They Found WHAT Under Tanis! Indiana Jones Never Saw This Coming

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Great Film but was it historically accurate? This video from the channel "Uncomplicated Explains" delves into the history of Tanis, an ancient Egyptian city, and the archaeological discoveries made there. The host begins by distinguishing the fictional Tanis from Indiana Jones from the actual historical city. While in the movie, Tanis is portrayed as a city destroyed by a sandstorm, the real city experienced a slow decline and was eventually abandoned. The film also claims the city holds the Ark of the Covenant, which is a cinematic invention without any archaeological support[cite: 130]. The movie's connection to Tanis comes from the biblical figure Shishak, identified with Pharaoh Shoshenq I, who ruled from Tanis and is said to have sacked the Temple of Solomon. Historically, Tanis became the capital of Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period, around the 11th century BCE, after the previous capital, Pi-Ramesses, became unusable due to the silting of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile[cite: 21, 24, 25, 26, 28]. To establish legitimacy, the new rulers of Tanis appropriated monuments from Pi-Ramesses and relocated them to the new city.This led to early archaeologists confusing Tanis with Pi-Ramesses for decades. The focus of the video is the French Egyptologist Pierre Montet, who began excavating at Tanis in the 1920s[cite: 50, 52]. Despite difficult, muddy, and mosquito-infested conditions, Montet hypothesized that the pharaohs of the 21st and 22nd dynasties were buried near their capital[cite: 53, 55]. His persistence paid off in 1939 when his team discovered an intact royal tomb complex[cite: 70, 74]. The discoveries included multiple undisturbed royal burials, such as those of Psusennes I and Shoshenq II. The find was considered one of the most significant in Egyptology, rivaling the tomb of Tutankhamun. The tombs were filled with immense wealth, including a solid silver inner coffin for Psusennes I, a material rarer and more valuable than gold in ancient Egypt. This discovery challenged the belief that the Third Intermediate Period was an era of poverty and decline. [Unfortunately, Montet's discovery was largely overshadowed by the outbreak of World War II, which occurred just months after the find[cite: 111]. Unlike the discovery of Tutankhamun in 1922, which received global media attention, Montet's findings were quietly published in academic journals. The video concludes by highlighting the "Indiana Jones Effect," where popular culture provides an engaging, though inaccurate, narrative that often overshadows the true, more complex historical reality. Unearth the true story of Tanis, the ancient Egyptian capital that was a political and religious powerhouse, not the sand-swept city from *Indiana Jones. Join Uncomplicated Explains as we journey back to the Third Intermediate Period and reveal the staggering archaeological discovery that was overshadowed by a World War. In 1939, French Egyptologist Pierre Montet made a find that some say rivaled that of Tutankhamun's tomb: an intact royal burial ground filled with treasures beyond imagination, including the solid silver coffin of Pharaoh Psusennes I. This discovery forced a complete re-evaluation of a period of Egyptian history once thought to be an era of decline. But why isn't Montet a household name? As Europe descended into war, the find was largely ignored by the press.Decades later, a different kind of legend was born when Raiders of the Lost Ark resurrected the name of Tanis, creating a powerful myth that completely diverged from archaeological fact. Discover the fascinating reality behind the cinematic fiction and learn about the meticulous work of the man who patiently unearthed the truth from the mud of the Nile Delta. From the decline of Pi-Ramesses to the rise of the "Thebes of the North," this is the untold story of Tanis—a capital lost to time, found by a persistent archaeologist, and immortalized by a fictional adventurer.