The Centre is home to an exciting new study of Ptolemaic inscriptions (a Hellenistic kingdom based in Egypt in the fourth to first centuries BC) and the Philae obelisk and Rosetta stone are the jewels of the crown of that corpus,’ said Dr Jane Masséglia of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents (CSAD). Both include inscriptions in Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient Greek, but while the Rosetta stone’s inscriptions are direct translations of one another, the inscriptions on the obelisk are different. ‘Both ancient Greek and Egyptian scripts on the obelisk mention the names ‘Ptolemy’ and ‘Cleopatra’ which helped nineteenth-century scholars to use their knowledge of ancient Greek to translate some of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.’ The obelisk is one of two found at Philae in Upper Egypt in 1815. It was acquired by William John Bankes, who brought it to his estate at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, now owned by the National Trust. ‘After 200 years being battered by the English weather in Dorset, and because of the naturally speckled pink and black granite, it’s difficult for the human eye to read all of the inscriptions,’ said Dr Masséglia. ‘RTI has let us take images of the obelisk in such a way that can remove the colour. It produces a computer reconstruction of the surface of the object, based on reflections of light, so we have been able to produce clearer images of the inscriptions than ever before.’ heritagedaily/2014/11/oxford-team-shed-light-on-philae-obelisk/105691
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 06:36:46 +0000
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