Dr. Ilona Regulski

invaders and rebels, he restored temples, he founded new ones, he lowered taxes, very popular.

He guaranteed allowances for the animal cult and so on.

And because of all this, he should really be treated like a god.

The important thing about the content of this text is that this is not very Egyptian.

So this is a kind of way of honoring a leader that was very popular or common from the 5th century onwards in the Hellenistic world, in Greece, but wouldn't have been common in Pharaonic, in earlier Pharaonic times, when the pharaoh was really an intermediary between the divine and the human world.

So he would not have to be considered a god by his subjects.

he would already be very close to the gods.

So we can be pretty sure that the text or the type of text was also imported to Egypt from Greece.

Yes, it's a question why they felt they had to do that.

It was probably just a practice that they were familiar with in their region, and they just brought it to Egypt.

And this is a

Yeah, a very good example of this assimilation between different cultures that is always happening when a foreign power comes into a new country.

And the Ptolemaic kings were very keen to be depicted as pharaohs and to continue that tradition of that powerful ruler.

They just gave it a little bit of a local feel.

So as a place, it's located on the north coast of Egypt, a bit east of Alexandria.

It didn't exist in Pharaonic times.

It was founded actually much later, during the Greco-Roman period.

Even its foundation is not very clear.

Its exact moment of foundation, I mean.

It was called Rosette by the French when they were there.