Here are two posts I enjoyed this week, Crete and Egypt revealing their fascinating ancient worlds:
Here’s something to “cook” up. Researchers have worked out the ingredients for an early mummy embalming “recipe.” A 3,600 year old Egyptian mummy that had previously been viewed as formed by natural processes and occurring before mummification started has been studied and recognized as intentionally mummified. This is interesting. The ingredients are now known (such as acacia, bulrushes, pine and sesame) and they match the mummies of Pharaohs from 2,000 years later. That means there is continuity from this extremely early mummy to the well-known time period people typically imagine when they think of Egyptian mummies and thus an Egyptian cultural “identity” of sorts long before Egypt unified as a “nation-state” under Pharaohs. It pushes back “Egyptian” a lot. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Early Egyptian Embalming Recipe Analyzed”
Found by a farmer on Crete: the untouched tomb of a “common mortal” of the Late Minoan period (1500-1400 BCE), complete with 2 skeletons and 24 vases, including ones with colored, embossed depictions on them. The farmer tried to park under a shady olive tree in an over irrigated area. His tires stuck and removed the last of the soil hiding the carved, vaulted tomb. The over abundant watering had apparently been washing away soil bit by bit. This rare sort of tomb casts light on the life of regular folk during the period. You probably have images of Knossos and the Labyrinth in your head. The generous collection of vases does, it seems to me, reveal a comfortable margin of abundance in these commoners’ lives—which matches what we understand about Crete in the Late Minoan before Mycenaeans and volcanoes knocked them out of preeminence. I’ve just finished Rebecca Lochlann’s excellent novel set in this world, The Year God’s Daughter, and will be posting a review shortly—so if you want to go back in time to this world, I will offer you a fine method in her fiction. Click here for Greek Reporter “Farmer Discovers Rare Tombstone from Late Minoan III Period on Crete”