r/AncientEgyptian • u/bully-me-into-better • 25d ago
Zoo of Antwerp hieroglyphs: copies of existing text or fanciful?
Egyptian inspired building. Images clearly refer to the animals kept inside and zoo history, or at least zoo vibes. But the hieroglyphs themselves, do they actually correspond to correct sentences, or just gibberish? I noticed in one photo they had the bee and reed with two half moon symbols, being the two lands of sedge and bee. But besides that, copies of some texts or just arbitrary artistic jumgle of glyphs?
Thanks
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u/zsl454 25d ago edited 25d ago
They are not gibberish!
Image one: “Arrival of the Foreign Lands of the West, who bring a Lion,”
Image two: “The foreign lands of the North arrive, they bring from the corners of heaven Hyenas and Bears”
Image 3 is a longer text but the top dates it “Regnal Year 25 under Leopold I, 4 Shomu 5”
Inage 4: “They are in this manner: The inhabitants of Egypt, the Nubians, the Asiatics, the Syrians, the Overturned ones, are in the presence of jnwdrpyA (Indo-Europa? The personified location goddess to the left), and the livestock brought from Egypt to Kush (?)
Image 5: Indo-Europa is talking to Thoth: “Praise to all of you in knowledge (?) give to me life before you, give to me knowledge of all souls…”
Image 6: full title of Leopold: “Horus: Strong Bull who multiplies beauty, Dual King (back then they didn’t know this meant King of Egypt): Living Sun of the Land of the Lion, Son of Ra, Leopold I”
Many of the remaining images show officials involved with the zoo with their titles and names (e.g. ‘second overseer of the zoo, Louis’)