Ancient Egypt is one of the four ancient civilizations, leaving a large number of valuable legacies for mankind, so it has also attracted the attention of many experts and scholars. There are many ancient Egyptian ruins, and experts have unearthed a sacrificial stone slab, which although it looks inconspicuous, actually plays a vital role, and is even a medium of communication with mummies... What kind of mysterious slate is it? If you also want to know, the following Xiaobian will reveal it to you.
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In March 1995, the Department of History of the Egyptian University formed an archaeological team to investigate the town 30 kilometers outside Cairo, and because local residents had reported that the site had been discovered, the experts went to find out. A few days later, after an investigation, the experts found a site from the ancient Egyptian period in the ground, covering an area of about 600 square meters, which looked like a workshop for making something. During the cleanup, experts found stone platforms, planks and clay pots, as well as some rotten hemp rope rags, so experts speculated that this was a place where mummies were made.
For many readers, the mummy is certainly not unfamiliar, it is a kind of artificial dry corpse in ancient Egypt. In the ancient Egyptian culture, they believed that people would be reborn after death, so they preserved corpses in various ways, the most common of which was to mummify them and then store them in pyramids or underground palaces. In previous archaeological excavations, experts have also found many mummies, but it is the first time that a mummy manufacturing workshop has been found. Experts say the workshop's discovery is crucial because research can figure out the process of mummification in ancient Egypt.
In the process of cleaning up the ruins of the mummified workshop, the experts were attracted by a strange slate that was found on the west side of the stone platform, just across its base. The slate is about 18 centimeters long and 9 centimeters wide, has a black surface, and is also polished smoothly. Experts wouldn't have cared if it were just an ordinary slate, but on the front of it there is a row of 7 pits of the same size, and under each pit there is a line of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Experts say that similar slates have never been found, and the role of the pits and the meaning of hieroglyphs are not clear for a while.
The experts brought the slate back to the Egyptian University, they invited several experts who studied hieroglyphs, and after in-depth research deciphered the meaning of hieroglyphs, which turned out to be the names of seven substances, namely cedar oil, juniper oil, plum blossom oil, fragrant cinnamon oil, calamus oil, cinnamon oil, olive oil. It can be seen that these substances are some oils, so experts speculate that the pits on the stone slabs are used to put these oils, but what is the role of these oils? At first, the experts were also puzzled, and later consulted some historical materials to find that when making mummies, different oils were added to the antiseptic liquid to play a special role, but the specific oil historical materials were not said. Therefore, experts believe that the seven oils mentioned on the slab are the oils used to make mummies.
Experts believe that the slate has two functions, the first is to act as a measuring tool, that is, each time how much oil is put, it will be measured by a pit on the stone slab. The second is the role of sacrifice, and this is its main role. After the mummy is made, a grand sacrifice is usually held, because in the ancient Egyptian culture, death was the attainment of eternal life, so they would sacrifice and use such a stone slab. First, they poured seven kinds of oil into the pit of the stone slab, then placed it directly on the head of the mummy, and finally poured the oil on the mummy when the sacrifice was over, and finally sealed it forever.
The ancient Egyptians used stone slabs to hold oil sacrifices, just like the candle sacrifice in our Chinese culture, they all acted as a medium of communication, we lit candles in the hope of illuminating the underground road for the deceased, and the ancient Egyptians used seven kinds of oil to reassure the deceased, as if to say: "We made you into a mummy, and indeed used seven kinds of oil, you can keep it for a long time, never decay, you can sleep with peace of mind...".
Different regions have different histories and cultures, which we may not be able to understand for a while, but we should also learn to respect. In the history and culture of ancient Egypt, there are many things like slate, oil and mummies, and I hope that you will be curious about ancient Egypt to explore and discover more unknown mysteries...
Resources:
"History of Ancient Egypt" by George Rowlingson, Publisher: China Pictorial Publishing House
Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Liu Lijiang's