this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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It does sound racist. However I never said it, so please don't attribute it to me.
I replied to a comment claiming that stealing other nations relics by the Europeans is a good thing because otherwise natives would have looted it later(as they sometimes did). My point is that this looting later might be the result of Europeans involvement.
I think it's reasonable to say that if those relics Europeans stole were not looted before the Europeans arrived there's no indication they would have been looted if the Europeans didn't arrive.
So overall the idea by OP that looting by Europeans is a good thing because it preserved some of the relics is a bad take in my opinion.
Reads like youre saying it
How do you explain all the looting that had already happened before the Europeans arrived then? Not like the temples or pyramids were still filled with valuables and relics when Europeans showed up and picked them clean.
Most historical artefacts are sadly lost to time and short-sighted greed.
Hmm, maybe my English is this bad but I think there's a big difference between general "looting" you are talking about that people do sometimes and "this looting" OP post is talking about that happened after the Europeans plundered the country and left. I mean that's the whole point of the discussion: is it justified to steal other people relics under the pretext that the people whose lives you made miserable later looted some of the artefacts you didn't steal? My answer is "no, it's still stealing" even though it may have been better for the relics.
It happens, as you said(and I agree) people do loot sometimes, the harder their lives are(like being colonized for example) the more they do it.
Well we know for a fact there still was a lot left, so you need to explain then how the artefacts the Europeans stole were not looted before for many many years.
Im not sure if its on purpose but youve changed the timeline here, the artefacts were looted before not after europeans showed up.
The point Im trying to highlight is that the vast majority of artefacts were looted/lost before anyone got colonised.
Im no historian so take this with a grain of salt. The easy-to-find valuables were looted by random individuals over the course of history and sold off. The ones ruling Egypt at the time couldnt or wouldnt protect these sites. Then Europeans showed up with equipment and a scientific method, understanding the need to finding and preserve the past. The easy-to-find stuff was naturally already gone so they had to start excavating and searching the low odds regions.
The only reason why Tutankhamun is so famous today, he was a pretty unimportant pharao, is because his tomb was found by a modern archeologist and his relics ware preserved. The more famous pharaonic tombs were looted long before any Europeans showed up and therefor lost to history
Oh, I reread the original comment and you are right, it is talking about looting over time before the colonization, not after. I feel stupid now. Thank you for being patient with me.
Dont feel bad, making mistakes is human. Owning a mistake is a show of character.