I do find it stirring, that yet another necropolis laid under the sands for nearly 4,000 years… undisturbed… slumbering as the world above utterly forgot it was ever there.
And now, Dr. Zahi Hawass, perhaps the most recognizable face of archeology in Egypt — is bit by painstaking bit — letting these long muted voices… call out, and speak to us, from their sarcophagi. Here’s the latest, from AP’s reporting, this morning:
…The artifacts, unearthed during a year-long excavation, were found beneath an ancient stone enclosure near the Saqqara pyramids and date back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, spanning from roughly 2500 B.C to 2100 B.C., the excavation team said. . . .
The Saqqara site is part of a sprawling necropolis at Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis, that includes the famed Giza Pyramids as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s….
This history of human life runs long, and it runs deep — deep, into Africa, into the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania — stretching back almost two million years, give or take… and it is decidedly not primarily the history of pale Europeans. We would do well to bear that in mind.
And keep a sense of humility about our place in the much larger pantheon of time, out of mind. Do keep a peaceful thought, in your meditations — for the other Memphis, tonight… and the life and legacy of young Tyre Nichols. His horrific end was indeed… murder, by cops.
नमस्ते
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