Reading Hieroglyphics (Was: "Toujours pur" - Black family motto?)

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 113996

Antosha: 

But....

The loss of the ability to read hieroglyphics was most strikingly a result of the burning of 
the Library of Alexandria by early Christians who didn't want.... Well, that's not to the 
point. What I guess I'm trying to say is that it might be possible for texts to have been 
protected within the WW that were snuffed out in the Muggle world. So it wouldn't 
necessarily be the result of better scholarship on the part of wizarding types--just better 
data.

> > Del replies :
<snip>
> [The question that that possible cultural continuity raises for me is 
> more one of, natch, scholarship--how was all of this knowledge 
> preserved, etc.  For short example--I'm always more than a little 
> wary (because of my own hangups, I know) when we get postulated 
> extensive knowledge and traditions of Egyptian magic texts, because 
> no text (in hieroglypics--Coptic is another story) was really 
> readable to a modern reader until Champollion in the early 19th 
> century...unless we want a wizarding philologist, and I don't see 
> it.  Or, to rephrase it, I'm wary of postulating wizards with wildly 
> superior scholarly abilities to those of the poor hard-working 
> Muggles.  Urk.  Let's end this rant now before it goes into 
> completely speculative (ick) territory.]
> 
> -Nora recovers from an operatic double feature