Comments on: Zahi Hawass is a badass

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:03:13 +0000

Good point, capp. I didn’t realize the mummies of political pariahs were systematically destroyed, although I knew about the cartouches, statues, images, etc.

By: cappuccino

cappuccino — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:39:39 +0000

The robbers often hacked the body to pieces to get at the jewelry buried within the mummy wrappings. But occasionally the prevailing political intrigues of the day led people to cary out a systematic destruction of the mummies of unfavored pharoahs or VIPs and their names.

By: pitshade

pitshade — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:53:31 +0000

It’s been said a lot of places that the laborers who built the tombs were most likely the first to plunder them. While the destruction of artifacts was bad, the grave robbers tended to hack up the bodies as well, not sure why unless it was some sort of class warfare.

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:35:12 +0000

I’ve read about the hideous trade in mummies before. Egypt’s history has been plundered viciously for at least 2 millenia, and given the tradition of grave-robbery, I’d say it was plundered when it was still current events.

By: pitshade

pitshade — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:00:05 +0000

In a book I read recently, there was a section on mummy unwrappings in the Nineteenth century where remains were removed from Egypt, then publically unwrapped before a paying audience.

Mummies were also ground up and used for medicines in Medieval times and even pigment until at least the Victorian era.

I think it was in the book that Warrenly sent me, an artist discovered that a jar of old pigment he had was made from human remains. He gave it a garden burial which was pretty cool, IMO.

and I have seen that guy on TV in the past.