Egyption Tomb 5 Essays - Ancient Egyptian Mummies, Free Essays

Egyption Tomb 5 Essays - Ancient Egyptian Mummies, Free Essays Egyption Tomb 5 Early Western Civilization Egyption Tomb 5 Egyptologists had lost interest in the site of tomb 5, which had been explored and looted decades ago. Therefore, they wanted to give way to a parking lot. However, no one would have ever known the treasure that lay only 200 ft. from King Tuts resting place which was beyond a few rubble strewn rooms that previous excavators had used to hold their debris. Dr. Kent Weeks, an Egyptologist with the American University in Cairo, wanted to be sure the new parking facility wouldnt destroy anything important. Thus, Dr. weeks embarked in 1988 on one final exploration of the old dumping ground. Eventually he was able to pry open a door blocked for thousands of years, and announced the discovery of a life time. "We found ourselves in a corridor," he remembers. "On each side were 10 doors and at end there was a statue of Osiris, the god of the afterlife." The tomb is mostly unexcavated and the chambers are choked with debris, Weeks is convinced that there are more rooms on a lower level, bringing the total number to more than 100. That would make tomb 5 the biggest and most complex tomb ever found in Egypt, and quite conceivable the resting place of up to 50 sons of Ramesses II, perhaps the best known of all the pharaohs, the ruler believed to have been Mosesnemesis in the book of Exodus. The Valley of the Kings, in which Tomb 5 is located, is just across the Nile River from Luxor, Egypt. It is never exactly been off the beaten track. Tourism has been brisk in the valley for millenniums: graffiti scrawled on tomb walls proves that Greek and Roman travelers stopped here to gaze at the wall paintings and hieroglyphics that were already old long before the birth of Christ. Archaeologists have been coming for centuries too. Napoleon brought his own team of excavators when he invaded in 1798, and a series of expeditions in 19th and early 20th centuries uncovered one tomb after another. A total of 61 burial spots had been found by the time the British explorer Howard Carter opened the treasure-laden tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922. Britains James Burton had burrowed into the site of Tomb 5 in 1820, and decided that there was nothing inside. A dismissive Carter used its entryway as a place to dump the debris he was hauling out of Tuts tomb. In the late 1980s, came the proposed parking area and Weeks concern. His 1988 foray made it clear that the tomb wasnt dull as Burton said. Elaborate carvings covered walls and referred to Ramesses II, whose own tomb was just 100 ft. away. The wall inscriptions on the companion crypt mentioned two of Ramesses52 known sons, implying some of the royal offspring might have been buried within. Then, came last months astonishing announcement. For treasure, the tomb probably wont come to close to Tuts because robbers apparently plundered the chamber long time ago. No gold or fine jewelry has been found so far, and Weeks does not expect to find any riches to speak of. The carvings and inscriptions Weeks and his friends have seen, along with thousands of artifacts such as beads, fragments of jars that were used to store the organs of the deceased, and mummified body parts which tell historians a great amount about ancient Egypt during the reign of its most important king. "Egyptians do not call him Ramesses II," Sabry Abd El Aziz, director of antiquities for the Qurna region said. " We call him Ramesses al-Akbar which means Ramesses the Great." During his 67 years on the throne stretching from 1279 B.C. to 1212 B. C., Ramesses could have filled an ancient edition of the Guinness Book of Records all by himself: he built more temples, obelisks and monuments; took more wives(eight, not counting concubines) and claimed to have sired more children (as many as 162, by some accounts) than any other pharaoh in history. He presided over an empire that stretched from present-day Libya to Iraq in the east, as far north as Turkey and southward into the Sudan. Today, historians know a great deal about Ramesses and the customs of his day. However, the newly explored tomb suddenly presents scholars with all sort of puzzles to ponder. For one thing, many of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings are syringe-like, plunging straight as a needle into the steep hillsides. For reasons nobody yet knows, says

The History of Potato Chips

The History of Potato Chips Legend has it that the potato chip was born out of a tiff between a little-known cook and one of the wealthiest people in American history.   The incident was alleged to have taken place  on August 24, 1853.  George Crum, who was  half African and half native American, was working as a cook at a resort in  Saratoga Springs, New York at the time. During his shift, a disgruntled customer kept sending back an order of french fries, complaining that they were too thick. Frustrated, Crum prepared a new batch using potatoes that were sliced paper thin and fried to a crisp. Surprisingly, the customer, who happened to be railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt,  loved it. However, that version of events was contradicted by his sister Kate Speck  Wicks. In fact, no official accounts ever proved that Crum claimed to have invented the potato chip. But in Wicks obituary, it was stated flatly that she first invented and fried the famous Saratoga Chips, also known as potato chips.  Besides that, the first popular reference to potato chips can be found in the novel A Tale Of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens. In it, he refers to them as â€Å"husky chips of potatoes.† In any case, potato chips did not gain widespread popularity until the 1920s. Around that time,  an  entrepreneur from California named  Laura Scudder  began selling chips in wax paper bags that were sealed with a warm iron in order to  reduce crumbling while keeping the chips fresh and crisp. Over time, the innovative packaging method allowed for the first time the mass production and distribution of potato chips, which began in 1926.  Today, chips are packaged in plastic bags and pumped with nitrogen gas to extend the products shelf life. The process also helps prevent the chips from getting crushed. During the 1920s, an American businessman from North Carolina named  Herman Lay began selling  potato chips out of the trunk of his car to grocers across the south. By 1938, Lay was so successful that his  Lays brand chips went into mass production and eventually became the  first successfully marketed national brand. Among the companys biggest contributions is the introduction of a crinkle-cut Ruffled chips product that tended to be  sturdier and thus less prone to breakage.   It wasnt until the 1950s though that stores started carrying potato chips in various flavors.  This was all thanks to Joe Spud Murphy, the owner of an Irish chip company named Tayto.  He developed a technology that allowed seasoning to be added during the cooking process. The first seasoned potato chip products came in two flavors:  Cheese Onion and Salt Vinegar. Pretty soon, several companies would express interest in securing the rights to Taytos technique.  Ã‚   In 1963, Lay’s Potato Chips left a memorable mark on the countrys cultural consciousness  when the company hired advertising company Young Rubicam to come up with the popular trademark slogan  Betcha can’t eat just one.†Ã‚  Soon sales went international with a marketing campaign that featured celebrity  actor Bert Lahr in a series of commercials in which he played various historical figures such as George Washington, Ceasar, and Christopher Columbus.