I Don't Know About That - Ancient Egypt

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

In this episode, the team discusses Ancient Egypt with Egyptologist and museum educator, Jen Thum. Follow Jen on Instagram @egyptolojen ! Go to harvardartmuseums.org to check out her kid's activity book "Coloring Ancient Egypt" ! Our merch store is now live! Go to idontknowaboutthat.com for shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and I don't know about that with Jim Jefferies that one was for Kelly I was not expecting that I'm so glad I was not expecting that. I'm so glad I was not drinking. I can't look him in the eye. I wasn't listening.

He just started counting off the Amazon truck. Oh, the Amazon truck. Do you have the spreadsheet on your computer? No, I don't have it. I gave it to the villager. It's an in-joke that Forrest parks his car. That's not an in. If you listen to the Patreon. If you listen to theoke that Forrest parks his car. That's not an end if you listen to the Patreon. If you listen to the Patreon.

Forrest parks his car and he counts Amazon trucks to complain. Not anymore. They're going down residential streets. Not anymore. That's a big one. I'm putting that down as two. That was good. thank you for that did you did you ever inflate the numbers ever so slightly to get your point across no no i was a scientist i don't i don't how many how many do you think it

was in a certain time period well you guys were talking over me when i was explaining it but sure the way that you do it is you you do total number of vehicles in total right then you look at total number of commercial vehicles then you take the total number of vehicles in total. Right. Then you look at total number of commercial vehicles. Then you take the total number of Amazon vehicles divided by the commercial vehicles. And all the commercial vehicles, 65% of the vehicles were Amazon vehicles. Oh, wow. Yeah. You didn't get in the microphone good enough.

Yeah. That's a voice note from Jim yesterday. That's a lot of vehicles going through that. We were teasing Forrest on group text, which, by the way, group text, That's a voice note from Jim yesterday. That's a lot of vehicles going through there. We were teasing Forrest on group text, which, by the way, group text, that's what it's useful for. Yeah, roasting. Yeah, ganging up on one friend in a group of friends.

Nothing does it better than group text. Even if you do it in a room, it's not good because in a room, you can see the pain in their eyes and you might stop. But not on group text. You keep going. We have a friend, Jason John White, and he's wonderful to roast on group text. I know, but he gets up. I think I read that text one time. Come on, guys.

I think I read that text one time. It was me, Jason, Brian Olson, and Matt Kirshen. Yeah, yeah. And he just asked a simple question about when does the party start? It was that it was at Scott's house. I remember that. And it was when the party started and we didn't give him a straight answer. I have it saved somewhere.

It's one of my favorite bits of group text ever. I can search for it. It's like we've been here for an hour. I read this. No, I don't know this. Have I never read this? I don't know if I still have it. I have to see if I have it saved. Let me search for it. We've been here for an hour. Have I read this ever? We're in suits. No, I don't know this. Have I never read this? I don't know if I still have it. I'll have to see if I have it saved.

Let me search for it. Well, you can put a time cut here where you look for it. Yeah. Or while we're waiting, our friend of the podcast, Nick Vial, our bachelor expert, his book came out October 4th, Don't Text Your Ex Happy Birthday. So it's like dating love advice. Oh, that's it. There's never been a truer sentence than that one.

Yeah. That's the sneaky text that you get from the ex, where it's just like, happy birthday. And you're just like, why did you do that? Yeah. And they're like, what? I'm just trying to be nice. All I did was wish you a happy birthday,

and I remembered it. I'm just, you know. Last year, my ex texted me the night before my birthday. I was like, you just ruined my whole fucking birthday. Um, but this isn't just necessarily for dating. If you're a human dealing with other humans in this world,

there's a lot of good shit in here. It's very well written. It's good about setting boundaries, doing all that stuff. Talks about fuck boys, fuck girls, all that good stuff. So you can go get that now.

It's a bestseller already. Oh, you find it first. Oh yeah. Keep, keep talking. I know I have that now. It's a bestseller already. Did you find it first? Yeah, keep talking. I know I have it somewhere. I wouldn't have gotten rid of this thing. It's gold. Maybe I did. It's kind of a long one. Maybe we should read it on Patreon.

It'll be a Patreon exclusive. I'll do it on Patreon. Go pay to see it. It's worth the money. Honestly, it's very funny. I forgot we were on the page. It's's very funny we can all pick roles that will be we'll do a live reading you can play you

you can't do an impersonation of you very good I'll do you I'm not good at my own self you can do Whitehead he's a fun impersonation to do you can always tell when his feelings are hurt, though. Oh, gosh.

I got to find it. I might not have it on here. When you play poker with him, he's fantastic. He's got a big tell. He just tells you when he's upset with the bet. Why did you bet so high? Yeah, he tells you he's upset. I don't have it oh man my cards are good but they're not that good you must have something really good

i guess i'll raise how uh how are you how was the show in Nashville? It was good. The doohickeys lit up the place. It was hard to go after them. There was a lot of anger in the room. And you sold like thousands of dollars worth of merch, huh? That's right.

Nice. Congrats. Thank you. You got some shows coming up in Canada here. October 20th, Kelowna, Canada. Prosper. Kelowna, Canada. Prosper. Kelowna, that's going to sell out, that one. It's going to sell out, that one.

October 21st and 22nd, Vancouver. Vancouver, that'll sell out as well. There's one show sold out and the other show is on its way. So there's two shows in Vancouver. What about October 27th in Columbus, Ohio? Columbus, plenty of tickets. Plenty of tickets. Bring your friends.

High ticket alert. Yeah. High ticket alert. Yeah. High ticket alert. Get these tickets at your own leisure. Come on, Columbus. Yeah, you were able to get tickets the day after the gig. I'll still be there. And then October 28th, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh, we added a show. Oh, I see that on there. It's another show now. Yeah, we added a show. And these were delayed shows because of COVID. I mean, yeah. Pittsburgh, we added a show. Oh, I see that on there. It's another show now. Yeah, we added a show. Okay. And these were delayed shows because of COVID. So a lot of people after because they couldn't come to the show or whatever, we had to delay the shows and reschedule, you know, 10 months later or what have you.

And a lot of people got refunds and stuff like that, mostly in the Columbus area from the side. If you come to the show in Columbus, hey, this is the good news. If you'll get to spread out, oh, yeah, you'll have a seat next to you. You'll have a seat next to you for your popcorn. I don't know what I did wrong last time in Columbus, but it's murder, the ticket sales in Columbus. But Pittsburgh, we've added another show.

So the people of Pittsburgh, I must be doing all right by you. Go Steelers. Pittsburgh's a fun town. Yeah, it is a fun town, yeah. All right, cool. Well, those are your upcoming shows. And then, as we just mentioned, we just did a Patreon teaser. So if you want to hear the texts and hear about me counting Amazon cars.

All these fun stories. Yeah, patreon.com slash idcat. And then follow us on Instagram at idcatpodcast. I wanted to get to the stage that when people go to Forrest's gigs, their heckle is one. Please, come out and heckle me. My full time.

It's a good heckle because each time you try to have a comeback, two. Don't do that. Well, it's out there now. I've stopped them now. Hey, don't. you just made sure of it I'll be very disappointed in you if you do that

make sure you record it so I can really tell you off and give me your Venmo I'll send you some stuff aren't eating roaches again get over here stop eating roaches come on chill dog thanks for finding them Arnie none the day though cute dog four roaches come on chill dog thanks for finding him Marty yeah none the day that's face oh yeah

cute dog four roaches um yeah I think that's it for now oh I have a podcast the Merman podcast

oh hey with Dave Williamson if you want to you don't have to Jack and I have a podcast called the unsolicited podcast have we ever plugged it on here I don't think so

wow yeah we do that and Jim's been on it hey Forrest how many episodes have you recorded? One. Two. Seven. Seven. Six.

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How are you? Hi. I'm well. How are you? I'm very good, thank you. But now it's time to play. Yes, though. Yes, though. Yes, though. Yes, though. Yes, though.

Yes, though. Oh, yeah, book by its cover. All right. Jen, I have to guess what Jen's doing. She seems like the top story of her house. I can tell by the beams. There's a bed there. There's not very under script.

Okay, Jen, do you work in the education department? This is very close, actually. You're an educator. Do you work with

small children? Very occasionally. What about large children? Very occasionally. What about large children? No, but I mean like primary school kids versus college kids. Sometimes. Sometimes. It's a part of my job is to work as an educator. Can you get a degree in the subject we're about to talk about?

Yes, you can. All right. So is it philosophy? No. Okay, because I've never understood that degree. If it's not written on the paper, does it even exist? I'm assuming you have a degree in this subject, right? I do. Yeah. Yeah. Does it involve the human body? Sometimes it does, yeah.

Okay. But only sometimes. It feels like it's very broad. That'll throw you off. It's specific. It's broad within the specificity. Does that help you? I didn't know what an idiom was.

Idiom? Idiom was. I was on the Wheel of Fortune. I just guessed. Crikey? Old. Think old. Oh.

Do you specialize in elders care? No. History. History. Is it history? That's getting closer, getting closer. Yeah. It's a subject that everybody learns at some point in elementary school. It's usually like

third grade. It's one of my favorite topics. People are interested in it. Is it the California Gold Rush? No, we should do an episode on that. Yeah, but Kelly's always talking about it. The Gold Rush? It can't shut me up. So much of a gold.

Is it the Constitution? We were talking about last night Halloween Horror Nights we're not doing Halloween it's not Halloween Horror Nights but within Halloween Horror Nights it's something we always do there there's a ride that we always go on oh

we roller coasters that would be really cool she's a roller coaster We roller coasters. What do you mean? That would be really cool. She's a roller coaster educator. She's a Jurassic world. Is it the Jurassic Park? Is it the mummy? There you go. Is it the Transformers ride?

The mummy was getting closer. The mummy was the approved hit. So it's the Simpsons. Mummy, mummy. The mummy ride. Ancient Egypt. That's what we're talking about. People like mummy. The mummy, right. Ancient Egypt. That's what we're talking about. Okay, the mummy.

People like the mummies, do they? Ancient Egypt is what we're talking about. I know a little bit about this. I've watched Ancient Aliens several episodes as I've passed asleep and been high, so I've got all the facts. Okay. Fantastic. Dr. Jen Thumb is an Egyptologist.

Yep, yep. And a museum educator. She works at the Harvard Art Museums, where she teaches with objects across the collection. She is one of the curators of an exhibition on view right now about funerary portraits from Roman Egypt and the science behind how they were made. working on an exhibition called Seeing in Art and Medicine, and also working on a kid-friendly translation of an ancient Egyptian story about why being a scribe was better than any other job in ancient Egypt. You can check out the activity book she wrote for kids called Coloring Ancient Egypt and the Harvard Art Museums at the website harvardartmuseums.org. Thanks for being here, Jen. Do you want to tell us just a little

bit about how you got to be an Egyptologist? Oh, sure. And I should say that the Seeing Art in Medicine exhibition is different from the kid-friendly translation of the Egyptian story. Good note, good note. That would be interesting, though. Yeah, how did I become an Egyptologist? I was interested in archaeology, and then when I applied to grad school, I got funding for an Egyptology degree, so I became an Egyptologist. Have you met anyone who's even close to Indiana Jones? Has there been a guy that you've been on an archaeology thing and you've gone, that's the fella?

I have to say there's always someone on a dig who is wearing like a leather fedora. Yeah. This is the thing about fedoras. That's as close as you get. If you see a man in the Indiana Jones outfit, he is the biggest nerd in the world. If you're at the airport, there's a guy with a leather jacket and a fedora,

you're like, nerd, right? Except Harrison Ford, who looks money in that outfit. That's the most handsome man in the world in that outfit. Everyone else, nerd. Not everyone can pull it off. It's very hard to pull off that outfit. Something else worth noting, I found Jen on that Skype a Scientist website.

So we've talked about it a lot, but Skypeascientist.com, you guys can schedule talks with people who are experts in a bunch of different fields. Or they just listen to this and get a few bits of facts all right i'm gonna ask jim some questions about ancient egypt and uh at the end of these his answers you're gonna grade him on his accuracy uh gen 0 through 10 10 being the best guy's gonna grade my confidence i'm gonna grade him on etc. I'm going to grade him on et cetera. We'll add those all together. 21 through 30, Brendan Fraser, Jim. Yeah, he's back, man. Playing a fat guy in a movie.

11 through 20. He got screwed over in the Me Too movement, man. He was Me Too. No one listened to him. I feel sorry for Brendan Fraser. And then he had to pay too much. He had to pay too much. He had a female executive who really screwed him.

Then he had to pay too much child support. And he went completely broke. And now he's playing like a fat guy in a film. It's good to have Brendan back is what I'm saying. So try and do well and then you'll be Brendan Fraser. Yeah, from Encino Man. That's your reference you're making, right? Yes, definitely. Or the mummy. Encino Man.

Okay. 11 through 20, you're Fraser Crane. That's not bad either. That's pretty good. But not for Ancient Egypt. It's not good. Zero through 10, just crane the bird. Oh, yeah, you don't want that one. Although that might be closer to Egypt than Frasier crane. Yeah.

Anyways. All right. What was the ancient Egyptian name for Egypt? The ancient Egyptian name for Egypt. Correct. Well, they just called it Egypt. They didn't call it ancient Egypt. Because back in the day, they were just like fucking Egypt. They just called it current Egypt. Correct. Well, they just called it Egypt. They didn't call it ancient Egypt because back in the day,

they were just like fucking Egypt. They just called it current Egypt. Current new Egypt. Yeah, it would have been, you would have had the Sphinx and you had the pyramids and all that type of stuff. And then there was fucking Moses and all that shit. I didn't ask about that. No, I'm just trying to get the name.

I'm trying to think about what happened back then. Would it have had something to do with cats? I would call it Catland. Catland, yeah. Catland do? No, that's another different place. Okay. That's next door.

Just Catland. Okay. How many pyramids are there in Egypt? Oh, there's loads of pyramids, but the Great Pyramids? No, just total. How many pyramids? Oh, fuck me. There's some outside of Egypt, you know.

So the little tiny ones. I didn't know this. I thought there was just like four, like the ones you see all the time. Yeah, yeah, three or four. How many are there in total in Egypt? 40. 40, okay. What does the word pharaoh mean?

Pharaoh? Pharaoh, yeah. That would mean king. Okay. How many pharaohs were there? Well, several because, you know, there was King Tut. He was just a king, though. They didn't call him Pharaoh Tut.

Mia. Who? Mia. Yeah, Mia. Mia Pharaoh, yeah. Mia Pharaoh. Ronan. Hurricane Ian. Pharaoh. Pharaoh. Yeah. a pharaoh uh uh roman hurricane aiden pharaoh pharaoh yeah i'm gonna say there was fucking

27 pharaohs okay um how old was king tut when he became pharaoh well he was one of them wasn't he uh king tut i think he was in his early 20s. Let's say 22. Okay. Around 1200 BC, there was a plot to assassinate the pharaoh Ramses III. Which family member plotted to kill him? Ramses II. I don't know. That would have been the pharaoh before. I'm going to say Ramses V.

Ramses V. He was in line, you see. The month of August is the eighth month of the year due to which pharaoh? Octavia. Okay. The Egyptians believed that when you died, you had to pass a sort of test to get into the afterlife. They weighed one of your body parts on a scale to determine if you'd get in. Which body part was it?

Your skull. Okay. If you didn't get into the afterlife, a monster that was part hippo, part lion, and part crocodile would do what to you? Rape you, probably. I'm trying to think of what's the worst type of thing. You're not going to murder you or something.

So what's the next crime down? I'm not saying that to be gratuitous, but he'll violate you in a terrible way. Make small talk for eternity. Nice weather out today, right? Yeah, maybe. Locust? Yeah, nice weather.

Maybe he just sits off to the side and plays Barry Manilow songs all day. Okay. What are the two most common food items Egyptians hope to have in the afterlife? The two most common? That they hope to have when they're in the afterlife. Yeah. In the fair. I'll say sugar.

Mm-hmm. And bread. Yeah. In the fair. I'll say sugar. Mm-hmm. And bread. Yeah. We just did an episode on that, remember? He was talking about the Egyptian bread. All right. Ancient Egyptians had cures for ailments. For a head wound, what would they put on the patient's skull?

What? Into the wound? Yeah. Like, what would they put on him? Like, for the wound. Yeah, to help cure. on them, like for the wound, you know, to help cure it. Well, you've got to think, okay, so what was, so the mummification and all that type of stuff, they used to put ointments and stuff like that, so they had different ointments.

So you've got to think, okay, so the Aboriginals used papaya, pawpaw on things, so you've got to think what's the local fruit or something that you could rub the skin of or whatever. I don't know what grows in Egypt, so this would be a complete pigskin. Okay. Ancient Egyptians are sometimes shown with beards. Straight beards and curved beards mean two different things. If you have a curved beard, it means that you are blank.

Woo-woo. You'd be like this. You know him. I can curve beard that one. Okay. Him and be like, you know him. Fucking curved beard, that one. Okay. Him and his curly beard friends. They're always going out looking for women. They never seem to find any.

All right. Mew is the ancient Egyptian word for what? Meow. Okay. Yeah, because they love cats, man. All right. I'll say the average cat then. All right.

Cat. I think you got that cat then. Cat. I think you got that one right. Yeah. Finally. Where does the word mummy come from? Posh British kids calling their parents. Mummy.

Mummy. That's how my wife sounds. My daughter. That's how my wife sounds. She says mummy. And is that your only answer? Yeah, I think from public private schools in britain no okay so mummy okay it can't be from mummies and mummification so i'll say it's from the mummification but i'll say it's from a medical term it's it's how to preserve a body is where we get the term mummy from okay and what is quote

mummy brown? Tarantino film, right? Mummy brown. Oh, that's the color you turn after you die. It's like the hue of the skin. All right. In addition to the deceased loved ones, what else did Egyptians mummify? Cats, pets. So I'll say mostly cats they used to mummify okay and then they sometimes would take i believe i can't remember if i'm correctly

right they would take uh servants into the afterlife with them so if i was to die um if i was the pharaoh i'd go and when i my last wish would be like, make sure you kill Jack. I'm going to need him in the afterlife. Got a lot of appointments in the afterlife. I don't know what my diary looks like. On which parts of their bodies did some ancient Egyptian women have tattoos? On which parts? Yeah. Oh, a tramp stamp.

Right about the thing. Oh, God. And that's always a picture of the Sphinx. Every time. You know she's up for it. You see And that's always a picture of the Sphinx. Every time. You know she's up for it. You can see where she's got the picture of the Sphinx. And then they would have that symbol that's like the hoop that goes over like that, the stick through it, which you sometimes still see on people's arms.

It's like a cane with like a stick through it. And then it would be because I always like the Egyptian. It was never a good language, let's be honest. Whatever they were writing, it wasn't top notch. Like whoever gets a sentence out of pointy guy, pointy guy, pyramid, pyramid, period, bird, bird, bird, bird, cat, bird, bird, bird, cat. Early day emojis. Pyramid.

Yeah, but it's hard to read that. I can't read emoji sentences. What does the word hieroglyphs mean? Hiero, hydro, hydra. Hiero. No, no, I'm working back through the words from the Latin high. Glyphic from the word graphic. Yep.

So the high graphics of greetings, messages of hello. Which way do you read hieroglyphs? Left to right or right to left? Backwards, the other way. Right to left? Right to left. Okay. Do you know how they work?

Very hard. They built the pyramids. Okay. We have some to show, Jim, right? Yeah, Jack, you have that? Oh, yeah. We're going to show you you some hieroglyphs see if you know what they mean yeah sure yeah i think you'll get them all here we go uh and we also have some objects to show right yep okay we're doing objects first because those were i think those are all. I think whatever order it comes out in. Yeah, yeah.

We can start there. This is an object. It's a... Are you guys listening? It's a sculpture. I don't know. It's like a sculpture with a guy on it. It's like the Rosetta Stone.

Yeah. Do you know what this is for? It's green. Greenish, jade-ish color. Greenish, jade-ish color. This is, I would say, a... what is it for um a tombstone it's used for a tombstone yeah okay next one jack there that's an ancient what is this used for a cocktail shaker yeah it's like a jar kind of thing yeah and then one more here what does this do this is like a kind of a mummy sort of.

No, that's just something nice to put on your fireplace. It's good for the husband, but the wife could use it back in the day for other reasons. Okay. And here's the. Fun for the whole family. That's what that's for. Here's the hieroglyph.

Jack, I sent you an email of the outline with the hieroglyphs. Okay. Yeah. There we go. There we go at the bottom. Okay. Okay. So the first one is

TV. It's like a rectangle, but with the center bottom piece missing out of the rectangle. Yeah, that'd be a building. Okay, and the next one looks sort of like a bed. It's a bench. Next one is kind of like

a trapezoid. It's like an exerciseid. Dome. It's like exercise ball. Exercise ball. Next one is like an upside down rocket. That's a womb. Womb. Yeah. Okay, number five.

I don't know. There's like a cross on top of a. Cross with a circle below it. That means top of a hill. Okay. And then number six. Duck. Duck. I was going to say a bunny. Duck. Duck. And then number six. Duck. Duck?

I was going to say a bunny. Duck. Duck. Okay. Number seven. Duck or duck? Duck. D-U-C-K. D-U-C-K. Number seven. What? There's like a little box. It's like a Swiss Army knife. Yeah, it is a Swiss Army knife. No, but it would be one of the more generic ones. They call them Leatherman.

The Leatherman? Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. I think you got all the hieroglyphs. Perfect. I can't read English, man. Jen, how did Jim do on his knowledge of ancient Egypt? Zero through 10. 10's the best.

I think he was really good on a lot of questions. I'll give him like a solid seven. All right. Which questions was he good at? Well, he had like a lot of general knowledge where if it was a guess for a number, he knew it was like a big number. And so like I can't fault him for not getting the number right. And he got a couple of questions exactly right. And there was a lot of good deductible.

I know you work with a lot of small children, so you can't hurt their feelings normally, but sometimes our guests don't provide us the answers. I have them, but you did, and I was reading the answers, and I think you were very generous with that, but that's okay. Okay, so we can have like a parent-teacher conference. Yeah, yeah. If you want to change the grade. Catland, first answer. That was the first answer.

Okay. It's not bad, though. They love cats. Yeah, i like the answers they were fun the seven yeah i know actually i loved that answer to the first question well i liked that they didn't call it ancient they just called it egypt because that's kind of true actually yeah yeah it's like they didn't call world war one world war one they call it the great war because they thought nothing's going to beat this one.

And then the second one came along and they went, oh, the sequel's so much better. How do you deal with confidence, Kelly? I actually think he was very confident. I'm going to give him 7.5 on confidence. Yeah, he was very confident. 14.5. I'm just going to give you 10.

You're a Frasier cream. I mean, Brendan Frasier, sorry. I like Brendan Fr fraser sorry all right yeah i know you like them so i wanted to make sure you were brendan fraser he's likable i like him too blast from the past love that movie they're trapped in the uh what have you bomb shelter with christopher walken yeah all right let's get this is silverstone my word yeah okay so jen and uh it is Dr. Jen Thumb, but she has everyone. She said we can call her Jen, just so everybody out there knows. What was an ancient Egyptian name for Egypt? Was it Catland? It was not Catland.

Okay. It was Kemet. Not far. You know what that sounds? That's what I was like, you know what? And the meaning of that has land in it. It's not far. You know what that sounds? That's what I was like, you know what? And the meaning of that has land in it. It's black land. Yes.

So it's the black land. And that's like a reference to the fertile silt in the Nile Valley where things can grow. So it's a very dark kind of sediment. So it's the black land. And the areas around it, like on either side that are sort of like a desert are Deshret, the red land. And it sounds like the word desert, which would be really nice and really convenient, but it's probably not actually related to the word for desert. Okay. And then how many pyramids are there in Egypt? Jim said 40. Yeah. So I actually didn't know the answer to this question. I had to look it up

myself, but it's a lot. And someone counted 118. and jim you're totally right when you said there are other permits outside of egypt too there are a bunch in sudan if there's like 80 in sudan so there's loads there's loads in like mexico from the mayans and stuff like that yeah i've seen those yeah but those aren't nearly as big right in egypt it doesn't have to all be big yeah i got one in my backyard it's like saying there's monster trucks other other cars don't exist. You still got a hatchback here and there. I didn't. I guess I've never been to that region in the world, but, I mean, I only ever see the pictures of the Great Pyramids, I guess,

and there's like four or five of those. How do you believe the Great Pyramids were made? Because, you know, all the aliens talk and all that sort of stuff. I reckon it just took a bit of time. A bit of time and a bit of manpower. I'm totally with you on that i think when people think they're doing something for their king who's also like a god they're very motivated yeah yeah oh that's what you're talking about ancient aliens that you watch that's that

they say aliens did it there's aliens okay so the pyramids correct me if i'm wrong so this is the one thing that really does make me go oh the great The Great Pyramids at the exact point of the longest point of latitude and longitude on the planet. And so in measurements, they're at the exact point. How did they make them at that point? Luck. Aliens. Okay.

Is it? I don't know that that's true. I don't think that's true. I don't think it's true either. That's the only argument. But someone said it. That's the only thing that spins me out is the longitude latitude thing. Oh, okay.

I know there's a golf course next to it, and I don't think that's a spiritual place. True. It can be for some. What I never get is, so there's like rooms in there. I always thought it was just like solid, and then now there's like just there's hallways and rooms, and how do they build that? An architect? hallways and rooms and how do they build that an architect what do you mean how do they build a collapse inside i don't

know i'm gonna have like have you been to the luxor i have with you yeah we saw the blue man group there same thing the exact same thing you know one of the biggest pyramids in the world is memphis tennessee i've seen that one yeah the best pro shops what does the word pharaoh mean what did i say you said he said king yeah so um you're technically right this is why i was like okay okay but literally it doesn't mean king it means means great house. So originally it meant like just the household of the king, but over time it came to refer to the king himself. It's kind of like if we say that something

is done by the Vatican or the White House, but we actually are talking about like a person in charge. Or the house of Gucci. Or the house of Gucci. Yeah. Well, it depends if you're talking about like Gucci the brand or if you're talking about like Gucci, the brand, or if you're talking about the, I'm talking about the house,

the HBO show, the, the, you know, the dance troupe. House of Gucci. What's that? What's that show called?

I can't remember, but it's a good show. You told me to watch it. It was good. It was like the drag. And go Jean, that guy, Deshaun Wesley.

Yeah. It's a good show. I don't remember the name of it. How many Pharaohs were there? Jim said several. He said, Deshaun Wesley. Yeah, it's a good show. I don't remember the name of it. How many pharaohs were there? Jim said several. He said King Tut, Mia Pharaoh, and they said 27. You're right that there's more

than one, right? So there's several. Quit being nice to them, Jen. Quit being nice. Okay, so there's about 170. Egypt has like a super long history. So yeah's about 170. About 170. Egypt has like a super long history. So, yeah, about 170. And we think that the first person who would have been considered

like a pharaoh, a king of Egypt, is a guy named Narmer. Were they all families or were they voted in? Was it like the House of Windsor or was it like presidents? Yeah, it's such a good question. So usually it's families and that's what makes like a dynasty. So it's family. And then if something happens where there's like a change in rule, it's usually a different family.

So there could be coups. There could be coups that overthrow the family and stuff like that. Or is it just like, well, there was no elections. I assume. No elections. There could just like, well, there was no elections, I assume. No elections. There could be like lots of reasons for like change, either like the government falls apart and there's like multiple people trying to rule at one time and then it gets consolidated again

under another family. Or there's a couple of periods where like people who are not from Egypt come in and rule. There could be campaigns where my name's Jim, I want to be Pharaoh, vote for me, but you should know that my competitor, he doesn't even like cats. That would definitely not be like a great thing. He's a fucking cat hater.

You'd hold up a tablet that was carved and just him being a cat and you're like, it's not even me. Roof to roof. Jim Jeffries for Pharaoh, I like cats. and just him beating a cat and they're like, that doesn't, it's not even, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, Jim Jeffries for Pharaoh, I like cats.

This campaign paid for by the Jeffries. Yeah. Cat positive. Yeah. You said the first Pharaoh's name was Narmer? Yeah. Terrible name. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember that guy. Jeffrey, Jeffrey Narmer. Pharaoh Narmer. Yeah, Jeffrey Narmer. He's fucking pyramid stank.

And then the last pharaoh was who was it oh was technically cleopatra the you know everybody just says cleopatra she's cleopatra the seven oh so it wasn't all men i thought cleopatra was a different thing so it was it went like the royal family so you had females and males and oh yeah cleopatra i i've seen the el seen the Elizabeth Taylor movie back in the day, but I can't remember. Was she meant to be stunning? That was the thing, that she was a good sort? Yeah, apparently people really liked her for one reason or another. Maybe she was beautiful.

Maybe she was witty. Could have been a combination. And was there any handsome pharaohs? Because they always carved the faces. You'd get to see all the statue. In all your expeditions, have you ever gone, Zayum! That's the thing about, when we talk about hieroglyphs,

we can talk more about this, but when they show a person, they're not really showing what the person really looks like in Egyptian art, so it would be hard to tell, I think think I was just in Harrods uh shopping center the most beautiful shopping center in the world shopping center in the world and that all their uh escalators are all Egyptian themed and they have like pharaoh heads going down it's all very ornate marble and stuff like that and uh and I remember thinking oh that that bloody that Pharaoh, he's got quite a striking sort of look. And it's because, what's his name, Muhammad Al-Fayed, whose father was Dodi Al-Fayed, whose son was Dodi Al-Fayed,

who died in the car crash with Diana, who owned Harrods. He's an Egyptian fella and he decided to have all of his faces on all the Pharaohs that are in the Egyptian centre and the thing. So here's a little tidbit for you. That's cool. We all learned nothing. I like her. I never realized that there were so many Cleopatras. There are?

Yeah, there's seven. Yeah, seven. She just said the last pharaoh was Cleopatra VII. So every time we reference Cleopatra. Also, I think I've been to about three strip clubs in my life that's called Cleopatra's. That's like a popular name. Yeah, so they can have a bit of an Egyptian motif in there

or whatever they call it. You've been to Cleopatra's, right? Yeah, you go to Queen Elizabeth's strip club. Yeah, in 50 years we're going Lizzie the second strip club. That was always the question. They always used to say that when somebody asked once, and a lot of comedians have done jokes about this, that they go, William and Harry, have they ever been to strip clubs?

And one of the Royal Watchers went, well, they are young men, you know, da-da-da-da-da. I have no problem with them going to strip clubs, but a lot of people have made this joke. But it's like the reality is they would have been putting money into G-strings with pictures of their grandmother on it. Oh, yeah. Never thought about that.

That makes it a bit, you know. It's like if William O'Hare ever got a hooker and they're just like, there's a thousand grands. How old was King Tut when he became pharaoh? Jim said early 20s. Early 20s. So he was young. Apparently he was nine, maybe 10.

So he was like a little boy. Yeah, in those days he would look 22 with all the heat and the sand yeah i gotta say back then none of their skin was like fucking perfect yeah no sunscreen here for sure yeah um and all right king tut and it's i have a note here he's only famous king tut because his tomb was intact that's yeah i that's like the most the the reason why you hear so much about steve martin yeah he's he's not one of the most he wasn't one of the most poignant or important pharaohs of them all but they just had so many artifacts right there's just everything was there and they still find people to this day don't they they still like dig up and they go we found another bike like isn't it yeah isn't the idea that we have so many mummies like there's

loads of mummies it's not like there's like five on earth there's tons of them is that correct yeah i mean there's well if you had the, you wanted your body to be preserved for the afterlife. So yeah, this is how you would want to be treated after you die. So basically anyone who could afford that, they were mummified. And if they're still around from like just natural preservation, their tomb is intact and they're still there. And it's possible that they'll be excavated at some point. And when you're a child, when they talk about mummification,

the thing that kids are always fascinated by whenever they mention mummies, they pull the brains out through the nose, right? Is that something that kids that you teach now, they're always like that? My son loves that. They put a hook up there and they rip the brain out. Is that what happens? Yeah, they used to take the brains out through the nose. Sounds like it would take a long time.

This comes out in a lot of pieces. Yeah, strips. Bit of strip. Is that why you have a nose ring to protect your brain? You figured out my secret, so now I have to kill you. Around 1200 BC, there was a plot to assassinate the pharaoh Ramses III. Which family member plotted to kill him? Was it Ramses V?

Ramses V. It was not. I thought that was a really good suggestion, though. Who would it have been? It was actually one of his wives. So one of his secondary wives. Oh, yeah. And the reason was that she wanted to put her own son on the throne instead of his successor, like his named successor.

And actually, apparently there's evidence that they did maybe succeed in actually killing him, but she never got her son on the throne. The month of August is the eighth month of the year due to which pharaoh? Jim said Octavia. I was super impressed that you very, like you almost got the, this person's name before they had like their, the later name that the word August comes from. So it's Octavian and he renames himself Augustus, Augustus Caesar. Yeah.

Did you do it because it was the eighth month? It was probably because I was seven. So, so yeah, so he, so Augustus Caesar, he's emperor roman emperor and so because he's in the roman empire egypt was part of the roman empire after he um after cleopatra same cleopatra cleopatra the seven commits suicide and that's because of her conflict with um with the guy who

becomes emperor augustus so because he he's like emperor of this whole empire, including Egypt, he's also, you could consider him a Pharaoh. So it's kind of like two answers to this question. It's either because of Augustus. So the month is named August after him. And he's a king of Egypt.

He's a king of the whole empire. Or it's because of Cleopatra, because it's in the eighth month celebrating her death, which happened in that month. So the Roman Empire, which was the biggest empire that ever ruled the world ever, it came from Egypt? No, it didn't come from Egypt. Egypt was a province in the Roman Empire for a few centuries. All right, so Caesar, he was an Italian bloke.

He wasn't an Egyptian bloke who was sent out there to do a job, right? like he wasn't an Egyptian bloke who was sent out there to do a job, right? Well, so he's like kind of, he rehashes what the Romans think of as like the kind of rulership that they have. And he like turns it into an empire that spans basically everywhere where the Romans could. What I'm trying to ask is, did Caesar talk with his hands? Did he like,

I'm going to take over the whole world. You know what, I'll give you a super nerdy answer to that. He probably did talk with his hands because we know, and the way the Romans, and this is actually not my field at all, so I hope I'm not getting any of this wrong. The Romans, they had

this practice of being like an orator. So like being able to tell stories in public in a certain way and hand gestures were part of that. If you see like a statue of a person who's like making a certain kind of statement, their hands, the gestures actually matter. So yeah, he totally talked with his hands. The pharaoh's hats that have like the snakes coming off it and the curly beards and all that sort of stuff,

did they rock around in that hat on a daily basis or is that like the queen's crown so i think there's like some crowns that you would wear regularly and some that you only wear like certain ceremonies and then they're depicted in like all kinds of them but i don't think you'd want to wear like a super heavy crown all the time but like not in private did king tut just have a walk-in wardrobe with like loads of fucking snake head hats and then and then he turned to his wife like i gotta go this fucking function which snake should i bloody wear on me today where's me bloody curling tongs for me beard? You'll be fucking using them again, bloody hell. When I go to the afterlife, I'm going alone.

That's what I thought about David Bowie, too, when I was just watching this documentary. I was like, did he have a pair of jeans? You think? Blue jeans? And he was like, I'm wearing blue jeans today. Cargo pants? Do we know how Cleopatra committed suicide?

So the story is that it was with a venomous snake, I think. Like an asp or something. Yeah. I don't know if that's true. That's hardcore. Yeah, I don't know if it's true. The Egyptians believed that when you died, you had to pass a sort of test to get into the afterlife.

They weighed one of your body parts on a scale to determine if you get in. Which body part was it? Jim said the skull. Yeah, it's the heart. And I want to like, so we just had this whole conversation about taking the brain out. And that's the reason why they took the brain out. If you had like the full like deal mummification, right? they took the brain out if you had like the full like deal mummification right is because they didn't like understand that it had the function that we understand that does so they as they

ascribed all of that stuff to the heart so your heart was like where your thoughts were so it's kind of like your mind they thought that that was where your heart so it's like if it's heavier, you go. If it's lighter, you can pass into the afterlife. Oh, right. So if you die with a heavy heart because you've been eating too much pork, you can't do it. And mummification, they had different packages. Like the platinum package was like getting all of your organs out. And then if you couldn't afford that, you got like copper,

which is just the basics. I think like kind like with any industry there were like there's like a full package and yeah probably i mean all right you're not gonna get the pyramid we have a cargo container yeah you'll be in there with several other people yeah i guess you didn't love your pharaoh it doesn't matter you get to the afterlife. It just matters that you get here. Yeah.

Here at Mummies R Us. I'm sure the king always had the best. Yeah. You don't want the brains package. Was there ever like a rich cunt called like a Jeff Bezos of the Egyptian world who just looked at the king's pyramid and just went, I'm going to have a bigger one. Everyone can fuck off.

Because like everything was so, especially in that period when the pyramids of Giza that you're thinking of were built, like everything's so tightly controlled by the, the like Royal establishment that like you could not do that. So there wasn't like a billionaire who was like, Oh, he has an abacus empire.

I love the idea. It was but I don't think so. It was like the Microsoft of its day. Oh, that guy's the abacus king. I wish. That would be way more interesting. But yeah, I think no. Oh, he's a great sundial maker. If you didn't get into Afterlife,

a monster that was part hippo part lion and part croco would do what to you would it talk you to death with small talk um i love that answer but actually would eat you yeah oh that is worse than violate the other way yeah yeah yeah yeah i assume it would do other things to you though it wouldn't just eat eat you. I'm sure there'd be other degrading things that would do you. Piss on you and stuff. I mean, does he eat you raw? Does he prepare you?

Jeffrey Narmer. Yeah. I don't know. The lion croc doesn't really need to prepare you. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think so. And the name of the monster is Ahmet, which means the devourer.

I'll tell you what's wrong with that. So I watched that Jeffrey Darmer thing. The acting in it's fantastic, by the way, and it's shot beautifully. And I really liked it. And then I said to my wife, who doesn't really like horror things, I said, oh, you've got to watch it. It's very good, right? So my wife started watching Jeffrey Dahmer with me last night.

And now because I'm on my second loop of watching it again, I'm starting to feel sorry for Jeffrey. And I'm like this, Oh, no one liked him. He just needed a friend. He's like eating people in his apartment. And I'm like this. Oh, God. If you could just have a friend. You think if they had Postmates back then, he wouldn't have done it?

No. Yeah, they tried to make it seem like it was a hate crime, a racist crime, but it wasn't really. It was just that he really liked... If you got killed by him, it meant that he was into you. It was a hate crime, a racist crime, but it wasn't really. It was just that he really liked. If you got killed by him, it meant that he was into you. It was a compliment of sorts. Oh, right.

He liked you so much he wanted you inside of him in the form of food. Like he was a big fan if you killed you. Take it as a compliment. Speaking of food. Yeah, it's so much better. Speaking of food, what are the two most common food items Egyptians hope to have in the afterlife? Jim said sugar and bread. Yeah, you're half right.

So bread is one of them. Sugar is a good guess. The other is actually beer. So there's like a list of things that you would put in your food. It's a lot of carbs, though, isn't it? It is a lot of carbs. You're dead, though. Who cares? You're dead.

Beer and bread. There's no calories in the afterlife. Yeah, but you't it? It is a lot of carbs. That's the point. Who cares? You're dead. Beer and bread. There's no calories in the afterlife. Yeah, but you want some kebab meat on top of that bread. You don't want to just like, you drink 50 beers, then you go, I'd like to have some bread. Have a bit of grease in there. And you said there's a beer inspired by Egyptian beer? Yeah, yeah.

Dogfish Head makes a beer that's inspired by like Egyptian beer. And it's called Tahenket, which means in ancient Egyptian, the beer. I have not had it, but I think the label actually even says the name of the beer in ancient Egyptian, which is pretty cool. I think it's got like spices and stuff in it. stuff in it. But the reason why bread and beer is actually because it has so many calories. This is the staples of the Egyptian diet. So they'd want that in the afterlife just to make sure they can have things to eat. But there's other stuff on the wish list too.

They want mead and poultry and some other luxury items like linen and alabaster. And they say, and also everything good. Just in case. It's like a catch-all. Everything good say like and also everything good like just in case you know it's like a catch-all there's a lyric in cheeseburger in paradise called warm beer and bread they say can raise the dead it's an egypt reference that's awesome did you know oh yeah i did not know that i have a good name for a podcast for you it's actually a good name for

a podcast for me but for different reasons. We can both have it called Mummy Issues. That's good. That is really good. I love it. And it does apply to both of you. Yeah, it does. And we wouldn't have any crossover topics or nothing. Well, except maybe with the Ramses III and the wife and the son.

Yeah, maybe. Ancient Egyptians had cures for many ailments. For a head wound, what would they put on the patient's skull? Jim said pigskin. Yeah. That's not correct. But before that, you were like, maybe ointments. And I think you were like thinking in the right direction.

So there's a medical papyrus that's from around 1500 BCE. And it says that you have to bandage the patient with fresh meat on the first day and then treat him afterwards with an oil and honey mixture every day until he gets better. So meat and honey and oil. Meat and honey and oil. Yeah. Cause I always see when people get black eyes, they throw meat on it. Have you ever done that? I don't think that. It's because it's cold. I thought it was like iron or something. I don't know.

I don't know if that works. I think it's to take swelling down. Yeah, I don't know. You ever throw meat on your face? Not Rami. I think it's because it's cold and it's from the fridge and it's so soft to the touch. Because on a thing on your knee or something like that,

you get like a bag of frozen peas, but you don't want to do that on your eye because it'll be too cold and it will feel rigid against the puffed up skin. So meat's a soft touch that will still remain cold. Honey makes sense because manuka is big these days. Manuka honey. Have you seen or heard anything from ancient aliens where you go, ooh, maybe? seen or heard anything from ancient aliens where you go maybe i've never even watched oh you gotta watch it you gotta watch it there's a guy

my dad there's a guy who has too much fake tan and he's just like it's an alien on everything he looks cracked out all the time yeah he's like he's fully he's fully in but then there's some things like there was like they had invented small batteries and stuff like that. And like how would they do that? And then there's some pictures of light bulbs on the hieroglyphics. And I'm like, oh, man. If I watch too much of it, I go fall down the rabbit hole.

So I have to turn off the ancient aliens. He's a part-time conspiracy theorist. I am, yeah. Ancient Egyptians. They're not light bulbs in the hieroglyphs. Whatever they are. Someone needs to take hieroglyphs. Someone's part of the cover-up.

Ancient Egyptians are sometimes shown with beards. Straight beards and curved beards mean two different things. If you have a curved beard, it means that you are. Jim said, woo-woo. Well, I'm just saying they were homophobic back then. So if you remember with earrings, if you have an earring in your right ear, you were gay, left ear, you were heterosexual. That's not what it meant, right?

What a terrible system. Just ask. I'll tell you. That's not what it meant though, right, Jim? Yeah, so if you had a curved beard, like if you're shown in Egyptian art with a curved beard, it means you're dead. And if you're shown with a straight beard, it means you're dead. And if you're shown with a straight beard, it means that you're being shown when you're alive.

Like the statues, the horse statues in Britain. They do that here too. If there's like one leg up or two legs up or something like that. Yeah, so all legs on the ground, all legs on the ground. If a man's on a horse and he was a general, it means he died in retirement of old age. One leg up means died while still in the ground, if a man's on a horse and he was a general, means he died in retirement of old age. One leg up means died while still in the job, but just of an illness or something like that.

Two legs up, died in battle. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Three legs up. I didn't know that either. That's like such a good, oh, I'm going to use that now and I'll explain. When you walk around the UK, you know right away,

like that one, that one, that one. And then if it has a traffic cone on its head, it means that a drunk guy how did he get up there? As soon as you see you're like, how did they do that? Here's where I think you got some points, Jim. Mew is the ancient Egyptian word for what? You said cat. You're right. You're right. Yeah, so there's some words, probably more than some, where it's like the word comes from the sound that the animal makes, for example.

And what about the word mummy? Is that from posh British kids? Or the medical term for mumification? I love the posh British kids answer because my husband is British and this is immediately, and my in-laws are visiting me right now actually, so I'm going to tell them about this later are they are they posh because I've got I've got I've got a British wife and British family like on that side um and they're a bit posh my ones my ones they're like a little posh they're like from Yorkshire but they are posh are they from York because Yorkshire yeah you married into money They are posh. Posh-ish. Are they from York? They are from York. Yeah, you married into money.

So I liked the medical term for mummification. It's kind of related. So the word mummy comes through Arabic from the Persian word mumia, which means like tar or bitumen. I think you also mentioned like the body being dark or something like that, which is like spot on. So people used to think that mummified bodies were covered in tar or bitumen because when they first encountered them, like, you know,

post-ancient people first encountered them, the skin of the mummified bodies appeared to be like kind of blackened so they thought it was tar or bitumen okay yeah that was the next question what is mummy brown and jim said that's the color you turn after you die oh right right yeah yeah that's that's how that's how posh british kid tells its parents it needs a snappy change this is grown. This is, unfortunately, I wish that you were right, the answer to this, because it's like super gross and really unethical,

but it's a paint that was produced by Europeans from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It's a paint that's made from the remains of mummified Egyptians. It's not made anymore. You're doing mummy face. It's called

recycling. And what did they paint with the mummy? That's how many mummies we had. We had paint made out of mummies. But they paint their walls and stuff with their homes? Or what were they painting? It's mostly European paintings on canvas, for example.

Portraits and things like that. Yeah. And they also apothecaries in Europe, they would On canvas, for example. So like portraits and things like that. Yeah. Yep. Wow. And they also like apothecaries in Europe, they would sell like a powder that's made from ancient Egyptian, like mummified bodies. And you were meant to like put it on your skin or eat it or drink it.

Can I just, can I buy a mummy then? If we were just pulping them up and all that stuff, can I have one and have it in the corner of my house is like my ancient Egypt artifact? No. But what if I ask nicely? No. Then why am I allowed to buy the paint?

You're not allowed to anymore. You can't buy the paint anymore. In the 16th and the 19th century, people were doing that. Yeah, yeah. Not anymore. I wasn't around then. Yeah, you missed the boat. Back then you could have gotten a mummy and put it in the corner.

What can I buy? Can I buy any of those artifacts? What about a mummified animal? That's our next question. Jim got that right, I think. Yeah. I've watched a lot of movies. There's always some stone that if you hold it and you say something,

something spooky is going to happen. How often does that happen? It's never happened to me. Well, can you get a mummified animal? Jim, do you want a mummified cat? You got that right. You said in addition to deceased loved ones, what else did Egyptians mummify? Animals, right? Pets? Is that what they do? Yeah, yeah. Pets. Like a couple of different, like I was going for animals with this question and there's like different reasons why you mummify an animal. So there's like, if you had a pet or in your tomb, they would sometimes mummify parts of animals for you to eat. So like food mummies, basically. And then there's this type of animal mummy that's kind of meant to send a message to the gods for you.

And that's the idea of sacrificing animals in a temple situation. In reality, right? like sacrificing animals in a temple like situation so that it can yeah in reality right because every consumerism this has happened since the dawn of time there was somebody whose job was to mummify people and then they were like how can we get some add-ons because if you ever buy a funeral there's packages right right and they've gone they're going i'll put some mummified food in there, throw in a cat. Oh, you want the cat upgrade?

Oh, yeah, I'll have a cat. You're going to get hungry in the afterlife. All right, I don't need to pay for that. All right, if you want to be starving, okay, throw in some fucking food. I can't take it with me or can I? You know, so, yeah, I reckon that was just some bloke with a business who was trying to. Upselling. Yeah, because the Egyptians, I reckon that was just some bloke with a business who was trying to –

Upselling. Yeah, because the Egyptians, I know a bit about them. They love a bit of negotiating. They're a bartering race of people, aren't they? They like to do deals and stuff, you know, so I reckon that's where it comes from. All right, so the tattoos. On which part of their bodies did some ancient Egyptian women have tattoos?

Jim said tramp stamps, always of the Sphinx, and the symbol of the hoop and a stick through it. Also, the symbol of the hoop and a stick, you're thinking of an ankh, which means life in Egyptian. That is such a white chick tattoo. I have this thing. It means life. I have seen a lot of tattoos on like living modern people of onks. Like it's very popular. Yeah.

I love now that I know the word. I'll go like your onk. And they won't have no idea what you're talking about. You got a lovely onks there. Yeah. Nice onk. That's a nice onk. Yeah.

I'll even point it and go onk onk. Yeah. You got a fat onk. It doesn't make you want to get an on tattoo now i might no i'm just gonna get it on yeah yeah so they i was thinking of this like there's a lot of research recently into um tattoos on on people whose like plumified bodies are preserved and a colleague of mine mine was looking at one case where a woman had tattoos on her arms and her neck and her shoulders and her back.

So all areas that you could see. And what this sort of thing is going on is that there's like some relationship between those tattoos and the job that this person had or like their participation in some kind of religious practice. And the specific example that I was thinking of, she had a tattoo on her neck that said to do good.

So it's almost like she could, you know, because of having this tattoo, like everything that came out of her mouth and she used her voice is like supposed to be for good, which I thought was pretty cool. So people covered in tattoos are good. Yeah, and their job might have been paper. Something to ride on. I got a good bumper bar

sticker. You put the onk symbol and then you go, if you're horny. So that at your Egyptian shops. Put that on there. Onk if you're horny. Alright, we're going to look at some of these objects here now, Jack. The same ones I pulled up earlier?

Yeah, same things. The first one that you pulled up there. I didn't get any of these. Maybe. You never know. I think the cocktail shaker was good. Yeah, I think it is a cocktail shaker. Big drinkers. Well, I didn't see how big it was. That could have been six foot tall or six inches tall. Okay, so this is, again, this looks like it's's like a big i don't know it's like greenish

tombstone yeah he's at a tombstone this is the first one there yeah yeah i'll say this is a good guess because i didn't tell you how big these are and it's pretty small to the size of my hand um it's a little sculpture that's used in like medicine so it would help you cure your snake bites protect you from snake bites so it's like a specific kind of object where there's a guy in the middle who's a child god for us and he's holding all these like stingy venomous animals like snakes and he's standing on some crocodiles and stuff yeah so the idea is like you dip this in water or you pour water over it and you put the water on the snake you. You'd be like, Mom, I'm going out. She'll be like, take your snake bite stone.

Mom, I don't need it. Take your snake bite stone or you're not going anywhere. How common were snake bites at this time? Probably way more common than they are now. I mean, I think like the desert or the reeds and stuff. The snakes were jammyies all fucked back then. They didn't like run away or hide. They were just walking down the street like, what about it, man?

My nightmare. I'm terrified of snakes. All right. The next artifact we have here, object, is. All right. So tell me. It does look like a cocktail shaker. Tell me the height of it and I'll give you a real answer.

What's the heart of it? It's about a foot tall, maybe a little bit taller with the top. So there's a top and a bottom. That's a sub sandwich holder. We saw them on Amazon. You put your sub sandwich in there. Got some writing on the side. What is this for, Jen?

This is called a canopic jar. And we were talking earlier about organs being removed and mummified separately and that's what this is for. If you had this treatment, not everybody did, four specific organs would be removed and put in their own jars and this is one

of them. It's for someone's mummified lungs. It belonged to a man named path hair nature and it is empty now just in case you're wondering yeah well i'll tell you what i'm gonna do for you i'm gonna throw in the lung jar no extra cost no extra cost although there is delivery fees on the lung jar. All right. One more object we have.

It's a little sculpture. It looks like a mummy. How big is this? Because I thought it was six inches. How big is it? Yeah, it's like maybe, I think it's maybe eight or nine inches tall. Yeah, it's like you could hold it in your hand. Green, greenish in color.

I always call six-inch things eight or nine inches. That's where I got thrown off. Jim said, something to put on the fireplace. Good for the wife, not the husband. I don't know what that means. What did you think of me? Oh, I didn't catch that. I'm a lewd.

I'm a lewd fella. That's keeping a crush. All right. So, not something to put on the fireplace. Something you put in your tomb. So, this is called an Ushabti. It's a figurine that magically does, something you put in your tomb. So this is called an ushabti. It's a figurine that magically does your chores for you in the afterlife. I need one of these.

You put a hula skirt on it, you can put it on the dashboard of your car. You could. I need one of these in the forelife. Yeah. I mean, the cool thing about these is that, oh, a couple of cool things. One is that at some point they decide that you really need one for every day of the year. So they will produce like 365 of them. And at another point, they decide that just to make sure that those figurines were really doing their job, they need some overseer ones. So a full set is 401.

365. That's truly upselling it's the same guy it's the same guy and you're like do you want any taskmaster do you want a taskmaster a job with a taskmaster in the afterlife you know get your jobs done

you know sort out your laundry because he's a cockney bloke he's a bit you know ooh ah about the whole thing and he's just like that's a few tasks for you. You want a taskmaster? And then you're like, sure, I'll have one. He goes, one? You only want one task done in one day?

You know, there's 360-something days in the year. You're going to need one for all of them. I'll throw in some spares, 400. Yeah. I think this guy some space, 400. Yeah. I think this guy could afford it too because the person this ancient one belonged to was like a chief physician. His name was Nesbond Navjad.

And on it, in the inscription, it has like his titles. And we know that he was like in charge of a bunch of other physicians. So yeah. Yeah, so funerals or whatever, they must have cost so much. Yeah.

Because these are like very intricate. I mean, if you're not watching on YouTube, this is a very intricate little sculpture. Yeah, there's no assembly line. This is all handmade. Yeah, but it's someone's business. There was no TV back then, so people had time to do things. Right, but people are dying all the time.

And to make 400 of these for each dead person? Mate, look at that craftsmanship. Look at that. That's day green, my friend. That's a very expensive stone. It's made in a mold, actually. I was going to ask if you know why it's green because it's not made of stone. Do you know?

They had molds. They made molds. What material is it? It's a material that we call fayans, but the Egyptians called it chehennet, which means like the shiny thing. Mate, that's the finest chehennet you'll see this time. You won't see this north of the pyramids, mate.

I'll tell you that much. It's so good. This one is like super, super beautiful. But this is like, you know, if you like ever play with clay, like as a kid, or maybe you know if you ever play with clay as a kid or maybe now if you play around with clay, when you make things out of clay, it's made from

silt or earth. This is the material that, it's like clay but the base of it is quartz, like ground up quartz. And so it's quartz and some salts and some water and then copper, which is why it's green and when you bake it it turns green or blue so it's kind of like has all these associations with like rebirth

which like green and blue do anyway but also the fact that it changes when you bake it it's like it's been reborn so it's really popular material for things that go in your tomb can i buy one of these for me mandel i would say please don't. Why not? They exist on the antiquities market, but I would encourage you not to. Why is it bad for me to do this? Is it because it's limited and you're Indiana Jones and that should be in a museum?

Yeah, in a way, because then more people have access to it. But if it goes into a private collection, so if you decide you want to be a private collector and you can legally buy something on the antibodies market, which some people do, then you'll probably never know anything about its context because no one will come and research it in your private collection.

And you won't be able to understand more of its history and where it fits in. So please don't buy things from the antibodies market. All right. I won't do it. You talked me out of it. What, Dr. Jones? What does the word hieroglyphs mean?

Jim said high graphics, graphics of greetings. What does it mean? This is a really good guess. It was a good guess. It means sacred carving, which comes from Greek. Actually, the word hieroglyphs is from Greek. It's not the Egyptian word. The Egyptians themselves called them Medu Netur,

which means the God's words. And the Greek is probably just a translation of the Egyptian. So it's like. Can you read hieroglyphics and are you certain that what you're reading is correct or could have it been not dissected? What's the term? Deciphered? Could it be deciphered wrong?

So I can read hieroglyphs and we're pretty sure that by now all the sort of kinks have been worked out from like original decipherment. But actually this week is the 200 uh year anniversary of the decipherment of power gloves oh oh yeah september 1822 do you ever read some of them like ah this this guy knew what he's talking about when you ever read one of them and go this person was a moron and it's like it's like the hieroglyphic was, went to park, went on spinny machine, vomited. I try not to judge people by what they wrote. From that many years ago, who's it hurting? And Jim was right, the right to left.

Is that how you read them? Actually, it's both. You can write them both ways. And sometimes I'll have the same object because the way like egyptian artworks people really love like balance and symmetry so sometimes you have the same object and they'll write the text right to left and left to right but the they preferred to write from left to right have you ever read again jim's really good at this actually have you ever read anything in hieroglyphics that could be deemed to be a joke like Like you ever go, oh, that's funny. I haven't personally, but there were definitely jokes.

Like there's like whole studies of like humor in ancient Egypt. We know that they joked around. Oh, why did the chicken cross the road? Get to the pyramids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that Nile joke? Denial? What's the line?

I'm in denial. Yeah, it's something denial. Yeah. I don't know how the joke goes. Like it's not denial. It's not just a river in Egypt or something. It doesn't end with a guy with his dick inside a pear. And he goes, I'm fucking in despair. No, I don't remember that.

I don't remember that one. It's like a long walk to get there. I don't remember that. I don't remember that one. It's like a long walk to get there. There is a joke. Oh, no, no, no. There's another bloke. He's got his dick in the custard and I'm fucking disgusted. Yeah, that's where it came from. Again, denial.

So we all learned something. The hieroglyphics, the hieroglyphs that we looked at was Jim Wright on any of them. We have a rectangle that's got a piece in the center missing on the bottom jim said is building yeah you were like basically right it's a house so well done and yeah like the way um kind of like all images in in the egyptian language work is that they're you're seeing them from like one plane of view so this is from above and it's like a doorway.

The next one looks like a bench or a bed from the side. But if we're seeing it from above that changes everything. We're seeing all of them from above? Is that what we're seeing? Not always from above. Sometimes from the side. That's a bed then. This was such a good guess. It's the sky.

That's rubbish. You guys haven't deciphered shit. If you think that's the sky, that was just one bloke wanting to clock off work earlier. He'd be like, cat head, cat head. I call that one the fucking sky. I'm out of here. Also, Jen, not a good guess.

Such a good guess. Well, it looks like a bench, though. It looks Such a good guess. Well, it looks like a bench though. It looks like a bench. To me, it looks like a bench. If you want to switch it from sky to bench, it's a great guess. If that's the sky, is the raised up bit at the bottom meant to be the sun coming up or something? How is that the sky? Oh, that's a good question. So it's like, imagine that the sky has like pillars that hold it up above the earth. That's sort of like seeing the edges of the pillars.

Oh, yeah. So the next one looks kind of like the sun coming up now when I think about it, or a dome. And Jim said exercise ball. No, no, but if we're looking at it from above. Yeah, or the side, maybe. It's the side now. Yeah, yeah, three throw line.

It could be the sun, though. It could be the sun coming up. I don't it's from the side okay sunset sunrise also a good guess that just like visually would be a really good guess that's why i'm saying not giving him extra points so don't worry everybody but it's actually a bread it's a loaf of bread oh yeah i checked out that one no one works out the next one the next one jim said works out. Life of break. You're fucking there. Right. The next one. The next one. Jim said womb.

It looks sort of like an upside down rocket ship. Kind of. Yeah. It looks a little bit like a womb. It does look like a womb too.

Yeah. Yeah, it does. It's a heart. All right. So I wasn't far off. Heart is good though. Yeah. Yeah.

It was only half a foot away. It looks like a cow head too. The next one looks sort of like a face with a cross on top of it. Jim said top of a one looks sort of like a face with a cross on top of it jim said top of a hill also like would have been a really good guess i don't i shouldn't have

given you this one this was like really hard it's so like all the sort of body part hieroglyphs that are like internal basically come from animals because this is like most people's like understanding of the insides of bodies their experiences with animals so this is an animal's heart and windpipe and the reason why i put it here is not because i'm like it's a heart and windpipe like that's great it's because it's actually the sign that means good or beautiful and i don't know why it means good or beautiful that is how you write good or beautiful because you uh circle with a face and a cross on top of it no matter what they say number six looks sort of like it could be

a duck could be a rabbit sort of from a profile kind of what do we got here it's dung oh it's poop it's a poop emoji I gotta tell you our poop emojis are better well it's got eyeballs our poop poop emoji it's the first poop emoji i gotta tell you how poop emojis are better well it's got eyeballs aren't poop emoji but it's the first poop emoji yeah these are the first emojis then huh sort of i guess yeah yeah like the um you asked this

question like how do they work and some of them can work like emojis so there's kind of three ways a hieroglyph can work. It can either show you what it means. So like the house one is a good example. If you just write that, it's like that's house. Or it can be used to make a sound. So that makes the sound pair like P-E-R, and it can be in the middle of a word, like spelling it out if it needs the sound pair somewhere in the word. Or you can put at the end of a word and it gives you the general idea of what that word is about. So like the word for room for example would have that house the hieroglyph for house at the end to tell you that it's about something to do with houses and we could do from this we could do box

the last one we go my house is shit my house is shit. It's not beautiful. Have some bread. Like bread. Yeah, yeah. I should have done a secret sentence with this. I totally missed opportunity. What's the last one? It's not a Leatherman or Swiss Army knife, correct? It's not, but it's a harpoon.

But the reason why I included it is because when I was studying for my exams in Egyptian language a while ago, my husband was helping me study and he used to call this man on bike with frying pan. Which maybe you see now

if you think about like I can see the frying pan. I can see the frying pan. So it means like only or one so it has nothing to do with harpoons either it's just the word that has to do with like being like soul or only or like on your own but um i cannot think of it any other way than man on bike with frying pan how many how many hieroglyphic things are there? How many letters or

words do they have in their thing? Words, I don't know, but signs, individual signs. There's like hundreds, hundreds, maybe like three or four hundred. I'd have to check a lot. Yeah, and there's like 50-something that are just birds, and they're all different birds,

so they would have been recognizable as different species of birds. Cr all right now crane now's the part of our show called dinner party facts we ask our guests to give us a fact something obscure interesting that our listeners can use to impress people about this subject what do you got first jane okay so it's a true or false question true or false leopatra The one we were just talking about, the seventh lived closer in time to the invention of Bitcoin than she did to the construction of the pyramids. I'm going to say a true because you wouldn't ask otherwise.

Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's true. Yeah. So she died in 30 BCE and the pyramids that were built between 2600 and 2500 that's crazy did jesus ever visit like i know he came to uh salt lake city uh for a bit right did he ever go down and say what's up cleopatra? Jesus in the house. Hold on.

I have a question. Well, I had one too. I have a real question. No, just talk. But how long was the Egyptian, how long did it last? The Egyptian empire or whatever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great question.

My question was silly. How long is that bit? We should know since we talked about it today. It kind of depends on how you count it. I think this person, Narmer, who we think is probably, if we're talking about like Egypt as like a state, like once it's kind of under one sort of like king and functioning as like one kind of united like society it lasts

from about 3100 bce maybe 3200 um through if you start at the roman period then it's through um 30 bce and then it's part of the roman empire um or you you could stop it a little bit earlier because there's a whole dynasty of people called the Ptolemies. That's like 332 BCE, but it's about 3,000 years. And then if you count the Roman period, then it's like an extra couple. Who was the first pharaoh? We think it's a person we call Narmer.

Narmer, okay. And who was the one that you got the most out of, not like Tut, but who was the most revered of all the pharaohs that put his biggest, he or she put their biggest foot stamp on Egyptian culture? I would say, like, especially thinking about how we think of Egyptian culture, it could be Ramses II, who had just a ton of monuments, including some that were built by other kings, but he put his name on them after they were built, which is actually like a fine, totally normal thing to do if you were a king.

So he would be top of my list. Maybe in terms of impact on like modern culture, you could say Tutankhamun, but in his own time, he wouldn't have been. I think Ramses too, also known as Ramses the Great, lived a really long time in tons of monuments, pretty big impact. And what did they do for entertainment in ancient Egypt?

I almost asked you this question, actually. So some things similar to what we did so um they had board games for example there's a board game called senate that we we know like how it was played and there's like real examples from archaeological excavations of senate board games which is pretty cool i'll be the thimble, you be the race car. Check it out. You should check it out. It's kind of like a grid board.

I don't actually know how to play it, but I know that it is known as played. They would go hunting or fishing and there's poetry and there's music and there's parties and people got drunk and all these things.

So kind of the same sort of things that we do. A lot of wanking. Not with all that sand and no circumcision, you'd have a real problem, you would. All right, Jen, thank you for being here. Again, you can go to harvardartmuseums.org and you can find information about the Harvard Art Museums. You can also check out the activity book that Jen wrote for kids. It's a

coloring book, right? Or Coloring Age in Egypt? Yeah. Yeah. It's like there's some coloring in there. There's some like some other stuff. Something about a bird mummy. Pretty cool. There you go. And then if you ever want to, the talks, I forgot. Yeah. Skype a scientist mummy. Pretty cool. There you go. And then if you ever want the talks, I forgot. Yeah, Skype a scientist.

Skype a scientist. Yeah. You can find John there. Thank you for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for being on the podcast. We learned a lot about Egypt today. If you're ever at a party and someone comes up to you and goes,

King Tut was the most important of all the pharaohs. You go, that's a big tutting noise. I don't know about that and walk away. Good night, Australia.