Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Inaugural Post: The Scarab of Ammit
After the first episode came out, I watched, as is my wont, the New Rockstars' commentary. In this video, I finally got a clear, still look at the "Scarab of Ammit" that is the macguffin of the series. Host Erik Voss (whose commentaries on Marvel and Star Wars I really very much enjoy) attempted to decode the inscription, on the implicit assumption that it was ciphered English. He didn't succeed: to my shock, the inscription was not in fact a cipher, but real, actual Egyptian!
In fact, there is a lot of interesting Egyptian material in Moon Knight, and I really wanted to share my analysis of it in a series of blog posts.
Unfortunately, as already noted, I haven't had a blog to post this stuff at for a long time. So I have started this new blog... please forgive me if the design and formatting sucks, as I am still getting the hang of Blogger. (Frankly, I am rather disappointed at how clunky it is in this day and age. I have gotten spoiled by modern text editors, and will need to brush up on my atrophied html skills.)
Deciphering the Scarab
So, after watching the New Rockstars video, giddy and, perhaps a little tired—and not yet having a blog to post at—I rushed to Twitter to tweet a preliminary translation. But... well, it was not my best work, and I fell for a silly "zebra" by reading 𓆣𓇋𓀯 as ḫpr Ỉ "may Ê come into being" instead of the screamingly obvious Ḫprỉ "Khepri."As hasty and misguided as my initial translation was, it did lead somewhere productive:
- • First, Dr. Dan Potter, Egyptologist and Assistant Curator at National Museums Scotland, improved my reading and did a fuller translatioon (beginning here). He speculated that the name "Amenhotep" (a very common Egyptian name) referred to a previous avatar of Khonshu.
- • Next, Dr. Ken Griffin, Collections Access Manager at The Egypt Centre, improved on Dr. Potter's reading. He recognized the language as a quotation from the Book of the Dead! Namely, a brief passage from Spell 17. While this is fantastic, it does somewhat reduce the chances that the name Amenhotep is in any way significant—it may have been taken from a specific manuscript of the BoD that the production copied for the show (nevertheless, Dr. Potter's suggestion still remains my headcanon).
- • Then, Thomas Greiner, a PhD Candidate in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto, summarized what we had learned so far in a blog post on the first episode—I highly recommend it, if you have any interest in this material (it discusses far more than just the scarab).
- • Then, finally, literally while I was writing this post, to my shock, New Rockstars went and posted a new video summarizing the Twitter conversation! Wow, Voss was listening after all!
What does it say?
Without further ado, here is the text of the Scarab:
Some notes:"O Khepri upon his barque, Ancient One, whose body ⟨is eternal⟩, s[ave] the Osiris-Amenhotep, the Justified."
- Ỉ Ḫprỉ ḥr-ỉb
- wỉɜ=f pɜ-
- -w.ty ḏ.t=f ⟨ḏ.t⟩ n[ḥm]
- =k Wsỉr Ỉmn-Ḥtp mˤɜ-ḫrw
- • There is a wordplay between 𓆓𓏏𓏤 ḏ.t "body" and 𓆓𓏏𓇿 ḏ.t "eternity," but the production staff seem to have left off the latter word. As the words are so similar, this is an understandible mistake, and one could imagine it occurring on a genuine ancient artifiact.
- • In shots where the scarab is sufficiently tilted (both in its initial appearance, and in the closing credits), you can just barely make out something that looks like 𓈟𓅓, the ḥm of nḥm "rescue, save, protect." There may be a further sign below it, but it would be difficult to fit the most obvious determiner, 𓀜, in the tiny remaining space. Perhaps 𓂡?
- • "Osiris," in this context, is a title given the deceased, who has become one with the God of the Dead. Similarly, "justified" is a (hopeful) title indicating that the deceased has passed his judgement at the Scales.
The Rocklove Replica
As it turns out, there is an officially licensed replica of the scarab by Rocklove. Disappointingly, this replica does not contain the same inscription as depicted on the actual series. Instead it is the usual gobbledygook, only loosely and vaguely based on real hieroglyphic Egyptian, typical on items marketed to tourists and enthusiasts. As much of a letdown as this is, after the care apparently taken for the actual prop it's based on, there are some things we can learn from this replica.
If the replica is to be believed, there should be a further inscription on the bottom of the Scarab, which we have yet to see. More interestingly, there is an inscription on the detatchable base that the scarab floats over while it is acting as a compass, and, even on the replica, this inscription appears to be real Egyptian:
Conclusion
If you have made it this far, thank you for going on this journey of discovery with me. I have further posts I want to make about other Egyptian inscriptions from the show, and other details, but they will have to wait for another time.
Until then, 𓇋𓀁𓐩𓏌𓀁𓁷𓏺𓍿𓈖𓏥 ỉ·nḏ ḥr=ṯn!
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I would have loved to write a new blog entry for every episode of Moon Knight , but reality had other ideas in mind. Unfortunately, the last...
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I have been enjoying the latest Marvel/Disney+ series, Moon Knight . Given that the eponymous superhero has an Ancient Egyptian theme—his p... -
I would have loved to write a new blog entry for every episode of Moon Knight , but reality had other ideas in mind. Unfortunately, the last... -
My name is Justin, and I am a Mad Latinist. I haven't had a blog for a while. I used LJ long after it fell out of fashion, but I really...
Nice. I do watch the show and was wondering about the inscription. Glad you found it all out for me.
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