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'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

bbc.co.uk

41–50 of 246 posts

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#41
post #29

Slightly off-topic but perhaps someone has an answer: After finishing "Dark Forest" / "Death’s End" I somehow ended up with the questions if our way of doing archaeology is actually a good idea. Currently we i) remove a lot of things from the ground / graves / ruins, ii) analyze them, iii) put them in a museum and iv) write books about them. This means that all the knowledge about those artifacts and our history is s…

> During the next WW3 or WW4 those museums might burn down and all archaeologist might be killed in an anti-intellectual purge. And during no particular war at all, the local government may decide to demolish artifacts and sites for political reasons. For example, China and Tibetan statues and temples. I'm not sure the original locations are very safe either. Edit: I was actually incorrectly remembering Chinese minin…

regarding Tibetan artifacts and buildings. any pointers? I can't believe that statement in general. (if you would have mentioned the Taliban in Afghanistan on the other hand ...)

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current archeologists only excavate sites 'at risk' e.g. new building development or looting. In all other cases, they strive to do non-intrusive exploration e.g. ground penetrating radar and lidar.

Why isnt radar used for pyramid? If we have ground-penetrating radar it should work for pyramids, no?

It usually doesn't go very deep, especially in dry rock.

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#45
post #41
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> During the next WW3 or WW4 those museums might burn down and all archaeologist might be killed in an anti-intellectual purge. And during no particular war at all, the local government may decide to demolish artifacts and sites for political reasons. For example, China and Tibetan statues and temples. I'm not sure the original locations are very safe either. Edit: I was actually incorrectly remembering Chinese minin…

regarding Tibetan artifacts and buildings. any pointers? I can't believe that statement in general. (if you would have mentioned the Taliban in Afghanistan on the other hand ...)

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tibetan+demolition

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#46

So have people been inside the known chambers? Can you tour them?

Egypt's main pyramid sites in Giza are accessible to the general public every day, all year long. Although you can go inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu when you visit, one of the smaller two pyramids usually is closed for restoration work. To further complicate your tourist plans, at the time of publication, only 300 tickets are sold per pyramid, per day. You must arrive early to secure your visit inside

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#47

Slightly off-topic but perhaps someone has an answer: After finishing "Dark Forest" / "Death’s End" I somehow ended up with the questions if our way of doing archaeology is actually a good idea. Currently we i) remove a lot of things from the ground / graves / ruins, ii) analyze them, iii) put them in a museum and iv) write books about them. This means that all the knowledge about those artifacts and our history is s…

save them from isis and rebels ? Better in museums than on ebay.

https://web.stanford.edu/group/chr/drupal/ref/the-2003-looti...

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#48

Slightly off-topic but perhaps someone has an answer: After finishing "Dark Forest" / "Death’s End" I somehow ended up with the questions if our way of doing archaeology is actually a good idea. Currently we i) remove a lot of things from the ground / graves / ruins, ii) analyze them, iii) put them in a museum and iv) write books about them. This means that all the knowledge about those artifacts and our history is s…

On a similar note, look at what happened in Iraq during the ISIS rein. Thousands of ancient monuments were destroyed :(

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet Archive has that goal (archive.org), it’s paid for by Brewster Kahle personally. > Is there any project which strives to preserve our current knowledge about humanity in some sort of long-term storage so that also people in 500 or 2000 years will be able to reconstruct

I hope they're recording all of the data on stone tablets in cuneiform, instead of in some digital format for which reading hardware will be obsolete in a few years... ;-)

They have 15 petabytes of data, and they keep distributed backups. They also accept donations and volunteers, so if you have better suggestions I'm sure you can go yourself and help

> the Archive attempts to create copies of (parts of) the collection at more distant locations, currently including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina[10] in Egypt and a facility in Amsterdam.[11] The Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium[12] and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007.[13]

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive

Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza

#50
post #41
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> During the next WW3 or WW4 those museums might burn down and all archaeologist might be killed in an anti-intellectual purge. And during no particular war at all, the local government may decide to demolish artifacts and sites for political reasons. For example, China and Tibetan statues and temples. I'm not sure the original locations are very safe either. Edit: I was actually incorrectly remembering Chinese minin…

regarding Tibetan artifacts and buildings. any pointers? I can't believe that statement in general. (if you would have mentioned the Taliban in Afghanistan on the other hand ...)

I was actually thinking of Chinese mining in Afghanistan[1], but couldn't remember all the context. In searching before posting to make sure I wasn't incorrect, I did run across reports of China destroying Tibetan monasteries.[2][3] That said, from looking a bit closer at the articles now, it looks more like China's continued attack on the religion, and not the artifacts themselves, since it's targeting homes next to a monastery (which happen to house people who work at the monastery, if the reporting is to be interpreted correctly, which isn't easy on this topic because it appears reporters are trying to strongly imply something without saying it, which is a red flag).

1: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/ho...

2: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36863888

3: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/world/asia/china-tibet-la...

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