[HN Gopher] Burial chamber of an ancient Egyptian priestess is d...
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       Burial chamber of an ancient Egyptian priestess is discovered after
       4k years
        
       Author : uptownfunk
       Score  : 84 points
       Date   : 2024-11-07 19:13 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.dailymail.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.dailymail.co.uk)
        
       | gnabgib wrote:
       | Source article (referenced as the source, and the photos/fb quote
       | lifted from):
       | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14048371/bur...
       | 
       | Source-source article: https://www.fu-
       | berlin.de/en/sites/cairo/news/20241013_Lady-I...
       | 
       | Original source (German): https://www.geschkult.fu-
       | berlin.de/e/aegyptologie/aktuelles/...
        
         | card_zero wrote:
         | That second link needs dy.html on the end. In fact all the
         | links have been truncated to their visible length.
         | 
         | https://www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/cairo/news/20241013_Lady-I...
        
           | gnabgib wrote:
           | Oh thanks! Copy-paste fail (from another post of this article
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42071429), too late for
           | me to edit, but the working links:
           | 
           | Source article (referenced as the source, and the photos/fb
           | quote lifted from): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a
           | rticle-14048371/bur...
           | 
           | Source-source article: https://www.fu-
           | berlin.de/en/sites/cairo/news/20241013_Lady-I...
           | 
           | Original source (German): https://www.geschkult.fu-
           | berlin.de/e/aegyptologie/aktuelles/...
        
             | adonovan wrote:
             | Thanks. The Post's site is collapsing under the weight of
             | the worst kind of lurid advertising. It is hard to find the
             | news--you even have to expand the section if you don't want
             | to see only ads.
        
           | dang wrote:
           | Fixed in the parent comment now. Thanks!
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Ok, we've changed to the first link from
         | https://nypost.com/2024/11/06/science/egyptian-priestess-
         | mum..., since the latter points to this and it seems to have
         | the most information. Thanks!
        
       | slater wrote:
       | Alas:
       | 
       | "Idy's remains were robbed of jewelry and metal objects, though
       | the other grave goods appeared to have no interest to the
       | thieves"
        
       | snthpy wrote:
       | Any pictures of the 11m high chamber?
       | 
       | I'm really intrigued by that because that height seems really
       | excessive given the difficulty of carving that it of rock so they
       | must have thought it was really important.
        
         | defrost wrote:
         | There are multiple chronologies and uses here; the necropolis
         | complex also had use as an early quarry - following strata of
         | "softer" rock to carve out blocks for use elsewhere.
         | 
         | See: https://phys.org/news/2020-02-necropolis-asyut-important-
         | ele...
         | 
         | for a view from the distance and more general notes.
        
           | snthpy wrote:
           | Interesting. That makes sense. Thanks!
        
       | danans wrote:
       | In the context of sites like Gobleki Tepe and the sites of the
       | Natufian culture, which reach back 15k years, Ancient Egypt (and
       | their contemporaries in Mesopotamia) are very recent.
       | 
       | It's crazy how our perspective on the age of "civilization" has
       | shifted so much recently.
        
         | PittleyDunkin wrote:
         | I find it very interesting how _long_ it took us to assemble
         | the constituent ingredients of sedentary cities into what we
         | recognize today. Almost as if the sedentary lifestyle were
         | inherently undesirable to people living at the time.
        
           | burnte wrote:
           | Agriculture took thousands of years of work in selectively
           | breeding crop plants. For a long time it produced little food
           | for a lot of effort, so until it became easier reliably grow
           | good food plants, it was not widely practiced.
        
             | Qem wrote:
             | Also while there was a lot of megafauna around, probably
             | there was little incentive to settle and care for crops. It
             | was better to chase the beasts.
        
           | bregma wrote:
           | It required the invention of beer (which was predicated on a
           | number of technologies, including large-scale agriculture,
           | pottery, and zymurgy). Once they cracked open the first cold
           | ones though, it got hard to get up off the stone-age couch
           | and people began to specialize in such fields as philosophy
           | and singing.
        
             | xenospn wrote:
             | Wasn't all beer warm until the invention of refrigeration?
        
               | technothrasher wrote:
               | There are writings from Mesopotamia around 4000 BC
               | talking about cooling food and drink in ice houses.
        
               | adolph wrote:
               | _A yakhchal (Persian: ykhchl "ice pit"; yakh meaning
               | "ice" and chal meaning "pit") is an ancient type of ice
               | house, which also made ice. . . . Records indicate that
               | these structures were built as far back as 400 BCE, and
               | many that were built hundreds of years ago remain
               | standing, where Persian engineers built yakhchals in the
               | desert to store ice, usually made nearby_ [0]
               | 
               |  _Perhaps the earliest reference to icehouses comes from
               | Shulgi, who held sway in the Sumerian city of Ur at the
               | tail end of the third millennium bc. . . . Year 13, for
               | Shulgi, was dubbed "Building of the royal icehouse /cold-
               | house." Jackson suggested such buildings might have been
               | "timber-lined holes in the ground" designed to keep ice
               | brought down from the mountains "cool and secure."_ [1]
               | 
               | 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l
               | 
               | 1. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/do-you-
               | want-buil...
        
           | marssaxman wrote:
           | A sedentary lifestyle is also inherently undesirable for some
           | people living in _our_ time, but most of us have little
           | choice in the matter!
        
       | irrational wrote:
       | It sounds like tomb robbers found it in a lot less than 4k years.
        
       | Insanity wrote:
       | Super interesting. I have been reading Cleopatra: A Life,
       | recently, and it is amazing to think that the Egyptian
       | civilization is measured in millennia. For reference, this tomb
       | is about 2 millennia older than the rule of Cleopatra.
       | 
       | Complete side note, but the other articles on that news website
       | are full of clickbait and sensational news. So kind of surprised
       | to also find this article on there.
        
         | gaoshan wrote:
         | As soon as I see "dailymail" I, correctly, reasonably and
         | thoughtfully IMO, start doubting whatever is linked.
        
           | vkazanov wrote:
           | Dailymail is dailymail but this particular article is boring.
           | 
           | Things like this happen every year, thanks to both the tomb
           | building tradition and the climate of the region.
           | 
           | Middle kingdom did thrive about 4k years ago, this is the
           | height of the classic Egyptian culture. Numerous tombs were
           | escavated already.
           | 
           | Thr comment you replied to reasonably noted how the culture
           | survived for 2.7k years. They kept track of every pharaoh
           | they had, as well as dynasties, and key events.
           | 
           | This is amazing. Not the boring tomb. Although I love tombs.
        
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