Click Here to Subscribe to Curious History
Muzawaka Tombs in Egypt
The ancient tombs of Petosiris and Sadosiris, which were discovered in 1972, used to be the star attraction of the Muzawaka necropolis. But too much fresh air and humidity from the breath of the visitors have threatened the state of the colorful frescoes inside the mausolea, and the tombs have been closed for several years.
In every other country, these mummies would probably be proudly displayed at a museum, but given Egypt’s over-abundance of mummies, the Muzawaka corpses have been categorized as being of no significant value to archaeologists, and have been left in place.
The mummies date from the Roman period in Egypt and are mostly clustered in family tombs. They belonged to non-wealthy residents, hence the undecorated interior of their tomb chambers.
It is one of Egypt’s most macabre “tourist sights,” and one of the very few places in the world, where non-scientists have the possibility of getting so close to mummies in their original resting places, they can even touch them.
(Source: atlasobscura.com)
World’s Oldest Socks
These odd, ancient socks are the earliest knitted items in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s collection and quite possibly the oldest socks in the world. Made in 300-499 AD, these Egyptian socks were excavated in the burial grounds of ancient Oxyrhynchus, a Greek colony on the Nile in central Egypt at the end of the 19th century. They have a divided toe and are designed to be worn with sandals.
Particularly intriguing is the technique used to construct these red wool socks. Called nålbindning, or single-needle knitting, this time-consuming process required only a single thread. The technique was frequently used for close-fitting garments for the head, feet and hands because of its elastic qualities. Primarily from prehistoric times, nålbindning came before the two-needle knitting that’s standard today; each needle was crafted from wood or bone that was “flat, blunt and between 6 -10 cm long, relatively large-eyed at one end or the eye is near the middle.”
The World’s First Tattoos
The earliest known examples of tattoos were the Egyptians, having being present on numerous female mummies that date as far back as 2000 B.C. It was only until “Iceman”, a frozen body found at the Italian-Austrian border in 1991, was discovered with patterns adorned across various parts of his body that presented evidence of tattoos existing much earlier. Scientists have carbon dated “Iceman” to around 5,200 years old.
A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery.
Archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, contain hands that are holding another hand. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands. They are all right hands; there are no lefts.
This gives a pretty good idea of how big the Capstone was, on the Great Pyramid of Giza. Some say the capstone was stolen by thieves years and years ago. No one knows for sure where the capstone went but, visitors to the pyramid from the ancient past, as far back as the time of Christ, always reported that the pyramid lacked a capstone. The only problem is that this would be a very large capstone. If you climbed to the top, you could walk around very freely on the pyramid. It’s about 30 feet in each direction. Thus, this capstone would have been huge and weighed a tremendous amount. It’s obvious that there was a capstone at some point. Perhaps extraterrestrials have taken it back.
This wood and leather prosthetic toe was used by an amputee to facilitate walking.
Egypt Archive
