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Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt

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Re: Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt

#21
post #3

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I was just thinking this, do we regularly breaking into tombs in the rest of the world? I guess some of the cathedrals themselves are tombs and are big tourist attractions.

US and UK phrenologists encouraged a lot of grave descration, often not even waiting for a corpse to be interned before shipping the remains out.

  Yagan’s murder by colonial settlers was, even by the day’s standards, an act of hideous violence. That his head was subsequently removed and dispatched to England as a biological curio, a specimen to aid the discredited voodoo science of phrenology – whereby racial intelligence and personality could purportedly be determined by cranial distinctions – added indignity to death.
~ https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog...

Easy to write off as the bizzarro actions of those gosh darned old timey folks ...

  A naked life size bronze of Aboriginal warrior Yagan, resting a spear across the back of his shoulders. It is quite evident that the head of Yagan is not the original one (rather oversized, has a far too long a neck and is an altogether different shade). I must say that because the statue’s head has been stolen twice (and given the way Yagan died), the sculpture now takes on a strange and ironic overtone. 
~ https://publicartaroundtheworld.com/public-art-in-australia/...

but yeah, they just keep stealing that head.

Re: Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt

#26
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cemeteries in Europe have been destroyed to make space for urbanisation. The underground of Paris is full of bones from those cemetaries (catacombs of Paris). It's fairly common as outside of a few aristocratic families, people keep a very short memory of their ancestry. I have a very vague knowledge of who my ancestors were back to the mid XIX century and nothing prior. Hard to have any emotional attachment to…

Some cemeteries in London reuse graves after just 75 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Cemetery_and_Cr... I have very vivid memories as a child of walking through Brookwood Cemetary in south east England seeing a big machine crunching up headstones. Vast swathes of the place was flattened. The cheat code here seems to be "topple testing" for health and safety reasons. It's the UKs largest cemetery an…

On the continent, afaik most countries work on a lease system, you rent a plot for a few decades (which may or may not be renewable). Some countries have a “perpetual” lease with an ongoing fee, a few years after the payment stops the plot gets cycled.

‘Course space requirements are also a factor, if you have a family plot in a depopulated village in the countryside odds are good plots will be cheap and renewable forever.

Re: Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt

#28
The value of exploring tombs for the purpose of illuminating ancient cultures is inestimable. It seems humans have always been happy desecrating burial sites if not for treasure then to prove dominance over another tribe or nation.

Of course some exploitation is beyond permissible. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries there was an artist's pigment called Mummy Brown. It was sold for many decades, a rich, transparent brown unlike other brown pigments. It was made from actual mummies scrounged from unknown sources in Egypt. These were not the remains of royalty, rather these mummies were those of common people. Apparently until the early 20th century there was an ample supply of these remains to satisfy demand. Eventually the availability of mummies diminished and by 1915 the pigment quality became erratic and subsequently disappeared from the marketplace.

Comparatively, respectful exploration of ancient tombs is a whole different program than things our species has demonstrated a willingness to do.

Re: Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt

#29
post #19
post #3

[flagged]

In Paris they use the corpse of their heroes like Voltaire and Napoleon to flease tourists of their Euros Using a tomb to expand our knowledge of the ancient world seems like small potatoes in comparison. Overton window is already far off

Fleece. But a good play--AI wouldn't make this mistake.

Re: Sealed tomb filled with paintings and inscriptions discovered in Egypt

#30
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cemeteries in Europe have been destroyed to make space for urbanisation. The underground of Paris is full of bones from those cemetaries (catacombs of Paris). It's fairly common as outside of a few aristocratic families, people keep a very short memory of their ancestry. I have a very vague knowledge of who my ancestors were back to the mid XIX century and nothing prior. Hard to have any emotional attachment to…

Some cemeteries in London reuse graves after just 75 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Cemetery_and_Cr... I have very vivid memories as a child of walking through Brookwood Cemetary in south east England seeing a big machine crunching up headstones. Vast swathes of the place was flattened. The cheat code here seems to be "topple testing" for health and safety reasons. It's the UKs largest cemetery an…

Old church with over hundred years old tombstones around it is literally an English landmark. Even in central London. Tombstones you mention belong to people from wrong social class.
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