SPEAKER_00 0:00

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 on a deeper, more meaningful level. I'm Melinda Nelsonhurst, an Egyptologist with a PhD in the field and years of experience teaching at the university level, working in Egypt, and training students around the world to read real ancient Egyptian texts. I've 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. This podcast brings ancient Egyptian history, beliefs, and language to life and shows you that learning hieroglyphs is possible no matter your age, background, or schedule. So 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 right here. Let's hear the voices of the ancient world together. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Voices of Ancient Egypt podcast. In this episode, we'll be featuring an interview with one of my students. This is part of a series I'm calling What's Working with Learning Hieroglyphs, where I interview students of mine to find out what strategies and tactics they're using to make tons of progress with hieroglyphs. These are real people with busy lives, commitments, and also a whole lot of unexpected challenges in life. And we're going to get down in the trenches with them and hear how they've been able to learn to read everything from common pharaohs' names to literature, letters, medical texts, and even the book of the dead. Let's jump in and hear what's really working for these real people. Thank you for joining me today, Juan. I have Juan here, who's a student of mine in the Scribal School. And it's great to have you here, Juan.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Oh, thank you. It's very nice to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Great. I'd love for you to introduce yourself a bit and tell us a bit more about you, you know, um who you are and what got you to want to learn hieroglyphs.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Okay, my name is Juan Jimenez. I'm a retired systems engineer. Uh geez, I grew up in New York City, right by the uh Metropolitan Museum of Art. And every time I visited, I always uh just went to the Egyptian area all the time, even as a child. And always been fascinated by Egypt. And a few years ago, before COVID, I was uh involved in a plane crash of all things, and I was burned pretty good. And wow, when you wind up in a plane crash, it takes a long time to rehabilitate. It really does. So I was at home. Well, first of all, I was at the burn center and then a rehab and then at home, and I figured, what the heck? I got some time now. Might as well continue that. My uh Egyptian side of my interest. And I started uh my online courses. I took a course by the name of uh decoding the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and then he uh recommended some books, and I tried one by a gentleman by the name of Mark Collier, you know, uh beginning hieroglyphics. And I found those to be a little tedious, especially when they go into the base, you know, in a little bit more in depth than I wanted to. And I found it to be a little bit more confusing. And then I came across on the internet one uh Linder's uh comical and very enjoyable animations. And I thought, gee, I like this. You know, it was very short and it made sense. And I thought, well, maybe she really knows a better way of coming across with something that's so can be really challenging at times and may I say frustrating at times and discouraging, but you have to stick with it. So I I learned through, and I really enjoyed her scribal, uh, her school for scribes, a scribal school. It was very well put together, very understandable. It made sense of what I wanted to learn to do when I went to Egypt, when I was planning to go to Egypt, which was to be able to read inscriptions. Not all of it, you know, but just the basics. Because in some of these temples and uh tombs that you visit in Egypt, every square inch has a hieroglyphic. And it can be overwhelming. And, you know, in doing Melinda's course, all I wanted to know to learn was to be able to block something out and learn the meaning of it, and be able to move on to the next and block that out and learn the meaning of it. And uh it's been very fascinating. I enjoyed my time in Egypt. I enjoyed visiting, I enjoyed talking to other tourists about it, and uh I highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Great. Thanks so much, Juan. It sounds like you've gone through a lot of different experiences there with learning. I'd love to hear a little bit more about sort of if we were rewind the tape a little bit to maybe like right before you joined Scribal School, and you said you'd been trying some books, but felt that they were um a bit too complicated or dense, maybe with that. So I'd love to hear about sort of like um what changed for you when you joined Scribal School versus what you had been doing before that.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Well, I I enjoyed the uh the follow-up lectures in the scribal school. I enjoyed the questions that were posed because of course you have many students, I would think, have the same questions. And I enjoyed the interaction because that that gave it a little bit more of a foundation than just looking at a book and thinking, okay, you know, this is uh, you know, a biliteral. Okay. You know, how do I work that? This is a triliteral, how do I work that? As opposed to somebody actually sitting there or coming across in a gl in a lecture format and explaining it and letting you know how it flows. And why did the scribe use this instead of that? Because, you know, in my own uh, you know, background and trying to learn this hieroglyphics, one thing can mean many things. You know, uh, and uh you have to be able to look at it and and and during the translation, during the transliteral part of it, be able to set it up in a way that makes sense so then you can go to the next step, which is the translation part, and that's something you can work with. So yeah, and that's where I found the interaction with the professor in the field of enormous value.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Right. So it sounds like, yeah, from what you're seeing, it's uh it's the the lessons, but then also the more interactive part, like you were saying. So we have the the private group, of course, for everybody in Scribal School where you can ask questions. Um and when we're having like a guided study plan going on, guided track, then um we also have the calls uh like you're talking about. So you can ask questions in those two different ways and interact with other people in the program as well as with me and get your questions answered. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

It it it it makes for a better baseline for the next series, you know, with within, you know, the for the next lesson. It really does.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Mm-hmm. Right. So you feel like you're you're really ready to take that then the next step. So I'd love to hear a a little more about what's changed for you since starting scribal school. I know you mentioned visiting Egypt and also having spent a fair amount of time at the Metropolitan Museum. So I'd love to hear uh a little more, like paint a picture of sort of what's changed since before to now when you go to Egypt or a museum, like what's an experience you've had that maybe you had kind of like a wow moment or you surprised yourself? Well, just the confidence.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

The confidence of being able to look at something and make sense of it.

unknown 8:41

You know.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

And you know, like I mentioned earlier, when you go to some of these places in uh the tombs in Luxor or or uh you know the Ramessean, things of that nature, there is so much out there, hieroglyphic-wise. And you have to have the confidence to look at it and say, yeah, it might take me a little while, but I think I can make sense of this. Or when you visit Karnic and you see an obelisk, and you could look at it and say, okay, I could read from the cartouche who the Pharaoh was at the time when this thing was erected, instead of just looking at it and saying, hey, that's great. You know, I could read a little bit about it, and I can know, well, yeah, you know, this was our Chetsu, or this was Ramesses II, you know, or something of that nature, just by looking at their names. And that in itself can be complicated because every Pharaoh seems to have five names, you know. So just being able to make, you know, to figure out which which cartouche has the name that we know him from or know her from, you know, as opposed to the other information that that's written. It's uh just gives you the confidence to try, to learn. And uh once you do get it, you know, you you feel pretty good about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

I love that. So you have this sort of newfound confidence from that where you can actually walk into a museum and be like, yeah, I'm gonna read this. And sometimes some parts, like you said, might take you some time, but you know that it's something that you can do now. And I think you um, if I recall correctly, I think you told me a story about reading some texts for some other people in your tour group when you went to Egypt, also.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Oh, yes, that was one of my favorite stops was the Mortuary Temple of Achepsu. See, my degree is in engineering, but I've always loved architecture, and that to me is the most beautiful architectural rendering of an Egyptian temple. I mean, it's it's just you know, post-and-beam construction. It's nothing special, but it was really very well done with the terraces. So I I remember what I did was I would try and get away from the group, you know, because you know, I, you know, I just uh my own spirit of adventure, so I was pretty much on my own on that. I left the group and I wound up in one of the, I forgot which one of the wings, and I forgot which level of the terrace was. This beautiful temple has three terraces with these ramps going up to each terrace level. I think it might have been the second level, but anyway, I was towards the end of one of the uh wings, and there was this one wall, and what caught my eye was a lot of the colors were still vivid on that wing, on that, on that section. You could tell it just wasn't a dull, you know, brown or gray. There was some color to it. And I I was drawn to that. And I remember standing there looking at it and and and reading, you know, her name, and reading the cartouches, and reading, you know, the symbols for the head, which a festival, things of that nature. And this young lady who was part of the group, nudged me and says, Can you tell me what that means? And I go, Yeah, that's a duck. It means son, and then the circle next to it means Ra. So she's a son of Ra. And then below it is a cartoutra has her name. So I was able to explain, you know, decipher the name for her. And she wanted, and she knew the symbol for Ankh, but there was a triangle which is D to give. So, you know, I explained to her. That means that, you know, gives life, and then, you know, uh, there was uh this thing she says, what's the basket? And that was me, you know, giz life, like, you know, and then ra, and then the last one was the symbol for forever. So as I was speaking to her, this other guy comes up to me, says, What does this mean? So I was able to explain to him what it meant. And, you know, and then there was another question, and the guide came up to me, and he stood next to me, and he was answering questions, and I was answering questions, which is, you know, to me is pretty neat. You know, I you know, not only did I get to see an engineering marvel, but I was able to read some stuff from it also.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

That's wonderful. And sounds like you became a bit of a superstar on the in the tour group there, too.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, of course, that you know, that evening at the hotel, they bought me a few beers.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

That sounds great. And that I'm sure that enhanced the experience for them as well, and you getting to use your skills and not just for you, but to be able to share it with others, of course, can take it to another level too.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

So, yeah, that was an interesting uh part of the tour. And uh, you know, if anybody goes to Egypt, you know, the there's so many tours out there, but the one I was on, I felt was a little rushed. You know, they they just don't give you enough time when you go to these uh you know different areas of Egypt. It's just uh, you know, a whirlwind almost. And uh if they could find more time, I I would highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, they do oftentimes go by pretty quickly, for sure. So sometimes I hear from people who are thinking about learning hieroglyphs or thinking about learning scribal school, but they're really concerned that it's gonna be too difficult for them, especially if they have tried, for example, books before, like you were talking about, and they feel like they just didn't really, they really didn't get it from that. And so they're not sure if they should really give something like this a try. They're worried about it not working. And I'd love to hear what you would um what you would say about that and sort of how you overcame that challenge and what you would tell somebody who's worried about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Well, when I started this, uh, you know, the scribal school, I had already uh done an online course and I had tried books. And uh and like I said earlier, you know, I came across the illustrations, which I loved, you know, the uh especially when uh it's explained by the drawings on uh your format online where you had the characters and the cartoon characters and you were explained that way. Uh you take, you know, I took that and I said, well, heck, that's an easy way of explaining it. You know, let's try you know Melinda's course. And uh it's not in, you know, from when I look at it, it's uh it's not, you know, getting your, you know, your feet wet head first type of thing. You know, you know, it it's small steps that lead on to the next, you know, the next series within you know the format. And uh you learn the initial, you talk about it, there's interaction, you feel good about what you've learned. If you have questions, there's always capabilities of follow-up, there's always capabilities of learning a little bit more why, and then you move on to the next one. And those are the small steps that I think build the confidence for you to finish the course and do more.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

I love that. I think you pointed out a few really important things. Like you said, it's that, you know, um not being thrown in in the deep end, so to speak, or like you said, getting your feet wet head first and taking actual, like reasonably sized steps, because I think that is one of the things people I was just thinking about this yesterday, actually. It's one of the things that people run into so much when they try to learn from a lot of sources, is that it just jumps ahead really fast and instead of taking those reasonable steps. And then, like you said, of course, there's always the support too. So if you do have questions or you run into something you're not sure about, um, you have extra questions, you want to know why something it is, then then you have that option to do that. Whereas, you know, with a book, for example, you're just you know, you're just stuck with what's on the page. You can't ask, right? Yeah. Um, or or go any deeper on it there.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

And uh you could also in the stribal school is you you set up groups of your own that you could ask questions to. You know, uh there are there are others out there that have the same interests and have may have may have the you know the same fears or the or the same same stumbling blocks that you have. So, you know, it's something that there's always help out there.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Absolutely. It's a great point. I think the community is so important, knowing that you have other people who are working on it and you can uh talk with them. Some people sometimes you know become friends through there, and oftentimes when people ask questions, you know, other people in the group get to them answering them even faster than I do. So and uh everybody's also got a little bit different things to contribute. So it's a wonderful mix of interactions that go on in there.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

It is, and and you look forward to it, you know, like uh it's not a book that you have to open and you say to yourself, gee, I don't want to do this. It's you look forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, that's a great point. There can be such a big difference in that way in terms of your motivation as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Sure is. And you know, also I I I just have to say that I enjoyed the instruction. I I think you've done a wonderful job putting it together and the way you you formatted it to uh students who are learning this. It's it's a it's a very well done, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Oh, thank you. So as we wind down, I know there's gonna be some folks out there who are thinking about joining scribal school coming up soon, and they might have a lot of questions or hesitations, they're feeling unsure about it, they're evaluating their options, you know, and just like, hmm, I'm not sure if it's a good fit, or maybe they feel like I'm not sure right now is a good time, or something like that. And so I wanted to know what what would you say to somebody who's thinking about joining scribal school and they're on the fence, they're just not sure if it's the right move right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Well, you know, let's say you put it off for six months or a year or whatever. You know, that's a year or six months that you've could have done something. You know, that's my way looking at it. And uh in many ways, uh you know, my feeling is this you you never lose when you invest in knowledge. I don't think you do. You know, you know, that that that's just my opinion. You know, I I mean I'll tell you another quick story. My grandson and myself, we attended the thing called uh uh uh it was called the horizon of Khufu. And it was done with uh and it goes around to different cities, and it was done through uh to uh I forgot what they call it, it it it's all visual. It's that that uh that mask they put on your face over your eyes. I forget what they call that.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

But anyway, like a VR thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, and and it's a wonderful experience. It really is. And if you're thinking of of uh tribal school or something, and and that goes uh and that's available in your town, it could be a museum, it could be, you know, that that might sponsor it, it's really worthwhile to go. It really is, because it might give you a little bit of a and uh a better understanding as to what you know ancient Egypt is all about. And uh it's really well done. And uh the same thing happened as in Egypt was when you walk into the uh into the showing uh prior to that, they had these these huge plotcards and they showed the Egypt's the the grand reason the grand uh the great pyramid, and it also had Kufu's name and hieroglyphics on the bottom of it. And uh my grandson pointed to it and said, Oh yeah, well that's his name. And I was able to explain, okay, that's that's that's how it is. In the cartouche itself, you know, the the you know, the viper is an F, you know, the uh the circle with the lines is KH, you know, and uh the the quail is a U. So it's a thing, kufu. And it's in the cartouche. And he says, gee, you know, grandpa, you know that? I go, yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I know that. And and uh, you know, these are things that you look at that uh just make pop up. I mean, just for myself, if I see a sign somewhere and I've got the time, I'll sit down and I'll start to translate it into hieroglyphics just for the heck of it. You know, especially if I'm bored, not doing anything. And uh it it's just something that you could just add to your resume of knowledge. And you know, I wouldn't hesitate.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I love that. And I love that you got to share that with your grandson. That must have been quite a proud grandparent moment.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Well, you know, maybe he'll look at me and says, you know, he's not so dumb after all.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Well, thank you so much, Juan. It was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for being on the podcast today. I look forward to seeing where you go from here.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

It's been a pleasure.