Monday, April 27, 2009

Mummies!

Almost as much fun as zombies.


An Egyptian worker brushes an ancient Pharaonic sarcophagus of Illahun mayor's daughter dated to the 22nd Dynasty (ca. 931-725 BC) inside a rock-cut tomb which has been discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission sponsored by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) southeastern part of the pyramid field of Illahun, Sunday April 26, 2009, in Egypt's Fayoum region. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Some Egyptologists (didn't you go through an Egyptologist phase when you were a kid? Someone gave me a copy of Gods Graves and Scholars when I was about eight, and I wanted to be the next Carter) have discovered a necropolis of 53 "new" tombs
some as old as 4,000 years — were discovered recently on a sandy plateau overlooking farming fields in the village Illahun, located in the Fayoum oasis about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of the Egyptian capital.

Archaeologists gave journalists a rare tour of the ancient burial site Sunday, which is next to the nearly four millennia old pyramid of Pharaoh Sesostris II.


Science is just so very very cool!

2 comments:

JohnB said...

Groan.
Even something as fine as this archaeologist's instrument (read: Home Depot paintbrush) can have the effect of rough-grade sandpaper on a sarcophagus of this age.

HJW said...

looks like a pretty clean paintbrush. It is probably being posed for the pic.