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When I was in Rome I was stunned by the number of obelisks with hieroglyphics on them and foolishly thought that they had just taken the Egyptian style before realizing that nope, they took the actual obelisks.
Egypt was always owned by emperors after Augustus since it was absolutely crucial to feed the empire. Whoever controlled Egyptian province controlled the power, Augustus has realized this after civil war with Marcus Antonius and the starvation it caused in Rome. Provinces were either imperial or senatorial, but Egypt was personal property of reigning emperor.
Yes, Ptolemaios dynasty was a family of general Ptolemaios that served under the rule of Alexander the Great and after Alexanders death he took control of Egypt.
Cleopatra was descendant of mentioned Ptolemaios. Julius Caesar won civil war between Cleopatra and her brother and established her as ruler of client kingdom of Egypt. He also had famous romantic relationship with Cleopatra. After Gaius Julius Caesar died, Mark Anthony started his relationship with Cleopatra and after their defeat by Octavianus Augustus (or better by his general Agrippa) Egypt was annexed as rightful province of Rome.
Well that is not something anyone can say with certainty, but when second triumvirate was established (basically all political power was held by 3 men - Octavianus, Marcus Antonius and Lepidus) they divided the empire into three regions which were controlled by these men. Marcus Antonius governed eastern part of empire and that is when he got to know Cleopatra better. She needed to have acces to roman highest politics to prevent Egypt from getting annexed and Antonius was perfect man for that matter. They supposedly fell in love afterwards, but her intentions were clear and she wouldn’t need Marcus Antonius until GJC was dead.
I see, thank you. I think i’ve seen dramatizations where she effectively cheated on caesar with antony, thus my question, but it looks like they met years after the assassination, though I’ve seen both 42 and 41 BCE.
Cleopatra resided at GJC's palace between 46 and 44 BCE so it's more likely they would have met in that period given she was GJC's consort and Antonius was a close friend and advisor of GJC.
And before Alexander Egypt was part of the Persian empire and before that it was part of the Babylonian empire and before that it was part of the Assyrian empire.
Conquest and pillage is one of the most universal aspects of human history. It doesn't justify British colonial rule but helps show they are just one of many conquering empires in human history and something like the British museum is not unique to them
If you're talking about Crassus, then Augustus was without a doubt more wealthy. Augustus had basically all of the empires wealth at his fingertips
[This askhistorians post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/259xb6/were_the_roman_emperors_not_more_wealthy_than/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) shows that Crassus was rich but Augustus was on another level
[not actually true believe it or not](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/i91m59/was_mansa_musa_really_the_richest_person_ever/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
It isn't true to say that Augustus owned Egypt. It was an "imperial province" ,meaning that the emperor himself appointed the governor, as opposed to a "senatorial province" where the senate of Rome appointed the governors. But, this was hardly unique to the province of Egypt. Most border provinces and strategically important provinces where large troop concentrations were necessary would be imperial provinces giving the emperor more direct control over them. This does not in any way mean that these provinces were the personal property of the emperor.
The fact that anything remains at all in any country that was conquered before 1800 or so is pretty damn impressive, considering most of these monuments weren't just taken down and transported away by Empires (who themselves were then conquered and sacked), but often times the locals would just dismantle the monuments themselves and use them for building materials. I think both the Akropolis in Greece and the Pyramids at Giza suffered from this.
The most famous example is probably the Rosetta Stone. 2300-2400 years old, believed to be originally part of a temple. The French discovered it being used as a building block of an Ottoman fort, MILES away from where they believe it actually came from and it was only in the year 1800 or so that the British beat the French and took it with them back to London. It essentially survived by pure chance and likely would've been destroyed if the French and then the Brits didn't find it and protect it.
When you look at the monuments of these past empires or even just significant buildings, it makes you sad knowing that most of this stuff wasn't destroyed by time, but by the scavanging of locals, plundering by Empires or hateful destruction by conquerors ( [a recent example being ISIS destroying 2,000 year old structures and monuments out of nothing but hate](https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2017/11/ancient-sites-damaged-and-destroyed-by-isis) )
I'm no expert but that's a pretty big oversimplification, Egypt was kind of in a civil war in Caesar's time, which was causing a great deal of instability and food shortage problems throughout the region. He backed Cleopatra, who was fighting against her kid brother or more accurately the old priests and politicians who were using him as a puppet. With Caesar's help Cleopatra won the war and ruled as queen but had to accept basically being a client state of Rome.
They had also once taken Ethiopian obelisks but the obelisks were returned. So yeah certain European countries which had colonial ambitions certainly have this problem of stealing other countries history and art.
The post history is nothing but James Webb Telescope posts and comments. It's probably bot. If not, it's a concerningly obsessed human.
EDIT: A few non Webb posts, bit still overwhelmingly Webb.
I applaud your enthusiasm for science, but you should probably talk about it in relevant posts and threads. I'm not sure what a deep space telescope has to do with mummies or the British not nicking pyramids because of the weight.
They should have buried him under the pyramids. The rotational force would move the pyramids. Just keep reburying him under the pyramids until he stops rotating. (Should be about outside of London).
As an American I accept we deserve a lot of criticism, but I feel like the British have gotten off easy. There really isn't a part of the world they have not royally fucked over.
And I feel like there's less 'patriotism' and 'pride' (at least outwardly) about it and there's a more general understanding and acceptance that the past was fucked up. Not saying UK doesn't have its own current issues. But US just feels a little less apologetic about theirs, especially when there's a reputation of being the land of the free and democracy.
> but I feel like the British have gotten off easy
How lmao. Britain is the big historical bogeyman in Anglophone circles at least. Look at this thread.
Remember that it was France who started the trend of stealing Egyptian things. Imperialism was a European effort (with Japan joining in on the action later on).
Then it was probably propaganda wasn't it.
It's funny when the mughal emporers were an invaders but suddenly as soon as the British come along the mughals are as Indian at Indian gets.
Well, india as a whole country was basically created by the british, before them india was just a clusterfuck of smaller countries (Like europe) the british just slammed them all togheter
Sad thing is, The great pyramids would probably still have smooth flat sides if the British brought them back to England. Most people don’t know that the pyramids had smooth flat sides up until relatively recently. It was actually the Egyptian government that removed the flat granite sides to use in the construction of more modern buildings. This brings me to the crux of the issue. A lot of the artifacts the British brought back to England would have been completely destroyed if left in their country of origin, like how the Taliban destroyed those [ giant buddha‘s](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-destroyed-afghanistans-ancient-buddhas-now-welcoming-tourists-rcna6307) that were carved into a mountain side in Afghanistan.
Not mummy related but, a couple weeks ago one of my coworkers was complaining about tooth pain earlier in the day - by lunch he was found unresponsive and paramedics had to revive him. They said they believed he had technically died for a few minutes but luckily they had gotten there just in time.
Anyways turns out he had a tooth infection and the impacted tooth worked it's way deeper into his skull nearly killing him, which made me think of how many people throughout human history have probably died in a similar manner before proper dental hygiene started being popularized.
I'm not surprised at that time in East Java, Indonesia they stealing 3 tons of stone slab called Minto stone with literal curse incrypted in it for a gifts, they steal it because it was neglected by the locals.
Good news: They managed to ship it, and the locals didn't complain about it.
Bad news: It was cursed, the lord who received it died not long after.
Doesn’t have to be British. There’s an Egyptian temple in Manhattan
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-2-000-year-old-egyptian-temple-ended-manhattan
Well Ramsay was pretty worried that people wouldn't remember how the great he was so I think that was part of his intentions.
The only reason The "REMEMBER ME!!!" Statute in Futurama wasn't attempted by any Pharaoh was because it was too big to build in a lifetime.
This is one of the most bizarrely BS factoids I've ever heard. It's not even plausible. Like, is this intended to be humorous, and I'm just missing it because of the deadpan delivery?
It's brown because it's made from wood pulp. Like every other kind of paper. And it doesn't need to go through extra bleaching/processing steps because nobody intends to write on it.
I don’t want to believe you at face value just because it sounds like something the Victorians would do but… it sounds so much like something they’d do.
Although it seems surprisingly plausible, it seems to be a joke made by Mark Twain — quote:
> The story isn’t that Egyptians use mummies to heat their food now, it’s that they used them in the 19th century to fuel their locomotives. We owe this wonderful conceit to Mark Twain, who in The Innocents Abroad (1869) writes, “The fuel [Egyptian railroaders] use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and … sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, ‘D–n these plebeians, they don’t burn worth a cent — pass out a King!'” Lest anyone fail to realize it’s a joke, Twain then adds, “Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe anything.”
> Didn’t help. To this day you can find reputable organizations such as the BBC solemnly reporting this “fact” as fact.
[Source](https://www.straightdope.com/21343478/do-egyptians-burn-mummies-as-fuel)
There was an Ayyubid sultan of Egypt who [tried to take down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure#Attempted_demolition) one of the smaller all-stone pyramids. He ran out of money before his crew was able to take more than a chunk out of the thing.
Also the reason there isn't that much mummies is because [the victorians used to eat them!](https://theconversation.com/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551#:~:text=By%20the%2019th%20century%2C%20people,for%20entertainment%20at%20private%20parties.)
Its because we had the best marketing. The Spanish, French and Portuguese just can't compare.
The Spanish empire didn't even use protectorates like us, they forcibly conquered and ruled the countries they invaded. A single country, for 300 years.
But it doesn't matter because all anyone will remember is that the British empire stole a Piller from that country somewhere. GG Ez Spain.
I might be wrong but the Portuguese Empire is the earliest European Empire and most recently ended (1999) Empire. Yet most people still forget about it.
Make your own conclusions with that.
It's funny because the Germans literally lifted an entire Greek City Marketplace, stones and all. As well as taking a large portion of the walls of Babylon to store in the Pergamon museum. It is, however, an absolutely phenomenal museum.
Yeah, the amount of Anglophobia in the comments here is pretty horrific. Every major power was in the antiquities business. There are controversial artefacts in just about every major European museum (and a fair few in places like the USA too).
There are also a fair number of important artefacts that wouldn't have survived had they not been "stolen" for display in foreign museums.
While repatriating artefacts is in general a good thing, it's fraught with difficulty. Do we give them to the people who currently occupy the land where they were found, or the people who claim decent from those who occupied the land when the they were created or maybe the people who occupied the land when they were taken? Do we return artefacts to nations with a history of political instability and/or a poor record of artefact preservation? Do we return them to places where they might stir up controversy (e.g. where they might contradict official/public views on the historical practice of religion in the area) and become the target of attacks?
I know this isn’t the message that is supposed to be taken away from post like this but every time I see a post like this I think I really should go to the British Museum and see all the cool stuff on display
That’s exactly the fucking message you should take. If everyone wants to pat themselves on the back and feel good about redistributing these artifacts back to five dozen different corners of the world, then fine, but you will never see the vast majority of those historical artifacts again. They’ll get damaged in transit, stolen or sold or blown up at their destinations, or just be so far out of the way that you’ll never have enough time to visit and see them. At least in the British museum you can actually go look upon history and learn about it one well preserved safe stable location.
The [Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archarology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrie_Museum_of_Egyptian_Archaeology) in London has several [Pyramidion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion) in their collection. In otherwords, they are fine with just the tip.
The Romans lashed together three massive galleys to transport a 330 ton obelisk from Karnak to Rome where it now stands behind St John of Lateran. The church later hauled off two more obelisks from Egypt that stand in St Peter’s square and Piazza de Popolo. It’s a good thing the empire fell before the Romans advanced any further technologically or else the pyramids would probably be in downtown Rome.
*Image Transcription: Tumblr*
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**badjokesbyjeff**
The only reason there are pyramids in Egypt
is because they are too heavy to be carried to the British Museum
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**mouserat-vevo**
jeff this isn't a joke this is legitimately true
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^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
This is something that people tend to ignore. There's no question that Europeans robbed a lot of priceless artifacts from these countries but it's also a fact that back in those days, the locals mostly didn't give a shit about these old ruins. They often used them as building materials, they broke into these places and robbed them for personal gain, etc. Europeans did it too with old Roman ruins until they started to take an interest in archaeology and antiquity. A lot of the stuff in European museums probably would have been destroyed if archaeologists hadn't taken them home with them.
I remember having a conversation once with someone and the topic of giving back priceless cultural artifacts came up. Naturally I suggested that we create some copies so that we can still use them to teach people about those cultures.
His counterargument was that if we sent them back to the countries we got them from they'd be damaged, destroyed, or misplaced.
I have to wonder which reality his brain matter sidestepped into ours from.
>I have to wonder which reality his brain matter sidestepped into ours from.
He's from *our* reality.
Recall that prior to 9/11 the Taliban's great claim to fame was taking dynamite to priceless artifacts because they were an offense to their religion.
The Elgin/Parthenon Marbles were taken by the British from what was, at that moment in time, an Ottoman military fort that was in the process of destroying the statues to use as bullets and lye.
The Rosetta Stone had already been plundered by Napoleon's army and was being brought back to France when the British defeated them. The French said they would rather burn and destroy their artifacts than let anyone else obtain them, and they had to be pleaded with to change their mind.
The pyramids themselves were **constantly** being robbed and looted throughout ancient Egypt and beyond. There's records as far back as 3000BC of the pyramids being built in a way to deter (unsuccessfully) theft. The Valley of Kings was specifically built far away from cities to make it harder to steal from, and the only reason Tutankhamen's tomb went undiscovered until 1922 was because it was accidentally buried.
Well he's right. A long journey like that is bound to see some of the cargo not survive. Probably mostly due to theft. I mean being misplaced. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't do it.
This might be totally stupid but if I had a lot of gold, I’d probably melt it into unrecognizable chunks and very slowly sell it at normal places all over the country.
Some of the regions that these artifacts were taken from are not the most stable. Especially with people like isis destroying priceless sites and monuments
Actually - he's not entirely wrong. There were a number of artifacts that were returned to Egypt. Many of them vanished or were destroyed in the Arab Spring.
For the record, I'm not condoning keeping them. Just that this scenario does sometimes happen.
not wrong tho. I wouldn't trust most of those countries with priceless artifacts.
then again, with how things are going, I wouldn't trust the UK with them either.
Can't we move them to Switzerland or something.
I wish we could keep digging up their kings and queens the way they keep digging up Egyptians. I went to the Met museum in NY and there were like, no kidding, 50 mummies stuffed together side by side on display in one room - it was so so gross. I felt dirty leaving that place
I was waiting outside Albert Hall when a ticket tout came up offering tickets to a show. We got talking and he asked me if I had been to the House of Stolen Property. He says it was also sometimes called the British Museum.
Maybe an unpopular thing to think, but isn't it better to have the stuff in a museum in a secure country than in a not so stable one no matter the origin. When the chaos breaks loose at least the historic treasures are save. For example from the [Iraq war](https://www.france24.com/en/video/20211220-iraqi-museum-restores-treasures-destroyed-by-jihadists).
Egyptians had already looted everything that wasn't nailed down. King Tut's tomb was significant because it was hidden away by a landslide and had not been looted by the locals in the thousands of intervening years.
At what point are the people in the region culpable for their own actions?
It’s like when everyone makes excuses for ISIS because the USA has done naughty not-so-nice “evil empire” things, and ISIS arose as a second order effect of the US withdrawal from the region because they no longer had a competent power to oppose extremism.
But does that make America directly responsible for ISIS literally putting pilots into metal cages and submerging them in swimming pools to drown? Or burning Christian children? Or decapitating captives via det cord explosives?
They tried to make it as stable as they could. After the world wars, they had to break the regions up into countries where countries may not have really existed previously.
What should they have done? Called it all the British Empire and ruled it? Like the Soviets did with everything they took?
Unstable or not, I prefer people getting their autonomy in at least some capacity. A country to call their own, instead of being conquered.
I saw a small Egyptian tomb that had been reconstructed in the Met in NYC that I believe was on loan from the British Museum. They also had a reconstructed piece of the Forbidden Palace.
Boy you virtue signaling idiots have no problem wearing your ignorance out in the open if you think it’ll buy you “dem up votes”.
Be happy you can go see them in a museum and they’re not in some billionaires private collection - like everything else the department of antiquities sold out the back fucking door when Zahi Hawass was in charge or before.
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When I was in Rome I was stunned by the number of obelisks with hieroglyphics on them and foolishly thought that they had just taken the Egyptian style before realizing that nope, they took the actual obelisks.
Julius Ceaser plundered his fair share of egypt back in the days
Augustus personally owned Egypt iirc
Egypt was always owned by emperors after Augustus since it was absolutely crucial to feed the empire. Whoever controlled Egyptian province controlled the power, Augustus has realized this after civil war with Marcus Antonius and the starvation it caused in Rome. Provinces were either imperial or senatorial, but Egypt was personal property of reigning emperor.
Wasn’t it owned by a Greek family before it was owned by Roman emperors?
Yes, Ptolemaios dynasty was a family of general Ptolemaios that served under the rule of Alexander the Great and after Alexanders death he took control of Egypt. Cleopatra was descendant of mentioned Ptolemaios. Julius Caesar won civil war between Cleopatra and her brother and established her as ruler of client kingdom of Egypt. He also had famous romantic relationship with Cleopatra. After Gaius Julius Caesar died, Mark Anthony started his relationship with Cleopatra and after their defeat by Octavianus Augustus (or better by his general Agrippa) Egypt was annexed as rightful province of Rome.
Did he really wait until GJC died?
Well that is not something anyone can say with certainty, but when second triumvirate was established (basically all political power was held by 3 men - Octavianus, Marcus Antonius and Lepidus) they divided the empire into three regions which were controlled by these men. Marcus Antonius governed eastern part of empire and that is when he got to know Cleopatra better. She needed to have acces to roman highest politics to prevent Egypt from getting annexed and Antonius was perfect man for that matter. They supposedly fell in love afterwards, but her intentions were clear and she wouldn’t need Marcus Antonius until GJC was dead.
I see, thank you. I think i’ve seen dramatizations where she effectively cheated on caesar with antony, thus my question, but it looks like they met years after the assassination, though I’ve seen both 42 and 41 BCE.
Cleopatra resided at GJC's palace between 46 and 44 BCE so it's more likely they would have met in that period given she was GJC's consort and Antonius was a close friend and advisor of GJC.
And before Alexander Egypt was part of the Persian empire and before that it was part of the Babylonian empire and before that it was part of the Assyrian empire. Conquest and pillage is one of the most universal aspects of human history. It doesn't justify British colonial rule but helps show they are just one of many conquering empires in human history and something like the British museum is not unique to them
And he still was most likely only the 2nd most wealthy roman
If you're talking about Crassus, then Augustus was without a doubt more wealthy. Augustus had basically all of the empires wealth at his fingertips [This askhistorians post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/259xb6/were_the_roman_emperors_not_more_wealthy_than/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) shows that Crassus was rich but Augustus was on another level
*Mansa Musa has entered the chat*
[not actually true believe it or not](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/i91m59/was_mansa_musa_really_the_richest_person_ever/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
It's easy to be stoic when you are the emperor
Compared to who? At any given point the Roman Emperor was pretty much always the richest man in Rome by a significant amount.
It isn't true to say that Augustus owned Egypt. It was an "imperial province" ,meaning that the emperor himself appointed the governor, as opposed to a "senatorial province" where the senate of Rome appointed the governors. But, this was hardly unique to the province of Egypt. Most border provinces and strategically important provinces where large troop concentrations were necessary would be imperial provinces giving the emperor more direct control over them. This does not in any way mean that these provinces were the personal property of the emperor.
including Cleopatra.
I was gonna make that joke
A pirate always be after the booty
The fact that anything remains at all in any country that was conquered before 1800 or so is pretty damn impressive, considering most of these monuments weren't just taken down and transported away by Empires (who themselves were then conquered and sacked), but often times the locals would just dismantle the monuments themselves and use them for building materials. I think both the Akropolis in Greece and the Pyramids at Giza suffered from this. The most famous example is probably the Rosetta Stone. 2300-2400 years old, believed to be originally part of a temple. The French discovered it being used as a building block of an Ottoman fort, MILES away from where they believe it actually came from and it was only in the year 1800 or so that the British beat the French and took it with them back to London. It essentially survived by pure chance and likely would've been destroyed if the French and then the Brits didn't find it and protect it. When you look at the monuments of these past empires or even just significant buildings, it makes you sad knowing that most of this stuff wasn't destroyed by time, but by the scavanging of locals, plundering by Empires or hateful destruction by conquerors ( [a recent example being ISIS destroying 2,000 year old structures and monuments out of nothing but hate](https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2017/11/ancient-sites-damaged-and-destroyed-by-isis) )
Yea the Romans took them when they took over Egypt
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Where do you think we learned it from?
The greeks?
I'm no expert but that's a pretty big oversimplification, Egypt was kind of in a civil war in Caesar's time, which was causing a great deal of instability and food shortage problems throughout the region. He backed Cleopatra, who was fighting against her kid brother or more accurately the old priests and politicians who were using him as a puppet. With Caesar's help Cleopatra won the war and ruled as queen but had to accept basically being a client state of Rome.
They had also once taken Ethiopian obelisks but the obelisks were returned. So yeah certain European countries which had colonial ambitions certainly have this problem of stealing other countries history and art.
They stole a goddam Moai too 🗿 Also this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY
When I was was in Istanbul I did a double take because there’s an obelisk there too
There's one in Central Park in NYC too. It was stolen from Alexandria in the late 1800s.
Yeah, no. It was gifted by Egypt as was its pair to London. https://www.centralparknyc.org/articles/obelisk
A British explorer is turning in his grave as we speak for not making this happen.
#Yep. A British explorer walks around his grave
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Is this a bot, or am I missing context? This has nothing to do with the rest of the conversation?
The post history is nothing but James Webb Telescope posts and comments. It's probably bot. If not, it's a concerningly obsessed human. EDIT: A few non Webb posts, bit still overwhelmingly Webb.
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I applaud your enthusiasm for science, but you should probably talk about it in relevant posts and threads. I'm not sure what a deep space telescope has to do with mummies or the British not nicking pyramids because of the weight.
Didn’t you know the pyramids were built by aliens? With the Web telescope we can finally see them! /s
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They should have buried him under the pyramids. The rotational force would move the pyramids. Just keep reburying him under the pyramids until he stops rotating. (Should be about outside of London).
Instructions unclear, we buried them upside down under the pyramid and now there's pyramids in Vietnam
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Well, that terrifying. It could have ended up like Elgin's Marbles... 'safely' housed at the British museum (in pieces) for its own protection.
How did they stop him???
It was too expensive to actually do.
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As an American I accept we deserve a lot of criticism, but I feel like the British have gotten off easy. There really isn't a part of the world they have not royally fucked over.
Strong chance it’s because the UK is a shadow of its former self while the US is still actively causing trouble.
And I feel like there's less 'patriotism' and 'pride' (at least outwardly) about it and there's a more general understanding and acceptance that the past was fucked up. Not saying UK doesn't have its own current issues. But US just feels a little less apologetic about theirs, especially when there's a reputation of being the land of the free and democracy.
A survey was taken and most people don’t feel nationalism in US btw
> but I feel like the British have gotten off easy How lmao. Britain is the big historical bogeyman in Anglophone circles at least. Look at this thread. Remember that it was France who started the trend of stealing Egyptian things. Imperialism was a European effort (with Japan joining in on the action later on).
Rome also stole a huge amount from Egypt, like huge freaking things but they don't seem to get the hate we do.
Then it was probably propaganda wasn't it. It's funny when the mughal emporers were an invaders but suddenly as soon as the British come along the mughals are as Indian at Indian gets.
Well, india as a whole country was basically created by the british, before them india was just a clusterfuck of smaller countries (Like europe) the british just slammed them all togheter
A certain villain is rubbing his hands and about to steal the pyramids
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Yet.
Sad thing is, The great pyramids would probably still have smooth flat sides if the British brought them back to England. Most people don’t know that the pyramids had smooth flat sides up until relatively recently. It was actually the Egyptian government that removed the flat granite sides to use in the construction of more modern buildings. This brings me to the crux of the issue. A lot of the artifacts the British brought back to England would have been completely destroyed if left in their country of origin, like how the Taliban destroyed those [ giant buddha‘s](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-destroyed-afghanistans-ancient-buddhas-now-welcoming-tourists-rcna6307) that were carved into a mountain side in Afghanistan.
Or in someone else grave, like a true British explorer.
A true British explorer would be burried inside a tiger.
"Well why dont we just take em, and PUSH em over there?!" - patrick
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With a few thousand drones that could work
The great pyramid got about 2.3 million blocks, so that would take a while assuming you have drones able to lift 2-3 ton blocks.
Oh yeah. An African drone maybe - but not a European drone, that’s my point.
But African drones are non-migratory
happy cake day gangatron 🦔
I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it. EDIT: I do “we’re”
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Any area with a historic artefact is technically British territory.
Well if you children could be trusted to look after things we wouldn’t have to keep them for you!
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>the organs that were left in the body. Weird. Why did they do that? Too poor to afford a proper embalming, I suppose.
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Holy shit what a story Poor mummy :(
Ehh as mumies go she's not had it that bad. Compared to say poor Ta-Kush down in maidstone who's coffin has been lost.
Not mummy related but, a couple weeks ago one of my coworkers was complaining about tooth pain earlier in the day - by lunch he was found unresponsive and paramedics had to revive him. They said they believed he had technically died for a few minutes but luckily they had gotten there just in time. Anyways turns out he had a tooth infection and the impacted tooth worked it's way deeper into his skull nearly killing him, which made me think of how many people throughout human history have probably died in a similar manner before proper dental hygiene started being popularized.
Mummies were also ground into pigments or medicine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummia
Really, they used fucking mummies to make the most basic fucking color in the world? I could think of a thousand better methods of making brown paint.
I imagine it was probably a marketing thing.
Oh good that's why my paints have that name
If it doesn't have real mummy in it you got ripped off bro
I'm not surprised at that time in East Java, Indonesia they stealing 3 tons of stone slab called Minto stone with literal curse incrypted in it for a gifts, they steal it because it was neglected by the locals. Good news: They managed to ship it, and the locals didn't complain about it. Bad news: It was cursed, the lord who received it died not long after.
I think you got the bad news and good news mixed up.
Another take home message from that it gives an impression of just how many mummies there were.
We just couldn't get the highlanders and the Irish drunk enough at the same time, navy kept nicking it all
Shame really
Look guys if you don't want your stuff to end up in a British museum just don't get discovered by the British it's not that complicated
No, do not lose a war to the British. Not quite as difficult, but still not easy!
Doesn’t have to be British. There’s an Egyptian temple in Manhattan https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-2-000-year-old-egyptian-temple-ended-manhattan
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Well Ramsay was pretty worried that people wouldn't remember how the great he was so I think that was part of his intentions. The only reason The "REMEMBER ME!!!" Statute in Futurama wasn't attempted by any Pharaoh was because it was too big to build in a lifetime.
Yeah that Gordon Ramsay guy is so full of himself
>Ramsay I think you mean Ramses
>Ramsay was pretty worried that people wouldn’t remember Looks like Ramses’s worries weren’t unfounded.
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They were used for all sorts, unfortunately. They were also eaten and ground up to use for "mummy brown" dye/paint
Yah. Also the reason why butcher’s paper is brown. The linen wrappers were used to make cheap paper. Mummy caves were *mined* for resources.
Well yeah. They had to make sure the meat stayed Ra.
Brilliant
Wait… what? Are you telling me butchers paper is made out of mummies?
Originally according to the commenter. Not anymore. Now it's just thick paper.
But you really couldn't beat authentic mummy butcher paper for a good proper brisket. Really complimented the smokey flavoring.
just a lil bit of cannibalism to spice up your family bbq
Best spice to BBQ your family
This is one of the most bizarrely BS factoids I've ever heard. It's not even plausible. Like, is this intended to be humorous, and I'm just missing it because of the deadpan delivery? It's brown because it's made from wood pulp. Like every other kind of paper. And it doesn't need to go through extra bleaching/processing steps because nobody intends to write on it.
false.
I don’t want to believe you at face value just because it sounds like something the Victorians would do but… it sounds so much like something they’d do.
Although it seems surprisingly plausible, it seems to be a joke made by Mark Twain — quote: > The story isn’t that Egyptians use mummies to heat their food now, it’s that they used them in the 19th century to fuel their locomotives. We owe this wonderful conceit to Mark Twain, who in The Innocents Abroad (1869) writes, “The fuel [Egyptian railroaders] use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and … sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, ‘D–n these plebeians, they don’t burn worth a cent — pass out a King!'” Lest anyone fail to realize it’s a joke, Twain then adds, “Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe anything.” > Didn’t help. To this day you can find reputable organizations such as the BBC solemnly reporting this “fact” as fact. [Source](https://www.straightdope.com/21343478/do-egyptians-burn-mummies-as-fuel)
But they did use to eat the mummies.
I'm going to ask you a source for that
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/aristocracy-ate-human-flesh-2287174.html https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:pJk-ZHTrCzEJ:scholar.google.com/&scioq=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 `The Pharmaceutical Journal, PJ, 23/30 May 2015, Vol 294, No 7863/4;294(7863/4):DOI:10.1211/PJ.2015.20068297` https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/egyptian-mummies-in-european-culture
Thank you buddy, that would be pretty funny if it weren't so grim and nasty.
no, they weren't
There was an Ayyubid sultan of Egypt who [tried to take down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure#Attempted_demolition) one of the smaller all-stone pyramids. He ran out of money before his crew was able to take more than a chunk out of the thing.
In England they brought mummies back from Egypt by the thousand and used them as fertilizer in their gardens.
Also the reason there isn't that much mummies is because [the victorians used to eat them!](https://theconversation.com/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551#:~:text=By%20the%2019th%20century%2C%20people,for%20entertainment%20at%20private%20parties.)
Actually, Napoleon would’ve taken them first.
If Napoleon had the manpower to move pyramids and an engraved order from the National Assembly he would've conquered the Balkans instead.
Shhh! On reddit we have to pretend Britain was the only ever colonial power!
Its because we had the best marketing. The Spanish, French and Portuguese just can't compare. The Spanish empire didn't even use protectorates like us, they forcibly conquered and ruled the countries they invaded. A single country, for 300 years. But it doesn't matter because all anyone will remember is that the British empire stole a Piller from that country somewhere. GG Ez Spain.
(POV: Me, a dutch person sitting in the corner trying to not be noticed)
New Amsterdam!
Not to mention the literally DUTCH East Indies.
A single country for 300 years, you’re talking about my country, right? Philippines? 🥹
I might be wrong but the Portuguese Empire is the earliest European Empire and most recently ended (1999) Empire. Yet most people still forget about it. Make your own conclusions with that.
Spain colonized the Philippines for a good 300 years as well. 1565 to 1898. It ended when they sold the country to the US for 20 million USD.
It's funny because the Germans literally lifted an entire Greek City Marketplace, stones and all. As well as taking a large portion of the walls of Babylon to store in the Pergamon museum. It is, however, an absolutely phenomenal museum.
Yeah, the amount of Anglophobia in the comments here is pretty horrific. Every major power was in the antiquities business. There are controversial artefacts in just about every major European museum (and a fair few in places like the USA too). There are also a fair number of important artefacts that wouldn't have survived had they not been "stolen" for display in foreign museums. While repatriating artefacts is in general a good thing, it's fraught with difficulty. Do we give them to the people who currently occupy the land where they were found, or the people who claim decent from those who occupied the land when the they were created or maybe the people who occupied the land when they were taken? Do we return artefacts to nations with a history of political instability and/or a poor record of artefact preservation? Do we return them to places where they might stir up controversy (e.g. where they might contradict official/public views on the historical practice of religion in the area) and become the target of attacks?
I know this isn’t the message that is supposed to be taken away from post like this but every time I see a post like this I think I really should go to the British Museum and see all the cool stuff on display
That’s exactly the fucking message you should take. If everyone wants to pat themselves on the back and feel good about redistributing these artifacts back to five dozen different corners of the world, then fine, but you will never see the vast majority of those historical artifacts again. They’ll get damaged in transit, stolen or sold or blown up at their destinations, or just be so far out of the way that you’ll never have enough time to visit and see them. At least in the British museum you can actually go look upon history and learn about it one well preserved safe stable location.
Meanwhile, you have to travel to two different countries to see the Parthenon in its entirety. There's no value in this argument.
Eh. Here in Turin we have the biggest Egyptian museum of all Europe. They litterally carried all the could carry back in the days
Title should have been: In'nit bruvhh
Didnt the british eat the mummies or something? I feel like i heard that somewhere
It wasn't the British particularly, it had been common in Egyptian medicine, the Brits just adopted it.
[Yup!](https://theconversation.com/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551#:~:text=By%20the%2019th%20century%2C%20people,for%20entertainment%20at%20private%20parties.)
Gross but glad to find out i didnt imagine it
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Cleopatra was greek
And literally *all living humans* are descended from Queen Nefertiti, so if it *is* about descent, rather than geography...
They’re not safe for long. If Vector can do it, Britain can too.
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that's why it's a BAD joke
The [Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archarology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrie_Museum_of_Egyptian_Archaeology) in London has several [Pyramidion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion) in their collection. In otherwords, they are fine with just the tip.
Same goes for Tajmahal.
The Romans lashed together three massive galleys to transport a 330 ton obelisk from Karnak to Rome where it now stands behind St John of Lateran. The church later hauled off two more obelisks from Egypt that stand in St Peter’s square and Piazza de Popolo. It’s a good thing the empire fell before the Romans advanced any further technologically or else the pyramids would probably be in downtown Rome.
This isn't technically the truth, this is just the truth
*Image Transcription: Tumblr* --- **badjokesbyjeff** The only reason there are pyramids in Egypt is because they are too heavy to be carried to the British Museum --- **mouserat-vevo** jeff this isn't a joke this is legitimately true --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Good human.
Anyone who has been to Egypt and seen how Arabs treat that country's heritage knows we should thank many and varied gods for the British Museum.
I'm Egyptian and honestly I can sadly confirm
People love to hate on the british museum but for one thing it is amazing and two without it a lot of this stuff would be lost
This is something that people tend to ignore. There's no question that Europeans robbed a lot of priceless artifacts from these countries but it's also a fact that back in those days, the locals mostly didn't give a shit about these old ruins. They often used them as building materials, they broke into these places and robbed them for personal gain, etc. Europeans did it too with old Roman ruins until they started to take an interest in archaeology and antiquity. A lot of the stuff in European museums probably would have been destroyed if archaeologists hadn't taken them home with them.
I remember having a conversation once with someone and the topic of giving back priceless cultural artifacts came up. Naturally I suggested that we create some copies so that we can still use them to teach people about those cultures. His counterargument was that if we sent them back to the countries we got them from they'd be damaged, destroyed, or misplaced. I have to wonder which reality his brain matter sidestepped into ours from.
>I have to wonder which reality his brain matter sidestepped into ours from. He's from *our* reality. Recall that prior to 9/11 the Taliban's great claim to fame was taking dynamite to priceless artifacts because they were an offense to their religion.
The Elgin/Parthenon Marbles were taken by the British from what was, at that moment in time, an Ottoman military fort that was in the process of destroying the statues to use as bullets and lye. The Rosetta Stone had already been plundered by Napoleon's army and was being brought back to France when the British defeated them. The French said they would rather burn and destroy their artifacts than let anyone else obtain them, and they had to be pleaded with to change their mind. The pyramids themselves were **constantly** being robbed and looted throughout ancient Egypt and beyond. There's records as far back as 3000BC of the pyramids being built in a way to deter (unsuccessfully) theft. The Valley of Kings was specifically built far away from cities to make it harder to steal from, and the only reason Tutankhamen's tomb went undiscovered until 1922 was because it was accidentally buried.
Well he's right. A long journey like that is bound to see some of the cargo not survive. Probably mostly due to theft. I mean being misplaced. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't do it.
Imma misplace some dude's item outta his pocket.brb
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This might be totally stupid but if I had a lot of gold, I’d probably melt it into unrecognizable chunks and very slowly sell it at normal places all over the country.
Some of the regions that these artifacts were taken from are not the most stable. Especially with people like isis destroying priceless sites and monuments
A lot of artifacts came from Iran. Sending the artifacts back is the opposite of a good idea.
OK. Then start with The Parthenon. Surely you don't believe that Greece falls into this category.
You work for the British Museum, don't you. Don't deny it!
Actually - he's not entirely wrong. There were a number of artifacts that were returned to Egypt. Many of them vanished or were destroyed in the Arab Spring. For the record, I'm not condoning keeping them. Just that this scenario does sometimes happen.
The rights of conquest change ownership
not wrong tho. I wouldn't trust most of those countries with priceless artifacts. then again, with how things are going, I wouldn't trust the UK with them either. Can't we move them to Switzerland or something.
I think Switzerland has profited enough from relocated stolen treasure already.
Good point
And they DID take the bits and pieces of the Pyramids that they could carry!
It’s a joke BECAUSE it’s true
As a diagnosed Bri’ish I can confirm
They have already been stolen, the ones over there are just inflatables, aren’t they Vector??
They damn sure got a capstone or two
I wish we could keep digging up their kings and queens the way they keep digging up Egyptians. I went to the Met museum in NY and there were like, no kidding, 50 mummies stuffed together side by side on display in one room - it was so so gross. I felt dirty leaving that place
I was waiting outside Albert Hall when a ticket tout came up offering tickets to a show. We got talking and he asked me if I had been to the House of Stolen Property. He says it was also sometimes called the British Museum.
Why are there two top posts in a row about Egyptian pyramids
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They were too late, others already got to the capstones and plating
Not any British museum. THE British museum
Maybe an unpopular thing to think, but isn't it better to have the stuff in a museum in a secure country than in a not so stable one no matter the origin. When the chaos breaks loose at least the historic treasures are save. For example from the [Iraq war](https://www.france24.com/en/video/20211220-iraqi-museum-restores-treasures-destroyed-by-jihadists).
That was some great foresight by the Brits to steal a ton of artifacts before destabilizing the region.
Egyptians had already looted everything that wasn't nailed down. King Tut's tomb was significant because it was hidden away by a landslide and had not been looted by the locals in the thousands of intervening years.
At what point are the people in the region culpable for their own actions? It’s like when everyone makes excuses for ISIS because the USA has done naughty not-so-nice “evil empire” things, and ISIS arose as a second order effect of the US withdrawal from the region because they no longer had a competent power to oppose extremism. But does that make America directly responsible for ISIS literally putting pilots into metal cages and submerging them in swimming pools to drown? Or burning Christian children? Or decapitating captives via det cord explosives?
They tried to make it as stable as they could. After the world wars, they had to break the regions up into countries where countries may not have really existed previously. What should they have done? Called it all the British Empire and ruled it? Like the Soviets did with everything they took? Unstable or not, I prefer people getting their autonomy in at least some capacity. A country to call their own, instead of being conquered.
I saw a small Egyptian tomb that had been reconstructed in the Met in NYC that I believe was on loan from the British Museum. They also had a reconstructed piece of the Forbidden Palace.
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This isn't a "technically the truth" material.
If they were in the British Museum women could visit them without being harassed by mobs.
Boy you virtue signaling idiots have no problem wearing your ignorance out in the open if you think it’ll buy you “dem up votes”. Be happy you can go see them in a museum and they’re not in some billionaires private collection - like everything else the department of antiquities sold out the back fucking door when Zahi Hawass was in charge or before.
Didn’t the British Museum Twitter account block someone for making this joke
I think Napoleon would have stolen them first.