So he had never painstakingly dated at all. If he had, he would havediscovered the bizarre truth about Tanis, that there was no city here at thetime of Ramesses the Great.
Not a single pottery sherd has been collected from the time of Ramesses theSecond or before, but everything is posted Ramesses the Second and theirvisit is a very important point.
And yet, the monuments, statues and buildings here are without doubt thoseof Piramesse built by Ramesses the Great. It was a bizarre paradox, how cana magnificent city turn up in a place where it could never have been built?
And where on earth should it have been in the first place?
Bietak was intrigued. He felt compelled to solve the puzzle left by Montetand find the real site of Piramesse, and thanks to his map, he had the meansof finding it. By using pottery to date the lost eastern channels of theNile, one immediately stood out---the ancient Pelusiac branch, stretchingover 180 kilometers in length. Along the course of this ancient branch,pottery had been discovered dating from the time or Ramesses the Great whichmeant that it had to be the active most eastern branch of the Nile at thetime of Ramesses. So Piramesse must lie somewhere along this lost Pelusiacbranch. At this point Bietak teamed up with German archeologist Edgar Puschto find the city.
Here, we have Tanis, which we know is not Piramesse, and then over here, wehave the Pelusiac Nile branch is running something like this and along it wedo have evidence of settlement means all from this, the Second and hisfollowers, but here, it Qantir, we have an incredible concentration ofsettlement means of Ramesses the Second.
There had been clues suggesting Qantir was the site of Piramesse going backto the time of Montet.
He says it was dug up about 30 kilometers from here, he claims it's fromPiramesse.
This is Qantir, 30 kilometers south of Tanis. Could this be the site of thelost city of Piramesse? When Pusch first arrived, there was nothing to seeat Qantir... |