A series of gigantic and strange fossils were found in ancient Egypt and were related to the god Seth. He is the god of rebellion and conflicts, considered the embodiment of evil for the ancient Egyptians. Some of the first people to stumble upon prehistoric fossils lived in Egypt 3,300 years ago. Their story likely began with a sandstorm. A strong wind rose and blew the desert sands, exposing a hidden secret below: the hard, black bones of what appeared to be a giant monster.
We can only imagine what must have crossed the minds of the men who found them. They didn't write a word about it, or if they did, it was lost long ago in the decay of time.
All we know is what they left behind: a tomb full of prehistoric fossils, some of them dating back two million years, hidden until 1922 AD. It's a fascinating mystery that we're just beginning to unravel today. We don't know for certain what significance they attributed to the bones of the enormous prehistoric giants they found. However, slowly but surely, archaeologists are piecing together some clues.
It has taken almost a century of research to uncover anything about the prehistoric fossils found in ancient Egypt. When the first archaeologists, Guy Brunton and Flinders Petrie, found them, they didn't even fully understand what they had discovered. All they knew, at first, was that they had found bundles wrapped in linen, with no idea of what might be inside.
Egyptians, after all, did not put these bones on display. Instead, they took them to a tomb carved into the rock near a village called Qau el-Kebir. There, they gave the enormous prehistoric bones the kind of burial fit for royalty. They wrapped them in fine linen sheets and placed them in the tomb, buried with ivory tools to assist them in the afterlife.
Whatever they thought they had found, they believed it was something worthy of their respect. The tombs of Qau el-Kebir were not just makeshift graves built for the occasion; they were ancient resting places of powerful Egyptian lords, built 1,500 years before the fossils were found. It was a place for revered ancient dead; a fitting place for the bones of a creature that, 2 million years ago, had terrorized the land that would become Egypt.
Three tons of fossils transported over several kilometers We still don't know where the Egyptians found them. In 1926, shortly after being discovered, a geologist named K. S. Sandford combed all locations within 500 miles of Qau trying to locate them but without success. To this day, no one has been able to ascertain it for sure. We still have no idea where the Egyptians found them. In 1926, shortly after they were discovered, a geologist named K. S. Sandford inspected the area trying to locate them, but without success. To this day, no one has been able to ascertain it for certain.
All we know is that they were moved. There were over three tons of them, and they had been dragged across kilometers of wild countryside, only to be buried again. It must have felt like nothing less than a sacred act. It would have taken an incredible effort to move those bones, and an entire team of people must have been involved. Their destination, Qau el-Kebir, was no ordinary village. It was the center of a cult dedicated to the god Seth, god of darkness, storms, and confusion. He was the lord of the black earth; a monstrous and evil force often depicted as a monster with a hippopotamus head. Surely, the bones were deliberately taken there. Whatever the Egyptians believed they had found, they thought it belonged to the god of chaos, and they were willing to do anything to take it away.
A breakthrough in a 90-year-old mystery After more than 3,000 years buried in a tomb, Gun Brunton and Flinders Petrie unearthed the fossils, only to encase them once more. They sent their discovery to a museum, where they left them in unopened boxes. Brunton planned to write a book about them but never did. And for almost 80 years, they simply sat in those boxes; an incredible forgotten discovery. It wasn't until 2007 that anyone looked inside. In part, it was a matter of technology. No one wanted to open a 3,000-year-old bundle of linen and risk destroying an artifact of incalculable value. We had to wait until X-ray scanning machines could show us what was hidden inside. But finally, in 2014, the bones were revealed. Inside were small pieces of countless extinct animals: giant wildebeests, crocodiles, wild boars, horses, buffalo, and even humans. But the creature they most saw were the bones of enormous prehistoric hippos, the animal of the god Seth. And each fossil had been polished over millions of years by river sands until they shone with the color of the god of chaos: jet black.
Seth's black bones No one knows for sure what the Egyptians thought they had found, but there are theories. It is very likely that, 3,300 years ago, the people who found those bones believed they had stumbled upon the remains of a god.
Egyptians had arrived at a similar conclusion before. The early Roman and Greek historians wrote that when Egyptians found fossils of the coiled shells of nummulites near the pyramids of Giza, they took it as proof that Seth had once ruled over their land. The small fossils were taken to a temple in Tienna and there were given as an offering to the gods. They may have felt the same way about the gigantic fossils they buried in Qau el-Kebir. The bones had fossilized (they were incredibly hard), and their religion had long taught that the gods had bones made of iron. Perhaps they thought they had found something more than just an animal or a man. Perhaps, as paleontologist Kenneth Oakley has suggested, they recognized the fossilized remains of giant humans and hippos and assumed they all came from the same place: the remains of the half-human, half-beast god of chaos, Seth.
An ongoing mystery That, at least, is one theory, but to this day, no one knows for sure what the prehistoric fossils in ancient Egypt meant to the people who discovered those prehistoric bones. All we have to work with are some archaeological findings, and so far, they have left us with more questions than answers. We still don't know where the bones were found. We still don't know why they were buried, or why nothing was written about such an incredible find. And we still don't know for certain what it meant to them.
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