Ancient Egypt is one of the "four major ancient civilizations", has always had a very high status in the study of world history, especially with the archaeological excavations of ancient Egypt in recent years have made many new achievements, some little-known history has begun to be known. For example, archaeologists once found an ancient Egyptian stele with densely carved ears, revealing a custom. What's going on here? The following Xiaobian will reveal it to you.
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In daily life, stone tablets are also very common things, and they are mainly used to engrave words or patterns as a souvenir. Archaeological studies have shown that the origin of stone tablets is very early, in the pre-Qin period there are already stone tablets, although the shape of stone tablets is different, but the changes are not far from its sect, mainly composed of three parts, namely the head of the stele, the stele body and the stele, but some stone stele after all pay attention to the stele cover. With the development of society, stone tablets have gradually been applied in many fields, such as in ancient palaces, mausoleums and temples and other buildings, stone tablets are indispensable, and the ancient people's book list seal carving on stone tablets has also become a calligraphy inscription for posterity. It is worth mentioning that stone tablets are not a patent of our Chinese civilization, and there are many stone tablets in Western countries.
In the history of ancient Egypt, there are many stone tablets that have been handed down to this day, the most famous of which is the Rosetta Stone, which is inscribed with the inscription of the ancient Egyptian dynasty Ptolemy V. However, the Rosetta Stone is not the most mysterious stone stele, because its content has long been cracked, and the "ear" stone stele is still a mystery. The so-called "ear" stone stele is a treasure of the British Museum, and its discovery process is also very thrilling.
In April 1930, a team of archaeologists from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom traveled to Cairo, the capital of Egypt, to investigate and protect an excavated ancient Egyptian site. In order to get a comprehensive picture of the site, experts also conducted a survey of the surrounding residents, during which they encountered a villager who was building a house and was using large hammers and iron tools to demolish the crumbling walls. The experts looked around and saw that there seemed to be a stone tablet on the wall that people were banging on, so the experts immediately asked them to stop and then gathered around to clean up the dust and examine it carefully.
The experts were amazed, and sure enough, it was a stone stele, about 110 centimeters high and about 50 centimeters wide, with a square bottom and a circular arc at the top. The villager told the experts that the stele had been dug out of the ground by his grandfather's grandfather, and because it was so strong, it was used to build the wall. Experts agreed that the stele was not simple, so they bought it from the villagers for dozens of dollars and brought it back to the laboratory for in-depth research. Experts are glad that if the stele had been discovered later, it might have been knocked into rubble by the villagers.
In fact, at that time, experts had already discovered the special features of this stone stele, because its front seal was engraved with something, but it was not a phenomenon of ancient Egypt, nor was it a certain script of any ancient civilization, but a dense seventy-four ears, so that experts felt precious. Similar ears have never appeared on stone tablets found in the past, so experts feel that it has some unknown symbolic meaning. Later, experts cleaned the stele and found a line of seal inscription at the bottom.
After some deliberation, the experts deciphered the content of the text, that is, "the true Lord who can hear the prayer", and the "Lord" mentioned here is the memphis god Buta in ancient Egyptian mythology. In addition, experts have found that the craftsmen who carved the stone tablets also left their own names, that is, Mahuia. At this time, experts also speculated about the ears on the stone tablets, and the craftsman Mahui'a seal carved the stone tablets to pray to the main god Buta for something, such as good health, abundant grain or safe travel.
However, the simple prayer of the main god Buta may not necessarily know, so in order to let the god Buta hear, so a lot of ears are carved on the stone tablet, and the more ears, it means that the more the god Buta can hear, in other words, the more the prayer will be magical. Of course, we can no longer verify whether the prayer of the craftsman Mahui'a came true, but the ancient Egyptian custom was discovered by us. If you follow suit, it is not surprising that stone tablets with many eyes will be found in the future.
Nowadays, this magical ear stele is stored in the museum, and whenever we visit it, it may hear what we are saying, and even know what we are thinking, whether it is good or malicious, we must also restrain ourselves carefully. Therefore, many experts also said that the ear stele is an interesting cultural relic, which is worthy of our in-depth study.
Resources:
"Four Thousand Years of Egypt" by Joann Fletcher, Publisher: Zhejiang Literature and Art
Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Liu Lijiang's