Egypt's lost Cities

Tombstone said:
In days gone by that might have been the case, but in todays age, countries sneaking off with other countries artifacts is a much more rare occurrence. Aside from that, there is nothing to say that the archaeological digs and investigations couldnt have been done under the supervision of Egyptian authorities if they were worried, as opposed to simply not being done at all.
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Oh I see, perhaps the authorities are as paranoid as him.
 
Greenlizard0 said:
Oh I see, perhaps the authorities are as paranoid as him.
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Thats entirely possible, I know he has delivered the decisions, but there is the possibility that the decision has been made for him from above and he is merely the messenger. But from the things he has said in the past and the various texts he has written, I get the impression its him rather than pressure from the powers that be.
 
Fair enough. :)

So how does it work then (in general terms, as above, I know zero on the subject). Are like commercial style contracts written up before a site is excavated, indicating who keeps what? Egypt's basically about tourism, the canal and some gas and oil I had always imagined they don't have a shortage of archaeologists. Though saying that when I went last xmas our tourguide had a PhD in the subject but found more money doing tour guides! Or he was a **** who knows...

And, do museums still buy artefacts off each other or nowadays is it just set time loans?
 
Watching this documentary last night I thought, wow the mysteries of Egypt unlocked in one 90 minutes by the BBC. Surely someone has thought of using satellite imagery before and not left it to auntie to rent a couple of hours of earthbound downward facing satellite?
 
Khaaan! said:
Imagine this being used on Mars!

</lolMagic>

But seriously, imagine if there was some form of life on Mars billions of years ago before its atmosphere got ripped away and what remains is deep under ground!
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You haven't heard of Richard Hoagland, then? Been doing that for years :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
I've been to Egypt 3 times now to see the sites/sights and I watch every programme I can get my hands on.
What is special about this is that Zahi Hawass who is the Curator Of Egyptian Antiquities is a very hard man to get past and he fully backs this project.
This now means more holidays in Egypt.

Ooh, just seen Tombstone's posts and he is bang on about Hawass, that's why I wrote the above.
 
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Didn't see it, but did see an article on the BBC about it. Fascinating stuff really. And people thought being an archaeologist could be quite a boring job. Finding this sort of stuff out is groundbreaking. Think of the whole surface of the earth and what we could find using this sort of technology.
 
Tombstone is spot on about Hawass - if it doesn't fit in with his agenda it doesn't happen. Best thing that could happen is his removal, one can hope with a 'regime' change this might happen.

On a side note, was reading National Geographic today and this months edition has an article on a place called Göbekli Tepe - they believe that this is a religious site of some sorts which was constructed in what is now Southern Turkey approximately 11,600 year ago.

To put it into perspective the people at the time were thought to exist in small nomadic bands surving by foraging for plants and hunting wild animals. The complex is seven millenia OLDER than the Great Pyramid at Giza and they were moving 16 Ton blocks of stone around!

The Wikipedia article is quite interesting. The photos in the National Geographic article are amazing - the complex has definate similarities to Stonehenge in that there are massive uprights arranged in concentric circles - the difference is Göbekli Tepe is much older and the carving much finer than Stonehenge.

Much of the site is still undergoing excavation. One of the interesting things is that as the complexes aged, they seem to have gone out of use and been buried. Then they rebuilt them, repeatedly, only as time wore on the carvings and stonework skills seem to have got cruder rather than better, which suggests perhaps that they were working from someones memory of what the older complex looked like.

Amazing place though.
 
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stuartw_b said:
It was great to see the images just shows how much we don't know about Egypts past. Tanis looked amazing! Would love to see this technology used elsewhere
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Would be good, I wonder if it could uncover stuff under the ocean. I know they said it had a range of about 4m underground or something like that but thats with sand.
 
Sinny said:
Would be good, I wonder if it could uncover stuff under the ocean. I know they said it had a range of about 4m underground or something like that but thats with sand.
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I am no expert, but I can't see it being able to reveal stuff under the ocean as the ocean has a depth of god knows how many meters, I can't see it being able to pierce through that much sea liquid.

EDIT: Just checked on some google images, looks like I was right, there is not much to see with the camera and the sea.
 
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Andy90 said:
Tombstone is spot on about Hawass - if it doesn't fit in with his agenda it doesn't happen. Best thing that could happen is his removal, one can hope with a 'regime' change this might happen.
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I have been in a lecture with Hawass and he is a very interesting man but like you say, he's a bit rigid in his thoughts and it's great to see him take this new idea on.
I was also surprised that he has given credence to the book by Jean-Pierre Houdin who explains how the Great Pyramid was built (I even started a thread about it a while ago). I also believe this theory 100%.
You have to understand that Hawass gets 1000s of requests a week from a lot of crackpots because they want to dig under the Sphinx or tear a part of the Great Pyramid down and with many people they think this is 'getting in the way'.
Yeah, I've heard stories of a library under the Sphinx and even a UFO under there but Hawass needs a bloody good reason to give permission.
 
Fascinating programme but as others have said, it left a feeling of terrible disappointment in one at the end. I wish there had been more excavations but with the uprising and short filming time frame (six months) I suppose not a lot could have happened.

I would really love for them to just get the JCBs in and start digging up Itjtawy. It's amazing to think it's all silted up and lies 6 metres below the surface. I'm agog that there are so many places that are empty and yet no work has been done on them. I suppose it's cost that prevents it all - men shifting tonnes of sand with buckets and wheelbarrows, that sort of thing.

That pyramid they went in to, with Dr Hawass puffing and panting looked mighty precarious. How the hell does that stone triangle arch support the weight of the entire pyramid to this day? It's got numerous cracks in it. One day it's going to fall down. Seeing all that graffiti inside was awful though.

I still think they were built by alien overlords. :D
 
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