I grew up near Saqqara (few miles away). It's amazing that there are still things to be discovered there. We would actually often hear that artifacts would be discovered and just sold/smuggled. But i guess there is just so much stuff buried near and around Saqqara that there is still more to discover.
I feel we are quite lucky that Egypt is a relatively stable country throughout the time that modern tools have become available to find ancient burial sites.
They are able and incentivized to use proper scientific methods and slow exhuming to preserve as much information about an ancient human culture as possible.
Considering how much political and societal turmoil has been and still is in the surrounding regions, all of these finds could have easily been pilfered and lost as they had been through Egypt's earlier history.
If you look at it, it's largely due to the nature of unrest in Egypt vs elsewhere in the region. Egypt's unrest is largely formed by local Egyptians, who are otherwise extremely proud of their cultural past dating back to the Nile Valley civilization, a past that was also widely celebrated within the Western world. Places like Syria and Lebanon on the other hand have had massive foreign influence and foreign players influencing their rebellions. Of course they wouldn't give a damn about what happens to those relics. Not to mention, local Phoenician/Syrian/Babylonian cultures aren't as popular worldwide as their Egyptian counterparts, hence there isn't as much dedication towards preserving them - sometimes even the local population partakes in the destruction, especially if the relics in question are of another faith.
It would be a different world altogether perhaps, had the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Roman infrastructure in the Levant were preserved well. Ironically, one of the major proponents of reviving interest in Babylonian culture in the recent past was Saddam Hussein, who engaged in rebuilding most of the city of Babylon.
In 1989,my 6th grade social studies class (in the US) used a textbook that said Saddam Hussein was a valuable ally of the US, generally a great person, and had raised literacy rates in Iraq.
Honestly I find it whack that the US education system feels its okay to teach 6th graders geopolitical nuance.
As for that little tidbit, it's like how the British education system focuses on how they built railways in India when teaching colonialism, while willfully ignoring the likes of Cecil Rhodes and General Dyer.
Brit here, with a few years behind him, and I've never heard of general dryer, so thanks for the pointer :(
"He has been called "the Butcher of Amritsar",[1] because of his order to fire on a peaceful crowd. The official report stated that this resulted in the killing of at least 379 people and the injuring of over a thousand more.[2] Some submissions to the official inquiry suggested a higher number of deaths.[3]"
It's long after I left school that I found out how the british government treated the welsh and the irish. Never got mentioned in school. All I want is the truth because you can't learn from dishonesty.
> At any moment, however, an alliance could shift and the two states that had previously been at war with each other may suddenly ally against the other. When this happened, the past immediately had to be re-written—newspapers retyped, new photos glued over old—to provide continuity. In many cases that which contradicted the state was simply destroyed.
How many Americans remember today that Iraq used to be an ally?
Edit: BTW the line about Eastasia is a direct quote from 1984 - it's not implying that Iraq is in East Asia
It is great that Egypt is fairly stable and takes this stuff seriously, but how much of it is "just business" for Egypt, with the new $500 million (USD) museum being built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Egyptian_Museum Letting that stuff get stolen is a national tragedy and has a real cost in terms of tourist dollars.
Egypt is a top-of-the-bucket-list destination for me, and I'd spend plenty of money there at that museum and many of the tourist sites (after COVID obviously), if I actually felt safe going there. It still seems a little bit iffy from my american point of view. I haven't researched it in a few years but last time I did it seemed not advisable for Americans to go there.
We should thank the advances in signal processing, ground penetrating radars and LIDARs that have given us such a plethora of new archeological discoveries we see in the media.
Egypt's climate and lack of wood which made it expensive and unreachable as a building material, as particularly helpful factors for the preservation history. Through Egyptian sources that have a more detailed chronology historical analysis of surrounding areas is also assisted.
Egypt is a magestical place and I am eagerly waiting for the completion of the new Cairo museum to revisit it.
I wonder what the “more secrets” are. I suspect with the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, and other older sites, we may discover the current timeline for ancient Egypt doesn’t go back far enough. The Turin kings list is pretty interesting. Some geologists suggest the Sphinx may be older than Egyptology suggests at present: https://www.robertschoch.com/sphinx.html
They create enigmatic press releases on a schedule, with the aim of increasing interest and tourism. There are literally millions of preserved burials in Egypt.
Zahi Hawas has quite the reputation of being a phony. Many lay blame directly at him for refusing to allow the exploration and analysis of some ancient sites and artifacts that would run counter to the narrative he supports. An example is that a civilization that existed before the Egyptians is responsible for things like the Sphinx and Great Pyramids. He also refuses access to certain areas of these sites to prevent further exploration from what I understand. I know many folks can't stand him and say he is full of shit.
I don't know enough about the subject to have a strong opinion but would like to understand what is gained from not allowing more exploration of the tunnels and rooms under the Sphinx, etc.
Why do we think that it is just fine that we open these tombs? I do have a problem with that attitude. If they had been found 500 years ago, we'd probably have almost nothing of real value from a scientific point of view.
Are we so much better nowadays that we can allow us to alter the state of the tomb without significantly destroying it?
Good question. I read a few books on excavations and discoveries in Egypt over the modern centuries recently, and the quantity and degree of destruction from sheer careless to lack of method is quite staggering. I walked away with the impression that we lost more artifacts than we retained.
Archeology eventually invented itself and practitioners got more careful as time went on, but then seeing photos embedded into the article of opening coffins on site ...
What are the alternatives? As soon as these tombs found you can either open them now or set up 24/7 security around. The latter will be difficult to justify economically.
Triple-strand concertina wire isn't that expensive, put that around the perimeter with a single entry control point. Two guards on shift, 4 hours on/8 hours off, twice per day = 4 bodies. Double that to cut the days worked down to 3-5 per week with some flex capacity, keep people well-rested and alert. A quick search indicates an Egyptian military sergeant earns roughly $220/month, so 8 guys @$250 month = $2000 in wages monthly, and a pretty small outlay for equipment (the concertina wire, some rifles, flashlights, comm gear- radios/cellphones, maybe a tablet to verify access rosters).....Even hooking up some perimeter sensors to a computer workstation and generator power wouldn't be more than a low 5-figure investment.
Basic physical security should not be an unreasonable cost burden when there is so much national economic and social interest in preserving Egyptian history.
A fair point on the ease of corrupting private contractors. If anything that suggests the National government should provide security, and bank on the cultural pride/integrity/professionalism of the military to serve as a bullwark (for whatever that is worth). Secondary control measures to reduce corruption risk complicates things but still should explode the budget into the millions or anything.
"Somebody will loot it, so it may as well be us"? If that's the best we can do, maybe we should stop looking for them in the first place. Let the corpses lay in peace, our modern approach to this lacks dignity.
It's not really looting it if everything is recorded, carefully studied, and what's learned is made available to the public via museums. Looting would be something smashing in the door to run in and grab a handful of artifacts and or a mummy body part and selling it to a private buyer. Big difference.
Maybe it lacks dignity in that it's not what the ancient Egyptians would've preferred for us to do with their remains - but I think it's fair to set some statute of limitations on that kind of thing.
I think the issue is that someone somewhere is always going to look for it. Robbers have been there for centuries. If they find it first, it's going to end up in the black market. I'm not saying whether its right or wrong. It is just how it is.
My understanding is that almost all Egyptian tombs, at least, were looted, as the euphemism goes, "in antiquity". Tutankhamun's being a very big exception.
The story I learned while doing deep background for my own trip to Egypt is that "in antiquity" means roughly the next period, usually between dynasties, when religious respect for the centralized royalty passed through lows. So for Egypt, that could be even 4000 years ago.
I found this astounding at the time. Egypt has a way of expanding a person's sense of time. I am learning China is sort of the same thing.
I did a thought experiment: if this were my tomb or a tomb of a loved one, I wouldn't want it disturbed for at least a few hundred years. After that, we become a part of history and I'm okay with archeologists of the distant future using my remains to understand us better.
> if this were my tomb or a tomb of a loved one, I wouldn't want it disturbed for at least a few hundred years
A curious position. I use provocative words, not to antagonise but in a probably vain attempt to inspire:
Why does the dust your body becomes deserve any special treatment? Was the dust that became the food that some day became you as precious?
It is not the dust that gives your life meaning but the glances, the words and the hope you will have given; to people, to ideas, and even to yourself.
The wonder of existence is not in the constituent; it is in the arrangement.
> Are we so much better nowadays that we can allow us to alter the state of the tomb without significantly destroying it?
We’re still not perfect of course, but modern archaeology is extraordinarily careful and meticulous. If we wait for perfect procedures we may be waiting forever.
I agree. Most of these tombs are better in the ground, unknown and undiscovered. I understand we can build knowledge from these artifacts, but there may be some unforeseen value in abiding by the benign wishes of ancient peoples.
I don't trust modern society to store these artifacts for more than a few hundred years without losing them to war, theft, modification, infrastructure issues, or whatever. The modern world is relatively unpredictable and chaotic compared to the past, in my mortal opinion.
That said, it's nice to have some of these out of the ground, for us still living. But pulling up everything we find feels like science-sponsored grave robbing to stock our treasury of knowledge, which is valuable but not holy.
Your question of "are we so much better nowadays" will continue to be true for basically all of time, unless you think archaeology will actually plateau at molecular-scale site recording. That means the choice you offer is not to learn now or later, but to learn from these sites now or never at all.
You can see many other sites that specifically allocate the majority of dig work to the future on the premise that our future technology will better be able to process and preserve our findings.
I suspect that tombs in particular are large tourism draws, or can yield attractive museum exhibits.
I know sometimes archaeologists leave at least a portion of new discoveries unopened for future generations with better technology. Does this practice have a name? Is there some standard or is it up to each individual team / government to act in this prudent fashion?
I've always been fascinated with Egyptology. What really amazes me about this is the picture with the gorgeously painted sarcophagus! It's still stunning, in a picture, and from so long ago.
I think cryogenically frozen people will be the mummies for the futur.
Imagine you're in the year 4000 and you goto a museum.
"Here in the 2000s museum we have the head of Walt Disney, he was a famous warlord who destroyed his enemies and demanded caricatures of animals like the extinct Mouse and Dog to be drawn. He had many castles built around the old world in places like Florida, France and China"
I just read that book recently, before covid. I originally read it when I was young, and found a copy to reread through inter-branch library loan. It's a really fun read.
They are preserved in liquid nitrogen. There is no need for electricity, although the liquid nitrogen must be refilled once in a while (something like once a month I think). Liquid nitrogen is pretty simple and cheap to produce. Now of course if society collapses before we are able to bring those people back to life, then they will indeed rot.
It's a matter of record that Walt wasn't cryogenically frozen and was actually cremated (and there's exhibits about that specific point in the Walt Disney Family Museum). It'll be as easy to disprove in 4000 years as it is now, especially given that records are much better these days and we have tens of thousands of copies of everything.
Saying "People will forget stuff and make up things about the past" certainly works for ancient history but I don't think it'll work so well in the future. We can store and retrieve the sum of human knowledge (at least the facts, but other things too). There's no reason why we'll ever stop doing that. Accuracy and context for basic information like the manner of someone famous's funeral won't be lost.
