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Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

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Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#41

Post by flir »

ohwaitnvm wrote: post #26
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #7

If there's ever a plane crash I'm looking for cash and watches.

I couldn’t find the right combination of search terms to provide a citation, but I’ve heard stories of plane crashes where locals took the flight data recorder or other critical pieces of evidence from the scene before officials arrived. Rewards had to be announced and paid out to get people to bring back parts so that investigations could proceed.

I'm reminded of the scene in Lord of War when an arms shipment lands on a dirt road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kipeOTbUqvk

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#42

Post by hulitu »

ggm wrote: post #23
weinzierl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"vaguely disgusting" has another dimension in the modern era. I read once that by contemporary standards human bodies are essentially hazardous waste and every graveyard is essentially a superfund site.

Wouldn't that be the formaldehyde in embalming fluid? And mercury from amalgam fillings.

Some claim is the preservative in food.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#43

Post by seabass-labrax »

worthless-trash wrote: post #35
Someone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases Likely, but it seems they aren’t 100% sure of that at the Encyclopædia Brittanica. https://www.britannica.com/list/7-surprising-uses-for-mummie... : “It was claimed by author Mark Twain that mummies had been used as fuel for locomotives. In his 1869 travel book called The Innocents Abroad, Twain describes the first railroad in Eg…

To use on the english trains ?

If you're seriously asking, I highly doubt so. Great Britain has massive deposits of relatively clean, accessible coal. They are mostly in Wales but also in England and Scotland. Therefore there would be little reason to import any fuel from Egypt; over that distance, the steam ship would probably consume as many mummies as it was carrying.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#44

Post by DonHopkins »

angiosperm wrote: post #39
Someone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases Likely, but it seems they aren’t 100% sure of that at the Encyclopædia Brittanica. https://www.britannica.com/list/7-surprising-uses-for-mummie... : “It was claimed by author Mark Twain that mummies had been used as fuel for locomotives. In his 1869 travel book called The Innocents Abroad, Twain describes the first railroad in Eg…

We know, anyway, that they used untold millions of cat mummies for locomotive fuel. In other news, Egyptians mummified millions of cats.

Now we make cat drones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW0hyg4kfaw

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#45

Post by Borrible »

dmurray wrote: post #40
gdcbe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Belgium we (not me) used the corpses from the famous waterloo battle to refine sugar.

Yes indeed. Science.org recently published an interesting interview [0] on exactly that, that even made the HN front page. [0] https://www.science.org/content/article/now-we-know-where-de...

The deeper you plough this field, the more fruitful the findings. No dead end in sight. This may even take the cake. Dark and heavy Belgian cake. Cake of the dead, so to speak.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#46

Post by positr0n »

ggm wrote: post #23
weinzierl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"vaguely disgusting" has another dimension in the modern era. I read once that by contemporary standards human bodies are essentially hazardous waste and every graveyard is essentially a superfund site.

Wouldn't that be the formaldehyde in embalming fluid? And mercury from amalgam fillings.

Also bioaccumulation of heavy metals.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#47

Post by [deleted] »

worthless-trash wrote: post #35
Someone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases Likely, but it seems they aren’t 100% sure of that at the Encyclopædia Brittanica. https://www.britannica.com/list/7-surprising-uses-for-mummie... : “It was claimed by author Mark Twain that mummies had been used as fuel for locomotives. In his 1869 travel book called The Innocents Abroad, Twain describes the first railroad in Eg…

To use on the english trains ?

[deleted]
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