Ancient Egypt is an amazing culture. Monuments from that time, such as the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, inspire awe in people today. Researchers are also interested in ancient Egyptian papyri. After all, Egypt is one of the earliest cultures, whose representatives kept detailed records of everything that happened. But even today, scientists do not know everything about the secrets of ancient Egypt, and researchers continue to make amazing discoveries.
1. Meteorite iron
In the Egyptian city of Girza in 1911, archaeologists found a tomb containing nine metal beads. Incredibly, it turned out that beads appeared 2,000 years earlier than iron was smelted in Egypt. Since then, historians have puzzled over where the ancient Egyptians got the iron for the beads. The Egyptian hieroglyph for iron literally translates as "metal of the sky", which gives a very good reference to understanding its origin.
The metal of the sky.
Due to the rarity of the metal, it was mainly associated with wealth and power. It was mainly used to make jewelry and trinkets for the royal family, and not weapons, as was customary later. In the 1980s, chemical analysis showed that the nickel level in the beads was similar to that found in meteorites. So the Egyptians, thousands of years before they learned how to smelt this metal, iron appeared. It could also explain the mystery of Tutankhamun's dagger, made of iron and gold.
2. Religious tattoos
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Today people get tattoos for a variety of reasons: to capture a loved one, to emphasize their dissimilarity from others, or to talk about their interests. The mummy found in the village of Deir el-Medina confirms that the ancient Egyptians also had tattoos. The Deir el Medina mummy is a headless and armless torso that belonged to a woman who lived between 1300 and 1070 BC.
Mummy of Deir el-Medina.
Using infrared light, 30 clearly distinguishable tattoos were found on her. What is unique about this mummy is that she was tattooed during her lifetime, and not after death as a religious ritual. Most of the symbols were dedicated to the powerful goddess Hathor. Three similar mummies were soon discovered, with tattoos also designed to express religious piety.
3. Images of demons
Even 4000 years ago, the Egyptians were very afraid of demons. However, until recently, scholars had no idea how the Egyptians represented them. This was until they found two two coffins dating from the era of the Middle Kingdom (about 4500 years ago), on which the world's oldest images of demons were found. One of them, called In-mep, was a mixture of a dog and a baboon, and the other, named Cheri-Benut, was an incomprehensible creature with a human head.
Demon In-mep.
The demons are depicted as two guards at the entrance to the tomb, but what they were actually responsible for is unknown. Also on another coffin was an image of Ikenti, a demon that looked like a large bird with a cat's head.
4. Ancient heart disease
Atherosclerosis is a chronic arterial disease that is very common today. A sedentary lifestyle and a diet rich in fatty foods contribute to this disease. Therefore, it is not surprising that doctors believed that atherosclerosis is a fairly new disease and it was not common in ancient populations. Egyptologists also found out that it was a very common disease thousands of years ago.
Princess Ahmose-Meriet-Amon.
After examining 52 mummies at the National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, it turned out that 20 of them showed signs of calcification, which means that they most likely suffered from atherosclerosis during their lives. Their average age was about 45 years, and they lived in the 16th century BC. One of the mummies belonged to the royal family, namely the princess Ahmose-Meriet-Amon, who lived in Thebes and died at the age of forty. She is considered the oldest person to have had coronary artery disease.
5. Egyptian women of fashion
In modern days, when a woman's hair begins to thin, there are several ways to fix it. Apparently, women in the past had the same problem, because the remains of a woman who were found in the ruined Egyptian city of Amarna had 70 hair extensions similar to those in use today.
Hair Extensions in Ancient Egypt.
The hair was so well made that it has survived to this day, although the rest of the woman's body decomposed (she died 3300 years ago and was not mummified). In the cemetery where the woman was buried, other bodies were found with hair dyed with henna.
6. Mummified embryo
About 100 years ago, a 45-centimeter sargophagus was excavated in Giza. He was taken to the University of Cambridge, where he was sent to the storerooms and forgotten about him. Initially, it was believed that individual organs were placed in the tiny coffin for some unknown reason. But after careful examination with MRI, it turned out that it was actually a 16-18 week old human fetus, which was mummified and buried in its own specially built sarcophagus, which contained intricate patterns and decorations.
45 cm sargophagus.
7. Cancer among the Egyptians
Like heart disease, cancer, until recently, was considered a purely modern disease. This disease has never been mentioned in historical records. However, this does not mean that cancer did not exist in the ancient world. According to recent research, two mummies, a male and a female, showed signs that they were suffering from cancer.
4,200 year old mummy.
In 2015, a Spanish university found a mummy that showed signs of damage from breast cancer. The 4200-year-old mummy is a woman who lived during the sixth dynasty of the pharaohs.
8. The oldest papyrus
In 2011, archaeologist Pierre Tallett made a remarkable discovery in a remote area of Egypt, far from any civilization. In thirty caves in a limestone rock, a kind of warehouse for storing boats in ancient Egypt was discovered. But even more startling was the discovery he made a few years later, in 2013 - a series of papyri, inscribed on both sides in hieroglyphs and hieratic writing (the unofficial, everyday writing of the ancient Egyptians), with the papyri being the oldest papyri ever discovered.
Official's journal.
Among them was found the journal of an official named Merer, who led a group of 200 men responsible for providing materials and provisions to workers on the construction of the Great Pyramid.
9. Ancient Egyptian Brain Drain
In 525 BC, the Persian king Cambyses captured the Egyptian capital Memphis. After the conquest of Egypt, most of the great Egyptian minds and artists began to be exported to Persia to serve the empire there. Only mediocre artists remained in Egypt, as can be clearly seen from the coffin discovered in 2014. Despite the fact that the body was not found in the coffin, scientists have established that the coffin dates from approximately the years of the Persian occupation.
Image of the period of the Persian occupation.
Interestingly, it was initially believed that the coffin was a fake, since it was made very roughly and of poor quality. However, it was later revealed that this is indeed the original. The coffin contains many bizarre images, including poorly drawn falcons (symbols of the god Horus) that look more like fish, four jars with the heads of Horus' four sons described as "headless" and other bloopers related to Egyptian mythology.
10. Egyptian sex spells
In 2016, two papyrus scrolls from the third century AD, which were written in Greek, were deciphered. The 1,700-year-old scrolls, which were found centuries ago, were kept at Oxford University in England. And only now it turned out that sexual spells were written on them, designed to fall in love with another person. The author of the spells is unknown, but several Gnostic gods are mentioned.
Scrolls of the third century.