Major Project update

I haven't updated the blog in days, and I thought it's about time to post some news. I got the script edited and recorded, in other words it's done. John Mundy a narrator who also worked for BBC was nice enough to do me the favour of recording the script for free. I'm pleased with the voice over and I think it'll work well with he rest of the components.

Below is the script.

Once upon a time there was a mystery that took some 50 years to solve, and it involved an ancient capital of Egypt named Piramesses.

The Egyptian city of Piramesses was built by the Pharaoh, Ramesses the Great.

200 years after completion, Piramesses vanished without a trace and the city became a legend.

According to ancient Egyptians Piramesses was located in the Nile delta on the easternmost branch of the Nile.

For many years, Archaeologists tried to find the city, but since the easternmost branch of the

Nile had dried out millenniums ago, its location was difficult to identify.

French archaeologist Pierre Montet found what he thought was the ancient site of Piramesses at a village called Tanis.

Working in the 1920s, Montet found several monuments bearing the cartouche of Ramesses the Great.

When Montet’s team began digging, they found statues of Ramesses II alongside other items of ancient architecture.

In 1966 Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak began mapping the disappeared branches of the Nile. Discoveries of pottery and other artefacts indicated where ancient Egyptians had once lived in close proximity to the river. Bietak dated the pottery to find out when each branch had existed.

When Bietak dated the Tanitic branch, he concluded it couldn’t have existed at the time of Ramesses II. The structures at Tanis dated to the time of Ramesses the Great, but the pottery some 200 years after his death.

Tanis was not the original location of Piramesses.

With the help of German archaeologist Edgar Pusch, Bietak discovered remains dating to

the time of Ramesses II at the modern village of Qantir 30 kilometres from Tanis.

At first, there appeared to be nothing ancient at Qantir. However, using new technology such as the electromagnetic scanner, the foundations of Piramesses were located beneath the surface.

But if Piramesses was at Qantir, why were there so many structures from the ancient city at Tanis?

Around 150 years after the death of Ramesses the Great, the Nile branch that flowed around the city dried up and began flowing at Tanis.

Without a water supply, Piramesses was uninhabitable, but the city was too important to abandon.

Incredibly, the entire city was taken apart and transported to Tanis component by component.

Slaves were used to pull vast sledges upon which the dismantled city was carried. The sledges and their loads weighed as much as 1000 tons and the friction between the ground and the sledge was great. Water was poured on the ground in front of the sledges to ease their transit.

The mystery was solved some 50 years later, thanks to three men.