How did the rope last 3,200 years without deteriorating?
Rope is one of the fundamental human technologies. Archaeologists have found two-ply ropes going back 28,000 years. Egypt was the first documented civilization to use specialized tools to make rope. One key to its longevity isn’t the rope itself, but the aridity of the air in the desert. It dries out and preserves things. Another key is oxygen deprivation. Tombs are sealed to the outside. Bacteria can break things down as long as they have oxygen, but then they effectively suffocate. It’s not uncommon to find rope, wooden carvings, cloth, organic dyes, etc. in Egyptian pyramids and tombs that wouldn’t have survived elsewhere in the world. Egypt’s desert conditions made possible the preservation of far more organic material than would have otherwise been the case. This in contrast to, say, Maya sites in Central America which are far younger, but from which almost no organic material has been recovered. The main difference is jungle versus desert conditions.
Rope is one of the fundamental human technologies. Archaeologists have found two-ply ropes going back 28,000 years. Egypt was the first documented civilization to use specialized tools to make rope. One key to its longevity isn’t the rope itself, but the aridity of the air in the desert. It dries out and preserves things. Another key is oxygen deprivation. Tombs are sealed to the outside. Bacteria can break things down as long as they have oxygen, but then they effectively suffocate. It’s not uncommon to find rope, wooden carvings, cloth, organic dyes, etc. in Egyptian pyramids and tombs that wouldn’t have survived elsewhere in the world. Egypt’s desert conditions made possible the preservation of far more organic material than would have otherwise been the case. This in contrast to, say, Maya sites in Central America which are far younger, but from which almost no organic material has been recovered. The main difference is jungle versus desert conditions.
