Posted on 03/05/2022 1:55:22 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
It was the greatest puzzle in the world. For three thousand years the ancient Egyptians covered the walls and ceilings of their temples and tombs with a form of writing known as hieroglyphs. More, the bone-dry climate of Egypt had preserved vast quantities of this hieroglyphic text written on papyrus. And in 1800, no one on earth could read a word of it.
When Egypt became Christian in the fourth century A.D., the use of these hieroglyphs, associated with paganism, died out. The last known hieroglyphic inscription was chiseled into stone in the year 394. Within a generation, the last person literate in hieroglyphic writing was dead. Nothing was known of the ancient Egyptian language (Egyptians spoke Arabic after the Arab conquest in the seventh century), so translation was impossible. While it would eventually be known that Coptic—the liturgical language of Egypt’s Coptic Church—was descended from ancient Egyptian, it was at least as different from its ancestor as Italian is from classical Latin.
As a result, almost nothing about Egyptian history or culture was known, except what could be found in foreign sources, including the works of the “father of history,” Herodotus, who had visited Egypt and marveled at its wealth and splendor.
When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798, however, it was more than just a military enterprise, for he brought along one hundred sixty “Savants,” among the most brilliant scientists, artists, and scholars in France. In time they produced twenty-nine oversized volumes detailing all aspects of Egyptian life, natural history, landscape, and architecture, one of the most remarkable works of scholarship ever printed. It set off a decades-long craze for all things Egyptian that became known as “Egyptomania.”
The hieroglyphs, however, remained silent.
(Excerpt) Read more at newcriterion.com ...
And we still don't have a real clue what they really represent...just one human's urge to record beauty of what he saw; a catalogue of game to be found in the area, with hunters/spotters pointing to image to identify specific game seen; animist hoo-doo; mama's shopping list?
Were these concurrent with developing vocal languages? Imagine visting Og and having him point to an image, what would that convey? Umm pretty...umm me hungry...taste good, hard to kill, umm warm skin....or something else?
This photo clearly shows the human scale of those paintings which always puzzled me. See how high up they are and how wide the horned beast is... how did they get up there in the dark? Even with modern illumination it is frikkin dark.
Such printers exist.
Shouldn't be to hard to import a .pdf...
Lol... :)
Those cave paints go way way back. Some are 40,000 years old. It is impressive how detailed and realistic some of the paintings are. And again there is a sophisticated level of abstraction to paint a representation of a 3-D object in 2-D. Makes one wonder what knowledge has been gained and lost over and over if man could create something that sophisticated so many tens of thousands of years ago. Interesting to contemplate.
Saw vid from Brish Museum and was surprised to see the size of a tablet in the curators hand.
Notice the penny for scale...and being used mainly for business transactions one now understands the need to read the fine print.
Laugh now. The patent draft is to the attorney finally.
Was this just a guy saying "watch this!" And others saying "Way kewl, lemme try that."
Or the first political voting...all those who agree to move to greener warmer pastures vote on this wall. One hand print, one vote. "Throg you with dirty hand no vote again"
Heck ask any modern kid, they'll say it was a Rave back in the day.
So many questions.
I’ve been walking like an Egyptian for years.
Walk like an Egyptian.
Ear worm.
5.56mm
I’m not sure it is quite accurate. I am going to throw some modern slang words at it later, and if it produces something I would be wary of it being accurate. lol
Sumerian script was older and deciphered with its own three language key tablet.
I loved this post! Looks like there is plenty of good reading on this site. As a former art history teacher I am especially pleased to know I can read and learn about an arts topic without the woke culture imposing it’s iron fist of ideology on it. Thanks for the enlightenment. The story of art IS the story of man.
Aren’t they wondetful! The artist has cleverly reduced the subjects to their simplest form and yet we are never confused about the creatures we are seeing. There is some thought that the artist,using a ladder holding a torch, actualy chewed pigment and charcoal then spit the blend on the cave walls. There is evidence from analysis of small samples that saliva was indeed used.
How did they do that without spray paint?
Because it didn't!
In fact, almost ALL of the powdered ochre has already long since fallen off! Only about 3% of the original powder remains! Which is more than sufficient to still see the handprints.
I friggin' hate questions containing implicit, unfounded assumptions!
And in case you're wondering how those 3% remained in place: Because these handprints are deep inside a friggin' cave!
Regards,
I bet that you are capable of figuring that out on your own!
Failing that: Look it up on Wikipedia!
Regards,
Thank you!
Hangul (Korean) is a pretty neat blend of the two with each character intended to be a standardized representation of the position of the mouth when they character is spoken.
Thanks ProtectOurFreedom.
The other GGG topics added since the last digest ping:
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