[brudgers]

Unearthed from a 1,600-year-old Roman-era tomb

That's c. 400 AD. Closer to today, than to the time of King Tut...and King Tut was closer to the TFA mummy than to the First Dynasty.

Ancient Egypt is really really old. The Great pyramid was 3000 years old at the time of the TFA mummy.

The TFA mummy is about equidistant between today and the events of the Iliad and the book was already more than 1000 years old in 400 CE.

[vkazanov]

Most people kind of merge the kingdoms together, while every kingdom is unique in both the culture and, say, external influence. And the late period is quite long as well.

There is a very strong connection between periods, of course. But 2500+ years of ancient egypt is a very long damn time. All of our modern history is, say, 3k years, starting with greeks, early chinese , india and all.

But egypt to me is like a star in the vast ocean of nothingness of early history. We know NAMES and DEEDS of people who lived 4500 years ago. We see things they've built, we can read words they wrote.

This is amazing.

[Razengan]

> But 2500+ years of ancient egypt is a very long damn time.

To put that in perspective, consider how long 100 years ago feels.. not in technological terms, but in human perception of time: The USA was founded 250~ years ago. Try to recall your own life from 20, 40, 50 years ago.. it's a literal lifetime. Most people only meet people as far back as their grandparents, just 2 generations back. Great-grandparents and the eras they grew up in are already almost impossible to relate to.. 2500 years is FIFTY such lifetimes!

So in "just" after 500 years the pyramids would already be a mythical unrelatable object to people from 2000 years before us...

I like to think Ancient Egyptians were descendants of the survivors from a Green Sahara and the pyramids were meant to be their post-apocalyptic marker in case the world went to further shit..

[zikduruqe]

> To put that in perspective

Star Wars debuted 37 years after World War II

Star Wars debuted 49 years from now

(Now I feel really old)

[Razengan]

The iPhone launched 7 years after 2000

The iPhone launched 19 years from now

[Razengan]

Sorry I meant "to people from 4000 years before us" because BC is negative years lol

[eru]

It would be properly negative years, if they had started counting at 0 AD.

[mattfrommars]

That sounds about right. People generally under estimate how old Ancient Egyptian really are, me included and think it sometimes around the era of Middle Ages.

[adastra22]

Ancient Egypt had archeological museums showing dug up artifacts of even more ancient Egypt.

[adolph]

Also dinosaur bones.

  As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed 
  of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the 
  fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated 
  concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in 
  mythological stories. . . .

  Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and 
  measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and 
  museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric 
  creatures and to explain their extinction. . . .

https://classics.stanford.edu/publications/first-fossil-hunt...

[Melatonic]

Isn't that just like our normal museums now ?

[fecal_henge]

Yes but much further in the future when someone else digs them up.

[tclancy]

No, the artifacts stayed where they were found. Different concept.

[adastra22]

Not the one I'm referring to. Which I just looked up and got the region wrong -- it was in Mesopotamia. It was an actual museum showing ancient artifacts in a building, 2,500 years ago. Some of the things in that museum were an additional 1,500 years old at the time they were on display.

It's a funny story because the modern archeologists who dug it up were very confused by finding objects from different regions and separated by hundreds or thousands of years, all in the same layer.

[weirdmantis69]

You must have been cheering when they blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan because at least white people didn't have them.

[tclancy]

We had a party and everything. If you meet the Buddha on the road ...

[brudgers]

In Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was ancient.

[mr3martinis]

What is the “TFA” mummy?

[maksimur]

TFA originally meant "The Fucking Article" but on HN seems to have morphed its meaning to "The Fine Article" or "The Featured Article". I can't stop reading it as the former every time I come across it.

[latexr]

To expand on this: It started as “RTFA”, which is a riff on RTFM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM#List_of_similar_initialis...

Doesn’t really work as OP used it, though, as it gets confusing. They wrote “the TFA mummy” every time, so it becomes “the the fucking article mummy”. Like saying you’re a fan of the The Beatles.

[brudgers]

They wrote “the TFA mummy” every time

I had it both ways when it was first posted, about twenty minutes later after reading the “what is TFA?” comment I edited it to be consistent.

Only first line was the only “TFA” without the article…or with only one article? or is that two articles?

Anyway, the three article phrase “the TFA mummy” is equivalent to the three article phrase “the mummy in TFA” which is what I started to write.

And while “the TFA mummy” does not expand as cleanly as even I would wish, it has a better rhythm than “TFA mummy.” Or to put it another way, my poetic license removes “the TFA mummy” from grammar police jurisdiction.

[latexr]

> “the mummy in TFA”

Personally, I would’ve found that clearer. I know what TFA means but still found “the TFA mummy” awkward to read and parse every time. But maybe “TFA” itself was the biggest problem there. Since you were editing anyway, “the article’s mummy” was an option too. Sometimes we all forget how acronyms aren’t universal and can impede rather than assist communication.

> my poetic license removes “the TFA mummy” from grammar police jurisdiction.

It was a lighthearted comment on how I personally found the phrasing awkward to read, I haven’t insulted your mother. We’re writing random inconsequential comments on an internet forum about a subject which has no practical effect on any of our lives, not redefining dramaturgy. There’s no poetry to your comment and no one is “policing” your words. The comment wasn’t even directed at you. You can relax.

[brudgers]

It was a lighthearted comment

That is how I took it and I was just having fun with words. In this case, setting up “poetic license.”

Fun is why I write comments. Fun is why what-you-would-have-found-clearer was not my priority. I did not write my comment with you in mind. I wrote it for the kind of people who might like what I wrote.

There’s no poetry to your comment

Everything is not for everyone.

[NetMageSCW]

But you missed a chance to call it the new mummy!

[SAI_Peregrinus]

That's related to PNS syndrome (PIN Number Syndrome syndrome (Personal Identification Number Number Syndrome syndrome)).

[withinboredom]

I am a fan of the Beatles. What’s wrong with that?

[caminanteblanco]

It's about the article doubling, being a fan of the THE Beatles

[adastra22]

Those multiple readings date back to Slashdot and have stayed consistent. It just means in plain speech the linked article in the original post. Now get off my lawn!

[cfiggers]

The mummy that is the subject of The Friendly Article (the post that we're all commenting under right now).

[Induane]

That Fucking Asshole mummy from Bubba Ho Tep.

[voidfunc]

Great movie

[airstrike]

Obligatory "Cleopatra lived closer to the creation of the iPhone than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid"

[moi2388]

In time, not space.

[raffraffraff]

Well, if space is expanding and earth is revolving and spinning around the sun which is spinning around the milkyway which is moving through space then.... Was it really close in space either?

[interstice]

Local origin not global

[raffraffraff]

Or universal

[elros]

On a stressful day full of short deadlines and somewhat overwhelming work, thank you for the chuckle :-)

[airstrike]

Slow clap...

[altmanaltman]

they are both the same though

[psychoslave]

Pedantic side note maybe and sorry about that, but I found disturbing to see multiple "the TFA", where I guess TFA stand for "the fine article", so "the the fine article"?

If it’s about brevity, "the peg" is just as short and mean in journalism parlance "A topic of interest, such as an ongoing event or an anniversary, around which various features can be developed."

[brudgers]

I used the phrase “the TFA mummy” where the “the” is the article for “mummy.”

“The TFA mummy” has the same three articles as “the mummy in TFA” but one less word.

And pedantically, pedantry leaves the house when “TFA” walks in the door.

[psychoslave]

First of all, do as you please, really. Just be aware that on the other side it might feel surprising/awkward.

"The mummy in the fine article" is very aligned with the usual "preposition before article", while "the the fine article mummy" is apomediary¹ with its "article before article" structure.

¹ Distant from mean/median practices.

[brudgers]

I was fairly aware of what I was doing. I was having fun writing for the part of HN that enjoys reading things like what I wrote.

Everything is not for everybody.

The more generous a person is regarding what they accept, the more things are for them.

[tclancy]

I don’t think you’re reclaiming “peg”. Lost cause.

[psychoslave]

Everyone should be champion of some lost causes, not because their own have much chance to succeed, simply because otherwise they are all certain to never happen while in the first case, at scale, it’s almost guarantee that some will defeat the odds.

That said, "TFA" is ok, but "the TFA" seems even more extravagant than "PDF format"

[eru]

PDF format is the same as EXE format or BMP format. They are named for the file extension. And the etymology of the file extension is treated as opaque.

[NetMageSCW]

And I thought being able to trace my ancestors back 2600 years was impressive (okay, maybe 1500 non-apocryphal ancestors)!

[dmos62]

The pyramids aren't actually datable, because it's rock. Maybe if you were to find something with carbon that's provably from the time of construction, that could be used, but I don't think that happened. The popular datings for the older pyramids are educated guesses.

Edit: the Sphynx dating is even more controversial, because it seems to have rain erosion on it.

[UberFly]

Within the rock construction are wood beams, mortar and charcoal that are all datable.

[dmos62]

I stand corrected.

[card_zero]

There's also optically stimulated luminescence which can tell you when a rock was buried! I don't know that it's ever been used on a pyramid, but it exists.

[adolph]

> aren't actually datable, because it's rock

To add to the methods shared by others, one way I think is really cool is optically stimulated luminescence.

  So, a grain of quartz destined someday to become the perfect OSL sample will 
  begin its journey by emptying its electron traps. This typically happens 
  through steady sunlight exposure, in a process called bleaching. Bleaching 
  resets the OSL clock. In this example scenario, the grain is fully bleached 
  by the sun as the wind blows it across the landscape, until it finally 
  settles and additional wind-blown material buries it.
  
  Once it is cut off from light, the OSL clock begins running. The sediment now 
  surrounding the quartz will include tiny amounts of radioactive isotopes, 
  exposing the quartz to a steady flow of ionizing radiation. The quartz 
  captures electrons from this radiation; the radiation flow is called the dose 
  rate. This is like the steady ticking of a clock. The quartz begins trapping 
  electrons, and because it is cut off from light, the trapped electrons will 
  continue building up at a fairly steady, measurable rate.

https://desert.com/osl/

[adastra22]

The construction work camps for the pyramids have been dug. There is also wood, an organic matter in the Kings chamber and mortar inside the pyramid, which can be dated.

[brudgers]

To the degree that is a scientific argument, the scientific research and scholarship underpinning it is a subset of the scientific research and scholarship underpinning the dates the contemporary Egyptology community ascribes to the pyramids.

Egyptologists can access science and have access to cultural artifacts and those artifacts include writing and that writing can be read and what can be read includes dates.

[dmos62]

Thanks for the explanation.

[eru]

Carbon ain't the only substance that's datable.