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wind, wind on the sea
So tonight, while trying to electrocute myself attempting to fix my plasma globe, I watched the Discovery Channel piece on the new Valley of the Kings tomb.
So they're excavating this tomb, which they're hoping holds the mummy of Tutankhamun's queen Ankhesenamun. But instead of grave goods, they find jar after jar and coffin after coffin full of embalmer's spare parts: empty coffins, already painted; sacks of used natron, with random body parts mixed in; etc, etc (I was mostly trying not to short out the grid at that point; my attention wandered.) It's a cache of leftover supplies and the bits that fell off during the embalming. But the archeologists still have hope that the last coffin holds the queen, and that this was a hasty burial to avoid destruction by her political enemies. (And then the show ended on a cliffhanger, so we still don't know if the queen's in there or not.)
Now, my knowledge of Ancient Egyptian burial practices is not very deep, but I know the pop-archeaology version by heart: the body was preserved because it was believed that the condition of the soul in the afterlife was affected by the condition of the body on Earth; and it was buried with copies of all the things a person enjoyed in life, because it was believed that what was sealed with the body in the tomb (with occasional help from sympathetic magic) were the things that the soul would have in its home in the afterlife.
I don't believe the actual popular faith was as clear-cut as that, but let's go with that for now. So if Ankhesenamun is in this new tomb, all she has with her is piles and piles of embalmer's spare parts. I just visulize her, after enduring all the trials of the going forth by day, is led through the gates of Osiris and discovers that her treasure in the afterlife ... is nothing but the Kas of a bunch of mummified viscera and dismembered fingers and other orphaned bits, and some extra coffins.
But the women of Queen Tiy's family were nothing if not good at seizing opportunities. And here's Ankhesenamun, her body safely sealed in a small, forgotten tomb that would be of no interest to grave robbers even if they found it, in possession of a small horde of spare parts that she doesn't need. And her husband living *pretty*, for thousands of years probably the richest guy in the whole place, with his perfect heavenly wife and no need for her. But meanwhile, all of the other royal tombs are being robbed like mad, mummies dismembered for treasure or left to rot or eventually sold by the dozens to make medicines and spells for rich Romans and Europeans; half the Kas in the afterlife are falling to pieces.
So I can just see Ankhesenamun putting out a sign: Spare Parts For Sale. And conducting a *thriving* black market trade. Why, by the start of the Common Era, with the destruction of mummies at full swing, and the late-period practice of cheating by using paintings instead of actual grave goods causing rapid inflation in the afterlife, a single finger joint could probably bring you an entire, furnished, Nile barge! A coffin with a face painted on, to see with - who knows; and she had seven extras! And so Ankhesenamun, having got rich in trade, sits on her pile of gold and faience and smirks at her husband as all his hoarded things disappear one by one into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, never to return.
That's what I'd like to think, anyway. Otherwise it's all very sad.
So they're excavating this tomb, which they're hoping holds the mummy of Tutankhamun's queen Ankhesenamun. But instead of grave goods, they find jar after jar and coffin after coffin full of embalmer's spare parts: empty coffins, already painted; sacks of used natron, with random body parts mixed in; etc, etc (I was mostly trying not to short out the grid at that point; my attention wandered.) It's a cache of leftover supplies and the bits that fell off during the embalming. But the archeologists still have hope that the last coffin holds the queen, and that this was a hasty burial to avoid destruction by her political enemies. (And then the show ended on a cliffhanger, so we still don't know if the queen's in there or not.)
Now, my knowledge of Ancient Egyptian burial practices is not very deep, but I know the pop-archeaology version by heart: the body was preserved because it was believed that the condition of the soul in the afterlife was affected by the condition of the body on Earth; and it was buried with copies of all the things a person enjoyed in life, because it was believed that what was sealed with the body in the tomb (with occasional help from sympathetic magic) were the things that the soul would have in its home in the afterlife.
I don't believe the actual popular faith was as clear-cut as that, but let's go with that for now. So if Ankhesenamun is in this new tomb, all she has with her is piles and piles of embalmer's spare parts. I just visulize her, after enduring all the trials of the going forth by day, is led through the gates of Osiris and discovers that her treasure in the afterlife ... is nothing but the Kas of a bunch of mummified viscera and dismembered fingers and other orphaned bits, and some extra coffins.
But the women of Queen Tiy's family were nothing if not good at seizing opportunities. And here's Ankhesenamun, her body safely sealed in a small, forgotten tomb that would be of no interest to grave robbers even if they found it, in possession of a small horde of spare parts that she doesn't need. And her husband living *pretty*, for thousands of years probably the richest guy in the whole place, with his perfect heavenly wife and no need for her. But meanwhile, all of the other royal tombs are being robbed like mad, mummies dismembered for treasure or left to rot or eventually sold by the dozens to make medicines and spells for rich Romans and Europeans; half the Kas in the afterlife are falling to pieces.
So I can just see Ankhesenamun putting out a sign: Spare Parts For Sale. And conducting a *thriving* black market trade. Why, by the start of the Common Era, with the destruction of mummies at full swing, and the late-period practice of cheating by using paintings instead of actual grave goods causing rapid inflation in the afterlife, a single finger joint could probably bring you an entire, furnished, Nile barge! A coffin with a face painted on, to see with - who knows; and she had seven extras! And so Ankhesenamun, having got rich in trade, sits on her pile of gold and faience and smirks at her husband as all his hoarded things disappear one by one into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, never to return.
That's what I'd like to think, anyway. Otherwise it's all very sad.
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My argument went something like: "Everyone knows that 'book burning' is bad, but what if I offered a service in which I converted someone's books into a digital format, and then "thermally reduced" (obviously not the correct term, but it was passable to get the meaning across) their book, for ease of storage? I guarantee at least one person would buy into the idea."
Later in the conversation, I had to concede that only the concept was feasible, and that no successful business could be run on the idea.
But imagine the free (negative) publicity I could get!