The tales of Pharoahs: The secrecy behind the death of Ramessess III now revealed

Who Killed Ramesses III?

by Heather Pringle

For more than a century, Egyptologists have puzzled over the mysterious demise of Ramses III in 1155 B.C.E.

According to trial records preserved on the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, an assassin murdered the pharaoh during a bloody palace coup, reports the journal, Science.

But was this truly the case, and if so, who led the plot? A new study published on December 17, 2012 in BMJ shows that Ramesses III died violently after conspirators slashed his throat and reveals that one of the alleged ringleaders, Ramesses's son Pentawere, may have later been strangled.

The research team arrived at these findings after analyzing both DNA samples and CT scans from two mummies: Ramesses III (with linen bandage, above right) and a previously unidentified young man found with him in a cache in Deir el Bahari.

The unidentified 20-year-old (shown with arrows pointing to unusual compressed skin folds) proved to be one of Ramesses's sons: He appeared to have been strangled (also evidenced in the scan by overinflated thorax) and buried with a goat skin, a pelt that ancient Egyptians deemed ritually impure and therefore a mark of dishonor befitting an assassin. Sitting on a throne has long been a perilous business, it seems. 

Haj is a major opportunity for scientific and health research: The annual Haj season is a major opportunity for scientists and health planners to do research on the impact of mass gatherings on human health

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad: The annual Haj season is a major opportunity for
scientists and health planners to do research on the impact of mass
gatherings on human health. Dozens of scientists the world over are
now researching on emerging pathogens and diseases and how infectious
diseases can be controlled through scientific planning during mass
gatherings like Haj.

According to science journal Lancet, “the exchange of experiences
between the organizers and hosts of the 2012 Olympic Games and the Haj
provides an ideal platform to take the formal discipline of mass
gathering forward. Both events will provide the opportunity for
appropriate research to obtain an evidence base and for guidelines
approved by the World Health Organisation”.

The Haj is growing by two lakh people every year. A Global Mass
Gathering Network led by Saudi Arabia has been formed to study
initially 2012 Olympics and the Haj. This will be extended to other
mass gatherings like the Kumbh Mela scheduled for next year.
“In 2013, the plan is to devise indicators to measure the health of
people attending mass gatherings, alongside a research agenda in
partnership with the WHO and others.”

Dr Shuja Shafi, deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Council of
Britain and honorary consultant medical microbiologist, NW London
Hospitals NHS Trust, London, is an expert on studies on mass gathering
and their impact on people’s health. “Apart from its religious and
spiritual significance, almost anything else that is associated with
the Haj is unique and amazing. The larger it grows the more
fascinating it becomes, seemingly worldly problems associated with the
Haj attract attention of Muslims and non-Muslims alike,” he said.

The international outbreak of meningitis associated with an otherwise
unknown strain of meningococcus among pilgrims returning from Haj in
the years 2000 and 2001 are summarised have helped in better planning
by health authorities. Introduction of a specific vaccine
(quadrivalent ACW135Y) vaccine brought about an abrupt end to the
outbreak and the infection being acquired during Haj.

“As large gatherings increase in number and complexity and grow
bigger, managing them effectively an efficiently is perhaps the
biggest public health challenge facing the world”, said Dr Shuja
Shafi, who hails from Hyderabad.

Communicable diseases, respiratory infections, blood borne infections
(associated with head shaving), gastro intestinal infections are
common. Control and management of infections in the wake of Pandemic
H1 N1 influenza (in 2009) placed the Saudi authorities in good stead
to deal with issues relating to the Coronavirus infection (SARS-like)
reported recently.

Dr Shafi said with a high prevalence of diabetes and heart disease,
there is now focus on these non-communicable diseases. Appropriate
advice and prevention of complications or adverse events while at Haj
is now emerging as the major health challenge for organisers.

On foot for the Haj: Bosnian walks 3,600 miles to perform Haj in Saudi Arabia

He crossed six countries on foot because he had no money

October 22, 2012

A 47-year-old Bosnian Muslim man reached Saudi Arabia this week to perform the annual pilgrimage after travelling nearly 3,600 miles (5,900 km) on foot from his Bosnian village, Saudi newspapers said on Monday.

Senad Hadzic set off from Banovici in north Bosnia Herzegovina in December 2011 during which he crossed six countries, including Turkey, Jordan and Syria before entering Saudi Arabia this week.

Newspapers quoted him as saying in a You-Tube film that he walked all that distance because he had no money.

“I wanted to perform Haj but I had no money…I decided to walk to Saudi Arabia, having only 200 euros,” he said.

“I slept at mosques, schools and other places, including houses offered to me by good people…some people asked me whether I was scared when passing through wild places and I told them ‘why should I…God is with me.”

The Bosnian pilgrim left last December on pilgrimage to Makkah by foot arrived in the holy city of Mecca after passing through seven countries including war-torn Syria.

“I arrived Saturday in Makkah. I am not tired, these are the best days of my life,” Senad Hadzic, 47, told AFP when reached by phone.

He said he had covered some 5,700 km in 314 days of walking through Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and Jordan to Makkah, with a backpack weighing 20 kg.

He charted his progress on his Facebook page, where he posted a picture apparently of an entry/exit card for foreigners issued by the Syrian Interior Ministry.

“I passed through Syria in April. I walked some 500 km in 11 days. I went through Aleppo and Damascus and passed dozens of checkpoints held by pro-government and rebel forces alike, but I was never detained,” Hadzic said.

“I walked in the name of Allah, for Islam, for Bosnia-Hercegovina, for my parents and my sister,” he added.

On his Facebook page, he said God had shown him the way in dreams, including to go through Syria instead of Iraq.

During the pilgrimage, Hadzic faced temperatures ranging from minus 35 Celsius in Bulgaria to plus 44 Celsius in Jordan.

He said he had to wait in Istanbul for several weeks to get permission to cross the Bosphorus Bridge on foot and two months at the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia to obtain an entry visa.

COP 11 biodiversity: Hyderabad mosque puts up display boards on what the Holy Quran says on biological diversity

What the Holy Quran says on conversion of biodiversity

Courtesy: Azizia mosque, Mehdipatnam, Hyderabad

Ancient Egypt And The Pharaoh's Body

Moses said: “O Pharaoh (Firawun)! I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds” (Holy Quran 7:104)
They said: “We lost the cup of the king (malik) ...” (Holy Quran 12:72)

Studies conducted on data acquired about Pharaoh thanks to the deciphered hieroglyph script and Egyptological explorations corroborate that what is said about the parables of Moses, and the accounts related to Egypt and the Pharaoh in the Quran, are exact when compared with tangible historical data.

The Quran referred to the Egyptian ruler at the time of Joseph as “malik” (ruler, king) but for the ruler coeval with Moses the Quran uses the word “Firawun” (Pharaoh). Pharaoh was the Hebrew form of the Egyptian “Per-ao” (the great house) signifying the royal palace, an epithet applied in the new kingdom and after as a title of respect, to the king himself.

Never before had it been used in this sense. To quote the Encyclopedia Britannica: Pharaoh was referred to in narrative as “his majesty” or “the good god” or “the sovereign” as a circumlocution of respect.

In accordance with the concept of divine kingship, his person was sacrosanct and his insignia - diadem, crowns, scepters, states - had magic properties. Fire gushed from the mouth of the serpent on his crown to exterminate his enemies; in the battlefield his power was such that he could wipe out his enemies regardless of their multitude.

He was said to be omnipotent and omniscient, the one who had the overall control in his hands and was the cause of prosperity. The main source of information is the information that the deciphering of the hieroglyphs made available. However, one should keep in mind that this script had been sunk in oblivion since the 3rd century B.C., to be revived long after. The hieroglyph script that had been forgotten about 1000 years prior to the descent of the Quran was discovered and deciphered after more than a millennium.



The Quran relates the events that happened between the Pharaoh and Moses, giving details additional to those found in the Old Testament. What is said about serpents and the prevalence of magic at the time, and Pharaoh’s statement of his divine attribute, tallies with the information about the Pharaoh revealed from the deciphered hieroglyph tablets.

IPUWER PAPYRUS10: 3-6 Lower Egypt is devastated. The court came to a standstill. Whatever was stored, wheat, rye, geese and fish, perished.
10: 6-3 Crops wasted everywhere
2: 5-6 Disasters and blood everywhere
2:10 Blood flows in rivers
3: 2 Gold and lapis lazuli, silver and malachite, carnelian and bronze decorate the necks of slaves



God says in the Holy Quran says: We punished the people of Pharaoh with drought, and shortage of crops, that they might take heed (7:130)
"So We sent on them; the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood. How many different signs! But they still remained arrogant, for they were a people full of sin. (Holy Quran 7:133)
So We expelled them from gardens, springs. Treasures and every kind of honorable position. Thus it was made the children of Israel inheritors of such things. (The Holy Quran 26:57-59)

The accounts given by the Quran about the punishment inflicted upon the Pharaoh and his followers, like drought and other disasters, and the accounts of the Ipuwer Papyrus are perfectly in tune with each other.

As an evidence of the offense committed by the dynasty of the Pharaoh in its denial of Moses’ prophethood, the Quran says that blood was foreseen (the same thing holds true for the proliferation of the locusts, the lice, etc.).

In the Ipuwer Papyrus it is said that blood ran in riverbeds, everywhere was smeared with blood. (Studies conducted to this day seem to explain the red coloration of rivers by the existence of protozoa, zooplanktons, sea and fresh water planktons or dinoflagellates. All these organisms would deplete the oxygen in water, giving rise to rapid growth of toxic substances, killing the living organisms and rendering the stream water undrinkable.)

Researchers have devised a course of events that might have taken place in relation to the disasters described in the Quran. According to this fictive account, “The fish in the Nile perished as a consequence of the intoxication of the river, leaving the Egyptians deprived of sustenance.

Frogs, whose eggs multiplied in the meantime, invaded the surroundings before they themselves succumbed to poisoning. Decomposition of fish and frogs coupled with the poisonous water of the Nile polluted the fertile land around. Annihilation of the frogs caused the pests like locusts and grain moths to proliferate:” All these are but the product of imagination, surely. We do not know exactly how things happened since we have no available data in hand to make valid deductions. Yet, this account may give us an idea of them.

The Ipuwer Papyrus records the curse of blood, drought and disasters to which the Pharaoh’s dynasty fell victim, and the situation of the slaves, who later were to inherit the former’s possessions almost literally as described in the Quran.

PHARAOH’S BODY SIGN UNKNOWN BY MAJORITY


"We took the children of Israel across the sea. Pharaoh and his army followed them aggressively and sinfully. When drowning became a reality for him, he said, “I believe that there is no god except the One in whom the children of Israel believe. I am of those who submit.” "Ah now! For you have rebelled in the past, and you did mischief.” “Today, We will save your body, so that you may become a sign to those who come after you. But verily, many people are heedless of Our signs.” (Holy Quran 10:90-92)



When he understood he was going to die, the Pharaoh was converted. This so-called conversion is looked at askance by God, who says that his body shall be saved as a sign for the coming generations.

At the time of the Prophet, and for quite some time afterward, we could not guess that a science called museology would be developed to harbor objects of historical value, amongst others mummified bodies of the Pharaohs. The Quran’s reference to this and to the people heedless of God’s signs are points deserving attention. The signs of God are many and the majority of people are unaware of this.

At the time of the revelation of the Quran, mummified bodies of all the Pharaohs lay concealed in the Valley of Kings along the banks of the Nile. Their discovery took place in the 19th century. The Pharaoh mentioned in the Quran may have been any of them, it happens to be among those preserved in the Cairo Museum, open to public visitation. To the period in which Moses is believed to belong,
Rameses II and his son Merneptah correspond.

Merneptah’s body bears the traces of fatal blows. It is reported that these marks may have been caused during his drowning or after the recovery of his body, that had washed ashore; the Egyptians mummified him like all the other Pharaohs. The evidence available does not permit us to derive a convincing conclusion about the details of his death. However, no conflicting relationship could be established between the death of this Pharaoh and the account given in the Quran.

The discovery of the Pharaoh’s body took place after an interval of 3000 years (1881-1898). Considering that the Quran had predicted that Pharaoh’s body would constitute a sign, one supposes that it should have been found. Indeed it was found. When and how? Well, after a time gap of 3000 years. What happened though was as the Quran predicted. “...But verily, many people are heedless of Our signs.”