Scientists had kept the discovery
under wraps for months
Dispatches
from the Future
May
17, 2016
BOULDER,
Colo. (Gloomberg News) – Egyptologists Monday
announced a major breakthrough in attempts to decode markings on an ancient
wall in southern Egypt. The findings
failed to support theories that the site in question might have once served as
an astronomical observatory.
“This
isn’t what we’d hoped for,” admitted team leader Dr. James I. Haktawhad. “But the findings are of historic importance,
just the same.”
A
team of University of Colorado archaeologists and archaeoastronomers discovered
the markings in 1998, after uncovering a buried wall at Nabta Playa, located in
the Nubian Desert about 500 miles south of Cairo. The site, believed to be even older than the
Pyramids by about two thousand years, consists of carefully arranged arrays of
large stones, some of which point out of the sand at striking angles. The site predates England’s Stonehenge
complex, but is theorized to have served a similar astronomical purpose.
“We’ve
been working on these markings for years, under the theory that they have their
roots in the Nilo-Saharan language phylum.
That guess turned out to be correct.
And as a result, we can now state with certainty that we’ve translated
the oldest known piece of writing on the planet. That’s the good news.”
But
the bad news is that the translation was not even close to what the scientists
had expected.
“We
deciphered all or part of four phrases,” Haktawhad said. “We’re confident the first one says, ‘For a
good time, see Amunix.” Haktawhad
explained that Amunix is believed to have been a girl’s given name that was
common at the time among ancient Nabta people.
Haktawahd
declined to speculate on what the phrase might have meant. But the next two translations were no less
disappointing.
“Number
two, we believe, says, ‘Reality is for people who can’t handle opium.’ Number three translates as, ‘We aim to keep
this place clean. Your aim will help.’”
Haktawahd
did not offer to read the fourth phrase, but reporters pressed him on it. “This one is only a partial translation,” he
said reluctantly. “The final part of the
sentence is missing. But what we have so
far is, ‘No matter how you shake, or how you dance, the last drop falls—’ And that’s it. The last word or words are missing.”
When
reporters suggested that the identity of the missing word seemed obvious,
Haktawahd cautioned against leaping to conclusions. “You may be tempted to fill in the blank with
an English word that rhymes with ‘dance,’” he said. “But as humorous as you might find the
sentence to be when completed in that fashion, remember that in the original
ancient tongue, there would have been no such rhyme. Plus, we’re not precisely sure what kind of
garments the ancient Nabtans wore. But
it’s extremely doubtful that any of them had trousers hanging in the closet.”
Haktawahd resisted a reporter’s suggestion that what his team had discovered was the wall of a 7,000 year old latrine. “Our dig didn’t turn up enough evidence to reach that conclusion,” he said. “But even if that does turn out to be true, it doesn’t disprove the theory that the overall site might have been an ancient observatory. Given the way some of the stones align, that theory still fits the facts.”
Haktawahd
admitted his team had been sitting on the findings for months, and released
them only after the Ain’t It Weird
website leaked a partial translation last week.
“I wouldn’t call the results embarrassing,” he said in defending the
delay, “just incomplete. And they still
are. We have more work to do.”
One
highly placed member of Haktawahd’s team, who did not wish to be identified
because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, told Gloomberg News that
this isn’t the only controversial breakthrough scientists are keeping under
wraps. She said a team at Cairo
University is sitting on a partial translation of a 4,500 year old Egyptian
papyrus. According to the source, the severely
deteriorated document appeared to have been folded originally into the shape of
an envelope or pouch. “They’ve lifted
two phrases off of it so far,” she said.
“The first partial phrase translates as, ‘In the event of,’ and the
second one says, ‘Hold bag over mouth.’ The
rest is missing, illegible, or hasn’t yet been deciphered. But those phrases are the two oldest pieces
of writing ever translated from papyrus.”
A
spokeswoman at Cairo University told Gloomberg news that several translation
projects are underway at any given time, but offered no further comment.
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And, if you like this style of writing, please check out my novel Messages, where I apply the same treatment to the TV news industry.
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