Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost
The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction
The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity
We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either
Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender
The gods didn’t actually have animal heads
Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)
The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous
Noses (and ears, and arms) broke off statues and reliefs for a variety of reasons, none of which are “there is a widespread archaeological conspiracy to hide the Egyptian ethnicity”
The carvings at Abydos aren’t modern machines but recarvings over old carvings. Sure they look like them but if you can read hieroglyphs and know that Ramesses II will even usurp the carvings of his own father just to be a little shit
‘No soot on the ceilings and walls of the Dendera temple!’ is actually because of extensive restoration works and not because Egyptians were in on shit like Baghdad “batteries”
While the Egyptians were fine-ass astronomers they didn’t align any of their enormous and/or important buildings to modern star constellations, because constellations look very different now than they did ~5000 years ago
The pyramid is the simplest, sturdiest shape with which to build and many different cultures discovered this in their own time. There were never any weird fish humans/aliens involved
The sphinx of Gizah is only an approximate 5000 years old; the 10,000 year/rain erosion nonsense is proven hokum
Speaking of that particular sphinx, the Napoleonic expedition is not responsible for its missing nose
Akhenaten was not a “heretic” by contemporary standards
Ramses II appropriated a lot of his predecessors’ buildings/reliefs and isn’t really deserving of the epithet “the Great”
The Battle of Kadesh ended in a stalemate (twice)
While they had feline deities throughout their history, Egyptians didn’t actually worship cats themselves. This was a later Greek/Ptolemaeic addition
It was not, in fact, practice to shave off eyebrows after cats died; Herodotus lied about that
Herodotus lied about a lot of things and many misconceptions about ancient Egypt can be traced back to his Greek ass
True story – There are historical accounts (well, there’s at least one historical account) in which English people whine about how the Norse men bathe so often they’re able to seduce the local women away from their husbands.
^^^ Yep. Turns out the women were way more into the hot well groomed muscular dudes who liked to smell nice.
*Hot, well groomed men who liked to smell nice and knew their way around sharp objects.
“I just don’t know why you couldn’t marry a local boy sweetie.”
“What can I say dad, Hjalmar bathes regularly, smells nice, has shoulders, can wield a sword and can wield his sword ifyaknowwhatImean, and when he comes back from raids likes to shower me in rare gifts from overseas. Look at this necklace! The amber beads came from the lands of the Rus! Also, he’s teaching me how to shoot a bow and use a spear because he thinks it might be nice if I could go on raids too someday.”
Hjalmar – Honey! I’m home! While I was out I picked you up a new bow and 44 arrows. It would have been 45 but I shot this boar for dinner with the one.
**Drops boar on table**
Oh and look what I picked up from France! **sets 12 bottles of floral perfume on countera** Half for you, half for me. I like the one in the blue bottle. I’m going to go clean up, I’ll be a while. Can you start prepping the boar for dinner?
Elizabeth – **swoons first. Preps boar second. Goes out to shoot bow with Hjalmar after dinner** you’re cooking tomorrow, I want to practice with this more tomorrow.
Hjalmar – of course! Need you ready for going viking next spring.
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