Monday, October 5

On "world's oldest papyrus"

This is a long but very interesting story kids. I'll let you read this in peace when you get a chance. Yesterday Diya and I went for a great time at the Wallace collection. Diya loved the landscapes and the food paintings. She shared the photos. We had a nice time wandering around the museum. It's one of my favourite small museums. Had some very cute stuff as well as some really lovely paintings. 

Anyway, what's so interesting about this article son is how it Sheds light on how an entire country was mobilised to build the pyramids. You have to go there once. It's an extraordinary place. The sheer scale is monumental. Completely blows your mind. It's just the years and years of work with millions of people working their hearts out. Stupendous. And then they found papyrus?!!!  

I'm going to explore archeology next time after finishing this study course. Maybe underwater archeology. That way I can kill two birds with one stone on diving and archeology. Anyway. I'm now day dreaming. 

Have a lovely week. Kannu best of luck with your new term. Missing you already :) 

Love

Baba


Begin forwarded message:

Date: 4 October 2015 at 22:56:45 BST
To: "The Agade mailing list." <agade@listserv.unc.edu>
Subject: [agade] FEATURES: On "world's oldest papyrus"
Reply-To: "Sasson, Jack M" <jack.m.sasson@Vanderbilt.Edu>

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The World's Oldest Papyrus and What It Can Tell Us About the Great Pyramids
Ancient Egyptians leveraged a massive shipping, mining and farming economy to propel their civilization forward
Alexander Stille


Following notes written by an English traveler in the early 19th century and two French pilots in the 1950s, Pierre Tallet made a stunning discovery: a set of 30 caves honeycombed into limestone hills but sealed up and hidden from view in a remote part of the Egyptian desert, a few miles inland from the Red Sea, far from any city, ancient or modern. During his first digging season, in 2011, he established that the caves had served as a kind of boat storage depot during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about 4,600 years ago. Then, in 2013, during his third digging season, he came upon something quite unexpected: entire rolls of papyrus, some a few feet long and still relatively intact, written in hieroglyphics as well as hieratic, the cursive script the ancient Egyptians used for everyday communication. Tallet realized that he was dealing with the oldest known papyri in the world.

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