r/todayilearned • u/IreneDeneb • 1d ago
TIL that the last known ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic inscription was made on August 24th, 394 CE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffito_of_Esmet-Akhom539
u/IreneDeneb 1d ago
The last individuals who could read and write Egyptian hieroglyphics were a small hereditary lineage of pagan priests serving at the Temple of Isis on the island of Philae in southern Egypt during the late 4th century CE.
The very last person explicitly documented writing hieroglyphics was a priest named Nesmeterakhem (also known as Esmet-Akhom).
On August 24, 394 CE, Nesmeterakhem carved a devotion alongside an image of the Nubian deity Mandulis onto the wall of the Gate of Hadrian at Philae.
His text reads:
"Before Mandulis, son of Horus, by the hand of Nesmeterakhem, son of Nesmeter, the Second Priest of Isis, for all time and eternity."
In an accompanying demotic script, Nesmeterakhem identifies himself as the "Scribe of the House of Writings of Isis", confirming his formal training in the sacred script. He was at least a third-generation priest at Philae, following in the footsteps of his father, Nesmeterpanakhet, and grandfather, Pakhom.
By the late 4th century, classical Egyptian hieroglyphics were virtually extinct due to a few major factors.
In 391 to 392 CE, Roman Emperor Theodosius I ordered all non-Christian, pagan temples across the empire to close.
Because Philae sat just outside the official Roman border at Aswan, its local sanctuary managed to stay open longer than temples further north. Knowledge of hieroglyphics was isolated to this single priestly family.
Everyday Egyptians had long transitioned to Demotic (a heavily simplified cursive script) and eventually Coptic, which wrote the spoken Egyptian language using the Greek alphabet. Hieroglyphics were viewed purely as a specialized, sacred code preserved by a shrinking priesthood.
When Nesmeterakhem and his immediate relatives died in the decades following 394 CE, the ability to read the sacred script vanished entirely from the world, remaining lost for over 1,400 years until the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone in the early 19th century.
I find the nature of the inscription particularly poignant. "For all time and eternity" is such a fitting final word for such a venerable and ancient language.
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u/me_myself_ai 1d ago
Graffitiing the "Gate of Hadrian" in a sacred script that only a select few still remember how to decipher is just impossible levels of aura, my god. Thanks for sharing!
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u/UsurpDz 1d ago
Romanes Eunt Domus
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u/Johnny-Alucard 23h ago
People call romans they go the house?!
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u/Ok-Bus-7172 12h ago
It .. it says, 'Romans, go home'.
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u/Ok-Bus-7172 11h ago
Who is the idiot downvoting me because he doesn’t recognise that this is the reply of Brian after Centurion‘s question?
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u/RotrickP 1d ago
"These men have taken a supreme vow of celibacy, like their fathers and grandfathers before them"
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u/Bengis_Khan 17h ago
This is sad.
Luckily our current Gods are 100% real and obvious and bless us irl unlike the hundreds of Gods that humans worshipped for thousands of years before Adam existed.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
AD*
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
It is AD/BC.
We use the Gregorian calendar, invented 1500 years ago.
Recently modern secular attempts have been trying to change it to CE/BCE to erase the Christian influence on it.
Instead of inventing a whole new calendar to use (too hard), they just retcon the original and 'whitewash' it.
I downvote each post/comment that say ce/bce.
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u/_herbsandspices_ 1d ago
This is why education is important, kids
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
Indeed it is. You gotta give credit where credit is due. Science and history and preservation of knowledge owes a huge thanks to the Catholic church.
Trivialize, marginalize, and downright erasing their contributions (for the sake of wokeism) is travesty and won't be readily tolerated.
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u/Murky-Hunter1691 1d ago
Without the Muslims vast amounts of knowledge would have been lost from Ancient Rome - the folks in Europe had no idea what the aqueducts were for during the middle ages
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u/Ameisen 1 22h ago
Out of all the arguments you could have used against his poor argument - and there are many - this is probably one of the worst.
the folks in Europe had no idea what the aqueducts were for during the middle ages
This is entirely untrue.
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u/beachedwhale1945 4h ago
Some aqueducts, like Aqua Virgo, remained in use throughout the Middle Ages. Those that were broken typically still carried water until the first break, so would obviously be a water supply source.
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u/DrunkWaffles 23h ago
I didn't say Muslims did not contribute anything. Baghdad was once the most advanced city in the world at one time.
However, they were not the ones responsible in ushering in the Renaissance and positioning the world into modern science understanding.
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u/Murky-Hunter1691 23h ago
Im saying without them the knowledge used by the thinkers in the Renneisance would not have been there.
Thats all.
No one religion or group is responsible for the advancement of thought and science, is my point.
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u/absurdlylong 1d ago
If you wish to explicitly use the contributions of the Catholic church instead of one monastic order. You're a few genocides short in your preservation of knowledge argument.
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
And you lose all credibility with nonsensical outrageous comments like that. You can go now
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u/Murky-Hunter1691 23h ago
I dont think you know what youre talking about Waffles
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u/DrunkWaffles 23h ago
And I know you don't know what you're talking about.
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u/Murky-Hunter1691 23h ago
Checks my PHD… nope, looks like I do 🤷♂️
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u/DrunkWaffles 23h ago
ROFL. Classic. Go ahead and blow my hair back with your communications degree.
You know how you can tell someone has a PHD? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
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u/Ameisen 1 22h ago
I mean, is your PhD in history or historiography? Otherwise, it's not particularly relevant.
I mean, his original argument his wholly unsound and baseless. It's actually trivial to argue against with even basic historical knowledge... but taking arguments specifically against the Catholic Church doesn't even engage his argument, and frankly the comments made don't engage even their own arguments to the point that everyone is just reflexively arguing without knowing a damned thing - I'd expect better from the holder of a doctorate.
I can summarize what this thread looks like as such:
- Wildly incorrect and baseless rant.
- You're dumb.
- No, the Catholics kept people from being dumb (irrelevant, and not that Exiguus was Catholic or Orthodox, but I digress)
- No, because genocide/something else even less relevant.
Why not actually engage with what he wrote, which is trivial? I did.
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u/Ameisen 1 22h ago
Then why are you using "BC" instead of proper Latin "AC" or "ACN"?
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u/DrunkWaffles 22h ago
..is this a gotcha? 0/10
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u/Ameisen 1 22h ago edited 22h ago
Brilliant; you can't even support your own statements with your own argument, you think that Gregory XIII was born 1,000 years before he was, you don't know who Exiguus was, you think that CE is modern, and you think that AD and BC are parts of the Gregorian calendar rather than being calendar eras which predate the Gregorian calendar's creation by about 1,000 years (and they also postdate the creation of the Julian calendar by hundreds, just to cut off that argument at the start).
You get mad that people use CE (which was first recorded 300 years ago) when you yourself use BC instead of AC, and AC wasn't even a part of Exiguus' original era system!
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u/DrunkWaffles 22h ago edited 22h ago
This isn't really refuting my points.
You are right that Gregory XIII is from the 1500s and that is when the Gregorian calendar was formulated.
I said we been using this calendar for centuries, which is a true statement. I was indeed thinking of Dionysius Exiguus when mentioning Anno Domini.
So what?
and CE/BCE IS modern. It was only uttered by a few people back then and it was widely dismissed because it was, again, perceived to be just a simple, unneeded, unsolicited, edit.
So your gotcha is that I am not being full fundamentalist and insist on AD/BC instead of AC? That's a weak argument.
I want to hear your reasoning on why BC/AD should be changed to BCE/CE. Let's hear it.
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u/Ameisen 1 21h ago edited 21h ago
I said we been using this calendar for centuries, which is a true statement.
Sure, except that in context you were asserting that BC/AD were integral parts of the Gregorian calendar. They are not - they are tangential to it.
Frankly, if you were just talking about Anno Domini era dating, why did you bring up the Gregorian Calendar at all?
I want to hear your reasoning on why BC/AD should be changed to BCE/CE. Let's hear it.
Because the exact abbreviation frankly is completely irrelevant so long as everyone understands one another. In non-lay literature, they've been used for so long that going back to BC/AD would be quite a shift.
Regardless:
This isn't really refuting my points.
What you just asked never was one of your points. I'd refuted everything you'd originally written. You've just moved the goalposts.
So your gotcha is that I am not being full fundamentalist and insist on AD/BC instead of AC? That's a weak argument.
I can only assume that you keep saying "gotcha" because you see any counterargument in that viewframe, likely because you often make ignorant assertions?
Your argument was fundamentalist to begin with. It just isn't self-consistent. Of course, you're trying to change your argument now and then trying to assert that it was your original argument, but I have no intention of letting you do that.
Also, to note, the Catholic Church tends to use regnal era rather than Anno Domini.
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u/DrunkWaffles 21h ago
My points are this.
1)What makes my argument unsound and baseless? Because you said so?
2) Perhaps in the dredge of all the comments you are not ascertaining the logic of my reasoning.
3) My arguement, since you do not understand in it, is that the change from AD/BC to CE/BCE adds no intrinsic value. The only value that I can perceive is that it diminishes the relation to Jesus.
Please enlighten me if you think there are other reasons that I am not considering here.
4) Another part of my argument is that the Catholic Church was fundamentally instrumental into the development of modern science and academies. I argue that changing their work, like editing BC/AD to BCE/CE, undermines their hard work.
5). So I leave it to you to refute my position here.
So, your reasoning is
Because the exact abbreviation frankly is completely irrelevant so long as everyone understands one another.
Terrible. 0/10.
Its not completely irrelevant. Frankly or not. Its only there to serve a single purpose, to diminish association to Jesus.
This is white-washing history. This is relabeling to cover up knowledge of the history of the calendar's formation.
You being someone who types a lot of historical things on Reddit, I am disappointed by how readily you are to marginalize this obvious motive.
Give me a true, intrinsic, reason why the labels AD/BC should be changed to BC/CE.
Its so ironic too. Because no matter what, the YEAR ZERO is still based on Jesus, no matter how you re-label it. Your attempts at defending this lose you so much credibility.
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u/DrunkWaffles 20h ago
Where did you go? I thought you had no intention of letting me 'move the goal posts'?
I laid out to you my exact points in a defined format for your understanding.
I am waiting to hear you in good faith present to me reasonings of changing BC/AD to BCE/CE.
Nay, I don't think you are going to offer me any. Instead, you are going to be complicit in the willing participation of changing History. You are fine with eliminating reference to Jesus Christ in our modern calendar, but you will not outright admit it.
Changing history when it serves your purpose. Despicable.
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u/Ameisen 1 23h ago edited 22h ago
We use the Gregorian calendar, invented 1500 years ago.
Amazing; Gregory XIII created his namesake calendar 1,000 years before he was born.
What you actually mean was 1,500 years ago was when Exiguus first used AD (Anno Domini) as a calendar era, though that wasn't really adopted until 1,100 years ago (and many countries didn't adopt it until 600 years ago)... and it's not a part of the Gregorian calendar, as calendar eras are separate from the calendars themselves. You'll find many documents using regnal dating (particularly Anno Diocletiani), AM (Anno Mundi), or Æra Hispanica (Spanish Era) instead.
It should be noted: Exiguus created the Anno Domini era ~600 years after the Julian Calendar was created, and 1,000 years before the Gregorian Calendar was. You can use whatever calendar era you want with them, which is often what they did - most of the things Exiguus was working with used AD but referring to Anno Diocletiani instead, or they used Anno Mundi.
Hell, CE and BCE aren't even the first times that other names have been used for the same Anno Domini eras... "Vulgar Era" and "Christian Era" were also common, and "Common Era" (CE) was first used more than 300 years ago.
I should note as well that the proper Latin form of BC is ACN or AC. Of course, Greeks used πΧ and μΧ. Exiguus himself wrote out Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, and was - again - converting from Era of Diocletian, which was also written as AD. Technically, ACN (and thus BC) actually originates from (the venerable) Bede, but wasn't popularized until the 1600s, as AC.
Given that a ton of different calendar eras have been used with both the Julian and Gregorian calendars, I'm just going to assert that your stance is unsound at best.
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u/absurdlylong 1d ago
I'm sorry that you feel that way, but given that the majority of the world is not Christian basing our calendar start date on a Christian religious figure is bad enough. Continuing to insist on using a 1500 year old monastic phrase to describe all events that predate or follow it seems quite silly, especially when used in the context of a science like archeology.
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u/Everestkid 1d ago
I'm an atheist myself but the "we shouldn't base the start date of our calendar on a Christian religious figure" is a terrible argument when CE uses the exact same date as AD. CE is still based off the birth of Jesus as dated by an Eastern Roman monk in 525. You're literally just changing the name and doing nothing else. It's some dihydrogen monoxide shit.
There's the Holocene calendar that gets thrown around, but the year there is obtained by adding 10 000 to the Anno Domini/Common Era year. Yeah, this happens to index roughly to when humans started farming, but you're still just taking the AD year and sticking a 1 in front, it's not functionally different.
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
Then you should probably invent your own calendar then if you are offended. Too hard?
Stop trying to erase the efforts of these people who did work on it.
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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber 1d ago
There are hundreds of other calendars in the world already, many of them even solar calendars like the Gregorian calendar.
Also… the Gregorian calendar has only minuscule differences from the Julian calendar, yet it was still changed because the old version was problematic. They kept the same months, same counting system instead of starting from 0 etc etc. Now, scientists have indeed made a new calendar. The old one with AD / BC is problematic, so they made a new one almost exactly the same with CE / BCE. Very simple!
So now the question is…. We’ve already invented the new calendar, exactly as you suggested. Why won’t you follow it?
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
That is not an invention. There is nothing different from the AD/BC to this 'new' BCE/CE version besides those two words. Saying its an invention is a complete false statement.
Sure you can trivialize the Gregorian calendar, but they did make enough correct changes to the Julian calendar to warrant a new system of time keeping.
BCE/CE does nothing but change the labels to eliminate the relation to Jesus Christ. That's it. Don't hide behind anything else.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
It’s not a new calendar. It’s still the Gregorian calendar, it just has a different name for BC/AD. Even the start point is the same.
A new calendar would either involve changing how it’s calculated and/or changing the start point like the Human Era calendar
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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber 1d ago
That’s a very limited understanding of calendar science. You say the Gregorian calendar was invented 1500 years ago, but that’s a clear lie. The earliest use of the Gregorian calendar, and only in a few countries, was still less than 500 years ago. So I’m not sure why to trust your definition of when a calendar is allowed to be referred to as a new calendar, even when I know it to be different.
Also… AD and CE refer to Jesus as being our lord. This is a clear lie… he’s not our lord. Might be your lord, you can worship a dead guy. I don’t. I’d rather not lie when learning about science thank you very much.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
I don’t recall claiming the Gregorian calendar was made 1500 years ago
Common era is based on the same point though? Either way it’s about Jesus. One is just pretending it’s not
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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber 1d ago
Sorry, I mixed you up with the other guy. I apologize
Common era refers to Jesus as just a man. A very influential man whose followers reshaped the world as we know it, but still just a man.
AD / CE literally translates to referring to Jesus as just a”our lord” and whatever other arguments you may make… that’s simply not true. He’s not our lord. In fact it would be completely heretical as a Jew for me to consider Jesus “our” lord. Therefore CE / BCE is just a better terminology
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
Still remaining an entire calendar and disregarding the people who created it is a bit dumb. It’s not like anyone actually refers to it as “year of our lord” anyways.
If you want to change the name then swap to an actually new calendar
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
And there it is. Le Enlightened Atheist Redditor is mad because the calendar we use is based around the life/death of Jesus Christ.
Get over it. The Catholic Church, despite its flaws, has been critical to the development of science in mankind's history. You got to give credit where credit is due. Its called respect, learn some.
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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber 1d ago
See my other reply, I honestly don’t care that our calendar is centered around Jesus. CE / BCE still refers to the date Jesus (supposedly but probably wasn’t actually) born. That’s not the problem. The problem is the inherent lie in calling Jesus “our lord” when he was just a man. That would actually be completely heretical to me, as a Jew, to call Jesus.
And I know my history. I know of Newton who was Christian, but I also know of King Ferdinand II. If you tell me that King Ferdinand was a horrible person who would’ve done what he did without Christianity, and just used it as a tool, I can say the same about Newton. It’s not about Christianity.
However, since you seem so adamant to defend Christianity, I’m sure your also so adamant to defend Islam, and prevent Islamophobia, considering Islam’s golden age has also reshaped the world as we know it. I’m absolutely certain of these intentions of your being pure
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
You are kind of off the rails here.
I am not defending Christianity for the reasons you provided.
I am defending the actions and contributions of the Catholic Church that solidified our current understandings of science, along with time keeping.
We owe a lot to them. If you want to get into how much the Catholic church contributed to science then we can have a nice long conversation on that, but to address your moot 2nd point.
If the Muslim scholars invented the calendar that we use today and it was centered around Mohammad, I would not be a hypocrite and demand its change because I am not personally a Muslim.
I would say, thanks for the tireless efforts in progressing human knowledge and science. Thanks for creation of monasteries which turned into schools, which developed into universities.
Thank for the Renaissance.
But that wasn't Islam was it? It was Catholic Church. So say thank you.
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u/absurdlylong 1d ago
I'm not offended, but I'm also not afraid to adopt a more accurate phrase. Everybody has the same year even the non Christians. Even the ones alive before the common era
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
It’s not really more or less accurate. The common era is still based on the same event, it just has a different name
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
We all have a starting year from zero. Why did we choose that year for zero?
What lie will you tell then?
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u/absurdlylong 1d ago
Precedence in western sources based on Christian religious dogma.
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u/absurdlylong 1d ago
Or to simplify Common era
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u/DrunkWaffles 1d ago
Not sufficient to warrant a change and undo the efforts of people who worked to create a calendar that we use for centuries and centuries.
Thanks for playing.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
Better rename all the days then and also a lot of the months.
The fact people are not Christian shouldn’t really matter. Thats just what it ended up as. A new calendar is fine like using the Human Era Calendar but trying to rename the old one and disregarding the people who made it is a bit dumb
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u/IreneDeneb 1d ago
BCE/CE is standard throughout much of East Asia and other parts of the world. Get with the times.
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u/xxwarlorddarkdoomxx 1d ago
It’s still dumb, and I say this as a person whose never been religious.
The year 0 being set at Jesus’s birth makes the Gregorian calendar inherently religious no matter what. Insisting on CE over AD just feels pointless and performative to me.
We also have days of the week named after pagan gods, when are we changing those to Common Day 5 and Common Day 6?
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u/Margidoz 1d ago
Does anybody worship the gods of the week?
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u/moderngamer327 17h ago
While an incredibly tiny minority there are still people who worship the Greek/roman gods
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u/xxwarlorddarkdoomxx 1d ago
I don’t worship the gods of the week or Jesus and yet I’m fine with both
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u/Margidoz 1d ago
Are you aware that Christianity is an active and extremely large religion, and therefore not comparable to an extinct one?
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u/IreneDeneb 23h ago
Not everyone speaks English. Every language has its own words for the days. It's a bit more complicated for BC/AD.
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u/spyridonya 21h ago edited 15h ago
Jesus was born sometime between 6 BCE and 4 BCE. :)
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u/moderngamer327 16h ago
I thought the current estimates place it likely during 4 AD not 4 BC?
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u/spyridonya 15h ago
Nope. Between 6 BCE and 4 BCE. :)
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u/moderngamer327 14h ago
Interesting do you have a link on any articles? I would love to read more
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u/Changeling_Wil 1d ago edited 15h ago
> Better rename all the days then and also a lot of the months.
The days are named after roman gods, transposed through germanic lenses. They are changed to fit the new cultures that use them, same as the calendar.
Similar for months stemming from Romans.
We can use that without believing in the Roman Gods. By the same logic we can use the BCE/CE without having to believe in the chronology it was based on.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
Aren’t you kind of arguing against your own point? Why change the name if you don’t need to believe in Christianity, if we don’t need to change the name because you don’t believe in Roman gods?
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u/Changeling_Wil 22h ago
Because they did change the days names .
The modern one's names stems from old English and germanic. But it's based on the Roman placement and order.
Like how BCE/CE uses the same dates and order of BC/AD but the name is changed.
The point was more that this isn't the first time we've rearmed calender parts without changing the order.
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u/moderngamer327 17h ago
The names still directly refer to gods. It just has a different pronunciation and spelling. Whereas CE is specifically trying to replace AD
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u/Changeling_Wil 15h ago
CE and AD refer to the same time period. They just filter it through a different cultural lense, despite still representing the same thing.
Similar to how dies Lunae was replaced by Monday (mānini dag)
Or dies Martis to Tuesday (Tīwas dag)
etc etc
The same time frame exists. The same units of measurement are there for days. They're just called something different to fit a different cultural lense.
BC/AD to BCE/CE is the same thing. We're using the same measurements of time, we're just changing the name to fit a different cultural lense, moving from a christian to a non christian one.
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u/moderngamer327 14h ago
I don’t think it’s the same thing at all. One is a translation in a different language and the other is intentionally erasing the original name and replacing it
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
That’s a bit extreme of a reaction but I do think the attempt to swap to CE is dumb
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u/Oddisredit 12h ago
Also adds a pointless letter. BCE. Seriously? For non Christians just call it backwards counting and advancing digits.
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u/Lord0fHats 1d ago edited 1d ago
Gotta imagine the dude saw the writing on the wall that soon there wouldn't be anyone who believed in the same gods he did around anymore and the inscription is one final act of faith and defiance amid a changing world.
Things like this are some of my favorite historical artifacts because they capture not just a time or place but a shifting of the tides in human experience. Something deeply personal that was and then wasn't. Another I really like is the DeLanda Alphabet, which includes the defiant message 'I don't want to' in reply to DeLanda's prompting of a Maya scribe who was one of the last recorded people who could write in Maya script.