Ptah is the Egyptian god of creation and design, for any creatives or designers out there looking for a deity
mistrial9 37 days ago [-]
"It was brought back (to England) as ballast" !!?!
great link
ricardobeat 37 days ago [-]
Headline: mysterious golden tongues
First paragraph: the idea behind the golden tongues was that they would help the deceased speak in the afterlife
courseofaction 38 days ago [-]
Interesting, but ambivalent if removing them in the name of science is any more valid than removing them to sell? I'm not sure the occupants would make the distinction .
tempodox 38 days ago [-]
Once the tombs have been discovered, how long until regular grave robbers make their appearance to “take care” of them? At least this way the finds are open to scientific examination instead of being molten down and sold for profit.
halosghost 38 days ago [-]
I've never quite understood how it is so easy for people to rationalize this thought-process: “<X := some motivation assumed to be widely shared like greed> means that someone will <Y := do some morally-questionable to morally-unacceptable act>;” therefore, if the speaker's motivation is even arguably less bad than X, it somehow justifies the speaker doing exactly Y first.
Recovering artifacts “for science” almost never benefits humanity in the short-term (and it's questionable if the average case fares better over the long-term). More often than not over our history, it has involved desecration and has enabled essentialism, and serves to benefit private collectors more than any other party (frequently to the exclusion of scientists).
Maybe the energy used to “get there first” would be better put towards making sure the burial remains are respected, or at least ensuring that whatever descendants remain are given legal stewardship.
All the best,
spiderice 37 days ago [-]
> it somehow justifies the speaker doing exactly Y first.
I think you have a difficult time understanding it because you're equating two things that aren't equal. They aren't doing "exactly Y" if Y is "robbing a grave purely for personal profit without consulting with anyone else first". There is a difference between grave robbing and getting permits from governments, researching, displaying findings in a way that benefits others, etc.. The fact that there is an article in popular mechanics about this means that it isn't "exactly Y".
Cpoll 38 days ago [-]
> Whatever descendants remain are given legal stewardship.
After 2000 years, those mummies either have too many descendants to count, or none at all.
sandworm101 38 days ago [-]
Early egyptology wasnt about science. Ancient egypt was backdrop to many stories from the bible. Historians were looking to learn more about those events from a literate culture that lived alongside them. They were hoping to confirm or elaborate upon christianity. Only later, after almost zero mention was found, did egyptology evolve away from being a religious mission.
sandworm101 38 days ago [-]
Mummies scientifically preserved in museums and visited by hordes of people from all over the world. Scientists and historians trying to learn about thier lives, even trying to rediscover thier words. The pharaohs might appreciate the effort. They didnt biuld such elaborate funeral structures to be forgotten.
dole 38 days ago [-]
Growing up in a mid-sized midwestern city with an art museum and resident mummy, the mummy and room of Egyptian artifacts was honestly one of the most exciting and main reasons for going to the museum besides the rest of the art. Hopefully they would see the Memphis Bass Pro as tribute.
drawkward 38 days ago [-]
Well, they are dead, so probably the "occupants" have no feelings about it. Should we be concerned with how rocks feel too?
sircastor 38 days ago [-]
My wife and I have had conversations about exhuming human remains in pursuit of science a number of times, and I haven't quite been able to settle on when or why it is or is not appropriate. In a personal context - it seems a violation of one's own choices (granted that those choices might not be one's own). But the scientific community doesn't seem overly concerned with that - and the learning opportunities are significant to me.
Does anyone else have these ambiguous uncertainties about this kind of stuff?
bitcurious 38 days ago [-]
Some ways one could approach it:
Religious: the body is connected to a spirit and should be protected.
Familial: the body is scared to individuals who knew the person.
Cultural:; the body represents a current people, and to exhume it makes them feel dehumanized.
Legal: the body is property and property rights are to be respected.
Seems like with ancient Egyptian mummies none of those are relevant. The modern Egyptians have moved on from the old faiths, none trace their lineage to those mummies, culturally they are proud of them, legally there has been too much churn for the old claims to be relevant.
CamperBob2 37 days ago [-]
A more-general question is whether archaeology should be done at all. Some have argued that future imaging technologies will render it completely unnecessary to dig and displace artifacts, and that future archaeologists and anthropologists will curse us for trashing untold volumes of evidence because we couldn't stand to wait.
I don't really buy that, especially in the absence of any clues regarding what these magical 'future imaging technologies' might turn out to be, but it's an interesting argument to consider. It would certainly have applied many decades ago, and if we say it doesn't apply now, then where was the cutoff?
jl6 38 days ago [-]
It might be that thousands of years is enough time that your body and everything about you has fully passed beyond any claim you ever had on it and now belongs to the world at large.
"When there's a literal curse protecting the body" might be a good start.
drooby 38 days ago [-]
I think you might be talking about a "body farm"
There are many organizations and universities that perform similar research. I.e forensic anthropology
Muromec 38 days ago [-]
Charles Stross has a book about it. The time will be right very soon again
momento 38 days ago [-]
Looks like Reddit is leaking into HN again.
Muromec 37 days ago [-]
I think there is a certain affinity between working for YC funded company and enjoying the Laundry Files series and more here compared to the great proletariat gathering
ceejayoz 37 days ago [-]
Stross posts here fairly regularly.
Mistletoe 38 days ago [-]
Why will the time be right very soon again? I’m googling for more info and the top result is your comment.
ceejayoz 38 days ago [-]
Stross's Laundry Files series covers a government agency working to prevent eldritch incursions caused by the rise of readily available computation. Lovecraft, with a big touch of common tropes parody and early 2000s IT humor.
Mistletoe 38 days ago [-]
What does it have to do with golden mummy tongues though?
ceejayoz 38 days ago [-]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyarlathotep shows up in a significant role, as do nasty replacement tongues, among other things. As do space Nazis, elves, vampires and the like.
neom 38 days ago [-]
As a side note, it's crazy how fast HN comments get into google search results these days.
romanhn 38 days ago [-]
Not just Google. A couple weeks back I saw pretty strong evidence of OpenAI ingesting an HN comment of mine and regurgitating it in ChatGPT within 10-15 minutes of posting.
I asked Deep Research why your comment appeared in it's training data, and it said it doesn't generally have near real time data in it's responses unless it's conducting a real time web search. It thinks it found the answer from pulling together and combining these sources: https://www.animatsiya.net/films.php?search=%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%... + https://ask.metafilter.com/182144/Whats-this-cartoon-with-a-... + https://www.city-data.com/forum/tv/2017670-dies-anyone-remem... - however it also said it has been trained on youtube comments generally and it's hard to know how many uploads might exist with comments referencing the time stamp, as well as forums that have been included in it's training data that are not indexed by google, but that it itself didn't think it was coming from HN. Who knows. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
romanhn 37 days ago [-]
The suspicious part is that ChatGPT did not have any kind of answer when the parent poster checked before posting. Yet soon after my reply it suddenly not only had the answer, but also used many of the same words and had the exact same timestamp. A little too close to be a coincidence, IMO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabaka_Stone
great link
First paragraph: the idea behind the golden tongues was that they would help the deceased speak in the afterlife
Recovering artifacts “for science” almost never benefits humanity in the short-term (and it's questionable if the average case fares better over the long-term). More often than not over our history, it has involved desecration and has enabled essentialism, and serves to benefit private collectors more than any other party (frequently to the exclusion of scientists).
Maybe the energy used to “get there first” would be better put towards making sure the burial remains are respected, or at least ensuring that whatever descendants remain are given legal stewardship.
All the best,
I think you have a difficult time understanding it because you're equating two things that aren't equal. They aren't doing "exactly Y" if Y is "robbing a grave purely for personal profit without consulting with anyone else first". There is a difference between grave robbing and getting permits from governments, researching, displaying findings in a way that benefits others, etc.. The fact that there is an article in popular mechanics about this means that it isn't "exactly Y".
After 2000 years, those mummies either have too many descendants to count, or none at all.
Does anyone else have these ambiguous uncertainties about this kind of stuff?
Religious: the body is connected to a spirit and should be protected.
Familial: the body is scared to individuals who knew the person.
Cultural:; the body represents a current people, and to exhume it makes them feel dehumanized.
Legal: the body is property and property rights are to be respected.
Seems like with ancient Egyptian mummies none of those are relevant. The modern Egyptians have moved on from the old faiths, none trace their lineage to those mummies, culturally they are proud of them, legally there has been too much churn for the old claims to be relevant.
I don't really buy that, especially in the absence of any clues regarding what these magical 'future imaging technologies' might turn out to be, but it's an interesting argument to consider. It would certainly have applied many decades ago, and if we say it doesn't apply now, then where was the cutoff?
https://www.chefsresource.com/why-did-victorians-eat-mummies...
There are many organizations and universities that perform similar research. I.e forensic anthropology
This is the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42649774