In the early 1800’s, Napoleon’s emissaries in Egypt discovered an ancient map.

Records from the time showed it came from a tomb, in the village of Deir el-Medina, the traditional home of craftsmen who had worked on the temples of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt.

Later studies revealed this particular map was drawn around 1150 BC, in the characteristic handwriting of Amennakhte, the official “Scribe-of-the-Tomb.” And it showed something marvelous.

It recorded the geologic features of Wadi Hammamat, the “Valley of Many Baths,” and apparently was created for pharaoh Rameses the IV, to help plan mining expeditions to the area.

This is because the wadi was the Egyptians’ sole source for bekhen-stone, the nearly black, fine-grained greywacke used for many of their greatest statues carved between 3000 BC and 400 AD, and still admired today.

In the amazing map, Amennakhte had invented a graphical language to represent strata layers, rock types, topographic lines, faults and other features, very similar to geologic maps made today.

In fact, modern scientists have returned to the wadi with his map to find that it pictures the area accurately enough to be used today.

Just how significant was this? The next known geologic maps were drawn some three thousand years later.

Amennakhte was clearly an Earth scientist way, way ahead of his time.