He published journals and identified the remains of a massive templededicated to the God Amon. As Montet's work progressed, his fame andreputation spread across the world. The more his teams excavated, the morestatues and obelisks of Ramesses they unearthed. All the evidence went toconfirm that this had to be the lost city of Pi-Ramesse.
Another one. Of course we've found it already.
In Pi-Ramesse, we know that Ramesses constantly erected new statues ofhimself throughout his long reign. There was a workforce employed across hiscity to build and decorate his image. Eventually, there were over 100statues of the pharaoh throughout Pi-Ramesse. So it was no wonder Montet dugup so many beautifully preserved specimens. Many of these statues werecolossal. some weighed over 1,000 tons. Carved from granite, they were builtto last.
As Montet uncovered more and more monuments, it all confirmed to him thatTanis was Pi-Ramesse, allowing him to imagine what this great city must oncehave looked like.
Pierre Montet was probably the great French excavator of his generation andwas very keen on producing the big picture. But there's something not quiteright at Tanis.
It's true. There really is something not quite right at Tanis. Somethingabout the stones and statues that doesn't add up. Something that Montetrefused to acknowledge.
Here you are. But he is not at all with us. We have some plenty of othersthat are. Look, over thousands of years, there's bound to be somedisplacement to be expected. But the rest of them will turn up somewhere.
Um, you don't agree? Well, some displacement is to be expected, of course.
But, it's just that the more we excavate, the more we find structures withpieces missing or don't fit together at all. It just seems a little odd.
It was not unusual for parts of 3000-year-old statues to break off and gomissing. It was just that at Tanis, everything seemed slightly out of placewith nothing quite as it should be. It was turning into a very peculiar digsite. |