#A Grave Robbery

[always-coffee]

Having a bath with a friend is always fun. (If you haven’t read Deanna’s latest, highly recommend it!)

[annafromuni]

My July Reading Summary

Overall mood: energised. Returning to uni feels like I’ve been gifted a second wind, making reading and the pursuit of reading rewarding and therapeutic, even when it comes to the academic articles and theses I must read alongside my fiction. I enjoy the reading I do, and with the reads I’ve had this month that should come as no surprise. Books Read: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 4/5 DNF Yes,…

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Mystery Review: Two-For-One

Deanna Raybourn — A Grave Robbery Once upon a time, several decades ago, when I was in the Girl Scouts, we took a trip to Victoria, B.C. One of the attractions (which is sadly now closed) was Madame Tussard’s Wax Museum. At first, I found the exhibits boring, as waxworks of Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, and celebrities held zero interest to my ten(ish) year-old self. Then,…

[overflowingshelf]

March 2024 Reading Recap

Well, this is quite delayed, as we’re now more than a full week into April. BUT. It was delayed for good reasons! First, I GOT A NEW JOB 🙌 I was laid off in January and have spent the whole first quarter of the year job searching, and I’m so excited about this new role. It’s with a company I’ve admired for a while doing really amazing work in precision medicine for oncology. I started it this…

[thereadingcafe]

[dailyfigures]

Zhang Qiling & Wu Xie ; Grave Robbers' Chronicles ☆ Good Smile Arts Shanghai

[isbergillustration]

What’s the perfect follow up to doing lineart to the point of not insignificant hand pain? Detailed pencil work, the thing that once in art school I did so much I couldn’t draw for two weeks because of hand pain.

[blueiscoool]

Discover the Hidden History of Tomb Robbing in Ancient Egypt

Criminals plundered the riches of Egyptian pyramids and underground burials, often within a few years or, in some cases, within a few hours of occupants’ interment.

On November 4, 1922, workers led by British archaeologist Howard Carter noticed a single stair peeking out from beneath the shifting Egyptian sand. Within three weeks, Carter and his team had excavated enough limestone debris and soil to reveal a stairwell that led to the antechamber of an ancient tomb.

After five long years of searching, Carter had found the tomb of Tutankhamun, deep beneath the Valley of the Kings, a site west of the Nile River. Boring a tiny hole in the second door to the antechamber, the archaeologist peered through, using the light of a single candle to survey a small room crammed with a motley mix of furniture, gilded animal heads and dismantled chariots, as well as other priceless treasures last seen more than 3,000 years prior.

The 18th Dynasty ruler’s tomb was the single most consequential discovery of Egyptian antiquities to date; its importance lay not just in the treasures hidden inside, but in the fact that the burial had somehow survived the robbers who had emptied out nearly every other ancient Egyptian tomb. Only a few royal graves rival Tutankhamun’s in splendor. Chief among them is the intact tomb of Psusennes I, known as the Silver Pharaoh because of the silver coffin that housed his mummy.

The silver coffin of Psusennes I.

In an ancient society with a stark separation between the rich and the poor, tomb robbing was ubiquitous. Nobles literally buried their wealth while living alongside people who often didn’t have enough food to feed their families. Plundering burials was a shadow economy driven by criminals who often had inside knowledge of the tombs. It’s likely that many looters either helped build the structures themselves or paid off someone involved in the tombs’ construction, says Betsy M. Bryan, an emeritus Egyptologist at Johns Hopkins University.

Some grave robbers were stonecutters and craftsmen who left gaps in tombs’ walls or knew which bedrock was soft enough to tunnel through to reach the treasures housed within. Others schemed to evade or pay off security left to guard the tombs. These thieves were well connected, calculating and decidedly precise in their criminal endeavors, Bryan says.

“Evidence from the Old, Middle and New Kingdom[s] shows that tomb robbers could be remarkably patient and work over lengthy time periods to create tunnels into tombs that they thought would be rich [with treasures],” she says.

Aboveground structures like the Step Pyramid of Djoser were natural targets for tomb robbers.

Looting happened consistently throughout the history of ancient Egypt, but it was most prevalent during the First and Second Intermediate Periods, which followed the Old and Middle Kingdoms, respectively. Without a strong ruler in place, power became decentralized, and the state had less money to protect its graves. The end of the New Kingdom also ushered in a period of corruption and uncertainty that resulted in widespread tomb robbing.

Officials took a range of steps to prevent tomb robbing, like carving curses on doors to scare would-be looters away. Some tombs, like the pyramid complex of Djoser, were filled with debris to block passage to the burial chambers. During the New Kingdom (circa 1550 to 1070 B.C.E.), sovereigns were buried underground instead of in aboveground pyramids. Workers tasked with building these hidden tombs lived in Deir el-Medina, a village near the Valley of the Kings. Though the isolated, close-knit nature of the community was intended to lower the likelihood of theft, it ultimately had the opposite effect, encouraging looting by the very people assigned to protect the dead.

Workers tasked with sealing tombs had the best access to the treasures hidden within. They were often the last ones out, so no one was the wiser if they ransacked the tombs they’d been hired to protect, says Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist at the University of Bristol in England. Sometimes, the burials would appear untouched, but once the coffin was opened, the golden mask that once adorned the pharaoh’s face would be missing.

Ruins of Deir el-Medina, a village occupied by the workers who built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

In other cases, when a mummy was unwrapped, the jewelry that had been placed inside was gone, stolen by the undertakers who’d prepared the dead for burial, Dodson says. He adds, “Resin was used in embalming, and there would be places on the body where there was an impression of a piece of jewelry that was no longer there.”

When the tomb of Nefermaat, an ancient Egyptian prince, was uncovered in 1871 at Meidum, archaeologists at first thought it was intact, sealed up tight for 4,000 years. But once inside the burial chamber, the scene was chaotic. “Everything was smashed to pieces,” Dodson says. “It had been robbed [and] the mummy broken.”

After a heist, ancient tomb robbers moved on to the next phase of the crime: trafficking their stolen goods in exchange for payment. This, too, required forethought. Getting caught bartering the mask of a pharaoh, for example, would have been cause for execution by impalement on a stake. To avoid this fate, criminals went after treasures that couldn’t be traced, like gold and other precious metals that could be melted down without buyers knowing their origin. In some cases, robbers would steal highly valuable perfumed oils to sell on the international market. Thieves also burned gilded furniture and statues to remove the gold that once adorned them, Dodson says.

Papyrus Mayer B, a legal document detailing the trials of tomb robbers during Egypt's 20th Dynasty.

Historical evidence of tomb robbing comes primarily from a set of papyri detailing trials that took place in Thebes during the New Kingdom, specifically the 20th Dynasty, which spanned 1189 to 1077 B.C.E. The legal documents provide a window into the individuals who carried out the robberies directly, who knowingly fenced looted treasures or who ferried thieves across the Nile to sell their sacred finds, Bryan says.

“We took our copper tools and forced a way into the pyramid of this king through its innermost part,” said a mason named Amenpanufer in a confession dated to around 1110 B.C.E. After stripping the royal mummies of their gold, amulets and jewels, Amenpanufer and his fellow thieves “set fire to their coffins [and] stole their furniture.” The robbers then divided the tomb’s spoils among themselves.

The papyri point to a time when the state was in turmoil, says Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo. Rampant tomb looting coincided with a period of unrest, famine, outside attacks and constant transitions in power.

“In the 20th Dynasty when we have a lot of royal tomb robbery, the state couldn’t provide, and that’s why people were taking matters into their own hands,” says Ikram.

Tutankhamun's tomb was one of the few royal Egyptian burials left largely untouched by ancient looters.

Still, tomb robbing wasn’t confined to times of unrest. Even Tutankhamun, who ruled during the 18th Dynasty (approximately 1550 to 1292 B.C.E.), when Egyptian civilization was at its peak, was the victim of theft. Inside the antechamber of the king’s tomb, Carter’s team found bags of abandoned loot. According to Dodson, the thieves appeared to have been caught in the act and forced to leave their ill-gotten goods behind.

Tomb robbing was one of the worst crimes an ancient Egyptian could commit, as tombs were considered sacred vehicles that provided passage to the afterlife. “Elite society was geared toward eternal life,” says Maria Golia, author of A Short History of Tomb-Raiding: The Epic Hunt for Egypt’s Treasures. Nobles were mummified and packed in a tomb with their belongings, all of them necessities, because “the afterlife was viewed as an extension of their current life,” Golia explains.

The white limestone sarcophagus of Nefermaat, whose tomb was looted by robbers.

Destruction of a tomb was, in a sense, a form of murder—a fact reflected in the brutality of documented punishments, Ikram says. Some accused criminals had their hands cut off, while others were impaled, a form of execution where a stake was inserted into the anus, perforating the body all the way up to the torso.

No matter the punishment, noble tombs remained ripe for theft throughout ancient Egypt’s 3,000-year history—and beyond. After the civilization fell into decline, thievery gave way to treasure hunting, with residents of the region no longer revering Egyptian religion or fearing the curses of the dead, says Dodson. Stealing from tombs was hardly considered a crime anymore. By the late 19th century, seizing such riches was a government-sanctioned practice, with archaeologists excavating tombs in the name of science.

In an ancient world marked by haves and have-nots, loot tucked inside pyramids and buried underground presented an opportunity for an irresistible crime, especially as the once-great Egyptian empire lost power. What was formerly sacred was now a means for feeding a family, Golia says.

Plunderers' loot found in King Tut's tomb.

“This was a system built on burying money, even entire households, underground,” she says, “and while the architects only had one shot at building an impenetrable tomb, the robbers had all the time in the world to figure out how to get in.”

By Sarah Novak.

[championsandheroes]

Congrats to Bioware for setting up one of the very few scenarios I have ever encountered that firmly put an end to my looter behavior. The suggestion probably wouldn't have horrified me to quite the same degree if it wasn't for the fact that there are more than a few parallels between the Dalish and the Sámi. I can't remember ever getting that uncomfortable by a seemingly innocent quest before. Or after.

All bones on Patreon, society6, and redbubble have been donated by the entities that previously possessed them. This may or may not include ghosts working on behalf of necromancers - we didn't read the fine print.

[oh1thehorror]

I don’t make posts on TGS Mondays but I really should (or am on Tumblr much atm oopsies)

BUT MY GOOD PEOPLE; WHAT THE ACTUAL FREAKY DEAKY?!

I AM COMBUSTION WHENEVER I SEE THESE TWO PANELS.

IF TGS ENDS NOW, FOR WHATEVER UNFORTUNATE REASON, I AM A REASONABLY HAPPY MAN BECAUSE AT LAST MY BLORBOS ARE IN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL AND HAVE SAID THE LINES I HAVE SCRAPPED FOR THIS ENTIRE TIME!!

Robbery, my darlings, ily. You’re so dumb and gay and down bad yet so emotionally constipated and repressed but ily. Pls never change ♥️

[inkcurlsandknives]

So I'd like to talk a bit about the Filipino funeral gold scandal and how as someone writing an anti-colonial Filipino epic fantasy based heavily on early shaman lead rebellions against Spanish colonial rule I have some intense feelings about Filipino actress Beauty Gonzales flaunting wearing funerary death masks taken from a Large number of graves in surigao, butuan and mindinao and rather then treating them with appropriate respect or any kind of cultural ethics and instead turning them into fashion jewelry.

Aside from the damage to important archeological artifacts the utter disrespect shown to the dead who were interred in this way to ensure thier successful passage into the afterlife and to protect their bodies from the entry of evil spirits

For me it calls to mind when I was doing my primary sources research for Saints of Storm and Sorrow into the tree and boat burials of Luzon and reading the accounts of precolonial funerary practices by early Spanish friars and "naturalists" one of these documents was the memoir of Domingo Sanches who in a particularly horrifying account, noted how in the village he was staying in a young girl had died and he recorded how she was mourned and the great love and ceremony with which she was buried and how later that night he snuck back, dug up her grave and stole her body for research purposes. I remember he noted the great hostility of the natives when they discovered his theft and how he'd be unlikely able to return. I can't help being horrified at the thought of a Filipino actress adding to this horrible history of grave robbing and disrespecting the dead. To the colonialist mentality of taking spiritually important items and turning them into decorations. The level of disrespect is staggering. This is not the way to reconnect with our precolonial culture. I'm utterly horrified the more I look at this image and think about all the people who thought this was acceptable

For anyone interested in further reading

News articles citing art and museum critics disapproval

The screenshotted article with snippets from the Spanish naturalists memoir

History of funerary death masks and thier significance

[adolin]

the lengths European history museums will go to just to avoid saying the words “grave robbery”

[thanatika]

fun history fact: body snatchers, the people who would steal corpses from graves and illegally sell them to be used in medical research and anatomical study, were commonly referred to as "resurrectionists" or "resurrection men".

anyway...

[where-is-zedaph]

Zedaph in an illegal grave robbery?

Zedaph says, don’t Rob graves! Unless someone owes you money!

For legal reasons, this is a joke :)

[overflowingshelf]

ARC Review: A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn

A Grave Robbery Deanna Raybourn Publisher: Berkley Publication Date: March 12, 2024 Series or Standalone: Veronica Speedwell #9 Links: Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Goodreads – StoryGraph Rating: MY REVIEW CW: Body horror; murder; death; fire/fire injury; physical abuse; toxic relationships; sexism; references to forced institutionalization; animal abuse I’m absolutely obsessed with the…

[reginleif-valkyrie]

Xiaoge’s sixth sense is tingling. ‘Someone’s touching my man’