Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert with ancient church
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It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
That is, until the Islamic raids started, the indigenous groups took losses, but were not nearly as transformed. Is that not accurate?
Arabs were the highest-prestige ethnicity within their empire. But they were numerically insignificant. You have "Arabs" and "Copts" in Egypt today, but most of the "Arabs" are Copts whose ancestors decided they wanted more respect. Same thing is true farther west, where the "Arabs" are Berbers.
Even if the amount of DNA only adds up to 20% of their mix (the average), it's still very significant.
Bretons are Celts just like Gauls, whom you missed. You also missed other Celtic groups. And they (Celts) were the majority before invasions, still the majority.
Indigenous doesn't mean minority, it means the original inhabitants.
it naturally looked differently due to different climate. For example there was booming agriculture in Carthage back then - modern Tunisia. The climate warming during the first millennia made Mediterranean Basin less grain-production and animal farming suitable while more suitable for the nomadic Arabs riding out of Arabia. That warming also made life more convenient (in particular conditions became much better for agriculture, the backbone of the civilization) in the previously cold and swampy Mid and North Europe where as a result we see the wave of rise of the civilization.
Coincidentally, we have Caliphates decline and Reconquista happening when the climate started to cool down toward the Little Ice Age. The map of Reconquista looks like a geographical climate regions map https://stuffedeyes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/what-was-... (compare to https://www.spanish-town-guides.com/photo/spain_climate_map....)
It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map.
The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media.
Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.
I always like to think how the region would've looked if all these remnants of peoples had thriving nations.
eg: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/sep/06...
There's a long list of questionable behaviour, eg. enslavement for Jesus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale
Meanwhile, in history, religions enslaved people.
Returning to the point you keep dodging, that includes Christians.
I have no idea what that sentence is specifically meant to mean, that aside, western countries have had actual slavery and effective slavery both in the past and the present.
eg: Past & actual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale
'Present' (Post WWII) & effective: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-27/child-abuse-royal-com...
I don't mean to exclusively beat on Christians or just Catholics here; but I do intend to counter your apparent narrative of good Christians and evil Muslims.
Christians certainly diminished a lot of cultures, just as other religions also did - the initial point that started this above.
There has never been as many slaves in humanity as there are in the US' prisons.
What's that? Oh, they don't count because they're criminals?
This is hilariously untrue, if one is talking about the Western Roman empire. An islamic state did conquer Constantinople, which I presume is what you mean.
The Roman empire (western) basically fell apart due to infighting more than anything else.
Best religion for progress of humanity is the one that embraces work, tells people to treat each other fairly, and otherwise keeps its hands off from irrelevant details of people's lives - things like what consenting adults do in bed, what they eat or drink, what they can or can't say.
Unfortunately Christians have been historically way too focused on the bad parts while ignoring the good parts, leading to madness like wars between Catholics and Protestants and discrimination of minorities. Think of the current conservative elite in America for example - it's hard to find people who are further away from teachings of Jesus Christ than those greedy, hateful idiots.
In the current day, I just find it very worrying when you line up a map of global conflicts and where Islam is thriving.
Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)
For the most part it's enough to conquer a place. People below the timing elite would switch religions as it would be beneficial for them, and eventually trickle down to peasants and such.
Many of the regions they invaded were still (or until quite recently) majority Christian. After all initially it was a defensive relief expedition organized by the pope and the Byzantine emperor to free the territories the empire lost in Anatolia very recently. Of course it was massively more successful than anyone anticipated and they just kept on going and then the whole thing got “slightly” out of hand..
But yes, as I said there were some huge exceptions. However early on the way Christianity spread was fundamentally different to Islam. It was usually not through violent conquest but bottom up.
European imperialism was quite mixed as well. Christianity played a huge part in the Spanish conquests of the Americas. Much less so in British India and other similar places.
Northern crusades were extremely bloody and defeated people would accept baptism or be executed.
Charlemange was more of the same deal.
Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
Christian history is littered with these examples, it has not been a peaceful religion since it merged with Roman society. The only real good examples you could have are missionaries and top down conversion as kings and such voluntarily switched religions.
> Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
It varied, although generally the Catholic church was fairly open at integrating or even occasionally tolerating pagan practices or providing alternative options to people used to more polytheistic religions. Like the whole saint worshipping (“venerating”) thing. Often (with some exceptions) pagans found conversion fairly easy since they could just map their gods to equivalent Christian saints continue worshipping them. Basically every converted pagan society had a multi-generationa transition period.
Then you had stuff lime praying to magical corpses or body parts, so their previous owners could perform miracles. With some exceptions it has generally been a highly flexible religion before the reformation.
Islam is much more rigid about following the rules and stuff like idol worship (as a consequence they brought back visual arts back to the stone ages..)
thats why all the signs in downtown Manhattan are in Munsee....
And when you say “historically better at integrating local cultural practices”, India, China and Australia, would like a word with you. Holy shit you should just delete your account right now
Christianity merged with local cultures, removing some aspects and adding some aspects.
We also strike the USA off the list, which cannot even take care of its peoples' most basic needs.
Switzerland. The answer you're looking for, is Switzerland. /s
So has Christianity and Capitalism.
It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along with them all sorts of cultures and religions. What fundamentally changed the dynamics of the region is not the islamic conquest but the shift of the center of the global trade away from Middle East and the Mediterranean to the Western Europe.
It was not taken by the Romans. It was persecuted by the Romans for nearly 300 years.
christianity offered a unifying thematic message and de facto polity under which constantine believed he could more effectively maintain power and peace. this system was ripe for corruption but now the people are generally kept in line by the conflation of church and state.
islam arises primarily as a repudiation of polytheism and what is perceived as loose monotheism and nonviolently sweeps through the area quickly.
regional leaders quickly learn the same lesson that constantine learned and use islam to prevent rebellion and exert control, with the added lesson learned that it’s best to just ensure everyone follows the same code from the start so that you don’t have to do a lot of political cleanup in the transition to a new belief system.
fractured “european” leaders realize how much power they’ve lost and decide that they should unify under the christian brand to go take back their power.
and the cycle goes on and on
I doubt that “repudiation” of said things was the main driver.
I’m pretty sure by 600ad Rome was pretty solidly Christian (or at elite levels, perhaps secular), what other gods did exist were folk/syncretistic practices, which also existed in Islam (sufis, Zoroastrian stuff, gnostic stuff etc) and which still existed today in Christianity (in the Philippines, the Caribbean, Africa, etc)
1. There are indeed many things to admire about the west. However, for all the cultural and scientific advancement made by the west, westerners choose to ignore that the backbone of the current western "empire" was also built on the knowledge and wealth you looted from other non-western empires. The reason that you are now the most "developed" nation is because you now follow the same political pattern as all the "superpower" empires of their time - you hoard the wealth and knowledge now, and deny it to others. (Please read about the The fate of the Library of Alexandria - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria/The-f... to understand, for one, how much knowledge was created, collated and valued in the eastern cultures - even by the "barbarian" muslim empires.)
(I know there have been books written in the west trying to justify that slavery and imperialism isn't why the west are wealthy. I partially agree with some points in them but disagree that the wealth that you stole was inconsequential. If the west truly believes that the wealth stolen from us wasn't what made your economies rich, but only your own culture and ingenuity, why don't you repatriate that amount that was diverted to your economy and actually test that theory? Mughal India, for example was one of the richest economies that accounted for 24% of the world GDP - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5724162 - before the British conquered and transferred most of that wealth to enrich itself).
2. Many of you pretend (or rather seek comfort in the idea) that State violence of ancient non-western empires is something cultural to only non-western cultures. That western / Christian nations are more "peaceful" by nature. A study of the history of crusades, and western imperialism, should immediately dismiss that notion. (Shamefully, even today, many western nations sponsor and support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of native populations by your allies in Africa and the middle-east).
3. Some of you resort to selectively applying modern cultural perceptions to criticise historical societies. That is not how history is studied - one strives to understand history based on the cultural contexts of their period.
E.g. Prophet Muhammad didn't marry a 9 or 10 year old Ayesha because he liked to diddle young girls. During his time, puberty was treated as someone entering adulthood. While marriages may be arranged between pre-pubescent kids, it was only after they had reach puberty that they were allowed to consummate the marriage. Marriage to Ayesha was also political - Muhammad was actually forced to marry someone from every tribal leader's family as that was the diplomatic equivalent of establishing a political alliance during his time! (That is why he is an exception to the rule that a muslim can only have up to 4 wives). Note that even before Muhammad, Mary, mother of Christ, was considered eligible to be married to Joseph (an old man, past his middle-age) when she turned 12. She was still a teenager when she became pregnant ( https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12317/is-th... ) - is Christ's father / God a paedophile too? By today's modern standard, you would say yes, that's ephebophilia.
The nomenclature of "Child marriage" or even "teen marriage" is a modern cultural phenomenon because of the advancement we have made in understanding our own biology (i.e. reproductive systems) and our changing moral and cultural norms on the ideas of sexuality. Despite this, note that most of the world still can't agree on a universal age of consent or marriage. For example, Japan only recently raised the minimum age of consent for sex from 13 to 16 ( https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/83755/why-was-t..., while in some parts of the US, an adult can still marry a teenager with the consent of their parents ( https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-in-the-u-s/ )! My own grandparents were only 13 and 9 when they were married in the 1920's, a really common practice in India until the late 20th century, till it was made illegal and is nearly abolished now.
4. Some of you resort to judging other cultures by the worst members of their community. How would the west like it if only the Nazis were considered as their true representatives, and were solely judged based on their ideology?
It's true that Islam is a Christian heresy but to be fair, Islam tries to be it's own State Religion only for the Arabs. So in that sense it's not the same God since they don't believe in the Trinity.
Allah is not a name that came with Islam but existed before, it just means deity. the Al prefix is the definite singular form. It just says one thing: god is a singleton and nothing is above it.
Another fun fact, the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same… it’s just that the Jewish God didn’t have a son who was also himself that killed himself only to resurrect himself negating the sacrifice
The copts themselves welcomed Islamic conquest as Muslims gave them more rights than previous rulers.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Egypt/From-the-Islamic-conq...
You are attempt to disguise your hate as history is a failure.
Is it legitimate for the Eastern Roman Empire to claim the legacy? I think so, and I think they have among the best arguments for it. Conversely it is also legitimate to note the major differences between the two and the fact that discontinuities do exist.
I'm not denying that gradually, over well more than a thousand years, the empire (only surviving in the East) changed character in many ways. I am denying that a unique Eastern character sprang up (and immediately applied to Egypt) the moment that Constantinople was founded.
I do agree with you that there was no instantaneous Eastern character that sprang up out of nowhere.
But you can call them Byzantines, an English term invented in the 19th century, because... you say so? Thank you, I have been enlightened.
You're also arguing against a strawman. I never said they weren't Roman. I only said there's nothing wrong with Byzantine.
Maybe if you weren't so smugly self-righteous, you'd have better reading comprehension.
Hey that's fresh. Do they have Hittitomori too?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire#Nomenclature
See e.g. Lintott on the problems of this terminology:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/arti...
This whole "debate" is a charade provided by people who once complained they had to take a humanities class and thereafter were clueless about what real modern historians and philologists were discussing about this period.
Its more complicated than you are making it seem. I dont even have a strong opinion on the conclusion but it’s certainly not how you’ve framed it.
First, The Roman Empire was always bilingual. Greek always held sway over the eastern half and Latin over the western half. Once the west is gone, of course you'll switch to primarily using the language that most use. The Irish didn't stop being Irish because they primarily speak English now, for example.
Second, the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves. All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum. As did all of the rest of the world when they had contact with them.
Third, the switch to Christianity had already happened by the time of the split in 395.
Fourth, Rome hadn't been the seat of power for many Emperors since before the Third Century Crisis.
Fifth, states lose and gain territory all the time.
Read The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis. If you want to read more about this.
Ironically these guys called themselves Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. They're hallucinating hundred of years before AI/LLM.
> All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum
Fun fact there's entire Chapter on Rome in the Quran namely Surah Ar-Rum [1]. In the New Testament Bible there's a section or book called Epistle to the Romans, or the letter of Paul to Roman originally written in Koine Greek [2]. But there's letter of Paul not the word of God or Jesus hence called espistle.
There's also an authentic direct letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Roman Emperor at the time of Hercules inviting him and his subjects to Islam [3]. Please note that Muhammad cannot read or write hence the letter was written for him as dictated by him [4].
[1] Ar-Rum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar-Rum
[2] Epistle to the Romans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans
[3] The Holy Prophet’s letter to Heraclius:
https://www.alhakam.org/holy-prophets-letter-to-heraclius
[4] Diplomatic career of Muhammad:
I always liked to think of empires as being defined by the people of a specific geography, bound by cultural and ideological tenets, making a development which allowed them to extract wealth from elsewhere.
The Northwestern US coast is the seat of the US empire, and is effectively defined by leveraging inward European culture, tech , and populations, to conquer a continent worth of free resources under manifest destiny, which has then scaled to the world.
If the capital moved to New York, the US empire would still be the same; based on the same history, culture, and geographical roots.
If it moved to California or Texas, however, I would consider it a new power entirely. The reasons underpinning the change would inherently make it an empire fuelled by a different history, geography, context in the world, etc, no matter how often people would claim to be a continuation of America.
The notion that people are mostly monolingual, and that language is very closely tied to a cultural identity, is a modern projection (and far from universally true nowadays as well).
Coptic is the interesting one though because it's actually the latest version of ancient Egyptian
I get that there is controversy about if Byzantium was Roman. But the person you’re replying to doesn’t seem to be making any claims about that.
There are two points I was trying to make:
1. At the relevant time, there were no separate Eastern and Western empires, so this city was just Roman, without qualification.
2. Even later, it could just be called Eastern Roman. Calling it Byzantine instead may be a conscious choice to make the Roman-ness disappear. More likely it's just deeply implanted, based on an education that was based on making the Roman-ness disappear. Again, I'm speaking about the general use of the term in all the articles, not by the OP.
Anyway. Even the person in this thread arguing most vehemently for the use of the term Byzantine says it applies to the "latter eastern Roman empire". So it shouldn't be used for this city, since it's neither form the Eastern empire (which, again, did not exist yet) and especially not from its latter period.
Here: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/07/byzantine-city-with-writt...
and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/04/archaeologists...
There's not even any maps anywhere.
Wonder how aggressively Egypt are on manoeuvres trying to claw back tourism. Would help if they opened up the desert roads so travelling the western deserts was actually viable as a ring route.
what did H.P. know that we did not??
It's stunning the progress humans have made since then.
The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level. We’re still living in caves, we’re still believe in God myths that make no sense and let ourselves be blindly led by folks who claim legitimacy because they won voter approval based on the lies they told.
No, for me progress is a fiction invented in hollywood or silicon valley. Real progress would be understanding our place in the universe, understanding that we are one of many species with which we share this planet, that we don’t have the right to strip clear the planet for our sole benefit. And that shiny bits of metal or bits of paper with numbers and faces on them aren’t important and most certainly won’t help us achieve true progress.
> while the poor stay poor
America's poor are the wealthiest poor people in history.
2019–2020 world average life expectancy at birth was 72.6–73.2 years. In 1950 it was 45.7–48. In 1900 it was 31–32. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Edited to add: maybe the computer history museum as well.
>Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert Sounds incredibly misleading, as if some long lost civ is rising from sand dunes, lol. As far as I'm aware, there have just been ruins uncovered (which look like 6 rooms on the pictures) at Dakhla Oasis, and the site is very obvious on Google Maps.
Are they speaking about Kellis? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellis https://maps.app.goo.gl/65daKj9K8qJ35x1c9
i guess you might be ok if you are cocooned in a safe travel group. I travel more independently, freely and let things come to me. Going on planned group iternary isnt much of an interest for me at the moment.
However, I think a lot of people used to the manners of the West really struggle with Egypt’s (admittedly, exhausting) haggling culture.
There's haggling where you actually enjoy the process (i.e. Turkey, visiting the bazaars, you get to haggle, then you get invited for some cay w/ the vendor, talk a bit, that's really enjoyable) and then there's outright scamming. Friend of mine went to Egypt, really wanted to ride a camel. Agreed on a price, rode the camel, and at the end they wouldn't bring the wooden thingy so that he could dismount, and they were asking for more money. That's not enjoyable at all.
Since camel rides are almost exclusively bought by tourists, it attracts scammers that see the “customers” as easy marks.
The government won’t do anything about it until it starts negatively affecting the money coming into the country via tourism.
Really dude? About India? South America in general, especially Brazil?
I traveled a lot and I love everywhere, everyone and everything buy there are some places that scam 24/7.
But to your point, when I think about it, I do hear a lot of negative things from others. A lot of people tried to talk me out of going there, but none of them had actually been there. The negative stuff I've heard about Egypt has all been from people who have been there.
I think India tends to defy common categorization. It's a developing country, but also quite advanced in many ways. Certain things work better. Trains are great. Metros are now really nice. Payment is great. They mostly do their own thing and it seems to be working for them.
To be totally honest, a lot of the India negging is from accounts associated with 'rival' countries. This has become more obvious as places like X have started showing the origins of many accounts. And before people start bringing up caste or whatever to explain my neutral-to-positive disposition towards the country, my 'community' in India is technically an 'otherwise backwards class', so it's not like I'm basing this based off of my family's non-existent wealth. By far, I'd rather stay in actual accommodations in India rather than with family because the accommodations are legit nice, and staying with family can be really hit or miss.
Every Indian I've ever met has been lovely though (except for the ones who try to scam call my mother)
But like you said, if it works for them who am I to disagree.
(for anyone who is unaware, the airports - the ones I passed through, at least - in India are fairly open air, so birds were a common sight within them)
On my first visit, I was careful about the water I drank, but not very careful about other ingestion, and I got TD about halfway through the trip.
On the next visit, I was careful to keep my mouth closed while showering, and only use bottled water to clean my toothbrush, etc. Everyone else on the trip, eating the same food, got sick, but I didn't.
This is of course anecdata, but generally food, especially cooked food, is more likely to be safe.
BTW, that girl had to be 5% handsy with me to sell the lie, and when I met her real boyfriend that same night, he pretended to be royally pissed for five seconds and I was so scared. He laughed it off. Good guy.
I was told later by a guide that if you say “no, grazie” in a semi-convincing Italian, they’d assume you’re local and leave you alone.
That's weird because in Venice I never had a single problem, didn't feel scammed or anything, ate in very nice restaurants (I do avoid the tourist shops and restaurants though) and the people in general were nice. I almost felt at home, and many shopkeepers even spoke French, maybe better than English (I am French). I don't think anybody in the street accosted me at all, anyway. I'd go back without any hesitation.
Never had a problem in Italy with a +20y old junker car even with swiss plates.
I don't take it personally. Just pressing forward mumbling "no thank you" seems to work okay.
At one ancient temple in India I did hire a young kid to drive all the other entrepreneurs away cuz it was so bad. I don't remember the insignificant amount I gave him but I'm pretty sure it was enough to feed himself and his family for a few days.
:^)
So yes.