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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: April 23rd, 2024

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  • Reusing stones from ancient ruins used to be a widespread practice. I remember hearing a story, not sure how true it is, that the ottomans had plans to use the giza pyramids as a quarry. The practice of grinding up old mummies is almost as ancient as the mummies themselves. Used mainly for fertilizer I believe, and I think it was in vogue as a paint pigment for a while.

    I know there are places, especially around the Mediterranean, where you can see foundation stones still etched with ancient hieroglyphic/whatever scrip just thrown in willie nillie.

    I won’t condone everything the British museum has done, but a lot of these artifacts wouldn’t exist if they weren’t shipped off. Caring about the past and the artefacts left behind, while by no means new thing, most people for most of history didn’t seem to give two shits. Probably more concerned with not starving etc…


  • I always thought the British got a slightly worse rap than they deserved there. When the Ottoman empire collapsed, things were chaotic to say the least. Rising nationalism in an area where ethnicities are all over the place. A pocket here, a few villages there. Political systems that had been in place for a thousand years disintegrating. Large groups of nomads who are notoriously difficult to fit into ordered nation states.

    Huge demographic shifts underway. People tend to overlook just how much more crowded the world is now than it was in 1920. What worked in 1890 was a nonstarter in 1990.

    I don’t think any line on that map would have substantially changed things one way or another.