18,000 ancient "notebooks" have been found in Egypt. What is written there?

From the school curriculum and numerousdocumentary films, we know very well that in the days of ancient Egypt, people wrote on papyri. This is the name of writing paper made from the Cyperus papyrus wetland plant of the same name and used until the end of the ancient world. But few people know that papyrus was an expensive material, and the Egyptians often used papyrus instead. ostraca - fragments of dishes on which you could scratchletters. They were much cheaper than papyrus, so they were used for notes, receipts and as notebooks for schoolchildren. Due to their strength, they have been well preserved to this day, and today scientists find many ostraca from different eras, which can tell a lot of interesting things about life in ancient times. Recently, German scientists discovered the largest archive of ancient Egyptian ostraca since the beginning of the 20th century.

Scientists make another important archaeological discovery

Interesting fact: the science that studies papyri and ostraca is called papyrology. Collecting ostraca refers to ballotics - study of ballot papers or ballot papers. By the way, the collection of stamps, coins, medals and so on also belongs to this area.

Excavations in the Egyptian city of Athribis

According to information from the Tübingen websiteUniversity, the find was made during excavations on the territory of the ancient Egyptian city of Athribis. During the reign of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII, this city was considered the capital of the ancient Egyptian state. Once upon a time, a temple dedicated to the local deity Khentehtai was erected in this place. Also, according to historical documents, in this city there was a temple erected by Pharaoh Amenhotep III - it has not survived to this day. And finally, it is believed that the famous architect Amenhotep was born in this city, who built the temple of Amon-Ra in Luxor, the temple of the goddess Mut in Karnak and many other ancient structures.

Ptolemy XII was the father of Cleopatra

What did the ancient Egyptians write on?

Recently, German scientists discovered in the cityAtribis is a huge archive of written documents. We are not talking about papyri, but more than 18,000 ostraca - parts of broken pottery. Their age is estimated at over 2000 years. Mathematical problems, grammar exercises, images of the sacred animals baboon and ibis, as well as simple children's drawings are scrawled on fragments of dishes. Apparently, the researchers unearthed the archives of the ancient Egyptian school.

The place where the artifacts were found

One of the ancient Egyptian "notes"

Most of the notes are written in demoticfont. It was distributed during the reign of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII, during which the city of Athribis was considered the capital of Ancient Egypt. Archaeologists have also found records made in the hieratic alphabet, also called "bird alphabet". Recordings are made in various languages, including Greek, Arabic and Coptic. This proves that the city of Athribis was very developed and was visited by people from different countries. The schools provided a high level of education. If the children did not study well, they were punished in a way known even today - they were forced to write letters a huge number of times. This, at least, is evidenced by ostraca with many repeating letters.

Children's drawing of the times of ancient Egypt

Bad students were forced to write letters many times

Read also: 5 most unusual and interesting archaeological discoveries of 2021

Other similar discoveries

In addition to school records, archaeologists have foundfinancial receipts. According to open sources, archaeologists made a similar discovery in the early 1900s. Then, on the territory of the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina, scientists also found many ostraca. However, the found written documents, in addition to finances, dealt with the topic of medical practice and medicine in general. The find in the city of Atribis is notable for the fact that most of the notes were made by children. Thanks to this, we now know what problems they solved while studying at school, what they drew out of boredom, and so on. In most cases, knowledge about daily life in ancient Egypt is much more interesting than scientific information.

Ruins of the city of Athribis

If you are interested in the news of science and technology, subscribe to our Telegram channel. There you will find announcements of the latest news from our site!

At the end of the article, let me remind you that supportersconspiracy theories believe that the pyramids of ancient Egypt were not built by humans, but by aliens. At the moment, science knows at least 140 such buildings, most of which were used for the burial of pharaohs. Needless to say, the Egyptians built them with their own hands. I talked about how they managed to erect such huge structures without modern technology in this material.