The Ancient City of Memphis

Located at the entrance of the Nile delta, 20km south of Cairo, Memphis was the first capital of the unified kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypts.

According to the historian, Herodotus, Memphis was founded around 3100 BC by Menes, a pharaoh of the first dynasty of ancient Egypt. 

In Ancient Egypt, Memphis was also known as Ankh Tawy ("That which binds the Two Lands").

Later Memphis was known as Inbu-Hedj, meaning "White Walls", as the city was built of mud bricks which were painted white and would gleam in the sunlight.

The name Memphis, however, is a Greek translation of the Egyptian name Men-nefer, a nearby pyramid built in the 6th Dynasty.

During its 300 years of history, Memphis was an important administrative and religious centre, located strategically on a narrow part of the Valley, which enabled traffic control and the ability to resist invasions.

The Temple of Ptah (god of craftsman and architects) also turned Memphis into an important religious centre. And it was also the place where the Pharaohs were crowned.

Interestingly, many of the pyramids near Cairo were built in the period when Memphis was the most important city in Egypt and possibly the world.

In 2240 BCE, Thebes, the city of Luxor today, replaced Memphis as the capital city.

Memphis was abandoned by the 7th century CE and the remains of temples and other buildings were used in the construction of the city of Cairo.

Memphis, Egypt, in 1924

In the Bible, Memphis is called Moph or Noph.

A 3,200-year-old statue of Ramesses II was discovered in 1820 at the Great Temple of Ptah near Memphis. It is made from red granite and weighs 83 tons.

The open-air museum of Memphis displays artefacts from the ancient ruins, including statues and an enormous colossus of Ramses II.

A colossal statue of Ramesses II,in the Open-Air Museum at Memphis, Egypt.

Memphis Open Air Museum, Egypt

Memphis Open Air Museum, Egypt

Ancient Artwork Under a Turkish House

In a Turkish village art from the Neo-Assyrian Empire was found carved into the limestone bedrock in a chamber below a house.

The authorities learned about the ancient chamber after Looters raided it for treasures in 2017, by creating a hole in the first floor of a two-story house in the village of Bashbuk, Turkey.

The figures of Assyrian deities, with names written in Aramaic, are displayed on a chamber carved into limestone bedrock which stretches for 98 feet (30 meters).

The procession of deities is led by Hadad, a storm god, with a three-pointed lightning rod and headdress with a five-pointed star. Next, is the goddess Atargatis, a fertility deity with a star-encrusted cylindrical double-horned crown. Six others follow, in various stages of completion.

Some 2,800 years ago, when the art was created, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was the dominant power in the region.

The looters were sent to jail. 

And the full extent of the underground complex is yet to be discovered.

Chamber under a two-story house in the village of Bashbuk, Turkey

The Lion-Human: One of The Oldest Statues Ever Discovered

In 1939, geologist Otto Völzing found a fragmented mammoth ivory figurine at Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany.

Robert Wetzel, a prehistoric historian who had led the excavation, continued digging at the cave site until 1961 and found other fragments. Further fragments were found during the 1970s.

These fragments were stored at the Museum Ulm for the next thirty years until archaeologist Joachim Hahn began to assemble the more than 200 fragments. 

A figurine with animal and human features, began to emerge.

In 1982, paleontologist Elisabeth Schmid further restored and reinterpreted the statue. Work was finally completed on the statue in late 2013.

Sculpted from mammoth ivory, this standing human figure with a lion's head (Löwenmensch figurine), was found to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old, based on carbon dating.

This Ice Age masterpiece, made by a highly skilled and creative individual, is one of the oldest statues ever discovered.

The 40,000 years old Löwenmensch (Lion man) figurine

We Will Eat Grass, Even Go Hungry, But We Will Have Our Own Nuclear Bomb

Abdul Qadeer Khan died in 2021 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Prime Minister of the time, Imran Khan, called him a "national icon." Fellow scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand claimed that Khan was a national treasure.

Back in the 1970s, Khan set Pakistan on the path to becoming a nuclear weapons power. 

Born in 1936, Khan emigrated from India to Pakistan. In 1956 he earned a Bachelor of Science, then continued further with his studies.

After receiving his doctorate in metallurgical engineering from Belgium in 1972, Khan joined the Physics Dynamics Research Laboratory, based in Amsterdam, to conduct studies on uranium.

After learning about Operation Smiling Buddha, India's first successful nuclear bomb test on 18 May 1974, Khan contacted Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, offering technology for Pakistan's own nuclear weapons program.

Bhutto replied: "We (Pakistanis) will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will have our own (nuclear bomb)."

Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was then largely built by Khan from uranium centrifuge designs stolen from Holland and various dodgy suppliers.

Alarmingly, khan later admitted to selling nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Back in the 1970s, Frits Veerman, a Dutch technician working with Khan, reported to his superiors that Khan appeared to be stealing nuclear documents, materials and technology. He was told to be quiet and later lost his job.

So, Abdul Qadeer Khan was free to use Dutch knowledge to develop the atomic bomb for Pakistan and sell nuclear information to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Abdul Qadeer Khan in 2017.