Only one of three items inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid is considered “significant historically significant” art that has been found missing for more than 70 years – inside a cigar at a Scottish university.
The discovery was made recently by curatorial assistant Abir Eladney during a review of items at the University of Asia Collection in Burdwan, when he found a cigar box containing several pieces of wood.
Mrs. Aladdin referred him to other records and said that once she checked the details of the university’s Egyptian records she knew “what it is, and it was effectively hidden in a false collection”.
“I am an archaeologist and do excavation work in Egypt but I never imagined it would be here in north-east Scotland that I would find something important for my country’s heritage,” Ms Aladdin said. Is from Egypt and has worked for 10 years at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Only one of three pieces of wood has been found inside the Great Pyramid – known as the Dixon Relics after it was discovered in 1872 by engineer Weinman Dixon in the Pyramid Queen’s Chamber.
In 1946, they were donated to the university by the daughter of James Grant, who studied medicine and went to Egypt in the mid-1860s to help fund the cholera epidemic.
There Grant befriended Dixon and went to help him explore the Great Pyramid, where they found the remains together.
Ms. Eladani said the university’s collections come in hundreds of thousands of items and thus “it’s been like finding a needle in a haystack.”
“I don’t believe it when I know what was in this innocent looking cigar tin.”
Wood is believed to have been used during the construction of the pyramids. The other two items – a ball and a hook – are in the British Museum.
Neil Curtis, head of museums and special collections at the University of Berdine, said wood carbon dating has been quite a revelation and noted that “it is even older than we imagined”.
According to the university, the results of tests on the pieces showed that the wood could be written “somewhere in the period of 41 334141–3099 BBC – than the historical record of almost 10000 years before the date of the Great Pyramid in 2580 until the reign of Pharaoh Khufu.” -2560BC. ”
The university believes that this supports the idea that – whatever its use – the Dixon remains were the original for the construction of the Great Pyramid and not the art left behind by later chamber explorers.
“Scholars will now discuss its use and whether it was intentionally credited later happened during the New Kingdom, when the pharaohs tried to emphasize continuity with them by burying archeology with the past,” Mr Curtis said.
He added that the discovery would definitely “re-engage interest in the Dixon remains and how they can shed light on the Great Pyramid.”
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