A Locked Room Mystery
Sep. 20th, 2020 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo An advertisement for beef pops up on the telly. It features large, oozing slabs of pink muscle tissue. I am so far gone in veganism now that my instinct is to look away.
I was watching a Channel 4 documentary about the excavation of a Middle Kingdom tomb (formerly a pyramid but the mud brick had melted) in the royal cemetery at Dahshur. The burial chamber- which had belonged to a princess- was secured with enormous granite blocks but had nevertheless been robbed and ransacked. Our presenter tantalized us with this locked room mystery until reaching the conclusion- the only possible one if you rule out teleportation- that the violation must have occurred before the tomb was sealed- and the most likely suspects were the priests. First read the funeral rites, then- when the grieving relatives have gone home-, break open the coffin, tear the body to bits and pocket the loot. This wouldn't have surprised Joan Grant who was of the opinion that Egyptian priests-in all but a few select eras- were ineffectual frauds at best and black magicians at worst.
I was watching a Channel 4 documentary about the excavation of a Middle Kingdom tomb (formerly a pyramid but the mud brick had melted) in the royal cemetery at Dahshur. The burial chamber- which had belonged to a princess- was secured with enormous granite blocks but had nevertheless been robbed and ransacked. Our presenter tantalized us with this locked room mystery until reaching the conclusion- the only possible one if you rule out teleportation- that the violation must have occurred before the tomb was sealed- and the most likely suspects were the priests. First read the funeral rites, then- when the grieving relatives have gone home-, break open the coffin, tear the body to bits and pocket the loot. This wouldn't have surprised Joan Grant who was of the opinion that Egyptian priests-in all but a few select eras- were ineffectual frauds at best and black magicians at worst.
