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Any Egyptologists confirm?
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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
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The ruling class in Egypt spoke Greek in Cleopatra's time
That's a very particular and odd view of what a civilisation is. By this logic, there are no inheritors to ancient Egypt at all since even the current inhabitants speak Arabic and not ancient Egyptian. In fact, Ancient Egyptian had already developed into Demotic Egyptian by the time of Cleopatra, and Demotic in itself was heavily influenced by Aramaic and, you guessed it, Greek. It's fairly common for language to develop and change throughout the history of old civilisations, and in that process, be influenced by the major civilisations of the time. Cleopatra speaking Greek doesn't make her not Egyptian, it just means that the Greeks were the dominant civilisation in her region during her lifetime. A thousad years later she'd be speaking Arabic, which still wouldn't make her not Egyptian.
Yeah no shit there are no inheritors of ancient Egypt who the fuck nowadays shares Egyptian culture? No one is building pyramids, writing in hiroglyphs or talking the language. You gonna tell me Italy is the roman empire next?
I know it's sometimes hard for Aussies to imagine history beyond 300 years back as being relevant to your national identity. But that's just because it'd make you face the fact that your nation is built upon the ruins of a civilisation you feel zero connection to, because of you know, you being colonial settlers and them being the indigenous people you tried (and still try) to eradicate. In Egypt, and indeed in Italy, Greece, Iran, China, India and so on, people don't viscerally hate what came before them wanting to just forget them. They do often feel as the inheritors of those ancient civilizations, and have incorporated them into their own national identity. So yes, Italians do feel like the inheritors to the ancient Romans, just ask an Italian.
also shut the fuck up you smug fuckhead
That doesn't mean they are. Continuity of geopolitical narrative is mostly stupid. In the era of nationalism (post-Napoleonic France) geopolitical narrative is 100% jingoistic propaganda: those impulses are 100% recuperated by the State.
That's actually very coherent, or more coherent than the idiotic notion that because people live in the same place, they are connected genetically, culturally, linguistically, or politically.
You're discovering the complexities of comparing geopolitical strata across time and space. Don't disrespect it. Just because you have feelings about an essential "egyptian" storyline doesn't mean those feelings are valid. Shut up. Thanks.
Wow, an American backing up the Aussie's settler colonial understanding of national identity. What a shock that a member of the other major anglo settler colonial entity that hates the indigenous people of its land would feel this way. You are the anomaly, the rest of the world doesn't distance itself from the history of the people who have lived there over the years. Understandable that you can't relate though, your whole society has been based on the extermination of those people. So it'd be difficult to claim their history as your own or even feel a positive connection to it. That's not the case for much of the rest of the world though.
Ironically you are failing to understand how civilisations change with time and colonisation. The ancient Egyptians were conquered and replaced. You seem to acknowledge that when this happened to native people living in America and Australia this led to a change in civilisation but when it happened in Egypt it didn't.
I don't think you know enough about these topics to be opining so haughtily, arrogantly, and condescendingly. If I were a moderator here you'd be permabanned just to keep the comment section intelligible.
Your first reply to me was "shut the fuck up you smug fuck head", while I still haven't called you any name, and you're calling for the moderators to permaban me? That's.... pathetic. Grow a spine, that might make the comment section more intelligible
That was my second reply lmao
Yeah Europeans would never have a colonial history
In America we're Roman because our nazis still do a particular salute
Your an Aussie, calling yourself a European. That's how your society is different. Other people generally consider themselves to belong to the countries they inhabit, not be from another continent entirely. But the anglo settler colonial nations still call themselves European.
You feel a cultural connection to the people who inhabited the land you live in. I also do I with the people who lived in Australia before me. What's different between us is that I'm not deluded into thinking I'm the same as previous custodians because I live where they did. Our cultures are entirely different and they were largely forcibly displaced. Such is true with literally every tract of land on this planet. The gauls were replaced by the Romans who were replaced by the franks. The ancient Egyptians were replaced by the greeks, then the romans, then the arabs.
Dw tho keep larping as whatever civilisation used to inhabit the land you live in. It ain't weird at all
I mean, early 19th century Russian nobility spoke more French than Russian, does that mean they suddenly were another civilization?
Ehhh my comments was meant to point out that Egypt was far from an "unbroken span of time with the same name and identity." The region was conquered multiple times with numerous fractures and centralisations happening. Cleopatra didn't feel a need to construct a pyramid tomb for herself for example, that culture has died off and been replaced .
That's fair, I understand your point, that particular comment just felt too specific when compared to what is being argued.