I’m delighted to announce that my brand new translation of the Hieroglyphica of Horapollon with scholarly commentary is now in preparation with Black Letter Press. Alice and Clavdio Rocchetti are working their magic, and the book should be going to print in the next month or so.
Pop over to my Substack here to discover how this project came about, a lengthy excerpt on allegory and how it rescued pagan myths from oblivion, and an outtake on the pagan answer to Jesus that I could not expand on in the book!
I’ve reached out to a number of scholars and other specialists for comment, here is their feedback thus far:
The Hieroglyphica is a literary enigma that belongs beside the Hermetica and the Orphic Hymns. Like them it claims to be a transmission of ancient wisdom but was actually written down much later. Allegedly a dictionary of the meaning of hieroglyphics, each entry is a little poetic masterpiece, especially in Sasha Chaitow’s splendid new translation, now the standard for this work. At the nexus of the beauty of poetry and of the observation of human nature and of the patterns of life, in which it resembles the Yi Jing, the Hieroglyphica is a course in the understanding of symbology and folklore. Sasha provides deep insights and fascinating details in a wonderful display of scholarly skills that spans disciplines. Her writing sparkles with wit and elegant turns of phrase, and like the Hieroglyphica itself, with an uncommon common sense.
Ronnie Pontiac
Author of American Metaphysical Religion: Esoteric and Mystical Traditions of the New World
With this English translation directly from the Greek original, Sasha Chaitow breathes new life into the Hieroglyphica. Praise should be given not just for the translation but also for Sasha’s dismantling of long-standing biases that have obscured our understanding of the Hieroglyphica and, more broadly, the intellectual and religious complexities of late antique Greco-Egyptian thought.
Sasha confronts the rigid boundaries within classical, Byzantine, and modern Greek studies, showing how these artificial divisions have confused the understanding of the Hieroglyphica, a work that resists reductive categorization. By breaking down these barriers, Sasha contributes to understanding Greco-Egyptian intellectual and religious history during Late Antiquity. Thus the Hieroglyphica can be studied in the full richness of its historical and intellectual context.
Angelo Nasios
Historian and Host of Hearth of Hellenism Podcast
For modern readers to make sense of the Hieroglyphica, a text written for and consumed within a culture far removed from our own, a guide is essential. This richly annotated translation, brimming with erudition, opens the door to a foreign and fascinating world.
Olav Hammer
Professor Emeritus, University of Southern Denmark
The influence of ancient Egyptian civilization has been felt throughout the centuries from the end of the pharaonic period up to the present day. For much of that time, however, we did not know what the Egyptians themselves said because knowledge of the hieroglyphic script had been lost. Consequently, we had to rely on Greek, Latin or Arabic writings about Egypt until the advent of decipherment in 1822. One of the early explanations of the Egyptian hieroglyphs was the Hieroglyphica by the fifth century Hellenised Egyptian, Horapollon.
Sasha Chaitow has provided a much-needed, modern English translation of Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica direct from the original Greek, accompanied by extensive notes, fascinating commentary, and refreshing postcolonial critique. The new translation is welcome and very helpful for English readers otherwise reliant on Boas, but it was really the commentary that I was impressed by. I feel like it’s the only book anyone will need (along with Sbordone) on the topic of Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica. This impressive study is a valuable contribution to the history of the reception of ancient Egypt, particularly its intersection with Renaissance Hermetism.Caroline Tully
University of Melbourne.
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