Important notes about Abydos

Egypt Abydos reliefs in the temple, the god Horus and the king, Seti

****Weni's

mastaba

Everyone who has studied Ancient

Egypt

ian history is familiar with the autobiography of Weni the Elder, an important individual who lived during the 6th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. His inscription, excavated in 1860 from his tomb in the low desert at Abydos in southern

Egypt

, enthusiastically describes his long service under three kings, culminating in his appointment as "True Governor of Upper

Egypt

." Scholars have hailed it as "the most important historical document from the Old Kingdom" and have used it to illustrate the rise of a class of "new men" in

Egypt

ian politics and society-- persons whose upward mobility rested in their abilities, not in noble birth. Finding Weni's tomb:- Auguste Mariette, the colorful first director of the

Egypt

ian antiquities organization, flung hundreds of workmen all across the North Abydos landscape. Mariette was not known for meticulous field notes, and consequently there is no detailed record of the findspots of Weni's inscription or those of several other important officials found on "the High hill which gives the middle cemetery its name. A series of early twentieth-century campaigns elucidated the areas surrounding this High hill--a "middle- class" cemetery of thousands of modest shaft and surface graves--but all of those excavators avoided the area worked over by Mariette's men. Overall schematic map of Abydos ***Nhty TOMB An excavation of this area revealed a large complex focused on the

mastaba

and a number of subsidiary monuments constructed around it in the late Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom, and the Late Period. The primary

mastaba

did not, however, belong to Weni but was instead the grave of a previously undocumented individual named Nhty, a prince, mayor, sole companion, and chief priest. Nhty seems to have been an individual who commanded a long-lasting and substantial respect: 50 centimeters above the original Old Kingdom use surface, small mudbrick votive chapels aligned with Nhty's complex were constructed in the Middle Kingdom, one of which still contained a basalt pair statue. This discovery was completely unexpected, since the surface ceramic gave no hint of Middle Kingdom activity. *** MISS TRANSLATION ISSUE : Some of the

hieroglyphs

carved over an arch on the site have been miss-interpreted in esoteric illogical circles as describing modern technology. Often described as a helicopter, a battle tank or submarine, and a fighter plane or even a U.F.O.. But this is partly based on widely distributed retouched images that removed key details from the carvings. When examining the original

hieroglyphs

the provocative images are commonly explained as being the result of erosion, and later adjustments, or re-writing over the original inscriptions that left parts of the older text visible creating the illusion of modern looking machines