I will watch it with circumspection, of course. We all know
that the popular presentation of history is riddled with much that is
speculative but given as fact, and I’ve watched too many historical
documentaries containing obvious absurdities to simply believe what I’m being
told. And some of it is even born of ignorance. Here’s an example:
At the time of Julius
Caesar, the Roman Empire stretched from North Africa in the south to Hadrian’s Wall in the north.
That’s a precise quotation from a TV documentary about Queen
Cleopatra, even though every schoolboy in Britain
who’s been taking notice knows that Britain
was never a Roman province during Julius Caesar’s life, and that Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t constructed until long after his
death. See what I mean? And there’s plenty more where that came from.
But I’m sure it will keep me amused for a while during some long
and lonely evening, and I’m sure I will watch it with the right balance of
interest and cynicism. The frustrating thing is that I’m sure it won’t tell me
what I really want to know, which is:
How do we know that his name was Ramses?
I’m fairly sure I’m right in saying that the ancient
Egyptians didn’t keep records written in Latin script. They used pictograms
showing things like beetles, birds and topless maidens in see-through skirts.
Presumably, therefore, somebody must have taken the great Pharaoh’s name so
written and converted it into a form recognisable to modern Europeans. I assume
they could only do that by knowing that it was pronounced Ram’seez.
So how could they know that? Could somebody please tell me
because I assume there must be an answer? The best guess I can come up with is
that some literate Greek or Roman wrote it down when one of the Ptolemys was
lording it over the Nile. Is that it?
And another mystery: Why does my back ache so much tonight?
I can’t think of anything I’ve done today which could have caused it, and it’s
bothering me much more than the Ramses question.
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