Origin of the Species Ancient Egypt was the first culture to domesticate cats, between 4,000 to 3,500 years ago, and has long been associated with the animal. Some have suggested that cats were introduced to Egypt from Iran. However, archaeologists have found the remains of a cat in a burial mound in Mostagedda (near Asyut) which dates to around 6,000 years ago, so it is much more likely that cats are indigenous to Egypt. Of the two breeds known to have existed – the African wildcat (felis silvestris lybica) and the jungle cat (felis chaus) – it is said that…
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Holding the symbols of office, she ascended the throne. Once the place where her husband sat, it was now hers, by a right that she was about to assert… Turning, she chuckled to herself as the long beard attached to her chin brushed her chest. She’d put on all of her dead husband’s regalia, knowing that despite her female form, the symbols would connote their own power. “By order of the god Khnum who made the gods out of clay, and who appeared to me in a dream last night, I was told to assume the rule of Egypt. ‘I…
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Wrapped In A Mystery The Sphinx of Greek myth was a baffling creature. She ambushed unsuspecting travellers, and then ate them when they couldn’t answer her riddles. But the original Sphinx – a colossal statue located at Giza, Egypt – is in many ways more enigmatic, and a riddle in its own right. This Great Sphinx spent most of its history buried up to the neck in sand, giving no clues to the colossal body, and the layers of meaning, lying below. Tuthmosis IV, the pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, apparently excavated the Sphinx, as did the Romans. But shifting…
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Young Howard Howard Carter was a talented child. Home-schooled in London, and encouraged by his artist father, he had plenty of time to practice his love of drawing and painting. And when his father went to work in Norfolk for archeaologist William Amherst, Carter caught probably his first glimpse of the kind of ancient Egyptian artefacts that would fascinate him for the rest of his life. Life in Egypt Carter’s talent for drawing and his interest in Egyptian antiquities lead William Amherst to arrange an interview for him with Percy Newberry who had been working on a site at Beni…