people in ancient egypt shaved their eyebrows in mourning when their cats died.

mummies were named for 'mum', the wax that ancient egyptians used to waterproof their dead. the egyptian mummification process used salt, oil, and wax, and could take up to 70 days to complete properly.

pepi ii, ruler of egypt, reigned longer than anyone else in history: 90 years. when he died, the egyptian empire essentially collapsed.

when constructed, the egyptian pyramids were smooth and shiny, thanks to an outer layer of white limestone, which has since been removed.

cleopatra's lipstick included dead ants and crushed red carmine beetles.

hatshepsut was the first female egyptian pharoah.

you are twice as likely to die during childbirth in the u.s. as in egypt.

cleopatra was born 2,500 years after the pyramids were built, but just 2,000 years before the first moon landing.

one of the items found in king tut's tomb was a knife made out of metal from a meteorite.

king farouk, the last royal ruler of egypt, was a kleptomaniac.

there used to be a lot more mummies around than exist today - literally millions of them. so where did they all go? (the ones that didn't come back to life and follow you around, that is.)

they were used as firewood, ground up as 'medicine', used instead of coal to power steam locomotives, and had their linen shrouds sold as wrapping paper (at least, until people caught cholera from them and died). they were even sold to rich english socialites for 'unwrapping parties', which were exactly what they sound like.

the egyptian mythological deity that is the anthropomorphic personification of eternity is named 'huh'.

(i'm not sure if a question mark follows.)

egyptian mummies were used as paint pigment until the 1960's. they have also been used as a food supplement and skin balm.

elizabeth taylor notwithstanding, the real cleopatra was not beautiful, even by the standards of her time or location (just take a look at coins that bear her image). instead, she was incredibly intelligent, shrewd, and politically savvy, able to make men want her by sheer will.

ancient egyptians shaved off all of the hair on their heads and bodies - and i do mean all - and wore wigs.

ancient agyptians thought the purpose of the brain was to produce snot. that's why they removed it via the nose during mummification.

orthodontic braces were invented in ancient egypt.

pythagoras did not come up with the pythagorean theroem. he likely got it from the egyptians, who first used it at least 100 years before he was born.

the pyramids at giza are so old that, while they were being built, there were still some mammoths left alive in siberia.

even today, no one knows what the great pyramid of giza is for. no one was buried in it, nothing was stored in it, and its bizarre internal structure seems to serve no purpose.