Egypt's Oldest Pyramid Is Being Destroyed By Its Own Restoration Team 246
Taffykay writes The oldest pyramid in Egypt, the Pyramid of Djoserat Saqqara, is being destroyed by the very company the Egyptian government has hired to restore it. The roughly 4,600-year-old structure has been in trouble since an earthquake hit the region in 1992, but in a difficult political and economic climate for the country, those now tasked with preserving the pyramid are said to be doing more harm than good.
Oldest stone complex? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saqqara, in Egypt, is the oldest stone complex ever built by humans
Uh uh...what does that mean? Even Skara Brae is older, and that definitely qualifies as a "stone complex", unless I got horribly wrong what that means, not to mention the assorted individual older monuments in Europe, the Mediterranean, or Asia Minor.
Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just a single quote from one extremist, and unlike in Afghanistan he that doesn't have any power in Egypt. Even the ultraconservative Salafist political party only wanted the statues covered, not destroyed.
Suggesting that normal Egyptian Muslims are calling for the destruction of the pyramids is extremely dishonest; It's a bit like linking to a Westboro Baptist protest and claiming "American Christians are calling for the repression of homosexuals".
Re:... all in the name of "Allah" (Score:3, Insightful)
But there's a god bigger than "allah", "Christ", "zarathustra" and any other one you want to name, it's called moneey, and the pyramids bring a lot of money to them, so, I don't think they are going to destroy them
Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam (Score:4, Insightful)
Suggesting that normal Egyptian Muslims are calling for the destruction of the pyramids is extremely dishonest; It's a bit like linking to a Westboro Baptist protest and claiming "American Christians are calling for the repression of homosexuals".
Let's look at the region shall we? Ah forget it, let's look at normal muslims in general. You've got large swaths of sunni's in europe supporting groups like isis. You've got a wide swath across other countries like the uae, saudi arabia and kuwait, including the ultra rich in countries like kuwait and the uae sending money to them. You've got people from all over this rock flocking to support them, and their actions, and their goals.
It's not dishonest, there's something fundamentally broken with many muslims when they're lining up to support a 7th century mentality.
Re:a shame but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about slaves specifically but among serfs in northern Europe it was not uncommon to find skilled craftsmen.
Slave and skilled craftsman is not mutually exclusive and there is nothing that says that one can't be both.
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Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam (Score:2, Insightful)
More like 2.1B Crhistians and 1.6B Muslims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Either way, lots of deluded people IMO.
Re:The biggest risk to the pyramids is Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, and a bit off-topic - while i find it abhorrent that the taliban destroyed the buddha statues, after spending a lot of time in southeast asia and visiting many buddhist temples (and being very appreciate of the teachings of the buddha), i always find it remarkably paradoxical that all these statues of buddha exist. They are a part of our human cultural history and should be absolutely preserved, but we should learn from the paradox they present. What many people don't know is that (according to the story), before the buddha died, he left a few explicit statements and instructions.. 1) hey y'all... im NOT coming back. don't wait for a second coming. im OUT. 2) DON'T make any statues of me. im not a god. i don't want to be worshipped. seriously. and 3) if you MUST do something.. you can go visit 4 places that i dig.. birthplace, deathplace, where he achieved enlightenment, and the deer park where he gave his first teaching. (ive been to 3 of the 4 fyi).
people just can't help themselves.. we get a genuinely inspired and evolved human being, he leaves instructions, and people twist and distort it to the point it becomes a religion used to manipulate people instead of inspire to evolve. It's a curious thing that all the 'teachers' that came basically said the same thing.. Judaeo/Christian ten commandments.. don't make graven images.... Islam: Don't make images of the Prophet Muhammed.. Buddhism - no statues. Maybe their original message was the same.. not don't do these things or suffer retribution.. but dont do these things because by doing so, you're missing the point. As the saying goes, 'the finger is not the moon.'
lastly, i like to joke that after buddha died, people looked at each other and said "you know.. he DID say no statues... but did he say no GOLDEN or GIANT statues??? obviously he'd be cool with that! huzzah!"
Re:Oldest stone complex? (Score:4, Insightful)
It means that inhabitat and gizmodo are not what one might call "reliable" or "fact checked" sources of information.
Re:Not to mention (Score:2, Insightful)
Could say the same thing about all sects of Christianity as well. Jesus was a schizophrenic. Moses was a schizophrenic, Joseph Smith was a schizophrenic. All crazy lunatics. Let's just put it out there: All religious people are cowards who need comfort in a higher power in order to not face reality and take any personal responsibility.
Re:Here Comes Straw Man! (Score:4, Insightful)
It would have been MY mistake to assume it must take an entire culture to destroy valuable archaeological sites. But I didn't so fuck you very much.
Okay I'm glad you are aware of that. It really wasn't clear from your reply.
A more appropriate statements of the fact would have included something like "Some Egyptians Muslims" or "Extremist Egyptian Muslims" or "Egyptian Religious Radicals".
Adding "some" would not make it more appropriate, it's redundant. Adding "some" to every reference of a group is stupid.
Adding the word "extremist" is problematic. Extremist from whose perspective? From my perspective, even mainstream Muslims are extremely religious compared to what I'm exposed to. Extremist from the perspective of mainstream Muslims? Which Muslims? American Muslims? Egyptian Muslims? Do you actually KNOW the proportion of Egyptian Muslims who support the closure of Western tourist attractions like the pyramids? If you're going to attach the word "extremist" to them then you better have some idea. If it's more than a few percent it's not really extremist.
Leaders of the Salafist and Wahabi parties have called for the destruction of pagan idols and the pyramids, and they won about 25% of the seats in 2012 [nytimes.com]. So calling them "extremists" is totally accurate for me and you (hopefully, I don't know you) but that's not the same as "unpopular" or "non-representative."
If I see some White dude with Nazi tats screaming vitriol against minorities, I'm not going to say "White People call for race war".
That's a stupid analogy. If the KKK won 25% of Congress, it would be totally appropriate to say "white people call for race war" even though many or most white people didn't. It's enough.
If you have deluded yourself into thinking only a handful of Muslims in Egypt have a problem with the glorification of pre-Islamic society, that's your problem. It doesn't make you sound smart though.
I never stated that it must take an entire culture to destroy the pyramids. What I said had nothing to do with such a claim.
You said "A few radicals =/= an entire country/culture" in reply to "Egyptian Muslims have already called for the destruction of the pyramids and the sphinx."
What was the relevance of that rather obvious fact if it has "nothing to do" with what we were TALKING ABOUT... the destruction of the Egyptian pyramids?
Look, I'm guessing you just weren't aware of how much support there was in Egypt to destroy the pyramids. It's not 0.1%. It's a pretty big proportion, and it's largely an urban vs rural issue because cities benefit more from the tourism dollars. People out in the country are like "You are making money by glorifying pagans and selling alcohol to infidels, that should stop."