Thursday, April 10, 2025

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".   

Northern Iran

We have already visited Tehran. This visit will be to the cities of Tabriz, Karaj, Qom and, Mashad.

The major city of northwestern Iran is Tabriz. It's primary language is Azerbaijani. Tabriz is an ancient city that was a link in the Silk Road. It is especially known for it's historic bazaar. The following scenes begin in the Bazaar. The first six images of the Bazaar are from Google Street View.


This Bazaar is an ideal place to shop for traditional Persian carpets.



Portraits of the ayatollahs are very often seen. Khomeini is on the right and Khamenei on the left.

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/@38.0807483,46.2922475,3a,75y,76.45h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO6b9nmQRUqv5iHSu_5n1a8PCQQHkUcM6-9KcWD!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO6b9nmQRUqv5iHSu_5n1a8PCQQHkUcM6-9KcWD%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya74.33245203319255-ro0-fo100!7i7680!8i3840?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Another historic sight in Tabriz is the Blue Mosque. This doesn't look like a Shiite mosque, which tend to be more colorful. But remember that it was the Safavid Dynasty that forcibly converted Iran from Sunni to Shiite in the Eighteenth Century, and this mosque was built before then. The first five images are from Google Street View.





The following images are of the area around the Blue Mosque.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0734046,46.3010152,3a,75y,352.7h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOutEGAQXa6CmNd2pnkL2Lw0zzrmI-s-2jE3Kqx!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOutEGAQXa6CmNd2pnkL2Lw0zzrmI-s-2jE3Kqx%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya159.94311176222863-ro0-fo100!7i4096!8i2048?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Karaj is a city to the west of Tehran. It is known for the Suleymanieh Palace. This was a palace of the Qajar Dynasty. This was the dynasty that preceded the Pahlavi Dynasty, which was the final dynasty before the Islamic Revolution ended the monarchy in 1979. It was the Qajar Dynasty that made Tehran the capital of the country. The palace has murals of the Qajar Dynasty royal family. The following three images are from Google Street View.



Here is a look around central Karaj. The first three images are from Google Street View.



https://www.google.com/maps/@35.844212,50.971883,3a,75y,320h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOkzhQUfQps2ASecgVH_Ehafb3NJ0ya667xd5ij!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOkzhQUfQps2ASecgVH_Ehafb3NJ0ya667xd5ij%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya217.3446960449219-ro0-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Qom is considered as a holy city of Shia Islam. Much of the life of Ayatollah Khomeini revolved around this city. The reason that the original Shia cities are in Iraq, Najaf and Kufa, is that Iran was only converted to Shia Islam, from Sunni, by the Safavid Dynasty in the Eighteenth Century. Qom is a very old city that, previous to becoming a holy city, has been a part of all of the empires that have controlled the region.

The central sight of Qom is the spectacular Shrine of Fatima Masumeh. She was the daughter of one of the Twelve Imams revered by Shiite Moslems, and the sister of his son and following Imam. The daughter of Muhammad was also named Fatima.

Here is the Fatima Masumeh Shrine. The first ten images are from Google Street View. 










https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6534483,50.8401386,3a,75y,121.72h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOkDyirJW20TOqG7wfQeFdc2KiNyAWElszjd6B8!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOkDyirJW20TOqG7wfQeFdc2KiNyAWElszjd6B8%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya262.72269114151584-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Also in Qom is the Imam Hasan Askari Mosque, with the "swirl" pattern dome. These three images are from Google Street View.



Another notable sight in Qom is the Mosque of Jamkaran. These four images are from Google Street View.




Mashad is the major city in the northeastern corner of Iran. Along with Qom, it is considered as a holy city of Shia Islam. It is a very old city that existed long before Islam, having been a stop on the Silk Road. The most important place in Mashad is the Shrine of Imam Reza. This includes the tomb of one of the twelve successive Imams revered by Shiite Moslems.

This is the Shrine of Imam Reza. The first seven images are from Google Street View. The fourth image looks like a model of the Dome of the Rock.







Also in Mashad is the Tomb of Nadir Shah, with a statue of him on a horse. This was a great conqueror who was like the Persian version of Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Image from Google Street View.

This is a look around the city of Mashad. This first three images are from Google Street View.




https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3051188,59.5730462,3a,75y,200h,100t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP99XCS4XfR8RxvB18Mw1LFIemOKIwX5aPtiUvw!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP99XCS4XfR8RxvB18Mw1LFIemOKIwX5aPtiUvw%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-10-ya11.265213012695312-ro0-fo100!7i3840!8i1920?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Here is more of the city of Mashad. This is the largest city in Iran after Tehran.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2699282,59.6108163,3a,75y,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNdnaNV-BVlBnG1iboTUPVI5p1hL3AUmpGOuD5H!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNdnaNV-BVlBnG1iboTUPVI5p1hL3AUmpGOuD5H%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi-20-ya50-ro0-fo100!7i5300!8i2650?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Apocalyptic Developments

This is about the scenario explained in the postings "The End Of The World As We Know It" and "Inducing The Apocalypse", December 2024.

AMERICA'S REAL ID

The deadline is approaching for Americans to be able to board an airline or enter some federal buildings without a "Real ID". While the Real ID is not the "Mark of the Beast " foretold in the Bible, without which buying or selling will not be able to be done in the "Last Days " of the world, it is a step in that direction.

DONALD TRUMP'S PROMOTION OF COAL

Coal is a reliable source of energy. The trouble is that it is very polluting and the world has long been phasing it out. Donald Trump seems to be doing all that he can to disrupt the world order, as explained in "Inducing The Apocalypse". During his first term he shocked the world by pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Now he has gone much further by actively promoting coal.

I was born in a coal mining area. For Easter, when I was 4 years old, I got this cup with a chocolate Easter egg in it. There is the image of a ship on the cup and I was told that we would be leaving on a ship. We didn't have central heating, there was a fireplace in each room and a load of coal would be delivered. When we left for North America, a few months later, I thought that I should bring a lump of coal with me and I still have it today. 


The Belief Zone

Here is something that should have a name.

We might think that a cult would be trying to attract as many members as possible, and the way that they advertise themselves would make sense. But yet the statements that a typical cult makes, such as about it's leader, may be difficult to believe. The leader of the cult might be reputed to be able to perform miracles or have superhuman insight.

My conclusion is that cults do that on purpose. They do not want to attract as many people as possible. What they don't want is people who are skeptical and questioning. What they do want is people who are willing to just believe. The statements that are difficult to believe are to weed out people who are not willing to just believe.

But sometimes nations have legends or myths that are difficult to take literally. What I have concluded about this is that it is also done purposely but for a different reason. 

When we are presented with a statement, we make a decision whether or not to believe it. The decision may not be able to be made immediately. There is a zone in our minds where statements go that we are able to believe. That is what I refer to as the "Belief Zone". 

What we initially have to go on in determining our Belief Zone is our senses. Religion and science extend that to things that we cannot directly grasp with our senses. The reason for the Belief Zone to begin with is that our senses are limited. If our senses were able to grasp everything that we wanted them to then the Belief Zone would not be an issue.

The reason for myths and legends that are not literally believable is the effect that they have on our Belief Zone. When we encounter a statement we "try" to believe it. Even if we cannot literally believe it, the effort "stretches" our Belief Zone.

That is a primary reason for myths and legends. They "stretch" our Belief Zone and make us more likely to believe statements that we encounter, even though that may not include the myths and legends themselves.

Donald Trump And Akhenaten

I find that the historical figure that resonates most closely with Donald Trump is Akhenaten, from ancient Egypt. I believe that what motivates Donald Trump, as well as Vladimir Putin, is their place in eternal history. Both are in a position to help facilitate the Return of Jesus to set up His Kingdom on earth by shaking up the world order to prompt the emergence of the Antichrist, who will be based in Europe. 

The Antichrist will seem to have all of the answers to everything and will be the greatest leader that the world has ever seen. The Antichrist will be allowed to reign for seven years. The first half of his reign will be the best time that the world has ever seen. But it will all fall apart and the second half will be the worst time that the world has ever seen. Jesus will then Return to set up His Kingdom on earth. The entire scenario is explained in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It".

Just as Akhenaten used his reign as pharaoh to make the very unpopular effort to move Egypt toward monotheism, so Donald Trump is using his time as president to shake up the world order so as to prompt the emergence of the Antichrist because it will lead to the Return of Jesus to directly rule the world.

This has previously been posted as "The Exodus And Egypt".


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 new 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 probably 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 

So now why would Donald Trump be doing so much to upend the world order, which has America in a central position, and to make life difficult for his own people? There must be some special reason for this and I think that Akhenaten, from far away in time, gives us an insight. Donald Trump being spared from the close call with the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania makes it appear that he is on a special mission. Donald Trump is not just a president but a president on special assignment.

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.