Introduction To This Blog System

                                                                                                                       

Image used by permission

This is my main blog and all new postings are made here. Postings may be later combined into a compound posting on this blog. Many of the postings concern my observations in various branches of science, but there are also many on technology, religion, economics and, general world issues.

Blogs are organized to be read from top to bottom like a book. There is a list of the postings on each blog to the right of the blog, but you have to click on the months shown. Please use this listing to verify that you have seen all of the postings on the blog. The usual pace of this blog is 1-3 new postings per week.

 

I would really like to thank everyone who reads any of these blogs for your interest.

 

SCIENCE WRITING

 

Most of the postings on this blog are visits to various places around the world, and articles about such topics as history and religion. But much of the writing is about science. I do not write about what is already known but only if I can write something new, or at least a new way of looking at things. If the title of a posting has an asterisk* after it, that means that the posting has already been moved to it's permanent position and will later be deleted from here.

 

If you would like a quick background in the science and mathematics that everyone should really know in the 21st Century, the posting "Scientific Literacy" provides this in about a hundred paragraphs. Similarly, "The Way Things Work" provides a quick background in everyday technology.

 

I am a Christian and I want to show that belief in God is not unscientific at all. I was interested in science long before I was interested in religion, and have never had any trouble believing that God created everything.

 

There are five major scientific theories, each arranged in the form of a textbook. The first four of the following five are on this blog.

 

"The Theory Of Stationary Space" is my cosmological theory of how so much revolves around time being explained by us being in four-dimensional space, with the dimension that we cannot access being perceived as time. This is my version of string theory, with matter actually being strings in four dimensions rather than particles in three dimensions. Everything is ultimately based on negative and positive electric charges, with energy being able to overcome the laws of attraction and repulsion of electric charges. No one has ever explained exactly what time is, and a myriad of explanations of other things fall right into place around it.

 

"The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" is about how so much can be explained by seeing how there is a limited amount of information, and it must be the same information that constructs the highest levels as the lowest levels. A ready example is how the orbits of planets around the sun is based on the orbitals of electrons around the nucleus, in the atoms of which the sun and planets are composed. This concept is extremely useful because, understanding this, we can study things that we cannot directly see by analyzing things that we can see because all must be built on the same information.

 

"The Theory Of Complexity" is about what information actually is, how energy and information is really the same thing, and how we see the universe as we do because of our perspective of being at a higher level of information than our inanimate surroundings.

 

"The Lowest Information Point" is about how, since information and energy is really the same thing and the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, it also always seeks the "Lowest Information Point". So much is explained by how the universe prefers equalities to inequalities and related ratios where the numerator of one ratio is also the denominator of the other. This explains so much from why dust particles are as big as they to why the planets and stars are the scale that they are.

 

"The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog, is about how virtually every major feature of the earth's surface, both on land and seafloor, can be explained by lines of magma emergence from below that were affected by the landing of three Continental Asteroids. Many people believe that land originated from a past "super-continent", but there is no explanation of where it came from.

 

There are a few of what we could call "minor" theories, where there is not as much written as with the major theories. On this blog, there is "How Biology And Human Life Fits Into Cosmology". On the meteorology and biology blog, there is my theory of the nature of water, "Water Made Really Simple".

 

There are compound postings about science which are groupings of writing about a certain topic.

 

Scientific compound postings include, "Computer Science", "Atomic Science", "Measurement", "A Celebration Of The Inverse Square Law", "Our Solar System", "Mind-Bending Cosmology", "The Configuration Of The Solar System Made Really Simple", "In Appreciation Of Electrons", "The Science Of Human Society " and "Orbital And Escape Velocities And Impacts from Space".

 

Compound postings about history and the world include "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began", "Niagara Stories", "Economics", "How History Repeats Itself", "The Meaning Of Freedom", "The Western Hemisphere", "Our Language" and, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris".

 

There are two compound postings about prophecies and the Bible. There is "The Aztec Prophecy" than, for prophecies that are directly made in the Bible there is "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy".

 

"Investigations" is the compound posting that is a collection of any posting about an investigation.

 

The rest of the postings are individual postings. For more detailed information about this blog, see the posting "About This Blog". For general topics of conversation, see "Thoughts And Observations", on the world and economics blog.  

Other Blogs And Books

                                                                       

Lights at night 

Here is a quick look at my other blogs before you start this one.

On this blog, you can see a list of all postings by clicking on the year or month to the right. But on the topical blogs, that is not the case. If you click on a year or month on those blogs, it will display the postings themselves, but the list on the right will still only show those postings that were added most recently.

To access a list of all postings on those blogs, it is necessary to click on the arrow in front of the year or month in question.

http://www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com/ is about economics, history and, general human issues.

http://www.markmeekprogress.blogspot.com/ concerns progress in technology and ideas.

http://www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com/ is my geology and global natural history blog for topics other than glaciers. My natural history blogs concerning the impact of glaciers is http://www.markmeekworld.blogspot.com/ .

http://www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com/ is about new discoveries concerning natural history in the general area of Niagara Falls.

http://www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/ is my observations concerning meteorology and biology.

http://www.markmeekphysics.blogspot.com/ is my blog about physics and astronomy.

http://www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com/ is my version of string theory that solves many unsolved mysteries about the underlying structure and beginning of the universe.

http://www.markmeekpatterns.blogspot.com/ details my work with the fundamental patterns and complexity that underlies everything in existence.

 http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ is my religion blog.

 http://www.markmeekcreation.blogspot.com/ is proof that there must be a god.

http://www.markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/ is my travel photos of Europe.

On my photo blogs, Blogspot will not hold all of the photos in each blog in a straight line. To see all of the photos, you must click on the bottom posting listed on the right at the top of the blog after seeing all that there are in the initial showing. The last posting in the North America blog should be "Tijuana, Mexico" and the last posting in the Europe blog should be "Notre Dame Cathedral Door And Arc De Triomphe, Paris". Each photo in the photo blogs can be clicked on to enlarge it to full screen.

My autobiography is http://www.mark-meek.blogspot.com/

My books can be seen at http://www.bn.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ or, http://www.iuniverse.com/ just do an author search for "Mark Meek".   

Alexandria

Alexandria is a city in Egypt that is northwest of Cairo, along the Mediterranean coast. The city is not as big as Cairo, but is much older. Alexandria is today Egypt's major port, but is not on the Suez Canal. It was founded by Alexander, the Greek conqueror, in 331 B.C., and was the capital of Egypt for nearly a thousand years, and one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. Alexander never returned to Egypt after founding the city. In a way Alexandria took the place of the ancient port of Tyre, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, which Alexander had conquered and destroyed.

Alexandria has been the natural window on the world for Egypt, and has been an important city to the world ever since it was founded. It was one of the early centers of Christianity. In the Hellenistic era, which followed it's founding, Alexandria probably surpassed even Athens as a center of Greek civilization. It was not an entirely new city, but absorbed the Egyptian town of Rhakotis, which was already in the location. this town became the "Egyptian Quarter" of the city when it attracted migrants from all over. Unlike Cairo, there are no pyramids in Alexandria.

The city of Alexandria changed the dynamic of Egypt, making it less a part of Africa and more Mediterranean. Moslems would later move the cultural center back to the south, by founding Cairo more than a thousand years later, but not as far south as it had been in ancient Egypt.

After the breakup of Alexander's vast empire into several pieces, a general named Ptolemy founded a dynasty that would last for about three hundred years, and ruled Egypt from Alexandria. The Ptolemies claimed to be Egyptian pharaohs, but continued speaking Greek. The last queen, the legendary Cleopatra VII, claimed to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian god Isis. She was born and died in Alexandria.

Alexandria was a great intellectual center and was known for it's outstanding library. The location of the library isn't exactly known today. The city had a thriving Jewish community during the Hellenistic era. As their children began to forget how to speak Hebrew, the community had the Jewish scriptures translated into Greek. The translation was known as the Septuagint, because seventy scholars worked on it, and would become the basis for the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

Alexandria was laid out around two main streets that met near Alexander's tomb. He died in Babylon, but was finally buried by Ptolemy in Alexandria. However, the location of the tomb is now not known. Some areas sank into the water, due to earthquake activity, and quite a bit of underwater archeology has taken place there.

The island of Pharos was joined to the mainland. There was a great lighthouse in Alexandria, that was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It was about 137 meters high, but was damaged in earthquakes and the remaining stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site. This is what the lighthouse is believed to have looked like, from the Wikipedia article "Lighthouse Of Alexandria".

This is Pompey's Pillar, which has stood in Alexandria since Roman times, although it was built much later than the time of Pompey. It is in the form of an ancient Egyptian obelisk, but is in the style of a column. This image is from the Wikipedia article "Pompey's Pillar".

There are vast underground catacombs in Alexandria, dating from the Middle Ages, which were accidentally discovered in the Twentieth Century. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Catacombs Of Kom El Shoqafa".

After the times of the Ptolemies and then the Romans, Alexandria was ruled, over it's long history, by the usual parade of conquerors in this part of the world, the Sassanids, the Byzantines, the Fatimid Caliphate, the Mamluks, and then the Ottomans. Rosetta was a nearby medieval city, somewhat of a rival to Alexandria, that was a commercial center during Mamluk and Ottoman rule.

The Qaitbay Citadel was founded in 1477, by the Mamluks on the site of the former lighthouse, and some of the remaining stones of the lighthouse were used in construction of the Citadel. It was later restored by the Muhammad Ali Pasha Dynasty, which began when an Albanian Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali established independent rule of Egypt, that was recognized by the Ottomans.

Here are some views of the Citadel of Qaitbay, and the surrounding area. The island, later joined to the mainland, on which first the lighthouse and then the Citadel of Qaitbay was built, is very reminiscent of the offshore island on which Tyre had been built, and which Alexander reached and conquered by filling in with rubble. this citadel in Alexandria is, of course, reminiscent of the citadel in Cairo, where the main structure is the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha. Notice the similarity between this structure and the Sultan Hasan Mosque in Cairo, because both were built by the Mamluks. The first four images of the Qaitbay Citadel are from Google Street View. 

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow you can then hide previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2137144,29.8856402,3a,75y,350.93h,93.1t,-5.4r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s39oiLytxkk6L92GY8XBpIw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D39oiLytxkk6L92GY8XBpIw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D76.00648%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is an area in Alexandria with ancient ruins, from the Greek and Roman era, but not going back to ancient Egypt. The first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2010732,29.900991,3a,75y,300h,100t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP0FHRY_3751r-RqJopx_Y5kC8YhWeOzJpF0Ug!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP0FHRY_3751r-RqJopx_Y5kC8YhWeOzJpF0Ug%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-10-ya255.02991485595703-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This is the central area of Alexandria. The first eight images of central Alexandria are from Google Street View. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2007319,29.9095781,3a,75y,277h,83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO0OjG1pu5b0AiulHFpajcecSvk3JoaFyHk6bZe!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO0OjG1pu5b0AiulHFpajcecSvk3JoaFyHk6bZe%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-7-ya27.499979-ro-0-fo100!7i6000!8i3000

Here are some scenes east of downtown in the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2150826,29.9457958,3a,75y,280h,100t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNcurItR1qGIM_FWMXGFl1uEJP1_G-Jo1-oM6w!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNcurItR1qGIM_FWMXGFl1uEJP1_G-Jo1-oM6w%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-10-ya306.3573608398438-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This is around the Green Plaza Mall. This is an open air mall. There is such an open air mall on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, but Alexandria is a little bit warmer in the winter. The first six images of the Green Plaza Mall are from Google Street View. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.206592,29.965447,3a,75y,81.06h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-LpD_QzKtxPc%2FVXoPclRm8xI%2FAAAAAAAAHLo%2Fbl4S1UVUvi0hRY5vgEPYuSkKQX9MmmBOACJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh6.googleusercontent.com%2F-LpD_QzKtxPc%2FVXoPclRm8xI%2FAAAAAAAAHLo%2Fbl4S1UVUvi0hRY5vgEPYuSkKQX9MmmBOACJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya80.85692-ro0-fo100%2F!7i13700!8i6850

The Ottomans ruled Egypt from 1517-1798. Napoleon then ruled Egypt, which was what brought ancient Egypt into the world's consciousness, many artifacts to the Louvre and, one of the obelisks known as "Cleopatra's Needles", although they far pre-dated her time, and were not from the Alexandria area, to where it remains today in the center of Place Concorde in Paris.

Another of the three "Cleopatra's Needles" is on the side of the Thames River, in London, the other is in New York's Central Park. This one in London is from the Wikipedia article "Cleopatra's Needles".

Alexandria was really revived, and moved back as being more prominent than Rosetta, by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty's construction of the Mahmoudiyah Canal, from the Nile River to Alexandria.

Has anyone ever noticed a historical pattern in Egypt? Alexander conquered Egypt, in 332 B.C., and one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established a ruling dynasty after the death of Alexander. The Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517, and an Ottoman general, Muhammad Ali, established a ruling dynasty after Ottoman rule had temporarily been interrupted by Napoleon? These two events, more than 2100 years apart, follow exactly the same historical pattern. In fact, the length of time that the Muhammad Ali Dynasty ruled Egypt in modern times is just about identical to the length of time that the Hyksos ruled Egypt in ancient times.

There are a number of palaces today in Alexandria. The Montaza Palace was built in 1892. Anwar Sadat, former president of Egypt who was assassinated in 1981 for trying to make peace with Israel, lived there. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Montaza Palace".

The Ras El Tin Palace was the Royal Palace of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, built in 1847. King Farouk, the last of the dynasty, signed the abdication here. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Ras El Tin Palace".

The following scenes are in the area where there are two palaces.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2874379,30.0204996,3a,75y,314h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-mURgaQp-nyA%2FV2BHdYtO-LI%2FAAAAAAAABgw%2Fv9lDivPsDF8BdYubMIxKRg_LWEWGMRWuwCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-mURgaQp-nyA%2FV2BHdYtO-LI%2FAAAAAAAABgw%2Fv9lDivPsDF8BdYubMIxKRg_LWEWGMRWuwCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9999962-ya317.5-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i10240!8i5120

Gamal Nasser, an army officer who overthrew and replaced King Farouk in 1952, was reenacting the expulsion of the Hyksos from ancient Egypt. The Muhammad Ali Dynasty was a foreign, Ottoman, dynasty that ruled Egypt until expelled in a way that was like a mirror of the Hyksos. Many European ex-pats enjoyed living in Alexandria, which is just across the Mediterranean from Europe. Rudolf Hess, who would become the Nazi third in command, was actually born in Alexandria. But that changed when Nasser's nationalization policies were announced.

Alexandria is also known for, of course, the beach. It was so reminiscent of Miami Beach that a section of beach has been named after it. The first six images along the beach are from Google Street View. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2700176,29.9908196,3a,75y,180.64h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipM3CodArwLrcSuqIixA0a9IxSyEuSd-0zo3bTk!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipM3CodArwLrcSuqIixA0a9IxSyEuSd-0zo3bTk%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya268.30387032724144-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This is some more of the city near the beach.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2593149,29.9893319,3a,75y,260h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNzPNLY4E8MD8HaAvFtrevfwUQeoYAtsXp6tE8!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNzPNLY4E8MD8HaAvFtrevfwUQeoYAtsXp6tE8%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-20-ya36.5155944824219-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Finally, here are some scenes in the far western part of Alexandria.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2816171,30.0131782,3a,75y,92.12h,120t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPdImq1cZQreffWHn4Rpp7zXO3Ie-AKQ0iTr_Q!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPdImq1cZQreffWHn4Rpp7zXO3Ie-AKQ0iTr_Q%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-30-ya166.65606022460938-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

The Exodus And Egypt

On the subject of Egypt, let's remember this.

Critics claim that there is no evidence that the story of the Exodus, the delivery of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, actually took place. One side of this story that I have never seen anywhere is what kind of an effect it might have had on the Egyptians. 

If this fantastic story really took place then it must have had some effect on the Egyptians. It seems to me that it did.

What I see as the greatest mystery of ancient Egypt is the era known as the Amarna Period. The name also refers to the "Amarna Letters", letters by the Egyptian leadership during this period to diplomatic posts in other lands.

Egypt was a very polytheistic nation which honored a broad pantheon of gods. Like any other comparable civilization that we can see, Egypt had a god for everything. Many gods, with control over certain aspects of life, were not universal. In one city a request might be made to one god, but the same request would be made to a different god if in another city. Egypt's gods were very important to it, and there was a long and hallowed tradition of how they must be worshiped.

All of a sudden, a new pharaoh comes to the throne, Amenhotep IV. He surprises and dismays all of Egypt by announcing that one god is supreme above all others. He changed his name to Akhenaten to reflect devotion to this one supreme god, which was called Aten.

The new pharaoh destroyed many of the temples of the traditional gods, making many enemies in the process, and built a new capital city to reflect the new era of devotion to his god. The city was called Amarna, which gives it's name to this brief era. This was not exactly monotheism, the old gods of Egypt were still there. But now one of the gods was to be honored far above the others.

The disk of the sun was considered as the manifestation of this one supreme god. The people would actually worship the pharaoh while he worshiped the one supreme god, putting himself in a role somewhat like a high priest or the earthly son of this god.

The position of women in Egypt improved during this time and from it comes the best-known face of ancient Egypt, the bust of Nefertiti. She was the queen of Akhenaten during his great religious reform. Image from Wikipedia article "Nefertiti".

But the change of religion did not go over very well at all. It was unpopular with nearly everybody and was reversed just as soon as Akhenaten died. The capital city was moved back to Thebes. The son of Akhenaten was the famed King Tut, short for Tutankhamen. King Tut actually died as a teenager, might have actually been the most insignificant of pharaohs, and you have heard of him only because grave robbers never found his tomb.

Horemheb was the following pharaoh who really reversed the religious reforms. He destroyed the capital city that had been built for the new supreme god, and not much remains of it today. Being childless he appointed his vizier as his successor, who would take the throne as "Ramesses I", as we saw in the posting by that name. This began a new dynasty, the Nineteenth Dynasty.

It is true that there is little historical record of the Exodus from Egypt. But the Egyptians did not like to be defeated, and they were in the habit of selectively recording, and even erasing, parts of their own history. 

We know for sure that a warlike people called the Hyksos conquered and ruled Egypt for a time but there is very little Egyptian record of that. Ramesses II, grandson of Ramesses I, was known as the Great Builder of ancient Egypt, he wanted to be remembered by his endless building, but he is also known to have imposed his cartouche on buildings that others had built.

We have to understand that this is so out of the ordinary, so unique in ancient Egypt that it demands special explanation. No other pharaoh ever attempted anything like this. Akhenaten had all of the makings of a great pharaoh. But he put himself down in the history of his nation as a criminal and heretic. He was buried in an insignificant tomb and generally scorned after his death. He became essentially a non-person in Egypt and his name is missing from later lists of previous pharaohs. Akhenaten's mummy, nor that of his queen Nefertiti, have even been positively identified. Virtually anything to do with his new religion was destroyed, and his religion of one supreme god forgotten.

What then made him do it? There is a clear explanation that really should get some attention.

What if the story of the Exodus, as told in the Bible, really did happen as told. The Egyptians saw the awesome power of the Israelites' God. While they may not have paid much attention to the religion of their slaves, the Bible records Moses describing their God to the unnamed pharaoh. They knew that the Israelites worshiped only one God. During the Exodus, the Egyptians saw the power of this God.

The Egyptians would not have known the details of their former slaves' religion, this was before the Bible was written, all they knew was that they worshiped only one all-powerful God which, at the time, was a very unique idea.

The timing is right, the Fourteenth Century B.C. We know that King David ruled over Israel around 1000 B.C. Before the Exodus and that time, the Israelites had to go through the long periods of wandering in the wilderness, gradually clearing the land of the Canaanites, and the period when Israel was ruled by leaders known as Judges.

Doesn't it look to you as if the Egyptians, having seen the power of the Israelites' God as described in the Bible, but really not wanting to admit that they and their gods had been defeated by the God of their slaves, had a pharaoh who thought that the best thing for Egypt was to incorporate this one supreme God, and facilitated that as best as he could, even though destroying his own reign and legacy in the process?

He even changed his name to signify his new religious convictions, from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten, just as Abram had his name changed to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel.

I see this as the best evidence that the Exodus, as described in the Bible with all of it's miracles, took place just as described. It could not have been that the Egyptians had gotten dissatisfied with the old gods because the country was poor or subject to foreign domination, and sought a new god to change their fortunes, because Egypt was near the height of it's power at the time.

But there is still more to consider.

Of all the hundreds of pharaohs and other important people in the long history of Egypt, two have emerged as the "faces" of old Egypt. These are Nefertiti, as we saw above, and King Tutankhamen. Image from the Wikipedia article "Tutankhamen".

Nefertiti was the queen of Akhenaten, the pharaoh who tried to get Egypt worshiping one supreme God, and Tutankhamen was his son. Although Nefertiti was not Tutankhamen's mother. The only other name from Egypt that has any comparison to these two is Ramesses II, who would rule in the following dynasty.

Now, stop and think. Doesn't it strike you as very noteworthy that the two who should emerge as the most familiar faces from Egypt's very long history are the queen and the son of this scorned pharaoh who had tried to get Egypt to abandon it's historic pantheon of gods, in order to worship one supreme God?

King Tutankhamen was actually quite likely the most insignificant of pharaohs. He became king as a child, was in exceptionally poor health, and died in his teens. Decisions during his reign were almost certainly made by advisers, who would succeed Tutankhamen as pharaohs themselves, Ay and Horemheb. The reason that he is so famous today is that, unique among the pharaohs of Egypt, grave robbers never found his tomb before archeologists did in modern times.

Could it be that God arranged it for Tutankhamen and Nefertiti to emerge as the best-known figures of the long history of Egypt to show that the Egyptians had certainly seen the power of the Israelites' God in delivering them from slavery? Even though they were not about to record it, the world could see their reaction to it. This could not have been done for Akhenaten himself because he was scorned upon death, becoming a non-person whose name is missing from later lists of past pharaohs, and was buried in a very modest tomb.

King Tutankhamen, son of Akhenaten, is recorded as going against his father's religious ideas upon succeeding him. In fact, the new king's original name was to have been Tutankhaten, recognizing the one supreme God, but was changed to Tutankhamen, for the original Egyptian gods. But he was a child upon becoming pharaoh and decisions were certainly being made for him.

In the campaign of Horemheb against this new religious idea, the following statue of King Tut and his queen was severely damaged. But yet they have emerged in modern times as the faces of ancient Egypt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun#/media/File:Tutankhamun_at_Luxor_temple.jpg 

POSTSCRIPT

Not long after I originally wrote the above posting came the announcement that an entire ancient city was unearthed in Egypt. The name of the city is Aten. This is certainly one of the most important archeological discoveries ever. It is reminiscent of the excavation of the city of Ur, in Mesopotamia, about a century ago.

The name of the one supreme god, represented by the disk of the sun, was also Aten.

As it turns out the city of Aten was founded by Amenhotep III, who was the father of the pharaoh who tried to move the country toward monotheism. His name was Amenhotep IV but he changed it Akhenaten to in order to reflect the new religious movement.

The city of Aten was in use during the Amarna Period, the time of the move toward monotheism, but the capital was moved to Amarna, hence the name of the period. The son of Akhenaten was the famous King Tut, short for Tutankhamen. Tutankhamen was actually what his name was changed to in order to reflect the move back to the traditional pantheon of gods.

For readers in the Niagara Falls area this took place during the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Tutankhamen was followed as Pharaoh by Ay and Horemheb. Horemheb was childless so he appointed his vizier as his successor.

The vizier took the throne as Ramesses I, the first pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty. There was a mummy from Egypt in the museum that used to be just at the Canadian end of the Rainbow Bridge, but the mummy was unidentified. It was later definitely identified to be Ramesses I and was given back to Egypt. The mummy had spent over a hundred years in Niagara Falls.

Possibly the most important pharaoh, at least of the New Kingdom, was Ramesses II, who was the grandson of Ramesses I. He did a lot of building, although not of pyramids. By this time the era of pyramid building, which took place in the Old Kingdom, was long past and the pyramids were already very old.

Caliphates And The Revolution Series

The modern political era began with the French Revolution of 1789. It was a popular uprising in which the king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, were overthrown and guillotined. But the revolution was messy and bloody and ultimately ended in the rule of Napoleon, who became the prototype of the modern dictator, although he did not start the revolution. Napoleon was actually a general, who went on to conquer much of Europe and thus spread the ideals of the revolution.

There have been two major, and numerous minor, reenactments of the French Revolution. What I mean by this is not how important each revolution was but whether it changed the basic direction of the French Revolution. There have been two changes of direction, with the two major reenactments. 

Since the original French Revolution there had been widespread industrialization. This brought about a very wealthy upper class of people, and the millions of exploited and underpaid laborers who worked for them. This brought about the first major change in direction, with what we could call the Second Revolution. This was the October Revolution, of 1917, which was the beginning of world Communism.

The original French Revolution was hostile to the Catholic Church. The Second Revolution, based on the theories of Karl Marx, was even more hostile to religion. But the second major reenactment, what we could call the Third Revolution, was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This turned the world back toward religion, and not only Islam. 

But all three revolutions overthrew a monarchy and all three had a "storming" as their signature event. The signature event of the original French Revolution was the Storming of the Bastille, of the October Revolution it was the Storming of the Winter Palace, and of the Iranian Revolution it was the Storming of the U.S. Embassy. 

We have seen this revolution series in detail in "The Rule Of Successive Revolutions", October 2024, and "Multidimensional History ", November 2024.

But history repeats itself and rarely, if ever, is there anything that is completely new. So there must have been precedents to this series of revolutions that have shaped modern times.

The first thing that comes to mind is the overthrowing and execution of England's King Charles I by the forces of Oliver Cromwell. He wanted to abolish the monarchy, in order to create a theocracy in the Name of God, and had the Crown Jewels destroyed. But when Cromwell died, his son didn't inspire the same devotion and the Royalists were able to reestablish the monarchy.

What about this series of revolutions though? There is another series that was actually quite similar. It was the Islamic Caliphates.

While Europe was going through the "Dark Ages", it was the Islamic part of the world that kept learning alive. The intellectual center of the world was the House of Wisdom, in Baghdad. Among many other things, they brought the numerical digits that we now use as well as the concept of zero from India, developed mathematics such as algebra, and this era is why so many of the stars have Arabic names and the digits 1-9 are called the Arabic Numerals. Spain was ruled by Moslems for about seven hundred years and, during this time, students from across Europe sought to study at the great university in Cordoba. 

What finally brought Europe out of the Dark Ages was the conquest of Constantinople, which was Christian, by the Ottomans. Many Christian scholars loaded manuscripts onto pack animals and headed westward. This brought about the intellectual awakening that is now referred to as the "Renaissance", which means "rebirth". The city most associated with the Renaissance is Florence. Out of the Renaissance grew the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution and, the French Revolution.

So it shouldn't be surprising if some of the concepts that have shaped modern Europe came from the Moslem countries.

There were four well-known successive caliphates in the early days of Islam, and each was centered around it's capital city. The Rashidun Caliphate was centered on Medina and was the first four caliphs after the death of Muhammad. During the Rashidun Caliphate was the split between Sunni and Shiite, over who should be caliph after Muhammad. 

The Rashidun Caliphate was supplanted by the Umayyad Caliphate, which was centered on Damascus. It was the Umayyads who built the two mosques on the Temple Mount, the Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. 

The Umayyad Caliphate was supplanted by the Abbasid Caliphate, which was centered on Baghdad. Unlike Damascus, which was an ancient city, Baghdad was especially built as the Abbasid capital, and is where the House of Wisdom was located, but the Umayyad Caliphate did continue on in Spain. 

The Abbasid Caliphate was supplanted by the Fatimid Caliphate, which was Shiite. The Fatimids especially built Cairo as their capital, just as the Abbasids had built Baghdad.

You can see that this series of revolutions follows the same pattern as the caliphates, with one supplanted by the next, except that it is informal. Each revolution also centers around a major city, although informally, just as the caliphates did. The original French Revolution was centered on Paris, the October Revolution on St. Petersburg and, the Iranian Revolution on Tehran.

Another way that we can see the historical impact of these long-ago caliphates is in the lack of unity in the Middle East. There used to be discussion of Syria and Iraq uniting. The two neighboring countries were led  by the same Baath Party, which promoted Arab unity. But what was against the merger was history. The Abbasids, centered in Baghdad, had defeated and supplanted the Umayyads, centered in Damascus. Syria and Egypt united for a while, as the United Arab Republic. The Fatimids, based later in Cairo, had not had direct conflict with the Umayyads, but even so the history of different caliphates was enough to doom the merger.

Apocalyptic Developments

I wonder if Elon Musk is in on the scenario that we saw in "Inducing The Apocalypse", December 2024.

As the wealthiest man in the world, and in control of so much of social media and the latest technology, Elon Musk has a lot of influence. But his increasing criticism of how various countries are run is generating a lot of backlash. We know that the nations of western Europe must join together, to be the future base of the Antichrist, and Elon Musk's criticism of them, in the name of right-wing politics, drew an apparently coordinated response from the governments of Britain, France, Norway and, Germany.

Elon Musk has even encouraged America to liberate Britain from it's present government which, I suppose, would mean invading Britain.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has continued on his roll of shaking up the global order by proposing to rename the Gulf of Mexico. But bordering nations do not necessarily have to have the same name for a body of water. The French name for the English Channel is La Manche.

One concerning thing is that the generation that directly remembers the Second World War is gone. I have long thought that another world war would be very unlikely as long as the generation that remembered the Second World War was with us. 

Let's remember 1914. There had been no major conflict for about half a century. By no means had there been complete peace, but wars had been mostly skirmishes in faraway places that had lasted maybe a few weeks. No one knew what a major war was.

When the First World War began crowds in European capitals were actually cheering the declaration of war. Peace had gotten boring and they had no idea that they were getting into a war like the world had never seen before. A generation of Europeans never came home from the trenches.

The thing that I find most disturbing about the First World War was that it wasn't really over much of anything. The spark that set it off was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife. But that shouldn't have started a world war. The two were not popular either at home or abroad and most of Europe took only brief notice of it. The war didn't start immediately but by the end of the summer the world would be in a war like it had never seen before. It was just that peace had gotten boring.

For more about the beginning of the First World War see "Assassination In Sarajevo", May 2024. Another thing that the war led to was the end of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled much of the Middle East. The underlying reason for why there is so much war in the Middle East is that it hasn't yet reached a new equilibrium.

Dinosaur Tracks

Dinosaur tracks were discovered in England, along a route by which dinosaurs moved, that are more than 160 million years old.

We saw in the posting "The Bone To Flesh Ratio", on the meteorology and biology blog, that simple physics brought the dinosaurs to their end. When a creature with bones dies and gets buried by sediment, the atoms of it's flesh return to circulation in the biosphere much faster than the atoms of it's bones. This is why skeletons are found.

So as time goes on the atoms of bone material get progressively more scarce relative to flesh material. Since larger creatures require more bone mass, relative to the mass of flesh, creatures with bones must get smaller over time. This is what brought the end of the dinosaurs.

Flying dinosaurs were able to continue because they, by necessity, had lighter bones than land dinosaurs and so required less bone material.

Here is a link to the original posting:

www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/2009/07/bone-to-flesh-ratio.html?m=0 

Related to flying dinosaurs is how plants got onto distant islands:

www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/2009/07/pterosaurs-and-tropical-islands.html?m=0 

Remember that Britain was connected to Europe until the last ice age, as we saw in "The English Channel Isthmus", January 2024.

Canadian Politics

Canada will be selecting a new prime minister and so this would be a good time to review national level Canadian politics.

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2022/04/names-and-canadian-politics.html?m=0 

Donald Trump irritated Canadians by suggesting that it become the "51st state". But if Canadians wanted to be part of America then Laura Secord probably wouldn't have an ice cream store named after her.

I wonder how Canadians would feel about the U.S. joining Canada. What if we used the Canadian flag and currency and parliamentary system? We would adopt Canada's health care system and gun control laws. Our capital would be Toronto. Elements of the national anthem, such as "the true north strong and free", could be reworded to include the south.

The only thing that would have to go is the Goods And Services Tax, the GST/HST.

Nairobi, Kampala And, Kigali

With the death of Jimmy Carter let's visit these cities in east Africa because I believe that it was the military operation at Entebbe that inspired the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran that likely cost Carter reelection.

Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. It's location is high in elevation. Despite it's importance as a global city, Nairobi is barely a century old.

Here is central Nairobi. The Kenyatta International Conference Center is named for the founder of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta. His son was later president.  Another familiar name from Kenya is that of it's second president, Daniel Arap Moi. The first scene is the helipad, on the roof.

The first five images of central Nairobi are from Google Street View.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.2887573,36.8231644,3a,75y,25.53h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMwpp0Q_P9san2fsvzgIpmDExIqlfLtIDzOD9H6!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMwpp0Q_P9san2fsvzgIpmDExIqlfLtIDzOD9H6%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya278.52518-ro0-fo100!7i9216!8i3618

This is the area around Uhuru Park, across the street from the Kenyan Parliament Buildings. Uhuru means "freedom" in Swahili. The first two images of Uhuru Park are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.29026,36.8181381,3a,75y,136.62h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOhefoCehA8eGAEMXzs7XOSEeMOpmrz-hWtCDmR!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOhefoCehA8eGAEMXzs7XOSEeMOpmrz-hWtCDmR%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya60.629055-ro-0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

This is the northern part of Nairobi. The first two images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.2624519,36.801971,3a,75y,97.5h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOjHOX1FOw5hIKRgbW-EBaMf8tXLe5dgMJWrjiz!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOjHOX1FOw5hIKRgbW-EBaMf8tXLe5dgMJWrjiz%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya36.5-ro-0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

Kampala, the capital city of neighboring Uganda, is known as an exceptionally nice place to live. This is central Kampala. The first four images of central Kampala are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@0.3151313,32.5817941,3a,75y,210.57h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1svO1XPbQhjMxM_ddirAB-YQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DvO1XPbQhjMxM_ddirAB-YQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D210.5731%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

There is actually a semi-autonomous kingdom that exists within Uganda. It was once abolished, after Ugandan independence, but later allowed to be reinstated. The kingdom is known as Buganda, and it has a king and queen. The following scenes begin at the entrance way to the Kabaka Palace of Buganda. It is within the city of Kampala. The first image, of the entrance to the palace, is from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@0.3027364,32.5655315,3a,75y,138.01h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s9u2I7ZLc5BinF819wPCiTg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D9u2I7ZLc5BinF819wPCiTg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D138.01517%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is a residential area of Kampala. The first three images are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@0.3408899,32.603091,3a,75y,175.5h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sX22NB7zC-i4uutFFVzL6PQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DX22NB7zC-i4uutFFVzL6PQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D175.5%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

For a small and pleasant country, Uganda used to be in the news all the time. The news usually revolved around some very colorful characters.

Milton Obote was president of Uganda until he was overthrown, in 1971, by an army officer named Idi Amin, who may have been the world's most colorful character of the 1970s. In 1972, Amin expelled tens of thousands of Asian residents who were not citizens of Uganda, almost all Indians. Most observers now say that this was very detrimental to the country, as the Asian settlers had run a lot of businesses.

In late June, 1976, an Air France jet was hijacked by the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine. The passengers and crew would be freed in exchange for a list of prisoners being held in Israeli jails. Idi Amin, who had previously been a supporter of Israel, surprised everyone by welcoming the plane to Entebbe Airport, just south of Kampala. Entebbe would soon become probably the most famous airport in the world.

The majority of the hostages were freed but more than a hundred, who had a connection to Israel or who declined to be released, were held in a building at the airport. The hijackers included two German leftists, and Idi Amin personally visited them.

In a sudden operation, on July 4 while America was celebrating it's bicentennial, Israel dispatched about 100 commandos aboard planes which landed at the airport at night. Two of the hostages were killed in error, being mistaken for hijackers, but the rescue operation was a success. Part of the operation included a black Mercedes similar to the one used by Idi Amin.

The only Israeli commando killed in the mission happened to be the brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel.

There were a lot of repercussions to the raid. The president of neighboring Kenya had allowed the Israeli planes to refuel at Nairobi. Idi Amin retaliated by having more than two hundred Kenyans who were living in Uganda killed. That is the side of Entebbe that is not well-known.

South of Kampala, on a peninsula extending into Lake Victoria, this is the area around Entebbe Airport. All looks peaceful and quiet today.

https://www.google.com/maps/@0.0391051,32.4491766,3a,75y,238.1h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1scfnw3vTwqo6_68xPy_Hf6g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dcfnw3vTwqo6_68xPy_Hf6g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D238.0984%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

The colorful era of Idi Amin could not last forever. Ugandans who were opposed to his rule, including Milton Obote who Amin had overthrown, had sought sanctuary in neighboring Tanzania. The government of Idi Amin retaliated by seizing a border area of Tanzania. The government of Tanzania responded by sending it's army, along with the Ugandan exiles, into Uganda. I remember watching the news that they had captured Kampala and Idi Amin left the country by helicopter.

Milton Obote regained his presidency, but was ultimately overthrown again by Yoweri Museveni, the current president. He would not allow Idi Amin to return without facing justice. Uganda is much quieter now, and is hardly ever in the news except as a nice place to visit.

Idi Amin, after time in Libya, spent the rest of his life in exile in Jeddah, on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. He died in 2003.

The first lady of Uganda, who Idi Amin had married when she was a teenager in a widely-publicized wedding, eventually settled into running a restaurant in London.

Another colorful character of Uganda is Joseph Kony, of the Lord's Resistance Army. He claimed to be a prophet of God and wanted to make Uganda into a Christian fundamentalist state, but his era seems to now be over.

Uganda's southern neighbor, Rwanda, is another beautiful country that has unfortunately been in the news. In 1994, there was a deadly conflict between the two primary ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. The conflict began when a plane carrying both the presidents of Rwanda and neighboring Burundi was shot down upon approach in Rwanda, killing both presidents.

The Hutu, the majority of the population, thought that the Tutsi wanted to revive their former monarchy under which the Hutu would be serfs while the Tutsi would be the nobility and royalty. The conflict continued until the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front managed to suppress the violence.

This is the central area of Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. The first six images of central Kigali are from Google Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.9444291,30.0621675,3a,75y,171.47h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNtt6pgrZlBZGatEPoRbRcfUIa_qVYraqLHU2vB!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNtt6pgrZlBZGatEPoRbRcfUIa_qVYraqLHU2vB%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya117.9723630718909-ro0-fo100!7i7680!8i3840?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Here is more of the central part of Kigali.

https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.9511833,30.0613823,3a,75y,91.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPitl3PR2nmk1I3mQW3IWKIEsSSo8CL2x9ONzea!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPitl3PR2nmk1I3mQW3IWKIEsSSo8CL2x9ONzea%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya11.500011-ro-0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096