Egyptian Spell May Be Oldest Semetic Text
Jan 26th, 2007 by admin
Text found in the underground chambers of a pyramid south of Cairo that have puzzled experts for around one hundred years may now be explainable.
Known to be a magic spell designed to ward the King’s tomb from snakes, the text was borrowed from the Canaanites around 5000 years ago. However, some of the text was undecipherable.
When an Egyptologist emailed the unknown parts to a Semetic languages professor, Richard Steiner, he concluded that the text was used by the Canaaanites between the 25th and 30th centuries B.C.
This would make the text older than the previously recorded oldest use of the Semetic language in the 24th century B.C.
Ancient Egyptians believed that some snakes spoke the Semetic language, a fact that shows how closely Egypt and Canaan were linked in those times, despite Egypt always considering herself to be religiously and culturally superior.
Such spells would be employed on tombs and sarcophogii to ward off the poisonous snakes, such was the fear of them. Within the text in question, the Egyptian and Semetic is so entwined that the spell’s effectiveness requires both languages to function.
The Semetic form used in this pyramid are believed to be an early precursor to what would become Phoenician and Hebrew.