Ahatmose Wrote:
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> Hi just curious in this age of "Wokeness" why the
> practice of digging up and parading the dead of
> their ancestors is still permitted. The Native
> Americans of North America would never allow this
> to take place. Why do The Egyptians allow it ?
>
> Just wondering.
>
> db

In a way they were not just "dug up", it's more nuanced than that. The first cache discovered, TT320 at Deir el Bahari, was not discovered by Egyptologists, but by the local Rasoul family, who engaged in "liberating" some artifacts before announcing what they had found. Given the interest in the Theban necropolis it was only a matter of time before a find like this was made, though a cache of kings was not expected. Once discovered it is impossible to un-discover them. We are fortunate that it was the Rasoul's who found them, as while did they engage in tomb robberies, were not "thieves" in the derogatory sense of the word, and did tell the authorities what they had found. As an aside, a member of the Rasoul family, twelve year old Hussein Abdel Rasoul, was the actual discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun. I contend that had the cache been found by others, then the mummies would have been ripped to pieces in the search for treasure.

The second cache found in the tomb of Amunmhotep II by Loret was also something that was going to happen eventually. What is preferable, discovery by an Egypologist who recorded the tomb and, in a respectful manner, dealt with the mummies. That KV 35 did suffer some depradations was nothing to do with Loret, but locals searching for treasure, and burnt and destroyed one of the mummies in the process. Many of the mummies had in ancient times been desecrated and hacked to pieces. If you look for pictures of Thutmose III you will find a protrait style photo showing just his face, and only his face as he had been chopped up.

Burying kings and nobles with such a vast amount of treasure is just too tempting for anybody in any age, despite threats of impalement. I would suggest that if Native Americans had been buried with such treasures, then they would not have lasted undistured for very long, as while it may be the culture of the people, AE as well, to treat the dead with respect, greed exists everywhere at all times.

It's better that the kings are in the care of the state than left unprotected. And if no European explorations of the VoK occured, our knowledge of the AE would be somewhat diminished, to say that least, and that is not a treasure thing, a desire for the material, a slur thrown about by "alts", but in the religious literature, something the "alts" care nothing for.

There is another factor in that when the religion and culture of a nation changes in such a big way, and in Egypt they transfer from polytheism to Christianty and then to Islam, the long dead become "other", people who worshipped "demons", and in Cairo a few years back when a statue of Sekhmet was discovered, before it could be moved to a museum, locals destroyed it as they thought it was "dangerous", just as locals in 2013 stromed the Mallawi Museum, killing a security guard and burning mummies. That parade to move the mummies was, I think, a far better fate than being burnt, the ultimate horror for an AE.