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Thieves Find Cemetery of Pharaoh's Dentists
junglee_iitk writes with news of an important archaeological find from Egypt. Grave robbers located a tomb and were arrested while digging; what they found turns out to be the graves of three dentists who took care of a Pharaoh's teeth. The graves are located in the shadow of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, said to be Egypt's oldest, and are around 4,000 years old. From the article: "Although archaeologists have been exploring Egypt's ruins intensively for more than 150 years, [a senior archaeologist] believes only 30 percent of what lies hidden beneath the sands has been uncovered." Yahoo has a few pictures of the dig.
There is a difference? The greatest discoveries in egypt were by "expert" grave robbers. E Wallis Budge (translator of the Dover edition Egyptian Book of the Dead) for example was one of the greatiest "aquisition agents" the British Museum ever deployed. Howard Carter of Tutankhamen fame was working for Lord Carnarvon on a private dig, not for a musem. The only difference betwene valid scientists in the past and grave robbers was the fancy title, and the better hotel accomodations at the Cairo Hilton..
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
It's not stealing, it's lost property - The original claimants are dead and no records of heredity exist to tie modern individuals to them. While the country claims that these are artifacts that belong to the people, ordinary things that are buried by people who later die are fair game.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"