Australia was already a fairly populated mainland when it suddenly began to reveal its secrets. The first colonists were busy with their internal affairs and were not particularly interested in the secrets of their new homeland. But by the middle of the 19th century, when the settlers had already firmly settled in Australia, completely mysterious circumstances emerged …
In 1837, the English traveler and geographer George Gray set out on an expedition to the western and southern coasts of Australia, which had previously remained largely unexplored. During a long and difficult journey, Gray discovered the Gascoigne River and went to explore the course of the Glenelg River. But at the mouth of the river, failure awaited him - the ship crashed on pitfalls. The geographer and members of his team barely managed to get ashore. Exhausted and exhausted people made their way through the impenetrable forests to the town of Perth, which was about 500 miles away.
During one of the halts, Gray decided to explore a mysterious cave on the banks of the river. When he went inside, there was no limit to his surprise - on the sooty vaults of the cave, man-made drawings were clearly visible. But then his shock became simply enormous - the drawings found did not in any way resemble the rock paintings of Australian aborigines, and moreover, the figures depicted on them clearly belonged not to the aborigines, but to people somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Egyptians!
Dumbfounded, Gray rushed to his companions, who also made sure that these drawings, clearly made many, many years ago, depict people from Egypt.
When the exhausted travelers reached civilization, their message was not greeted with enthusiasm - you never know what hungry and exhausted travelers saw there …
But in the 20th century, this cave and Gray's find were remembered - after the same mysterious rock carvings were found in 1931. They were discovered in central Australia by archaeologist Michael Terry. These drawings, too, did not in any way resemble ordinary rock paintings of the aborigines. The features of the face, details of clothing were carefully deduced on them - and again, both the appearance and the attire of the painted people clearly did not belong to the natives. These figures were knocked out at a height of more than ten meters from the ground, which gave rise to another mystery - how were they created?
A year later, in 1932, several wells were discovered near Mackay, cut through a solid rock mass. The depth of these structures was about ten meters, and, according to the conclusions of archaeologists, they were made several hundred years ago. Moreover, the Australian aborigines simply did not have the equipment that would allow them to do something like that!
Mummy Secrets
In 1961, near the town of Alice Springs, new mysterious rock carvings were discovered. They were studied by a group of researchers from the Adelaide Historical Museum and the Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies. Scientists brought from the expedition more than four hundred photographs of these rock paintings. Robert Edward, curator of the Anthropology Department of the Australian Museum, said: "They do not belong to any known form of indigenous culture."
This conclusion confirmed the hypothesis that had long been circulating in scholarly circles - some mysterious tribes that had nothing to do with the aborigines visited Australia at one time.
Where did these mysterious tribes come from? Anthropologist Grafton Elliot Smith, a professor at the University of Manchester, put forward this version, which initially caused laughter among his colleagues: Egyptians once lived in Australia!
To prove his hypothesis, he cited the following facts: some Australian tribes had a strange custom of mummifying the bodies of the dead. This custom was abolished only by Christian missionaries - at the end of the 19th century. But the mummies remained intact and intact, and their study led to the conclusion that they were mummified in the same way as the ancient Egyptian ones.
And in February 1964, the tomb of a woman buried in about 1000 BC was discovered on the site of an ancient city in Egypt. Examination of the remains of the body revealed that eucalyptus oil was used for embalming. It seemed incredible. After all, the only place where such oil could be obtained then was Australia and New Guinea.
The find was another link in Smith's chain of evidence. By the way, an additional argument in his favor was the fact that some Egyptian names are very similar to the names of Aboriginal people from Australia …
And then circumstances emerged that fit well into Smith's version.
Decaying Coin
At the beginning of the 20th century, Andy Henderson, an Australian farmer, was installing a new fence on his site. His shovel hit a piece of iron, which he threw away without looking. But still something caught his attention, and Andy decided to examine the find. It turned out that this is an old coin - very rusty and unremarkable. He nevertheless brought it into the house and put it on the shelf where it had been lying for more than half a century.
In 1965, a guest historian came to the house of the farmer's grandchildren. He became interested in an unusual coin and studied it for a long time. When he was told where and when this coin was found, he refused to believe. Still - on one side of the coin there is a horned Zeus of Ammon, and on the other - an eagle riding a zigzag of lightning. Each of these signs is the emblem of the Ptolemies, a dynasty of Egyptian kings. Andy Henderson's find dates back to the era of Ptolemy IV, who ruled Egypt from 221 to 204 BC. Such coins served as payment to the Egyptian soldiers …
And more recently, the assumption that the Egyptians in ancient times visited Australia received another confirmation. On the Arnhemland Peninsula, on a road near the city of Darwin, the boys found a seemingly strange pebble. It turned out to be a small sculpture of a scarab beetle, sacred to the ancient Egyptians … Archaeologists dated this find to the 1st millennium BC.
All these findings made it possible to find the answer to the riddle that has long been of interest to scientists-Egyptologists. Namely, why on the walls of several Egyptian temples are depicted people who are not like any of the peoples conquered by the Egyptians. Probably, these are the inhabitants of mysterious Australia, the honor of the discovery of which can be given to the ancient Egyptians …