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Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

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Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#111

Post by gaiagraphia »

senderista wrote: post #90
gaiagraphia wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world. It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map. The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media. Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.

Try reading about Kafiristan, where primitive Hinduism (think Rig Veda) survived for 3500 years before being wiped out in the 1890s by a British-appointed Islamic despot.

Always amazed me how the Kalash in Chitral Valley have managed to peacefully get on with things. I guess the terrain helps.

I always like to think how the region would've looked if all these remnants of peoples had thriving nations.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#112

Post by gaiagraphia »

dismalaf wrote: post #62
declan_roberts wrote: post #56

> During this period, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded across the country and Egypt served as one of the empire's richest provinces. It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.

Not just Islamic conquest but Arab conquest. Up to this point Arabs lived mainly in, well, Arabia. The indigenous peoples of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc..., were all non-Arab. Nowadays those indigenous groups are known as Copts, Syriacs, Chaldeans, etc...

Isn't this fuelling the conflict in Darfur? UAE-backed Arabs trying to muscle out the Africans?

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#113

Post by defrost »

jsemrau wrote: post #107
defrost wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be fair now, the Catholic Church hasn't always and consistently been a backward medieval deathcult - there have been periods of non Crusading, non Inquisition, not slaughtering Cathars, not trading in babies, etc.

[flagged]

Again, Christians have been just as appalling as any other religion.

They've killed, enslaved, done their best to eliminate cultures, railed against miscegenation, etc.

Not sure why you're working so hard to pretend o/wise.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#114

Post by victorbjorklund »

derdi wrote: post #37
philistine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, invented much later, but the expression of a different power structure that those types of Romans felt was not present. But to our modern eyes it was. Hell, the mere fact the centre of power was in Constantinople and not Rome is proof enough that they were distinct.

Proof to your modern eyes. Not to the eyes of those who also called Constantinople "New Rome", and who called themselves Romans even 1000 years later.

Russia calls itself a continuation of Rome.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#115

Post by gaiagraphia »

hollandheese wrote: post #70
philistine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, invented much later, but the expression of a different power structure that those types of Romans felt was not present. But to our modern eyes it was. Hell, the mere fact the centre of power was in Constantinople and not Rome is proof enough that they were distinct.

Is the United States become a different entity when it moved its capital between Philadelphia and Washington DC?

Philadelphia and DC is basically the same place though. Similar to how Babylon, Ctesiphon, etc liked moving around in lower Mesopotamia in the same geography

I always liked to think of empires as being defined by the people of a specific geography, bound by cultural and ideological tenets, making a development which allowed them to extract wealth from elsewhere.

The Northwestern US coast is the seat of the US empire, and is effectively defined by leveraging inward European culture, tech , and populations, to conquer a continent worth of free resources under manifest destiny, which has then scaled to the world.

If the capital moved to New York, the US empire would still be the same; based on the same history, culture, and geographical roots.

If it moved to California or Texas, however, I would consider it a new power entirely. The reasons underpinning the change would inherently make it an empire fuelled by a different history, geography, context in the world, etc, no matter how often people would claim to be a continuation of America.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#116

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

jsemrau wrote: post #99
openuntil3am wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christianity is no different.

Please educate yourself more on this. Step out of your bubble. Christian nations have created the cultural and technical achievements over the last thousands of years. There is nothing even remotely comparable.

And without the Muslims maintaining the Greek and Roman texts, that would've taken far longer. Even algebra and algorithm come from Muslim names.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#117

Post by gaiagraphia »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #2

... Do we have a better source than Daily Mail? Here: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/07/byzantine-city-with-writt... and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/04/archaeologists...

Amusing how every single article is exactly the same rehashed press release with no additional content.

There's not even any maps anywhere.

Wonder how aggressively Egypt are on manoeuvres trying to claw back tourism. Would help if they opened up the desert roads so travelling the western deserts was actually viable as a ring route.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#118

Post by Towaway69 »

WalterBright wrote: post #81

The older I get, the closer in time these ancient civilizations become. It's really not that many lifetimes away. It's stunning the progress humans have made since then.

What progress are you referring to? The shiny blinky things that scroll across our screens while the poor stay poor, war rages everywhere and the internet is overwhelmed with fake AI generated content.

The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level. We’re still living in caves, we’re still believe in God myths that make no sense and let ourselves be blindly led by folks who claim legitimacy because they won voter approval based on the lies they told.

No, for me progress is a fiction invented in hollywood or silicon valley. Real progress would be understanding our place in the universe, understanding that we are one of many species with which we share this planet, that we don’t have the right to strip clear the planet for our sole benefit. And that shiny bits of metal or bits of paper with numbers and faces on them aren’t important and most certainly won’t help us achieve true progress.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#119

Post by wqaatwt »

hechang1997 wrote: post #91
declan_roberts wrote: post #56

> During this period, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded across the country and Egypt served as one of the empire's richest provinces. It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.

> It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD. It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along wi…

It is somewhat different. Romans or Greeks didn’t really violently impose their culture, religion and language to a comparable degree. Without the Islamic invasions Egyptian would likely still be speaking Coptic these days.

Re: Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church

#120

Post by wqaatwt »

openuntil3am wrote: post #96
gaiagraphia wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world. It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map. The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media. Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.

Christianity is no different.

To be fair for the most part Christianity didn’t spread top down through violent conquest (obviously with some huge exceptions) at least in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Also it’s historically better at integrating local cultural practices and languages.

Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)

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