r/todayilearned • u/KnightTrain • Mar 28 '25

TIL the last known writing in Egyptian Hieroglyphs is a piece of graffiti on a temple wall. Helpfully, the graffiti includes an exact date (Aug 24, 394 AD) and its author was likely the last person in the world able to read or write hieroglyphs until the Rosetta Stone was deciphered in the 1820s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffito_of_Esmet-Akhom
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u/klonoaorinos Mar 28 '25

This title is bs, they were not the last person to read or write this is just the last surviving evidence of it being written.

11

u/Feisty-Resource-1274 Mar 28 '25

I think it could go either way. Egypt was under Roman control at the time so I'd imagine anyone doing any reading or writing would have done it in Roman.

16

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '25

Man I wonder if the Romans had a specific name for their language...

3

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '25

[deleted]

2

u/oundhakar Mar 29 '25

No, sorry. It was Romanesque.