Ancient World Review

The Pyramids Of Abusir

Note: "The Unfinished Pyramid of Abusir, an ancient Egyptian royal tomb which was probably abandoned shortly after the start of construction in the 5th Dynasty, is located in the necropolis of Abusir, an archaeological site near Cairo. Shepseskare, a pharaoh who is known only from a single roughly contemporary seal impression from the mortuary temple of Neferefre, has been suggested as the pyramid's builder." Source: Wikipedia (entry edited for clarity)

Muting the hideous background music is highly recommended.

"Abusir is the Arab name given to the Greek town of Busiris and the Old Kingdom necropolis in its vicinity. The Greek name Busiris is derived from the ancient Egyptian phrase 'pr wsir' (the house of Osiris) which relates to the temple of Osiris.'" Source: Ancient Egypt Online.

"...The necropolis of Abusir was the primary burial site for the pharaohs of the fifth dynasty of ancient Egypt. It lies across the Nile from the ancient city of Memphis ... to the south of Giza and north of Saqqara. The site was probably chosen because the necropolises of Giza and Saqqara were already littered with pyramids and tombs and Abusir Lake linked the site to the river and made it easier to deliver supplies to the site by boat."

The next video ( published in 2015) shows the unveiling at Abusir of "the mummified body of a Pharaonic palace chief thought to be more than 2,400 years old." Closed captions in English are available. The tomb itself was discovered in 1996, but the mummy wasn't recovered until later.

"The sands of Abu Sir revealed important secrets of the tomb of Iufaa that really is one of the tombs in the cemetery of the 26th dynasty with the rebirth of Egyptian civilization, because this period they imitated art of the old kingdom, the middle kingdom and the new kingdom; and this person was an important person, was the one in charge of the palace of the king and this is why we always believe that we never know what the sands of Egypt might hide of secrets; this is the most new secret that has been discovered in Egypt." - Dr.Zahi Hawass, Giza Antiquities Director (quoted from the video).

Time has reduced the Abusir necropolis to a kind of mortuary junk heap."Only four [of the tombs] are still in recognizable condition," according to Ancient Egypt Online.

According to Wikipedia, "[t]here are a total of 14 pyramids at this site, which served as the main royal necropolis during the Fifth dynasty. The quality of construction of the Abusir pyramids is inferior to those of the Fourth Dynasty; perhaps signalling a decrease in royal power or a less vibrant economy. They are smaller than their predecessors, and are built of low quality local stone. All of the major pyramids at Abusir were built as step pyramids, although the largest of them — the Pyramid of Neferirkare [next video]— is believed to have originally been built as a step pyramid some seventy metres in height and then later transformed into a 'true' pyramid by having its steps filled in with loose masonry."

Video from 2017.

Egypt Opens "Bent Pyramid" For First Time In Decades

"Egypt opened two ancient pyramids south of Cairo to the public for the first time in 54 years, including the unusually-shaped Bent Pyramid which is 4,600 years old and reveals a key step in the evolution of pyramid construction." Source: RT.

"...The Bent Pyramid was built for King Sneferu, the first pharaoh of Egypt’s 4th dynasty. The bottom half of the pyramid is built at a steep 54-degree angle and is largely covered in limestone casing. The upper half, though, slants at a strange 43-degree angle. It’s thought that during its construction, the more steep angle of the bottom could have shown signs of instability and so a decision was made to change the angle." (RT)

Note: According to RT, the other pyramid being opened is something called the "Alkaa Dogmatic Pyramid." I have no idea what this is. I haven't been able to find anything about a pyramid with this weird name.

Roman Legionaries In China? (UPDATE)

Comment: This theory is speculative, but the idea that Roman soldiers ended up in China isn't totally implausible. The general scenario of how it could have happened goes like this:

In 53 BC, the Roman politician and general Marcus Crassus (115-53 BC) was killed at the Battle of Carrhae when he led his army into a trap during his ill-advised invasion of Parthia, an empire which bordered on China:

"At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce." (Wikipedia)

This map shows the location of Parthia when it was part of the Median Empire around 600 BC. Parthia is in the upper part of the yellow region just to the right of the Caspian Sea.

Crassus' invasion of Parthia was a complete disaster:

"In a slaughter known as the battle of Carrhae the Romans lost nearly their entire army and Crassus was killed. [The story is that the Parthians captured Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.] The remaining 10,000 or so Roman legionaries were captured." Source: War History Online.

The Parthians apparently used their Roman prisoners as border guards along the eastern frontiers:

"The Parthians had a standard practice of employing captured soldiers as border guards. By transferring the 10,000 legionaries to the eastern borders they prevented any realistic chance of escape for the Romans who likely would have simply accepted their new lot in life. Record of the soldiers vanish for about 17 years when the battle of Zhizhi was fought as a Chinese army under Chen Tang assaulted a border town known today as Taraz, located in Kazakhstan near the border of Kyrgyzstan." (War History Online)

According to the story, some of these former Roman soldiers and Parthian border guards fought as mercenaries at the battle of Zhizhi. They were either captured or defected to the Chinese, who were impressed by their fighting abilities and -- like the Parthians -- stationed them in a border town to guard the frontier:

"Anywhere from 100 to 1,000 or more soldiers established themselves in this town that was known by the Chinese as Liqian/Li-Jien, which is pronounced as 'legion'." (War History Online) "...It seems these Romans lived peacefully in Liqian, and 2,000 years later we have DNA evidence that over 50% of the villagers in modern day Liqian have Caucasian ancestry including green and blue eyes, increased average height and other distinguishing characteristics such as distinctly Roman noses."

If this story is true, then these Roman soldiers who fought under Crassus at Carrhae (and their descendants) had an extremely wild and strange destiny, to say the least. But is the story true?

First of all, there's no doubt that the inhabitants of the region of Liqian, China, have some kind of European ancestry. According to Wikipedia, "The area of the former Liqian city is known for the distinctive physical appearance of its inhabitants. The population has higher frequencies of traits prevalent in Europe, such as aquiline noses, blonde or light-colored hair, blue or green eyes, and relatively fair skin tones."

Who were these Europeans and where did they come from? The idea that they were Roman soldiers or their descendants isn't all that farfetched, but it's still controversial:

"A hypothesis by the sinologist Homer H. Dubs, according to which Roman legionaries clashed with Han troops during the battle and were resettled afterwards in a Chinese village named Liqian, has been rejected by modern historians and geneticists on the grounds of a critical appraisal of the ancient sources and recent DNA testings of the village people. However, this hypothesis has been supported by prominent scholars like Lev Gumilev."

There's also a theory that the people of Liqian may be descended from some of Alexander the Great's soldiers, but it seems more likely that their ancestors were Caucasoid Indo-Europeans who lived in the region long before the Romans:

"People with normatively Caucasoid traits and/or who spoke Indo-European languages lived in areas that are now part of Gansu and Xinjiang centuries before the Romans, including the Yuezhi, Wusun, Basmyls, Tocharians, and some prehistoric Siberian populations." (Wikipedia)

You can always trust the experts to mess up a good story, but I've got to admit that some of these Chinese do look like they have Roman ancestry. The people in Liqian are trying to use their supposed relationship with the Romans to boost their tourism industry and who can blame them? Whether the story is true or not is a different matter altogether.

Morocco To Restore Lixus Archaeological Site

Video from 2016.

"Lixus is an ancient city on the banks of the Loukous River. First settled by the Phoenicians in the 12th century BC, it flourished under the Roman empire. The site is home to the only Roman amphitheater in Morocco [northwestern Africa] and a large industrial complex where fish was preserved in salt. The city was destroyed during the Muslim conquest of Morocco in the late 7th century." Source: Archaeology News Network.

Note: "Lixus was first settled by the Canaanites in the 12th century BC and was later controlled directly from Carthage. It was part of a chain of Canaanite towns along the Atlantic coast of modern Morocco ... Some ancient Greek writers located at Lixus the mythological garden of the Hesperides, the keepers of the golden apples. The name of the city was often mentioned by writers from Hanno the Navigator to the Geographer of Ravenna, and confirmed by the legend on its coins and by an inscription. The ancients believed Lixus to be the site of the Garden of the Hesperides and of a sanctuary of Hercules, where Hercules gathered gold apples, more ancient than the one at Cadiz, Spain."

First Fireworks Came From A 2000-Year-Old Chinese Quest For Immortality

History of fireworks begins at around 4:12.

"One thousand years before the first Fourth of July, the first fireworks exploded. It didn't rain twinkling stars or light up the night sky — but to the complete surprise and misfortune of one Chinese chemist, it did go 'bang.'" Source: Live Science.

"This 'bang' was the product of an ancient quest for immortality, according to Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A History (Routledge, 2016) . In early-ninth-century China, alchemy was all the rage. The goal of alchemy was to produce a substance that would prolong life, or even cheat death. Alchemy never did uncover a death-defying concoction. But it did produce an explosion that would change the way we celebrate holidays worldwide.

Note: "Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble metals, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine. The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Grand Elixir of Immortality sought by Chinese alchemists. However, in the hermetic view, these two goals were not unconnected, and the philosopher's stone was often equated with the universal panacea; therefore, the two traditions may have had more in common than initially appears." (Wikipedia)

Giant Building Complex Reveals Origins Of Ancient Greece?

Video from Jan. 2018.

"Archaeologists are, for the first time, discovering the probable origins of ancient Greece," according to The Independent (July 2019).

"Excavations on a tiny island [Dhaskalio] in the Aegean Sea – 125 miles southeast of Athens – are revealing the earliest truly monumental complex of buildings ever unearthed anywhere in the Greek world.

"Dating back 4,600 years, the site may also have been part of the inspiration for a key aspect of Greek religion – the idea that mountain tops were the dwelling places of the gods."

Video from 2018. Closed-captions helpful.

Note: This monumental building complex isn't a new discovery. Excavations on Dhaskalio have been going on for several years but "until now, nobody had realized the true scale of the complex – and the gargantuan effort that had gone into constructing it." (The Independent)

"... Archaeologists now believe that, in order to construct the complex, early Bronze Age Greeks embarked on at least 3,500 maritime voyages to transport between 7,000 and 10,000 tonnes of shining white marble from one Aegean island to another."

Garbage Crisis Continues In Rome

"Landfills in flames and rats feasting on waste in the streets have sparked health fears in Rome, as doctors warn families to steer clear of disease-ridden curbside garbage and locals launch a disgusting dumpster contest online." Source: AFP.

"Crowds of summer tourists are forced to navigate overflowing bins in the stifling heat, as the pungent perfume of neglected garbage draws scavenging animals and the threat of disease to the Eternal City and locals fume over the city's refuse management."

Note: The garbage crisis in Italy has been going on for years. For more information see The Garbage Problem in Rome and Naples posted here in Jan. 2019. The Italian Mafia is responsible for a lot of this, but since the same thing is happening in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities in the United States, it's hard not to also see it as a symptom of general cultural decline. Ancient Rome was never the most sanitary place in the world, granted, but Augustus would be shocked if he could see what's happened to the former heart of the Roman Empire.

Swedish Politician Suggests Banning "Nazi" Runes (UPDATE)

Evil Nazi runes!

Back in May, 2019, Russia Today reported that the Swedish government was "looking into the possibility of forbidding the use of Norse runes ... amid concerns that the ancient symbols have been misappropriated by neo-Nazi groups." According to RT, Justice Minister Morgan Johansson was "investigating whether or not runes should be banned in Sweden as a way to deter hate groups ..."

This proposed ban was absurd, of course, but it was a particularly dumb idea because banning runes would be impossible. Runic inscriptions can be found all over Scandinavia and Europe, for one thing, but even if you destroyed every runestone and medieval artifact in the West, you still couldn't get rid of these "racist" symbols. This ancient writing system is not only the subject of scholarly research, but "runic alphabets were added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0." (Wikipedia) Hundreds of rune-related books and merchandise can be found on Amazon and rune tattoos are very popular (see next video). You'd have to be crazy, not to mention unbelievably arrogant, to think you could actually "forbid" runes.

That's not what this proposal was about, of course. The Swedish government would just use a ban as a legal tool to persecute political groups they don't approve of. This kind of thing is SOP for the modern left. Attacks on national symbols have been taking place all over Europe and the US. For example, the Union Jack is now considered to be "racist" in Britain. So is the Betsy Ross flag in the United States.

Also see: Sweden Investigating Criminalizing Runes, Thor's Hammer & Other Norse Symbols.

Evil Nazi girl gets rune tattoos, including the notorious Tyr rune (2017).

The proposed criminalization of runes was typical of the current Swedish government. Malicious little creatures like Justice Minister Johansson are actively hostile to the culture and heritage of their own country, and they'll end up destroying Sweden completely if they aren't driven out of office. But even if these idiots were all purged tomorrow, it may be too late to turn the situation around. Sweden is dying. The level of violence there is soaring and the country is rapidly becoming Islamified thanks to its self-destructive immigration policies. The truly insane thing about all of this is that Sweden's "feminist government" has been bending over backwards to import an alien culture which treats women like chattel, but that's typical of the clown world we live in today.

Sweden is a classic example of cultural decay. It's hard to believe that its people are descended from the Vikings.

Video from 2015.

UPDATE: Surprisingly, the idiotic Swedish government decided not to ban runes. According to The Local (May 30, 2019), "an inquiry in Sweden has recommended against bringing in a ban on racist symbols such as the Tyr or Tiwaz rune used by the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement ... The inquiry, led by Charlotte Brokelind, President of the Göta Court of Appeal, found in its conclusions that existing ethnic hate laws were sufficient, and did not need to be supplemented by additional bans on specific symbols."

The Local is a left-wing rag. Note the ridiculous assertion that the Tyr or Tiwaz rune is a "racist symbol."

"In Germanic mythology, Týr (Old Norse), Tíw (Old English), and Ziu (Old High German) is a god. Stemming from the Proto-Germanic deity *Tīwaz and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European deity *Dyeus, little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources. Due to the etymology of the god's name and the shadowy presence of the god in the extant Germanic corpus, some scholars propose that Týr may have once held a more central place among the deities of early Germanic mythology" (Wikipedia)

The Tyr rune is a symbol of national identity. That's why the Nordic Resistance Front adopted it. If they had used a Nordic Cross instead, the Swedish government would probably hold an inquiry into banning the Swedish flag.

"Fantastically Preserved" Viking Boat Graves & Skeletons Discovered In Sweden

"Archaeologists recently unearthed two Viking burial boats in Uppsala, Sweden — one of which was exceptionally preserved and held the remains of a dog, a man and a horse." Source: Live Science.

Note: "A ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as a container for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself. If the ship is very small, it is called a boat grave. This style of burial was used among the Germanic peoples, particularly by Viking Age Norsemen. According to the Boxer Codex, ship burials were also practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Philippines." (Wikipedia)

"A unique eyewitness account of a 10th-century ship burial among the Volga Vikings is given by Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan. The largest Viking ship (65 foot long) grave was discovered in Norway by archeologists in 2018, and it is estimated to have been covered over 1000 years ago to be used as a boat grave for an imminent Viking king or queen."

Comment: It seems kind of odd that ship burials also took place in the Philippines, of all places. I haven't been able to verify this, however.

 

Pagan Ship Burials - Valsgarde

Closed-captions sort of helpful.

"Valsgärde or Vallsgärde is a farm on the Fyris river, about three kilometres north of Gamla Uppsala, the ancient centre of the Swedish kings and of the pagan faith in Sweden. The present farm dates from the 16th century. The farm's notability derives from the presence of a burial site from the Swedish Vendel Age (part of the Iron age (c. 550–793) and the Viking Age); it was used for more than 300 years. The first ship burial is from the 6th century and the last graves are from the 11th century." (Wikipedia)

"The Valsgarde cemetery is known primarily for its fifteen boat-graves. Less well-known are the at least 62 cremation burials and the fifteen inhumations and chamber graves. From the very beginning of the excavations in Valsgarde, focus centered on the boat-graves. This was quite understandable, since most of them were spectacular." -- "Valsgarde - Development and change of a burial ground over 1300 years", John Ljungkvist (PDF).

Some incredible Vendel Age helmets have been discovered at Valsgarde.

"In one of the boat burials from the grave field at Valsgärde a rich nobleman is buried. The grave is from the Vendel period and about 1500 years old. The undisturbed graves show us that the people who lived in the area between 550 and 800 AD were wealthy. Valsgärde was strategically placed by the Fyris river, a major traffic artery for long-distance travel to continental Europe. The men in the graves embarked on their last journey equipped with war gear, household utensils, tools and many animals. Resting in comfort on eiderdown mattresses they departed for eternity." Source: Uppsala University.