Now, one of our assumptions in Egyptology is that Arabic authors knew nothing of Ancient Egypt, before Muslims conquered Egypt in 641 CE. Champollion was a teenager when this book was published here in London. Notice the date 1806, that is 16 years before Champollion published his famous letter in which he announced to the world his success in deciphering Egyptian Hieroglyphs. The title of this English translation is: “Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation, and Sacrifices in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahishih”. Most fascinating among these Arabic manuscripts is a work translated into English, published in London in 1806 by an eminent orientalist, Joseph Hammer. This is an early case of European Egyptomania as we know it, and it shows the value of these Arabic manuscripts. The very same book was translated into English, and published in London six years later. Here is the title page of an Arabic book translated in France in 1666, about the Ancient Egyptian monuments, written by an Egyptian scholar called Mourtadi. Most Egyptologists have enough on their plates already to contend with, and often we overlook European sources that show clearly that even here in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a great deal of interest in medieval Arabic manuscripts that specifically covered Ancient Civilisations and in particular the Ancient Egyptian. Sadly we Egyptologists acknowledge no contribution from Arabic or Muslim authors, mainly because many Egyptologists worldwide are not aware of the relevance of Arabic sources to our discipline. It is interesting for me as an Egyptologist to notice how the Islamic environment created an atmosphere in which the intended scholar could freely seek knowledge wherever it came from, and in whatever ancient language/culture it may originate, thus giving the incentive to various scholars to dedicate their lives completely to the discovery and the reading of ancient scripts, such as Egyptian and Mesopotamian. The conference proceedings are edited by Dr. The article is originally a talk presented at the international conference 1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in our World held at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on the 8th of March 2006, on the occasion of the launch of the exhibition 1001 inventions. Okasha El Daly during his speech at 1001 Inventions Conference.
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