Ancient Lessons: The Saqqara Discovery
Ancient Egypt is a fascination to us all. From Scooby Doo’s Where is my Mummy? to Hollywood’s Scorpion King, the audience images it as a place of pyramids, gold, fertility, and powerful pharaohs.
Recently, I cam across a Netflix documentary-movie, Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb. At first, it seemed like an ordinary show about ancient Egyptians’ way of life bla bla bla (haven’t we seen it all?), but then something strange happened. The movie doesn’t feature European archaeologists but local diggers employed to dig wherever they think the next great find is. With excitement built up, it was captivating to see new things being discovered after thousands of years on live camera.
The New and the Old
Personally speaking, I learned lots about modern and ancient Egypt in the documentary. Modern Egyptians are proud of their heritage. They strive deep to uncover the mysteries their ancestors left them. During excavation, the archaeologists refer to the mummies by their first name, almost treating them as an honorable dead relatives.
The team speaks an interesting mix of Arabic and Hieroglyphics. Egypt is a Muslim country and the name of God (Allah) is practically on everyone’s tongue. It is cool to see diggers and scientists reciting God’s name as they excavate a boldly polytheist site.
Another gist of modern Egyptian society is shown in the documentary. Budget cuts, deadlines, and stresses of normal day lives are over-present in the daily lives of excavators. The pyramids and sites are just a shy away from modern farms — which still use ancient cultivating techniques. Archaeologists only have take a bike ride through the ruins to travel from ‘new’ to ‘old’ Egypt.
Weyhti — The Mysterious Priest
The pyramids are famous for their gold-laden chambers tucked inside them. Even though the documentary is set outside pyramids, the sites around are equally exciting.
The team discovers a burial chamber on a cliff near previously discovered temples. The tomb found is dedicated to a priest named Weyhti. Archaeologists are amused at how egotistical the priest is. Egyptian temples are known to praise a particular god that they were built for. Surprisingly, the priest can’t stop bragging about himself through hieroglyphics on the walls. Interesting hypothesis are conjured by the team claiming that he may have been an imposter or even a heretic to the society at the time.
The story-telling is captivating as the archaeologists move wall to wall depicting Weyhti’s mischievousness. The audience soon learns that Wehyti and his family did not die of old age. Instead, a mysterious disease effected their family. What is most surprising is that all of them were buried in that very temple.
In the process of excavating Weyhti and his family, the team discovers a large mummified cat. When live MRI is done on the creature, its nose is of a particular shape. The archaeologist compares pictures of big cats on Google images and matches the nose of a lion to that of the mummy. In essence, the team discovers a mummy of a baby lion — first time in ancient Egypt’s history!
As Weyhti and his family is dug out one at a time, their bones indicate that some of them died of malaria. Although disease was rampant in ancient Egypt, malaria was not of them. Thus, another first-time discovery showcased in the documentary was that malaria existed at the time (a major finding in Epidemiology).
Why History is Important
I once believed history is a dead art (figuratively and literally). But it is art that keeps us motivated to learn about various things in life. History has fascinated me since then. I always wonder what emotions a digger or an archaeologist goes through as they uncover tombs, coffins, and mummies packed thousands of years ago. In fact, what excites me more is what their dreams might look like. Do they dream of ancient times? Do they talk to their dead ancestors or argue why they built a temple so far that it took too long to find, maybe costing them their modern-day jobs!
But history has another turning point in its importance. Isaac Newton was not inspired by the laws of science, but by the laws of nature. He simply built a bridge that showcases the archaic rules of our very existence. This is no different from discovering mummified baby lion — maybe another Calculus is on its way?
