Voices of Ancient Egypt
Welcome to Voices of Ancient Egypt — the podcast for people who don’t just want to learn about ancient Egypt, but want to understand it at a deeper, more meaningful level.
Your podcast host, Melinda Nelson-Hurst, Ph.D., is an Egyptologist with years of experience teaching at the university level, working in Egypt, and training students around the world to read real ancient Egyptian texts. She’s spent decades studying this civilization in a traditional academic setting so you don’t have to — and so you can access knowledge that’s usually locked behind academic walls.
With a blend of solo deep-dives and conversations with experts and everyday Egyptophiles, this podcast brings ancient Egyptian history, beliefs, and language to life — and shows you how learning hieroglyphs is possible, no matter your age, background, or schedule.
Whether you want to read hieroglyphs in museums, on social media, or on your next trip to Egypt, you’ll find the tools, stories, and encouragement to make it real.
Let’s hear the voices of the ancient world — together.
Voices of Ancient Egypt
007: Heqanakht: the Most Famous Ancient Egyptian You Never Heard of
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In this episode, we explore the fascinating Heqanakht letters, a collection of 4,000-year-old documents discovered in the rubble of an ancient Egyptian tomb.
Unlike the typical "treasures" associated with Egyptology, these papyri offer a rare, unfiltered window into the personal and financial affairs of a Middle Kingdom priest and landowner named Heqanakht.
We’ll dive into how these mundane letters survived for millennia and why they eventually became the unexpected inspiration for one of the world's most famous mystery novels.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
• The Secret in the Rubble: Discover how a modest tomb excavation in 1921-1922 led to the discovery of a scribe's kit and perfectly preserved letters hidden -- not in a golden chest -- but inside a ramp of construction debris.
• Ancient "Office" Drama: Hear the actual words of Heqanakht as he scolds his employees for sending him "old dried up" barley while he suspects them of "pigging out" on the fresh stuff back home.
• The Agatha Christie Connection: Learn how these 4,000-year-old family feuds inspired the Queen of Crime to write Death Comes as the End -- and how Heqanakht’s family drama reached billions of readers under different names.
• Life Beyond the Pharaohs: Explore a level of society rarely seen in the historical record, from the logistics of leasing land and grain shipments to the messy reality of household squabbles and mistreated wives.
• "They Are Starting to Eat People Here": Uncover the dramatic (and likely hyperbolic) ways Heqanakht described a famine to justify cutting his family’s salaries and managing expectations during hard times.
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Download my free guide, Half-Hour Hieroglyphs to get started with hieroglyphs now.
Learning hieroglyphs is a challenge if you don’t have a tried and true system to follow. This free guide will teach you how hieroglyphs work and how to use them to write names the way the ancient Egyptians did.
Grab the free guide at https://voicesofancientegypt.com/guide
My 6-month, next-level hieroglyph reading program, Master Scribes, is currently closed, but will be open again before you know it.
In this program you'll go from reading the basics to reading next-level texts, like literature, letters, and the Book of the Dead, with confidence.
Space is very limited due to the high level support from me (Melinda).
Join the waitlist at www.masterscribes.com