What you notice about Richard Jasnow first is his impish humor and quiet smile, and his habit, when talking about important things, of closing his eyes.
When the subject of Egypt comes up, he is scarcely able to get out all the words he seems to want to, and he has the glow of a man who has given more of himself to his studies than most will ever devote to a career. The smile he offers when he explains the ritual dances of Hathor or the feline grace of Bastet is the same grin that some men show when they talk about wives and daughters.
Egypt for him has such "immediate, self-evident worth" that he goes beyond simple affection for the subject.
He is one of 40 full-time scholars in the world that have taken upon the translation, piece by piece, of anything and everything written in Egyptian Demotic script. Demotic, which appears to the untrained eye to be loose, almost graffiti-like marks, sort of a wobbly Sanskrit, was used by ancient Egyptian scribes for 300 years to record everything from marriages to the epic battles of Egyptian history.
It derived from the famous hieroglyphics of Egypt, which became "language reserved for the cocktail party" while Demotic, which is basically a short-hand, cursive form of the hieroglyph symbols, became the language of everyday life.
Jasnow didn't know any of this until he found a dictionary of Demotic in the library of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he studied classics as an undergraduate. Somewhere in the back of his head was a little kid's fascination with Egypt, and the dictionary triggered an interest.
"This was terra icognita," he said, as delighted at his discovery today as he was when it first hit him. "There was, and still is, so much out there, just masses of material to study." Jasnow was given an opportunity at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, and soon enough, he was a full-fledged Demoticist.
He reads Egyptian poetry with the same lyricism that many reserve for T.S. Eliot, pausing after each line and musing on its meaning. Many of the texts he uses in his classes were religious in purpose, meant to honor gods or call upon their powers.
"You read Moby Dick because it's on the list of great books," he explained, "but you shouldn't feel compelled to read Egyptian poetry because someone labeled it religious and therefore it ought to be looked at. You should read Egyptian poetry because it's beautiful." And in his eyes, it is beautiful and lyrical and expressive, and stands alone as literature. Tristan Davies of the Writing Seminars Department has even been known to "bounce ideas back and forth" with Jasnow.
There is a lot to be learned from the words. "These works deal with subjects that confront us all. We've all felt sorrow or tragedy or love. And so did the Egyptians."
It's this chance to bring what is found within these texts to an audience that could never see past the scraggly black lines they began as that keeps Jasnow coming back for more. "All of us, all Egyptologists, are simply enthusiastic about what we do. We have to become advocates for the material. The best argument we can make for the importance of our discipline is to show how beautiful it is."
Of course, this can't be accomplished without travel. Jasnow spends a great deal of time in Egypt, where his wife, who is also an Egyptologist, lives and works. For all the times he's visited, the place continues to impress.
"The past is ever-present in Egypt," he said. "The interaction of the past and the present makes Egypt absolutely fascinating."
Interaction, in fact, is Jasnow's watchword.
"No one can master all 3,000 years of Egyptian history and culture. For me to understand my little area of expertise, I have to hear about related studies, I have to work with others in other fields." On any given project or translation, Jasnow will consult with colleagues throughout Europe and Egypt, together with whom he has produced catalogues of some of the major temples in Egypt.
Even with the input of others, he never loses "the rush of finding something new, of reading or deciphering what no one else has looked at." The translation game rewards both quickness and accuracy. "You want to get the material out, but you want to get it out right." Jasnow is not above spending years on a single manuscript, often going over the same lines again and again.
"It's such a privilege to be able to present this material," he said, "but there is a unique responsibility that goes along with it, as well."
His most recent work, a translation of the Book of Thoth, will be published in August. He began his translation work on the book in 1989. When he tells the plot, it's striking how familiar it sounds. The mortal human, known as "He Who Wishes To Learn," converses with Thoth, the god of wisdom, in a series of discussions.
Jasnow himself seems to fit that very human role, the inquisitive one seeking to absorb the knowledge of the gods. For every time Richard Jasnow sits down to inspect a text, he is holding his own conversation with the wisdom of the past.
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