Tea at Trianon: The Tomb of Heqaib-ankh

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

The Tomb of Heqaib-ankh

From Ancient Origins:

The tomb was built to catch the rays of the rising sun in such a fashion that the place where the statue of the governor was meant to be installed was flooded with light. This discovery was made by researchers from the University of Malaga (UMA) and the University of Jaen (UJA) and has been published in the journal Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry . A UMA press release states that the tomb is assigned the number 33 in the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa and was possibly built by Governor Heqaib-ankh. Heritage Daily reports that Qubbet el-Hawa is located on the western bank of the Nile opposite the city of Aswan. Qubbet el-Hawa was used to inter dead nobles and priests from the Old and Middle Kingdoms of ancient Egypt. The XII dynasty is said to have constituted the pinnacle of the Middle Kingdom, a period stretching from roughly 2030 BC to 1650 BC, including the reigns of the XI, XII, and XIII Dynasties.

According to Phys.org, the tomb was excavated by archaeologists from the UJA between 2008 and 2018. Since that time, it has been studied by researchers with different specializations. Professor of Architecture at the UMA, Lola Joyanes, has been associated with the project since 2015 and from 2019 she has pursued an independent line of research. She has closely studied the tomb’s architecture and landscaping, particularly by using drawing and photogrammetry. (Read more.)