Moon Knight: Ancient Egypt Consultant Had to Get Creative With Writing Marvel Concepts in Hieroglyphics

When Marvel Studios was busy promoting Moon Knight ahead of its release earlier this year, the studio never shied away from applauding the show’s accuracy honoring both the source material it pulled from and ancient Egyptian myths and ideals. The care put into the show runs so deep, even the hieroglyphics on the character’s costumes and the show’s expansive set pieces were legitimate translations to ancient languages.

According to Egyptologist Ramy Romany, a consultant on the series, costume designer Meghan Kasperlik wanted to spell out sayings on the vigilante’s costume. Since “knight” didn’t exist as a word in ancient Egyptian lore, he had to get creative.

“All over Moon Knight’s legs, there are hieroglyphic inscriptions. Ancient Egyptian language did not have the word ‘knight’ in it. It didn’t exist,” Egyptologist Ramy Romany said in the Marvel’s Assembled docuseries.. “I had to come up with ‘The Protecting Soldier of the Moon,’ Ancient Egyptian Moon Knight.”

The consultant went on to praise the filmmakers at Marvel Studios late in the episode for their ability to balance the accuracy of Marvel Comics in real-world mythology. 

“Marvel was very keen on trying to make Moon Knight as historically accurate as possible for a fictional show. They were trying to thread that needle between historical accuracy and comic book accuracy. The idea of an avatar is an ancient Egyptian idea. Every paraoh is believed to be the god Horus, so even Ancient Egyptian pharaoh is actually the Avatar of the god Horus.”

We spoke to Kasperlik earlier this year, and she decoded what the sayings on Moon Knight’s costumes read.

“‘Rise and live again as my fist of vengeance. My Moon Knight,’ That is in the hieroglyph in the trouser,” Kasperlik told us at the tim. “On Mr. Knight, the Easter egg in that is that the buttons on the waistcoat are custom buttons that are Khonshu’s symbol. I had a metalsmith in-house that was making all of those.”

Moon Knight is now streaming in its entirety on Disney+.

What did you think of the live-action debut of the Fist of Khonshu? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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