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Searched, but nobody seems to have posted anything about this before now (possibly nobody wants anyone to think they saw the movie?).
This documentary (link to press release from production company) was on the History Channel in the UK last night. Egyptian history usually bores the arse off of me, but this was quite interesting. They made a tolerably fair case for the Scorpion King having "invented" writing, but I could have done without the inscription of the Gebel Tjauti tableau being repeatedly described as "when King Scorpion invented History".
NYT item Found at:
http://www.providencepictures.com/pp/press-scorpion-NYT.html
Link to review of program:
http://www.archaeology.org/0205/reviews/scorpion.html
This documentary (link to press release from production company) was on the History Channel in the UK last night. Egyptian history usually bores the arse off of me, but this was quite interesting. They made a tolerably fair case for the Scorpion King having "invented" writing, but I could have done without the inscription of the Gebel Tjauti tableau being repeatedly described as "when King Scorpion invented History".
New York Times - Science Times
April 16, 2002
Of Early Writing and a King of Legend
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Carved in the limestone of a desert cliff in Egypt is a 5,250-year-old tableau of a victorious ruler, perhaps the so-called King Scorpion - whose exploits, previously the stuff of myth and legend, may have been critical to the founding of Egyptian civilization. The archaeologists who discovered the tableau seven years ago now say it may be the world's earliest historical document.
More than that, they say, the inscribed scenes and symbols bear a strong resemblance to later hieroglyphs. This is a significant addition to a growing body of evidence that the first true writing originated in Egypt - not in ancient Sumer, in what is now Iraq, as scholars of antiquity had believed.
While some aspects of the discovery are controversial - particularly the suggestion that the ruler depicted is King Scorpion - several archaeologists familiar with it agree that this represents an early stage of writing, perhaps earlier than Sumerian writing.
And since the invention of writing is regarded as the great divide between prehistory and history, the discovery may push back the beginning of recorded Egyptian history 100 to 150 years, to about 3250 B.C., well into the obscure period before the land's unification under powerful pharaohs. Until now, the earliest recognized historical document in Egypt was the Narmer Palette, found in the late 19th century in the ruins of ancient Hierakonpolis and dated 3100 B.C.
The tableau, measuring 18 by 20 inches, was discovered in 1995 by Dr. John Coleman Darnell, a Yale Egyptologist, and his wife, Dr. Deborah Darnell, also a specialist in Egyptian archaeology, while they were surveying ancient trade routes in the desert west of the Nile.
The site is Gebel Tjauti, a place where several caravan trails converge about 25 miles northwest of Luxor and about 250 miles south of Cairo. It is close to where in 1999 the Darnells reported finding inscriptions that could be the earliest known examples of alphabetic writing, from about 1800 B.C.
Only now, after years of analysis and further excavations, the Darnells are describing their tableau findings in detail in a book to be published in June by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. They discussed their interpretations of the research in recent interviews. Their work will also be included on a television program, "The Real Scorpion King," to be shown April 23 on the History Channel. (The program is tied to the release of a new movie in Universal Studios' "Mummy" series, "The Scorpion King," starring the professional wrestler the Rock and opening this week. The movie, however, is fiction and bears no relation to the Darnells' research, a Universal spokeswoman said.)
"We do feel that this is the earliest known historical document," John Darnell said in an interview. "It may not be exactly 100 percent writing, only proto-hieroglyphs, but the tableau really is able to impart the who, what, where of an event."
Dr. Renée Friedman, an Egyptologist at the British Museum in London, who has examined the tableau, said, "It is a historical document, there's no question about it."
The case for an earlier origin of writing in Egypt has been gaining adherents since German archaeologists opened a royal tomb at Abydos in the 1990's and found ivory tags inscribed with symbols that appeared to be related to hieroglyphs. The symbols are similar in style to some of those in the tableau or slightly more advanced, scholars say, suggesting that the two finds are contemporary examples of a nascent script.
Even if some archaeologists were reserving judgment on the new discovery, Dr. Rita E. Freed, an Egyptologist at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, said, "Anything about earliest writing is terribly exciting to anybody who deals with early civilization."
On the tableau at Gebel Tjauti, probably incised by flint tools, are figures and symbols that appear to depict the procession of a ruler returning to the city of Abydos after vanquishing the rival leader of Naqada. A falcon is drawn above a scorpion. The falcon is a standard symbol for the god Horus, and the name Horus is another word for king in Egyptian history. So the subject of the tableau is thought to be one King Scorpion, once assumed to be a mythic ruler.
The Darnells contend that this could be the same king who had occupied the U-j tomb that German archaeologists, led by Dr. Günter Dreyer, explored at Abydos. The stylistic correspondences with the tomb were critical to dating the tableau.
In their book, the Darnells said striking parallels in iconography "leave little doubt that the Gebel Tjauti tableau is contemporary, or nearly so, with that tomb and that it may even belong to the owner of that tomb."
Whether the discoveries really show King Scorpion is much less clear. Dr. Friedman and others questioned whether the rulers depicted at Abydos and Gebel Tjauti were one and the same. She noted that the falcon-scorpion symbols occupied a lower corner of the tableau, not a very prominent place for a king. But the Darnells defended their interpretation in the context of what apparently is the tableau's narrative.
"This is one of the first, if not the first use of the horus title and at the heart of the concept of the Egyptian king," Deborah Darnell said in a telephone interview from Egypt. In any event, the Darnells are calling this the Scorpion Tableau.
The falcon-scorpion symbols are followed by a figure carrying a staff. Next is a long-necked bird with a serpent in its beak, probably a symbol of the victory of order over chaos. Then comes a bound captive with long hair, held by a rope connected to a bearded man with close-cropped hair, who is holding a mace. This is thought to be the vanquished ruler being led to public execution. A bull's head on a staff behind the prisoner, also seen on pots at Abydos, could represent the prisoner's name.
Other elements include more storks and a falcon followed by another man holding a staff. The upper level also shows what appears to be a sedan chair with an arched canopy, which the Darnells say is probably "the earliest datable depiction of this ancient and much-discussed object."
Although the occupant is not visible, the Darnells said, such objects were usually associated with "the female power behind the throne - be it that of a queen, princess or goddess." They proposed that the sedan chair represented a goddess who "follows in procession to a shrine, perhaps in order to view or participate in the presentation of a captive, as depicted in the lower register of the tableau."
In arguing that this is an "annotated historical document," the Darnells cited its use of signs not as mere pictographs but in a hieroglyphic fashion. They may not be arranged as grammatical phrases and sentences, as in developed writing, but the signs are grouped in a way to convey symbolic meaning. As they read the narrative, the Darnells concluded, this is a record of a military operation to establish control over a region of conflicting small kingdoms. It is also the proclamation of "the triumph of order over chaos or - more simply and less allegorically stated - victory."
From their knowledge of subsequent events, John Darnell speculated that this victory by King Scorpion, or whoever he was, could have been decisive in unifying southern Egypt and bringing about the entire country's unification. That is supposed to have happened around 3100 B.C. An early monarch named Narmer is usually credited with the unifying triumph of the south over the north, as commemorated on the large slate palette from Hierakonpolis that had been considered the earliest written document in Egypt.
But many scholars think the transition to a unified monarchy, the prelude to Egypt's ancient glory, occurred not in a single victory but over an extended period. The Scorpion Tableau, John Darnell said, would seem to favor such a view, since the victory it celebrates may have been one of many events leading in steps to unification.
Agreeing that the tableau is indeed an early form of writing, Dr. Mohammed el-Bialy, general director of antiquities for the west bank of Luxor, said it was "at least as informative as the Narmer Palette."
The Darnells's research is being conducted under the auspices of the Egyptian government's Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass.
Not all Egyptologists agree on the significance of the Scorpion Tableau. Several said they were just now learning of the discovery and so had not formed an opinion.
A few experts expressed initial skepticism. "Sometimes a falcon and a scorpion are just the image of a falcon and a scorpion," said one Egyptologist, Dr. James P. Allen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
But Dr. David P. Silverman, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in language studies, said he saw no reason to doubt the Darnells' interpretation. "These are signs that certainly are related to what we know as hieroglyphic writing," he said.
The tableau, moreover, has revived interest in the early writing samples that Dr. Dreyer, director of the German Archaeological Institute in Egypt, found in the Abydos tomb. The inscriptions on pots, bone and ivory, he said, were in the hieroglyphic style, but were dated earlier than 3200 B.C., at least a century before what was thought to be the first Egyptian writing.
Dr. Dreyer's assessment that this represented early writing, which first met with skepticism, is now widely supported, said W. Vivian Davies, keeper of the department of ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum.
"There's no question there are phonetic elements in the inscriptions," he said. "This precedes writing in Mesopotamia, which started early as an accounting system but took time to move from simple pictures to signs that represent sounds of speech."
He said that "even my colleagues who work on Sumerians" were beginning to accept the primacy of the Egyptian script as true writing.
By comparing the symbols on the tableau with the more developed ones in the Abydos tomb, John Darnell said in an interview last week, "We may be seeing evidence of a rapid development from proto- to true writing occurring, perhaps in the lifetime of King Scorpion."
NYT item Found at:
http://www.providencepictures.com/pp/press-scorpion-NYT.html
Link to review of program:
http://www.archaeology.org/0205/reviews/scorpion.html
