Let's talk history

[Hanslune]

25 minutes ago, Gaden said:

 Because of all of  the sand which is there.

Odd I saw the same joke in a 19th book just yesterday...followed by

Quote

And how do you know you'll get sandwiches there? 

Because Ham went into the desert and his descendants bred and mustered

 

[kmt_sesh]

3 hours ago, Gaden said:

 Because of all of  the sand which is there.

That's exactly what I was thinking. You beat me to it. Bravo, sir!

[kmt_sesh]

Apologies for being scarce today. I will also be scarce for the better part of tomorrow (probably) because of some surgery in the morning. You see, I'm going to become a woman. 

Okay, that's not true. The procedure has been scheduled for a while and it's only out-patient, so I should be home by early in the afternoon. I just don't know what kind of shape I'll be in. Probably I'll be fine and rarin' to go, but it's general anesthesia and I don't always respond perfectly well to that level of sedation. I might be more foggy-headed and goofy than I usually am, if you can imagine such a thing.

But there are some great questions from today and I want to return to them as soon as possible. See you soon!

[internetperson]

39 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

You see, I'm going to become a woman.

The heretic mod? 

Joking aside hope all works out for ya!

Edited March 22, 2017 by internetperson

[Hanslune]

1 hour ago, kmt_sesh said:

Apologies for being scarce today. I will also be scarce for the better part of tomorrow (probably) because of some surgery in the morning. You see, I'm going to become a woman. 

Okay, that's not true. The procedure has been scheduled for a while and it's only out-patient, so I should be home by early in the afternoon. I just don't know what kind of shape I'll be in. Probably I'll be fine and rarin' to go, but it's general anesthesia and I don't always respond perfectly well to that level of sedation. I might be more foggy-headed and goofy than I usually am, if you can imagine such a thing.

But there are some great questions from today and I want to return to them as soon as possible. See you soon!

Is this were the alien parasite (known as the Horrible Alien Reconnaissance Thing Embed, or a Harte) will be removed?

[MWoo7]

1 hour ago, kmt_sesh said:

You see, I'm going to become a woman. 

  . . . Probably I'll be fine and rarin' to go, but it's general anesthesia and I don't always respond perfectly well to that level of sedation. I might be more foggy-headed and goofy than I usually am, if you can imagine such a thing.

Have to love that hahahahaha !

Well its a good thing its not a major thing where they could leave their hat or dinner plate in you or ? what is that ???? ..... just a sec ...

OH LEG ! and I guess it -- well I seriously doubt COMMON ! but has happened a number of times, " oh shoot! , I thought it was the Left eye / Leg / hand / foot / hip ? well they've a fine Left one now!".

Edited March 22, 2017 by MWoo7
added L and Y

[back to earth]

Its just a quick re-wrap . 

[internetperson]

^Joke of the week right there.

[docyabut2]

13 hours ago, back to earth said:

Oooohhhhww    !  You were doing so well ....     

why would someone come to Egypt and 'land there' in a boat  in the foetal position.  Your own link indicated funerary scene .

 

More liked a stranded drifter:)  

[MDagger]

12 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

Apologies for being scarce today. I will also be scarce for the better part of tomorrow (probably) because of some surgery in the morning. You see, I'm going to become a woman.

Actually made me chuckle out loud.

Then you could be someone's mommy mummy.

12 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

Okay, that's not true. The procedure has been scheduled for a while and it's only out-patient, so I should be home by early in the afternoon. I just don't know what kind of shape I'll be in. Probably I'll be fine and rarin' to go, but it's general anesthesia and I don't always respond perfectly well to that level of sedation. I might be more foggy-headed and goofy than I usually am, if you can imagine such a thing.

But there are some great questions from today and I want to return to them as soon as possible. See you soon!

All the best and full speedy recovery.

Looking forward to your responses tomorrow.

MDagger

[kmt_sesh]

Thanks for all your well wishes, everyone. I am now a woman. Call me kmt_seshet. 

Actually, for some bizarre reason, today of all days, I awoke with a fever. I rarely get fevers. The surgeon kept me nearly all day in the hopes the fever would go down but it didn't, so the procedure was cancelled. Kidding aside, all it is is a procedure to put a new access in my abdomen so I can transition to doing dialysis at home, but now I have to reschedule.

Ever so frustrating. It took a long time to get this arranged so I'm feeling down, but most of all I'm wondering how a mummy can get a fever in the first place?

[kmt_sesh]

By the way, everyone's little jokes made me smile. Just a quick re-wrap...ha!

[docyabut2]

36 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

Thanks for all your well wishes, everyone. I am now a woman. Call me kmt_seshet. 

Actually, for some bizarre reason, today of all days, I awoke with a fever. I rarely get fevers. The surgeon kept me nearly all day in the hopes the fever would go down but it didn't, so the procedure was cancelled. Kidding aside, all it is is a procedure to put a new access in my abdomen so I can transition to doing dialysis at home, but now I have to reschedule.

Ever so frustrating. It took a long time to get this arranged so I'm feeling down, but most of all I'm wondering how a mummy can get a fever in the first place?

Good luck Kmt.

[badeskov]

36 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

Thanks for all your well wishes, everyone. I am now a woman. Call me kmt_seshet. 

I am curious, as a mummy how did you become a woman? Did they just file/saw off part of your pelvis?

36 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

Actually, for some bizarre reason, today of all days, I awoke with a fever. I rarely get fevers. The surgeon kept me nearly all day in the hopes the fever would go down but it didn't, so the procedure was cancelled. Kidding aside, all it is is a procedure to put a new access in my abdomen so I can transition to doing dialysis at home, but now I have to reschedule.

Ever so frustrating. It took a long time to get this arranged so I'm feeling down, but most of all I'm wondering how a mummy can get a fever in the first place?

Yikes, sorry to hear that - get better soon. Regarding mummies, watch Tad on Netflix if you have it. It is a kids movie, but I rather enjoy it and I am sure you would enjoy the mummy towards the end.

Cheers,
Badeskov

[kmt_sesh]

On March 21, 2017 at 3:52 PM, internetperson said:

^Awesome question shadow! Follow up question, how long was the average lifespan in AE? I also have a follow up question for the follow up question but I don't wanna stack too many questions. Hint: It involves Zahi Hawass not wanting to get sick.

Regarding the nemes I think I could continue to nag about it but I like how this thread is a little more shoot from the hip, rapid fire questions. Google is sooo jealous right now. Considering I'm skeptical about that answer should give me brownie points towards how my mind works. I'm like immune to conspiracy (#narcissist).

That is a really cool pic of that coffin. It looks like it was made only decades ago (testament to how dry it is over there?). 

I'm assuming you're talking about this coffin (there were a couple examples to which I linked in that post). It's a style I really like and we have a couple on display like that at the Field. Here's the page from which I grabbed the photo. Not much info there but it's a good example of the coffin I was describing and dates to around 4,000 years ago. And it is indeed the arid desert that helped so much with preservation, along with the low oxygen of the environment (grave or tomb) in which it was placed.

Kenemet already provided a nice post about lifespans but, as is my nature, I'd like to embellish. I trust what Kenemet writes and am glad she's posting in this discussion, and would welcome her sharing a source or two for the information she posted on lifespans (mostly for my own benefit, as I'm always eager to learn more). I have a number of books on this sort of research and one I particularly like is John Nunn's Ancient Egyptian Medicine. This is a fairly slim volume that is packed with information.

Yours is a question I am often asked at the Field Museum. Nunn stresses the difficulty in assessing the average age at death in an ancient population. Specialists use human remains in cemeteries to do this, and it's been seen that people experienced varying lifespans in different areas of dynastic Egypt. For example, Kenemet mentioned the necropolis at Amarna, where Akhenaten reigned. I remember the research on this. The graves in question were principally (as I recall) from the workmen, and researchers showed that these mostly young men were dying at considerably younger ages than other males of their time. But in Nunn's book (Page 22) the mean average for lifespans in prehistoric times was thirty and through dynastic times thirty-six.

In other sources I've seen it narrowed down to mid-thirties for males and early thirties for females, who tended to predecease men mainly due to childbirth. Today men tend to predecease women, but only because we choose to (a Jeff Foxworthy joke). For children it was more grim. I want to say a lot of the information I have for their mortality comes from Lynn Meskell's excellent book  Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt, but it's likely I'm recalling other sources at the same time. About 30% of all children were dead before they were five years of age, mainly due to disease. In the large cities of the Delta and Nile Valley mortality likely reached 50% because of the way diseases spread. Many infants died within the first year, and about 20% of pregnancies ended in spontaneous miscarriage. All of this is why many families tended to have between eight and ten children. We happen to have a lot of child mummies in our exhibit, including two babies, so our own exhibit accurately reflects life in those days.

As I like to remind a lot of the children I meet, they're so lucky to live today. I don't think they can fully understand why, but their parents readily agree.

So here I've written another tediously long post, but you keep asking excellent questions that really interest me. LOL So keep it up! And you do get points for being skeptical. I don't pretend to be all knowing, so as I always say, if you're skeptical about something I write, please do read up on it and share with me what you learn. If I'm wrong about something, I want to know it.

And naturally I'm most curious about your Zahi Hawass question. 

[kmt_sesh]

24 minutes ago, badeskov said:

I am curious, as a mummy how did you become a woman? Did they just file/saw off part of your pelvis?

Well, it's rather simple on a lot of male mummies because their...um...male part often just falls off. Isn't that good enough? Other mummies are more fortunate, such as the "well-endowed" Ahmose I. Although I do consider it a humorous irony that the mummy of Ramesses II—one of the most prodigious child producers of all pharaohs—is entirely missing his male part now.

Quote

Yikes, sorry to hear that - get better soon. Regarding mummies, watch Tad on Netflix if you have it. It is a kids movie, but I rather enjoy it and I am sure you would enjoy the mummy towards the end.

Cheers,
Badeskov

Is this the movie? I don't mind if it's for kids. I work with a lot of kids and they tell me what they watch and read, so I like to do the same—just to see what they're absorbing. That's how I fell onto Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles, and I loved those books!

[badeskov]

Just now, kmt_sesh said:

Well, it's rather simple on a lot of male mummies because their...um...male part often just falls off. Isn't that good enough? Other mummies are more fortunate, such as the "well-endowed" Ahmose I. Although I do consider it a humorous irony that the mummy of Ramesses II—one of the most prodigious child producers of all pharaohs—is entirely missing his male part now.

I see. OK, enough anatomy for me for one month (at least).

Just now, kmt_sesh said:

Is this the movie? I don't mind if it's for kids. I work with a lot of kids and they tell me what they watch and read, so I like to do the same—just to see what they're absorbing. That's how I fell onto Rick Riordon's Kane Chronicles, and I loved those books!

Yes, that is indeed the movie. It is great and I think you would actually like it. This fellow that wants to be an archaeologist, and ends up being one by sheer coincidence. Of course, very clumsily along the way and with drama. Give it a try. And somehow the mummy towards the end reminds me of you (no offence).....

Cheers,
Badeskov.

[kmt_sesh]

On March 21, 2017 at 2:38 PM, ShadowSot said:

I managed to have a decent foundation, though admittedly I only joined here after becoming more skeptical. I used to believe in pretty much all the woo woo. 

Save Creationism, never bought that. 

 

 Do have a question, I remember reading awhile back that examination of mummies had show that many of the Pharoahs had clogged arteries. The natural follow up was that they had rich diets that lead to high cholesterol. 

 But it seems that then naturaly mummified remains from the region were examined and had the same issue with their arteries, adding to the possibilityit was more genetic that diet based. 

 Has there been any follow up?

I'm not aware of follow-up on this matter but I remember reading the same articles. Interesting stuff. And a recent chest X-ray shows I have some atherosclerosis, so I'm just like an elite mummy!

Part of this is based on a reflection of the population that underwent mummification. Few ordinary farmers and herdsmen could afford this mode of burial, and we tend to see mummies for them only in the very latests periods (particularly in Roman Egypt); their mummifications were often substandard, so their remains are not as well preserved as the bodies of the wealthy folks who could afford better.

But it's definitely true that pharaohs weren't the only ones experiencing conditions like atherosclerosis. The wealthy people were the ones who could afford very good and varied diets, including all of that delicious fatty cattle meat that poorer people didn't much eat. How much genetics came into play is a bit over my pay grade to discuss authoritatively, although I do know there is modern medical research looking for the same thing.

[kmt_sesh]

15 minutes ago, badeskov said:

I see. OK, enough anatomy for me for one month (at least).

What, do you have something against mummy wieners? Shouldn't we expound on that aspect of research? In great detail?

Believe it or not I get a fair amount of questions in our exhibit on what the ancients did with a mummy's "bits." Most such questions come from kids, and almost all such kids are boys around twelve years old.

Quote

Yes, that is indeed the movie. It is great and I think you would actually like it. This fellow that wants to be an archaeologist, and ends up being one by sheer coincidence. Of course, very clumsily along the way and with drama. Give it a try. And somehow the mummy towards the end reminds me of you (no offence).....

Cheers,
Badeskov.

I think I'll watch it. I have Netflix but don't use it much. I see the same movie at Amazon Prime and Hulu, so there are any number of opportunities for me.

[badeskov]

12 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

What, do you have something against mummy wieners? Shouldn't we expound on that aspect of research? In great detail?

Believe it or not I get a fair amount of questions in our exhibit on what the ancients did with a mummy's "bits." Most such questions come from kids, and almost all such kids are boys around twelve years old.

Doctors in the family and I being the one hating needles, blood, and basically "chop-offs".....

Quote

I think I'll watch it. I have Netflix but don't use it much. I see the same movie at Amazon Prime and Hulu, so there are any number of opportunities for me.

Have a go at it. I also like the mute bird in the movie, it is cool. I am giving you too many spoilers 

Cheers,
Badeskov

Edited March 23, 2017 by badeskov
Typo

[ShadowSot]

13 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

I'm not aware of follow-up on this matter but I remember reading the same articles. Interesting stuff. And a recent chest X-ray shows I have some atherosclerosis, so I'm just like an elite mummy!

Part of this is based on a reflection of the population that underwent mummification. Few ordinary farmers and herdsmen could afford this mode of burial, and we tend to see mummies for them only in the very latests periods (particularly in Roman Egypt); their mummifications were often substandard, so their remains are not as well preserved as the bodies of the wealthy folks who could afford better.

But it's definitely true that pharaohs weren't the only ones experiencing conditions like atherosclerosis. The wealthy people were the ones who could afford very good and varied diets, including all of that delicious fatty cattle meat that poorer people didn't much eat. How much genetics came into play is a bit over my pay grade to discuss authoritatively, although I do know there is modern medical research looking for the same thing.

It was of interest to me due to heart disease being present in my father's line. To the point where going back four generations every male member has kicked off at 75 regular as clockwork. 

Been hoping for some more follow up, but yes it will probably be some time coming. 

 

 Get better soon, hope the surgery goes right.

[kmt_sesh]

10 minutes ago, ShadowSot said:

It was of interest to me due to heart disease being present in my father's line. To the point where going back four generations every male member has kicked off at 75 regular as clockwork. 

Been hoping for some more follow up, but yes it will probably be some time coming. 

I'm adopted so my biological history is a blank. It seems to be a source of frustration for all of my docs. Best of luck to you in beating the family odds.

But now because of you I'm getting interested in this question, and have started to do a bit of searching on the net. Found this interesting abstract. It mentions:

• ...histologic and computed x-ray tomographic investigations of ancient mummies have clearly shown that atherosclerosis has been present in humans for more than 5,000 years, limited data are available on the presence of genetic predisposition for cardiovascular disease in ancient human populations

I haven't read the whole article yet but I think this is it. The perfect sort of thing for us history nerds, right?

Quote

 Get better soon, hope the surgery goes right.

Thanks. The surgery was cancelled today because I'm running a fever, so I have to call to reschedule. Unless you want to do it for me? I have an X-Acto knife and length of garden hose. Will that work for a peritoneal implant?

[kmt_sesh]

24 minutes ago, badeskov said:

Doctors in the family and I being the one hating needles, blood, and basically "chop-offs".....

Have a go at it. I also like the mute bird in the movie, it is cool. I am giving you too many spoilers 

Cheers,
Badeskov

I've never had a problem with needles and blood (I used to be a paramedic), but in context the "chop-offs" make me squirm a bit. So let's not talk about gender-reassignment surgery and turning poles into holes. 

I welcome any movie and book recommendations, including those for kids. I have a seven-year-old nephew, so it's likely anything I watch like this, I'll eventually watch with him.

[back to earth]

20 hours ago, internetperson said:

^Joke of the week right there.

Glad you got a laugh , but .. .    Nah - I give my joke of the week award to the one about ;   the albino Asian Siamese twins joined at the hip who go to a Denise Roussos concert .     

[back to earth]

16 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

More liked a stranded drifter:)  

Why did more like a  stranded drifter ? 

Or is it   ;  More liked a stranded drifter ? 

Or ,   did you mean Dennis  Moore  ?     He was a stranded drifter  ( and a  '  Highwayman '  )