Yesterday's History Lesson and Smacksy

We've been learning about the secret language of ancient Egypt.  This fascinates Fiona (she wants to make her own secret language now), but bores her sister to tears.  Fiona is on the edge of her seat, holding on to my every word, while Neve blurts out 'pharaoh' or 'Nile' from time to time to avoid any quizzes.  Yesterday, I began explaining where we were on the timeline, on the globe, and then where all of this was taking place in relation to us.  ('Neve!  In relation to us!  Now!  In the time of frozen yogurt!  Any interest yet?')

I read them this excerpt from their history book, "One day some soldiers were digging near Rosetta when they found a stone, something like a tombstone with three kinds of writing on it.  The top was in pictures, which we now call hieroglyphics, and no one understood what it meant.  Below this was written what was supposed to be the same story in the Greek language, and a great many people do understand Greek.  All one had to do, therefore, to find out the meaning of the hieroglyphics, was to compare the two writings.  This puzzle took almost twenty years for one clever man to solve, but after the key to the puzzle was found, men and women were able to read all of the hieroglyphics in Egypt and so to find out what happened in that country long ago.  This stone is called the Rosetta Stone.  It is now in the great British Museum in London and is very famous, because from it we were able to learn so much history that we otherwise would not have known..."

I ask Neve to tell me what I just read and she answers, "...otherwise would not have known."

"Okay.  Fiona?  Anything more to add to that?"

Fiona is laughing at Neve's answer and continues, "Well, see... there was once a man.  And he was very good at digging.  And he LOVED to dig.  So, he digged and digged, wait, Mom.  Is 'digged' a word?"

I shake my head.

"Dug?"

I nod.

"...So, he dug and dug until he came across a HUGE rock that looked like the kind of rock that people put in, what's the place called that dead people are buried at, Mom?"

"Cemetery."

"Yes, cemetery.  You know those rocks with words at a cemetery?  What are they called?"

"Head stones."


"Yes, head stones.  It looked like a head stone from a cemetery, but it had words on it about Egypt, not dead people's names.  The problem was, the man was really good at digging, but he wasn't very good at reading other languages and the other languages were... uhhh, those picture words... hie-ro?  Hiero-gly-phics?  Hieroglyphics?  Is that right, mom?"

I nod.

"It had hieroglyphics pictures on the top and then it had another language under it called something.  French, I think.  And then another one.  I can't remember.  But what he did was, he took it to his friends who COULD speak French and the other language and asked them to tell him what it said.  They told him what it said, and he guessed that it was the same as what the hieroglyphics said.  And then he went to the president or the king or whoever and said, 'you're going to be so happy about this- I CAN SPEAK HIEROGLYPHICS!' And they gave him a metal or an award or something because they were so happy for him and then they took the head stone to a museum and he was famous."

* pause *

"Mom?  Was that right?"

My head was spinning, "Well, you added a little extra to history.  I like that this excites you, but you don't have to add to history.  The truth is enough."

(And that last line was a quote from another great Smacksy post.  Lisa, thanks... I can use all the parenting help I can get.)