The Philae obelisk is one of a pair of twin obelisks erected at Philae in Upper Egypt in the second century BC. It was discovered by William John Bankes in 1815, who had it brought to Kingston Lacy in Dorset, England, where it still stands today. The Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions on the obelisk played a role in the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The obelisk was originally one of a pair that stood at the east pylon of the temple of Isis at Philae. [1] The other obelisk of the pair was broken into pieces in antiquity. The surviving obelisk consists of a long shaft, topped by a pyramidion and a rectangular base. The bottom of the shaft is a modern restoration. Including the modern base, it stands roughly seven metres tall. [2] There are two inscriptions: a hieroglyphic text on the shaft and a Greek text on the base. The first half of the Greek text was only painted in red colour and is not longer visible, the second half was inscribed. [3] The inscriptions are published in the Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions as number 424. [4] The text on the shaft can be dated to 131–124 BC; [5] the greek inscription on the base is slightly younger and is dated to the years 124–117 BC. [6]
The inscriptions on the base record a petition by the Egyptian priests at Philae and the favourable response by Ptolemy VIII Euergetes and queens Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III, who reigned together from 144-132 BC and again from 126-116 BC. The priests complained about the financial burden resulting from the large numbers of royal functionaries visiting their sanctuary. The king and queens approved the request and instructed the governor to stop having the temple service the state officials. [7]
Bankes noticed the obelisk in 1815, while travelling in Egypt and believed that the bilingual inscription would help with the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He accordingly acquired the obelisk and a single, large broken piece of its twin found at Philae and had them transported to his estate at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, England. The operation was carried out by the adventurer Giovanni Belzoni. [8] The obelisk arrived in London in December 1821, making it the first Egyptian obelisk to be brought to the United Kingdom. [9]
Arthur Wellesley provided a gun carriage which transported the obelisk to Kingston Lacy in Dorset in 1829 and George IV provided Libyan granite which was used to repair the base of the obelisk's shaft. The obelisk was set up as a central feature of the gardens in 1830; nineteen horses were required to raise it into position. [9] The broken piece of the twin was set into the lawn nearby as a romantic ruin.
The obelisk was bequeathed to the National Trust along with the house and estate in 1981. [10] The obelisk is a Grade II* listed building. [11]
Discussing the obelisk's role in the decipherment of hieroglyphs, C.W. Ceram characterised the obelisk as "in effect a second Rosetta Stone." [12] Several lithographs of the obelisk and its inscriptions were produced by George Scharf while it was in London. [9] Bankes distributed these lithographs to various contemporaries interested in deciphering hieroglyphs. In his studies of the Rosetta Stone, the scholar Thomas Young had already realised that the cartouches contained the names of the Pharaohs and he had identified the name 'Ptolemy'. In a marginal note on some of the lithographs, Bankes proposed to identify the name 'Cleopatra' in cartouches on this inscription. However, further progress was stymied by the fact that the Greek and Egyptian texts were not close parallels of one another and by Bankes and Young's incorrect belief that Egyptian hieroglyphs were logographic. [13]
In France, Jean-François Champollion was also working on the decipherment of hieroglyphs. Based on his earlier work on demotic, he had constructed a hypothetical hieroglyphic text for the name 'Cleopatra'. Jean-Antoine Letronne sent him a copy of the lithograph of the Philae obelisk, which confirmed that his reconstruction was correct and he announced the decipherment of hieroglyphs in the Lettre à M. Dacier in 1822. [14] Bankes, Young, and their circle responded to this announcement with great hostility, claiming that Champollion had not given them proper credit for the discovery. [15] [16] The obelisk was subsequently investigated by Karl Richard Lepsius, who published its text in 1839. Further autopsy was carried out by Ulrich Wilcken in 1887, who reported that the painted Greek inscription was no longer visible by this time. Subsequent publications on the obelisk and its text have all been based on the reports of these nineteenth century observers. [17]
By 2014, the inscriptions had been heavily weathered. The Greek inscription, in particular, was barely visible to the naked eye. In October and November 2014 and spring 2015, Ben Altshuler of the Institute for Digital Archaeology, in association with Alan Bowman and Charles Crowther of Oxford's Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents (CSAD), undertook RTI scans and 3D imaging of the obelisk, in conjunction with a commercial measurement company called GOM UK. [18] [19] [20] The resulting scans demonstrated that Scharf's lithograph was an accurate representation of the hieroglyphic text and enabled "some small corrections" to the recorded version of the Greek text. Some possible traces of the painted Greek text were also detected. [21]
The obelisk, in keeping with its bilingual nature and the "translation" metaphor of the Rosetta space mission, gives its name to the mission Philae robotic lander, [22] which arrived at the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014 [23] and landed on 12 November 2014. [24] [25]
The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.
Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 100 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing, as was the Proto-Sinaitic script that later evolved into the Phoenician alphabet. Through the Phoenician alphabet's major child systems, the Egyptian hieroglyphic script is ancestral to the majority of scripts in modern use, most prominently the Latin and Cyrillic scripts and the Arabic script, and possibly the Brahmic family of scripts.
Jean-François Champollion, also known as Champollion le jeune, was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in the field of Egyptology. Partially raised by his brother, the scholar Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac, Champollion was a child prodigy in philology, giving his first public paper on the decipherment of Demotic in his late teens. As a young man he was renowned in scientific circles, and read Coptic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic.
Ptolemy V Epiphanes Eucharistos was the King of Ptolemaic Egypt from July or August 204 BC until his death in 180 BC.
Dendera, also spelled Denderah, ancient Iunet 𓉺𓈖𓏏𓊖 “jwn.t”, Tentyris,(Arabic: Ewan-t إيوان-ة ), or Tentyra is a small town and former bishopric in Egypt situated on the west bank of the Nile, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of Qena, on the opposite side of the river. It is located approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Luxor and remains a Latin Catholic titular see. It contains the Dendera Temple complex, one of the best-preserved temple sites from ancient Upper Egypt.
The Philae temple complex is an island-based temple complex in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, Egypt.
The Decree of Canopus is a trilingual inscription in three scripts, which dates from the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt. It was written in three writing systems: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic, and Koine Greek, on several ancient Egyptian memorial stones, or steles. The inscription is a record of a great assembly of priests held at Canopus, Egypt, on 7 Appellaios (Mac.) = 17 Tybi (Eg.) year 9 of Ptolemy III = Thursday 7 March 238 BC. Their decree honoured Pharaoh Ptolemy III Euergetes; Queen Berenice, his wife; and Princess Berenice.
Demotic is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. By convention, the word "Demotic" is capitalized in order to distinguish it from demotic Greek.
Egypt is a BBC television docudrama serial portraying events in the history of Egyptology from the 18th through early 20th centuries. It originally aired on Sunday nights at 9 pm on BBC1 in 2005. The first two episodes explored the work of Howard Carter and his archaeological quest in Egypt in the early part of the twentieth century. The next two episodes focused on the eccentric explorer "The Great Belzoni" played here by Matthew Kelly. The final two episodes dramatise the discovery and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone by Jean-François Champollion.
William John Bankes was an English politician, explorer, Egyptologist and adventurer.
The writing systems used in ancient Egypt were deciphered in the early nineteenth century through the work of several European scholars, especially Jean-François Champollion and Thomas Young. Ancient Egyptian forms of writing, which included the hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic scripts, ceased to be understood in the fourth and fifth centuries AD, as the Coptic alphabet was increasingly used in their place. Later generations' knowledge of the older scripts was based on the work of Greek and Roman authors whose understanding was faulty. It was thus widely believed that Egyptian scripts were exclusively ideographic, representing ideas rather than sounds, and even that hieroglyphs were an esoteric, mystical script rather than a means of recording a spoken language. Some attempts at decipherment by Islamic and European scholars in the Middle Ages and early modern times acknowledged the script might have a phonetic component, but perception of hieroglyphs as purely ideographic hampered efforts to understand them as late as the eighteenth century.
The Ptolemaic Kingdom or Ptolemaic Empire was an Ancient Greek state based in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Macedonian general Ptolemy I Soter, a companion of Alexander the Great, and ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. Reigning for nearly three centuries, the Ptolemies were the longest and final dynasty of ancient Egypt heralding a distinctly new era for religious syncretism and the blending of a new Greco-Egyptian culture.
The Ptolemaic Decrees were a series of decrees by synods of ancient Egyptian priests. They were issued in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which controlled Egypt from 305 BC to 30 BC. In each decree, the benefactions of the reigning pharaoh, especially towards the priesthood, are recognised, and religious honours are decreed for him.
In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages. Multilingual inscriptions are important for the decipherment of ancient writing systems, and for the study of ancient languages with small or repetitive corpora.
The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, also known by its designation Philae 436 or GPH 436, is the last known ancient Egyptian inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, carved on 24 August AD 394. The inscription, carved in the temple of Philae in southern Egypt, was created by a priest named Nesmeterakhem and consists of a carved figure of the god Mandulis as well an accompanying text wherein Nesmeterakhem hopes his inscription will last "for all time and eternity". The inscription also contains a text in the demotic script, with similar content.
The Department of Ancient Egypt is a department forming an historic part of the British Museum, with Its more than 100,000 pieces making it the largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The Rosetta Stone decree, or the Decree of Memphis, is a Ptolemaic decree most notable for its bilingual and tri-scriptual nature, which enabled the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Issued by a council of priests confirming the royal cult of Ptolemy V in 196 BC at Memphis, it was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic and Ancient Greek. It mentions the Egyptian rebellion against the Greek rulers, otherwise known only through Greek sources and remains of graffiti.
The Triakontaschoinos, Latinized as Triacontaschoenus, was a geographical and administrative term used in the Greco-Roman world for the part of Lower Nubia between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile, which formed a buffer zone between Egypt and later Rome on the one hand and Meroë on the other hand. The northern part of this area, stretching from the First Cataract south to Maharraqa, was known as the Dodekaschoinos or Dodecaschoenus. In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods the Dodekaschoinos was often annexed to Egypt or controlled from it, and the rest of the Triakontaschoinos sometimes was as well.
The early life of Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt covers the period from her birth in early 69 BC to her accession to the throne during or before March 51 BC. Cleopatra was the daughter of reigning pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes; the identity of her mother is disputed and is presumed to have been Cleopatra V or Cleopatra VI, who may have been the same person. During her early childhood, Cleopatra was brought up in the palace of Alexandria in Egypt and received a primarily Hellenistic Greek education. By adulthood she was well-versed in many languages, including Egyptian, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Arabic, Median, Parthian, Latin, and her native Koine Greek.
The Roman pharaohs, rarely referred to as ancient Egypt's Thirty-fourth Dynasty, were the Roman emperors in their capacity as rulers of Egypt, especially in Egyptology. After Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 30 BC, the people and especially the priesthood of the country continued to recognize the Roman emperors as pharaohs, according them traditional pharaonic titularies and depicting them with traditional pharaonic garb, engaging in traditional pharaonic activities, in artwork and at temples throughout Egypt.
