The mysterious civilization of the Nile Valley admires people for many millennia - the first Egyptians were still Romans. Egyptian plots and motives are used by the most different cultures. And, of course, the inventions of artists and writers are often very far from the actual ideas of scientists. Today we will tell some most settled errors about Ancient Egypt and at the same time about Egyptologists.
The tradition of writing about Egypt is not new to God, to put it mildly - since the fourth century AD, the authors have been using the fact that there is simply no one to convict them of ignorance. In the Middle Ages, anyone could casually mention that the Egyptians depicted, say, the king as a snake. Or eternity. Or world evil. Or something else as abstract. Against the background of the mass of unknown interpreters, two characters stand out in particular.
The first is a certain Philip, who created a grandiose work "Hieroglyphics" under the pseudonym of "Gorapollo". Horapollo was allegedly the last Egyptian priest, lived in the fourth century and wrote a large-scale guide to the interpretation of hieroglyphics (in Coptic), and Philip translated it into Greek. This interpretation has nothing to do with the true meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs (a complex, but quite comprehensible system of ideographically-phonological writing), but reading is insanely entertaining.
Representing mother, vision, border, epiphany, year, sky, mercy, Athena, Hera or two drachmas, they draw a kite. The mother because males do not have any males of this kind of animal. <...> The border - because when the war is to happen, the kite determines the place where it will happen, and stays there seven days before the war ...
Philip-Gorapollo, Hieroglyphics.
The second is the famous Jesuit scientist Afanasy Kirher, who was inclined to combine in his treatises the most accurate information with unconfirmed bikes. His work on hieroglyphics was magnificently called "Oedipus of Egypt" and contained a lot of useful information. For example, Kirher (a scientist, very respected not only in his time, but also to this day) claimed that "mysterious signs hide what is left of the knowledge that God revealed to people before the Flood," as if Adam and Eve spoke in ancient Egyptian and as if hieroglyphs - these are occult symbols that can not be translated with words, but can only be conveyed by signs and drawings. In particular, the phrase that modern Egyptologists translate as "Osiris says", Kirher interpreted as follows: "Tiphon's treachery ends at the throne of Isis; the moisture of nature is protected by the vigilant Anubis. It is worth noting that until the discovery of Jean-François Champollion Kirher was considered the main specialist in hieroglyphics.
In general, the culture of ancient Egypt for many hundreds of years, not only attracts humanity aesthetically but also serves as a perfect field for speculation. And for the last hundred and little years, since Egypt became a cultural object not elitist, but mass, in this very culture there are many stereotypes, which we now try to refute.
The myth is the first one. Ancient Egyptian language
He just doesn't exist. And it never existed.
No, the ancient Egyptians certainly talked and wrote in some common dialect. But... when? The first known text, from which the history of the Egyptian state begins, dates back to the XXXII century BC. And the culture, which we call ancient Egyptian culture, ceases to exist in the fourth century AD. And even in the seventh, according to some scientists. In total, we have at least three and a half thousand years of history, during which any language and even writing will change beyond recognition. Therefore, Egyptologists distinguish at least the Middle Egyptian language, the new Egyptian language, the late Egyptian language, and even something narrower like the language of the Pyramid Texts. A prolonged study of any of these languages does not guarantee to understand any other language.
Therefore, when literary or cinematographic archaeologists daringly read any ancient Egyptian text "from a sheet", it is very little like the truth. This is also because in the modern world there is not a single person who can read freely in any of the dead Egyptian languages. Any "reading" is actually a painstaking deciphering, contextual guesswork, comparative analysis of several texts from the same period... One single text can be studied for many years - and still, doubt the meaning of some sentences and even individual words.
Usually, to revive or, conversely, to rest the mummy, you need to read a spell in ancient Egyptian. Out loud. Here any real Egyptologist would expect failure, as we have no idea about Egyptian phonetics. Approximate sounding of some phonemes is restored on modern Coptic words (Coptic - the direct descendant of ancient Egyptian languages), on the Greek names written down by the Egyptian signs (we shall not be that the phonetics of ancient Greek to is rather conditional), on... the truth, all it concerns the only consonant sounds as vowels in Semitic languages to which the Egyptian belongs also, are not written. For convenience between consonants, the sound "e" (so-called "school reading") is inserted, and all this has very little relation to real sounding. It's especially cute when the author stresses the need for correct pronunciation of all sounds, as, for example, in the charming Robin Lafever series about the girl Theodosius.
It should also be taken into account that archaeologists and egyptologist are generally different professions, the first of which is much more romantic and therefore more often found in the literature. Archaeologist certainly does not have to read freely in ancient Egyptian.
Great outcome
The average modern European has some idea of biblical history. In particular, he knows that the Jews suffered for many years in Egyptian captivity, where they were horribly exploited. "Therefore, the Egyptians forced the children of Israel to work violently and made their lives bitter with the hard work of clay and bricks" (Exodus 1:13-14).
(Exodus 1: 13-14.) However, if one reads the Egyptian sources, it is clear that the mixing of clay and straw to make bricks is the easiest physical work one could offer a man. It is certainly easier to dress up giant stone blocks, for example.
This is uncomfortable.