Graffiti is an odd two-natured thing, and it fascinates me. When it’s modern, we cry “vandalism!” and punish the perpetrator. When it’s ancient we cover it with perspex and take the tourists to see it.

This is a photo of the latter, of course – graffiti written some 3500 years ago on the walls of an Ancient Egyptian site (the Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara) which dates to the reign of Djoser of the Third Dynasty some 4500 years ago!

It’s written in the hieratic script and I don’t know exactly what it says (I tried to look it up, but failed to find it). However I do know that it’s (roughly speaking) a verbose form of “Name was here!”. It tells you who the person was and that he visited, and when he visited.

I’ve written about the Step Pyramid on the blog before: https://talesfromthetwolands.org/2019/07/01/building-for-eternity/

And I’ve also written about hieratic as part of my article on Egyptian scripts: https://talesfromthetwolands.org/2020/10/01/write-like-an-egyptian/

See this photo on my photo site: https://photos.talesfromthetwolands.org/picture.php?/754/

Jigsaw Puzzles:
easier: https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=2194ec39aea0
harder: https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=2e1e818fef4c