Archeology: Egyptian Find: “lost golden city” buried under sand for 3,400 years

 Wow! This is quite the discovery in Egypt dating back over 5,300 years ago to 3,200 BC. The city was buried under sand though for 3,400 years and recently unearthed! It has quite a history and is dubbed an "Egyptian Pompeii."  Here's the story (and I've added info in purple to make it easier to understand):  

                            (Photo: City of Thebes uncovered. Credit: Zahl Hawass)

Archaeologists find “lost golden city” buried under sand for 3,400 years

ARS Technica: JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 4/12/2021, 3:06 PM 

A team of Egyptian archaeologists has unearthed what some describe as an industrial royal metropolis just north of modern-day Luxor, which incorporates what was once the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes (aka Waset). The archaeologists dubbed the site "the lost golden city of Luxor," and they believe it may have been devoted to manufacturing decorative artifacts, furniture, and pottery, among other items.

ABOUT THEBES -  Thebes was the capital of Ancient Egypt during the period of the New Kingdom (c.1570-c.1069 BCE) and became an important center of worship to the God Amun (also known as Amon). It is known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, located along the Nile about 800 kilometers (500 mi) south of the Mediterranean.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions found on clay caps of wine vessels at the site date the city to the reign of the 18th-dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III (1386-1353 BCE), whose generally peaceful tenure was marked by an especially prosperous era, with Egypt at the peak of its international power. (Mud bricks at the site were also marked with Amenhotep III's cartouche.) 

NOTE: A cartouche is an oval or oblong enclosing a group of Egyptian hieroglyphs, typically representing the name and title of a monarch.

There are more surviving statues of Amenhotep III than any other pharaoh. He was buried in the Valley of the Kings, and his mummy was discovered in 1889. Analysis revealed that Amenhotep III died between 40 and 50 years of age, and he likely suffered from various ailments in his later years (most notably arthritis, obesity, and painful abscesses in his teeth).

NOTE OF IMPORTANCE OF THEBES: Egyptians started settling in the area of Thebes around 3200 B.C. Known to them as Waset, it eventually rose in importance to Egypt when royal families started lived there during the 11th dynasty.

The pharaoh's eldest son and heir, Thutmose, died young, so the throne passed to his second son, Amenhotep IV, who soon changed his name to Akhenaten. (His queen was Nefertiti, and his son, who would eventually assume the throne, was the famous boy-king, Tutankhamun.) Akhenaten rejected the traditional polytheistic religion, dominated by the worship of Amun, and decided to start his own religion. He worshipped Aten instead (hence the name change) and would eventually try to suppress the worship of Amun entirely.

WHO WAS THE GOD AMUN? Amun (also Amon, Ammon, Amen) is the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and air. ... He is usually depicted as a bearded man wearing a headdress with a double plume or, after the New Kingdom, as a ram-headed man or simply a ram, symbolizing fertility in his role as Amun-Min. 

(Amun - image left. Credit: Wikipedia) 

Akhenaten also moved the capital away from the city of Thebes, setting up a new capital on the site of what is now the city of Amarna, halfway between Thebes and Memphis.

WHY WAS THE CAPITAL MOVED? An article in Newsartnet reports: The city appears to have been abandoned when Akhenaten changed his name and formed a new religion worshipping only the sun god, Aten. The heretical pharaoh, whose name was wiped from history following his death, as the kingdom returned to its traditional beliefs, also established a new capital city, Akhetaten, today known as Amarna.