This article was originally published under the title ‘ I dug for evidence of the Rosetta Stone’s ancient Egyptian rebellion – here’s what I found’ by Jay Silverstein on The Conversation, and has been republished under a Creative Commons License. The transformation of Thmouis from a small tributary town to a regional capital reflects the hand of an oppressive government that wanted to make sure that no major revolt from the people they ruled would ever pose a threat to their control again. Thmouis was rebuilt as a city full of Greek colonists and soon became the regional seat of power as the Ptolemaic dynasty took power away from Egyptian temple priests who participated in the rebellion. And, of course, the Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra was a vital character in the story of how the Roman republic became an empire. It supported the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid dynasty of Syria, establishing a Jewish kingdom. Their traditional gods of Isis and her son Horus, for example, might not have so easily surrendered their identities to Mary and Jesus with the coming of Christianity.Īfter securing control of Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty played a key role in the geopolitics of the eastern Mediterranean. Had the Egyptians prevailed, Egypt might have taken a different turn. The Egyptians had appointed their own pharaohs and, with the help of the Nubians, took control of much of Egypt.Īfter 20 years of conflict, the Hellenistic military machine subdued the rebellion and the last rebel leaders were murdered when they came to negotiate peace at the Nile delta city of Sais. The outcome of the Egyptian revolt against Hellenistic imperialism had far-reaching consequences. The remains of a young man who appears to have crawled into a kiln and died there. (Author provided/ The Conversation ) The cities of the central Nile delta played a major part in the great rebellion and their citizens suffered greatly for their part. Historical accounts carved on the Rosetta Stone and the Aristonicus stone aligned with the evidence we found at Thmouis. What were the consequences of the Egyptian revolt?Įvidence from other sites in the delta suggested that there were economic and political consequences for those cities that joined the rebellion, such as closing harbors.Īnother stone decree gave an account of the Greek general Aristonicus who led some of the forces of Ptolemy V and his campaign to root out the last of rebels at Tell el Balamun, a city just north of Thmouis. It proved to be the key that philologist Jean-François Champollion used to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs – the Rosetta Stone. The most famous copy today was found in the Nile delta by a French officer in 1799. It was written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek so that all could read it. The decree was inscribed on hard stone and copies were placed in all temples. In this decree, they outlined Ptolemy’s successful prosecution of the war against the Egyptian rebels and noted his success in besieging a city close to Thmouis. Ptolemy V is known for the Memphis Decree of 196 BC in which the priests of Ptah (supporters of the Ptolemaic dynasty) proclaimed the anointment of Ptolemy V as the divine pharaoh of Egypt. The economy was ravaged by foreign wars and there was a growing violent insurrection from the native Egyptian population, who no longer wished to live as second-class citizens while the Macedonian dynasty and Greek imperialists prospered at their expense. Ptolemy V Epiphanes, who was just a boy when his father was murdered in 204 BC, assumed power in a tumultuous time.
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