With modern imaging equipment, archaeologists now have a wide range of new tools to help them uncover the secrets of the past.
New, previously unknown voids have been discovered in the pyramids of Giza thanks to devices that can "see" cosmic rays bouncing off the inner surfaces of the pyramids, while unmanned aerial vehicles have led to the discovery of dozens of new unknown and unknown ancient structures. This week, new research software for image enhancement has led to a breakthrough in ancient Egyptology.
Researchers using a radical new imaging software called DStretch have discovered images of both bats and pigs in art found in an ancient Egyptian cemetery, some of them the only known examples of these animals in all of ancient Egyptian archeology.
A new analysis of the tomb painting revealed an image of two men carrying a pig.
Linda Evans of Macquarie University in Sydney says that these paintings from the ancient cemetery known as Beni Hassan are some of the first known images of pigs and bats in all known Egyptian artifacts:
The most surprising result of the DStretch study is the confirmation of new animal images that are incredibly rare in Egyptian art. There are practically no images of pigs or bats in Egyptian art, but we can now confirm that they appear several times in Beni Hasan.
One of the images depicts men carrying pigs on their shoulders, and even stranger, one of the images shows a group of people drowning a pig in a cistern or well. It is unknown if this was related to food production or if it might represent an unknown practice or ritual.
It looks like there would be easier ways to kill the pig.
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Researchers have also found an unexplained image of a vulture holding an ankh in its talons, an image usually associated only with royal tombs. Just why such an image appeared in the grave of an ordinary person remains a mystery. Even now, after centuries of research, archaeologists continue to understand how little we know about Ancient Egypt. Who knows what knowledge was lost in history due to the destruction of time?