Landowner Khaled el-Shahat found two giant Ramesses II statues at Behbeit El Hagar in northern Egypt, and the antiquities ministry sent a team to excavate. Live Science says they add to the evidence of the king's investment in the Isis temple site.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 10%
- Operator
- Operator 17%
- Investor
- Investor 73%
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence65
Turkey's culture ministry says excavators found a fragment carrying part of the 1269 B.C. Egyptian-Hittite treaty's rules on returned escapees, a passage already published in translation from other copies.
Reality
- Evidence50
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence60
Iron broke the Bronze Age empires because farmers could smelt it at home
A Works in Progress essay argues the Bronze Age powers never returned because iron, unlike the tin they imported, could be made anywhere, and it leaves the comparison to drones today as an open question.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives30
- Confidence48
A chariot horse burial at Abqaa' adds a skeleton to a record built mostly of stables
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities reports a young male horse buried with harness fittings inside a New Kingdom fort in the western Nile Delta, where tablets also name Ramesses II and Merneptah. Researchers not on the dig say horse remains from Pharaonic Egypt are scarce.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives55
- Confidence62
A statue base and a wrecked temple carry Egypt's case for the lost city of Mesn
Archaeologists at Tell Abu Seifi have a Ramesside inscription calling Horus "Lord of the City of Mesn" and a nearly destroyed temple to him. The same divine title turns up at other sites, which is the problem.
Reality
- Evidence54
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+28
- Incentives62
- Confidence57