this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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HistoryArtifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551012

Athos77 added the following context when this was posted back on Kbin (RIP)

The inscription reads right to left on all three lines. Starting with the bottom line the hieroglyphs translate as follows:

Duck: biliteral sign sA (“son”)
Red crown of northern/lower Egypt: uniliteral sign n (preposition “of”)
Reed leaf: uniliteral sign i
Senet game board: biliteral sign mn
Water squiggle: uniliteral sign n (phonetic complement, simply reinforces the reading of mn)
Seated man: determinative (word classifier, not read aloud)

Put together, you get his name sA-n-Imn, or Sienamun as the Met calls him. Translated literally, “son of (the god) Amun.”

The first two lines note that Sienamun was not only a priest (Hm-nTr) but also an overseer of horses (imy-r smsmw).

[–] notabot@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago

It sounds like it was almost his ID badge, with his name and position. I wonder what happened if he was elevated to a new position, or worse, removed from being the master of horse?

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Decoding the hieroglyphs from the very beginning must've been a nightmare, wtf

[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They had help from the Rosetta Stone. Otherwise they may never have fully translated it.

[–] teft@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Watch The British Museum’s Curator’s Corner on youtube. They have a bunch of videos with Dr Ilona Regulski. She’s so good at explaining how to read these heiroglyphs and the story of how we decoded them.

Here is one link but she has a bunch more on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klJBwnBHET8

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago
[–] Iamsqueegee@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago

D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E

[–] teft@piefed.social 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

FYI the ring has hieroglyphs, not hieroglyphics, Pug.

Hieroglyphs are the name of the writing. Heiroglyphic is the adjective. So these are hieroglyphs written in hieroglyphic writing.

[–] JamieDub86@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago

The detail is amazing. I'd love to see one made.

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm assuming it was used as a stamp for clay?

anyone knows what it means

[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's in negative relief which would make it a bad stamp for clay or even wax. You generally want positive relief stamps for that to make clear marks and not get anything stuck in the spaces.

thanks, didn't know that

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

Not sure if it's a signet ring or not. There's a translation in a comment below.