Question by My Avatar Is Beautiful: Without the Rosetta stone, what would modern man think of the Ancient Egyptians?
The Rosetta Stone consists of three translations of one passage, Classical Greek, Ancient Egyptian Script and Demotic.
If the stone wasn’t discovered man would just think Heiroglyphs were symbols. How would our depiction of them differ?
Just wondering because I think it’s amazing that that stone was found. It’s like a gift to mankind.
Our interpretation of them would probably be completely different. I think if we had just now discovered the stone and learned to read the language, it would be funny to see how wrong they were from their interpretations of them as symbols.
Answer by lucy_ritter
I’m not an academic, but I think it would be assumed from the sheer volume of hieroglyphs found, that they had a writing system even if we couldn’t decipher it, and that it was fully developed. This substantiates the idea (along with the architectural genius required for their monument construction), that they were considerably advanced. As far as their culture, religion, and stories, we’d probably have to guess based on the images and grave goods left behind (lots of emphasis on warfare, the gods, and an afterlife, for example).
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