Valley of the Kings gives up another secret tomb

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

The five mummies in wooden sacrcophagi and coloured funeral masks from the 18th pharaonic dynasty were found in the first tomb to be unearthed in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since that of King Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922.

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[pops]

Nice to see there are still some more discoveries to be had in the valley of the kings would be nice if there were a few more too.

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

i agree,

[katrinka]

I think they will find more in time and it will be interesting what Zahi Hawass comes up with
when they are examined etc.
I believe Egypt has a lot more secrets to give up yet.

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

The problem is when do the archeologists stop?
When should the time be that we just leave the dead to rest?

[Little Claire]

I think it's easy to forget that archeology is also a form of desecration when it relates to burial sites.

Does the information that we glean justify it?

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

thats my point

[Little Claire]

I know, but I put it so much better

[Little Claire]

I think that the amount of information that we can glean from discoveries like this makes the digs worthwhile. We've learnt so much about the religions of the ancients from the rituals of burial. If you think about all the great monuments and places of significance they are nearly all linked to that cultures attitude to death, religion and the afterlife, for example the Taj Mahal, the Axum Stelae, and the stone churches of Lalibella. Humans are fascinated with death, just look at the obsession with the spiritualism.

The other argument is that if the tombs are investigated properly then the treasures won't be lost to looters. There will always be private buyers who would pay vast amounts of money for relics and wouldn't care how they were come by.

Another question could be , at what point in history do we say actually this is too recent for us to investigate. Where is the cut off line? When does archeological investigation start to impinge on our modern attitudes to death?

[hwyaden]

too true littleclaire. i always feel very uneasy about the stuff from the titanic and other wrecks from around the same period. i guess the titanic is kind of the limit for 'taste' in digging up remains of peoples' lives but it's still a bit close to comfort for me.
i wonder when they'll start digging up princess diana and people like that to see what their bodies can tell us

[hkev]

Personally I felt OK about visiting the tombs in the Valley,
but I did feel slightly uneasy when I saw the mummies in the Cairo museum.

Was it respectful to be looking at these bodies ?
I may not believe in an afterlife, but they did,
should their wishes for burial be ignored only because a certain amount of time has passed ?

BTW, when I say "uneasy" it has no supernatural connotations.

Kev.

[pops]

I think the mummies are better off in the museum bear in mind that a lot of them weren't found in their tombs anyway they were found wherever previous tomb robbers had put them and those tomb robbers didn't care whether they damaged them or not at least the museum wants them kept as intact as possible.

[hkev]

pops said:

I think the mummies are better off in the museum bear in mind that a lot of them weren't found in their tombs anyway they were found wherever previous tomb robbers had put them and those tomb robbers didn't care whether they damaged them or not at least the museum wants them kept as intact as possible.

I agree up to a point,
but it's putting them on public exhibition that may be questionable.

Kev.

[hwyaden]

is it in sicily where those catacombs are that have the mummified bodies on display, complete with clothes and top hats etc? i like those because the peole being placed in there knew they would be on display. will have to do a search for it.

[hwyaden]

members.tripod.com/~Motomom/index-3.html

the little girl has always fascinated me as she looks like she's just asleep.

[Deleted]

That is creepy!
I agree, the little girl from 1920 just looks peacefully asleep. She was the last one to be placed before the authorities stopped the practise - the guy who embalmed her took the secret of his method to his grave...

[pops]

Must admit I watched a programme on this and it was fascinating although to be honest when i go I don't care what they do to me cos I aint there no more so it doesn't really matter.

[whitewolf]

wow, just looked at the pics. kinda freaky aint it. Moving on to egyptians, what has always amazed me is the fact that the skills have gone. Surely skills would have been passed down son to son for arguments sake. I would have thought there would be someone somewhere that had knowledge passed down. Did the race just die out? Become extinct? As for the digs, well yes its nice to have history, and having been to egypt, the museum, the pyramids. I was totally in awe. Amazing, it takes your breath away. I know personally, that if i was on display in a place 3000 years later, i wouldnt have an issue. Its just a shell. But as for my grave dug up, ummm, im mixed on that one.

[pcdunn2005]

littleclaire said:

I think it's easy to forget that archeology is also a form of desecration when it relates to burial sites.

Does the information that we glean justify it?

Good point, littleclaire. I have read that there is a lot of controversy about this regarding Native American bones and grave goods that ended up in museums. The Smithsonian and other museums are now trying to "repatriate" skeletons when they can be identified with a particular tribe that has living descendents.

The big dust-up a few years ago was over an unusual skeleton found to be much older than Native American era, plus it has more Caucasian anatomy than AmerInid, so the scientists wanted to study it, but the local tribe wanted to keep it. But his skeleton represented a momentous scientific discovery in the history of humans in north America, so didn't the scientists have a claim?

See here for more info on the Kennewick Man:

nas.ucdavis.edu/Forbes/kennwick.html

www.kennewick-man.com/

[pcdunn2005]

whitewolf said:

<SNIP> Moving on to egyptians, what has always amazed me is the fact that the skills have gone. Surely skills would have been passed down son to son for arguments sake. I would have thought there would be someone somewhere that had knowledge passed down. Did the race just die out? Become extinct? <SNIP>.

I suppose the mummification skills weren't passed on any more because there was no longer a demand for making mummies.

But you're wrong about no one knowing how to any more: Bob Brier is a scientist (not sure if he's an archaelogist or anthropologist or both) and author who has done numerous TV documentaries on "Making a Mummy" and Egypt in general. (I saw his name listed as the author of an article on the Tomb in Sicily in a previous post in this thread.) Bob actually mummified a body using ancient Egyptian methods. We know what they were because they were written down. (Librarian's plug for her profession! LOL).