Ancient Egypt History
Since I was a small child I have always had an extremely active imagination. I can easily place myself in virtual realities of my own choosing and conjure up all sorts of characters and locales. It's no wonder then that that a trip to Cairo whilst at school left me totally in awe of ancient Egypt for the rest of my life.
The first of my eight trips to that mysterious land of Egypt was in 1981 and I shall never forget it. Back then it was quite easy to bribe the guards in order to enter the Great Pyramid, the only surviving member of the 7 Wonders of the ancient Egypt history World.
As an 11 year old, the feeling as I walked into the grand gallery of Khufu's pyramid was amazing. To think that these ancient Egypt people could construct something this huge and so precisely several thousand years ago is astonishing. Though engineers can reproduce models and theorise as to how this great feat was achieved, they cannot say with certainty that a pyramid of this scale could be reproduced so precisely even today.
An amazing fact I learned whilst in the pyramid came from our unofficial guide for the tour. He informed us that if you were to take a globe and roll it out flat, so as to make a rectangle that represented the earth's surface, then in the EXACT center you would find the absolute middle of this ancient Egypt pyramid we were presently stood in. Surely that has to be more than just a coincidence, especially when you consider the ancient Egyptians penchant for astronomy and mathematics.
Leaving the ancient Egypt pyramid behind I believed I had seen the most wondrous sight of my life but I was soon to be proved wrong. In Cairo our next stop was the Egyptian museum. There are all sorts of treasures here, some of monetary value, but most of deep historical significance. One that interested me was Rameses II's mummy for a man of 90 he was in relatively good health at the time of his death and his mummy has been well preserved.
However, the greatest item belonged to another Pharoah. This was no ordinary King of Egypt though, this was, perhaps, one of the least important and most despised rulers in their history an inbred son of a heretic, a weakling who died young. So what is so special about such a Pharoah?
Well, for thousands of years the answer to that was nothing. He was quite unremarkable and all but forgotten about by ancient Egypt history until; one certain English archaeologist persisted in his search and finally uncovered the tomb and then later the great funeral mask of Tutankhamon, son of Akhenaton the King who had renounced Egypt's religion to support monethism for the first time in ancient Egypt history.
Tutankhamon came to power at a time of great instability in ancient Egypt. A mere boy he was possibly controlled by his advisors and may have ultimately been murdered by them for reasons of revenge against his hated father, as much as by their thirst for power. However, new evidence suggests that may not be the case Tutankhamon's death may have been caused by something as insignificant as an infection.
View other great ancient Egypt history websites in our blog section.
The articles may not be copied or reproduced - Copyright Daniel Millions
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