Ancient Egypt has continues to captivate the imagination ever since
the sands were first cleaned from the Great Sphinx.
For the past two centuries, Egypt has remained an obsession for archaeologists and historians.
Despite numerous archaeological excavations and research,
there are still many things we do not understand and do not know about the ancient country.
Some of the greatest discoveries of the ancient world still lie
covered under the sands of Egypt, waiting to be discovered.
In this video we will tell you 5 of the most famous still unsolved mysteries of ancient Egypt:
CONSCIOUSNESS
The mummy wrapped in an Etruscan book
In 1848, an official of the Royal Palace in Vienna, Mihailo Baric,
bought a sarcophagus with a female ancient Egyptian mummy from a shop in Alexandria.
He was a passionate collector of ancient art objects.
After that, for years he displayed this mummy as a decoration in his home,
not realizing what a priceless artifact he possessed.
At one point, he removes the linen wrappings of the mummy and puts them on display in a separate glass case.
However, he never seems to notice or pay much attention to the inscriptions on the wrappings.
The mummy remained on display in Barić's home until his death in 1859,
when it passed into the possession of his brother Ilija, a priest in Slavonia.
Since he was not interested in the mummy, he donated it in 1867 to the State Institute in Zagreb -
today's Archaeological Museum in Zagreb.
The restorer Miyat Sabchar writes the following in the inventory book:
Mummy of a young woman (with wrappings removed) standing in a glass case and held upright by an iron rod.
Another glass case containing the bandages of the mummy,
which are completely covered with inscriptions in an unknown and hitherto undeciphered language,
representing an extraordinary treasure for the National Museum.
The mummy and its wrappings were examined the same year by the German Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch,
who believed that these were Egyptian hieroglyphs.
He did not undertake any further research on the text until 1877 when in a random conversation
with Richard Burton about the runic alphabet he realized that the script was not Egyptian.
The two realize that the text is of utmost importance,
but mistakenly conclude that it is a transliteration of the Egyptian Book of the Dead into Arabic.
In 1891, the wrappings were transported to Vienna, where they were carefully examined by Jacob Krall,
an expert on the Coptic language, who expected the script to be Coptic, Libyan, or Carian.
Kral was the first to identify the language as Etruscan and reassemble the wrappings.
It was his work, that established that the linens were a manuscript written in Etruscan.
The origin and identity of the mummy were initially unknown, due to the irregular nature of its excavation and sale.
This leads to various speculations that the mummy may have had some connection
with the Etruscan civilization that inhabited the territories of ancient Italy.
But a papyrus, buried with it, proves that it was Egyptian and authenticates
its identity as Nesi-hensu, the wife of Paher-hensu, a tailor of Thebes.
The words wrapped around this mummy make up the longest Etruscan text ever found dating back to the 3rd century BC.
It is called the Zagreb Linen Book.
There are still many questions left unanswered. It is not yet known what the text is.
Only a few words have been read which appear to be dates and names of gods. What does this mean?
Why and did Paher-hensu of Thebes create and wrap the manuscript around his wife's dead body?
Another question is what is an Etruscan manuscript doing in Egypt?
The bas-relief from Dendera
In the temple of the goddess Hathor in the city of Dendera, an unusual bas-relief was discovered on one of the walls.
Human figures were clearly visible on it, and next to them - giant flasks,
similar to modern lamps with a tungsten filament.
Inside the "lamps" were drawn lines resembling wavy snakes.
Their sharp tails entered into an image resembling the lotus flower, enclosing the narrow part of a transparent flask.
The relief also shows a kind of cable connecting this device to a box similar to a junction box.
The leading specialist in the field of electrical engineering, V. Harn,
expressed his opinion that the so-called Jed poles, on which the "transparent flasks with the snakes" are located,
are very similar to modern high-voltage insulators.
In this case, the "snakes" should depict a spiral gas light discharge under the influence
of the high voltage from the petals of the "lotus flowers".
The room in which this painting is seen is the only one in the entire temple that did not have lamps with burning fire.
Archaeologists have found remains that show the Egyptians had burning lamps
in every other part of the building except this room.
So if they didn't have an early version of a light bulb stored here, how did they see anything in this room?
And if the room was dark, why would they bother putting such an elaborate image on the wall?
Let us know what you think in a comment.
The ruined pyramid of Jedafra
The Pyramid of Djedephra was supposed to be the tallest of all the pyramids in Egypt today.
He didn't have the resources to build the biggest pyramid,
but he made the top of his tomb a bit higher than all the others by building his pyramid on a hill.
Jedephra was the son and immediate heir to the throne of Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza;
his mother remains a mystery to archaeologists and historians.
Djedephra was a pharaoh who ruled Egypt around 2556 BC, and during his reign,
almost five millennia ago, he built the tallest and most incredible pyramid, even of those built by the banks of the Nile.
For some reason, however, while all the other pyramids in Egypt are still standing after thousands of years,
only the Pyramid of Djedephra has been completely destroyed. Everything left from her is just her base.
No one is quite sure what happened to the pyramid, but there are various theories.
Some believe that Jedephra simply died before most of his pyramid was built and it eventually fell into ruins.
Others believe that the Romans destroyed the pyramid because of the stones.
However, some claim that the Egyptian people really hated Djedefre - so much so that
they destroyed the entire pyramid out of hatred alone.
The Pyramid of Djedefrah was built at Abu Ruwash, north of Giza.
It is the highest part of the Memphis plateau, and although the pyramid was smaller in size
at 106 by 106 m, it stood the tallest.
Since access to the Abu Ruwash plateau is difficult from the east, south, and west,
a road over 1.5 km long had to be built on the north-eastern side to transport construction materials.
Unlike the other pyramids at Giza, this one was faced with red stone.
The structure is now a pile of ruins, which in its highest part does not reach more than 10 m.
Next to the eastern side of the pyramid was a temple, of which almost nothing has been preserved.
Around the temple, in a ten-meter-deep trench intended for the royal "solar ship", debris from statues,
broken intentionally and simultaneously, was found.
Another theory, according to some Egyptologists, is that the broken images of Djedephra testify to an internecine
struggle between the two brothers, which ended in victory for Khafre.
There is no evidence to support this hypothesis, as there is no clarity about the period in which the complex was destroyed.
During his expeditions into the Sahara, Carlo Bergman found evidence that Egyptians
were living in the area at the time of the construction of the Pyramid of Jedafra.
A few kilometers north of the caravan route,
on a rock face is painted a figure of a pharaoh striking down his enemy with a mace.
Below it, two cartouches are carved into the rock.
Klaus Kuhlmann of the German Archaeological Institute was able to decipher them.
On one of them is written "gold of the gods" and on the other - "Rajedef,
may he be eternally endowed with life, longevity, and joy."
The handwritten signature of the pharaoh can be seen on the second cartouche.
Based on the inscriptions, the scale of the expedition is also determined.
These are two groups of 400 people each, made up of "belonging to the royal cemetery" - that is, builders.
Most likely, their purpose was the extraction and delivery of red stones from the local rocks.
Perhaps the mystery surrounding the lost pyramid, even if its remains were found, will never be revealed!
Who really is Nefertiti?
The bust of Nefertiti is one of the most famous symbols of Ancient Egypt,
but the queen herself is still shrouded in mystery and intrigue.
Queen Nefertiti is legendary because she was one of the few women who ruled Egypt, and she was extremely beautiful.
At fifteen, she married the sixteen-year-old Amenhotep IV.
Nefertiti was born in 1370 BC. However, Egyptologists continue to argue about this - what exactly is her origin?
Many of them are convinced that the secret of her origin is encoded in the very name of the beauty.
Nefertiti in ancient Egyptian means "A beautiful woman has come" - so she came to Egypt from somewhere else.
But the name is also translated as: "The Coming Beauty" or "The Beauty Came"
There is strong evidence to suggest that Nefertiti was born in Egypt, the daughter of the courtier Ai,
who was the brother of Akhenaten's mother, Queen Tiy.
She had six daughters from her marriage to Akhenaten, but no sons.
Their daughter Ankhsenpaaton, later named Ankhesenamun, was the future wife of her half-brother Tutankhamun.
Nefertiti and Akhenaten founded the city of Amarna–Akhetaton ('Horizon of Aten') in Upper Egypt
around 1348 BC as the new capital of their kingdom.
Each day, Nefertiti and Akhenaten rode their chariots from one end of the city to the other,
mirroring the sun's journey across the sky.
While the tombs of other pharaohs still tower over Egypt today, no one has found Nefertiti's final resting place.
The search for her tomb has been going on for years.
By 2018, archaeologists were almost certain they had found it in the secret chamber
hidden in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Soon, however,
after carefully scanning the wall, the scientists discovered that there was nothing there.
Curiously, there is no mention of her death in Egyptian history.
After about the 12th year of her husband Akhanaten's reign, all mention of Nefertiti stops altogether.
Some believe that this is because she became pharaoh and now has a different name,
but not everyone agrees with such a theory.
According to Dr. Joyce Tidsley, the simplest explanation is that Nefertiti was not a pharaoh at all.
He believes that in the 1920s, people exaggerated the role of Nefertiti because the sculpture of her face became famous
and they just wanted this ancient beauty to be very popular.
According to Dr. Tidsley, the explanation is simple.
We don't know what happened to Nefertiti because she just wasn't that important to the story.
The vanished land of Punt
Ancient Egyptian writings are full of references to a place called Punt. It has been described as heaven on Earth.
It was an ancient African kingdom, rich in gold, ivory, and exotic animals, where the ancient Egyptians later traded.
The kingdom must have been an extremely powerful military power to earn the respect of the Egyptians,
who called it "God's Land."
Punt and Egypt are known to have started trading with each other around the 26th century BC.
At the same time, Khufu (Cheops) was in power.
The Cheops Pyramid in Giza was also built then.
From the Egyptians, we also learn about numerous sea expeditions to Punt.
There is no doubt that it existed. There are numerous references to this kingdom in ancient scriptures.
There is even a drawing of the Queen of Punt in an ancient Egyptian temple.
But no matter how powerful and how important this place was, it has never been found and no one knows where it was.
According to the theory of scientists, Punt extended along the southern parts of today's Sudan,
along the southern coast of the Red Sea, somewhere along the Nile, and along the borders of Ethiopia and Sudan.
The only traces we have of Punt are the artifacts that the Egyptians preserved.
Scientists have studied the mummified remains of two baboons that the Egyptians received as a gift from the kingdom
and found that at least the baboons came from the area of modern-day Eritrea or eastern Ethiopia.
But they do not venture to assert that there was also the kingdom of Punt,
although this discovery gives some starting point.
If the ruins of the kingdom of Punt are ever found,
there is no doubt that they will open a whole new page of ancient history that will help us reveal our past even better.
If you liked this video, please, share it and subscribe to the channel.
You can also support us by leaving us a like.
Based on the number of likes, we understand which content you want more of.
May you have wind in your sails, and stay curious - unitl next time when we meet again!