
Archeologists Discover a Perfectly Preserved 4k-Year-Old Tomb in Egypt - bookofjoe
https://mymodernmet.com/khuwy-egyptian-tomb-saqqara/
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toyg
"Discovery" is a big word. Egypt is currently in full-dig mode, because of the
political and economic situation. I'm not a scholar, but I bet there are
dozens of sites like this that are already well-known, and are simply waiting
to be "opened up" when local authorities need some good press and/or a shot of
foreign cash to "protect priceless artefacts". This is, coincidentally, one of
those times. And guess what, surprise surprise, "foreign dignitaries" are
given little tours - I bet a metaphorical hat was passed at the end.

In the end, the question is always how well this stuff can be preserved once
unearthed. In a country like Egypt, even the ground is not safe - once a place
is marked, the risk of illegal digging happening is fairly high. But showering
them with money comes with strings attached (including the chance of large
portions ending up in someone's pocket). Sigh.

~~~
igni
Its likely that the "foreign dignitaries" either paid for the work already (in
exchange for access to research material) or by sponsoring museum tours on
these or other objects.

The majority of digs are done (paid for) by foreign universities, with
oversight and eventual ownership of the items by the Museum of Cairo. Most
foreign digs that I know of are paused, and have been since 2011/2012 - the
ousting of Mubarak. The "season" for excavation limited, and a disruption of a
few years was enough for a heavy uptick in looting.

A lot of important (but less newsworthy) sites are now bare - funding for
security is not limitless, and without even annual oversight very hard to
maintain. Sites of greater value ($ value) are more closely guarded, and
perhaps even less likely to be looted if the Egyptians are leading the dig.

I have no direct sources (and haven't looked), I've only heard secondhand from
my wife who works in a related field.

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jackbravo
What if the tombs and mummification's where ancient attempts at doing
something like current cryonics. And we are just going there, unearthing them,
and not fulfilling our future part of the deal? :-p

~~~
rdtsc
Well mummification involves removing the brain and major internal organs so at
least physically it probably won't work.

I think the goal was to have a good time in the afterlife. And I guess by
disturbing their graves we've prevented that from happening :-) Or, they had
already enjoyed a few millennia there and don't mind the change...

On a serious note it is surprising to see them just let large groups of people
in to touch and snap pictures

~~~
mirimir
They didn't believe in "life after death" like Christians do. After death,
your soul got rigorously tested. And if it passed the tests, you got to the
afterlife. It was actually a lot more complicated, in that they thought that
there seven souls, but whatever.

Bottom line, though, was that survival in the afterlife depended on the
integrity of your mummy. They removed the brain and internal organs because
mummification didn't work, otherwise.

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slurry
4000 years old and it's already the Fifth Dynasty. In another professional
life I was a classicist, and I thought I dealt with old stuff there, but Egypt
is just so impossibly ancient it makes the Greeks look like a bunch of Johnny
Come Latelies. Deep time...

~~~
icxa
Forgetting about the Minonian and Cycladic civilizations? Greek mainland
didn't develop until later, naturally, but it started in the thousands of
little islands, the Aegean archipelago, and the big one, Crete. The Minonians
had established trade routes with the Egyptians during the 5th dynasty, IIRC.
DNA evidence revealed they were there as early as 9000 B.C., with cultural
influence between the Minonians and Egyptians going both ways.

~~~
peter303
Not until there was writing. The Egyptians had writing 5200 years ago compared
to Linear A 3800 years ago.

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jimjimjim
It's great that there is normal interesting archaeology news.

Hopefully the current curse of pseudoarchaelogy crap (looking in your
direction discovery channel) will die out.

It's never aliens.

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martinpw
Can recommend the History of Egypt podcast:

[https://egyptianhistorypodcast.com](https://egyptianhistorypodcast.com)

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nn3
Would be interesting to know how this one escaped the grave robbers.

~~~
animal531
Even today there are still whole pyramids buried in the sand. There's still a
lot to be discovered out there.

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barbecue_sauce
I dislike when articles like this (or any, really) embed images from
Instagram. I have all Facebook domains blocked in my hosts file, so all I ever
get is broken DOM elements.

~~~
dageshi
As opposed to rehosting (stealing?) the picture from its original source? It
is after all an embedded instagram post of the Official Ministry of
antiquities in Egypt showing a shot from inside the site.

~~~
Mirioron
Then perhaps the ministry of antiquities needs to stop using terrible
services.

~~~
dageshi
Of course, the Ministry of Antiquities should stop using the service the rest
of the world finds perfectly acceptable but that 1% of vocal HN'ers are
rabidly opposed too.

~~~
Kuinox
Now we should all forgot about ethics and privacy because almost everyone find
it acceptable, mostly because they doesn't care ?

~~~
chongli
Boycotts rarely work. We'd be better off raising awareness of Facebook's
misdeeds and using that to awareness to build a grass roots campaign for
policy change. In parallel with that, we should be having a discussion about
what sort of legislation would be most effective at curtailing Facebook's (and
everyone else's) bad behaviour.

~~~
Mirioron
Or maybe, people could _choose_ not to use services that don't respect their
privacy if they care about privacy? Surely, that's not expecting too much from
people?

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Zenst
Article title is "Archeologists Discover a Perfectly Preserved 4,000-Year-Old
Tomb in Egypt" \- which I surmise due to some title restriction yielded the
"4k" abbreviation. Let's remember - there are people who depend upon text to
speech. Let's think of them when it comes to abbreviations and how they sound
phonetically when used outside the AV domain.

4000 years ago is also around the earliest estimated age of the Llangernyw Yew
tree
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangernyw_Yew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangernyw_Yew)
One subject in which the abvitiation of years is not recommended, for
phonetics alone.

~~~
chimpburger
"k" is an internationally standardized prefix. Anyone on this site would know
it means 1000.

~~~
Zenst
Agreed that as a unit prefix which is prepended for an abbreviation within the
audience here, it's a bit of a go to. But with the number 4, the connotation
wavers on first sight, even here due to AV biasing at play. Let alone the
phonetic fun that combination yields.

Sorry as I spent most of the day pedanting over UI's and clearly not switched
out of that mode - my bad. Sorry.

