Egypt's Oldest Pyramid Is Being Destroyed By Its Own Restoration Team

Taffykay writes The oldest pyramid in Egypt, the Pyramid of Djoserat Saqqara, is being destroyed by the very company the Egyptian government has hired to restore it. The roughly 4,600-year-old structure has been in trouble since an earthquake hit the region in 1992, but in a difficult political and economic climate for the country, those now tasked with preserving the pyramid are said to be doing more harm than good.

Comments

Oldest stone complex?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Saqqara, in Egypt, is the oldest stone complex ever built by humans

Uh uh...what does that mean? Even Skara Brae is older, and that definitely qualifies as a "stone complex", unless I got horribly wrong what that means, not to mention the assorted individual older monuments in Europe, the Mediterranean, or Asia Minor.

The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[Chrisq]

Egyptian Muslims have already called for the destruction of the pyramids and the sphinx, juts like the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[AC-x]

That's just a single quote from one extremist, and unlike in Afghanistan he that doesn't have any power in Egypt. Even the ultraconservative Salafist political party only wanted the statues covered, not destroyed.

Suggesting that normal Egyptian Muslims are calling for the destruction of the pyramids is extremely dishonest; It's a bit like linking to a Westboro Baptist protest and claiming "American Christians are calling for the repression of homosexuals".

Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[hairyfeet]

It is how Neil Degrasse Tyson said when talking about how religion can kill progress "The Arab world was the center of science and mathematics for centuries, and then came Islam", you simply cannot compare Islam to any other major religion as the other religions grew up, Islam didn't. When was the last time you heard of Jews stoning rape victims? Read about any Christians chopping the hands off thieves lately? But it wouldn't take me even 5 minutes worth of Googling to wallpaper this page with horror after horror, not only not condemned but condoned by Islamic states.

At the end of the day the other religions went through this centuries ago and that time was rightly called the dark ages, and until Muslims stand up and refuse to accept such atrocities committed in the name of their God all we can do is get as much of history as we can out of their hands and document all that we can't. As we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan anything that doesn't have the name of the prophet on it WILL end up destroyed just as religious leaders during the dark ages took priceless ancient Greek books and reused the pages to make prayer books to their God.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the best thing anybody could ever do for humanity is take every single religious text and destroy them, the evil they cause far outweighs the good.

Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[benjfowler]

That's BS. There are 2.5+ billion Christians in the world. 1.2 billion Muslims.

Getting tired of reading the same old lies and fabricated statistics about Islam being the biggest/fastest growing religion.

Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[Idimmu Xul]

In 1994 there were 23,730 homicides in the USA source.

Isis are responsible for way more than 23,730 deaths source.

Read in to that what you like :)

Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[Amtrak]

Let's not forget that Christians and Muslims are both religions with divergent sects. As such it might be helpful to see the following list:

• Christians (General) 2.5+ Billion
• Catholic Church: 1.2 Billion
• Islam (General): 1.2 Billion
• Sunni Islam: 0.9 Billion
• Protestantism: 0.8 Billion
• Shia Islam: 0.3 Billion
• Eastern Orthodox (Christian): 0.25 Billion
• Other Christian: 0.2 Billion

By that account the Catholic Church is still the biggest religion.

Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam

[Cardoor]

It's a real shame this has been upmodded. Saying 'Egyptian Muslims' have called for the pyramid's destruction, when in fact, it was one egyptian jihadist is like saying "American Christians" call for the eradication of All Non-White Humans just because one ex-con neo-nazi in wisconsin with a youtube channel calls for it. Your statement is inflammatory, bigoted, and shamefully racist.

Secondly, and a bit off-topic - while i find it abhorrent that the taliban destroyed the buddha statues, after spending a lot of time in southeast asia and visiting many buddhist temples (and being very appreciate of the teachings of the buddha), i always find it remarkably paradoxical that all these statues of buddha exist. They are a part of our human cultural history and should be absolutely preserved, but we should learn from the paradox they present. What many people don't know is that (according to the story), before the buddha died, he left a few explicit statements and instructions.. 1) hey y'all... im NOT coming back. don't wait for a second coming. im OUT. 2) DON'T make any statues of me. im not a god. i don't want to be worshipped. seriously. and 3) if you MUST do something.. you can go visit 4 places that i dig.. birthplace, deathplace, where he achieved enlightenment, and the deer park where he gave his first teaching. (ive been to 3 of the 4 fyi).

people just can't help themselves.. we get a genuinely inspired and evolved human being, he leaves instructions, and people twist and distort it to the point it becomes a religion used to manipulate people instead of inspire to evolve. It's a curious thing that all the 'teachers' that came basically said the same thing.. Judaeo/Christian ten commandments.. don't make graven images.... Islam: Don't make images of the Prophet Muhammed.. Buddhism - no statues. Maybe their original message was the same.. not don't do these things or suffer retribution.. but dont do these things because by doing so, you're missing the point. As the saying goes, 'the finger is not the moon.'

lastly, i like to joke that after buddha died, people looked at each other and said "you know.. he DID say no statues... but did he say no GOLDEN or GIANT statues??? obviously he'd be cool with that! huzzah!"

Re:a shame but...

[AC-x]

The pyramids being made by slave labour is something of a myth. There's not much evidence available for early pyramids, but there's plenty of evidence that later pyramids were made by skilled craftsmen and not slaves.

Re:Excellent opportunity...

[ArcadeMan]

Yeah! With blackjack! And hookers!

Mayan temples too

[tomhath]

Many of the early Mayan and Aztec structures in Latin America have been "restored" in the name of tourism to make them more comfortable. Nicer steps, higher doorways, etc. They're not as well known as the Egyptian pyramids but every bit as historically significant.

Re:... all in the name of "Allah"

[omems]

I visited Cairo and Giza in the spring of 2013 and can confirm there were almost no tourists. There are, however, men with machine guns guarding the pyramids and sphynx, as well as the main museum, in addition to metal detectors and visual inspections upon entering these places (though you could enter from the desert and avoid them in the case of Giza). The violence I witnessed wasn't random acts of terror, but civil/political unrest before Morsi got the boot.

Money, including tourism dollars, is very much a motivating factor for the parties involved. I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of the politics, but the locals I talked to reviled Morsi precisely because of his lack of money (and his allegiances). Most visibly, infrastructure and the jobs created in its construction and maintenance, that Mubarak had, was sorely missed.