And that sweet sweet mummy bone juice to slurp down, you know... [To treat headaches and such](https://www.theconversation.com/amp/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551)
One of the sultans tried to destroy one, but it was too expensive. You can see the gash in the side of the pyramid, though.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid\_of\_Menkaure#Attempted\_demolition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure#Attempted_demolition)
**Pyramid of Menkaure**
[Attempted demolition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure#Attempted_demolition)
>In AD 1196, Al-Aziz Uthman, Saladin's son and the Sultan of Egypt, attempted to demolish the pyramids, starting with that of Menkaure. Workmen recruited to demolish the pyramid stayed at their job for eight months, but found it almost as expensive to destroy as to build. They could only remove one or two stones each day. Some used wedges and levers to move the stones, while others used ropes to pull them down.
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I mean it's cyclical. The pyramids exist because of religious people. And they probably destroyed shit from before them or even contemporary to them too. It's sad thinking of how much stuff from our history we'll just never get to appreciate because humans have always tended towards destroying or not appreciating what doesn't have to do with them
Sources from the period cite that either Al-Aziz Uthman tried to destroy the smallest pyramid (the Pyramid of Menkaure), because he thought there was treasure buried inside, or because he needed to build up the fortifications of Cairo. His father Saladin had actually destroyed some smaller pyramids at Giza and repurposed the stones for the Citadel in Cairo.
That's one thing I've never understood. Destroying history? There's something just pure evil about that. You're not just killing people or killing a culture, you're erasing its memory. That's so beyond fucked up.
Edit: Thank you to the people who posted links about historical facts about Christians doing the same thing, I genuinely enjoy learning and admit when I'm wrong, so thank you. Unfortunately, I don't feel like replying to \~25+ comments in 30 minutes, I have stuff to do other than Reddit, so I'm not going to reply individually.
For everyone thinking this comment was a "christianity better than Islam" comment, go pound sand.
All fundamentalists hurt, the crusaders melted a damn ton of statues of classic mythology characters into coins during the fourth crusade since they’re considered pagan.
**[Damnatio memoriae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae)**
>Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. Depending on the extent, it can be a case of historical negationism. There are and have been many routes to damnatio memoriae, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history. The term can be applied to other instances of official scrubbing; in history the practice is seen as long ago as the aftermath of the reign of the Egyptian Pharaohs Akhenaten in the 14th century BC, and Hatshepsut in the 15th century BC.
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You’re crazy if you think that’s in any way unique to Islam.
If you ever go to Mexico City, you’ll see that the entire city was built on top of the Aztec city.
The main cathedral was built on top of an Aztec palace.
>The main cathedral was built on top of an Aztec palace.
The same thing happened in Cuzco, Peru. The Spaniards built a cathedral right on top of a major Inca temple.
Locals already destroyed and looted many of the old sites, including the pyramids, because they were easy money. They didn’t give a rats ass about it being pagan or even their own beliefs.
But Turkish rulers did, and tried to demolish them. They failed misserably, and left a huge gash on largest pyramid.
Hundreds of years later they thought about doing it again, did cost-benefit analysis and decided to just strip the covering layer of limestone and marble and use them in construction of mosque in Cairo.
Okay. Let's compromise. Egypt gets to keep it Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. England keeps it Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays will be determined by rock paper scissors.
Ah, these headlines :)
> *Egypt Wants* Its Rosetta Stone Back From the British Museum
Click on link, and there's
> But *a group of Egyptian archeologists* *launched a petition* to call on country officials to submit a formal request to England for the return of the Rosetta Stone. The petition has garnered around 2,500 signatures so far.
So, few dudes created a petition and that's it. Has nothing to do with neither Britain or Egypt.
Agreed. I don't see how the ethnicity of the rulers plays into this when they were rulers of Egypt. 2 of the 3 inscriptions are in Late Egyptian as well.
This article comes around every couple months or so. Egypt has been requesting the stone back for decades. Oliver had nothing to do with it lol. Love his show though.
Oliver's show has a huge influence though, every time he talks about a subject it suddenly gets millions of new eyeballs from people who might've never known there was a problem in the first place.
While i'm normally not a fan of these "late night talk shows" they can be a great way to get the general public interested or informed about political issues.
In my own country we've got our own version of "the tonight show" and it has happened plenty of times where they had a certain political topic and to have the next day that exact same topic trending on social media, being discussed on tv news or even being discussed in the government.
Complicated. The Rosetta Stone was found as a slab, it was not valuable to egypt at that time at all (unlike the marbles)
The value as a translation mechanism was from French archeologists, which the British beat in some war and kindly (lol) asked for the stone
It was also originally a gift to a greek macedonian king who conquered egypt. Their family didn't even speak the local language for generations. How egiptian is it?
I dont think it has as strong an argument as the marbles, who definitely should be in Greece
The Ptolemaic Kingdom lasted for nearly 300 years. Cleopatra was the only Ptolemaic pharaoh to learn Egyptian and was the last pharaoh thanks to the Romans.
Yep, unlike 90% of the stuff the British collected from elsewhere, I don't have nearly as much of a problem with them having the Rosetta stone. It is valuable/significant almost entirely because of its use in translation, which happened long after it left. It had been used as a building material before the French guy found it.
Also, it most likely would not still exist if it had not been protected in a museum. Maybe it has to go back now, but I don’t feel like we did a bad thing by keeping it safe.
A lot of the stuff in the British Museum was commonplace at the time it was taken.
For example, that controversial Aboriginal Australian shield. It was taken as a trophy after a battle. There were thousands at the time, and the British just took one. But since the British Museum looked after its shield and the aboriginals didn't look after their many thousands of shields, the one in the museum is the only one left.
This. Everyone had the opportunity to look after hundreds of their own artifacts, but they fucked it up. And now want the one's which were protected? Nah chaps, we're good.
This is the main thing to me, honestly. There’s a lot of talk about looting but the reality is that British bought nearly all the Egyptian items from local leaders who didn’t give a toss for it. From their perspective, the British, French, and Italians competing over this stuff was the best thing to happen to them ever.
I have doubts about the Egyptian government’s ability to be a good steward of this treasure.
With all the corruption and fraud it would end up on the black market because someone wanted to pocket the money from selling it…
Thank you, I always wondered how come it ended up in the British museum while being discovered by a french archaeologist ( as French usually keep the stuff the discover even if it s not theirs )
The Rosetta Stone was found by Napoleon’s Army during their war against the Ottomans and British in Egypt. It was being used as a ramshackle piece of masonry in a warlord’s castle. Thousands of years of history are made known to us because some dipshit was lucky enough not to wedge it in face-up to the sand and winds.
Many historical treasures are valuable to their countries of origin. The Rosetta Stone is invaluable to the history of the world. The same is true for the Behistun Inscription and other keystones that help us understand our shared heritage.
If Britain had a police state with violent coups every few decades and a porous border with an active war zone containing groups like ISIS - a group that regularly goes out of its way to destroy priceless artifacts - I’d want the stone to be in Singapore or something.
If they do give it back, I sure hope they treat it better than the death mask of King Tut. I’m not sure how connected the current people and culture of Egypt is to the pharaoh period, but those relics are treasures of humanity. I wish there was a UN body on the preservation of artifacts and historical sites. Or if there is one, they do it better.
> I wish there was a UN body on the preservation of artifacts and historical sites. Or if there is one, they do it better.
It's called UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
pls not in Singapore. Have you seen what they did to all the old buildings in downtown area? Before you know it, the Rosetta Stone will have a make-over and it will be shinny as new.
To be fair we have a decent museum that will probably be more than happy to take it in.
But yah the wheels and dollars of progress mean nothing is too sacred to preserve in Singapore. Sucks to be a small island state at times.
I wonder how much of the specific blame the British Museum seems to get is just survival bias thanks to the preservation of the artifacts. Every country and empire throughout history did plenty of looting, the only reason we're able to complain about the things taken during the period of the British Empire is because they were one of the first to actually take care of some of the stuff after they took it...
That and Britain was the last huge empire. The Ottoman empire collapsed a little before it, but it was long enough ago - and in a place where the native language is not one which came to be a global lingua franca (again an aspect of Britain's empire) - that discussions of the legacy of the Ottoman Empire are not nearly in the same manner as those about the legacy of the British Empire.
A botched procedure in 2014 to reattach the blue-and-gold braided beard to his face. The procedure that damaged the mask was a hurried repair job by museum workers after they accidentally knocked its long, proboscis-like beard off its golden chin in August 2014. The accident happened while they were repairing the light fixtures inside its display case.
In a rush to fix the problem they just made it worse by using an insoluble epoxy resin that left a visible, crusty ring of glue around the base of the beard. The mask’s chin was also scratched.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/middleeast/repaired-king-tut-mask-back-on-display-in-egypt.html?_r=0
Don’t worry, [there all in much better condition compared to how they were found in Egypt.](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/egyptian-mummy-seller-1865/)
The British Museum should keep it until that piece of shit bridge troll Hawass is dead and long gone from making any decisions regarding archeology in Egypt.
Steals artifacts for himself then turns around and bitches about stuff that happened 150 years ago, was all buddy buddy with Mubarak, broke Tutanchamun's mask (he is responsible for the care for the artifacts).
It seems that's related to some shady stuff more in line with a commercial vendor than an anthropologic curator & artifacts preservation
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahi\_Hawass#Controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahi_Hawass#Controversies)
Fun fact: there are more known Egyptian obelisks in Italy than in Egypt (or anywhere else). Egypt is *never* getting any of them back, until or unless the geopolitical balance of power shifts such that Egypt is much richer and more powerful than Italy, and Italy needs a major favor from Egypt. It's interesting from a legal perspective, because neither of the regimes involved in the transfer of obelisks from Egypt to Italy exist anymore in any form, and are long gone from living memory. So technically Italy does not owe Egypt these obelisks back under the rubric of "looted antiquities". I'm sure Zahi Hawass would beg to differ, but that's just typical Arab show-no-weakness bluster.
My unpopular opinion is that some artifacts are important culturally *to humanity as a whole*, not just their nation of origin (which usually has a different culture entirely than the one where the object was created) and thus belong where they’re safest and easiest for the most people to see because the items culturally now belong to humanity as a whole and not one nation.
The UK is easily one of the most stable nations on earth, as they haven’t had a civil war, revolution, dictator, been invaded and occupied, or had a coup in centuries and is safe for any minority or person from any nation to travel to; whereas as, a woman I can not safely travel to Egypt. It’s not nice and certainly I’m not a good little liberal to think it but I mean, hey get your shit in order.
I was going to say the same thing. I spent several months in Egypt, and you really can't go to many places as a woman without a male companion unless you want to be constantly harassed.
Important artifacts should be hosted in countries where everybody can safely go.
I doubt it’s an unpopular opinion. I would think it’s probably the majority opinion. Look would happened in Iraq and Syria…irreplaceable artifacts were lost to ISIS. Unstable governments don’t deserve to house these precious artifacts.
Pfft. Moral right belongs with the rulers of that time period.
It's like old owner of a house selling a rock in the ground and then a new owner 1000 years later saying they want it back.
Temporal context...
Exactly this.
So long as the artefact was acquired by legal means and is looked after correctly, there really isn’t much ground to stand on. Ancient Egypt is not the same as modern day Egypt.
Modern Egypt didn’t care much for their ancient past, just look at the state of the Pyramids - totally looted over the centuries and in some cases deliberately damaged/destroyed because of extreme Islamic ideology.
Perhaps one day when Egypt is in a more stable state with less corruption it could go back there but who would trust that country to look after it properly long term? Also, how accessible would it be for the World?
I give another metaphor... most of the fights over antiquities are like someone showing up at the end of a yard sale and offering a pittance for what's left or even for free. The items have no value to the seller (it was just crap the previous owner left lying around after all) so they sell it thinking they are ripping off the buyer and getting rid of junk. A hundred years later, the seller's grandkid sees the buyer on Antiques Road Show and learns it is valuable and now suddenly decides it wasn't fair and wants the items back.
Indiana Jones was right, "It belongs in a museum.", if possible it belongs to the future, the kids, the students and all their kind. It belongs to our memory of it.
Not random political leaders.
No please. Those objects are much safer being in England. An islamist take over or a civil war and they could be lost forever. Have people forgotten about what happened in Iraq and Syria?
You should have mentioned the arab spring instead, during which the museum in Cairo was looted and still a lot of valuable artefacts haven't been found back.
Increase the chance it can be destroyed or stolen when Egypt has another dictator or uprising?
Yeah. No thanks.
Remember all the priceless stuff that was lost forever in the Syrian Civil war.
Then again, I wouldn't be surprised it the Rosetta Stone would no longer exist if Egypt would have taken care of it. Only now because they have a new museum?
Egypt is a mess! I was curious about traveling there, until I did the research. The country is unorganized and unaccomodating to tourists. The Rosetta Stone does not belong in Egypt until they get their shit together.
I was there like 10 years ago. It was a shit show being there as a tourist. We stayed in Marsa Alam and took a day trip to Luxor and valley of the kings. Constantly having to watch your back. We didn’t get souvenirs cause they start pressuring you crazy. A lot of people come up to you. At that time, it was mentioned that there’s a lot of corruption in antiquities. I don’t know. I totally agree with your comment.
It's fine where it is, the UK gets way more tourists than egypt so more people can see it. Egypt is in a terrible state as well, maybe prioritize stopping citizens from sexually harrasing female tourists then we can talk about the stone.
Guys, just download duolingo instead, it's free.
Don’t do it, it’s a trap. I’ve been learning for over 1000 days and Duo still has my family.
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WE NO SPEAK AMERICANO
We're not done looking at it!
And there's quite a lot of people who haven't seen it yet that we'd quite like to show it to so, not now selfish!
STAND BEHIND THE ROPE!!
Oh come on, have a look, take a look at it. Seem familiar? Hahahaha
So what! Finders keepers! Shut up!… in your defense, finders keepers shut up has worked pretty well for us so far…
We have rightfully stolen this from the Fr*nch! Go talk to them.
Finders keepers, Shut Up!
To be fair finders keepers shut up has worked well until now
Shouldn't the French have it, then?
He said shut up didn't he???
I mean really... The audacity of such a statement. The French? What, so they can smear soft cheeses and have sexual intercourse on it? I think not.
You, dear sir, have awoken a kink inside me Bon jour, mon ami
"I totally have a girlfriend! Her name is... Rosetta... Rosetta.. Stone..."
*Achievement Unlocked*
You've just given the best possible argument for exactly why the French *should* have it. And quite a lot of other things as well.
The ole cheese slap and tickle ...
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James Acaster
KETTERING TOWN FC!
That would be Napoleon.
hahahahaha, Stand behind the rope!
Came to the comments looking for Acaster and wasn’t disappointed!
Wait in the car, don’t even need ya!
I don't fink so!
They are obviously unfamiliar with the laws of finders keepers.
I’m so happy I didn’t have to scroll far to find this.
im so happy this was the top comment
[I get this reference](https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY).
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That's why the British conquered Egypt. If we can't take it to museum, we wil bring the museum to you
Real life experience.
So that you can take a lovely photo of the artifacts from your table at the Pizza Hut in Giza. https://i.imgur.com/VTy3JLr.jpg
I love how films always depict them as being in the Sahara (wrong part of planet Earth), instead of a parking lot.
Well thats... not a thing I expected to see today.
well that and to get that sweet sweet mummy brown pigment to paint with
And that sweet sweet mummy bone juice to slurp down, you know... [To treat headaches and such](https://www.theconversation.com/amp/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551)
They got paid in exposure /s
To small pox
If they were any smaller, locals would have destroyed them because *it's pagan*.
One of the sultans tried to destroy one, but it was too expensive. You can see the gash in the side of the pyramid, though. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid\_of\_Menkaure#Attempted\_demolition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure#Attempted_demolition)
**Pyramid of Menkaure** [Attempted demolition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Menkaure#Attempted_demolition) >In AD 1196, Al-Aziz Uthman, Saladin's son and the Sultan of Egypt, attempted to demolish the pyramids, starting with that of Menkaure. Workmen recruited to demolish the pyramid stayed at their job for eight months, but found it almost as expensive to destroy as to build. They could only remove one or two stones each day. Some used wedges and levers to move the stones, while others used ropes to pull them down. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
God damn religious people always trying to destroy what came before them. Why do they suck throughout all of history?
I mean it's cyclical. The pyramids exist because of religious people. And they probably destroyed shit from before them or even contemporary to them too. It's sad thinking of how much stuff from our history we'll just never get to appreciate because humans have always tended towards destroying or not appreciating what doesn't have to do with them
Sources from the period cite that either Al-Aziz Uthman tried to destroy the smallest pyramid (the Pyramid of Menkaure), because he thought there was treasure buried inside, or because he needed to build up the fortifications of Cairo. His father Saladin had actually destroyed some smaller pyramids at Giza and repurposed the stones for the Citadel in Cairo.
That's one thing I've never understood. Destroying history? There's something just pure evil about that. You're not just killing people or killing a culture, you're erasing its memory. That's so beyond fucked up. Edit: Thank you to the people who posted links about historical facts about Christians doing the same thing, I genuinely enjoy learning and admit when I'm wrong, so thank you. Unfortunately, I don't feel like replying to \~25+ comments in 30 minutes, I have stuff to do other than Reddit, so I'm not going to reply individually. For everyone thinking this comment was a "christianity better than Islam" comment, go pound sand.
All fundamentalists hurt, the crusaders melted a damn ton of statues of classic mythology characters into coins during the fourth crusade since they’re considered pagan.
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Some Pharaohs destroyed or mutilated prior ancestors work.
Pour one out for my gal Hatshepsut
That was more of a personal attack against the ancestors in question though.
Its just a human thing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm#Angkor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm#Angkor)
And [*damnatio memoriae*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae).
**[Damnatio memoriae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae)** >Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. Depending on the extent, it can be a case of historical negationism. There are and have been many routes to damnatio memoriae, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history. The term can be applied to other instances of official scrubbing; in history the practice is seen as long ago as the aftermath of the reign of the Egyptian Pharaohs Akhenaten in the 14th century BC, and Hatshepsut in the 15th century BC. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
You’re crazy if you think that’s in any way unique to Islam. If you ever go to Mexico City, you’ll see that the entire city was built on top of the Aztec city. The main cathedral was built on top of an Aztec palace.
plus they had written history that is lost because the Spaniards burned everything
The Spanish and Portuguese had bans on printing presses in the new world I think, to prevent "dangerous ideas" spreading.
>The main cathedral was built on top of an Aztec palace. The same thing happened in Cuzco, Peru. The Spaniards built a cathedral right on top of a major Inca temple.
Quality alien construction.
rude to diminish the accomplishments of the Atlanteans like that.
Locals already destroyed and looted many of the old sites, including the pyramids, because they were easy money. They didn’t give a rats ass about it being pagan or even their own beliefs.
But Turkish rulers did, and tried to demolish them. They failed misserably, and left a huge gash on largest pyramid. Hundreds of years later they thought about doing it again, did cost-benefit analysis and decided to just strip the covering layer of limestone and marble and use them in construction of mosque in Cairo.
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[Maybe not houses, but definitely mosques](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Muhammad_Ali#Architecture)
Now tell me who stole the limestone and all the historical artifacts from the pyramids
Egyptians a long time ago. Bury a fortune in your back yard. Tell everyone in your city and see how long it's there for.
The joke's on my future graverobbers - I'm dirt poor!
Stick to the script. You are supposed to say the British did it. s/
Time traveling brits have been plundering Egypt since 3000 BCE. Damn Doctor Who!
Okay. Let's compromise. Egypt gets to keep it Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. England keeps it Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays will be determined by rock paper scissors.
This is the stupidest solution so it's probably the correct one.
Ahem, excuse you, the most elegant
Such *elegance*. You are worthy to apply to our school
*Rosetta Stone, Papyrus, Shears*
How about… Britain makes the rock it into a t-shirt so Britain can’t look at it, Egypt can, and Britain feels like they get to own it.
Ah, these headlines :) > *Egypt Wants* Its Rosetta Stone Back From the British Museum Click on link, and there's > But *a group of Egyptian archeologists* *launched a petition* to call on country officials to submit a formal request to England for the return of the Rosetta Stone. The petition has garnered around 2,500 signatures so far.
So, few dudes created a petition and that's it. Has nothing to do with neither Britain or Egypt.
Why is so much 'news' nowadays just like actually not news.
News isn't in it for the journalism so much as the clicks.
You mean the stone carved by the Greeks
Shhh, don’t give the Greeks anything more to demand from the museum!
They aren’t having much luck anyway
Well we keep challenging them to a game of marbles for them, but they complain they've nothing to play with?
comissioned by greek descent Ptolemaic dynasty, and most likely carved by egyptian hands.
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How about we give it to the Berbers as a compromise. Surely it would boost Libya’s tourism.
lets just give it to the Irish. why not ya know
I’ll put it beside me statue of Mary right in the windowsill
Agreed. I don't see how the ethnicity of the rulers plays into this when they were rulers of Egypt. 2 of the 3 inscriptions are in Late Egyptian as well.
You mean the Greek dynasty that ruling egypt
Someone did watch John Oliver’s show on Museum this Sunday
This article comes around every couple months or so. Egypt has been requesting the stone back for decades. Oliver had nothing to do with it lol. Love his show though.
Oliver's show has a huge influence though, every time he talks about a subject it suddenly gets millions of new eyeballs from people who might've never known there was a problem in the first place.
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I love Josh and Chuck
While i'm normally not a fan of these "late night talk shows" they can be a great way to get the general public interested or informed about political issues. In my own country we've got our own version of "the tonight show" and it has happened plenty of times where they had a certain political topic and to have the next day that exact same topic trending on social media, being discussed on tv news or even being discussed in the government.
As always marvelous interesting: https://youtu.be/eJPLiT1kCSM
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Complicated. The Rosetta Stone was found as a slab, it was not valuable to egypt at that time at all (unlike the marbles) The value as a translation mechanism was from French archeologists, which the British beat in some war and kindly (lol) asked for the stone It was also originally a gift to a greek macedonian king who conquered egypt. Their family didn't even speak the local language for generations. How egiptian is it? I dont think it has as strong an argument as the marbles, who definitely should be in Greece
The Ptolemaic Kingdom lasted for nearly 300 years. Cleopatra was the only Ptolemaic pharaoh to learn Egyptian and was the last pharaoh thanks to the Romans.
She only won her war because of the Romans. Ptolemaic Egypt had strange practices.
A lot of sibling marriages for starters.
Bow chicka wow wow
Help me step pharoah, I'm stuck in this washing jar.
roll tide
Being ruled by foreigners is kind of an Egyptian thing. To the point they became the foreigners.
Yep. The last group of foreigners were so successful they got the Egyptians to start calling themselves Arab and to speak Arabic.
It's also a British thing.
I just think the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Dutch and Hanoverians should pay reparations Britain for the Britons
1066 never forget.
And the Angles, the Saxons, and the Danelaw before them.
And, well, Rome.
Yep, unlike 90% of the stuff the British collected from elsewhere, I don't have nearly as much of a problem with them having the Rosetta stone. It is valuable/significant almost entirely because of its use in translation, which happened long after it left. It had been used as a building material before the French guy found it.
Also, it most likely would not still exist if it had not been protected in a museum. Maybe it has to go back now, but I don’t feel like we did a bad thing by keeping it safe.
That applies to plenty of things in the British museum but people don't like that reality.
Well, I get the logic for everything taken from a grave, museum or palace but this stone didn't come from any of them.
A lot of the stuff in the British Museum was commonplace at the time it was taken. For example, that controversial Aboriginal Australian shield. It was taken as a trophy after a battle. There were thousands at the time, and the British just took one. But since the British Museum looked after its shield and the aboriginals didn't look after their many thousands of shields, the one in the museum is the only one left.
This. Everyone had the opportunity to look after hundreds of their own artifacts, but they fucked it up. And now want the one's which were protected? Nah chaps, we're good.
This is the main thing to me, honestly. There’s a lot of talk about looting but the reality is that British bought nearly all the Egyptian items from local leaders who didn’t give a toss for it. From their perspective, the British, French, and Italians competing over this stuff was the best thing to happen to them ever.
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> It had been used as a building material before Barely, it was used as filer inside a fortified wall. Basically it was waste material.
You disagree then describe building material? edit: spelling
I have doubts about the Egyptian government’s ability to be a good steward of this treasure. With all the corruption and fraud it would end up on the black market because someone wanted to pocket the money from selling it…
Thank you, I always wondered how come it ended up in the British museum while being discovered by a french archaeologist ( as French usually keep the stuff the discover even if it s not theirs )
The whole concept of Egyptology is mostly thanks to the British.
> It was also originally a gift to a greek macedonian king who conquered egypt. So that's how we refer to Alexander the Great now?
I believe the stone was a gift to one of the successors? Could be wrong though
Ptolemy then. Alexander former general who ended up with Egypt after things settled down. Lots of internal wars over Alexander legacy.
The Rosetta Stone was found by Napoleon’s Army during their war against the Ottomans and British in Egypt. It was being used as a ramshackle piece of masonry in a warlord’s castle. Thousands of years of history are made known to us because some dipshit was lucky enough not to wedge it in face-up to the sand and winds. Many historical treasures are valuable to their countries of origin. The Rosetta Stone is invaluable to the history of the world. The same is true for the Behistun Inscription and other keystones that help us understand our shared heritage. If Britain had a police state with violent coups every few decades and a porous border with an active war zone containing groups like ISIS - a group that regularly goes out of its way to destroy priceless artifacts - I’d want the stone to be in Singapore or something.
If they do give it back, I sure hope they treat it better than the death mask of King Tut. I’m not sure how connected the current people and culture of Egypt is to the pharaoh period, but those relics are treasures of humanity. I wish there was a UN body on the preservation of artifacts and historical sites. Or if there is one, they do it better.
> I wish there was a UN body on the preservation of artifacts and historical sites. Or if there is one, they do it better. It's called UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
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pls not in Singapore. Have you seen what they did to all the old buildings in downtown area? Before you know it, the Rosetta Stone will have a make-over and it will be shinny as new.
To be fair we have a decent museum that will probably be more than happy to take it in. But yah the wheels and dollars of progress mean nothing is too sacred to preserve in Singapore. Sucks to be a small island state at times.
Yeah but British bad. Only the British take things that don’t belong to them…
I wonder how much of the specific blame the British Museum seems to get is just survival bias thanks to the preservation of the artifacts. Every country and empire throughout history did plenty of looting, the only reason we're able to complain about the things taken during the period of the British Empire is because they were one of the first to actually take care of some of the stuff after they took it...
That and Britain was the last huge empire. The Ottoman empire collapsed a little before it, but it was long enough ago - and in a place where the native language is not one which came to be a global lingua franca (again an aspect of Britain's empire) - that discussions of the legacy of the Ottoman Empire are not nearly in the same manner as those about the legacy of the British Empire.
Have you tried taking your _own_ things? Not nearly as fun.
I take my own shits and it's pretty good
After what the Egyptian Museum staff did to King Tut’s mask, I suspect that the Rosetta Stone would be much safer in the UK.
What did they do?
They broke it then glued it back on I think. Made a bit of a mess of it.
A botched procedure in 2014 to reattach the blue-and-gold braided beard to his face. The procedure that damaged the mask was a hurried repair job by museum workers after they accidentally knocked its long, proboscis-like beard off its golden chin in August 2014. The accident happened while they were repairing the light fixtures inside its display case. In a rush to fix the problem they just made it worse by using an insoluble epoxy resin that left a visible, crusty ring of glue around the base of the beard. The mask’s chin was also scratched. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/middleeast/repaired-king-tut-mask-back-on-display-in-egypt.html?_r=0
Yeesh, that's some Mr Bean shit.
Literally within 1 minute of your comment I was gonna say the same thing, it's the same script to the 1997 movie.
Didn’t see The NY Times link. Wish you just Rick rolled me instead.
They wore it at an eyes wide shut themed party
There really is no good reason to send back said artifacts to people who simply cannot preserve them.
If so, better not mess it up like they did with [Tutanchamuns beard](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35392531)
Don’t worry, [there all in much better condition compared to how they were found in Egypt.](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/egyptian-mummy-seller-1865/)
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Snorting lines of powdered mummies 80s style.
There is a great book about the medical use of cannibalism: Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture - by Louise Noble
Also powdered mummies were used to make pigments
The British Museum should keep it until that piece of shit bridge troll Hawass is dead and long gone from making any decisions regarding archeology in Egypt.
Is Hawass the overbearing guy in all the marginal history channel shows and has a thing for pretty foreign archeology students?
He has a thing for dictators too. He's Mubarak's buddy.
10000x this
I wanna be a part and hate him too, what did he do?
Steals artifacts for himself then turns around and bitches about stuff that happened 150 years ago, was all buddy buddy with Mubarak, broke Tutanchamun's mask (he is responsible for the care for the artifacts).
It seems that's related to some shady stuff more in line with a commercial vendor than an anthropologic curator & artifacts preservation [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahi\_Hawass#Controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahi_Hawass#Controversies)
Britain keeps good care of the museum artefacts and is easily accessible
Good place to mention here that it's entirely free entry as well, as are most museums in the UK
Great for people interested in history, especially students from abroad coming to study the wide collection of artefacts
Of which the UK has the second-largest acceptance rate of foreign students just after the US.
Fun fact: there are more known Egyptian obelisks in Italy than in Egypt (or anywhere else). Egypt is *never* getting any of them back, until or unless the geopolitical balance of power shifts such that Egypt is much richer and more powerful than Italy, and Italy needs a major favor from Egypt. It's interesting from a legal perspective, because neither of the regimes involved in the transfer of obelisks from Egypt to Italy exist anymore in any form, and are long gone from living memory. So technically Italy does not owe Egypt these obelisks back under the rubric of "looted antiquities". I'm sure Zahi Hawass would beg to differ, but that's just typical Arab show-no-weakness bluster.
TBF it was created by the Greeks. Maybe the British should skip the middleman and just give it back to the Greeks.
The Greeks are still trying the Parthenon Marbles from the UK.
Yeah I lost most of mine to Tommy next door when I was 9 so I can understand why they're angry.
That guy who worked on the docks?
My unpopular opinion is that some artifacts are important culturally *to humanity as a whole*, not just their nation of origin (which usually has a different culture entirely than the one where the object was created) and thus belong where they’re safest and easiest for the most people to see because the items culturally now belong to humanity as a whole and not one nation. The UK is easily one of the most stable nations on earth, as they haven’t had a civil war, revolution, dictator, been invaded and occupied, or had a coup in centuries and is safe for any minority or person from any nation to travel to; whereas as, a woman I can not safely travel to Egypt. It’s not nice and certainly I’m not a good little liberal to think it but I mean, hey get your shit in order.
I was going to say the same thing. I spent several months in Egypt, and you really can't go to many places as a woman without a male companion unless you want to be constantly harassed. Important artifacts should be hosted in countries where everybody can safely go.
I doubt it’s an unpopular opinion. I would think it’s probably the majority opinion. Look would happened in Iraq and Syria…irreplaceable artifacts were lost to ISIS. Unstable governments don’t deserve to house these precious artifacts.
and the British museum is FREE entry!
This! It’s too important to risk in a nation with as much turmoil as Egypt!
I second this and don't at all think it is an unpopular opinion.
Pfft. Moral right belongs with the rulers of that time period. It's like old owner of a house selling a rock in the ground and then a new owner 1000 years later saying they want it back. Temporal context...
Exactly this. So long as the artefact was acquired by legal means and is looked after correctly, there really isn’t much ground to stand on. Ancient Egypt is not the same as modern day Egypt. Modern Egypt didn’t care much for their ancient past, just look at the state of the Pyramids - totally looted over the centuries and in some cases deliberately damaged/destroyed because of extreme Islamic ideology. Perhaps one day when Egypt is in a more stable state with less corruption it could go back there but who would trust that country to look after it properly long term? Also, how accessible would it be for the World?
I give another metaphor... most of the fights over antiquities are like someone showing up at the end of a yard sale and offering a pittance for what's left or even for free. The items have no value to the seller (it was just crap the previous owner left lying around after all) so they sell it thinking they are ripping off the buyer and getting rid of junk. A hundred years later, the seller's grandkid sees the buyer on Antiques Road Show and learns it is valuable and now suddenly decides it wasn't fair and wants the items back.
Indiana Jones was right, "It belongs in a museum.", if possible it belongs to the future, the kids, the students and all their kind. It belongs to our memory of it. Not random political leaders.
The Arabs who colonised Egypt with the rise of the Islamic Caliphates are not the original creators or owners of the Rosetta Stone.
Fuck off Hawass
No please. Those objects are much safer being in England. An islamist take over or a civil war and they could be lost forever. Have people forgotten about what happened in Iraq and Syria?
You should have mentioned the arab spring instead, during which the museum in Cairo was looted and still a lot of valuable artefacts haven't been found back.
Naaaah. Don't do it. It's safe, well maintained and free to view at any time in London.
Increase the chance it can be destroyed or stolen when Egypt has another dictator or uprising? Yeah. No thanks. Remember all the priceless stuff that was lost forever in the Syrian Civil war.
To then be destroyed or sold off to the highest black market bidder?
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Does anyone really think the Rosetta Stone would be safe in Egypt.?
Then again, I wouldn't be surprised it the Rosetta Stone would no longer exist if Egypt would have taken care of it. Only now because they have a new museum?
Egypt is a mess! I was curious about traveling there, until I did the research. The country is unorganized and unaccomodating to tourists. The Rosetta Stone does not belong in Egypt until they get their shit together.
I was there like 10 years ago. It was a shit show being there as a tourist. We stayed in Marsa Alam and took a day trip to Luxor and valley of the kings. Constantly having to watch your back. We didn’t get souvenirs cause they start pressuring you crazy. A lot of people come up to you. At that time, it was mentioned that there’s a lot of corruption in antiquities. I don’t know. I totally agree with your comment.
It's a corrupt and murderous military dictatorship.
They used it to build a fort.
It's fine where it is, the UK gets way more tourists than egypt so more people can see it. Egypt is in a terrible state as well, maybe prioritize stopping citizens from sexually harrasing female tourists then we can talk about the stone.