The Great Labyrinth Of Egypt Rediscovered

[AlchoPwn]

I don't know if this has been commented on already, but a truly huge site that has been positively identified as the Great Labyrinth has been identified south of Hawara by the Mataha Expedition. This amazing find was described by historians such as Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus. The fact that this site was not considered one of the 7 Wonders of the ancient world is a bit puzzling, but Egypt was already monopolizing it a bit, and the Greeks were feeling under-represented I guess.

Sadly, there appear to be the usual corrupt BS shenannigans that an experienced traveller expects in the region at play. The find was hushed up by the Cairo Museum and the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, and the efforts by the Mataha expedition to get more attention and publicity were met with threats from Egypt's Security forces, until they were ultimately published online in a foreign country. One wonders what sort of crapulous and shady reasons the creeps are pulling now? Are they going to loot it? Are they embarrassed that the Aswan Dam is destroying what remains of the structure thru rising salinity? Perhaps there is some sort of development plan to build some sort of redundant structure on the site? Egyptian Muslims considered it a religious duty to defile the pagan temples of the past, and only started screeching about their "cultural heritage" when Europeans started paying money to retrieve and preserve it in museums. They should be treated like the contemptible hypocrites that they are, after "going Bamiyan" on every piece of their "cultural heritage" for 1300+ years.

A youtube video on the subject (45min)

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I don't get why Zawi Hawass seems so keen to suppress knowledge of his country's ancient marvels.

Or, is his reticence (or possibly scientific caution) being misrepresented?

 

[gordonrutter]

I don't get why Zawi Hawass seems so keen to suppress knowledge of his country's ancient marvels.

Or, is his reticence (or possibly scientific caution) being misrepresented?

Nothing to do with him anymore, booted out of his post a few years back. Edit, since 2011 apparently.

 

[EnolaGaia]

A slide show presenting the Mataha expedition's informative brochure on the discovery of the labyrinth site can be accessed on YouTube:

https://issuu.com/yago1/docs/labyrinth_of_egypt_com__hawra_2015

This brochure describes the results of a 2008 expedition during which ground penetrating sensors detected an apparent huge buried complex. The identification of this complex with the legendary Great Labyrinth remained speculative.

At that time water table issues were cited as problems to be addressed in exploring the site further. Apparently the authorities (e.g., Hawass) did not publicize the results of the 2008 expedition's findings. This 2010 brochure was developed and issued to circumvent that obstacle.

The website mentioned as the primary online resource (www.labyrinthofegypt.com) is now defunct. It can be retrieved at least partially from the Wayback Machine. The earliest version is retrievable at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100406052229/http://www.labyrinthofegypt.com/

 

[AlchoPwn]

I don't get why Zawi Hawass seems so keen to suppress knowledge of his country's ancient marvels. Or, is his reticence (or possibly scientific caution) being misrepresented?

I dearly hope this can be put down to academic caution, as I would rather be pleasantly surprised by people's motives, but it must be said that academic caution doesn't generally come with academics having submitted a report subsequently being threatened by a nation's security forces for the most part, one would hope.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I dearly hope this can be put down to academic caution, as I would rather be pleasantly surprised by people's motives, but it must be said that academic caution doesn't generally come with academics having submitted a report subsequently being threatened by a nation's security forces for the most part, one would hope.

Agreed. Egypt doesn't feature very highly on the global democratic index, so we can only imagine the pressures on Mr Hawass.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Incidentally, last night I watched an episode of The Secret Mediterranean, featuring veteran ex-newsreader Trevor Macdonald.
In the episode (which I watched primarily for the stuff about Malta) Trevor met with Zawi Hawass on a boat off the coast of Alexandria.
Hawass spoke with wide-eyed zeal and confessed that his life-long obsession is to locate the tomb of Cleopatra.
Perhaps this has become such an all-consuming passion that Hawass has little interest now for other archaeological sites?

 

[AlchoPwn]

Incidentally, last night I watched an episode of The Secret Mediterranean, featuring veteran ex-newsreader Trevor Macdonald. In the episode (which I watched primarily for the stuff about Malta) Trevor met with Zawi Hawass on a boat off the coast of Alexandria. Hawass spoke with wide-eyed zeal and confessed that his life-long obsession is to locate the tomb of Cleopatra. Perhaps this has become such an all-consuming passion that Hawass has little interest now for other archaeological sites?

Well that would be a shameful lack of insight into his job if it were the case. An archaeological director has an obligation to projects other than his own pets.

 

[gordonrutter]

Well that would be a shameful lack of insight into his job if it were the case. An archaeological director has an obligation to projects other than his own pets.

He’s not been anything official in Egypt since 2011.

 

[AlchoPwn]

He’s not been anything official in Egypt since 2011.

True, I don't think he's the culprit at all. It's the new guy Essam Sharaf who is the problem I believe.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

According to his Wiki page, Hawass is now affiliated to the Ministry of Tourism as well as being very active on the lecture circuit.
You would think that he would earn some Brownie points by playing up the Great Labyrinth to potential sightseers.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I dearly hope this can be put down to academic caution, as I would rather be pleasantly surprised by people's motives, but it must be said that academic caution doesn't generally come with academics having submitted a report subsequently being threatened by a nation's security forces for the most part, one would hope.

Agreed. Egypt doesn't feature very highly on the global democratic index, so we can only imagine the pressures on Mr Hawass.

I'm not seeing a solid case for any conspiracy to quash the 2008 survey results here ...

The 2008 survey located a giant slab or layer of rock - the same one noted from 19th century explorations and presumed to represent the foundation of the labyrinth complex. The researchers went on to scan the area of this slab using ground-penetrating sensors, and their results indicated a messy region of differential densities beneath the slab. There are multiple factors that limit the possible quality of these scanning results. They were scanning downward through Roman-era ruins atop the slab's solid rock layer, and they were scanning into the relatively high and highly saline water table. These two factors can play havoc with ground-penetrating sensors.

The interpretation of the results to indicate there were passages and structures beneath the slab was speculative - just like the proposition that the slab represented the labyrinth's roof rather than its foundation. This interpretation was an intriguing possibility, but no more than that.

Even if one accepted the 2008 scanning results as compelling evidence motivating further excavations, those excavations would have involved massive and disruptive efforts. The high water table and saline conditions would have required considerable engineering investments. To do it right, the 19th century canal that runs through the apparent labyrinth site would probably need to be re-routed (a big project in itself). The prospective costs for pursuing the 2008 team's optimistic interpretation were high.

The ripple effects of the 2008 Great Recession imposed economic hardships among the nations most likely to sponsor such expensive projects.

Meanwhile ... Labor strikes and other civil unrest in 2008 initiated the long ramp-up to the Arab Spring, which erupted in Egypt at the beginning of 2011.

I see plenty of reasons why the submitted 2008 results (such as they were ... ) failed to excite Egyptian authorities toward launching a major follow-on project. The results were in fact presented and published in autumn 2008, albeit within relatively small circles of people and institutions directly involved. I have no problem believing the Egyptian authorities took considerable umbrage from the Mataha team's public release of the expedition results in late summer 2010. Those authorities wouldn't have been inclined to suddenly support folks who'd attempted to circumvent them, and in any case the Arab Spring would erupt in full force only a few months later.