Decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:25, 22 January 2023

Revision as of 08:01, 23 March 2023

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===Fifteenth through seventeenth centuries===

[[File:Kircher Obeliscus Pamphilius page 444.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Refer to caption|A page from [[Athanasius Kircher]]'s ''[[Obeliscus Pamphilius]]'' (1650), with fanciful translations given for the figures and hieroglyphs on an [[obelisk]] in Rome]]

During the [[Renaissance]] Europeans became interested in hieroglyphs, beginning around 1422 when [[Cristoforo Buondelmonti]] discovered a copy of Horapollo's ''Hieroglyphica'' in Greece and brought it to the attention of antiquarians such as [[Niccolò de' Niccoli]] and [[Poggio Bracciolini]]. Poggio recognised that there were hieroglyphic texts on [[obelisks in Rome|obelisks]] and other Egyptian artefacts imported to Europe in [[Roman times]], but the antiquarians did not attempt to decipher these texts.{{sfn|Curran|2003|pp=106–108}} Influenced by Horapollo and Plotinus,{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=64–65}} they saw hieroglyphs as a universal, image-based form of communication, not a means of recording a spoken language.{{sfn|Curran|2003|pp=106–108}} From this belief sprang a Renaissance artistic tradition of using obscure [[Symbolism (arts)|symbolism]] loosely based on the imagery described in Horapollo, pioneered by [[Francesco Colonna (writer)|Francesco Colonna]]'s 1499 book ''[[Hypnerotomachia Poliphili]]''.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=67–69}}