I was in Egypt in 2011, a couple months after the big riots. I was advised not to go and went anyway. It was well worth it. I went to the Great Pyramid at ten or eleven one morning and there were maybe a dozen people in the entire area. I went inside it completely alone, and the guard let me lie down inside the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber. I don't have a word for what the energy was like in there. Palpable to say the least. If I could do it over I'd have stayed in longer. I hired a driver and did the Red Pyramid and Saqqara the same way, alone. People can debate the ethics of opening tombs all day, but going inside one is something else. A new one still turning up in 2026 is just cool.
There’s some debate as to whether the Red pyramid itself is even a tomb at all, given the same Pharaoh (Sneferu) also constructed the Bent and Meidum pyramids and there’s no evidence of a sarcophagus or other burial equipment in any of them. Which we wouldn’t know if we had never explored them.
The value of exploring tombs for the purpose of illuminating ancient cultures is inestimable. It seems humans have always been happy desecrating burial sites if not for treasure then to prove dominance over another tribe or nation.
Of course some exploitation is beyond permissible. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries there was an artist's pigment called Mummy Brown. It was sold for many decades, a rich, transparent brown unlike other brown pigments. It was made from actual mummies scrounged from unknown sources in Egypt. These were not the remains of royalty, rather these mummies were those of common people. Apparently until the early 20th century there was an ample supply of these remains to satisfy demand. Eventually the availability of mummies diminished and by 1915 the pigment quality became erratic and subsequently disappeared from the marketplace.
Comparatively, respectful exploration of ancient tombs is a whole different program than things our species has demonstrated a willingness to do.
HN is really good at contrary takes, regardless of the topic. I'm sure I've done some. I guess there's value in seeing the other side of most issues, but sometimes it does feel pretty knee-jerky.
Colonial horror stories with subtile racist undertones. Only white people could do such evils and become acteurs in history. Exceptionally evil, superior you could even say and the only ones locked into a story of repentantce in topdown anti colonial revolution.
Everyone is heartily sick of this, no explanation power and thus not helping anyone to overcome anything. The Rosamunde Pilcher, of looking at history.
There are two standing figures to the right (correctly identified by ChatGPT), and at least two kneeling figures with upraised arms stacked toward the left (ChatGPT puts the bottom figure's arms inside the "legs" of its bunny-shaped green circle).
Scroll down in the article to see a close-up on the kneeling figures.
There is no text visible in the photos from the article, although if you go on to read the text of the article you learn that text was found elsewhere in the tomb, such that we can confidently identify the owner's name (among other things).
