r/Damnthatsinteresting 27d ago

Every stolen artifact needs to come back to its land. Video

84k Upvotes

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u/HenneX123 27d ago

most of the artifacts are not stolen. Most of those people in the middle east didnot care a long time about their cultural heritage. in fact, they even sold a lot of it to european museums. especially as many countries said: it was made before Mohammed so its unislamic crap. A lot would have been lost if it wasnot preserved by western museum. now, as the realize what they had, they want it back for free. Very strange attitude

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u/notoneforusernames 26d ago

Absolutely, remember ISIS blowing up all those old monument and artifacts not too long ago? Put more Middle Eastern artifacts in European museums, quickly

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u/Sthurlangue 26d ago

Egyptians were using mummies as firewood. So much more would’ve been lost if it weren’t in western countries that valued the historic significance of these antiquities.

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u/FlutestrapPhil 26d ago

Europeans were eating mummies as medicine

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u/cbih 26d ago

Europeans were eating them and grinding them up for paint. Not exactly better than just burning them.

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u/Tf2McRsWow 26d ago

My god this is an outrage! I was going to eat that mummy!

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u/stupidillusion 26d ago

It's teriyaki!

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u/kukulkan2012 26d ago

Good news, everyone!

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u/ImHully 26d ago

I came to the comments section of this thread hoping to find this reference.

/r/unexpectedfuturama

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u/crunchypuddle 26d ago

Since the 12th century, Europeans had been eating Egyptian mummies as medicine. In later centuries unmummified corpses were passed off as mummy medicine, and eventually some Europeans no longer cared whether the bodies they were ingesting had been mummified or not.

Jesus Christ.

Source

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u/Frydendahl 26d ago

Jesus Christ.

Pretty apt, seeing as how Catholics eat Jesus' body once a week at the communion. Turns out it's always been about the cannabalizi

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u/ztunytsur 26d ago

Jesus Christ

Yeah. Catholics still eat that fucker* and encourage their kids to do it. Monsters.

*symbolically... But still

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u/db_admin 26d ago

What a trip that article was - thanks! The best part was Tutan-Alan

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u/PracticallyThrowaway 26d ago

This whole thread is just an expanded argument of “the white man’s burden”

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u/cbih 26d ago

Yeah, there's a lot of gross stuff being said in here. I'm surprised it hasn't been locked

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u/wvsfezter 26d ago

So Europeans using them like this up to the 20th century is the same as Middle Easterners burning and bombing them today?

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u/hnybnny 26d ago

Sweet Bod 🎵

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u/Drumsat1 26d ago

Eating them????

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u/difdiddiekekek 26d ago

"Mummified Taupe" has a nice ring to it.

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u/SpookyTerrence 26d ago

It’s easy to say the west values these more when Egypt has been impoverished for centuries. Mazlow’s hierarchy — When you struggle to stay alive, preserving abundant ancient artifacts don’t seem all too important. Objectively the west saved countless items that would have been destroyed, but now that the country’s stable I think it’s obvious they should be returned. Especially in a case like this. It’d be a travesty for the statue not to be made whole again. And contextualized in its ancient home.

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u/LaminatedAirplane 26d ago

The Ottoman Empire was very powerful at one time in history and people lived well in it. People still destroyed pre-Islamic artifacts.

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u/Hai_Karate 26d ago

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u/SpookyTerrence 26d ago

Uh, exactly? Ten years ago. That article literally predates the Arab spring and Syrian civil war. It’s outdated. Keep your head on a swivel, middle eastern politics move quick.

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u/Hai_Karate 26d ago

Arab spring

How can an article dated December 2011 predate an event that started in January 2011?

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u/SpookyTerrence 26d ago

Hey, you’re right. I misread it as 2010.

Hey, that makes literally no difference in my point since I was using that to illustrate the fact that was a decade ago.

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u/ILoveStealing 26d ago

Western countries valued the historic significance, huh? Europeans ATE the mummies.

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u/UK-LK 26d ago

A lot were also ground up and used for fertiliser, well mummified animals just to be more specific!