I don't think I'm being overly dramatic to say that the antiquities governance in Egypt is a bloated, top heavy and mostly useless bureaucracy which - in the end - only has a cursory interest in archeology - aside from keeping the money rolling in.

It's all about giving high paying, long term jobs to political allies and family members and less about preserving one of the most fascinating cultures the world has ever seen.

So... ironically very similar to the ancient Egyptian priesthood they nominally protect?

I'm not an ancient Egyptian expert but considering their culture was obsessed about the past to the point they created these ancient tombs, i would imagine they had maybe just a little more respect for their ancestors.

I have my doubts.

Seriously - to achieve high-ranking status in a human organization is to become embroiled in politics. At some point in the hierarchy, politics becomes the main function of your position. As a result, people who are skilled at politics are disproportionately represented at the highest ranks of every organization, and those people are very rarely the "true believers".

I worked at a trucking company for seven years. I was in process improvement, and my focus was in improving efficiency, reducing losses and damages, and being able to measure the impact of organizational changes. The levels below me were concerned with moving individual pieces of freight and their relationship with individual customers. The levels above me were focused on reducing costs and increasing both profit and revenue - I couldn't have cared less about overall revenue, generally speaking. The levels above that were concerned with trends in the competitive marketplace and long-term growth. Above that? Managing to nudge the entire organization in one direction or another in service to one or more very long-term initiative.

Basically, the higher you go in an organization, the less actually matters about what the organization does, at least from your perspective. Leading a priesthood, managing a trucking company, writing legislation, maintaining a bureaucracy... there's a lot of overlap in skills.

Cultures change over 4,000+ years enough to be unrecognizable.

A few rounds of immigration from the romans and subsequent conquerers tends to change your culture. Doesn't dismiss the fact that ancient Egyptians had a culturural context that anchored to the past as opposed to the present/future.

We warned you before about personal attacks. Religious flamewar is also unwelcome here. If you keep breaking the site guidelines we're going to have to ban you, so would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended?

War on smuggling.

I'm intrigued but this is ambiguous, could you make a complete sentence?

As an Egyptian, I can assure you nobody in our entire government body knows what they're doing.

These things can be done in an organised and controlled fashion - one has to hope that those in charge did so. There's no particular reason to assume that "a horde" of journalists were allowed to rush in, though.

Fundamentally it's a judgement call for the archaeologists as to whether the tomb is in good enough condition and the photographers are trustworthy enough.

> There's no particular reason to assume that "a horde" of journalists were allowed to rush in, though.

Look at the video, it is ridiculous. People are walking on each other feet there.

> Fundamentally it's a judgement call for the archaeologists as to whether the tomb is in good enough condition and the photographers are trustworthy enough.

The flashes alone should be a concern. That's also not a good way to get a good photograph. They should know better.

You'd expect and perhaps understand this happening at a celebrity gathering. But it is not like the statues are going to bust a move soon here.

Crikey, yes. I hadn't seen the video - that's pretty bad.

Fingers crossed this was a one-off, I guess.

It most definitely is a one-off, that's the whole problem.

Pardon my ignorance, but what can flashes do?

Flash light has very high uv content which can fade the pigments. The effect is similar to a picture that fades because it’s been exposed to sunlight.

I doubt that a day of journalists making pics would have any measurable effect. It’s more a problem if hordes of tourists take pics every day.

> Letting a horde of journalists rush to photograph the tomb at once seems like a terrible idea.

Its a good idea if your tourism industry is feeling the slump from terrorist bombings, revolutions, political instability. Any publicity is to revive tourism is good.

We’re not dealing with the British Museum here. Money changed hands through informal channels, though no journalists will publicly acknowledge what happens. The Egyptian government has underfunded antiquities greviously for years, and this has not been a stable system like the West is accustomed to at any time in modern history.

You ever see the way artifacts are treated at the British Museum? Despite all the signs, people can't help but put their hands all over everything.