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Egypt holds grand procession of ancient mummies in Cairo
- Ozzie_osman 6y ago> Egypt held a five-mile procession of 22 ancient mummies in Cairo, as they were moved from a museum where they'd been for over a century to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization Saturday night. This is not to be confused with the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is due to open later this year (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Egyptian_Museum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Egyptian_Museum). The GEM's opening has been highly anticipated (and delayed) for years. Actually even a lot of my Egyptian friends thought the mummies were being moved to the GEM.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- henvic 6y agoAwful. Poor people are having tax money stolen from them to move head-of-state mummies... Even long-dead mummies are making people's lives miserable, lol.
- CaptainJustin 6y agoI would normally agree with a statement along these lines. However I would like to think that this came out of the marketing budget for the tourism sector. I bet tourism is significant to Egypt's economy. Then I think the question becomes: Was this an effective marketing event? Who knows. But considering someone from South Africa is discussing it with someone in the Netherlands on HN perhaps it worked out.
- inglor_cz 6y agoAbsolutely. We do not normally discuss Egypt here in CZ, but this video is spreading virally across the social networks. The post-Covid summer is inching closer and there is a lot of pent-up demand for tourism and discovery of new places. I bet some people are not going to forget this show.
- egeozcan 6y ago> The post-Covid summer is inching closer Where I'm living (Germany), this sounds like fantasy.
- inglor_cz 6y agoThere is a good chance that by August we will be over 50 % vaccinated and there will be a late vacation season.
- morelisp 6y agoIf true, I should definitely have left Berlin for Prague a couple years ago...
- inglor_cz 6y agoCzech coronavirus response was a rollercoaster. We were the best in spring 2020. Then came the summer respite and the government started resting on their laurels. Then came the menacing autumn and an absolutely disastrous winter, when we actually were the worst in the world. If the USA had the same mortality as we have, it would have over 800 000 deaths by now. Now the disease is falling off again in lockdown, but really fast, faster than expected (people are lukewarm about the rules). There is some suspicion that the British variant simply swept through the nation so hard that, even with the subpar vaccination campaign, we have reached the herd immunity inadvertently. Clearly some of the regions that were worst hit just a month or two ago (Chebsko, Trutnovsko) are now doing OK, which seems to indicate lack of fuel for further infections there.
- wl 6y agoThe Cairo Museum was not built intelligently or well and was falling apart even a century ago. Much priceless material culture was destroyed in basement flooding in the years before the Nile was dammed. John D. Rockefeller Jr. even offered to replace it in the 1920s, redirecting his funds to Jerusalem after politics and the control he demanded torpedoed the project. The mummies should have been moved to a more appropriate location long ago. I don't begrudge the Egyptian state a little bit of pomp and glitter as they do what they should have done long ago.
- masterphilo 6y agoWhy is celebrating one of the oldest civilizations in human history, their own nation's history, considered "awful"? I thought the whole thing looked beautiful. I hope to visit someday when the area is fully developed. I suspect your complaint was targeted at Sisi's management of the country, in which case this is a complete aside.
- frosted-flakes 6y agohenvic's comment was clearly said in jest.
- xkeysc0re 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- frosted-flakes 6y agoDid you miss the "lol"?
- masterphilo 6y agoThanks. I guess years of browsing HN have made me immune to the significance of the lolz.
- yk 6y agoFunny enough, Herodotus reports in 500 BCE that that is pretty much how Egyptians felt at the time about the pyramids. [Edit:] Corrected 1000 year off typo...
- inglor_cz 6y agoA celebration of a pre-Islamic civilization like that must be very, very offensive to the local Salafists. (Let them gnash their teeth and let us hope they won't be able to generate an Egyptian equivalent of Khomeini. The last Persian Shah liked to celebrate ancient pre-Islamic history of Persia as well, culminating with the great international party in the ruins of Persepolis.)
- Ozzie_osman 6y agoNot that I agree with Salafists at all, but it's odd that many people's reaction to this is to mention them. To a large degree, local so-called Salafists (at least the politicized ones) have been largely silenced, imprisoned, and otherwise "dealt with" since 2013.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoGood.
- Ozzie_osman 6y agoPeople have been imprisoned, tortured physically and mentally, and killed for being part of (or just being accused of being a part of) certain religious/political groups. I find it hard to say "good" about that, even if I disagree with the group they are a part of.
- TheMblabla 6y agoIs this a cosplay account? the real Henry kissinger probably would be in favor of political prisoners.
- yk 6y agoConsidering there was a US backed coup, I have a hunch considering Kissingers realpolitik in this case.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
- avl999 6y agoIt's like we haven't learned anything from horror movies.
- systemvoltage 6y agoEgypt is being puppeted by China, vast amounts of money is being poured in to elevate its image, culture and eliminate poverty in return of the massive surveillance state and iron grip from unpayable loans. Checkout the "New Administration Capital". All digital currency, everyone is watched and monitored. Even the name is straight up unapologetically dystopian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Administrative_Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Administrative_Capital
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- simlevesque 6y ago> The new capital of Egypt is yet to be given a name. Did you read your link? You are talking about it's "dystopian name" but it's a placeholder, which every project has at some point. Sounds like fearmongering.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- masterphilo 6y ago> Egypt is being puppeted by China Sources? And depending on your definition of "puppeted", it looks like pretty much everyone on the world stage is "puppeted" by China.
- systemvoltage 6y agoThere are plenty of sources if you search for it: https://www.reuters.com/article/egypt-china-financing-idUSL5N11D1W720150907 https://www.reuters.com/article/egypt-china-financing-idUSL5...
- xenihn 6y agoI mean, yes, but that's not a bad thing. We aren't going to be able to stop catastrophic climate change without authoritarianism.
- Ozzie_osman 6y ago(Posting as top level since this is getting discussed in several sub threads) I'm Egyptian (though haven't lived there in over a decade) . Many of us loved this display. We are proud of our heritage and proud that the world can see and appreciate it the way we do. That said, many of us also have qualms about the local politics and the authoritarian way the country is being run. It's possible to both appreciate this display and be critical of the politics. It's not easy because the figureheads of those politics were so heavily involved here. Good on them for at least doing this piece well.
- thisisauserid 6y agoUsing the word "heritage" seems odd here. Would anyone who moved to into this land qualify as inheritors?
- EdwardDiego 6y agoI'm a Pakeha Kiwi and proud of the Māori heritage of our country, even though it's not my direct heritage.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoI imagine there's like a 99% chance the poster is related to every mummy shown, both because it's been millennia and Egyptian nobility surely married throughout what became Persia.
- oytis 6y agoEgyptian nobility was largely inbred (and modern Egypt population is Arab, not Persian anyway).
- boomboomsubban 6y agoEgyptian nobility went on for millennia, "largely inbred" would still involve thousands of outside marriages. I was referring to the Persian Empires, which included large parts of the Arabian Peninsula.
- mc32 6y agoLooks like most people are enthusiastic about this parade as they should be... However I can’t shake off the Genesis melody “The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging” as I read about it.
- xenihn 6y agothe golden mummies make a statement
- notananthem 6y agoInteresting choice of only using light skinned actors, and hiding working class neighborhoods. Sounds like they're taking tips from the best in the game, good ol' USA.
- lionkor 6y ago> light skinned actors they're egyptians, i dont really see the issue?
- notananthem 6y agoWhy is there a lot of anti-Islamic sentiment on HNN? The article doesn't even mention it but people are grasping at straws to attack it.
- sneak 6y agoTo answer your question literally and directly: because a lot of HN users are Americans, and there is a lot of anti-islamic sentiment in the USA in general. It is widely seen as acceptable in the US.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar on top of religious flamewar. I do not believe that your assumption that such comments come more from the US than from other countries is true. I just checked a bunch of examples of comments that I've scolded over the years for this reason, and roughly 50% were from the US (maybe less—I lost count at one point). This is similar to the distribution of HN users overall.
- sneak 6y agoUnderstood. (And thanks for the data!)
- tediousdemise 6y agoI don’t think it’s just Anti-Islam, but anti-organized religion sentiment in general. These sentiments aren’t unfounded, either. Look deep within the pages of the Quran, the Bible or the Torah and you’ll find many examples of horrible and abusive human behavior. Behavior that would certainly not meet the HN Guidelines.
- nethunters 6y agoThese sentiments are generally without an understanding of the historical context and from taking sloppily translated texts to skew the meaning. Just search in HN for Islam, Christianity, Quran, Torah or Bible and you will find people copypasting these mistranslated and misunderstood texts in comments feeling like they're the biggest scholars of the century. Sure, actual academic discussions are fine with substance and evidences to support them where the author has put some effort in and has an actual understanding of the subject matter. But instead there is an attitude of oh I'll Google for something and copy paste it.
- thamer 6y agoI went to Egypt in 2012 and visited the Royal Mummy Room in the Egyptian Museum, it was unforgettable and one of the top highlights of my trip. I had seen mummies before at the Louvre in Paris and at the British Museum in London, but this was on a whole other level. It was a small climate-controlled room where you could see the unwrapped mummies from a few inches away. Most are incredibly well-preserved and you can clearly recognize the similarities between family members, with distinct traits still perfectly recognizable after over 3,000 years. It was an incredible experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone who gets the opportunity to visit, once we can actually travel again. It's worth hiring an accredited guide (as opposed to someone you meet at random), they're very knowledgeable and speak English well.
- peter303 6y agoRamses II was one of the greatest Kings in human history, ranking with Alexander, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. He lived to 94 years old ruling at least 67 years. He built a huge number of monuments. He had at least 52 sons with a special tomb complex for them (just beginning to be excavated). He is thought to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, but there is little supporting evidence. His mummy is very impressive. Appears totally regal and in command. I felt in the presence of a great man when I saw it.
- peter303 6y agoA coincidence was that it was on same day as the traditional showing of the Ten Commandments movie on Easter Saturday. Two of the Kings Seti I and Ramses II are depicted in the that movie.