Tea at Trianon: New Research Rewrites the Origins of Egypt’s Greatest Temple

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

Thursday, October 23, 2025

New Research Rewrites the Origins of Egypt’s Greatest Temple

From SciTechDaily:

An international team of researchers led by Uppsala University has completed the most extensive geoarchaeological investigation of Egypt’s Karnak Temple complex to date. Situated within modern Luxor, Karnak is among the largest religious sites of the ancient world and forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage area.

Published in Antiquity, the study provides new evidence about the temple’s origins, its possible connections to ancient Egyptian creation myths, and how its surrounding river landscape shaped the site’s establishment, occupation, and growth over three millennia.

“Our research presents the clearest understanding of the landscape upon which the ancient Egyptians founded their temple at Karnak approximately 4000 years ago,” says Dr. Angus Graham, Uppsala University, who led the team. (Read more.)