14 DAY TRIAL // Egyptologists were puzzled for a century by some ancient religious texts in the underground chambers of a pyramid south of Cairo.
Even if written in Egyptian characters, some parts were undecipherable.
But in 2002, one of the Egyptologists sent a part of the mysterious inscription to Richard Steiner, a professor of Semitic languages at Yeshiva University in New York, who made the Semitic connection.
He found the undecipherable phrases to be written in the language of the Semitic Canaanite tribes at some point in the period from 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.
"This is the oldest connected text that we have in any Semitic language. The previous oldest Semitic text dates from the 24th century B.C.," Steiner said.
"This is highly significant because maybe, according to the researcher, it dates to the third millennium B.C., so it's the most ancient pre-Canaanite text that we ever met and maybe ... it is the most ancient Semitic text ever discovered," said Moshe Florentine, an expert on ancient Hebrew and a member of the language academy.
"Steiner has not submitted his findings to a scientific journal but plans to do so," he said.
"More study of the fragments will be necessary to determine how these passages fit into the evolution of Semitic languages," Florentine said.
The text proves the close relations the Egyptians maintained with the tribes at north even if they considered their culture and religion superior to that of those barbarians.
In this case, they intended to protect the mummies of their kings from the poisonous snakes and as some snakes were regarded as speaking the language of the Canaanites, Egyptians put the magic spells on two sides of the sarcophagus in order to keep them off.
"Come, come to my house," or "Turn aside, O my beloved" say some Semitic phrases, luring the snakes out of the tomb.
"The Egyptian and Semitic sections are each an integral part of the magic spell and neither can stand alone," Steiner said.
That's why some parts were in Egyptian.
The Canaanite tribes gave birth later to the Phoenician and Hebrew nations.
"The Semitic language of these texts that have now been deciphered was a very archaic form of the languages later known as Phoenician and Hebrew," Steiner said.
"The text includes words that have the same meaning as in Hebrew, like "yad" for hand, "ari" for lion, and "beit" for house", he said.