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> the French government estimates the current rate of removal will clear the battlefields between 300 and 900 years from now If it ends up taking until the upp

> the French government estimates the current rate of removal will clear the battlefields between 300 and 900 years from now If it ends up taking until the upper end of their estimate, casualties from WW1 could span an entire millennium.

Razengan 10y ago
Suddenly, all those science-fiction/fantasy stories seem plausible now, about ancient weapons, traps and guardians staying lethally functional for thousands of years..
- jqgatsby 10y ago
  Terry Brooks!
- speeder 10y ago
  Many of these stories became popular because of the Egypt archeology. Many of the early "acheologists" (they were more like tomb raiders, invading egyptian tombs, stealing the contents, and shipping to Europe) died of misterious diseases, or got mad in some way, it is where the "cursed pyramid" trope came from. Recently it was found out that the culprit for these, was mostly fungus, the fungus locked inside those places over thousands of years, would slowly fill the air with toxic stuff, that then would poison anyone breaking in, with effects ranging from poison-related death/disease, to poison-related brain damage (thus, madness). Also, losing technology and weapons is not new, India Oral tradition has tales that scientists estimate they were already "mythical" 6000 years ago, and they talk about "giant metal arrows that create pillars of fire and light", "air chariots that shoot other air chariots with light" and "air chariots that fire arrows that follow heat" Or Atlantis, that was already mythical in ancient Greece (what we know of Atlantis, is about ancient greeks writing about the Atlantis myth... so to them, Atlantis was already a mythical thing). And of course, people would always stumble into random crap left behind by earlier generations. For example recently something puzzled many historians, when in germany archeologists found a bronze-age battlefield with traces of having people from all countries in Europe (something kinda bizarre, since until then bronze-age was considered mostly isolationist), with signs of a large scale battle (bizarre because historians thought the population to be too small then, for that happen), and lots of signs of civilisation (advanced clothing and weaponry, including signs of that the soldiers involved were some kind of special forces, having expensive clothes and weapons, multiple scars on their bones, and yet were very strong and healthy). Or another interesting one, here on HN someone shared recently about the people found dead on tar pits are frequently murdered, not just died there stuck, and research matched ancient roman legends (To the romans, it was a legend already), about how they heard that ancient countries threw prostitutes, adulterers, enemy nobility, and other undesired people into the tar, instead of giving them normal execution and burial.
  - capnrefsmmat 10y ago
    Do you have a link to details on the fungus theory? I haven't heard it before, but it sounds like a fascinating medical mystery.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      It's a theory although it seems that most experts are skeptical: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_mummycurse.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_...
    - nnq 10y ago
      Was a strain of Aspergilus Niger - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_mummycurse.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_.... Same kind of mold you find in your kitchen on forgotten fruit, but probably this strain was different enough from ones Europeans had exposure and immunity to that it killed a few mildly immunodepressed explorers and a tourist. I remember even a documentary about some of it... kind of boring though. Ancient Indian mythology is creepy as fuck though, got to agree - they even mention units of time of sizes like 8.64 billion human years and longer mentioned in scriptures more than 2000 years old... I mean, I imagine they got to that by playing with exponentiation and logarithms for the first time while trippin' on some 'shrooms... but that's still a good creepy basis for some alternate history tales :)
  - ak217 10y ago
    > India Oral tradition has tales that scientists estimate they were already "mythical" 6000 years ago, and they talk about "giant metal arrows that create pillars of fire and light", "air chariots that shoot other air chariots with light" and "air chariots that fire arrows that follow heat" Do you have a source?
    - KumarAseem 10y ago
      If you can, then read the vedas, the upanishads, ramayana, mahabharata (bhagvad gita) and other texts which do mention such weapons.

Razengan 10y ago

Suddenly, all those science-fiction/fantasy stories seem plausible now, about ancient weapons, traps and guardians staying lethally functional for thousands of years..

jqgatsby 10y ago
Terry Brooks!
speeder 10y ago
Many of these stories became popular because of the Egypt archeology. Many of the early "acheologists" (they were more like tomb raiders, invading egyptian tombs, stealing the contents, and shipping to Europe) died of misterious diseases, or got mad in some way, it is where the "cursed pyramid" trope came from. Recently it was found out that the culprit for these, was mostly fungus, the fungus locked inside those places over thousands of years, would slowly fill the air with toxic stuff, that then would poison anyone breaking in, with effects ranging from poison-related death/disease, to poison-related brain damage (thus, madness). Also, losing technology and weapons is not new, India Oral tradition has tales that scientists estimate they were already "mythical" 6000 years ago, and they talk about "giant metal arrows that create pillars of fire and light", "air chariots that shoot other air chariots with light" and "air chariots that fire arrows that follow heat" Or Atlantis, that was already mythical in ancient Greece (what we know of Atlantis, is about ancient greeks writing about the Atlantis myth... so to them, Atlantis was already a mythical thing). And of course, people would always stumble into random crap left behind by earlier generations. For example recently something puzzled many historians, when in germany archeologists found a bronze-age battlefield with traces of having people from all countries in Europe (something kinda bizarre, since until then bronze-age was considered mostly isolationist), with signs of a large scale battle (bizarre because historians thought the population to be too small then, for that happen), and lots of signs of civilisation (advanced clothing and weaponry, including signs of that the soldiers involved were some kind of special forces, having expensive clothes and weapons, multiple scars on their bones, and yet were very strong and healthy). Or another interesting one, here on HN someone shared recently about the people found dead on tar pits are frequently murdered, not just died there stuck, and research matched ancient roman legends (To the romans, it was a legend already), about how they heard that ancient countries threw prostitutes, adulterers, enemy nobility, and other undesired people into the tar, instead of giving them normal execution and burial.
- capnrefsmmat 10y ago
  Do you have a link to details on the fungus theory? I haven't heard it before, but it sounds like a fascinating medical mystery.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    It's a theory although it seems that most experts are skeptical: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_mummycurse.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_...
  - nnq 10y ago
    Was a strain of Aspergilus Niger - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_mummycurse.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_.... Same kind of mold you find in your kitchen on forgotten fruit, but probably this strain was different enough from ones Europeans had exposure and immunity to that it killed a few mildly immunodepressed explorers and a tourist. I remember even a documentary about some of it... kind of boring though. Ancient Indian mythology is creepy as fuck though, got to agree - they even mention units of time of sizes like 8.64 billion human years and longer mentioned in scriptures more than 2000 years old... I mean, I imagine they got to that by playing with exponentiation and logarithms for the first time while trippin' on some 'shrooms... but that's still a good creepy basis for some alternate history tales :)
- ak217 10y ago
  > India Oral tradition has tales that scientists estimate they were already "mythical" 6000 years ago, and they talk about "giant metal arrows that create pillars of fire and light", "air chariots that shoot other air chariots with light" and "air chariots that fire arrows that follow heat" Do you have a source?
  - KumarAseem 10y ago
    If you can, then read the vedas, the upanishads, ramayana, mahabharata (bhagvad gita) and other texts which do mention such weapons.