#advancedgeometry

The city of Luxor sited in Upper Egypt, located where the ancient city of Thebes once resided and is approximately four hundred miles south of Cairo, is the home to the Valley of Kings. This spot seemed to have been chosen due to its geographical location, enclosed by steep cliffs along with its astronomical alignment with the setting sun, both of which highlight the importance and direct symbolism Egyptians had for the afterlife. Inside The Valley of Kings include the Tombs of Ramses and the tomb of Tutankhamun as well as an area referred to as the Luxor temple, a later of temple complexes of Karnak and Amun-Mut-Khonsu. When the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered, the child of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, it was said to be surrounded by “enough stuff to fill the whole Egyptian section upstairs of the B.M [British Museum] (Golden Age.146)”. This speaks on the magnitude of the riches and wealth at this location Similarly, to the Giza Plateau, The Valley of Kings appears to be a magnificent marriage between art and engineering that fascinated computer engineer, Christopher Dunn. His examinations of the phenomenon he coined ‘The Ramses Effect’ break down the elements of the Ramses statues found in Ramses Hall inside the temple of Amun-Mut-Khonsu. These statues not only appear to be uniform and exact in measurement and design scheme but are in fact exact base of the photographic analysis in computer-based metrology software. Meanwhile, it is important to note that such technology and equipment, as we know, was not around until less than seventy years ago. Simply put, the ancient society reveals to have developed such tools to work “glass-like stone to a high order of magnitude, proportion, and exactitude” (Dunn) and speaks volumes on the advancement and knowledge of this civilization, still leaving us with the question as to how it was rendered in such an ancient time.

Sources:

Dunn, Christopher. Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs. Bear & Co., 2010. https://archive.org/details/ltoaecd

Stevenson, Alice. “A Golden Age? (1922–1939): Collecting in the Shadow of Tutankhamun.” Scattered Finds: Archaeology, Egyptology and Museums, UCL Press, 2019, pp. 145–80, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv550cxt.8

https://www.journeytoegypt.com/en/discover-egypt/valley-of-the-kings