Interlude - Index of

42 | Beginnings
For most of the past two thousand years, hieroglyphs have
been unreadable. But then the Rosetta Stone was discovered,
with the same text written in Greek letters as well as hieroglyphics.
To help people read your data in a thousand years,
write it in multiple formats.
The data I accessed at Kom Ombo—with the help of a
tour guide—was perhaps twenty-three hundred years old, but
the pyramid of Pharaoh Teti contains hieroglyphic data over
four thousand years old. Teti protected his data under tons
and tons of stone (hardened storage?), but he also used re dundancy.
In his burial chamber, the same message was repeated down
long columns. Many copies of the columns were re peated across
the wall.
What data would you protect so that it could be read four
thousand years in the future? The RAPH-protected message
in Teti’s tomb was this: over and over and over, it said, Teti.