• Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      It’s not even right, since the French were the ones that stole most of the artifacts out of Egypt. Then the English stole them from the French.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        The joke is that the British have an incredibly problematic history literally centuries-old of taking things from other cultures and going “well, it’s ours the world’s now.“ Many of these communities have been asking them literally for decades to return them, but they simply won’t even to this day.

        There was a time where they could maybe make the claim “this is the best way to preserve them,“ but for the vast majority of cases that time has long since passed and it was flimsy to begin with.

        • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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          11 months ago

          We didn’t just steal artifacts. We stole whole countries. At one point the empire covered a quarter of the planet. And it wasn’t that long ago either.

          The artifacts were just the souvenirs.

        • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          It’s mostly due to early “archeologists” being almost entirely trust fund babies born into the aristocracy and to whom it was a contest to make the craziest claims possible.

          See the OG trench at Troy that went completely past the end of the Bronze Age and dumped all of the important artifacts into a refuse pile that is apparently still being sifted through today.

          Also see early “paleontologists” who seemed to use Dino bones in an attempt to make monsters scary enough to make kids cry.

  • Dr. Coomer@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Possibly fun fact(?): We would have far mor mummies in museums if it weren’t for the fact that people ate them. I’m not joking, look it up.

  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I have a British friend who legitimately smuggled a few pieces of the pyramids out of Egypt for her friends (they neeeeeeded souvenirs) and I’m pretty sure I’ve been left one of her remaining pieces in her will. I’m not sure if I should take it back to Egypt and find a spot for it or just shrug and be all “my pyramid now”

    • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      IANAL but I’m 90% sure that’s highly illegal even in the UK nowadays, so I at the very least wouldn’t accept the piece lest I get nailed for the crime.

      Assuming it’s an actual real piece of the pyramid, like they chipped it off the real structure or something. If they bought it from, say, a street vendor in Egypt then it’s most likely fake in which case there would be no problems.

  • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    …Given the presence of Stonehenge, what kept the ancient peoples of Great Britain from making their own pyramids anyway? I’m guessing it’s to do with different sociocultural arrangements, but was there any absence of resources that may have also contributed?

  • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    It also counts as a joke about how prone the British Museum is to stealing shit.

  • MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com
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    11 months ago

    Perhaps someday an earth cultural artifact will be absconded with to the Martian colonies or the lightly cloudy cloud city of Somewhataerosolopolis.