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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.
Its also amazing how grave robbers seem to find all the good stuff before the archeologists.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
It would be extremely interesting if a jar of ancient human semen were to be discovered.
With our modern techniques, we may be able to extract viable DNA from said sperm, and use it to fertilize an egg from a woman today.
While the ethics of doing so could be debated forever without a definitive conclusion, from strictly a scientific standpoint it would prove invaluable. We'd be able to directly analyze an individual who is, in essence, four millennia old. The immune system of this person would potentially be drastically different from ours today, so the research here would be particularly enlightening.
Probably just the sheer number of (semi) important people who would have died over the time period of the pyramids and merited a fancy burial.
Back in February they found a new tomb which is literally something like 45 feet from the tomb of Tut -- the first undisturbed find since Tut's tomb. I was watching a show last night on Discovery about the recovery/perservation efforts. They seem to think it was either his mother or his wife based on the evidence.
I don't know how they arrive at 30%, but it's probably based on the number of tombs they would expect vs the number that have been documented as having been found.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Yet Native American remnants - while not specifically tied to any particular individual - are accepted as cultural heritage and thus belong to the respective tribes. Why is this any different?"
In the US if you own the land, you own the sub-terranean rights (within limits). e.g. If you find a gold mine under your home, the gold is yours. As for the Native American artifacs - that's a special provision like gambling on their reserves. So as not to add insult to injury, there have been attempts made to "do the right thing" now that we've already chased them off land that was once theirs. Many Native American can trace their ancestery back to a particular tribe and it's a much more clear picture that they, as a group, should inherit tribal property.
As for Ancient Egypt - Even their enemies are long gone... The thousands of years in between do make a difference. The citizens of modern day Egypt are neither cultural hiers nor literal hiers ancient Egypt more so than any other people in the region.
While Egypt, as a sovereign nation, is certainly free to make reasonable propery laws and enforce them, and they should be followed by their citizens and guests in their country... I can see why others would consider it finders-keepers.
--Aaron Greenberg
So, I have a question. Not an archaeologist, nor a seismologist, nor anything else. Layman here.
But don't they have the means now to map things which lie below the surface? I believe I've heard or read that they have satellites that can do that to some extent now. Also, I saw a show on the Discovery Channel where they planted small charges in a grid pattern in some Greek island while looking for the origin of the Atlantis myth, detonated them, and then created an image based on how well sound propagated through subsoil strata.
If that's so, then why can't they do something like that in the Nile river valley? Surely it's gotta be cheaper and faster and safer to uncover the past that way than to dig randomly or wait for a bunch of grave-robbing turkeys to make finds first.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
If you take something out of a tomb, whether to
sell it, or display it in a museum, it's still
grave robbery.
My Heart Is A Flower