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>The tombs include 68 from the Buto period that began around 3300 B.C. and five from the Naqada III period, which was just before the emergence of Egypt's first

>The tombs include 68 from the Buto period that began around 3300 B.C. and five from the Naqada III period, which was just before the emergence of Egypt's first dynasty around 3100 B.C., according to a statement from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. This is incredible. When you zoom out of your daily life, zoom out before smartphones, before electricity, before most modern countries exist... there were other civilizations, living daily lives, probably considering many of the same concerns we have today (family, health, work). Just wild.

intergalplan 5y ago
Also, a bunch of stuff that seems super-old actually isn't. There were still lions in the Caucusus until the 10th century... CE, not BCE. A thousand years earlier they lived in Thrace, too. There were still some wooly mammoths alive when the Great Pyramids were being built. Similarly, living history can sometimes reach closer to the modern day than one might appreciate. There were (probably—some of the stories lack documentation) a few people born into legal chattel slavery in the US still alive while Martin Luther King, Jr. was active. The "Old West" and settler/Western Expansion days were still very much in living memory when early western radio serials and films were made, so it's entirely possible (likely, even) that a couple honest-to-god gunslingers (rare though they may have been, and as unlike their film counterparts) or victims/perpetrators of settler/native violence sat down and watched romanticized Westerns on the big screen. Shane is set in 1889 and came out in 1953. Lots of people alive during the fictionalized events of the film were still alive then. At least a few people who fought in or witnessed actual fighting in the Civil War likely watched Keaton's The General in a movie theater, or (more ominously) Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.
- buerkle 5y ago
  Another good one, https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/04/she-was-last-american-collect-civil-war-pension-7313-month-she-just-died/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/04/she-was-la...
- cheriot 5y ago
  I really good one I heard: Harriet Tubman was born into slavery when Thomas Jefferson was alive and died when Ronald Reagan was alive. The American experiment is still young.
  - sewer_bird 5y ago
    This isnt true. She died in 1913.
    - Finnucane 5y ago
      Reagan was born in 1911. So just barely true.
      - sewer_bird 5y ago
        Ah, true: I mentally read “president”
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- davewashere 5y ago
  Wyatt Earp was alive to see himself portrayed in the film Wild Bill Hickok, and he was best friends with the actor who played Hickok.
- lisper 5y ago
  The history of science is mostly recent too. The atomic theory, for example, was still controversial until just a little over 100 years ago. Turing's paper on universal computation and the halting problem was published less than 100 years ago. General relativity is almost exactly 100 years old. Werner Heisenberg died less than 50 years ago. Some of his students are still alive.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  Apparently it was coined by Alger Hiss, but I've seen Jason Kottke use the term "The Great Span" to describe this phenomenon of a small number of generations spanning surprisingly long periods of time. Looking at that tag on kottke.org, the top few results are a Civil War widow dying in 2020, John Tyler (president in 1841) having a living grandson, and a 2020 interview with the son of a formerly enslaved person. Wild stuff. https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Great%20Span https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Great%20Span
  - apotheon 5y ago
    Just for the sake of those who might misunderstand this comment: She wasn't a "Civil War widow" per se. She was not widowed by the death of her husband in the Civil War. She was seventeen years old in 1936, and married a ninety-three year old Civil War veteran. She was the widow of a Civil War veteran.
redis_mlc 5y ago
And a lot of war and religion. What destroyed most of the empires was succession battles resulting in civil war, all through the late 1800s. I've been watching the Fall of Civilizations Youtube channel, and the South Americans really messed up succession.
krisgee 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir This is one of my favourite things. It's an incredibly old, historically important text in a dead language and it's just a customer complaint. >"You have put ingots which were not good before my messenger and said, 'If you want to take them, take them. If you do not want to take them, go away'. 3750 years ago some dude was still showing up and trying to rip people off and pull the "cash in hand" choosing beggar play.
- akiselev 5y ago
  > 3750 years ago some dude was still showing up and trying to rip people off and pull the "cash in hand" choosing beggar play. It wasn't so much a scam, but a dispute over quality control of all things. Other tablets were found along with that one that included a customer complaining that he was tired of receiving low quality ingots. They knew enough about metallurgy six thousand years ago to have legal disputes over impurities!
martinflack 5y ago
My favorite fact that puts time in perspective is that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon Landing than the building of the great pyramids. (Also sometimes phrased as living closer in time to the first Pizza Hut instead of Moon Landing.) If you search it, you'll find listicles that go through a bunch of these fun facts.
- vmception 5y ago
  The Pizza Hut is basically across the street from her home so that's pretty valid.
  - apotheon 5y ago
    I guess that makes her closer in time and space.
- throwaway_kufu 5y ago
  Another iteration is simply she lived closer in time to the present than the building of the great pyramids. And yet another is replacing her with Jesus

intergalplan 5y ago

Also, a bunch of stuff that seems super-old actually isn't. There were still lions in the Caucusus until the 10th century... CE, not BCE. A thousand years earlier they lived in Thrace, too. There were still some wooly mammoths alive when the Great Pyramids were being built. Similarly, living history can sometimes reach closer to the modern day than one might appreciate. There were (probably—some of the stories lack documentation) a few people born into legal chattel slavery in the US still alive while Martin Luther King, Jr. was active. The "Old West" and settler/Western Expansion days were still very much in living memory when early western radio serials and films were made, so it's entirely possible (likely, even) that a couple honest-to-god gunslingers (rare though they may have been, and as unlike their film counterparts) or victims/perpetrators of settler/native violence sat down and watched romanticized Westerns on the big screen. Shane is set in 1889 and came out in 1953. Lots of people alive during the fictionalized events of the film were still alive then. At least a few people who fought in or witnessed actual fighting in the Civil War likely watched Keaton's The General in a movie theater, or (more ominously) Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.

buerkle 5y ago
Another good one, https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/04/she-was-last-american-collect-civil-war-pension-7313-month-she-just-died/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/04/she-was-la...
cheriot 5y ago
I really good one I heard: Harriet Tubman was born into slavery when Thomas Jefferson was alive and died when Ronald Reagan was alive. The American experiment is still young.
- sewer_bird 5y ago
  This isnt true. She died in 1913.
  - Finnucane 5y ago
    Reagan was born in 1911. So just barely true.
    - sewer_bird 5y ago
      Ah, true: I mentally read “president”
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
davewashere 5y ago
Wyatt Earp was alive to see himself portrayed in the film Wild Bill Hickok, and he was best friends with the actor who played Hickok.
lisper 5y ago
The history of science is mostly recent too. The atomic theory, for example, was still controversial until just a little over 100 years ago. Turing's paper on universal computation and the halting problem was published less than 100 years ago. General relativity is almost exactly 100 years old. Werner Heisenberg died less than 50 years ago. Some of his students are still alive.
lastofthemojito 5y ago
Apparently it was coined by Alger Hiss, but I've seen Jason Kottke use the term "The Great Span" to describe this phenomenon of a small number of generations spanning surprisingly long periods of time. Looking at that tag on kottke.org, the top few results are a Civil War widow dying in 2020, John Tyler (president in 1841) having a living grandson, and a 2020 interview with the son of a formerly enslaved person. Wild stuff. https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Great%20Span https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Great%20Span
- apotheon 5y ago
  Just for the sake of those who might misunderstand this comment: She wasn't a "Civil War widow" per se. She was not widowed by the death of her husband in the Civil War. She was seventeen years old in 1936, and married a ninety-three year old Civil War veteran. She was the widow of a Civil War veteran.

redis_mlc 5y ago

And a lot of war and religion. What destroyed most of the empires was succession battles resulting in civil war, all through the late 1800s. I've been watching the Fall of Civilizations Youtube channel, and the South Americans really messed up succession.

krisgee 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir This is one of my favourite things. It's an incredibly old, historically important text in a dead language and it's just a customer complaint. >"You have put ingots which were not good before my messenger and said, 'If you want to take them, take them. If you do not want to take them, go away'. 3750 years ago some dude was still showing up and trying to rip people off and pull the "cash in hand" choosing beggar play.

akiselev 5y ago
> 3750 years ago some dude was still showing up and trying to rip people off and pull the "cash in hand" choosing beggar play. It wasn't so much a scam, but a dispute over quality control of all things. Other tablets were found along with that one that included a customer complaining that he was tired of receiving low quality ingots. They knew enough about metallurgy six thousand years ago to have legal disputes over impurities!

martinflack 5y ago

My favorite fact that puts time in perspective is that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon Landing than the building of the great pyramids. (Also sometimes phrased as living closer in time to the first Pizza Hut instead of Moon Landing.) If you search it, you'll find listicles that go through a bunch of these fun facts.

vmception 5y ago
The Pizza Hut is basically across the street from her home so that's pretty valid.
- apotheon 5y ago
  I guess that makes her closer in time and space.
throwaway_kufu 5y ago
Another iteration is simply she lived closer in time to the present than the building of the great pyramids. And yet another is replacing her with Jesus