Debating the past

A good debate gives reasons on both sides of a question. Should ancient bodies be examined at all?

• For: science can answer questions about the past: how people lived, what illnesses they had, how they died.
• Against: disturbing the dead can damage the remains, and may offend people's religious beliefs.

Modern technology gives precise data, but data must still be interpreted by people. The answers it gives are not always conclusive: two experts may read the same scan differently.

The chapter also looks at language. The language of ancient Egypt slowly developed into Coptic. Today Coptic survives only as a religious language, used in church services. As a language people speak in daily life, ancient Egyptian is extinct.

Languages die when their speakers shift to a more powerful language (for work or status), when children stop learning them at home, or through conquest and migration. They can be kept alive by using them at home and in school, in the media, and by recording them in writing and sound. Every language carries a whole way of seeing the world.