An ancient royal city of Egypt has been massacred. And it was nerve-recking. But, this does not claim a headline in any of today’s newspapers. It occurred 4000 years ago. But, how did it occur? What happened then? Scientists ate trying to put the pieces of the story, scattered in the former royal city of Mendes, together. It flourished for 20 centuries on a low mound overlooking the green fields and papyrus marshes of the Nile delta north of Cairo. Donald Redford of Pennsylvania State University had begun to excavate the foundations of a huge temple linked to Rameses II. It is the pharaoh, traditionally linked to the biblical story of Moses. It was when he found an earlier structure destroyed by fire, and evidence of a grisly episode of death on the Nile, he told a Bloomsbury Academy conference in London. Under the fire-scorched rubble, the scientists discovered the first of at least 36 bodies, victims of some brutal event 40 centuries ago. Tumbled in disordered heaps, they found old and young, men and women. It seems a rare discovery, and the massacre a distinct finding to add to Egypt’s history.
Via: The Guardian