The Wandering Archaeologist

thewanderingarchaeologist

Based on current research¹

— ¹Egyptology Squad, Discord personal discussions, March 5th, 2026

Allow me to correct that for you:

Based on current research (Egyptology Squad, pers. comm. 5/3/2026).

ok who confused the archaeologists again

please don't baffle the archaeologists, it triggers their alcoholism

common misconception but confounded is NOT the natural state of the archaeologist. stop confounding them

all archaeologist know how to do is dig, brush, and forage for sherds. a group of archaeologists is called a 'survey'. any and all info they source from 'real people with real skills and knowledge and common sense duh'. resourceful little creatures

seanconneraille

hello people from the european union it's time to show up and sign this official European Union petition to stop the EU-Israel Assossiation Agreement, let's go let's go

Give your support !

non EU people please spread this

#lets go europe

archaeologistproblems

For any of you with an Academia.edu account, they have now turned on AI functions by default, that will use your own work to generate more works for you to "enjoy" - a friend of mine was emailed a podcast that was auto-generated from her research, without her knowledge or consent.

You can disable it under "Account Settings." I did so and then sent a complaint via tech support. They gave me some nonsense lines about how magnanimous it is that they're allowing users to disable it if they want (it shouldn't be on by default in the first place), and told me that they never generate anything for you unless you view the settings page (which is a lie from what I can tell).

archaeologistproblems

This one is definitely less surprising, but for those of you still suffering through a LinkedIn account, I was turning off the "games" email setting (why the fuck would I want LinkedIn to email me about games when I have every other email setting disabled) when I noticed this under "Data Privacy", and of course it was turned on by default:

#thanks for the headsup

Everytime I see that Ptahhotep 'party girl' translation it hurts my soul. That's a very difficult text, and that passage in particular is of debateable translation. The grammar and vocab are tricky, we're not entirely sure what it's saying, and there's some cultural context we're lacking too.

So seeing it reduced to 'party girl' makes me tinabelchernoise.mp3

I was reminded of the 'party girl' quote, so here's what the passage actually says (lacunae are filled by other copies of the text).

isaakbutler

This sounds far more like "If you found a good woman don't fumble her." Than it does party girl. And I dunno how anyone came to the party girl conclusion.

Yes, that's pretty much the line and would read well in the rest of the context of the Maxims of Ptahhotep. It's a wisdom text, passed down from father to son (Ptahhotep being the father speaking) about how to live a good Egyptian life. Something from the original is always lost in translation, and that goes doubly so for ancient texts. We're missing a lot of context and social norms that would have made this an easy read for someone back then.

So here's the translation I hate:

The first line (from both my image and this one in transliteration reads as follows: ir iri=k Hm.t m Spn.t

'ir' (the first two signs, one reed leaf, one mouth sign) is a conditional clause marker, giving the sentence the meaning of 'if'.

'iri' (the eye) is the verb 'to do/to make/to possess'. This is followed by pronoun =k 'you' (the basket beneath the eye).

Hm.t (the well with water, the semi circle of bread, and the seated woman) is 'woman'.

m (the owl) is a preposition meaning 'in' but...there's grammar stuff here I'm not gonna explain. It's unnecessary for the context.

Spn.t (the oblong pool of water, the seat sign beneath, the water sign beneath that, the semi circle of bread, and a pustule) is a relative form of the verb Spn and means 'one who is voluptuous woman'.

I'm not kidding, this is the dictionary entry for it on the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptia.

We know it means that a) because it's used in other contexts to describe voluptuous woman (fatness is a sign of health and wealth in Ancient Egypt) and b) the pustule determinative marks it out as word that has something to do with the body or bodily functions. It's a word that describes the body, not a personality.

Here's a different translation, but for the same passge of the same text:

So, with that said, a translation of 'party girl' is so far removed from the context and meaning of the original text that the translator has simply written what they liked as a meaning. There's really no justification for it. It is quite literally nothing at all like the original text and it infuriates me to see a wisdom text from a civilisation whose culture modern discussion on barely gets out of 'they're obsessed with death and cats, and oh did we mention aliens and curses' reduced to 'party girl'.

If you wanted a better, idiomised translation, I'd go with:

'Find a wife from a wealthy family, one who is liked by all those in the town. Never divorce her! Treat her well! Life will be good for both of you.'

It's simple, it fits the context of a father imparting wisdom to his son, and doesn't wildly extrapolate from the meanings of the words themselves.

parskis

sorry but this did nothing to dissuade me from the value of "party girl" in the translation. mayhaps it is you who has too narrow a view of the scope that term encompasses !

Okay, if that is so, then I would like the following from you:

A comprehensive list of all uses of Spn.t within the Egyptian, in context, with commentary.

An essay on the socioeconomic implications associated with 'fat rolls' depicted on tomb reliefs and statuary. Your work must include reference to how this changed from the Old Kingdom through to the Middle Kingdom when the Maxims of Ptahhotep were written, and also accurately reflect the Ancient Egyptian understanding of wealth and social status.

A further essay on the understanding of this passage when viewed in context of the maxims that surround it. Do they support your translation, if so, how? Demonstrate this through linguistic analysis - grammar and historical commentary are required. Read other sAby.t written around the same time. Do their translations also back up your suggested translation? If so, how?

A complete etymological breakdown of how you get from 'voluptuous woman' to 'party girl' referncing Ancient Egyptian sources to back up your point. I'd especially like to see where else in the Egyptian corpus Spn.t is used in such a manner that such a meaning can be conveyed. It would be best if you looked into versions written after the Middle Kingdom too, so I would hope that your Late Egyptian is also sufficient to undertake that task.

Finally, I'd like an extensive bibliography. Having done this myself, the tertiary sources are mostly in German, then French, then finally in English.

After all that, I'll take your interpretation under consideration.

I very genuinely need tumblr to understand that museums are as diverse as historians, egyptologists, archaeologists, and what have you in general. Like from the way people are talking you'd think that only straight white Western men are ever involved in these concepts, because the internet at large just loves to be able to get on their little high horsie about how they are sooo much more morally correcter than the Evil Other

Which is absolutely not a concerning attitude to have, not at all no sir

forgot I'm on the piss on the poor website so I'll spell it out: Western straight white men aren't per definition the Evil Other either

You know where the real danger is? Anti-intellectualism, the concept of moral purity, and opening your damn trap when you don't know shit about fuck

brilliant-soul

Every single indigenous person i know who pursued archeology/anthropology dropped out due to the rampant racism and misogyny in the fields

I do think that a lot of these fields uphold a lot of questionable practices that make it unsafe for poc to participate in meaningfully

#I do not need to add to this thank you archaeos

Without denying that racism and misogyny are still problems in society at large. OR the experience of the people you know, the idea that non-Western people *in general* can't participate "meaningfully" in e.g. history is not only demonstrably untrue, but also actively harmful because there are plenty of non-Western, non-straight, non-white, non-male historians/archaeologists/etc. working in their respective fields who get painted as hapless victims when they're everything but.

This is what I mean when I say people act as though only white Western dudebros do history, and there's definitely a component of US-centrism at play here. The Egyptian Egyptology field for example is thriving; but somehow people forget that non-Western countries can do science? That they can have museums? That they can and do study their own cultures and/or those of others?

You're operating on outdated views of these fields and that doesn't do anyone favours, least of all the people you claim to want to advocate for.

archaeos

@brilliant-soul — I'm Red River Métis, and I'm an archaeologist. There are a lot of Indigenous archaeologists and anthropologists in Canada and beyond, including Kisha Supernant, Paulette Steeves, Stacey Taylor, as well as many others. Saying that these fields uphold "questionable practices" that make it unsafe for us erodes the decades of work Indigenous scientists have been doing to establish our own voices in academia. Don't erase us.

egypt-museum

An Egyptian Carnelian Ring

A finger ring with rounded hoop, the convex bezel carved in the form of a pair of Eyes of Horus with finely-engraved detail, linear and chevron ornament on the shoulders.

New Kingdom, ca. 1550-1070 BC.

Sotheby's

starg2zerlion

I do have a question, if anyone here happens to know the answer: bc I wasnt familiar with Carnelian I looked it up, and it seems to have a Mohs hardness rating of roughly 6.5-7, which to my understanding would be pretty much impossible to cut with the bronze tools available in New Kingdom Egypt. I've heard that they could work hard materials woth bronze tools if they used quartz sand as an abrasive, and that is how they made granite sarcophagi for example, but I cant imagine that working particularly well for fine detail carving, so it seems to me like Im missing a peice of the puzzle, or got something wrong. How might this have been made?

#egyptology #the first thing you should never do #is to look at something from the Ancient World you didn't know they could do and go 'that seems impossible for them to do'#because that's how conspiracy thought starts #louder for the people in the back #also thank you for having the patience of a saint and looking all of that up

It's not impossible. The first thing you should never do is to look at something from the Ancient World you didn't know they could do and go 'that seems impossible for them to do' because that's how conspiracy thought starts. I'm not saying that's what you're doing here, but that's how that sort of thinking starts.

Basically, the solution to carving gemstones was the same as carving the larger stone...but smaller. A bow drill made from a copper/bronze wire encased in wood, a bow to make it move back and forth, and various types of silica as the abrasive (which have a Mohs hardness that is higher than Carnelian). They could also use tools made from harder stone than the stone they were working with, especially in the early stages where they'd want to make the stone the required size.

Anyway, at this point I'm going to directly quote from J.Harrell (2012). 'Gemstones', in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (pp. 15-16), because it'll just be easier for me:

"Raw pieces of gemstone were first roughly shaped by a combination of chipping and grinding, the latter probably done on a slab of silicified sandstone. Hand-powered drills were used to pierce beads and other objects carved from gemstones. Such drills were equipped with a bit consisting of either a chip of chert or a copper/bronze wire that was used together with fine quartz sand, which did the actual cutting under the impulse of the wire bit. Bavay et al. (2000: 12 - 13) report a notable collection of tiny chert drill bits and partially drilled amethyst, carnelian, obsidian, and rock crystal beads and flakes that were recovered from a deposit at Hierakonpolis dating to either the Early Dynastic Period or Old Kingdom (now in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London, UC 14877). Drills were originally driven by hand with a back-and-forth twisting motion. This is depicted in the right vignette of the 6th-Dynasty tomb scene in Figure 26, where the hieroglyphic text above says “lapidaries (msnSdw) boring (wbA) carnelian (Hrst).” The rotation was done more efficiently with bows, where the bowstrings were intertwined around one or more drill shafts, and this process is illustrated in an 18th-Dynasty tomb scene in Figure 27. The gemstone being drilled is not specified, but the orange color of the finished bead strings to the right of the workmen suggests that it was carnelian. Although the ancient Egyptian bead drills were primitive and cumbersome, they were nevertheless effective as experimentally demonstrated by Gorelick and Gwinnett (1990) and Stocks (2003: 203 - 224). Figures 26 and 27 also illustrate the final step in the preparation of beads: polishing. In Figure 26, the text above the left vignette says “lapidaries polishing (snaa) carnelian” but it is not clear how this was accomplished from the drawing. The two workmen appear to be rubbing pieces of carnelian across the surface of a rock slab, and if this was a hard rock like silicified sandstone, then it seems only a rough smoothing effect could be achieved by this means. If, however, fine quartz sand had been added to the slab’s surface then this could conceivably result in polishing. In Figure 27, the worker at the center of the scene is bent over a table and rubbing the beads over one another by hand, and in this way polishing them. On the ground, below him and the workers with bow drills, are vessels, apparently with spoons, which must be for the quartz sand abrasive. Thus sand was added not only to the drill holes, but also to the mass of beads being polished. These same manufacturing techniques would have been applied to other gemstone objects. Carving and engraving, in the case of seals and other glyptic works, was probably done with a chert graver or perhaps the same kind of drill used to perforate beads. Polishing may also have been done the same way as it was for beads, but for the larger objects it was probably accomplished through rubbing with a fine quartz sand paste applied, perhaps, with a piece of cloth or leather."

The figures mentioned are as follows:

The paper is found here:

(it's free, you can read the whole thing and there are more sources)

ochipi

When handling archaeological human remains gets weird

We’re all professionals, but sometimes you catch yourself realizing how weird things are looking when handling human remains

Trying to shake out clumped together dirt from someone skull

Brushing someone’s teeth with an actual toothbrush, something they have never done in their lives

Comparing someone’s bones to yours

Judging their dental hygiene

When the earworm of the day is Johnny Cash’ s “Ain’t No Grave”.

Scooping someone’s eye sockets clean with a spoon (or just their whole brain)

When some bones are just … off … you judge hard

Talking in your head to them as if they can hear you

archaeo-geek

Yes to all of this.

Also, clearing dirt out of a partial skull cavity with an actual teaspoon felt deeply weird at times, but like, that was the best tool for the job.

thaylepo

Talking to them may start in your head, but if you're alone in that lab you are going to end up talking out loud, apologizing to them as you clean their eye socket, explaining what electronic calipers are as you take measurements, making remarks as you identify certain features like "oh wow you had some pretty good muscle attachments here didn't you, you were a beefy boi huh" or "oh, looks like your lower left bicuspid never fully erupted".

If you don't end up nicknaming them by the end of it it's almost like you're doing it wrong.

ochipi

@thaylepo I once worked on a graveyard that was still active. They gave every skeleton the first name of someone on the graveyard. Turns out one of my colleague’s grandma was buried there and one of the days she wasn’t working there, they chose her name. So yeah that got awkward very quickly

thewanderingarchaeologist

Started singing songs to the younger ones in our depot this year, telling them it'd be alright and that I'd take good care of them...

Also the old lady skeleton we have gets so much respect, her nickname is Lady and we're all in awe of how old she got.

#archaeology

shatar-aethelwynn

"The Daily Lives of Ancient Egyptian Artists" - presentation by Hana Navratilova on Jaroslav Černý and his interest in Deir el-Medina, for Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. The video is just under an hour long.

aurora-alice-deactivated2025112

swings at hornet's nest for fun

archaeoart

The Sphinx and pyramids at Giza, Egypt, circa 1881.

They love being worshipped. 🖤