History lessons

摘要

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" So run the famous lines of Percy Shelley's poem about Ramses the Great, a pharaoh who ruled Egypt's New Kingdom in the 13th century BC, when it was the world's most sophisticated society. But the poem's theme is the transience of glory. It describes the ruins of a giant statue to Ramses that lie scattered in the desert: "Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." Why was the New Kingdom so advanced, and what triggered its downfall? There is no shortage of theories, and each has its champions. This is the way history tends to work: theories are put forward, their strengths and weaknesses are discussed, and then they line up alongside all the alternative ideas. Like old sailors, they never really die. A new project called Seshat, after the ancient Egyptian goddess of knowledge, aims to change that.