Egypt

Mummies of Mice, Mammoths, and More

The spooky season of Halloween and Day of the Dead is the inspiration for this post about mummies. Specifically, of animals: mummified mice at the summit of a towering volcano in the Andes Mountains, a baby mammoth found in muddy sediment in Siberia, and the revered animals of the ancient Egyptians. Mummies have a long and fascinating history.

By |2023-11-01T06:51:32-07:00November 1st, 2023|Fabulous Fossils & More|2 Comments

Monoliths, Megaliths, and Ancient Quarries—Part 1

For thousands of years, ancient people collected and transported enormous rocks from quarries to carve their gigantic statues and shape blocks for pyramids, temples, and other monumental structures. The ancient Egyptians are particularly renowned for their work with massive blocks. They used around 200 different quarries over 3,000 years, and worked sandstone, limestone, basalt, granites, and many other types of rocks .

By |2023-09-29T19:57:40-07:00September 28th, 2023|Ancient Andean Cultures, Our Amazing Earth|4 Comments

Ancient Boats and Enormous Blocks

How did the ancient Andeans and Egyptians move the massive stone blocks used to build their monumental architecture? With an abundance of human muscle power but only simple hand tools, they needed to be creative. Floating blocks on boats across lakes and along river channels was a possible transport method—but did they have the water and the engineering technology for this?

By |2022-09-29T07:06:34-07:00September 29th, 2022|Ancient Andean Cultures|2 Comments

Protecting Significant Sites in Egypt, Peru and Beyond

Safeguarding ancient Egyptian cultural treasures in the 1960s laid the groundwork for the UNESCO World Heritage Site program. These designations provide protections for places having outstanding cultural and natural heritage. Both Egypt and Peru have fabulous archaeological sites with World Heritage designations, and I’ve had the good fortune to see many. I hope to visit World Heritage Sites in many other countries.

By |2022-09-01T07:01:12-07:00September 1st, 2022|Ancient Andean Cultures, Our Amazing Earth|0 Comments

Tracking Traces of Dog Domestication

Dogs have been human companions for thousands of years. As the first animal species domesticated, dogs altered human relationships with the natural world and profoundly influenced the course of early human history. New data indicate that dogs most likely accompanied the first explorers as they traveled southward from Siberia and fanned out across the Americas.

Earthquakes, Copper and Helicopters

Geologists love to have a bird’s eye view of landscapes. They are helpful for all types of research - tracing active faults and identifying copper ore deposits among them. In this post there are two stories about geology fieldwork - one about earthquakes in Egypt and the other about copper in Chile, tied together by arid landscapes and helicopters.

By |2023-09-29T20:00:09-07:00January 28th, 2021|Our Amazing Earth|6 Comments

Drinking and Feasting

From maize-based chicha, or corn beer, in the Andes Mountains, to mead from honey in ancient Greece, and wine from grapes in Predynastic Egypt, fermented beverages have been a part of cultural rituals for many thousands of years. Celebrations that include copious amounts of alcoholic drinks and specially prepared foods have been widely practiced in numerous cultures over time.

By |2020-12-17T11:38:07-07:00December 17th, 2020|Ancient Andean Cultures|6 Comments
Go to Top