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Great photos. I was struck by the calligraphy in the second image ("A detail from the Papyrus of Ankhesenaset"), which doesn't appear to be the same hieroglyphi

Great photos. I was struck by the calligraphy in the second image ("A detail from the Papyrus of Ankhesenaset"), which doesn't appear to be the same hieroglyphics shown in the other images. It wasn't clear what languages these texts corresponded to over a very long period (1450 B.C. to 100 B.C.) and possibly a large geographical area comprising different languages. Excerpts of the translations would have added to this article.

Beijinger 3y ago
Isn't this just handwriting? I thought the Egyptians had two different writing systems. [Edit] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic
- lucozade 3y ago
  The Papyrus of Ankhesenaset is indeed written in hieratic script. The Egyptians also had demotic script, which was used more for secular writing and, much later, Coptic which is based on the Greek alphabet with some demotic thrown in.
  - wl 3y ago
    It's not so much that demotic was used more for secular writing, but rather Hieratic (and hieroglyphs!) continued to be used in a religious context out of tradition after the development of Demotic which tended to replace Hieratic for everything else.
wl 3y ago
The Book of the Dead is a somewhat standardized corpus of Middle Egyptian texts used over a long period of time, including the time when later phases of the Egyptian language were spoken instead of Middle Egyptian. You're seeing two different scripts, Hieratic (cursive) vs. hieroglyphs rather than two different languages. Both scripts are equally old. (There are other, later funerary texts written in later phases of the Egyptian language that can be said to descend from the Book of the Dead, but the papyri in question are Book of the Dead texts.) If you're interested in reading these texts in translation, Falkner's translation is available in many different editions and would be a good place to start. Just as a warning, these texts require a lot of context to make much sense. There's also a lot of wild, uninformed interpretations out there.
- danparsonson 3y ago
  My favourite interpretation is the Carnahan-O'Connell translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(1999_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(1999_film)

Beijinger 3y ago

Isn't this just handwriting? I thought the Egyptians had two different writing systems. [Edit] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic

lucozade 3y ago
The Papyrus of Ankhesenaset is indeed written in hieratic script. The Egyptians also had demotic script, which was used more for secular writing and, much later, Coptic which is based on the Greek alphabet with some demotic thrown in.
- wl 3y ago
  It's not so much that demotic was used more for secular writing, but rather Hieratic (and hieroglyphs!) continued to be used in a religious context out of tradition after the development of Demotic which tended to replace Hieratic for everything else.

wl 3y ago

The Book of the Dead is a somewhat standardized corpus of Middle Egyptian texts used over a long period of time, including the time when later phases of the Egyptian language were spoken instead of Middle Egyptian. You're seeing two different scripts, Hieratic (cursive) vs. hieroglyphs rather than two different languages. Both scripts are equally old. (There are other, later funerary texts written in later phases of the Egyptian language that can be said to descend from the Book of the Dead, but the papyri in question are Book of the Dead texts.) If you're interested in reading these texts in translation, Falkner's translation is available in many different editions and would be a good place to start. Just as a warning, these texts require a lot of context to make much sense. There's also a lot of wild, uninformed interpretations out there.

danparsonson 3y ago
My favourite interpretation is the Carnahan-O'Connell translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(1999_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(1999_film)