MetaFilter posts tagged with Egypt

Lost in the desert for 2,500 years.

Lutoslawski — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:25:43 -0800

It appears that the Lost Army of Cambyses has been found. Cambyses II expanded the Persian empire into Egypt. Most accounts depict him as a lousy, drunken tyrant. According to Herodotus, he sent his army, 50,000 strong, into Egypt where the encountered a sand storm near the Siwa Oasis and were buried alive. The tomb of Cambyses himself was discovered in 2006.

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

jaduncan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:34:59 -0800

The Gecko Wears A Tiara [via mefi projects] Sumarian proverbs. Compare those with the 1600BCE Ashubanipal proverbs and Proverbs From the Ancient Egyptian Temples and indeed, modern Iraq and Arabic more generally. Enjoy, culture geeks. Added bonus proverb pages: Aboriginal Australian proverbs, Afghan proverbs, African proverbs, Albanian proverbs, Altay proverbs, American proverbs, Arabic proverbs, Aramaic proverbs, Armenian proverbs, Azerbaijani proverbs, Balochi proverbs, Basque Proverbs, Bauernregeln (humorous), Bengali proverbs, Bhutanese proverbs, Bible Proverbs, Bosnian proverbs, Breton proverbs, Bulgarian proverbs, Cambodian Proverbs, Catalan proverbs, Proverbs commonly attributed to be Chinese, Chinese proverbs, Corsican proverbs, Croatian proverbs, Cypriot proverbs, Czech proverbs, Danish proverbs, Dominican proverbs, Dutch proverbs, Egyptian proverbs, English proverbs, Faroese proverbs, Filipino proverbs, Finnish proverbs, French proverbs, Frisian proverbs, Galician proverbs, German proverbs, Proverbs from the game of Go, Greek proverbs, Gypsy (Romani) proverbs, Haitian proverbs, Hebraic proverbs, Hindi proverbs, Honduran proverbs, Hungarian proverbs, Icelandic proverbs, Indian proverbs, Indonesian proverbs, Ingush proverbs, Irish proverbs, Italian proverbs, Japanese proverbs, Jewish proverbs, Kannada proverbs, Kashmiri proverbs, Khakas proverbs, Klingon proverbs, Korean proverbs, Kurdish proverbs, Latin proverbs, Latvian proverbs, Macedonian proverbs, Malay proverbs, Malayalam proverbs, Maltese proverbs, Manx proverbs, Maori proverbs, Mesopotamian Proverbs, Mexican proverbs, Mongolian proverbs, Native American proverbs, Nepal Bhasa proverbs, Nepali Proverbs, Nigerian proverbs, Norwegian proverbs, Pakistani proverbs, Pashto proverbs, Persian proverbs, Polish proverbs, Portuguese proverbs, Proverbs, Punjabi proverbs, Romanian proverbs, Russian proverbs, Russian proverbs from the USSR, Sanskrit proverbs, Scanian proverbs, Scottish Gaelic proverbs, Scottish proverbs, Serbian proverbs, Sinhala proverbs, Slovak proverbs, Spanish proverbs, Swahili proverbs, Swedish proverbs, Swiss proverbs, Tamil proverbs, Telugu proverbs, Thai proverbs, Tuareg proverbs, Turkish proverbs, Tywa proverbs, Urdu proverbs, Venezuelan proverbs, Vietnamese proverbs, Vulcan proverbs, Welsh proverbs, Yiddish proverbs, Yoruba proverbs, Zen proverbs.

Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land

Rumple — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:12:57 -0800

The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land is a comprehensive spatially-referenced database of current archaeological knowledge of all periods of Levantine history and prehistory. Spatial search is a good entry point, as are the Palestine Exploration Fund historic maps. You can also search by time period or dig into the many ancient Empires of the area. Or just look at everything in the database. The site is a work in progress, but a cool one powered by a consortium of over 30 professional archaeologists. May require Google Maps. via

Early images of Egypt

dhruva — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:21:36 -0800

Early images of Egypt (via)

You can say what we want you to say

adamvasco — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:27:47 -0800

The kidnapping of Philip Rizk; later they tried to get his father as well. Philip has now been freed.
The detention of protesters highlights Middle East governments' ambivalent attitudes towards support for the Palestinians.
Here it is worth noting of course that Philip is not alone in his arrest. Another blogger Diaa Eddin Gad has also been arrested as have several people attending a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration. A strong, collective message was sent last February when Egypt and Saudi Arabia introduced a pan-Arab regulatory framework for satellite television stations. The document, titled "Principles for Organizing Satellite Radio and TV Broadcasting in the Arab Region," clearly targets independent and privately owned stations that have been airing criticism of Arab governments.
This has helped trigger a Revolution, Facebook-Style. "In most countries in the Arab world Facebook is now one of the 10 most-visited Web sites, and in Egypt it ranks third, after Google and Yahoo. About one in nine Egyptians has Internet access, and around 9 percent of that group are on Facebook — a total of almost 800,000 members. An estimated 18,000 Egyptians are imprisoned under the law, which allows the police to arrest people without charges, allows the government to ban political organizations and makes it illegal for more than five people to gather without a license from the government".

The call is coming from INSIDE the Pyramid!

grapefruitmoon — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:51:38 -0800

A hidden room sealed inside the Great Pyramid may hold the explanation for how the pyramids were built. Previously, it was believed that the construction took place from the outside, but evidence points to the building starting on the inside and working out. Do you want to build your own pyramid at home? Well, that's considerably easier. Any discussion of exterior building of the pyramids involves a system of ramps, but where are these ramps now? We've found King Tut's honey jar, but curiously, no ramps. Pyramid interiors previously. (With video!)

Akhenaten and Akhetaten

Kattullus — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:55:59 -0800

Akhetaten (a.k.a. Amarna) was the city built by Pharaoh Akhenaten, famous for his monotheistic beliefs and his queen, Nefertiti and son, Tutankhamun. The Amarna Letters has translations of correspondence sent to the Akhenaten, but a trove of it was found at the Amarna site. During his reign a distinctive style of art rose to prominence, only to vanish after his death. The Boston MFA has 40 objects from the era in its collection. Perhaps the most famous of the cultural artifacts of Akhenaten is the Great Hymn to Aten (hieroglyphics, four different English translations: 1, 2, 3, 4). This poem was set to music by Philip Glass for his opera Akhnaten (information about the opera). Some see direct parallels between The Great Hymn to Aten and Psalm 104. Though it was billed as a new beginning, like many utopias, Amarna was no haven for the regular folk who lived there.

Haven't heard from your Mummy lately?

grapefruitmoon — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:34:23 -0800

Mummy News : All that's new with mummies. Well... not exactly "new." Some highlights: Can't find your favorite Pharoah? A list of Royal Egyptian Mummies and where they are. Or where we think they are. The saddest mummies of all: the mummified kittens of Egypt Find out which celebrity has a tattoo of Ötzi the Iceman (Who is that Iceman, you ask? Well, you can find out about that, too.) A full line-up of Bog Bodies, including Yde Girl and Tollund Man Mummies around the world - including Chachapoya Mummies from Peru And some... accidental... mummies as well.

Sacred bulls and headless pyramids.

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:08:00 -0800

Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls.

Coptic Illusion?

misha — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:20:26 -0800

An exchange student spending the school year with a host family in Egypt claims he was starved by the family. Johnathan McCullum, as part of an AFS program, was placed with an Egyptian family who, as Coptic Christians, fast over 200 days a year. His weight went from 155 to 97 pounds during his stay. He says friends and teachers wanted him to change his host family, but he felt he had to "tough" out the year. Others in the exchange program feel that Johnathan and his family are simply out to make a buck.

Once, sure. Twice, Maybe. Three? Four!?!

Dillonlikescookies — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:51:56 -0800

Much of the Middle East has been without reliable internet access recently due to the somewhat suspicious cutting of four seperate underwater cables, in seperate locations, within a few days of each other. The problem has been alleviated by re-routing of traffic until ships can reach the cables to repair them, a process which may take several weeks. The problem was initially believed to be caused by anchors of passing ships, but that has since been retracted and deals have already been signed by several companies for new cables. Without knowledge of the complex infrastructure we can’t really ascertain how unlikely four separate cables having near simultaneous problems is – but many are treating it as suspicious considering recent news. Personally, I think things may have been blown out of proportion by the limited information we have, although it was believed that Iran had been isolated by a single disabled router this is plain untrue and given the redundancies inherent in internet infrastructure it would be difficult if not impossible to fully cut off a country, but that is not to understate the consequences of these problems. On a related note, Iran has recently announced plans to move to trade oil with the Euro rather than the US dollar, which will cause further devaluing of the greenback. Saddam Hussein was in the process of doing the same before the US invasion, a decision reversed by the occupying force. Some are interpreting this as signs of an “info war” and while I don’t subscribe to the analysis, I find it interesting to consider the idea that in an age where increasingly large amounts of money can be attributed to companies based on estimated worth of intangible assets such as human networks and brand identities, the idea that you have to physically invade a country to do it economic damage is becoming outdated. There has been a documented shift towards “proxy war and if one agrees on the existence of this trend then more abstract forms of conflict between powers seem to be a likely follow up. If you do buy into the “information war” analysis there is ample fodder in the media, but more interestingly rumours of a theoretical invasion plan hint at a sophisticated attack not necessarily limited to military action. Indeed, Several large governments, such as the US, are spending increasing amounts of their military budget on more abstract forms of warfare (pdf) Again, although I don’t subscribe to this view, I find it interesting to consider as a growing trend a shift from conventional war to proxy war to purely economic warfare as engaging in open hostilities with any country becomes increasingly risky from a game theory point of view. See Also.

YouTube Disables Wael Abbas's Account

homunculus — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:40:59 -0800

Wael Abbas is an Egyptian blogger and anti-torture activist who recently won a journalism award for his documenting police brutality in Egypt, which led to the conviction of two police officers. In Egypt, blogging can get you arrested, and Abbas has taken enormous risks. But now YouTube has removed his videos and suspended his account after receiving complaints (possibly from the Egyptian government) about their graphic content, and Yahoo has disabled his email account. Evidently YouTube is not the ally human rights advocates had hoped it would be.

Solanum virus outbreak in Ancient Egypt

felix betachat — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:48:13 -0800

Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis

Funky Tut

psmealey — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:19:28 -0800

King Tut's face revealed to the world The face of Egypt's most famous ancient ruler, King Tutankhamun, has been put on public display for the first time.

The horse is out of the barn

anotherpanacea — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:56:39 -0800

Most have forgotten Abdallah Higazy, but he's proceeded with his lawsuit against the FBI. In an interesting twist, the details of the threats made against his family by FBI Agent Michael Templeton have been classified. Sadly for the Second Circuit, they released the unredacted version briefly before withdrawing and replacing it with the classified decision. Good on How Appealing for keeping the opinion online. Here's what they cut: Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.” Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.” Higazy explained why he feared for his family: The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is —they’re suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam’s security force—as they later on were called his henchmen—a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word ‘torture’ comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn’t imagine them doing anything to my sister. And Higazy added: [L]et’s just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be —might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn’t going to risk that. I wasn’t going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that’s convincing? And I said okay.

Bonaparte and Bush on Deck

homunculus — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:20:27 -0800

Lessons from Past Western Incursions in the Middle East. A speech by Juan Cole at the New America Foundation in which he discusses his new book, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, and the relevance and lessons of Napoleon's expedition in Egypt to the current American occupation of Iraq. A shorter version, covering many of the same points, is in this article: Pitching the Imperial Republic.

Bush the Dissident

Avenger — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:39:26 -0800

Bush the Dissident. (WaPo) Background (and previously) here here here here and here.

Forty years on.

kirkaracha — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:05:19 -0800

Forty years on. After a quick buildup, the Six Day War started 40 years ago today and reshaped the Middle East. At the time, Israel's quick win looked like a triumph, but after 40 years the war is still being fought and it looks like it may have been a pyrrhic victory.

Wey oh wey oh wey oh wey oh.

miss lynnster — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:34:09 -0800

Fascinated by Egyptian archaeology? View and learn all about the discoveries in Giza, the Valley of the Kings (and Queens), Memphis and Saqqara and the Sp h i n x from the comfort of home. Depending on today's pesky sandstorms and time of day, you may even be able to see the pyramids from the comfort of your couch. Wa nt to go in si de? Yeah, me neither.
Previ ously.

More carbs than you can shake a spoon at

Deathalicious — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:04:05 -0800

Take this cooked with this and mix it with these and these and this, top it off these?!?, smother it in this and you have this: كشري. Pronounced kusharī, you can also find it spelled kushary, koushari, koushary, koshari, or koshary. However you spell it, it is one of Egypt's most popular dishes. Throughout Cairo you can find restaurants devoted this this humble, cheap (a filling bowl costs 3LE, around 50 cents), usually vegetarian dish. Of course, if you're not in Cairo you can always make your own.

The Book of Curiosities

peacay — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:21:19 -0800

For anyone with even a passing interest in Islamic history or cartography, 'The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes' site at Oxford University's Bodleian Library will provide a thoroughly interesting timesink. This recently discovered 13th/14th century copy of an 11th century Egyptian manuscript was partly based on Ptolemy and includes the oldest rectangular map of the world...not to mention the famed human-bearing Waq-Waq tree. [via]

Doing our homework on the Middle East

LobsterMitten — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:41:44 -0800

22 basic suggested readings on the Middle East from history professor and informed commenter on Middle Eastern affairs Juan Cole.

The Last Jews of Cairo

MDA38 — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:58:38 -0800

The Last Jews of Cairo As soon as we saw the guns, we knew we’d arrived at the synagogue. Egyptian policemen thronged behind barricades, white uniforms in the dusk, handguns at their hips. Above them, on stairs, Special Forces soldiers in black with red armbands held machine guns as easily as we did point-and-shoot cameras.

Great sheikhs

Abiezer — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 20:47:42 -0800

Religious popular music from Upper Egypt Munshidin sing devotional songs, Tartil (a melodic recitation of the Qur'an), and Tawashih, which uses call-and-response . One of a number of interesting music resources at bolingo.

Natural Contraception in the Ancient World?

Chinese Jet Pilot — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:09:31 -0800

Silphium was the wonder plant of the ancient world. Originally identified by Greek colonists in North Africa, the plant - a species of Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) - grew only in a dimunitive area near the coast and could not be cultivated. Silphium was popular as a spice for cooking, but its notoriety stems from its alleged medicinal qualities, particularly its use as an herbal contraceptive (the "I love you" heart symbol may have originated from the shape of silphium's seed pods and its use in sex). So valuable was Silphium that it became an important component of the ancient world's economy and appears on coins. It's also among the first species recorded (by Pliny the Elder) as going extinct, probably by grazing sheep or uncontrolled harvesting. Or is it?