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Egyptologist uncovers hidden messages on Paris’s iconic obelisk
- bhickey 1y agoYou can change the link: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hidden-messages-paris-luxor-obelisk-2636508 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hidden-messages-paris-luxo...
- Luc 1y agoYes, this is a much better link.
- dang 1y agoWow, thanks! That's so much better that I think we can change the link above (from https://archaeology.org/news/2025/05/06/secret-messages-detected-on-egyptian-obelisk-in-paris/ https://archaeology.org/news/2025/05/06/secret-messages-dete...) and re-up the thread.
- amitport 1y ago[flagged]
- dbetteridge 1y agoIt was a gift from Egypt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks
- amitport 1y agoEgypt was subjugated to the Ottoman Empire at the time. And even if they had some kind of king/dictator, it is certainly was a decision of a free people. What antique France monuments did France give away just like that for no reason? Do not take what should not have been offered.
- nurettin 1y agoSo Palestinians should get their lands back?
- rsynnott 1y agoIt was _essentially_ independent by then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt_under_the_Muhammad_Ali_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt_under_the_Muh... It was in principle still part of the Ottoman Empire, but not really meaningfully under their control.
- amitport 1y agothe ruler was maybe somewhat independent, the nation was not. Romans also considered Herolds to be a just ruler of an "free" Judea as far as they are conceres. That's how often subjugation works.
- rsynnott 1y agoIt was kind of the opposite, AIUI; the Ottomans claimed that Muhammad Ali was just a regional governor, but the country was de facto independent; the Ottomans had no ability to control it.
- amitport 1y agoHow do you know? It was not free. The people certainly were not free.
- rsynnott 1y ago> The people certainly were not free. Oh, no, definitely not. I mean, it was the early 19th century; not _literally having slaves_ was considered a dangerously radical experiment that even revolutionary France could only half-commit to. Freedom wasn't a big thing in the early 19th century. But Egypt under Muhammad Ali was about as independent as any country was at the time, really. It controlled its own domestic and foreign policy, had its own military, and _invaded its nominal suzerain_, taking Syria off the Ottomans.
- diggan 1y agoIs the US planning on giving back the Statue of Liberty? Would make as much sense
- gostsamo 1y agoTBH, the statue of liberty was a gift while the obelisks were pillaged.
- krige 1y ago...they weren't?
- gostsamo 1y agoI stand corrected. The pillaging was initially planned but failed and it was gifted under circumstances that are not clear from the Wikipedia article.
- orwin 1y agoIt was too complex to steal, and Ottomans historical alliance with France, while disturbed by Napoleon, was still strong after his coup ended (France had sovereignty over a lot of small territories in the Ottoman empire due to their "protector of the Church" status). That we don't know what was traded exactly (some people say it's the Cairo clock, but it is unclear and probably false) doesn't matter. The fact that Champollion already translated the rosetta stone from ancient greek and that hieroglyph could now be translated probably had an impact on this decision, especially since among all the Obelisks in egypt, Champollion singled out this particular one.
- gostsamo 1y agoAny idea why the ottomans felt obliged to "gift" another obelisk to the brits though?
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- oliv__ 1y agoAre you planning to return the genes in you that came from other nationalities and tribes?
- infecto 1y agoWhile I generally understand the sentiment, I would also argue that most of the countries that have been pillaged of artifacts are also incredibly unstable. I would rather the pillaging exist than to lose history. We could go on as to why those countries are unstable but keeping it bounded to simply the pillaging of artifacts I stand behind it.
- krapp 1y agoEuropeans routinely destroyed the artifacts of any culture they considered heretical. They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles. The premise that they somehow deserve to be considered the librarians and guardians of the very cultures they colonized and exploited is an absurd, and implicitly racist, imperialist ideal. You may be right that the political situation has become complicated (the specific case of this obelisk is complicated) but let's not retroactively claim noble intent behind what at the time was little different than what the Vikings did when they showed up at Lindisfarne.
- aredox 1y ago> They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles. And yet they/we changed, and have preserved countless artifacts that even their original cultures are only now interested in. Not to forget that the very promotion of those foreign artifacts played a big role in making Westerners recognize the value of those other cultures and how much we have destroyed!
- krapp 1y agoAnd they should continue changing by repatriating artifacts if the original owners want them back. It's entirely possible that some cultures might prefer having their artifacts be kept by others, but that clearly isn't always the case. For instance, bones and sacred items taken from indigenous peoples. And as far as instability is concerned, a lot of that was caused by the same imperialist governments that looted the artifacts to begin with, so blaming those governments for that doesn't seem fair.
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago>(also looking at you, England and Italy...) *Great Britain, and whoever.
- victorbjorklund 1y agoThat is just silly. Should we demand Iran returns things from Greece, Egypt, etc that they acquired during the Persian empire? Should Egypt return things they acquired from their neighbors in the past?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- diggan 1y agoDepends on "acquired" means. Pillages as part of a war? Then yes, why not give it back? "Acquired" in terms of gifted by the other party, like this Obelisk, then no, that wouldn't make sense. Same goes for purchased. But things stolen with violence or threat of violence, should probably be returned (if they want it returned). While we shouldn't hold children responsible for the actions of our parents, we can also be better than our parents and return things we know aren't rightfully ours. Off-topic, but you're probably one of the top 3 persons in the world with the most similar first+last name as myself, with a Levenshtein Distance of only 6 :)
- tough 1y agoAmericans "purchased" new york from the natives after feeding them alcohol to decimate their population for a few dollars.
- autoexec 1y agoEverything in America is "pillaged" I guess and should be returned. Seems unrealistic.
- bigstrat2003 1y agoHonestly, I would have more respect for people who do land acknowledgements if they tried to give the land back. I don't think they should (because I believe that we shouldn't attempt to fix the sins of those who are long since dead), but at least then they would be attempting to walk the walk. Right now it comes off very poorly because people go "this land belongs to the natives" and then happily continue to possess it as if saying "well you own this technically" makes everything alright.
- rixed 1y agoActually, that's interresting. According to wikipedia[0], the frenchs did think about stealing it during the Napoleonic wars, but didn't. Some time later they "suggested" to the Ottomans that the obelisks be offered, in exchange for a monumental clock[1] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks#Luxor_Obelisk_in_Paris https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks#Luxor_Obelisk... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Citadel_Clock https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Citadel_Clock
- amitport 1y agoIn any case, it didn't belong to the Ottomans to give away. Getting it as gift from a conquering entity, does not make any of it better.
- shakow 1y agoI mean, if you really want to go down this way, it does not really belong to the Egyptians either. It's not because current-day Egyptians share the same land as antiquity Egyptians that they are the same people – countless waves of war, massacres, migrations, emigrations happened in the last 4 millenia.
- jimjimjim 1y agoBy that logic who does it belong to? How long does someone need to be in an area to be the "owner" of it. The people on Egypt currently weren't there when it was moved. Why should they get it? The people that were there when it was moved definitely weren't there 3000 years ago when it was made. Did they own it? In fact who owns anything in the world?
- amitport 1y agoeasy, never give away or sell ancient artifacts. Would you be fine with people conquering rome, and selling it all stone by stone? Would you be OK with some Italian dictator doing it?
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- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- aredox 1y ago[flagged]
- adhamsalama 1y ago[flagged]
- helpfulclippy 1y agoI've seen a few articles on this now. They keep calling it a "secret" message and "hieroglyphic cryptography," but then talk about how sufficiently literate people are supposed to understand it, and the content is along the lines of "The god-king cannot be dethroned" and "Make offerings to the gods." Nothing about this sounds like it was intended to be kept secret or confidential from anyone. This seems more like fancy typesetting than cryptography, combined with an awareness that the writing at the top of a big tall obelisk will only be readable from a distance.
- pdw 1y agoCrypto-hieroglyphic writing is a real thing: https://www.britannica.com/topic/hieroglyphic-writing/Cryptographic-hieroglyphic-writing https://www.britannica.com/topic/hieroglyphic-writing/Crypto... Such writing would give non-standard meanings to signs, or drawn them in non-standard ways, or use entirely invented signs. It would be a puzzle to work out the meaning, and I imagine most people who weren't very literate would be stumped. They certainly stumped egyptologists for a while when the first examples were discovered.
- autoexec 1y agoI imagine most people who weren't very literate would also be stumped by things written fairly plainly.
- betterThanTexas 1y agoFrom the way they describe how the message is read, it doesn't seem written very plainly at all. It would be odd to assume that this knowledge was accessible to many people if the manner in which it's written is only found in certain circumstances.
- caulkboots 1y agoI believe enciphered hieroglyphics were covered by David Kahn in The Codebreakers. If memory serves, literate people wouldn't have too much difficulty solving them. The idea was the the plaintext would seem more significant to the reader/codebreaker after they labored for a few hours or a few days working it out. The labor required would add emphasis to what was being communicated.
- thanatos519 1y ago[flagged]
- orwin 1y agoNo way this was ever said. No way. It's so wild it's funny. I ought to follow US news more (and sorry for people who live there).
- cocostation 1y agoIt's a testament to his public speaking skills that transcripts of his statements are so startling.
- rbinv 1y agoSee: https://youtu.be/f_ggYP-VO2s?t=45 https://youtu.be/f_ggYP-VO2s?t=45
- Slava_Propanei 1y ago[dead]
- bigstrat2003 1y agoIt's genuinely not bad as long as you don't have terminally online syndrome. The vast majority of the country, even people who don't like Trump, gets along with their everyday lives without stressing out about him. It's just that most people commenting on forums online are terminally online and get very worked up about things.
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- orwin 1y agoYou have to admit that's funny. Not sure how I would feel with him as my president, but he is really funny, both intentionally and unintentionally, so the entertainment value is high.
- Trasmatta 1y agoAre the same messages on the obelisk in Central Park? I believe it's essentially the same obelisk. I walk by that one at least once a week. Pretty sad how much the NYC climate has damaged it, though, as opposed to the desert climate it originated from.
- walthamstow 1y agoThe London and NYC ones ('Cleopatra's Needles') are related to each other but I don't think they are related to the Paris one
- Trasmatta 1y agoYou're right, I mixed up the Paris and London obelisks.
- Luc 1y agohttps://www.progres.net.eg/plusieurs-messages-caches-sur-lobelisque-de-la-concorde/ https://www.progres.net.eg/plusieurs-messages-caches-sur-lob... In this article in French, they mention hieroglyphs encoded in the way arms and legs are drawn of a figure on the throne of Tutankhamun, and that only 6 Egyptologists in the whole worlds are able to decode them. Hmmm, I wonder how mainstream these ideas are? Do other Egyptologists respect them?
- orwin 1y agoThe idea of cryptohieroglyphs is accepted as true it seems (at least in France), even though most Egyptologist think they are highly interpretative: think about literature and how some literature expert would interpret Poe's books (sorry only classic US author i know beside Kerouac), except worse. Still, it's clear ancient egyptians loved their puzzles, the clear interpretation of what they mean is what elude us.
- jfengel 1y agoPoe didn't really write books. He's most famous for poems and short stories. He wrote one novel ( The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket) and published a collection of poems. Not that it matters. Just a bit of trivia. The only thing you need to know is that he's a gazillion times better than Kerouac, who did write books and shouldn't have.
- anthk 1y agoMark Twain, it's a must read. And not just Huckleberry Finn.
- throwawaymb 1y ago[flagged]
- thechao 1y agoI suspect, that in the context of "reputable academically sound Egyptologist" the number "6" is a bumper crop of Egyptologists. The set of reputable academics in these fields is always a lot smaller than you'd like. I think that's why there's so many cranks.
- nunobrito 1y agoThe news article was a true click-bait. The messages were not secret at all, they were just written on the face of the obelisk that faces the river. Meaning that only visitors by boat would read them when docking rather than the poor pedestrians using the normal road.
- dang 1y ago(we've since changed the URL above - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43925101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43925101)
- BurnGpuBurn 1y agoWould they ever give the thing back though?
- gopher_space 1y agoThe whole idea of giving things back to Egypt is currently tainted by the complete lack of professional respect everyone else on the planet has for the guy running things there. I could picture institutions saying they'll send artifacts back and then just dragging their feet until he retires.
- KennyBlanken 1y ago"Gee, sorry my ancestors stole that thing from that house a hundred plus years ago. Too bad there's a jerk living in the house right at this moment, that's why it hasn't been returned yet." It's a little strange to have so little morals you accept a stolen gift from conquerors and don't make the slightest effort to return it over a considerable period of time, even after doing such a thing becomes the accepted moral thing to do...and then suddenly develop a conscience and set of morals so particular that "who is running the country" means you can't return it. It's almost like it's a very thin excuse and not a legitimate reason. It doesn't belong to France, and it's not France's place to decide that they don't like the particular guy running things at that moment and thus refuse to return it. Really, Europe just has a massive problem refusing to acknowledge any of the brutally oppressive colonialism it was responsible for across centuries...
- gopher_space 1y agoThat might make sense if you were unaware of all the other repatriation projects underway or completed. It’s been a hot subject since the 70’s and there’s been a lot of thinking and work put in.
- autoexec 1y agoWhy give it back? It seems like a nice gift.
- DemocracyFTW2 1y agoWhile hieroglyphic cryptography is a thing (as is BTW "sportive orthography" in Ancient Egyptian), this is not it. I am all for acknowledging that Ancient Egyptian art is often merging writing and depiction in a way that escapes the unprepared who would point to a prominent figure in a grave wall decoration and say 'this is a picture', then point to some hieroglyphs and say 'that is writing'. It's in principle not wrong but misses the point that frequently the choice of hieroglyphs, their orientation and variations in orthography correspond to details of the depicted subject, while the pictures can often be read out, either by describing the participants and their actions, or by naming the parts. As for the latter, there's a statue of "Ramesses II (Dyn XIX) as a Child"[1] which shows Horus as a falcon with the sun (rꜥ) on his breast, a child (ms) beneath it, in his hand a sedge plant (sw). Naming the parts—sun, child, sedge—in this order gives rꜥmssw, vocalized raꜥmissaw, roughly maybe approximately [raʕ'missaw], in any event the very name of Ramesses, meaning "He is / was born / brought forth by Ra / the Sun". Note that you'll have to choose to omit ḥr "Horus" although the falcon dominates the sculpture, and that the sedge does not represent a plant but, by virtue of sounding like it, the 3rd person suffix sw "he", so there's some guesswork involved. All said, it's a fine example of a "rebus". Neither rebus reading nor pictorial description are commonly classified as cryptographic orthography in Egyptology. The statue demonstrates nicely how acutely aware of their language, their artistic traditions and their writing Egyptian artists were. When we look at the depiction of Pharaoh and Amun on the obelisk as explained by Olette-Pelletier, however, we hardly see any of this. Yes, an arm with an offering on the palm of the hand was often used to write dy "to give", but usually those offerings are triangular bread loaves, not round nw vessels. Yes, the hieroglyph for "ḥtp" looks like a flat rectangle but, again, with a bread offering on it which is missing from the flat rectangle that pharaoh is kneeling on. I really wonder what the fuzz is about; clearly it's a picture of the king giving offering to the god, and all he does is read out the picture. This is something that you can do with a lot of Egyptian art: there's the king, you know him by the distinctive crown, and there's Amun, which you know again by his distinctive headdress sporting two long feathers. The king is kneeling because he's offering, and he has his arms stretched out presenting stuff because he's, well, giving. The king is giving things to the god. What part of that was not known before, what part of that is cryptographic? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramesses_II_as_child.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramesses_II_as_child.jpg
- DemocracyFTW2 1y agoI must say I'm a little unhappy with how this thread has been usurped to be not about the writing on the obelisk but the appropriateness of it being in Paris. The latter is an important question with no easy answers but completely unrelated to the former.
- mousethatroared 1y agoBut the article is about the crypto message. Yet it also mentions why the obelisk is in Paris: a gift from the, Muslim, Ottoman, ruler of Egypt to France.
- DemocracyFTW2 1y agoYes and the article also mentions the obelisk was surrounded by scaffolding in preparation for the Olympic games, so feel free to discuss scaffolding, Olympic games, restoration work on ancient monuments, Paris' role in Europe, the impact of modern sports events on urban environments, whatever. Doesn't change the fact the OP is literally about alleged hidden messages on an Egyptian obelisk that happens to be standing in Paris. Had the guy who brought this up been writing about an obelisk still standing in Egypt, how appropriate would it feel to change the subject of the discussion to, I don't know, the legitimacy of Egypt's present government or the fact that a not-so-small number of archaeological sites is being ruined by being part of military compounds? Not very appropriate I'd say.
- mousethatroared 1y agoOh, Im sorry I think I mis interpreted you. You want to talk about the crypto, not why the pointy stick is in Paris. Then we're in agreement
- teleforce 1y ago>In broad terms, the messages seek to remind the elite that Ramses had been chosen by the gods and claimed his ancestry from Amun-Re and Maat. Ramses had come to the throne relatively late at the age of 25 years old following the death of his father Seti. Having not been born a king, Ramses used the obelisk as a propaganda tool early in his reign to reinforce his supremacy and divine nature. Fun facts, prophet Moses is the most mentioned prophet in the Quran even more than Muhammad. The main protagonist during Moses time is Pharaoh and his fake claim of divinity is recorded verbatim in the Quran [1]. Pharaoh declared, “O chiefs! I know of no other god for you but myself. So bake bricks out of clay for me, O Hamân, and build a high tower so I may look at the God of Moses, although I am sure he is a liar.” [1] Quran Surah Al-Qasas (The Story): Ayat 38: https://quran.com/en/al-qasas/38 https://quran.com/en/al-qasas/38
- anthk 1y ago[flagged]
- mystified5016 1y agoGo back to 4chan with this drivel
- anthk 1y ago[flagged]
- everdrive 1y agoThat may have been a very poorly (and rudely) formatted comment, however the actual historicity of Exodus is doubted by scholars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus "Most mainstream scholars do not accept the biblical Exodus account as historical for a number of reasons. It is generally agreed that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories." "However, a majority of scholars believe that the story has an historical core,[12][13] though disagreeing widely about what that historical kernel might have been." I am not a scholar, however given just how many tribes Egyptians subjugated, and just how syncretic much of the early Israelite religion was, it's certainly not unreasonable to think that there was at least some group of people which had a "fleeing from Egypt" story which did later get subsumed into the Israelite religion.