high-capacity corridors that link the continent from north to south and from east to west along almost 60,000 kilometers. Some sections are not yet fully finished; it was designed in the 70s by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
The Trans-African route: TH1 connects Cairo with Dakar (8,636 km), TH5 (Dakar –Yamena (4,496 km) known as the Transhelian highway. TH6 (Yamela-Djibouti (4,219 km). TH7 (Dakar –Lagos (4,010 km). TH8 (Lagos-Mombasa (6,259 km). TH9 (Beira-Lobito (3,523 km). TH2 (Algiers Algeria - Lagos Nigeria (4,504 km.) Known as the Trans-Saharan Highway. TH3 (Tripoli- Cape Town (10,808 km) and TH4 unites Cape Town (Cape Town with Cairo 10,228 km.)
The project included four cross sections: 9,610 kilometers from Tripoli to Cape Town, 8,860 from Cairo to South Africa, 8,636 from the Egyptian capital to Dakar and 6,260 between Lagos and Mombassa.
To these must be added the regional corridors, such as the links between Algeria and Nigeria, Chad and Djibouti, Angola and Mozambique or Senegal and Nigeria.
The research studies the routes that link Cairo with the rest of Africa, the TH4 and TH1 would be the routes to be closed to prevent the Mask from leaving the country by land.
The main suspicion is that, discarding the Cairo airport for its security and the port of Alexandria, due to its distance, there would be a caravan of camels through the desert towards Libya, but the eavesdropping on several telephone numbers also leads to a cruise ship that travel the Nile from North to South, from Luxor to Aswan, I could take the stolen piece without any suspicion, and from there to Sudan, to let the matter cool down and be able to take it from there through the Red Sea to the place of delivery in Asia.
Anne sees the list of cruises, including Nubiem Sea, Prince Abass, Omar El Khayam, Eugenie, Kasr Ibrim or the Nile Bride, Royal Ruby, the Radamisy Semeramis, Liberty, Princes Sara, Esmeralda, Alyssa. The list is extensive.
But Cairo also leaves another highway that goes towards the Sinai Peninsula. The connection with Amman in Jordan is easy; the Red Sea has innumerable small ports that could be used, such as the tourist of Hurghada.
Interpol provides the information about the mask that would have already been sold to a Powerful Sheikh of the Arab world, it proposes to look for it to the powerful Sheikh, in a Holy Mosque when he approaches for his prayers (Jamil says that something unlikely that an Arab is involved, but they do not rule out any hypotheses in the search), so they set out to hunt for mosques around the Muslim world .
They will start with the Sahaba Mosque in Sharm el-Sheik.
Others will follow the trail of tycoons around the world.
They also postulate the idea that some museum in the world might want the piece, but legally it is impossible, says Thomas.
Anne, get out your tablet and quickly inspect the more than 50 museums in the world that contain Ancient Egyptian Art.
Among them the British Museum, in London, The Louvre Museum in Paris, The Neues Museum in Berlin, Milan Egyptian Collection Sforzesco Castle in Italy, together with the Egyptian Museum in Turin and the Gregorian Museum of the Varican and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. . The Metropolitan Museum of New York (MET). The National Archaeological Museum of Madrid. The list is very long, but could a museum buy a stolen piece? Anne wonders.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Anne asks about the Hieroglyphs and if it is easy to translate them. Thomas smiles and comments that reading in a row, “like Indiana Jones” , the inscriptions on the walls of the pharaonic temples and tombs is complicated. First, you will have to know the Gardiner list, the basic dictionary of Egyptian writing, which collects 743 different hieroglyphs classified into 26 subgroups (deities, parts of the body, man and his occupations, animals ...). In it are only the most common, those that were used during the Middle Kingdom.
In the Greco-Roman period the total number came to exceed 6,000, which does not mean that it was better written in Cleopatra’s time , but that more words were used to say the same thing. It was also a resource used by the Egyptian priests to hide their secrets from the new rulers of the country, the Greeks and the Romans.
The word “hieroglyph” comes from two Greek terms:
It should be noted within the Egyptian culture the importance of the funerary literature that has come down to us through the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, hieroglyphic writing on stone in the pyramid of King Unas, Dynasty V, c. 2350 BC), the Sarcophagus Texts (hieroglyphic writing on wood, engraved or painted, Middle Kingdom, c. 2050 - 1750 BC) and the Book of the Dead (hieroglyphic writing on papyrus, New Kingdom, c. 1550 BC. - 1070 BC). The change in support for hieroglyphic writing also allows us to glimpse the popularization of funeral rites and writing, in principle, reserved for the great figures of this civilization.
It was Champollion who in September 1822 found the definitive key to reading the ancient Egyptian inscriptions: the hieroglyphic system is at the same time figurative (1), symbolic (2) and phonetic (3). The hieroglyph that represents a duck, for example, admits several interpretations:
(1) .- Sometimes a duck is a duck is a duck. In this case, the duck sign is simply translated as “duck.”
(2) .- Other times, such as when it goes next to the sign that represents the sun (the god Ra) and in the company of the name of a pharaoh, its meaning is very different: “Son of Ra”. The duck, then, can also be translated as “son”.
(3) .- The duck also works as a biliterate phonogram: S + A, a sound that can be used to write other words without any relation to the ducks or the children. The phonograms are representations of sounds, letters or groups equivalent to two, three or more consonants.
Types of signs
There are three types of signs:
1 Phonograms.
2 Ideograms.
3 Determinants.
Some signs can only belong to one of these categories but others can function as two or even three of them.
It can be a phonetic sign: which in turn can be alphabetic or monolithic (they represent the 24 letters of the Egyptian pseudo-alphabet) or syllabic (which can be biliterate or triliterate). In addition to acting as phonetic signs, with the sound that corresponds to each one, they can also act as phonetic determinatives: one or more monoliths next to a bilítero or trilítero that repeat the same letters do it only to reinforce that idea, not with encouragement to repeat the same thing twice. H ay be considered that the hieroglyphic was artistic writing, so that these repetitions could letters used to fill a space in the pictorial composition.
Phonograms:
They are hieroglyphic signs that represent a sound or a series of sounds and not a meaning.
They are always consonants; there are no vowels, although there are weak consonants or semi-consonants.
They may be:
Unilíters : signs that represent a single consonant.