2 ms·

Are you looking back far enough? Ancient Egypt really fucking ancient. Like it was about as ancient to classical antiquity as classical antiquity is to us now.

epberry 3y ago
This is always a startling fact about timelines.
oskarkk 3y ago
My favorite fact about timescales is that Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landings than to the building of pyramids.
- psychphysic 3y ago
  What!?
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    The pyramids at Giza are really, really old. Cleopatra was part of the Macedonian/Greek dynasty in Egypt, which comes basically at the tail end of what one might consider "ancient Egypt". The time span we lump together as "ancient Egypt" (specifically, dynastic ancient Egypt—"pre-dynastic" stretches back many centuries before that) is so long that stuff from the first third or so of it is farther, time-wise, from Cleopatra than the moon landings were. Wikipedia: > All [the three big pyramids at Giza] were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, between 2600 and 2500 BC. Cleopatra is tied up with Julius Caesar and Antony (as in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra) and all that happens just before the BC/AD transition, and these numbers are large and fuzzy enough we can just call her time 0. ~2500 years after the pyramids, ~1970 before the moon landings. Plus or minus a few years, but it doesn't make much difference.
    - vmilner 3y ago
      I remember visiting Lincoln Cathedral and realising that when it was built in 1311 it was the first new tallest building for 3900 years... (160m as opposed to the 147m of the great pyramid) though the spire collapsed 238 years later.
    - GolfPopper 3y ago
      The one that always gets me is that there were still living mammoths (on Wrangel Island in the Arctic) when the Great Pyramid was built. [1] 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangel_Island#First_human_settlements_and_the_extinction_of_the_woolly_mammoth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangel_Island#First_human_set...
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  Here's another good one: the tyrannosaurus rex lived closer in time to you than it did to the stegosaurus.
8bitsrule 3y ago
I wondered too what Webb was referring to, and didn't find a hint of it either. "The known history of supernova observation goes back to 1006 CE. All earlier proposals for supernova observations are speculations with many alternatives. " -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observati... There's a rock drawing in Kashmir, India of what might be a supernova (HB9) dating to -4600BCE ... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/two-suns-no-its-a-supernova-drawn-6000-years-ago-say-indian-scientists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/two-suns-no-it...

epberry 3y ago

This is always a startling fact about timelines.

oskarkk 3y ago

My favorite fact about timescales is that Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landings than to the building of pyramids.

psychphysic 3y ago
What!?
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  The pyramids at Giza are really, really old. Cleopatra was part of the Macedonian/Greek dynasty in Egypt, which comes basically at the tail end of what one might consider "ancient Egypt". The time span we lump together as "ancient Egypt" (specifically, dynastic ancient Egypt—"pre-dynastic" stretches back many centuries before that) is so long that stuff from the first third or so of it is farther, time-wise, from Cleopatra than the moon landings were. Wikipedia: > All [the three big pyramids at Giza] were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, between 2600 and 2500 BC. Cleopatra is tied up with Julius Caesar and Antony (as in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra) and all that happens just before the BC/AD transition, and these numbers are large and fuzzy enough we can just call her time 0. ~2500 years after the pyramids, ~1970 before the moon landings. Plus or minus a few years, but it doesn't make much difference.
  - vmilner 3y ago
    I remember visiting Lincoln Cathedral and realising that when it was built in 1311 it was the first new tallest building for 3900 years... (160m as opposed to the 147m of the great pyramid) though the spire collapsed 238 years later.
  - GolfPopper 3y ago
    The one that always gets me is that there were still living mammoths (on Wrangel Island in the Arctic) when the Great Pyramid was built. [1] 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangel_Island#First_human_settlements_and_the_extinction_of_the_woolly_mammoth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangel_Island#First_human_set...
kybernetikos 3y ago
Here's another good one: the tyrannosaurus rex lived closer in time to you than it did to the stegosaurus.

8bitsrule 3y ago

I wondered too what Webb was referring to, and didn't find a hint of it either. "The known history of supernova observation goes back to 1006 CE. All earlier proposals for supernova observations are speculations with many alternatives. " -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observati... There's a rock drawing in Kashmir, India of what might be a supernova (HB9) dating to -4600BCE ... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/two-suns-no-its-a-supernova-drawn-6000-years-ago-say-indian-scientists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/two-suns-no-it...