The Aswan Egg
The Aswan Egg “pseudo-artifact” has been used as evidence that the pyramids were built “Long before” Egyptian Civilization. Supposedly from a “7000 year old tomb”, its been heralded as “irrefutable evidence” by pseudo-scientists who have tried to use it to prove Aliens built the Pyramids, Atlantis was involved, or ‘some advanced culture’ that conveniently left NO other artifacts or material history behind.
Well…No. It doesn’t prove that. The Aswan Egg DOES PROVE something though: it proves that pseudoscience and conspiracy theorists will do one or a combination of the following to push their claims:
1. Ignore the actual documented evidence of REAL artifacts, things like artifact provenience and context, and create their own ‘interpretation’ that suits the theory they are pushing.
2. Will take all the evidence but ADD information that can’t be verified or is conveniently “Unavailable, restricted, or classified” when asked to present it.
3. Will do no research at all, and will present something completely fabricated, betting on the people who consuming this information to be either incapable, unwilling, or uninterested in doing the research to verify the ‘presented evidence’.
The theories sell though, which is why TV continues to make shows like Ancient Aliens, and not actually something educational or informative.
In truth though, the Aswan Egg was a grave good, found in the burial of a child that dates to the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt. It was found during excavations of the Dakka Cemetery, which continued from Circa 1900 to 1920. On Page 60 of the report, the burial is recorded in detail, noting context, provenience, associated artifacts, and time period of the burial based on these grave goods as well as the associated graves in the surrounding area. The artifact is recorded CORRECTLY, not losing its context even after more than a century since it was discovered. The photos of it ‘in-situ’ and detail photos confirm this documentation is correct. It also shows that the egg was not found in a ‘tomb’ as presented by pseudo-scientists and theorists.
Missing, of course, are all of the tests on the “human remains” via Carbon-14 dating that date this artifact (not the burial, just the artifact) to ‘7000 years old’. Carbon-14 dating came about in the late 1940s, 30+ years AFTER the excavation. No notation has been made or is evident that such a test ever happened, or that the ‘tested remains” in fact belong to the burial in question in which the Aswan Egg was discovered. It is also curious that the egg itself has never been tested: it is Organic, which is a requirement for Carbon testing to work. As carbon testing is a ‘destructive test’, it would be obvious that the Aswan Egg would have been damaged to acquire a sample for testing.
This is the sort of evidence that is required to validate an artifact and its age: this is why looting and souvenir hunting is so incredibly detrimental to the field of Archaeology.
SOURCES: I have included the pseudo-science article that seems to have stemmed all of this. It is, I think, helpful to compare, as well as see the flaws in so many conspiracy theories: a lack of fact checking.
1. Jewel’s Travel Blog. . https://roaming-jewel.com/2018/05/13/aswan-egg/
The actual sources:
1. Dina M. Ezz El-Din, Ostrich Eggs of Predynastic Egypt
https://jguaa.journals.ekb.eg/article_2754_9a36080136c91901261c665144ee1d0d.pdf
2. The Archaeological Survey of Nubia, 1909-1910 vol 2. CM Firth. Cairo, 1915
http://sfdas.com/IMG/pdf/5_-_firth_c._m._the_archaeological_survey_of_nubia_1909-1910_.pdf
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