Egypt uncovers 'huge cache' of ancient sealed coffins

Post by latchkey » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 3:02 AM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #16

adventured wrote: post #7

My first thought was that it's amazing we're still routinely pulling coffins out of the ground in Egypt. My second thought was that 10,000 years from now some follow-on replacement for humanity will be staggered at the 30 billion dead bodies we put into the ground. They'll frequently be hitting grave sites when they go to dig into the ground.

A century ago there were so many mummies in Egypt, they sold then literally as firewood. Most bodies buried in most places won't be so well preserved though. In Europe the average grave will be dug up and replaced 20-30 years after burial to make space for the next one.

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #13

sgtnoodle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, I don't think anyone is subconsciously imagining the literal country of Egypt cracking open an ancient tomb, but rather "the people over in Egypt who do that sort of thing". There's artistic expression in figurative speech and I think it enhances average intelligence of the population by existing. A common trope in distopian fiction is banning of figurative speech as a form of fascist mind control.

> I don't think anyone is subconsciously imagining I think it's trivial to argue that there's a lot of occasions where someone mislaid frustration with, for example, a whole nation (or religion or ethnicity, etc. etc.), because of an act that was perpetrated by a subset of that group. So the idea that synecdoches are problematic can't be discarded so easily. I liked your point about figurative speech in dystopian fic…

Post by easytiger » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 8:02 AM UTC

gt2 wrote: post #24

easytiger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe the average grave will be dug up and replaced 20-30 years after burial to make space for the next one. How do you mean? I come from a part of Europe that takes death seriously and I walk past 250 year old graveyards every day. Saw a fresh grave in one recently I can go visit the graves of the last 5 generations of my family

5 gens, that's awesome. Sorry for off-topic, but did you research your family history to find them or was it already known to your immediate family?

Post by alexvoda » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC