Late last year, curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany was reviewing items from the collections of Aberdeen University museums, when he came across an item that did not appear to belong.
Eladany, who is originally from Egypt and had spent a decade working at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, realized the country old flag in an unpretentious cigar box. He opened it to find small pieces wood inside and, after checking it with the museum records, he realized he had stumbled a lost artifact of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the centerpiece of a lasting archaeological mystery.
Only three objects from the interior of the Great Pyramid have been recovered, a trio of items known as “Dixon Relics,” according to the University of Aberdeen.
Abeer Eladany with box of cigars and pieces of wood. Credit: University of Aberdeen
“I’m an archaeologist and I’ve worked on excavations in Egypt, but I never imagined it would be here in the north-east of Scotland where I would find something so important to my own country’s heritage.”
The relics were first discovered in 1872 inside the pyramid queen’s chamber by engineer Waynman Dixon. He was assisted by his friend James Grant, a graduate of the University of Aberdeen; his discovery of the relics, according to the statement, was widely reported at the time.
The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, photographed on March 13, 2020. Credit: Mohamed el-Shahed / AFP / Getty Images
But because the piece was never properly classified, it remained hidden for decades despite extensive “research,” until Eladany accidentally discovered it in the Asia collection.
“The University’s collections are extensive, with hundreds of thousands of items, so looking for it has been like finding a needle in a barn,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it when I realized what was inside this innocuous-looking cigar can.”
There are different theories about the purpose and date of the wood of origin: some researchers think it is part of a larger measurement tool, which they believe could provide clues as to how the imposing pyramids were built.
The box of cigars with wooden fragments had been added to the museum’s Asia collection, but it actually housed Egyptian relics. Credit: University of Aberdeen
The process of radiocarbon dating has revealed that the fragments are around 3341-3094 BC, centuries before the construction of the Great Pyramid. Covid-19 restrictions had delayed the date of the “lost” cedar fragment, the university said. The largest piece of wood from which it originated, still inside the Great Pyramid, was recently seen by a robotic camera in 1993 and is now inaccessible.
This suggests that the relics were originals from the construction of the pyramid, rather than being left later by those inside the finished pyramid.
“It’s even older than we had imagined. The date may refer to the age of the wood, perhaps from the center of a long-lived tree,” said Neil Curtis, head of museums and col. Special elections at the University of Aberdeen, at launch. “Alternatively, it could be because of the rarity of trees in ancient Egypt, which meant wood was scarce, treasured and recycled or cared for for many years.” He added that the discovery could “rekindle interest” in the relics.
“Now scholars will have to debate its use and whether it was deliberately deposited, as happened later during the New Kingdom, when the pharaohs tried to emphasize continuity with the past by burying antiquities with them.