduate student Matthew Lamanna, who at age 25 is a co-author of the study, dreamed up the idea of finding the sites that had been so productive for Stromer, who worked there extensively starting in 1911. Smith said in 1999 he tagged along on another Penn expedition to Egypt and was given all of two days to search for dinosaurs. Another problem was finding the Stromer's exact site because he did not leave behind any maps or directions. Scientific literature found in Cairo pointed the way, but Smith ended up in the wrong place anyway. But as luck would have it, on Feb. 23, 1999, Smith spotted from the window of his Toyota Land Cruiser three pieces of Paralititan's forelimb.

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