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May 17, 2009
Amazing
James Henry Breasted, 1929,
It is now exactly a century since the first man able to read Egyptian hieroglyphs began the effort to record the inscriptions still in situ in Egypt by means of modern hand copies.
Breasted was referring to François Champollion. I wonder why those Egyptians went to the trouble of writing hieroglyphs if no one could read them at the time. Or does Breasted imply that only Egyptian women could read? Or maybe only the gods could read them.
The quotation is the first sentence of Breasted's forward to Harold H. Nelson and Uvo Hoelscher's Medinet Habu 1924-28 survey publication.
Via ABZU
Posted by Duane Smith at May 17, 2009 9:35 AM | Read more on Humor |
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Comments
Duane, you’ll probably enjoy this entry at Language Log if you haven’t seen it already:
“First American Dies of Swine Flu”
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1408
Posted by: Brooke at May 17, 2009 12:48 PM
Maybe he believed Egyptians were of a different species? Homo aegyptensis?
Posted by: Aydin at May 18, 2009 11:34 AM
The inscriptions are in Egypt, the pyramids are in Egypt, the pyramids in Egypt - like those in the Americas - were built by aliens, therefore Champolion was the first man to read them because he was the first human to decode the alien language ;)
Posted by: Tim Bulkeley at May 18, 2009 2:14 PM
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