The mummies WERE tested to see if they were actually ancient Egyptians
I guess I missed that part. What I did see was:
The obvious way to prove this was to show the mummies to Rosalie David, but all the museum would let her see were empty sarcophogi.
The transcript doesn't say the mummies were tested for genuineness. It says the museum SAID they were genuine. What could one expect a museum to say about their exhibits - of course they will say they are authentic unless it can definitely be proved otherwise. Note the word "probably" below. I don't think it's an accident that she was careful to say "probably" and she deserves credit for that. I think when someone is trying to assert something radical they should try to do base it on something better than probably.
"From the documentation and the research which has been carried out on the Munich mummies it seems evident that they are probably genuine because they have packages of viscera inside, some with wax images of the gods on them and also the state of mummification itself is very good. I would say that the detatched heads we can't comment on, but the complete bodies probably are genuine.
The transcript also said:
...the city's Egyptian Museum, which is housed in the old palace of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who started the collection. Inside the museum, Rosalie David found the sarcophagus of Henut Taui - the Lady of the Two Lands. She discovered from the museum catalogue that the coffin was bought by King Ludwig from an English traveller called Dodwell in 1845. There was no record of an exact excavation, but Henut Taui was said to have come from a tomb reserved for the priests and priestesses of the god Amun in Thebes.
What this means is that one mummy can be reliably traced to someone named Dodwell in 1845 and there are no records on where the others came from. Who was this Dodwell? Where did he get the mummy? Specifically where was it excavated and by whom? If it can't be tracked back to exactly where it came from, use carbon dating to determine the age. The transcript has a blurb saying carbon dating of mummies often produces inaccurate results. Why should this be?
About the likehood of intercontinental trading in tobacco and cocaine, you'd think they'd trade in other things too. But before 1492, agriculture in the Old World was based on one group of crops - wheat, rice, millet, oats, barley, olives, and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. In the New World, agriculture was based on maize, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and another wide variety of fruits and vegetables (not to mention chocolate). There was very little overlap - cotton and sweet potatoes are all I can think of. If ancient intercontinental trading occurred very often, why was agriculture in the Old and New Worlds based on totally different sets of crops? One would expect that crops would spread all over the world as happened following 1492. |
