Archaeology & History

Long-lost artefact from Great Pyramid found

By T.K. Randall
December 21, 2020 ·  2 comments

The wood fragments have remained well preserved. Image Credit: University of Aberdeen Despite its immense size, very few artefacts have ever been retrieved from inside the only remaining wonder of the ancient world - the Great Pyramid of Giza - mainly because the original contents were looted during antiquity, leaving very little for modern archaeologists to discover.

Now though, one of only three artefacts ever retrieved from the pyramid - a set of cedarwood fragments that once made up a measuring rule - has finally turned up over 100 years after it went missing.

It was found in an unassuming cigar box in the archives at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland by curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany, who was originally from Egypt.

"The university's collections are vast - running to hundreds of thousands of items - so looking for it has been like finding a needle in a haystack," she said."I couldn't believe it when I realised what was inside this innocuous-looking cigar tin."

Surprisingly, carbon dating has since revealed that the wood may date back to a time 500 years earlier than the pyramid itself.

"Finding the missing Dixon Relic was a surprise but the carbon dating has also been quite a revelation," said Aberdeen University's Neil Curtis. "It is even older than we had imagined."

"This may be because the date relates to the age of the wood, maybe from the center of a long-lived tree. Alternatively, it could be because of the rarity of trees in ancient Egypt, which meant that wood was scarce, treasured and recycled or cared for over many years."

Source: The Guardian | Comments (2)

Tags: Pyramid, Egypt