BABYLON

Located 55 miles south of Baghdad on the banks of the Euphrates, Babylon was one of the focal points of southern Mesopotamia and capital of the area that became known as Babylonia. Its first era of magnificence was under Hammurabi in the 18th century B.C. The city’s fortunes revived under Nebuchadnezzar II, who built the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens in about 600 B.C.

Built on the Euphrates, Ur was founded between 6000 and 5000 B.C. It came to prominence as a political, commercial, and cultural center in the 26th century B.C., but its political power in southern Mesopotamia was destroyed by the year 2000. Ur remained a trade center until it finally fell into ruin in then 4th century B.C. after the course of the Euphrates changed and river trade by passed the city.

TREASURE OF A TEENAGE KING

Black beauty - Cleopatra

Almost 2,000 fabulous objects, including gold figurines and masks and priceless jewelry, were found when British archeologist Howard Carter uncovered the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen in November 1922. It was one of the most stunning archelogical finds of all time. Asked what he could see as he peered into the tomb, Carter could only gasp: “Wonderful things….” Yet Tutankhamen, who died in about 1352 B.C. at the age of 18 or 19, was only a minor pharaoh. Far more amazing treasures must have been buried with the conspicuous tombs were emptied by grave robbers hundreds of years ago.

SEE-THROUGH CLOTHIES Very fine linen-thought to have been as sheer as modern nylon stockings and probably worn by both men and women- was fashionable for centuries in ancient  Egypt.This revealingly dressed statue of Selket, a scorpion goddess, was made of gilded wood for the tomb of Tutankhamen in the 14th century B.C.

The internal organs of the deceased were first removed from the body through a cut about 4 inches long near the left hip. They were cleaned in wine and spices, and the abdominal cavity was flushed out with cedar oil. Parts of the brain were removed by forcing a pointed tool through the soft nasal tissues into the cranial cavity and then scraping out the inside of the skull.

Once cleaned, the body and organs were packed in natron- a natural rock salt that was a mixture of washing soda (sodium carbonate) and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)- to dry them. Then the organs were individually wrapped and replaced in the body, and the cavity was plugged up with sawdust, linen, tar, or even mud, depending on what was avilable.

The face and body were restored to a lifelike plumpness by tiny wads of linen inserted under the skin.

Finally, each limb, along with the head and torso, was wrapped separtely in layers of resin-smeared linen before the body was handed back to the family for burial. This last stage must have taken considerable time. On some mummies that have been unwrapped by modern scholars, the total length of the bandages has been about 1.5 miles.

ANIMALS’ AFTERLIFE Ancient Egyptians  preserved the bodies of sacred animals, such as cats, ibises, and bulls, as well as those of humans. This mummified cat dates from the early 1st century A.D.

EGYPT : THE HEALING ARTS

Egypt for traveling

From  the first dynasty onward, medical and surgical knowledge was highly respected in ancient Egypt. The pharaoh Athothis is supposed to have written a book on anatomy around 3000 B.C. Nine medical treatises have survived. One, the oldest surviving book of surgery in the world, contains details of 48 operations, among them trepanning-boring a hole in the skull to relieve pressure on the brain. Other books contain medical advice that is largely based on superstition,but theyalso list drugs that are still familiar, such as castor oil, wormwood, sodium bicarbonate, and arsenic. Egyptian doctors even used adhesive plasters to protect and promote the healing of wounds.

PRESERVING THE DEAD

The first Egyptian mummies date from about 2600 B.C., and the practice survivied until Muslim Arabs conquered Egypt in  A.D.641. At its height, around the time of the 21st dynasty of pharaohs (c.1085-945 B.C.), the most sophisticated techniques of mummification took about 70 days to complete.

Egypt : THE SPHINX

Ancient egypt

The Great Sphinx by the pyramids at Giza, near Cairo, stands 66 feet high, is 240 feet long, and was carved from a knoll left from the quarrying of stone for the Great Pyramid. Only the paws were carved separately and added. It dates from the 26th century B.C., which makes it the oldest known sphinx in Egypt.

Sphinxes were mythological animals, like the unicorns of northern Europe, and they occur in Mesopotamian and Greek mythology as well as in Egyptian tales. Sphinxes were usually male in Egyptian legends and female in Greek ones. Egyptian sphinxes were often constructed with the body of a lion, the tail of a serpent, a human head, and sometimes wings as well. But this design could vary. At Karnak, for example, there  is an avenue  of sphinxes with the heads of rams. Originally, sphinxes were considered by the Egyptians to be embodiments of the guardian of the Gates of Sunset and were erected to protect tombs from intruders. The features of the Great Sphinx may be those of the pharaoh Khafre, whose tomb is in one of the three nearby pyramids.

BIRTH OF THE MUMMY

The word mummy, for the embalmed bodies of Egyptian notables, does not come from Egypt. It is thought to be derived via Arabic from a Persian word, mummia, meaning “bitumen”, or “tar”. Mummies were so named because ancient peoples who came across the age-blackened corpes believed worngly that the bodies were a source of tar.