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Why do we think that it is just fine that we open these tombs? I do have a problem with that attitude. If they had been found 500 years ago, we'd probably have

Why do we think that it is just fine that we open these tombs? I do have a problem with that attitude. If they had been found 500 years ago, we'd probably have almost nothing of real value from a scientific point of view. Are we so much better nowadays that we can allow us to alter the state of the tomb without significantly destroying it?

viach 6y ago
What are the alternatives? As soon as these tombs found you can either open them now or set up 24/7 security around. The latter will be difficult to justify economically.
- liability 6y ago
  "Somebody will loot it, so it may as well be us"? If that's the best we can do, maybe we should stop looking for them in the first place. Let the corpses lay in peace, our modern approach to this lacks dignity.
  - unlaxedneurotic 6y ago
    I think the issue is that someone somewhere is always going to look for it. Robbers have been there for centuries. If they find it first, it's going to end up in the black market. I'm not saying whether its right or wrong. It is just how it is.
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    I'm sure they keep records to return the property, should the next of kin come forward to claim it...
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    It's not really looting it if everything is recorded, carefully studied, and what's learned is made available to the public via museums. Looting would be something smashing in the door to run in and grab a handful of artifacts and or a mummy body part and selling it to a private buyer. Big difference. Maybe it lacks dignity in that it's not what the ancient Egyptians would've preferred for us to do with their remains - but I think it's fair to set some statute of limitations on that kind of thing.
- forgot_account 6y ago
  Triple-strand concertina wire isn't that expensive, put that around the perimeter with a single entry control point. Two guards on shift, 4 hours on/8 hours off, twice per day = 4 bodies. Double that to cut the days worked down to 3-5 per week with some flex capacity, keep people well-rested and alert. A quick search indicates an Egyptian military sergeant earns roughly $220/month, so 8 guys @$250 month = $2000 in wages monthly, and a pretty small outlay for equipment (the concertina wire, some rifles, flashlights, comm gear- radios/cellphones, maybe a tablet to verify access rosters).....Even hooking up some perimeter sensors to a computer workstation and generator power wouldn't be more than a low 5-figure investment. Basic physical security should not be an unreasonable cost burden when there is so much national economic and social interest in preserving Egyptian history.
  - csunbird 6y ago
    A security guard being paid $250 per month will happily give access to anyone offering $5000 to rob the tomb.
    - forgot_account 6y ago
      A fair point on the ease of corrupting private contractors. If anything that suggests the National government should provide security, and bank on the cultural pride/integrity/professionalism of the military to serve as a bullwark (for whatever that is worth). Secondary control measures to reduce corruption risk complicates things but still should explode the budget into the millions or anything.
sho_hn 6y ago
Good question. I read a few books on excavations and discoveries in Egypt over the modern centuries recently, and the quantity and degree of destruction from sheer careless to lack of method is quite staggering. I walked away with the impression that we lost more artifacts than we retained. Archeology eventually invented itself and practitioners got more careful as time went on, but then seeing photos embedded into the article of opening coffins on site ...
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Archeology eventually invented itself Perhaps. It didn't take long. A king of Babylon in the 6th century BC was already sponsoring archaeological research into his legendary predecessor Sargon the Great.
canjobear 6y ago
> Are we so much better nowadays that we can allow us to alter the state of the tomb without significantly destroying it? We’re still not perfect of course, but modern archaeology is extraordinarily careful and meticulous. If we wait for perfect procedures we may be waiting forever.
monadic2 6y ago
Tourism $$$. You can see many other sites that specifically allocate the majority of dig work to the future on the premise that our future technology will better be able to process and preserve our findings. I suspect that tombs in particular are large tourism draws, or can yield attractive museum exhibits.
ekianjo 6y ago
> If they had been found 500 years ago, we'd probably have almost nothing of real value from a scientific point of view. 500 years ago they would have been looted by whoever found them. At least now it follows some kind of process.
downut 6y ago
My understanding is that almost all Egyptian tombs, at least, were looted, as the euphemism goes, "in antiquity". Tutankhamun's being a very big exception. The story I learned while doing deep background for my own trip to Egypt is that "in antiquity" means roughly the next period, usually between dynasties, when religious respect for the centralized royalty passed through lows. So for Egypt, that could be even 4000 years ago. I found this astounding at the time. Egypt has a way of expanding a person's sense of time. I am learning China is sort of the same thing.
hliyan 6y ago
I did a thought experiment: if this were my tomb or a tomb of a loved one, I wouldn't want it disturbed for at least a few hundred years. After that, we become a part of history and I'm okay with archeologists of the distant future using my remains to understand us better.
- frutiger 6y ago
  > if this were my tomb or a tomb of a loved one, I wouldn't want it disturbed for at least a few hundred years A curious position. I use provocative words, not to antagonise but in a probably vain attempt to inspire: Why does the dust your body becomes deserve any special treatment? Was the dust that became the food that some day became you as precious? It is not the dust that gives your life meaning but the glances, the words and the hope you will have given; to people, to ideas, and even to yourself. The wonder of existence is not in the constituent; it is in the arrangement.
thesagan 6y ago
I agree. Most of these tombs are better in the ground, unknown and undiscovered. I understand we can build knowledge from these artifacts, but there may be some unforeseen value in abiding by the benign wishes of ancient peoples. I don't trust modern society to store these artifacts for more than a few hundred years without losing them to war, theft, modification, infrastructure issues, or whatever. The modern world is relatively unpredictable and chaotic compared to the past, in my mortal opinion. That said, it's nice to have some of these out of the ground, for us still living. But pulling up everything we find feels like science-sponsored grave robbing to stock our treasury of knowledge, which is valuable but not holy.
andrewflnr 6y ago
Your question of "are we so much better nowadays" will continue to be true for basically all of time, unless you think archaeology will actually plateau at molecular-scale site recording. That means the choice you offer is not to learn now or later, but to learn from these sites now or never at all.

viach 6y ago

What are the alternatives? As soon as these tombs found you can either open them now or set up 24/7 security around. The latter will be difficult to justify economically.

liability 6y ago
"Somebody will loot it, so it may as well be us"? If that's the best we can do, maybe we should stop looking for them in the first place. Let the corpses lay in peace, our modern approach to this lacks dignity.
- unlaxedneurotic 6y ago
  I think the issue is that someone somewhere is always going to look for it. Robbers have been there for centuries. If they find it first, it's going to end up in the black market. I'm not saying whether its right or wrong. It is just how it is.
- moron4hire 6y ago
  I'm sure they keep records to return the property, should the next of kin come forward to claim it...
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  It's not really looting it if everything is recorded, carefully studied, and what's learned is made available to the public via museums. Looting would be something smashing in the door to run in and grab a handful of artifacts and or a mummy body part and selling it to a private buyer. Big difference. Maybe it lacks dignity in that it's not what the ancient Egyptians would've preferred for us to do with their remains - but I think it's fair to set some statute of limitations on that kind of thing.
forgot_account 6y ago
Triple-strand concertina wire isn't that expensive, put that around the perimeter with a single entry control point. Two guards on shift, 4 hours on/8 hours off, twice per day = 4 bodies. Double that to cut the days worked down to 3-5 per week with some flex capacity, keep people well-rested and alert. A quick search indicates an Egyptian military sergeant earns roughly $220/month, so 8 guys @$250 month = $2000 in wages monthly, and a pretty small outlay for equipment (the concertina wire, some rifles, flashlights, comm gear- radios/cellphones, maybe a tablet to verify access rosters).....Even hooking up some perimeter sensors to a computer workstation and generator power wouldn't be more than a low 5-figure investment. Basic physical security should not be an unreasonable cost burden when there is so much national economic and social interest in preserving Egyptian history.
- csunbird 6y ago
  A security guard being paid $250 per month will happily give access to anyone offering $5000 to rob the tomb.
  - forgot_account 6y ago
    A fair point on the ease of corrupting private contractors. If anything that suggests the National government should provide security, and bank on the cultural pride/integrity/professionalism of the military to serve as a bullwark (for whatever that is worth). Secondary control measures to reduce corruption risk complicates things but still should explode the budget into the millions or anything.

sho_hn 6y ago

Good question. I read a few books on excavations and discoveries in Egypt over the modern centuries recently, and the quantity and degree of destruction from sheer careless to lack of method is quite staggering. I walked away with the impression that we lost more artifacts than we retained. Archeology eventually invented itself and practitioners got more careful as time went on, but then seeing photos embedded into the article of opening coffins on site ...

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Archeology eventually invented itself Perhaps. It didn't take long. A king of Babylon in the 6th century BC was already sponsoring archaeological research into his legendary predecessor Sargon the Great.

canjobear 6y ago

> Are we so much better nowadays that we can allow us to alter the state of the tomb without significantly destroying it? We’re still not perfect of course, but modern archaeology is extraordinarily careful and meticulous. If we wait for perfect procedures we may be waiting forever.

monadic2 6y ago

Tourism $$$. You can see many other sites that specifically allocate the majority of dig work to the future on the premise that our future technology will better be able to process and preserve our findings. I suspect that tombs in particular are large tourism draws, or can yield attractive museum exhibits.

ekianjo 6y ago

> If they had been found 500 years ago, we'd probably have almost nothing of real value from a scientific point of view. 500 years ago they would have been looted by whoever found them. At least now it follows some kind of process.

downut 6y ago

My understanding is that almost all Egyptian tombs, at least, were looted, as the euphemism goes, "in antiquity". Tutankhamun's being a very big exception. The story I learned while doing deep background for my own trip to Egypt is that "in antiquity" means roughly the next period, usually between dynasties, when religious respect for the centralized royalty passed through lows. So for Egypt, that could be even 4000 years ago. I found this astounding at the time. Egypt has a way of expanding a person's sense of time. I am learning China is sort of the same thing.

hliyan 6y ago

I did a thought experiment: if this were my tomb or a tomb of a loved one, I wouldn't want it disturbed for at least a few hundred years. After that, we become a part of history and I'm okay with archeologists of the distant future using my remains to understand us better.

frutiger 6y ago
> if this were my tomb or a tomb of a loved one, I wouldn't want it disturbed for at least a few hundred years A curious position. I use provocative words, not to antagonise but in a probably vain attempt to inspire: Why does the dust your body becomes deserve any special treatment? Was the dust that became the food that some day became you as precious? It is not the dust that gives your life meaning but the glances, the words and the hope you will have given; to people, to ideas, and even to yourself. The wonder of existence is not in the constituent; it is in the arrangement.

thesagan 6y ago

I agree. Most of these tombs are better in the ground, unknown and undiscovered. I understand we can build knowledge from these artifacts, but there may be some unforeseen value in abiding by the benign wishes of ancient peoples. I don't trust modern society to store these artifacts for more than a few hundred years without losing them to war, theft, modification, infrastructure issues, or whatever. The modern world is relatively unpredictable and chaotic compared to the past, in my mortal opinion. That said, it's nice to have some of these out of the ground, for us still living. But pulling up everything we find feels like science-sponsored grave robbing to stock our treasury of knowledge, which is valuable but not holy.

andrewflnr 6y ago

Your question of "are we so much better nowadays" will continue to be true for basically all of time, unless you think archaeology will actually plateau at molecular-scale site recording. That means the choice you offer is not to learn now or later, but to learn from these sites now or never at all.