Tanis was found largely as it was abandoned, so the city is home to many archaeological treasures in addition to the tombs. Carved into the sandstone hill by the Nabataeans in the second century A.D., this towering structure, called El-Deir, may have been used as a church or monastery by later societies, but likely began as a temple. "That shows you that were very important at least during that time period," Silverman said of the biblical reference.Ī person standing in the doorway of the Monastery at Petra, Jordan, shows the enormity of the ancient building's entrance. But he wore elaborate jewelry that once adorned the more famous Sheshonq I, who is mentioned in the Bible.
One of the kings, Sheshonq II, was unknown before Montet discovered his burial chamber. Statues, vases, and jars also filled the tombs, all part of an array that still bears witness, after thousands of years, to the power and wealth of Tanis's rulers. Other precious items included bracelets, necklaces, pendants, tableware, and amulets. The tombs held dazzling funereal treasures such as golden masks, coffins of silver, and elaborate sarcophagi. He unearthed a royal tomb complex that included three intact and undisturbed burial chambers-a rare and marvelous find. In 1939 a French archaeologist named Pierre Montet brought Tanis into the 20th century after nearly a dozen years of excavations. "It's not like the Valley of the Kings, where everyone knew they'd been burying for ten generations or so," said David Silverman, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania. That distinction may have contributed to the city's disappearance in later years. During this time the rulers of Tanis were of Libyan decent, not scions of traditional Egyptian families. "People kept trying to identify different places with it," said Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at American University in Cairo and a National Geographic Society grantee.Įgypt's "intermediate periods" were times of weak central government when power was divided and sometimes passed out of Egyptian hands. It was known that the ancient city was hidden somewhere in the area, but not where. But political fortunes shifted, and so did the river's waters-and in recent centuries the Tanis site had became a silted plain with some hill-like mounds thought to be of little interest. The city's advantageous location enabled it to become a wealthy commercial center long before the rise of Alexandria.
The site, in the Nile Delta northeast of Cairo, was capital of the 21st and 22nd dynasties, during the reign of the Tanite kings in Egypt's Third Intermediate period. Ancient Egyptians called it Djanet, and the Old Testament refers to the site as Zoan. But the true tale of Tanis is also fit for the silver screen. In reality, the Ark was never hidden in Tanis, the sandstorm didn't happen, and the Nazis never battled Indiana Jones in the site's ruins. In the famous film the city was buried by a catastrophic ancient sandstorm and rediscovered by Nazis searching for the Ark of the Covenant.
#Secrets of the lost tomb ancient myths and legends movie#
Many who know of Tanis at all remember the city as portrayed in the Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yet for more than six decades the riches from its rulers' tombs have remained largely unknown. The treasures found in the "lost city" of Tanis rival those of King Tut's.
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