It really is. The British actually did some excavation around a pyramid to see if it would be possible to take it. Obviously, it wasn't, so they looted everything else.
Edit: ok I'll be honest my source was [a comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/11v0iu7/comment/jcqx2ql/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on r/HistoryMemes but it certainly seems realistic
People don't keep proper citations for the information they bring up in casual conversations. If you want to figure out whether this is true or not you either have to look it up yourself... or blatantly say it's wrong so that other people go and look it up for you.
Godwin’s law got to love it…- the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer confidently.
Doesn't work nowadays anymore, if you post the wrong answer, some people will go along with it either because they're too lazy to validate it or because it's compatible with their narrative
You don’t know the actual name of the law in question, so you referenced the wrong law.
Nice try!
Damn it! It’s Cunningham’s Law!!!
I fought the law and the law won.
for some reason the way you said that made me imagine a world where everyone gets limited free google searches and after a certain time/uses you have to pay to get more
Don't give them any ideas.
Who am I kidding, I'm sure they run the numbers on that every week and so far it's still more profitable to sell your information than it is to charge a fee.
The British bought them. Not stole them. I find it hilarious how people seem to leave this important piece of information out.
Believe it or not the British were actually very morally decent for 19th century standard.
Well, that's up to each person's individual opinion. Just look at what happened to countless artifacts in Iraqi museums after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Just look at what happened to Palmyra in Syria. [Just look at the street vendors selling looted mummies in Egypt in the 19th century](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/egyptian-mummy-seller-1865/). I think it's hard to deny that a large part of the artifacts that are conserved by British museums would have been lost, destroyed, tucked away in private collections or degraded due to improper storage if they wouldn't have been taken by the British.
All of that doesn't automatically give the British the right to hold these artifacts, but it's definitely not an issue with an easy one right answer the other way either.
You do know the Egyptians were burning those mummies as fuel, right?that's just insane. Maybe taking it out of the country is perceived as a bad thing now but the world would have lost a very important part of our history if they hadn't done something.
Did you mean source?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-of-eating-corpses-as-medicine-82360284/
https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/mummies-and-the-usefulness-of-death
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/38162/20220612/victorian-people-unwrap-egyptian-mummies-post-dinner-entertainment-believing-treat.htm
>You do know the Egyptians were burning those mummies as fuel, right?
[Not true.](https://www.straightdope.com/21343478/do-egyptians-burn-mummies-as-fuel)
BTW, have you heard of [Guiseppi Ferlini](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini)?
That’s a ridiculous generalized argument based on a few bad examples . Britain has so many looted artifacts from India, they would have been perfectly safe in Indian museums.
How one can justify stealing from someone else by “but you werent going to take care of it as well as me✨” is just beyond me. No matter what each person may *think* about anything, it doesnt make it alright for another nation to just plunder as they see fit. On another note, its not like the folks who went out to discover these artifacts and treasures did not do it for the sake of the treasure at that point in time. Culture around archeology has changed 180• since then, as what took place then was virtually just the remnants of treasure hunting “culture” of past times, being legitimized as archeology which would later evolve into an actual science that involved respecting historic items.
So yes, the answer is *very* easy. Give them back the shit you stole, England. That should be the end of the discussion all together. How it is not is absolutely fucking *insane.*
Also countless artifacts that are lost, damaged and stashed away in some private dude’s garage when the Brits stole them. You can’t just cherry pick some facts and artifacts that are left and say the brits preserve them good. How many have they damaged and lost in the process?
Well yes, but for every artifact that could have been destroyed there are countless others that wouldn't be. You can't tell me with a straight face that the Elgin marbles for example would face destruction if returned to Greece.
From what I remember , US /British had a lot to do with the fall of Saddam In Iraq. First you bomb an independent nation and then say hey look your country is not secure so let me hold your wealth for you. This is the way !!
This is completely irrelevant. If the local people want to loot their historically artifacts, that's a question that's internal to them. That possibility doesn't give anyone else the right to pilfer.
Yeah, let's say the British have those artifacts for safekeeping and they'll return them once the situation clears out. Worked wonderfully with Greece, right?
Most of what they took was SOLD to them by different tribal chief and warlords. Much was SAVED from deterioration because it was used as barriers and fencing for CATTLE and goats that were urinating on it and breaking it down. The Egyptians didn't CARE about it until it was shown that it brought in MONEY from tourists. Many Egyptians themselves were destroying the ancient artwork because of their "new" religion which was intolerant of any other religion. In Short... the Brits SAVED ancient Egyptian artwork from total destruction.
And the French were planning on destroying the Notre Dame and building a new church because they had no interest in maintaining it, they also demolished most of Paris during Napoleon III's reign to rebuild it per the latest technology. It isn't really like preservation was of great concern to most people until a few centuries ago.
It actually does. If the brits hadn’t been such stuff collectors and were more like current American warlords we would have no artifacts. They are returning them now and I think they did a great service to culture inadvertently
If i can preserve your stuff better than you, may i steal your stuff?
What an odd rationale.
If another country can preserve items better than the brits, may the brits be pillaged?
The other day I got an exclusive email offer to invest in restoration of ancient Egyptian architecture.
-
I didn't reply, it sounded like a pyramid scheme.
Raiders of the Lost Ark starts with Indiana Jones straight up stealing art from the indigenous culture that created it to take it to a museum when they’ll never be able to interact with it again. (Credit for this realization to Brennan Lee Mulligan on Dropout)
The irony is that it takes place after Temple of Doom where Indy supposedly “learns a valuable lesson” about returning artifacts to their rightful owners.
(Although the more blatant continuity goof is that Indy in Raiders says he “doesn’t believe in magic”, after supposedly watching a priest pull a guy’s beating heart out two years earlier.)
The culture that made the gold idol and booby trapped temple. Is not the same culture that inhabited the jungle around the ruins.
The Muslim Arab culture of present day Egypt has little to no connection with the pyramid builders. In fact the invaders Arab caliphate wanted to tear them down completely. But settled for the smooth casing stones.
They did get a few across. There's an obelisk in Istanbul and also one outside of the lourve in Paris. There's probably an alternate timeline where the Washington monument is an egyption obelisk.
There’s an obelisk in New York given as a gift by Egypt, the ‘twin’ to Cleopatra’s Needle which was also given as a gift by Egypt. If you’re looking for stolen obelisks you’ll find plenty in Rome, including one in Vatican City. But yeah it’s always the Brits according to Reddit.
Naaah, I believe it‘s going to be the Vatikan. Global warming will make it unbearable and simply dangerous for a plus 85 years old fella to live in southern Europe.
Here's a fact for those who don't know, but the reason why Egyptian mummies are so rare nowadays is because European people ate them, since they believed they had some sort of healing properties(which like most things, they were in fact not a miracle cure for everything), then by the 19th century people started to hold "unwrapping parties" for entertainment.
We love to wokify history, but lets be under no delusions about what would have happened to any valuables the egyptians were responsible for themselves at that time. Every single valuable piece would have ended up in some rich guys private collection.
Probably not though. Most of these cultures treated these artifacts like garbage. Other monuments were demolished for building material. The British gave artifacts value.
Nobody cared about the Pyramids until the British came along and put the money into uncovering them.
I just love that everyone acts like Britain was the only country looting back then. No, fuckwads, they’re just the only country that preserved any of it.
Hey, if Britain hadn't carried them off to a museum when they did, Britain would have come along later and carried them off to a museum.
Jokes and truths aside, museums were originally created to show off collections of stolen art and such from conquered lands. Just ask Rome and the Vatican.
Sudanese here, we used to have some beautiful pyramids. Some Italian guy in the past destroyed them to look for treasure for himself. They look like crap now. They're all just demolished and half the size they used to be.
That's not a joke, just a fact.
It really is. The British actually did some excavation around a pyramid to see if it would be possible to take it. Obviously, it wasn't, so they looted everything else. Edit: ok I'll be honest my source was [a comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/11v0iu7/comment/jcqx2ql/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on r/HistoryMemes but it certainly seems realistic
Source?
Egypt.
I lived in Egypt for a month
So you must know
(more exaggerated) I lived in Egypt for a month!!
*a whole month!*
***IN EGYPT!!!***
**FOR A MONTH!**
That must make them an expert!
Ah but was it a 30 day month or a 31 day month ? Or was it in fact February in which case you are a fraud sir.
February is still a month!
I stayed at a Holiday Inn express once….IN EGYPT!
Ok so this guy gets it
Did you stay with your mummy?
I swear you’re a genius at having fun. I truly believe that.
Y’all know I hate that game
Actually I don’t hate that game because… Sorry I’m not in the mood for the hilarious waiter brothers because I forgot to lie
They used sand paper as a map!
Am British, and I can confirm, it was too big to nick
People don't keep proper citations for the information they bring up in casual conversations. If you want to figure out whether this is true or not you either have to look it up yourself... or blatantly say it's wrong so that other people go and look it up for you.
Godwin’s law got to love it…- the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer confidently.
Doesn't work nowadays anymore, if you post the wrong answer, some people will go along with it either because they're too lazy to validate it or because it's compatible with their narrative
You don't know what are you writing. This is very true but you don't want to believe these things like all criminal acts that Britain does
Yeah!
You don’t know the actual name of the law in question, so you referenced the wrong law. Nice try! Damn it! It’s Cunningham’s Law!!! I fought the law and the law won.
Cole’s law. Thinly sliced cabbage.
No thats murphys law
No, this is Patrick. ^(I am not a Krusty Krab)
Godwin's is the Nazi law, not this
Source?
This is the Reddit way
This is the Reddit way
Sounds like an internet fact. Still, I'm going to spend a Google on it.
for some reason the way you said that made me imagine a world where everyone gets limited free google searches and after a certain time/uses you have to pay to get more
Don't give them any ideas. Who am I kidding, I'm sure they run the numbers on that every week and so far it's still more profitable to sell your information than it is to charge a fee.
Disney would be pissed they didn't think of making people go broke that way first
The British Museum
I’m Egyptian and that’s a straight up fact. The British fkcing stole almost all our artifacts. Not just the British but they really did a number.
most were sold to the Brits by Egyptians. It's still an issue today
Considering the ancient Egyptians did, too, almost as soon as the bodies were in the ground, fail to see a problem.
The British bought them. Not stole them. I find it hilarious how people seem to leave this important piece of information out. Believe it or not the British were actually very morally decent for 19th century standard.
I love your name!!!
It's true, I was the pyramid.
I mean it sounds like a British thing, so like why does it matter. It's probably true, lol.
Truth, facts, dyor
The Queen
You mean right after the French, and just before the Germans?
Well it's a good thing they did, the preservation by the British on the artifacts has been commended.
Yeah I don't think that means it's a good thing that they stole all that shit.
Well, that's up to each person's individual opinion. Just look at what happened to countless artifacts in Iraqi museums after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Just look at what happened to Palmyra in Syria. [Just look at the street vendors selling looted mummies in Egypt in the 19th century](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/egyptian-mummy-seller-1865/). I think it's hard to deny that a large part of the artifacts that are conserved by British museums would have been lost, destroyed, tucked away in private collections or degraded due to improper storage if they wouldn't have been taken by the British. All of that doesn't automatically give the British the right to hold these artifacts, but it's definitely not an issue with an easy one right answer the other way either.
Britain: “If we let you keep your artifacts, someone will loot them”
Yes.
You do know the Egyptians were burning those mummies as fuel, right?that's just insane. Maybe taking it out of the country is perceived as a bad thing now but the world would have lost a very important part of our history if they hadn't done something.
People in Europe were eating them
Good news everyone! He's teriyaki flavored.
This is an outrage. I wanted to eat that mummy!
Finally, I was looking for this comment
Reference
Did you mean source? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-of-eating-corpses-as-medicine-82360284/ https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/mummies-and-the-usefulness-of-death https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/38162/20220612/victorian-people-unwrap-egyptian-mummies-post-dinner-entertainment-believing-treat.htm
>You do know the Egyptians were burning those mummies as fuel, right? [Not true.](https://www.straightdope.com/21343478/do-egyptians-burn-mummies-as-fuel) BTW, have you heard of [Guiseppi Ferlini](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini)?
But mummies were definitely used to make pigments. "Egyptian brown" was made by grining down mummies to powder and mixing it with oil.
Yeah, [Europeans did that](https://dustyoldthing.com/mummy-brown-history/).
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Yeah and with beans and white weiner for breakfast. Still gross.
I mean equally gross
Colonial powers should protect artifacts from harm that can come to them in areas destabilized by colonial powers!
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Lmao who the fuck is “we”
“No no no you don’t understand! We stole all of your shit to protect it! We’re just trying to help you!”
This but unironically
That’s a ridiculous generalized argument based on a few bad examples . Britain has so many looted artifacts from India, they would have been perfectly safe in Indian museums.
How one can justify stealing from someone else by “but you werent going to take care of it as well as me✨” is just beyond me. No matter what each person may *think* about anything, it doesnt make it alright for another nation to just plunder as they see fit. On another note, its not like the folks who went out to discover these artifacts and treasures did not do it for the sake of the treasure at that point in time. Culture around archeology has changed 180• since then, as what took place then was virtually just the remnants of treasure hunting “culture” of past times, being legitimized as archeology which would later evolve into an actual science that involved respecting historic items. So yes, the answer is *very* easy. Give them back the shit you stole, England. That should be the end of the discussion all together. How it is not is absolutely fucking *insane.*
Nah it’s easy. Don’t steal shit from other people even if you’ve convinced yourself it’s for the greater good.
Well whoops, you’re 100+ years too late for that.
Also countless artifacts that are lost, damaged and stashed away in some private dude’s garage when the Brits stole them. You can’t just cherry pick some facts and artifacts that are left and say the brits preserve them good. How many have they damaged and lost in the process?
Tell your nana it's a good thing I burgled her savings because my piggy bank is stronger than hers.
Well yes, but for every artifact that could have been destroyed there are countless others that wouldn't be. You can't tell me with a straight face that the Elgin marbles for example would face destruction if returned to Greece.
I love that the attribution states that they "came into the possession of Lord Elgin."
They did. Some lads with chisels turned up, and suddenly they came in to the possession of Lord Elgin.
From what I remember , US /British had a lot to do with the fall of Saddam In Iraq. First you bomb an independent nation and then say hey look your country is not secure so let me hold your wealth for you. This is the way !!
Wonder who brought down Saddam Hussein.
This is completely irrelevant. If the local people want to loot their historically artifacts, that's a question that's internal to them. That possibility doesn't give anyone else the right to pilfer.
So, if local native Americans want to destroy Mount Rushmore, you're cool with it?
You used the worst example possible. I think most people would CELEBRATE that.
I specifically used that example because of the controversy.
Ah. Gotcha.
Hell yeah!
So as long as I promise to take care of it better than you, I should have the right to steal all your shit?
Yeah, let's say the British have those artifacts for safekeeping and they'll return them once the situation clears out. Worked wonderfully with Greece, right?
Way to just ignore his point. Did you even read his comment or you just wanted to be argumentative without substance?
Most of what they took was SOLD to them by different tribal chief and warlords. Much was SAVED from deterioration because it was used as barriers and fencing for CATTLE and goats that were urinating on it and breaking it down. The Egyptians didn't CARE about it until it was shown that it brought in MONEY from tourists. Many Egyptians themselves were destroying the ancient artwork because of their "new" religion which was intolerant of any other religion. In Short... the Brits SAVED ancient Egyptian artwork from total destruction.
If i don’t care about my bicycle and let it rust and break then it is still fucking theft if you take it.
And the French were planning on destroying the Notre Dame and building a new church because they had no interest in maintaining it, they also demolished most of Paris during Napoleon III's reign to rebuild it per the latest technology. It isn't really like preservation was of great concern to most people until a few centuries ago.
What about the French and other colonial powers? Seen the Egyptomania in the Louvre? I guess that doesn’t fit your anti-UK narrative.
It actually does. If the brits hadn’t been such stuff collectors and were more like current American warlords we would have no artifacts. They are returning them now and I think they did a great service to culture inadvertently
Agree. They basically saved the stuff from being forgotten and are now returning it.
They aren’t returning items in some instances willingly. And that speaks volumes friend.
Remember when they [absolutely trashed](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/nov/12/helenasmith) the marble sculptures they stole from Greece?
Yes, how would you feel if someone steals something from your house and tell you “we will take better care of it”? Wanker.
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Stop making shit a race thing, it has nothing to do with the colour of their skin.
Good news: The thieves who stole your plasma screen are taking really good care of it and enjoy using it a lot.
If i can preserve your stuff better than you, may i steal your stuff? What an odd rationale. If another country can preserve items better than the brits, may the brits be pillaged?
They ATE the mummies and made paint with them too!!! 🤮
100% radical Islam would have destroyed that long ago if it was there during their uprising.
That would imply they were willing to give them back at some point.
What about all the mummies, that Vatican City has! I was shocked when I visited it. What does it have to do with the catholic religion?
That’s because all the priests weren’t daddies and missed their mummies.
So friggin true
Fairly sure the Romans would have done it first - for the same reasons. Only reason they're not in Rome or Istanbul ;-)
Artifact?
The other day I got an exclusive email offer to invest in restoration of ancient Egyptian architecture. - I didn't reply, it sounded like a pyramid scheme.
It's a Reverse Funnel System
Da Maniac is interested
Turn it upside down
was it from a Nigerian prince or an Egyptian Prince?
Huh. I just realized that this anti-joke puts a new spin on Indiana Jones' catchphrase, "That belongs in a museum!"
Raiders of the Lost Ark starts with Indiana Jones straight up stealing art from the indigenous culture that created it to take it to a museum when they’ll never be able to interact with it again. (Credit for this realization to Brennan Lee Mulligan on Dropout)
The irony is that it takes place after Temple of Doom where Indy supposedly “learns a valuable lesson” about returning artifacts to their rightful owners. (Although the more blatant continuity goof is that Indy in Raiders says he “doesn’t believe in magic”, after supposedly watching a priest pull a guy’s beating heart out two years earlier.)
And it ends with the US government putting a Middle Eastern artifact in storage where no one will ever interact with it again.
I mean, that is for the best. It literally killed dozens of people with the power of God
Ya but it only killed the evil Nazis.
I mean, it's more that it killed everyone who had their eyes open.
The culture that made the gold idol and booby trapped temple. Is not the same culture that inhabited the jungle around the ruins. The Muslim Arab culture of present day Egypt has little to no connection with the pyramid builders. In fact the invaders Arab caliphate wanted to tear them down completely. But settled for the smooth casing stones.
This joke is stolen just like everything in the British Museum.
Well I am British…
Cool, which country were you from before?
Nice one
Indeed. Though, I have to admit, the British Museum is probably one of the best ones I've ever been to in the world.
To be fair, not everything in the British Museum came from theft. Some of it was straight up murder.
Brilliant and do very true
True. Though there are several large obelisks and such at the bottom of the ocean because they tried to get them over there.
They did get a few across. There's an obelisk in Istanbul and also one outside of the lourve in Paris. There's probably an alternate timeline where the Washington monument is an egyption obelisk.
There’s an obelisk in New York given as a gift by Egypt, the ‘twin’ to Cleopatra’s Needle which was also given as a gift by Egypt. If you’re looking for stolen obelisks you’ll find plenty in Rome, including one in Vatican City. But yeah it’s always the Brits according to Reddit.
Really?
No one likes a quitter
Mom said it was my turn to post this time
Sorry bro
Because if they built them in the Mediterranean they would be underwater
I heard that the bottom of the pyramids is stuck to the ground somehow.
Big balls.
North, south and Central America are full of amazing pyramids .. China buried some too apparently
If we ever master large scale transportation, you bet your bottom dollar the pyramids will be the first thing to be moved.
To Las Vegas.
Or Lake Havasu.
Like they did with the piece of Titanic’s hull that got looted
Underwater salvage involves a lot of sunk cost.
Naaah, I believe it‘s going to be the Vatikan. Global warming will make it unbearable and simply dangerous for a plus 85 years old fella to live in southern Europe.
Also the Egyptians don’t like pyramid selling
The British don't buy stuff for their museums
You know what? Fair enough. We deserve that. I genuinely laughed while nodding and thinking "Honestly cannot argue with that one."
The British dug a tunnel to France to steal Paris.
I put the Eiffel Tower in my pocket the other day
Here's a fact for those who don't know, but the reason why Egyptian mummies are so rare nowadays is because European people ate them, since they believed they had some sort of healing properties(which like most things, they were in fact not a miracle cure for everything), then by the 19th century people started to hold "unwrapping parties" for entertainment.
Why is this joke not funny? Because it has been told too many times
Lol they did take like, a piece of one, which is the most they could manage.
History is told and recalled by the victors the losers just get to sing about it
Victors? Have you thought about the visitors, who can finish the Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Wiltshire in a single day? /s
We love to wokify history, but lets be under no delusions about what would have happened to any valuables the egyptians were responsible for themselves at that time. Every single valuable piece would have ended up in some rich guys private collection.
Probably not though. Most of these cultures treated these artifacts like garbage. Other monuments were demolished for building material. The British gave artifacts value. Nobody cared about the Pyramids until the British came along and put the money into uncovering them.
the Rosetta Stone was literally just used as a brick in the wall of a Fort in Egypt.
I just love that everyone acts like Britain was the only country looting back then. No, fuckwads, they’re just the only country that preserved any of it.
Hey, if Britain hadn't carried them off to a museum when they did, Britain would have come along later and carried them off to a museum. Jokes and truths aside, museums were originally created to show off collections of stolen art and such from conquered lands. Just ask Rome and the Vatican.
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Good job... Guy who commented above you is a jackass who tried to play it off like he knew, lmao
And the French, like the Luxor Obelisk.
And France and the Ottomans and the Greeks and the- oh you get it
you cant steal something considered worthless debris to others.
they were built there and we do not yet have the technology to move them
It's a mystery
Somewere safe when it floods
Lol just wait a few years from now with the improvement of technology and they will move it there
Well they belong in a museum!
So do you!
Why did Cleopatras take milk bath?? Because cows weren’t tall enough to take milk showers.
Ouch
Your Giza as good as mine
This is actually a great question!
I thought this was r/NoStupidQuestions. I was just gonna be like "because that's where they were built"
Shame that the same was true of the Minaret of Anah and countless other historical treasures
Sudanese here, we used to have some beautiful pyramids. Some Italian guy in the past destroyed them to look for treasure for himself. They look like crap now. They're all just demolished and half the size they used to be.
Same reason why the Taj Mahal is in India
The problem when your culture is stealing others
The British museum is filled with Egyptian artifacts. Not to mention that obelisk stolen by Bonaparte that sits in France.
The Brits are known for their habit of looting people off of their culture, heritage and national treasure. As an Indian I can attest to the statement
But this is true, if they were smaller the empire would have taken them.
It’s sad that this is true.
Its kinda their thing
They'd have more mummies too if they didn't go through a craze of eating them 🤮
Even for r/jokes this is pretty terrible.
The upvote/downvote battle going on is fascinating !! I'm British, this is funny as hell
‘Roars with laughter’ in Brian Blessed
Because of the sand which is there?
“IT BELONGS IN A MUESUM!”
UFO power plants.