Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukehollis | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the feedback! Didn't know if people would like this. If this is interesting, and you'd like to learn more about Ancient Egypt, here are a few more sites that I've worked at:

Luxor Temple: https://luxortemple.mused.org/en/guided/178/luxor-temple Tomb of Queen Meresankh III at Giza: https://giza.mused.org/en/guided/4/tomb-of-queen-meresankh-i...

I've mostly been working around the Mediterranean, Central America, and Eastern Asia. I'll publish articles on our blog as the next come out in the future https://blog.mused.org/

View on HN

When I was in school, I visited my granddad during summer holidays. This was right before I would have history class for the first time at school, and my granddad showed me a book my dad gave him as a present, which was about the Pyramids in Egypt. I was fascinated by the book, and got to know that this is what history is about, so I got really excited.

Holiday was over, school began, first hour of history class began. New book, looked at it, I think the first two pages were on Egypt. The topic took less than a class. I felt like "Wait, we can't go on, there's so much to learn about this" and immediately got disillusioned with history class.

The site is awesome, it is what those first history classes should have been. It almost feels like you're there, thanks to the high resolution textures. And the guided tour feels so personal, as if there's someone with you at your site showing you the place. It really is a gift.

Thank you.

Beautifully written comment.

You might find some tiny encouragement seeing E.D. Hirsch's "Core Knowledge" curriculum efforts.[1] I don't see it on the reference page, but I have seen accounts of first-graders really taking to culture-and-civilization (and picture book) focussed units around "Ancient Egypt" etc.

IIRC, E.D. Hirsch, in his book Cultural Literacy, related a conversation with educators. He offerred that children should be able to name and identify Earth's continents. As he reports it, the reply as if with disbelief was "Why would anyone need to know that."

[1] https://www.coreknowledge.org/curriculum/history-geography/

I loved the tour! You did an amazing job.

I thought I should pass along that I found a misspelling. You wrote "sarcophaus" instead of "sarcophagus" in the text within the King's Chamber.

Thanks for pointing this out!

Properly, "box". There is no evidence a body was ever in it.

Is a car only a car once somebody drives it?

Does a thing sorta car-shaped without wheels count as a car? This thing never even had a lid. (You could call it a car, I guess... Rectangular, and you can sit in it.)

Many people hope a legitimate sarcophagus, with an actual mummy in, might yet be found.

At which point of building a car separate parts become a car? And during maintenance (lets say engine replacement) is a car still a car? I'd say it is if meant to be used as a car again.

Right. So, is a stone box in a pyramid chamber that there is no evidence ever held a corpse, or even had a lid, and certainly will not have a corpse in the future, really a sarcophagus? It seems to depend on overconfident assumptions.

Given their experience, a decoy that looks like a looted tomb would just be good planning.

It quacks like a sarcophagus.

It looks like all the other sarcophagi found in other Old Kingdom tombs. So no, "box" isn't specific enough.

"Other"? But is it really a tomb at all?

Wasn't the word "cenotaph" invented for things like it?

Of course it's a tomb. You have the mortuary temple out in front of it, with texts telling you exactly what it is. It fits in stylistically with mastabas, step pyramids, and true pyramids that come before and after that are unquestionably tombs.

Old Kingdom mummies don't tend to survive, probably due to a combination of their extreme age, the still-developing mummification process, how uncommon mummification was in that period, and that mummified bodies were targets for looting given the precious objects that could be found on them and in their wrappings. That a sarcophagus is empty that has been open since time immemorial in a tomb that has been known to be looted in antiquity is utterly unsurprising.

Tomb robbers have not generally been given to making off with sarcophagus lids.

Tomb robbers are given to smashing anything that gets in their way.

Smashing is one thing, carting off is wholly another.

Smart tomb robbers would have themselves buried in the tomb along with the king and all his gold, ostensibly to help him in the afterlife. Then they would escape out the back door.

Have they ever found any skeletons of these royal helpers inside any tomb?

It used to be common to execute retainers to help out the king or queen in the afterlife. Sometimes just a few, sometime hundreds. Supposedly everybody who worked on Genghis Khan's tomb was executed, along with his entire funeral procession, and all their executioners, so nobody would know where it was. It was finally found, just recently.

I recall a story where an Egyptian priest tossed the royal mummy in the Nile and committed suicide in the pharaoh's tomb, thinking himself clever for it.

Ok the pyramids are great, but it really doesn't compare with the fantastic job you've done on Luxor. I spent a whole day there, I think I will spent a couple more with this now. If this is compatible with Quest glasses I will buy them...

Do you use photogrametry or do you use professional 3D scanners?

For this scan specifically, I used a Leica BLK 360 and Matterport Pro 2 Laser scanner and took photogrammetry photos as well. In the presentation layer using the Matterport SDK, only the laser scan data is displayed.

I'm going on a tour in Luxor & other places in Egypt tomorrow. This amazing, thank you!

Thanks for visiting! Let me know if you have any feedback or questions

@ndr I was just there earlier this year and would like to recommend a guide named Mohamed [redacted] to you (and anyone else who is visiting that area) who we met there and spent two days with in Luxor (Karnak & Luxor Temple) and driving down to Aswan (via Esna, Al Sharawna, El Kab and Edfu) from Luxor. Mobile: [redacted]

maybe don't post someone's phone number on the public internet without permission?

This guide advertises his number for this purpose, as do most of the local guides. No worse than it being posted on Yelp, LonelyPlanet, etc.

Then link to the advertisement or webpage?

I was just there a couple weeks ago and, while Mohamed is an extremely common name, chances are it was the same Mohamed that was our tour guide as well. He's honestly phenomenal and (now) a good friend who I keep in touch with regularly.

By "worked at", what exactly do you mean?

I mean a site where I partnered with a local team and sometimes international partners to complete laser scanning and then built virtual tour with the Matterport SDK.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com