The persistence of the idea that
ancient peoples – humans who lived before the Classical Age – were just like we
are today, in every respect, boggles the mind. The belief that people who lived
thousands of years ago were exactly like we are today, that they had the same
way of thinking, the same motivations, the same values (and the same lack of
them), as well as a similar fashion sense, I find both absurd and degrading. How
this singular, idiotic idea has grown in recent times to become the
underpinning of all historical research – its fundamental dogma – is uncanny.
We Moderns and the Ancients are exactly
alike, but of course, we’re better than they were in every respect too. Or so
we keep telling ourselves... The idea is not only illogical, but unscientific.
Is it our inferiority complex showing? Or, are we just too big-headed? Yet,
there it is, that ugly assertion of superiority, always creeping into everything; into the very marrow of our
consciousness, where it serves to keep churning out theories and hypothesis
about our past that are as inane as they are worthless.
Apply the Same Ruler To Measure Weight!
The most evident misuse of this idea,
the greatest disservice it renders is when this “everything is just like it is
today” is applied to a unique civilization such as that of the Ancient
Egyptians (well, all civilizations are unique, so the disservice is of the
equal opportunity kind). Under the circumstances, it makes it difficult to talk
about the subtler things that shine through so clearly from ancient
civilizations. Consciousness makes all the difference. Yet, to modern
“specialists,” whether they are Egyptologists or archeologists, consciousness
doesn’t enter into it, they move only within that narrow rectangular box of
pure abstractions and never stray from that tight enclosure. Ancient people
have exactly the same consciousness we have, they tell us, only they were
“dumber” – not just “primitive” or “ignorant” – the implication is that they’re
somehow less human than we are today.
It’s funny how orthodoxy in
anthropology and archeology is predisposed to assert this underlying assumption
in everything they publish (this hold true for any branch of modern science). Does
anyone study these sciences today? These days, does anyone take a vow of
perpetual poverty for the sake of science? For two hundred years, maybe more,
we’ve been accumulating “facts” and “details” to enshrine yet another dogma
about what human beings were like, using our present selves as the model. The
alleged failings of our Ancestors – their stupidity and inadequacy in
comparison to our enviable superiority – are “popularized” so that every man,
woman, and child, is infected with this banal conception.
From this misconception all kinds of
value judgments are derived – usually of a Racist nature – to the detriment of
veracity. It begs a commingling of modern social “values” with those of ancient
people, who harbored no such values as we claim to have. Despite the common
negation of their humanity, ancient people had values of a much higher degree,
of a nobler order than we do today... I don’t mean the trite “noble savage”
idea, so prevalent in the 19th Century’s Romantic school of thought.
Although, to their credit, they clearly intuited that the “Ancients” were not
as inferior as the “Moderns” concluded (harking back to that great intellectual
debate of the Enlightenment). I guess the “Moderns” won... there goes all that
sweetness and light...
The Many Lives of Ancient Mummies...
From this well-rooted prejudice all
kinds of misinterpretations branch out and grow. To that dynamic we have to add
another modern trend, namely, that thinking is not what most scientists engage
in while they practice their specialty. And, asking questions seems to be
“verboten” as well these days... We simply have to accept that skepticism is
not the scientists’ strong suit... Reading about the less invasive procedures
being applied to mummies in the last 20 or 30 years, got me thinking, however, a decidedly dangerous occupation, I know...
Let me give you an example, because
it’s closely related to an area of great interest to me – pre-history, and
Ancient Egypt in particular. I was reading recently one of those sober,
dried-up, calcified works delving into the various methods used to “study”
ancient mummies. As it turns out, after 268 pages, ancient mummies are studied
exactly as people living today are “studied” – after all, they’re no different
than we are. In the past few decades, ancient mummies have been probed,
dissected (when convenient), invaded, and otherwise abused just like patients
in any modern hospital are... Anyone who’s had the pleasure of a colonoscopy
can attest to this kind of “handling” of the victim, I mean the specimen, as
being ubiquitous.
What we lack is humility and a sense
of awe of anything. We feel ourselves entitled to this kind of “investigation,”
this attempt to bring all that is high low, turning everything that pulses and
oscillates with life into a flat line... Not even mummies are sacred (they certainly
were sacred once, otherwise they wouldn’t have been turned into mummies!).
Yet, we don’t give a flying banana
about that, or anything else for that matter! We think as badly of the ancients
as we do of whatever we may encounter in “outer space” in future. To us,
they’re just in the way. Think about our immense ability to “transpose” our
self-image (Freud would say “transference”), and our desiccated “values” into
the far past as well as into the distant future... A great majority of people
actually believe that extraterrestrials (supposedly from a higher, more
advanced civilization) have kidnapped human beings in order to poke, probe,
dissect, and fornicate with them aboard various types of spaceships... (I hope
the fornication took place on the upper decks of the “penthouse suite” of the
mothership, with a little “sparkly” on ice...). In other words, we can’t seem
to help ourselves and even relate to those as yet unknown and unseen aliens as
if they were ancient savages... God help those poor suckers if they ever do
show up here!
Knowing how unpleasant and rather
useless a colonoscopy is these days, mummies both royal and not have been
getting this very “royal” treatment of late. In a way, both copying and mocking
the art of embalming in the first place (after they stick the probe up your ass
they tell us how bestial the practice is!). Fortunately, the Black People only
put a probe up your nose (a bronze wire or bone hook) and pulled your rather
useless brain matter out... but that was after you were dead! Can’t wait until
they try that at the hospital next, while under local anesthesia!
Where No Probe Has Gone Before...
What exactly are they looking for up
the anal duct? That’s the first question that pops into my mind. What does this
tell us about where our scientific thinking is leading us today? Don’t want to
get into “potty humor,” but it’s really at that level, isn’t it? The
anal-retentive level. If we can’t learn a single thing about a living human
being by doing a colonoscopy (with the rare exception of finding a carcinogenic
growth), what are we going to learn about the mummified skin and bones we’re
intruding into so familiarly?
For starters, the mummy itself is in
a state of “uncurableness” – deader than a parrot nailed to its perch. What
drives this need to “investigate”? Is it voyeurism or scientific curiosity?
Without awe and devotion to truth, aren’t they about the same thing? And, all
this “getting at the truth” nonsense comes after knowing that the embalmers
have already been at work. Knowing, no less, that the temple embalmers have done
altered every molecule of the deceased... Long after that came the profaners,
and then the robbers got their hands on the mummy, if not the temple priests
themselves, whose duty it was to “save” them from worse sacrileges... Talk
about a contaminated “crime scene” – there’s one for you.
I ask myself, when performing these
“operations” why do the specialists put on the latex gloves in the first place?
Is it because that’s what the actors on “CSI” do on the Tele? I got news for
them... the one who murdered the mummy is long since dead, and far out of reach
of the arm of the law. Or is it in order not to catch something the mummy might
have? Like an ancient strain of HIV? Or Ebola? Or maybe mummy snot! It
certainly couldn’t be in order not to “contaminate” the specimen, since the
mummy’s about as contaminated as it’s ever going to get – it’s been dead for
6,000 years, for crissake! In the end, I have to scratch my head and wonder,
who let these bozos off the bus and anywhere near the MRI or CAT-scan equipment?
They’re Just Shooting Another Documentary For The
History Channel
Can a dead thing shed any light on
life? Hardly, but if the “thing” was a former human being, the corpse could
tell you how it might have died... that is, if it weren’t a mummy.
Mummies went through some serious
transformations at the hands of the “sem priests,” a cadre of high initiates
and powerful magicians, notable for being able to change every single molecule
of the cadaver before them. On the Tube, whenever you watch a police drama, there’s
always a small army of forensic experts, top-notch surgeons from the best
medical schools on the planet performing long and expensive autopsies with
state-of-the-art equipment, on some homeless John Doe. But that’s Hollywood for
you... Unlike a recently deceased individual, like those murder victims on the
Tele, ancient mummies were also “treated” by experts.
Treated to what? To a whole bunch of
procedures, most of which were of a secret and magical nature, with the very
intention of changing every molecule of the deceased’s former body (otherwise,
how were you going to get into the Dwat as a pure khat?). And any forensic expert worth their salt would quickly tell
you that the older the corpse, the more difficult it is to make a determination
as to the exact “cause” of death.
Not to get sidetracked into a
discussion of what forensic science can and can’t accomplish, but to point out
the obvious. Even today, to determine the age of a recent corpse (a John Doe)
is no as open and shut as it may appear. And when modern forensic methods are
applied to ancient mummies in order to determine not only their alleged “state
of health,” what they died of, but also to tell us their age at death, it’s more
than problematic.
Material science (the unsacred,
modern kind) looks on death as just the “cessation” of life, an identical
phenomenon whether it takes place in plants, animals, or humans. Scientists
fail to realize that something that may seem the same in all cases may actually
have a variety of underlying causes...
Likewise, something today looks
externally like a polyp, a cancerous “growth” in a mummy, even if a biopsy were
performed on the sample, that doesn’t necessarily mean the “cause of death” for
that individual was cancer. This type of misdiagnosis occurs more frequently
with tuberculosis (MTB) and other “common” diseases that are, of course, rarely
found in the mummy itself. When they do occur, they’re discovered through some
microscopic, tomographic, or invasive procedures are performed. It’s the
inevitable case – material science always finds what it’s looking for – like in
every self-fulfilling prophecy.
A celebrated case from 2009 claimed
that a DNA sample proved that the mummy in question died of TB. Maybe it did or
maybe it didn’t. But the fact that the mummy is from around the 6th Century B.C. and not
1,500 B.C. has some bearing on the matter. This is not even discussed in the
literature! Ignorance about mummification and its processes? Probably. Laziness
and lack of thoroughness in the scientific method? Absolutely!
Then there’s our scant knowledge
about TB itself both as an organism and as a disease causing organism... (the
bacterium (MTB) is not the “cause” of the disease, any more than the gasoline
in the car that ran over the pedestrian is the cause of the hit and run!).
Tuberculosis is a disease that began its life-cycle during the epoch in which
the mummy was found – but of course, no one who studied Medicine in the last
100 years could possibly know that! But they also never even bother to find
out. Facts only get in the way. So we want nothing to do with them! In fact, TB
grew to truly global proportions only in the early 20th Century.
This has to do with Karma and not bacteria (as a result of WW I – no one gets
off without Karma having to be paid!). But we’d rather blame the gasoline in
the tank for the hit and run, instead of the drunk driver... (Duh! Without the
gasoline in the tank the driver could have never run over the pedestrian – why
didn’t I think of that!)
Yet, it’s equally likely that while
that human being was alive – the mummy in which they found a trace of TB – the
bacterium was dormant and actually inert, and did not manifest or cause the
person to experience symptoms of the illness during the person’s lifetime. The
problem with trying to prove something with an example that’s an exception is
typical of today’s bad science. This kind of bad science is further spread by
conflating one age with another (i.e., the embalming of a mummy in 500 B.C.,
was not mummification as it was performed in Ancient Egypt, since by 500 B.C.,
Egypt was a Persian colony).
Unfortunately, to perpetrate bad
science, facts are not only irrelevant, they’re a nuisance. In this particular
mummy, the internal organs were left within it (which explains why it’s not the
traditional method), and these likely kept rotting and contaminating the mummy.
But do these tin pot scientist care? Apparently not, all they want to prove is
that TB was a deadly killer in the past, and by implication, we don’t have to
worry about TB anymore. Hey, I got news for these knuckleheads – TB is a killer
today!
Can’t Fool Mother Nature
Scientific curiosity has always had
more than a tinge of malice to it. Always ready to apply the scalpel before any
thinking on the question is applied. The dissection and the “rape of Isis,” as Goethe
called it, when he compared the animal vivisectionists, and other charlatans, to
what a real scientist ought to be striving for. But alas, in the name of “bad science,”
the rapists and dissectors have won. They’re more than happy to tear everything
apart, cut everything up and down, and sideways, and therefore destroy the very
thing they supposedly claim to want to learn about – usually some minute,
irrelevant detail is garnered from all this ill-advised activity (something
that can be used to fabricate another lie – usually for commercial gain or
propaganda benefits). By destroying the “thing in itself,” namely life, these
misguided souls hope to tear out some “secret” from Mother Nature... As if
she’s going to give up her secrets to the first miscreant that comes along!
Luckily, it is thus that the secrets
of life are still being withheld from the unwise... Well, it’s not news to any
of us that we are still at that primitive, savage level ourselves – the one we
“transfer” to the ancient people of the past – and, it should therefore not
surprise us that from this kind of slipshod approach, through such counterproductive
activity, we reap the wrong answer every time. It’s not as if 300 years of
dissecting animals for fun and profit has gotten us one iota of “truth” or even
the slightest medical knowledge... To Big Pharma and the rest of the cretins,
they perform vivisections only to cover their butts legally, that’s how they
justify submitting rats and other animals to their torture (this they call
“drug testing” and in the same breath tell us how many hypothetical people
they’ve saved). But, that’s what you get when herd-animals prevail – when they’re
the ones selling you the drugs you don’t need, yet crave...
The quality of medical science and
“scientific research” has deteriorated drastically in the last 40 years or so. They
can stick whatever they want up the mummy’s exhaust pipe, but they’ll never
learn anything from it.
After each “investigation” of this kind, the “scientists” still tell us the same old B.S. (I wonder who funds this stuff and for what gainful purpose? What are they selling?) From all this “research” we still hear the same old dogma, namely, people in Ancient Egypt died when they were extremely young – around 30, or maximum 40 years old. This was “known” (or postulated) back in the 19th Century. I ask myself, after more than a century why are they still wasting good money after bad to come to the same conclusion? I suspect that it has to do with perpetuating the Lie. This is a peculiar madness that’s prevalent today, that little hobgoblin of “foolish consistency” – the hallmark of a gormless mind.
Where malice is not involved, one must conclude that most modern scientists fail to think things through. This is their Achilles’ heel. The weakness stems from the way they’re taught or trained, and that all too dominant aberration called specialization. Because scientists are forced to be “specialists” in their very narrow field of expertise (the narrower and more esoteric the better), that way there’ll be less competition for the funding dollar! The result is invariably limited, because nothing
ascertained is connected in any way with reality, except at some irrelevant,
microscopic, or sub-atomic level.
Additionally, to survive in today’s
sclerotic, academic environment (one funded by Corporations), the distinct trend
of the herd is toward orthodoxy and dogma, or they won’t survive long. The
tendency to survive requires disregarding pertinent, yet inconvenient facts, or
facts that don’t fit into preconceived, accepted premises. New, imaginative
interpretations of old facts are not solicited or desired – the whole academic environment
reeks of death and dead thinking. Don’t make waves and your boat won’t tip, is
the enforced rule of Academia. Since most facts don’t fit, and the “peripheral”
vision is an acute angle to begin with, they invariably come up with the wrong
conclusions. It’s boringly predictable... Well, if one were of the right mind,
one would have to consider it madness (that’s after all the clinical definition
of it).
The Real Fountain of Youth
It should not surprise us then that
people in ancient times actually lived a lot longer than is generally assumed,
especially by modern anthropologists and historical researchers, not to mention
those in the medical sciences. There’s a whole litany of cultural and racial
prejudices that need to be swept aside when studying History, but of course,
that’s not going to happen...
Whenever doctors or biologists are
invited into the archeological field in Egypt, let’s say to determine the age
of mummies found in a cache there (i.e., mummies that have been desecrated,
robbed, removed, or otherwise molested). In order to maintain the myth of low
life expectancy in the past, these specialists perform what is called a BMD
(Bone Mineral Density) test or MRI, 3D-CT, or similar computer tomography,
especially when they can’t get at any exposed bone. Sometimes, the specialist
is good enough to do this without the fancy-schmancy equipment (a good forensic
doctor, for example), since modern growth rates for bone are well known,
requiring only external measurement.
But herein lies the problem. Once the
measurement of the BMD is done for the mummy, it is invariably given the age of
development of a modern human being... Why this is so speaks volumes of the
sheer lack of real scientific method currently operative. Why does no one
question the underlying assumption? Bone does not grow at the same rate
throughout time (evolution). The bone of a human being 6,000 years ago did not
grow at the rate that a human bone grows today. Why is this simple fact not
taken into account? Why is the considerably older bone specimen given the same
age than a bone aging today?
Long ago, the mummy was once a living
organism, and it underwent a considerably different physical development than a
person does nowadays. But it was not only the physical circumstances under
which that ancient individual grew up, conditions completely different from
that of humans in the last 200 years, but the environment in which the
individual grew into adulthood was radically different than it is today (even
the geography was).
Today bone density develops at
different rates in different socio-economic classes within the same country –
and that’s a superficial matter. Imagine how much more effect thousands of
years and the entire planetary force of Evolution can muster to create a
variation in the rate of growth of bone or any other tissue. The passing of time
alone changes everything (and don’t let any coneheads tell you different, since
it’s an obvious law of physics that things change constantly!). Thousands of years
ago, bone mass accrued at a different rate than it does today, a considerably slower
rate at that. People in general aged much, much slower. In effect, they lived
longer!
It’s Not The Years, It’s The Mileage...
So how does one “tiny” error, such as
the one on gathering the age of a mummy from its bone density affect everything
else they say about Ancient Egypt, and life in antiquity in general? Well, how
about life-expectancy? The experts come up with 34 years old as the average
life expectancy for adults in Ancient Egypt – without mentioning any dates, of
course, or where the samples were taken – seriously folks, it’s like
kindergartners running the show. All of this based on the fallacious age they
attribute to mummies they’ve done BMD testing on, when they’ve actually done
the work, since most of the time, there’s no funding to do the expensive
analysis.
Conceivably, taking into account the
variableness of the forces acting on organic matter through time, it could be
possible to say that by Roman times (30 A.D.), when Egypt became a Roman
province, that life expectancy was sharply lower than it had been traditionally
(over against the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom, and through long periods of time past). But again, the same error made with the
Ancient Egyptians is also carried over into calculating the average Roman’s
lifespan, which was surely longer than the life expectancy they are currently
being attributed (i.e., 30 years old, if you survived infancy, with a child
mortality rate of 50% – no wonder the Romans were always screwing around! They
had to start young and never, ever stop!).
Even in the 15 Century B.C., way
before Rome was the glint on some Etruscan wolf mother’s eyes, and when Ancient
Egypt was already in full-tilt decline, the average lifespan was more likely to
be closer to 90 years old. Almost three times longer than what “researchers”
attribute with their 30-35 years as an average lifespan. Kiddo, if you’re propagating
an error that is exponentially off by three, you’re in the wrong line of work!
It only stands to reason that life
was not as “disposable” as it is in our modern times. Life was not “smaller”
then than it is now (the opposite is probably true). For one thing, there were fewer
people (again, population density and numbers of inhabitants for ancient
civilizations are non-existent, when estimates are proffered, they’re most
likely as not to be “fantasy” rather than fact). But from what the Ancients
left us, in their art and in their prose, it’s clear that the body of an Ancient
Egyptian was suppler, more flexible even than our present body. Even if you’ve
learned to “walk like an Egyptian,” which is quite an achievement in balance
and form, try next to sit in the pose to which they applied their daylong work.
See how that “crouch” feels after 10 minutes! Unless you’re a contortionist,
you might not be able to get to your feet without help.
But that’s just plain facts and
common sense... what reality offers up without distortion or interpretation.
From the more abstract and nebulous we can turn to Evolutionary Theory to
support our case. We can deduce that things have become “harder” over time,
less elastic, permeated less and less with nature’s vital life force. Suppleness
was a natural gift bestowed upon us by the gods. But since then the gods have
withdrawn from us, as we ourselves have withdrawn from nature and the gods, and
secluded in our modern, artificial existence, we’re like the ostrich with its
head in the ground, as far away from the gods as possible.
Even Metaphysically (or
philosophically, if you prefer), the whole evolution of Matter on Earth is clearly
a stream toward “materialization” – and then entropy! From the watery element
of earlier eons (from which all life sprung) to the more “solid” forms we see
today, it’s all part of an ongoing process. Everything material, including our
physical bodies have “hardened” and “shrunk” over time. Physically, we live in
the temporal-spatial dimension and are subject to what forces there are
inherent in it. There are even spiritual forces active in this process, and
these penetrate beyond the obvious, superficial differences in human biology
and physical environments from that time to the present. The Hindu Vedas also
tell us of the gods and their weaving of Light and Life... from airy to
fluid, from fluid to solid, from gigantism to our current stature (i.e., puny).
Likewise, with bone tissue! So once
our researchers come up with the age of the mummy at death to be 30 or 35 years
old – what they’re really looking at is a human being that was nearly thrice
that age before they were eviscerated, embalmed, and mummified... Thirty-four,
thirty-five, is also what the Egyptologists believe the “life-expectancy” of
the average Ancient Egyptian was. Not how many years people actually lived in
antiquity!
Look at it this way, if the BMD
measurement for Tutankhamen's mummy was 18 years old – as I’ve heard bunted
about in the popular media – you can bet your last buck he was most likely 56
years old. By any stretch, the “teen” pharaoh would have been, at the very least,
36 years old, if not 56! The Ancient Egyptians didn’t begin to age until they
were nearly 56 years old (8 cycles of 7 years each). Women didn’t sport their
first wrinkles until that age, and most likely even those of the “lower castes”
didn’t before their 49th birthday – put that in your cosmetic kit with your mascara brush!
So it goes... Any person living 3,500
years ago, which we have determined to be “18” (as far a bone density is
concerned), was in fact, three times older! And, I would guess not just the
Ancient Egyptians lived longer through a natural kind of “extended youth” (the
gift of the neteru), but other peoples elsewhere, during and before the Iron
Age, lived considerably longer than we do today. Which only goes to show that there’s
a huge difference between external appearance and reality my friends...
In other words, when you and I were
Ancient Egyptians, all those centuries ago, our physical bodies looked “18” between
our 49th and 56th birthdays. When we turned 56, we might look
“21.” Depending on your Karma, and your mileage, once you surpassed the
mid-fifties, you started to physically age... yet again, this phenomenon
occurred very, very slowly. Thus, when you were a septuagenarian drinking the
waters of the Nile, you looked like someone today looks when they’re in their
30s. At 82, a venerable age, according to the Ancient Egyptians themselves, you
possessed the physical body of a 50-year-old today. Of course, you would have
been a 50-year-old, who physically was twice as strong and flexible as a
50-year old professional athlete (still training) would be today.
Again, the bone mass measurements are
the key. The older you got, the stronger you got, and the slower the bone would
accrue in its mineral density. This is one of the reasons why in Ancient Egypt you
seldom see “old” people in statues or paintings (which the knuckleheads use as
evidence for the argument that everyone died before they reached 35! See! No
old people!). When you do see a representation of “old age” in tombs, a sage with
a cane, well that individual was probably as old as Moses! (Which also explains
why Moses lived to be over 140 years, and perhaps much, much older. More often
than not the Bible has it dead nuts. Especially when you can think in pictures,
like the ancient ones did!).
Naturally, today’s non-thinking
herd-animal will immediately cry foul at any and all of the above assertions.
They’ll claim some cultural prejudice, religious dogma, or historical fable they
heard about the Ancient Egyptians. Or, if they’re of a more “refined” bent,
they throw out the “artistic” argument (i.e., all art is unreal) and therefore these
tomb paintings are mere “paintings,” and they’re “not real” representations of
actual things, they’re not meant to represent “reality.”
Blather of that sort, however, is
cheap, and more of the same – the Ancient Egypt are just like we are today, no
more than primitive, fanciful liars... Every bleating sheep out to pasture is
an art critic these days (not to mention a book critic and film critic too!).
As if the Ancient Egyptians were fakes, just like we are, just another bunch of
groveling suckers and expedient liars!
How wrong can you get? For the purveyors
of our “bad science,” the sky’s the limit!
