“Just that with most civilizations, their early development can be easily observed and mapped over long periods of time through things like early drawings and rudimentary writings, providing details of a naturally evolving culture.”

“But not Egypt?”

“Not really.”

“I thought Egypt had one of the oldest cultures.  Look at the pyramids.”

“That’s what I said,” quipped Rickards.

“Egypt does have a very old culture,” she corrected.  “That’s not the timeline to which I’m referring.  What I’m talking about is before that.  Believe it or not, most of Egypt’s recorded history is quite sophisticated in language, architecture and mathematics, leaving very little archeological evidence in the way of how it got to that level of sophistication.  It’s as if Egyptian culture just kind of sprang onto the scene shortly before the pyramids.”

“Maybe they just didn’t talk much in those days,” offered Joe, prompting even a tired Angela to laugh.

“Maybe.  But doubtful.”

“Maybe they were embarrassed by their early penmanship.”

“Will you stop?”

In front of her, Townsend crossed his arms.  “I’ve never heard of this theory before.”

“Most people haven’t.  A lot of experts in Egyptology don’t like to talk about it.”

“Why is that?”

“How much of a historical expert can you be if most of the timeline is missing?”

“Maybe their shorter lifespans back then made it more difficult to track their cultural evolution?”

“It would be just the opposite,” Angela replied.  “In other ancient cultures, shorter lifespans resulted in more evidence, as things had to be passed on to many more generations.  Take something like stone-working,” she said.  “Or basic medicinal knowledge.  With an average lifespan of thirty or so years, there’s only so much a person can learn and master before they have to pass those skills onto the next generation, dramatically slowing cultural development.  A lot of that communication was verbal, but not all of it.  Other ways were through writings or drawings.  Very unsophisticated, granted, but there would have been a lot of it for us to find.  But we haven’t—at least not like other very old cultures.

“Long lifespans would have the opposite effect,” she continued.  “The longer you live, the more you learn and the more valuable and effective your personal experience becomes, resulting in a deeper cultural knowledge base.  Take any topic and think about how much more a person can know about it with a lifespan like ours versus the early civilizations.  Today we live almost triple the number of years compared to back then.  A significantly longer lifespan provides an almost unimaginable advantage when it comes to life experience—not just knowledge, but wisdom.”

“Aren’t those two the same thing?”