>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.”
All religion seem to be a "refactoring" of the core moral / ethical / ritualistic "codebase" of previous older religions. This is ofcourse most apparent when you study all the 3 Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Some historians have even posited that the early ideas of Judaism ("chosen people", monotheism) actually originated from other African countries before finally arriving in Egypt and causing the religious discord in their society that lead to the emergence of Moses as a religious leader, and the birth Judaism. See this interesting Q&A - Were the Ten Commandments taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead? - https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/31534/were-the-... ... (While Egyptian history is popular because of the Roman connection and the fascination for Pyramids, Pharoahs and Moses, the history of other African empires are not quite well known because in many ways imperialism and colonialism still persists there).
I'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.
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.
I 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.
I am looking at the last image in the article, captioned "The encrypted message instructs the viewer to appease the gods with offerings". The picture shows ... a person kneeling in front of a throned figure, offering something with both hands. Is something about this message supposed to be hidden?
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?
The 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.
Poe 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.
I 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.
I struggle with Egyptology as a whole. you watch even mainstream, reputable documentaries on Ancient Egypt and there is a lot of what and little why, and it makes you wonder how much of it is actual science and how much of it is just the most exciting available interpretation of the facts to please the Egyptians/draw in viewers. the Egyptian authorities want tourists, and control archaeology licenses tightly, and "we found a scroll that mentions moving some building materials near the great pyramid" sells far less plane tickets than "we found a scroll written by the architect of The Great Pyramid!!!!"
I 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.
Yes 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.
Are 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.
While 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?
Very interesting. Could this just be a miscommunication caused by a blogger literally looking to write clickbait? Hype up a paper without revealing its main conclusion? I would have no way of knowing if this very literal reading of the scene contains some wordplay that would require knowing how these words sounded.
Well let's say the editors of at least some of the publications that carried the news in a sensationalist tone should've known better but they apparently were more in for more clicks as opposed to critical thinking and informed judgement.
That said I'm no Egyptologist myself as seemingly the journalists aren't, either, but as for me I'm itching to write a scathing takedown of this affair. I'm open to discovering that maybe the originator of the theory was misunderstood by the media, maybe his wording was not clear enough. I guess what I want to say is when you want clicks there's more than one way to do it; my way would roughly be (1) criticize use of the term 'cryptography' when all they do is tell me what they see in the picture: king giving offerings to god; king's sitting on a mat(?), god's standing on a plinth (as is customary); (2) criticize the very specific interpretation they give for this particular depiction when we find this same motive all over the place, all of the time; (3) criticize the claim that only nobles travelling by boat would have been able to see and understand the message when in Ancient Egypt taking a boat to cross the river as well as, as a local of Thebes, taking part in festivities must both have been very commonplace for old and young, rich and poor alike; also, artists in general and, for example, the foremen of worker gangs working on Khufu's pyramid were very well able to use writing and depictions to express themselves.
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.
Readit News
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
What the Quran says about Jesus and about Mary is also interesting.
Dead Comment
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.
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.
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?
Still, it's clear ancient egyptians loved their puzzles, the clear interpretation of what they mean is what elude us.
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.
Yet it also mentions why the obelisk is in Paris: a gift from the, Muslim, Ottoman, ruler of Egypt to France.
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
That said I'm no Egyptologist myself as seemingly the journalists aren't, either, but as for me I'm itching to write a scathing takedown of this affair. I'm open to discovering that maybe the originator of the theory was misunderstood by the media, maybe his wording was not clear enough. I guess what I want to say is when you want clicks there's more than one way to do it; my way would roughly be (1) criticize use of the term 'cryptography' when all they do is tell me what they see in the picture: king giving offerings to god; king's sitting on a mat(?), god's standing on a plinth (as is customary); (2) criticize the very specific interpretation they give for this particular depiction when we find this same motive all over the place, all of the time; (3) criticize the claim that only nobles travelling by boat would have been able to see and understand the message when in Ancient Egypt taking a boat to cross the river as well as, as a local of Thebes, taking part in festivities must both have been very commonplace for old and young, rich and poor alike; also, artists in general and, for example, the foremen of worker gangs working on Khufu's pyramid were very well able to use writing and depictions to express themselves.
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.