Ancient necropolis found in Egypt

Archaeologists say they have found the largest funerary complex yet dating from the earliest era of ancient Egypt, more than 5,000 years ago.

Inside the tombs, the archaeologists found a cow's head carved from flint and the remains of seven people.

They believe four of them were buried alive as human sacrifices.

The remains survived despite the fact that the tombs were plundered in ancient times.

Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the discovery would add greatly to knowledge of the elusive pre-dynastic period, when Egypt was first becoming a nation.

There you go..that's some Indy worthy material!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4467253.stm

Cool Thanks for the link!

Ugh! Buried alive...sucks to be them!

I wonder if those people buried alive were servants...? They used to bury servants along with their masters so they could serve them in the afterlife.

I hope we'll get to see some pictures of the finds soon...

Last august: excavation findings at Kibbutz Tzuba: cave of John the Baptist?

Thanks for announcing!

Yet another source that will generate dozens of popular as well as scientific articles... Just wait and see: this will make the cover of National Geographic and so on.

By the way - I forgot to post something concerning a previous intriguing find, and since there hasn't been any sign of it on the forum, here goes:

Last august 2004, a team led by archaeologist Shimon Gibson found a cave (79 feet deep) in Kibbutz Tzuba (near Jerusalem) with carved images, a quarter million pieces of pottery and an alleged ritual oval stone with foot-shaped indentation and a niche that may have been used to pour oil onto the positioned feet. The carved image depicts a tall man with wild hair and staff, presumably John the Baptist. Another face carving was symbolic for a severed head - and this is linked to Herod Antipas, who decapitated John.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3571502.stm
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/16/world/main636394.shtml
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129106,00.html
www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Archeolog...the+Field+30-Aug-2004.htm

Most Biblical scholars seem sceptical (who wouldn't be about any Biblical-themed archeological matter or 'proof' ?), but since it took some excavation, I'm not likely to think it would be a fraud. I suppose they will have done some conclusive carbon dating (C14) by now to make sure it's an authentic.

Really weird... I hope they can find more proof to support these hypothesis.
Better follow this thing more up a bit...

The problem with the alleged John the Baptist cave is there is nothing to conclusively prove that it is what the excavator claims it is.Short of finding an inscription that says 'John the Baptist was here' they probably never will know for sure.This was an example of an archaeologist being very irresponsible and trying to make a name for himself.Instead of publishing his findings in a valid scientific journal,he published a popular book in an effort to win over the emotions of the public.If everyone believes something to be what you say it is,then I guess you really don't need proof.

Shoddy archaeology,if you ask me.

TombReader said:

The problem with the alleged John the Baptist cave is there is nothing to conclusively prove that it is what the excavator claims it is.Short of finding an inscription that says 'John the Baptist was here' they probably never will know for sure.This was an example of an archaeologist being very irresponsible and trying to make a name for himself.Instead of publishing his findings in a valid scientific journal,he published a popular book in an effort to win over the emotions of the public.If everyone believes something to be what you say it is,then I guess you really don't need proof.

Shoddy archaeology,if you ask me.

Click to expand...

Agreed. The problem at present with Biblical Archaeology is that while some in the field are legitimate scholars, many more are charlatains hoping to make a buck, or even better, misguided zealots who make the search for the "true cross" look somewhat serious by comparison.

The same problem developed with this whole 'James Box' fiasco. It was obviously a fake, and has since been proven conclusively so - and a medieval fake at that. But publications such as the Biblical Archaeology Review will tell you that the James Box is real, that the true cross is still being held prisoner beneath Hagia Sophia, etc.

Unfortunately, these fakes, and their shameless tv evangelist like promotions, help to take away attention from other -legitimate- finds and help to cast further dispersions on the very intriguing goal of associating biblical references with historical sites.

For example, it has recently been argued fairly succinctly that the Shroud of Turin may date to the time of Christ, based upon errors found in the previous attempt to date the shroud. But we don't hear about this, because the academic community has been burned too many times by ridiculousness such as the James Box, the Cave of St. John, etc...

So, you'll get no argument from me here. Shoddy archaeology, indeed. And I consider myself a person of faith - I simply don't think my faith is trivial enough to waste on carnival hucksters and any fool with a spade.


(No offense intended to the gentleman who posted this topic originally.. I guess I just wanted to point out the extreme frustration in dealing with this material).

-Fed