It's no longer your birthday if you've died.

"I see wonderful things" is among my favorite all time quotes. Honestly it makes me tear up a bit.

Did anyone else go to the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in '77? That was pretty spiffy.

/even if it was a 3 hr wait just to get in the goddamned door ~:-|

DamnYankees: "I see wonderful things" is among my favorite all time quotes. Honestly it makes me tear up a bit.

They should have sent a poet.

Why can't they let Grant rest in peace?

gameshowhost: Did anyone else go to the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in '77? That was pretty spiffy.

/even if it was a 3 hr wait just to get in the goddamned door ~:-|

I did! My father worked for a museum, so he got us special VIP passes or something like that. The line to get in went around the block but we got to walk right in. It was kind of awesome. I remember poring over the exhibit book for a long time after we got home. Wish I had saved it. But we also bought Motel of the Mysteries, which I still leaf through occasionally for a chuckle.

zipdog: Yes, because the Egyptians left Tut's tomb alone out of respect for the dead and national antiquities.

Seriously, if Egyptians had found Tut's tomb before Carter then we would not have a single piece from that tomb in any museum.

I'm not sure who or what you're responding to, or what the point of this post was.

gameshowhost: Did anyone else go to the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in '77? That was pretty spiffy.

/even if it was a 3 hr wait just to get in the goddamned door ~:-|

That year my family was taking a cross country road trip and we just happened to be right outside Seattle in the Olympic Rainforest National Park when we heard the exhibit was going to be at a museum in Seattle. I was too young to really be impressed by (7) it so I chose to stay behind at the campground with my mom and 4 year old sister while my four older siblings went with my dad to go see it. The rainforest was a lovely 78 degrees that day and the river cool and wonderful to swim in. Seattle hit 103 that day and the line to enter the museum was 3 1/2 hours long.

I have no doubt I chose the better option, even as much of a history geek as I turned out to be since.

hydroplane: subbys comment infering that Carter was a grave robber

I think you're reading too much into the headline.

DamnYankees: zipdog: Yes, because the Egyptians left Tut's tomb alone out of respect for the dead and national antiquities.

Seriously, if Egyptians had found Tut's tomb before Carter then we would not have a single piece from that tomb in any museum.

I'm not sure who or what you're responding to, or what the point of this post was.

I think he's offering a facetious response to those who criticize the British for collecting antiquities from places under their control at the time and putting them in museums. Many of those people get all foamy and bent and scream that their ancestral stuff be returned out of respect for the dead. Now, I can see that with the Maori pieces and parts taken from New Zealand since you have direct descendants of those people living there today. Not sure how much of who is in Egypt today is kin to who lived there 3000 years ago, what with yer invasions and occupations and migrations and whatnot. I think he's also suggesting the fight is less about respect for the dead and more about the right to exploit the Interesting Stuff found within one's borders. With some good ol' cloud yelling thrown in.

hydroplane: DamnYankees: zipdog: Yes, because the Egyptians left Tut's tomb alone out of respect for the dead and national antiquities.

Seriously, if Egyptians had found Tut's tomb before Carter then we would not have a single piece from that tomb in any museum.

I'm not sure who or what you're responding to, or what the point of this post was.

its obviously a response to subbys comment infering that Carter was a grave robber. If this wealth of culture was found by modern Egyptians it would have at best been on the black market and at worst completely destroyed by the religion of pieces

I've always thought tere must be a serious back story to the fact that King Tut-a very minor and short-lived ruler in the grand scheme of things- was the ONLY intact tomb we've ever found.

I've always had the theory that most tombs were probably robbed almost immediately after completion, either by the Pharoh's heirs (Could they really afford to drain the national treasury every time a king died?) or perhaps the Temple priests or maybe the Tomb-building clans themeselves. The idea that common Eyptians would rob them beggars belief simply because even if they could overcome the taboos associated with such an act, how the fark would they be able to fence any of it? It was all embossed with the Pharoh's cartouche so it's origin wouldn't be much of a mystery.

I have to think key to the anamoly of Tut's tomb being undespoiled has to involve the nexus of the fact that he was very likely murdered, that his death set off a sucession crisis, and the fact that Egypt was still in upheaval over his dad's "civil war" against the priests of the Ra and Amun cults. It's always seemed that Tut was rather hastily buried in atomb meant for somebody else. I wonder if that and the dynastic intrigues caused everyone to be too busy fighting each other to remmeber to loot his tomb?

Magorn: I've always thought tere must be a serious back story to the fact that King Tut-a very minor and short-lived ruler in the grand scheme of things- was the ONLY intact tomb we've ever found.

He may have been short-lived, but his father is among the most famous and weird Pharoahs, so maybe his membership in that cult had something to do with it? Hard to say. This could also simply be a weak anthropic thing - no matter who's tomb we found intact, we'd assume it was weird that was the particular one we happened to find, so we would build a story around it.

Magorn: The idea that common Eyptians would rob them beggars belief simply because even if they could overcome the taboos associated with such an act, how the fark would they be able to fence any of it? It was all embossed with the Pharoh's cartouche so it's origin wouldn't be much of a mystery.

The gold could be melted down, and the precious stones pried out. Wooden and other objects could have the cartouche defaced to be unreadable, and in any event, most Egyptians of the time were likely illiterate anyway. As always, the stupid ones would get caught, and the smart ones would get away with it so long as they didn't make any major mistakes.

DirtyDeadGhostofEbenezerCooke: Archaeology is a lazy, corrupt endeavor that focuses far too much on burial mounds of kings rather than searching for evidence of the lives and practices of the entire people . whorehouse where the revolutionary ideals of your forefathers are corrupted and sold in alleys by vendors of capitalism...

FTFY.

I'm goin' nowhere.

Unfortunately.

cool. Totally posted in the wrong thread.

DirtyDeadGhostofEbenezerCooke Smartest
Funniest
2012-05-09 12:53:11 PM


Lipspinach: DirtyDeadGhostofEbenezerCooke: zipdog: DamnYankees: zipdog: Yes, because the Egyptians left Tut's tomb alone out of respect for the dead and national antiquities.

Seriously, if Egyptians had found Tut's tomb before Carter then we would not have a single piece from that tomb in any museum.

I'm not sure who or what you're responding to, or what the point of this post was.

I'm yelling at the clouds, dammit.

Fark museums. Grave-robbing is grave-robbing. If you want to learn about past cultures, go dig up a town or a farm instead of looting a crypt. If finding and digging up towns or farms is too hard or expensive, tough shiat. Do without.

What you call grave-robbing almost everybody else calls archaeology.
Or are you a Tut troll?

Archaeology is a lazy, corrupt endeavor that focuses far too much on burial mounds of kings rather than searching for evidence of the lives and practices of the entire people. King Tut's tomb is no more representative of Late Bronze Age Egyptian life and culture than a Russian gangster's tiny giraffe is of today.

But a lot of these cultures put a lot of effort into the worship and burial of the dead including building crypts. So isn't much of the knowledge we know of Egyptians and other civilizations from that time period due to excavating their tombs?

I would assume that the only markers left by certain stone age and bronze age cultures is the tombs of their leaders. So, it would be the only source of knowledge or information on them. I dunno. I admit I'm not an archaeologist.

chard: DamnYankees: Magorn: I've always thought tere must be a serious back story to the fact that King Tut-a very minor and short-lived ruler in the grand scheme of things- was the ONLY intact tomb we've ever found.

He may have been short-lived, but his father is among the most famous and weird Pharoahs, so maybe his membership in that cult had something to do with it? Hard to say. This could also simply be a weak anthropic thing - no matter who's tomb we found intact, we'd assume it was weird that was the particular one we happened to find, so we would build a story around it.

IANAE, but I have a passing recollection that Tut's tomb was under or very near the tomb of another, later ruler whose name I forget, so that the sand / debris from that tomb basically went over the entrance to the tomb, masking it from potential grave robbers. That said, I think I read this in my "egypt is so awesome" phase about every 8 year old has, so who knows if it's right.

Was it the same sandstorm that buried the entire city of Tanis?

Howard Carter?

I thought it was the 138th anniversary of John Carter's birth. (Ha! Ha! Gotcha! Nitpickers!)

Really. I hovered over the Google Doodle last night, late. I guess I wasn't paying much attention by then.

I always found it interesting how the Famous Curse of the Mummy's Tomb managed to follow members of the expedition around for twenty or thirty years, killing them in their beds, some at very advanced ages. Persistent feckers, those Mummy Curses. Of course, that was Ray's Original Famous Curse of the Mummy's Tomb and not the Original Ray's Famous Curse of the Mummy's Tomb. Accept no substitutes. Although some of the Mummy movie ripoffs are quite good, even without Boris Karloff, although he is of course, the best, better than all the rest of the Mummies combined.

brantgoose: [upload.wikimedia.org image 350x475]
Joyeux anniversaire de la naissance de John Carter!

Am I doing this right?

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The book about his sister was more interesting