Forgiving in the Face of ANGER (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Andrew Olendzki, Vepacitti Sutra (SN 11.4)

Churning Space: bas-relief of Samudra manthan, Angkor Wat, Cambodia, shows Vishnu in the center, in his Kurma avatar, with the asuras and the devas on either side (Wiki).

Rebel asuras, cast from deva-world by Sakka, fall to Earth (Hieronymus Bosch).

Asura Dvarapala, Borobudur (wiki)

This noble teaching on how to respond when faced with anger is placed in an ancient historical/mythical setting. The story is told by the Buddha of a great war between devas (shining ones, angels) and the asuras (titans, demons).
 
The devas are ultimately victorious (as happens in later Greek and Norse versions of the same myth). They capture Vepacitti [full history], a titan king. Bound in chains, he is brought to the space station of the Thirty-Three and into the presence of Sakka, King of the Devas.

• Sakka (St. Michael), Lord of the Thirty-Three Lords
• A previous Sakka's ancient space flight (Jataka)

Being the titan that he his, Vepacitti hurls a torrent of abuse and insulting names at his captor (the catalog of which in the commentary is most interesting). Sakka, however, is unmoved, inspiring Matali, the charioteer of his spacecraft, to begin the following poetic exchange:
 
The poem is in the prevalent vatta meter, with eight syllables per line, and contains much subtle word-play. For example, the words bala (fool) and bala (strong, powerful) dance with one another throughout the piece (appearing 17 times), nowhere more intimately than in the frolicking alliteration of Lines 31 and 32 (abalan-tam balam aahu yassa balaabalam balam).

• FOOLS (Bala Sutra, Book of the Twos, AN 2.98) "Meditators, there are two fools. Who are the two? The one who takes up a burden that has not befallen one, and the one who does not take up a burden that has. These are the two fools."

A king of the titans (Evs in Nz/flickr)

The linking of the word titikkhati (forbearance) with the similarly sounding tikicchati (healing) is also a poignant touch that is hardly accidental.

This exchange shows well how the Buddha adapted the heroic ideals of his warrior's heritage to the inner struggle for self-mastery. The strength of the victorious Sakka -- who is a stream enterer having been a hearer of the Buddha's Dharma and won that attainment -- rests in his wisdom and forbearance.
 
The weakness of the fierce yet vanquished titan comes from his lack of understanding, earning him the label "foolish," which leaves him helpless to resist the passions raging within him.
 

Was Zarathustra an asura? (G6G)

Though these verses were penned thousands of years ago, their truth is timeless. It is the same truth that has helped many non-violent social and political reform movements achieve dramatic results in our own century.

Conquest is only the apparent victory of the short-sighted, while transformation of oneself and others is the more lasting "victory" of the wise. Remaining unprovoked in the face of anger and hostility still offers the best hope for healing our troubled world.

• THE FOOLISH AND THE WISE (Bala-Pandita Sutra, AN 2.21) "Meditators, there are two foolish persons. Who are the two? The one who does not see a transgression as a transgression, and the one who does not rightly forgive another who has confessed a transgression. These are the two fools. There are two wise persons. Who are the two? The one who sees one's own transgression as a transgression, and the one who rightly forgives another who has confessed a transgression. These are the two wise persons."

Bas relief of Sakka, King of the Devas [of Tavatimsa], and apsaras (wiki)

.

Calm in the Face of Anger (verses)

[Matali:] Sakka, could it be you're afraid,

Or weak, that you forgive [khanti] like this,

Though hearing such insulting words

From the lips of Vepacitti?

[Sakka:] I am neither afraid nor weak,

Yet I forbear Vepacitti.

How is it one who knows, like me,

Would get provoked by such a fool?

 

[Matali:] More angry will a fool become

If no one puts a stop to him.

So let the wise restrain the fool

By the use of a mighty stick.

[Sakka:] This is the only thing, I deem,

That will put a stop to the fool:

Knowing well the other's anger,

One is mindful and remains calm.

[Matali:] This very forbearance of yours,

Sakka, I see as a mistake.

For when a fool reckons like this:

"From fear of me he does forbear,"

The dolt will come on stronger still —

Like a bull the more that one flees.

Deva Sakka defeats the dragon or naga (1st-art-gallery.com).

[Sakka:] Let him think whatever he likes:

"From fear of me he does forbear."

Among ideals and highest goods

None better than patience is found.

For surely he who, being strong,

Forbears the ones who are more weak —

Forever enduring the weak —

That is called the highest patience.

For whom strength is the strength of fools,

It is said of the strong, "He's weak!"

For the strong, guarding the Dharma,

Contentiousness is never found.

 

It is indeed a fault for one

Who returns anger for anger.

Not giving anger for anger,

One wins a dual-victory.

 

One behaves for the good of both:

Oneself and the other person.

Knowing well the other's anger,

One is mindful and remains calm.

In this way one is healing both:

Oneself and the other person.

The people who think, "He's a fool,"

Just don't understand the Dharma.

.

The lore of St. Michael, the archangel, are echoes of Sakka, King of the Angels. He is revered in Buddhism, Vedic Hinduism, Yazidi Islam, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Catholicism.

KARMA: The 10 Courses of Action

Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth) UPDATED AN D EXPANDED by Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu

 

Mental-karma is important as are deeds.

"Karma" refers to deeds able to produce results in the future.

 

"Courses of Action" (karma-patha) are a little different. This is a name for a group of ten kinds of karmic actions -- either unwholesome or wholesome -- the Buddha taught as particularly important to living beings.

 

The Buddha was not known as the Buddha, one of his many epithets, in ancient India. Nor was he "Buddhist," a "god" (deva), or a Brahmin (priest). He was known as a karma-vadin ("teacher of karma," teacher of the efficacy of deeds to produce results).

 

The Buddha's teaching concerning karma is that deeds have the efficacy to produce corresponding actions, effects, consequences, results. This is not cause-and-effect, however, if only because the results are usually exponentially larger than the original deed. One "killing" does not produce one "being killed" later on.

 

How well the Buddha knew! (xiangjiaocao)

That is because the seed, potentially, or karma laid down in the mind/heart is a citta, of which there are countless millions in a moment. Cittas have the potential to act as death-proximate karmas leading to rebirth, and when they serve this function, the result is very bad. Similarly, all skillful karma produces disproportionate results as well, which is beneficial and welcome by living beings experiencing the result.

 

Not all karmas can serve as death-proximate karmas (the thought-moment passing through the mind at the exact moment of passing from one life to yet another life), but "courses of action" (karma-pathas) can. That is why they are called "courses." Like corridors or pathways, they can lead to a consequence, welcome or unwelcome, directly.

 

There are three kinds of deeds -- those of body, speech, and mind -- be they unskillful or skillful:

 

I. Ten Unwholesome Courses of Action

• There are 3 bodily actions: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct;
  
• 4 verbal actions: perjury, slandering, harsh speech, babble;
  
• 3 mental actions: covetousness, ill-will, wrong views.
  

Unwholesome mental courses of action comprise only extreme forms of defiled thought: The greedy (rapacious) wish to appropriate others' property, the hateful (antagonistic) thought of harming others, and the holding or clinging to pernicious wrong-views.

While milder forms of mental defilement are also unwholesome, they do not constitute "courses of action."

 

Karma "courses"

Karma is following us everywhere we go. It's everywhere we're going to be.

 

The American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi -- the most famous translator of large collections of Buddhist sutras -- explains (in "Rebirth and Karma," from Recording 5 of The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is) that these ten are called "courses" of action rather than ordinary karma.

 

As mentioned above, this is because they have the power, in and of themselves, to lead to rebirth. They are courses or corridors leading to particularly unfortunate or fortunate future states.

For example, even a relatively minor good intentional-action can lead -- IF it serves as the death-proximate karma -- has the power to get one into a heaven. There are many heavens, and not a single one of them is eternal, so rebirth in a heaven is not the goal of Buddhism. But it is a welcome rebirth, a fortunate destination, while cycling through samsara. Samsara is the ongoing Wheel of Rebirth and endless disappointment.

II. Ten Wholesome Courses of Action

• There are 3 bodily actions: avoiding killing, stealing, sexual misconduct (or preserving life, protecting what belongs to others, avoiding harm);
  
• 4 verbal actions: avoiding perjury, slandering, harsh speech, foolish babble (or honest, reconciling, gentle, and wise speech);
  
• 3 mental actions: unselfishness, goodwill, right views.
  

Both lists repeatedly occur in the texts (e.g., in AN X.28, 176; MN 9), and they are explained in detail in MN 114 and in the Commentary to MN 9 (R. Und., p. 14), Atthasālini Tr. I, 126ff.

Ven. Saint Sivali

Ven. Sivali: shining example of good karma

An enlightened monastic from the time of the Buddha, Venerable Sivali, is remembered and venerated as having unbelievably good karma -- a store of "merit" (punya) that benefited many and for everyone to emulate.

 

There is no reason to "envy" Ven. Sivali his good fortune because he created it, and we ourselves can also create it. We can accrue a vast store of merit by good mental, verbal, and physical deeds, actions that benefit ourselves and others. Such deed will follow us through this life and future lives, redounding with welcome results whatever we are doing almost anywhere we find ourselves, until we realize enlightenment. They also help in this realization. Karma, it's everywhere you want to be (and it will even be there helping everywhere you don't want to be).

 

We are always generating karma, albeit we are rarely doing it consciously or with any appreciation of what we are doing and what the result will be when our deeds come to fruition for us.

 

And we are always passing away and being reborn. But a rebirth as a human is extraordinarily rare. It is a precious opportunity to make merit with reverberating with pleasant, pleasurable, and welcome karmic-results and effects (vipaka and phala).

 

"King of the 'Gods'"

Sakka is St. Michael (saintmichaelwarrior)

Sakka, the king of the devas, also made incredibly good karma -- sufficient not only to be reborn in a celestial world in space (one of the many "heavens") but as king of it and king of the four kings in the celestial world just below his world. In his world, he is lord of lords, the "lords" being the 33 deva rulers he oversees as chief among more or less equals.

 

Wisdom Quarterly has often shown that Sakka's fame extends around the Earth, a terrestial world in space which he protects from titans and nagas and other inimical forces. Why does he visit Earth, assign the regents of the Catumaharajika-deva-loka to guard, and get updates on human progress every fortnight?

 

It is because Sakka is a stream enterer devoted to the Buddha and the protection of the Dharma in the world for as long as possible. In Christendom he is known as Saint or Archangel Michael, in India as Indra (in fact the name "India" may derive from Indo, one of Sakka epithets), in Taoism as the Jade Emperor, in the Yarsanism (Islam) religion of Iraq and Iran Pir Dawud the deva (called Yazidis or Yezidis)...

The Buddha's golden reliquary urn of Bimaran

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; British Museum; Wiki edit 

Greco-Buddhist gold art of Afghanistan, the Bimaran Reliquary (britishmuseum.org)

 

The Golden Bimaran Urn
BritishMuseum.org; edited by Wisdom Quarterly

The soapstone casket containing the urn

This golden urn and these items were found buried in a stone casket found in Stupa No. 2 at Bimaran, Gandhara, near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.

When it was found by the archaeologist Charles Masson during his work in Afghanistan between 1833 and 1838, the stone casket contained coins.

The piece was dated as having been created or buried in the 1st century AD, which is when the coins are thought to date from, on the assumption that those coins were interred in it in the first place, when they were almost certainly added later when it was re-interred after its precious relics were looted. 

Rare Buddha pose, light dress (BM/W)

The priceless gold, jewel-studded, cylindrical relic container set with almandine garnets bears a frieze with one of the earliest depictions of the Buddha from the northwest region of Gandhara (ancient India).

The reliquary was found inside an inscribed steatite (soapstone) casket. The inscription records that the reliquary contained some of the actual bones of the Buddha. [See "Bones of the Buddha" (PBS TV) on "Vethadipa" and Cremating the Buddha's body (sutra)].

• VIDEO: Two Buddhist Specials on PBS

The PBS special "Bones of the Buddha" explains the discovery of some of the relics (WQ)

 

Relics can look like pearls (mahastupa.org)

However, when found in the 19th century, the lid of the reliquary and the bones were missing. The relic was deposited with small burnt pearls [a good description of genuine relics], beads of precious and semi-precious stones, and four Azes II coins. The coins, and thus the reliquary, can be dated... More
 
Evidence of the Buddha's Ukraine connection

The Buddha reclining into final nirvana (paranirvana), Gandharan art (wiki)

 

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, all around Kapilavastu (wiki)

The outrageous claim by a Ukrainian scholar that the Buddha may have been Ukrainian is quite possible -- so long as one extends ancient Indo-Scythia to include faraway Crimea and Ukraine high in the north of Asia.
 
The Scythians might well be the Shakyas of later Sakkastan. But history here is very muddled by nationalistic Indian claims, Nepalese counterclaims, British archeological discoveries and deceptions, such as the Jonesian frauds detected by Dr. Pal.

In any case, this magnificent relic container suggests that Siddhartha Gautama came from far north of India, somewhere west of the Indus river. If that is not the case, it is hard to imagine why people under a Gandharan/Indo-Pakistani king would have been involved in re-interring the Buddha's relics rather than plundering the treasure.

Whose coins were they?

The British Museum (britishmuseum.org)

(WIKI) King Azes II (reigned circa 35-12 BCE) may have been the last Indo-Scythian king on the northern Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan as of 1947's Partition).

However, due to new research by R.C. Senior (2008, "The Final Nail in the Coffin of Azes II," Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society 197, 2008, pp. 25-27), his actual existence is now seriously in doubt, and "his" coins and so on are now thought to refer to those of Azes I.

Gandhara/Bactria/Afghanistan (Boonlieng/flickr)

After the death of Azes II, the rule of the Indo-Scythians in northwestern India and Pakistan finally crumbled with the conquest of the Kushans, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi who had lived in [Greco-Persian] Bactria for more than a century, who were then expanding into India to create a Kushan Empire. Soon after, the Parthians invaded from the west. More

And what it all goes to show is that history is a mess, just as the Buddha spoke of countless empires, kingdoms, and republics that rose to glory to invariably crumble. Even a "world monarch," or chakravartin, ruling in accordance with dharma in the noble/warrior-caste ideal, is not exempt from this revolving cycle. Who were these world ruler?

Balinese Buddhism in Bali, Indonesia

Ven. S. Dhammika (DM/BuddhaNet); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The spirituality and unique character of religions in Indonesia (destination-asia.com)

Pura Tanah Temple, Bali, Indonesia  (Jos Dielis/dielis/flickr.com)

 

Buddha, Bali (Robert Scales/flickr)

Much attention has been given to how far west Buddhism extended in ancient times. 

 

The most westerly Buddhist monument [not that that marks how far it got, only how far it made such an impression that monuments were erected to it] that can be is the foundations of a large stupa [Buddhist burial mound and sacred reliquary] in the south east corner of the ancient citadel of Khiva in Turkmenistan [Central Asia, formerly Russia].

Small communities of Buddhists may have existed beyond this. But if they did, they would have been insignificant [too insignificant to erect permanent stone religious structures], isolated, and exceptional. We can say therefore that the outer edge of [early] Buddhism in the west was what is now eastern Iran [the seat of the Solar Dynasty mentioned in Rhys Davids' translation in "The Story of the Lineage" from Buddhist Birth-Stories: Jataka].

Undersea Bali, Buddha statues in the coral reef, Indonesia (Robert Scales/flickr.com)

 
But how far to the east did Buddhism spread its gentle and civilizing influence? [Did it get] to the outer islands of Indonesia, to Australia, or perhaps beyond? 

 

The Buddhist hero Satusoma (buddhanet.net)

In the 1920's a superb bronze bust of the Buddha was found on Sulawesi, one of the larger islands that make up Indonesia [a massive stretch of islands between India and Australia]. This is the eastern most point that any Buddhist antiquity has ever been found. 

 

There is, though, no evidence of an enduring Buddhist presence either on Sulawesi or beyond it -- no ruined temples or monasteries [hidden in the dense jungles as keep being discovered in Cambodia], no inscriptions, or references to it in the historical records. 

 

However, only a few hundred miles southwest of Sulawesi is the small island of Bali, where archeological, epigraphical, and literary evidence shows that Buddhism existed alongside Hinduism for about 700 years.

 

Buddha under the sea, Bali, Indonesia (Robert Scales)

Indian merchants first arrived in Bali in about 200 BCE, and it was probably these people who introduced Buddhism and Hinduism.
 
A Balinese work of uncertain date called the Naga-rakrtagama by a Buddhist monk lists all of the Buddhist temples in Bali, 26 altogether, and mentions that in 1275 King Kretanagara underwent a Tantric Buddhist initiation to protect his kingdom from an expected invasion by Kublai Khan.

Kublai Khan conquers Asia and goes overseas to keep going (pic2fly.com)

 

Trade routes to Indonesia and back

The island's history is scant until 1343, when it was conquered by and absorbed into the Majapahit Empire of Java-Sumatra. Hinduism and Buddhism both received state patronage, although the type of Buddhism that prevailed gradually became indistinguishable from Hinduism [such is the case around the world for Mahayana Buddhism].

A Javanese Buddhist work from about the 12th century contains this telling verse: "The one substance is called two, that is, the Buddha and Shiva. [Tantra is a merging of Shakti and Shiva, conflating Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, particularly esoteric Vajrayana] They say they are different, but how can they be divided? Despite differences there is oneness."

Sanur, Bali (MickJim/flickr)

Clearly at the time these words were being composed, some Buddhists were struggling to maintain the uniqueness of the Dharma, while others were stressing its similarity with Hinduism [which metamorphosed to be much more similar to Buddhism under the Buddha's radical influence bringing the Vedas back to life and on the Brahmins of his day].

Eventually in both Java and Bali the integrators prevailed. Incidentally, the phrase "Despite differences there is oneness" (Bhineka tunggal ika) has been taken as the motto for the Republic of Indonesia. With the collapse of Mahapahit [Hindu empire] in 1515 and the ascendancy of Islam, Java's old intellectual and religious elite, including the last surviving Buddhist monastics and scholars, sought refuge in Bali.

My Trip to Bali

Traveling round the world (destination360.com)

In January 2004 I fulfilled a long-standing wish to visit the island that Nehru eulogized as "The Morning of the World." I planned to visit all the sights that other tourists like to see, but my main intention was to search out the traces of Buddhism and find out something about Bali's small [surviving] Buddhist community. My first stop was the Bali Museum in Dempasar, the capital of the island. More

• Destination Asia: Buddhism in Indonesia
• Suvarnadvipa: Persian sea trade, Indonesia, Kalki kings (W)
• Deep Anthropology: Notes on a Balinese cockfight
• Buddha at the Crossroads: Indonesian Buddhism
• Dhammacakratra: Theravada Buddhism, USA
• Dhammacakratra, Ontario, California (facebook) 

Saka/Shakya princess tomb found (photos)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, and Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS of 2013 report from TANN/TengriNews.kz via Archaeology News Network/Facebook.com)

The golden Sage of the Shakya reclining into final nirvana (Chris&Annabel/Chngster/flickr)

The Saka [Scythians, Tajiks] were a pastoral-nomadic people like the Shakyans, who were agrarian warriors when Siddhartha lived among them. Below, Princess/Queen Tomyris defeats Cyrus the Great in battle. Gold and red Saka princess gear and head wear.

Queen Tomyris by Alexander Zick

Golden Woman (Issyk Kurgan)

Sakas with Dragons artifact. Dragons or  nagas were associated with royals (wiki)

Saka princess tomb (TANN/yk.kz/archaeologicalnewsnetwork/Ра-меси-су Мери-Амон)

Gold feted bones of ancient Central Asian princess, a Saka, Scythian, possibly a Shakyan

.

Formerly Buddhist nations of Central Asia

KAZAKHSTAN, Central Asia - Kazakh archaeologists have discovered a tomb of a “Saka[n] princess,”  reports the expedition head Timur Smagulov. The tomb was found during road maintenance in the district of Urdzhar, East Kazakhstan Oblast.

 

The burial site of a high-ranking young woman was discovered during reconstruction of Taskesken-Bakty Road in Urdzhar.
 
An expedition team composed of professors and students from Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar Institutes discovered the stone tomb-chest [a reliquary or urn like that containing "The Buddha's Bones" found entombed in a burial mound] with remains of the young woman at the depth of 1.7 meters under a burial mound [possibly a Buddhist stupa, which were reserved for royalty and saints, chakravartins and arhats].

The uncremated remains or ashes and bones of a ruler? (Ра-меси-су Мери-Амон)

.

The artifacts found in at the burial site certify that the woman was from a distinguished tribe. According to archaeologists, golden head wear that looks like a Kazakh Saukele (the national headgear of Kazakh women, Saule being a common female name from prior to Islamization) was the most valuable research item found.

 

Kazakh eagle huntress/princess (BBC)

“The pointed golden head wear with zoomorphic ornaments has the top that looks like the arrows and is decorated with a spiral made of golden wire and jewels. A similar head wear used to be part of the official costume of the Saka tribe chieftains. It is quite possible that the woman was a daughter of a king of Saka Tigrakhauda tribe,” Timur Smagulov explained.
 

Ukrainian hair queen (W)

According to him, it is quite possible that young Tomyris, who later became a warrior-queen, used to wear similar head wear.

According to the expedition’s members, ceramic and wooden vessels, as well as bones of a sacrificial lamb, were also discovered in the tomb. Pieces of blue and green clothes still clung to the woman’s remains. Golden earrings and a stone altar were found next to her head. 

 

Caryatid, Crete, Greece (Acropolis Museum)

“According to the preliminary information, the tomb of the 'Urdzhar princess' is dated 4th or 3rd century B.C.,” Smagulov said.

He also notes that a similar tomb was discovered under the Issyk burial mound (called "Golden Man"). [If there were an Aryan "invasion" from the north, which there likely was not, it may have been roaming nomadic Central Asians coming into ancient Indus River Valley Civilization and/or modern India.] More (Tengri News, June 3, 2013)

Golden Man is a Woman
(Issyk Kurgan) Situated in Eastern Scythia just north of Sogdiana, the kurgan contained a skeleton, possibly that of a Scythian [Shakyan] woman, warrior's equipment, and assorted funerary goods, including 4,000 gold ornaments. Although the sex of the skeleton is uncertain, it may have been an 18-year-old Saka (Scythian) prince or princess. The richness of the burial items led the skeleton to be dubbed the "Golden Man" or "Golden Princess," with "Golden Man" subsequently being adopted as one of the symbols of modern Kazakhstan. A likeness crowns the Independence Monument on the central square of Almaty. Its depiction may also be found on the Presidential Standard of Nursultan Nazarbayev. More

News

• Greece’s Caryatids getting extreme makeover
• Tomb dating back to 1100 B.C. found in Egypt
• Archaeologists use drones to uncover ancient NM village
• New study sheds light on survivors of the Black Death
• Scientists create first living organism that transmits added letters in DNA "alphabet"
• How have changing sea-levels influenced evolution on the Galapagos Islands?
• Ancient crater points to massive meteorite strike
• Arctic study sheds light on tree-ring divergence problem
• The Red Sea: An ocean like all others, after all
• Greenland melting due equally to global warming [man made] AND natural variations
• 200,000 glaciers mapped for sea-level rise estimates
• Nearest bright "hypervelocity star"
• Persian Cyrus Cylinder of Cyrus (Korosh) the Great
• VIDEO: Cyrus Cylinder on tour in Los Angeles 2013 
• VIDEO: Shamans and Afghans (Central Asia)
• PHOTO: The "Sun Emperor" of the Solar Dynasty?
• Story of the Buddha's Lineage (Rhys Davids Jataka)
• Indigenous Buddhist Europe/Russia: Kalmykia
• Buddhism in Europe, Siberia, and Asian Russia 
• The "Western Paradise" (as Afghanistan)
• The Buddha was born and raised in Afghanistan
• VIDEO: The Buddha's Bones found in India (PBS)
• The Eurasian Eagle Huntress (Kazakh in Mongolia)

Egyptian conservator cleans limestone at newly-discovered tomb circa 1100 B.C., Saqqara archaeological site, 30 kms (19 miles) south of Cairo (AP/Amr Nabil/ANN).