The Amarna Letters and the Mummies of Cairo

[Laura]

Since I'm deep in research for my next book: The Horns of Moses, I've been buried lately in all things Egyptian. The other day I completed my review of G. Elliot Smith's "The Royal Mummies" AKA "Catalogue General des Antiquites Egyptiennes du Musee du Caire" and last night, I completed the review of the entire corpus of the translated Amarna tablets.

The only thing I can say at this point is that, after this, I am heartily sick and revolted by all things Egyptian.

 

[j0da]

The only thing I can say at this point is that, after this, I am heartily sick and revolted by all things Egyptian.

Along with the Bangles "Walk Like An Egyptian" tune? :D

 

[Windmill knight]

The only thing I can say at this point is that, after this, I am heartily sick and revolted by all things Egyptian.

Why is that, Laura? Because of the disinfo?

When I went to Egypt, the thing that made me a little sick and revolted was the realization that those massive monuments with images of the Pharaoh all over (e.g. Karnak) implied loads of oppressed people. Another evil empire, I thought.

 

[Laura]

loads of oppressed people. Another evil empire, I thought.

That's a major part of it. Reading those letters just revealed how corrupt and psychopathic the whole Egyptian monarchy was particularly at the time of Amenophis III and Akhenaten. I do NOT get how anybody could ever think that there was anything positive about those people after reading all the letters and seeing how desparate they were to preserve the physical body in order to have an "afterlife." Sheesh! Obviously the abstract concept of TRUE spiritual existence was completely lost on them despite what all the Egyptian religion apologists write. The revolting procedures of mummification - all done in a desparate attempt to "live eternally" - were just too much!

The letters reveal that Amenophis III and Akhenaten were devious, double dealing back stabbers who lived off of the misery of others.

Revolting.

 

[The Gardener]

Cant wait for that book Laura.
And to think here Egiptians are SO admired! And I guess in the rest of the world, but here, if you are to make a comment about egiptian culture, you better back it up with conviction, knowledge and admiration for ancient egiptians or... or you are suspected to also be ignorant, and irreverent, towards ancient mexican cultures!
I do not think prehispanic cultures were very different from this egiptian psycopathic corruption.

 

[mkrnhr]

The only place I have met eagyptian mummies, it was at the Louvres museum in Paris. The first impression was to think something like "all that civilisation for that?". It looks like this approach to hierarchy even when dead is very difficult to fit to a scientific and supposed happy nation. Maybe the actual facination to whatever egyptian and to pyramides is an echo of our actual hierarchic organisation of society and power. I'm I wrong? The summum of facination was I think when most people believed that the pyramides were built with thousands of slaves. strange no?

 

[Windmill knight]

Another three observations about my trip to Egypt a year ago:

- I had a chat with a local guide in the Cairo museum, and he commented that there is only ONE mention in all of Egyptian writing, inscriptions, etc, about Israel. He showed it to me. It was on a stone stella almost at the bottom of the 'page'. Israel was listed as one of the groups of people that had been defeated by the Pharaoh at that particular time. He explained that they were not even considered a nation, since they would have had the symbol for 'city' next to their name, which looks like a circle with a cross, but they didn't; instead they had the symbols for 'many' and 'people', meaning 'a bunch of people'.

The point being that the 'nation' of Israel was not really important back then, if it actually existed. At least not for the Egyptians, but hey, they were the Empire, and they knew everyone worth knowing.

- The Temple of the Valley, the one next to the Sphinx, is amazingly well preserved. Actually, when I first stepped in, I thought it was a new reconstruction by archaeologists! This is the one that Laura mentions in her book that is suspected of having been built with some sort of ancient technology, since they cut very hard pieces of stone with great precision and using an amount of pressure stronger than what is possible for a human being; and fitting the rocks together like a jigsaw. It's very impressive. Actually, the other temples further south in the Nile Valley (Karnak, Luxor, Hatshepsut) are much more worn out - and they were built later!

- At the inner-most part of the Temple of Luxor, there is a section that was built in the times of Alexander. So Alex is depicted on the walls in Egyptian style, making offers to Osiris in one of his manifestations. In one of those representations, Osiris is showing his erected penis, and right in front of it there is... a spermatozoid. I even have a picture of it. What got my attention was not so much the sexual tone of the whole thing, but rather: If they didn't have microscopes, how did they know what a spermatozoid looked like? I asked the guide, and he mentioned that they did have some sort of telescopes (there's a painting about some ancient Egyptians looking through lenses fitted on a piece of wood), but admitted that he didn't know about microscopes. Maybe it's not that difficult to build one once you know the principles of lenses? Would it be powerful enough to see a spermatozoid? I don't know.

My three cents.

 

[Danny]

This would be interesting for the C's thoughts on the whole Egyptian thing.Just because ,what fascinates me is the connection to alotf psychopathic,evil empires that somehow figure a way to almost harness "super powers" for lack of a better term.And at the same time these "civilizations" have nothing at all to do wiht the commonwealth of people or human life.There is a helluva synchronicity for the people who still believe that some dude in the clouds is going to sweep 'em up just before the"you-know-what" hits the fan.
Also I agree totally on the sickness of the mummification thing.Like pulling the brains out through the nose..mmm and most of all the senseless killing of their entourage ro whatever you would call them .

 

[tschai]

There are depictions in tombs of all sorts of weird devices-including things that look like Crookes tubes (x-ray machines) complete with folk in front of them with their insides showing!

Other things that look like high power cables-and some sort of machine giving off "rays" of an unkown type-helicopters and jet planes-not to mention a model airplane found-with a wing configuration that would allow the plane to be flown at a very slow speed-with a very low torque motor-and carry an enormous payload.

The model was repaired-and it flew perfectly! Where did the Egyptians get that idea from?

And there is absolutely no way they quarried those granite blocks with wood and copper tools...so how did they do this?

I have been to Giza-and seen the Pyramids-and the Sphynx-Oh to have seen these when they were still clad in white stone-polished to a luster that reflected the sky! They were supposedly visible for miles-shining in the sun. Built thousands of years BEFORE the Egyptians usurped them for their morbid bid for immortality.

Modern Egyptology offers no plausible explanantion for any of the enigmas-and any real evidence -like much of History-that does not "fit" the pet theories of the Archaeologists-get stuffed away in musty archives-like the Cairo Museum and Smithsonian.

Without the work of Laura and those precious few who dare to tell the Truth-we would all still believe the tired old garbage peddled to us by these so called "experts"-and go on believing the same old myths.