Sarah Goodell
Mr. Ippolito
AP Bio: Current Event Review
10 September, 2017
Current Event #1
Youssef, Nour. “Egyptian Archaeologists Find Goldsmith’s 3,500-Year-Old Tomb.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2017
This week, I read an article from New York Times author Nour Youssef titled “Egyptian Archaeologists Find Goldsmith’s 3,500-Year-Old Tomb.” In this piece, Youssef informed his audience about an Egyptian goldsmith, whose name was Amenemhat, and who lived in the province of Luxor during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. After five months of digging, the team of archaeologists were able to uncover Amenemhat’s tomb in Draa Abul-Naga, located on the left bank of the Nile River. Youssef described this area as “a necropolis for noblemen and rulers near the Valley of the Kings.” Archaeologists were also able to identify that this jeweler dedicated his work to Amon-Re and was buried near smaller statues of his wife and a statue of one of his sons. Also in Amenemhat’s chamber was pottery, funerary masks, figurines to serve the dead in the afterlife, and three other mummies with exposed skulls. Despite archaeologists thinking of this discovery as a mediocre find, they are confident and “very happy” that it will allow them to bring more tourism to Egypt in a time of need.
Youssef’s article is relevant to society in that he discusses a topic which proves that there is always more to discover and to learn about, especially from our past. Ancient Egypt is a society and culture that is transcendent and so much new information can be obtained from even the smallest discovery. Although this archaeological find is considered “modest,” as Youssef stated in his article, “...officials announced the find with fanfare” because Egypt is “a country that has been trying to revive its tourism industry, which has been decimated by political strife and terrorist attacks after the 2011 uprising.” As Khaled el-Enany mentioned at a news conference, this find “‘is exactly what Egypt needs’” at this point in time. Archaeologists at the site also believed that this was a successful discovery because there will most likely be other related items buried nearby.
In his article, Youssef provided his readers with exceptional detail and description on what was actually contained inside this burial chamber, but I believe he could have discussed more about this particular jeweler and his family. He also could have talked about the time period in which they lived, allowing his audience to understand the context of the situation. Despite leaving a few more specific questions unanswered about why this man was buried and what the archaeologists were searching for, Youssef did a great job including quotes from credible and reliable sources, such as Khaled el-Enany and Mostafa Waziri, who were both at the dig site at certain points. He also included an abundance of helpful and genuine photographs taken directly at the site and in the laboratory that further backed up his claims and his evidence. A final improvement Youssef could make is by fixing the one grammar mistake he had in this article, when he wrote, “It also included a burial shaft that had three mummies with skulls were exposed, and sarcophagi.” Overall, his article was well-written and very descriptive with few errors or areas for improvement.
Abbey Thomas
ReplyDeleteAP Bio
Current Event Response
Sarah chose a very interesting article about an archaeological discovery for her current event. The one thing I liked the most was the use of quotes in Sarah’s response. She used quotes many times in her response, and each time it provided the reader with more information, and gave the reponse a very professional appearance. The second part of the article which I liked was how she compared the reaction from archaeologists and from the Egyptian government. While the archaeologists believed that this was a mediocre findings, but the Egyptian government was happy about the find, because it will help their tourism. I would not have thought that the reactions between these two bodies would be so different. The last thing I liked about Sarah’s response was how she added context to her response. She started off her paragraph with information about where the bones were found and who was in charge of the dig.
While Sarah’s current event was superb, there are some small improvements that could be made. One small improvement is that Sarah could have included her opinion of the findings of the bones, or a more detailed opinion of what she thought of the article she read. The second improvement she could make is that she did not cite the quotes. In MLA format, quotes need to have who said them cited after the quote is used.
I had not heard about the excavations that Sarah’s article covered, so I had many “ah-ha” moments. But my favorite thing I learned was about the different reactions to the discovery from archaeologists and the Egyptians. At first, I had thought that all of the archaeological finds are important, because they did not happen often. After reading Sarah’s article, I learned that some finds are better than others, but the government of Egypt is still happy about the find.