#al-qatai-cairo

#al-qatai-cairo

We were really looking forward to it, and then when the news came out on February 28, it was an 'oh crap' moment. There's a lot of uncertainty over the status of the Middle East. We're seeing strikes in Dubai, the US embassy being struck in Saudi Arabia, so you feel like it's a domino effect. When is the domino going to fall, and will that domino be in Egypt?

Her team's analysis of the residue samples contained beeswax, plant oils, animal fats, bitumen, and resins from coniferous trees such as pines and larches, as well as vanilla-scented coumarin (found in cinnamon and pea plants) and benzoic acid (common in fragrant resins and gums derived from trees and shrubs). The resulting fragrance combined a "strong pine-like woody scent of the confers," per Huber, mixed in with "a sweeter undertone of the beeswax" and "the strong smoky scent of the bitumen."

The team identified multiple buildings aligned roughly west-east, in several sizes, ranging from about 8 × 7 metres to 14 × 8 metres. Within these structures are rectangular halls-some interpreted as spaces for worship-alongside smaller rooms that may have served devotional or practical functions for the monks. Excavators also noted evidence of plastered wall surfaces and tiled floors, as well as architectural features such as entrances and surviving supports, including beams.

More than 200 scans from multiple satellites, including Italy's Cosmo-SkyMed and the US-based Capella Space, showed uniform results suggesting massive pillars about 65 feet in diameter wrapped in spirals and plunging nearly 4,000 feet deep. Those pillars appear to end in 260-foot cubic chambers beneath all three pyramids and the Sphinx, which Biondi described as 'huge chambers' measuring roughly 260 feet in length and width.