Anonymous ID: 2d0d06 Jan. 27, 2023, 7:20 a.m. No.18236151   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6157 >>6240 >>6379 >>6441

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Jan 27 2923

 

Comet ZTF: Orbital Plane Crossing

 

The current darling of the northern night, Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is captured in this telescopic image from a dark sky location at June Lake, California. Of course Comet ZTF has been growing brighter in recent days, headed for its closest approach to Earth on February 1. But this view was recorded on January 23, very close to the time planet Earth crossed the orbital plane of long-period Comet ZTF. The comet's broad, whitish dust tail is still curved and fanned out away from the Sun as Comet ZTF sweeps along its orbit. Due to perspective near the orbital plane crossing, components of the fanned out dust tail appear on both sides of the comet's green tinted coma though, to lend Comet ZTF a visually striking (left) anti-tail. Buffeted by solar activity the comet's narrower ion tail also streams away from the coma diagonally to the right, across the nearly three degree wide field of view.

 

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Anonymous ID: 2d0d06 Jan. 27, 2023, 7:25 a.m. No.18236180   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6203 >>6220 >>6240 >>6379 >>6441

Archeologists discover 4,300-year-old Egyptian mummy, dozens of relics

January 26, 2023 8:47pm

 

Archeologists in Egypt discovered a 4,300 year-old mummy — possibly the oldest one ever found in the country — during an extraordinary dig near Cairo, officials announced Thursday.

 

The mummy called “Hekashepes” was located at the bottom of a 49-foot shaft near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, where the team was working to uncover a cemetery of fifth and sixth-dynasty tombs dating back to the 25th century B.C, Zahi Hawass, director of the team, said in a statement.

 

Hekashepes’ large rectangular limestone sarcophagus was still sealed with the mortar ancient Egyptians had covered the tomb with over 40 centuries ago.

 

“I put my head inside to see what was inside the sarcophagus: A beautiful mummy of a man completely covered in layers of gold,” said Hawass, a former Minister of Antiquities for Egypt, noting that the mummy could be the “oldest” and “most complete found in Egypt to date.

 

The discovery of Hekashepes was hardly the most exciting find during the year-long excavation at Gisr al-Mudir, one of the oldest known stone structures in Egypt.

 

The “most important” tomb archeologists found belonged to Khnum-djed-ef, who was a priest, an inspector of officials and a supervisor of nobles in the pyramid complex of Unas, a pharaoh who ruled in the mid-24th century B.C.

 

There, the scientists also found the tomb of a royal palace official named Meri, “keeper of the secrets and assistant to the great leader of the palace, “who had the second-largest tomb in the cemetery.

 

In the pyramid complex of King Pepi I, a pharaoh who ruled at the turn of the 24th and 23rd centuries B.C., archeologists found the tomb of a priest that may have been named Messi, based on a false door that was found neat nine statues of the ancient Egyptian people.

 

A final mummy was found inside a stone sarcophagus beside an offering table and a group of stone statues representing a person named Fetek, Hawass said.

 

“Additionally, the expedition yielded many amulets, stone vessels, tools for daily life, and statues of deities, along with pottery,” said Hawass.

 

The monumental discovery comes just days after authorities said they found the ruins of an ancient Roman city near the southern city of Luxor, where they also found dozens of burial sites from the New Kingdom era, dating from 1800 B.C. to 1600 B.C.

 

https://nypost.com/2023/01/26/archeologists-discover-oldest-egyptian-mummy-covered-in-gold/

Anonymous ID: 2d0d06 Jan. 27, 2023, 7:32 a.m. No.18236220   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6240 >>6379 >>6441

>>18236180

Ancient Roman residences with 'pigeon towers' discovered in Luxor, Egypt

Jan 27 2023

 

Archaeologists have discovered a residential area in Luxor dating to the time when the Roman Empire ruled Egypt.

 

A team of archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities found a number of residential buildings, along with workshops and pigeon towers (where pigeons could be raised for eating), according to a ministry statement(opens in new tab), which noted that this is the "first complete residential city" from the Roman Empire era found in east Luxor. A variety of artifacts were also uncovered, including pottery, bells, grinding tools (often used for food preparation), and Roman coins made of copper and bronze.

 

The residential area is close to Luxor Temple, a large religious center built during the reigns of several pharaohs before the Roman Empire, including Amenhotep III, Ramesses II and Tutankhamun. But the residential area dates to much later, during the second and third centuries A.D. During this time, Egypt was a Roman province and Roman emperors were sometimes depicted as pharaohs.

 

The team found that when the Romans took over Luxor, they started raising pigeons by erecting pigeon towers containing pots that the pigeons could use as nests, the statement said. Pigeons are the descendants of rock doves (Columba livia), which breed on rocky, coastal cliffs; but towers can mimic cliff conditions, making the birds feel right at home.

 

Live Science contacted a number of scholars who were not involved with the research to get their thoughts.

 

Susanna McFadden(opens in new tab), a professor of art history at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in Greco-Roman art, called the finds "exciting news." She is curious to learn how the team determined that the remains dated to the second and third centuries A.D.

 

She also wonders if there could be a relationship between this settlement and a military camp that was active in the area during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian (reign circa 284 to 305). "It stands to reason that a residential area servicing the camp would have grown up outside the walls," McFadden told Live Science in an email.

 

Another scholar noted that this Roman residential area is not an entirely new find. The residential area in Luxor has "been known for a long time," Jacek Kościuk(opens in new tab), professor emeritus at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology in Poland, told Live Science in an email.

 

Kościuk participated in excavations of Roman residential remains at Luxor that were carried out by an Egyptian-German team in the early 1980s. He sent Live Science two(opens in new tab) papers(opens in new tab), published in 2011 in the journal Bulletin de la Société d'Archéologie Copte (Bulletin of the Coptic Archaeological Society), noting that while the 1980s team was able to survey only a small part of the settlement, they found the remains of Roman houses and baths.

 

While the existence of the Roman residential area was already known, the recent excavations unearthed a large portion of it, which may shed new light on what Luxor was like in Roman times. The new finds have "the potential to elucidate some critical research questions about Roman-era [Luxor], if the analysis is done carefully," McFadden said.

 

https://www.livescience.com/ancient-roman-residences-with-pigeon-towers-discovered-in-luxor-egypt