Archaeologists have discovered more than 18,000 pieces of pottery inscribed with details of life in Ancient Egypt. – including pages written as punishment for students who misbehave.
The 2,000-year-old fragments include receipts, school texts, trade information and lists of names, according to researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany who conducted the excavations.
The discoveries were made at the site of Athribis, an ancient settlement about 200 kilometers north of Luxor. Marked with ink using stakes or hollow sticks, the recovered ceramic pieces, known as “ostracas”, are the remains of jars and boats that were used as writing material.
About four-fifths of the fragments were inscribed in Demotic, one of three archaic writings present on the Rosetta Stone. Greek, Arabic and Egyptian hieroglyphics were found among the writings on the ostraca.
Many of the pottery items originated in an ancient school, according to University of Tübingen professor Christian Leitz, who led the excavations along with a team from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. “There are lists of months, numbers, arithmetic problems, grammar exercises and a ‘bird alphabet’ – each letter was assigned a bird, whose name began with the designated letter,” Leitz said in a press release.
Hundreds of ceramic pieces also had a single symbol, repeated on the front and back, which archaeologists believe is evidence that “badly educated students” were forced to write lines and lines, according to the statement.
Other features include a child’s drawing of three human figures, as well as pictorial representations of gods, geometric figures and animals such as scorpions and swallows.
The university said that it is “very rare to find such a large volume” of oysters. A similar amount has only been found once before, near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, the scholars said.
Near the present-day city of Sohag on the west bank of the Nile, the archaeological site of Athribis has been the subject of excavation for over 100 years. However, more intensive research on the 30 hectare area only started in 2003, when the University of Tübingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities started the Athribis Project.
The investigation is centered on a time built by the pharaoh Ptolemy XII and later decorated by successive Roman emperors. Time is open for tours, while most of the archaeological site contains the remains of a necropolis, quarries and a human settlement.
Source: CNN Brasil
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