Did the Ancient Egyptians Predict ‘The Simpsons’?

Matt Groening and The Simpsons are notorious for parodically predicting the near future, but who predicted The Simpsons — and how good are they at soccer?

Last month, an expedition of Egyptian archaeologists exhumed coffins from a cemetery believed to be from the New Kingdom, which lasted from around 1550 BCE to 1069 BCE. Chief among the trove of ancient cadavers was a wooden coffin containing the remains of a woman named Nany, who is believed to have been a “chantress of Djehouti, Egyptian god of the moon and writing.” Inside her casket were artistic depictions of a full-body illustration of Nany herself, stretching from her yellow toes to the tip of her blue beehive hair in her finest strapless light green dress.

Before we jump to the conclusion that Matt Groening has, for the first time, been out-prophesied, let’s acknowledge the curious coincidence that “Nany” spent at least 3,000 years underground only to emerge a couple weeks before “Treehouse of Horror XXXIV.”

Understandably, online Simpsons fans reacted with incredulity to Nany’s uncanny resemblance to one Marjorie Jacqueline “Marge” Simpson before realizing that the photos came directly from The Egyptian Gazette. Quickly, other eerie ancient doppelgangers popped up in the thread, showing a third to sixth century Japanese statue with spiky hair and an appetite for shorts, as well as a third to two century BCE Etruscan figurine that looks like it’s about to rip a sweet sax solo before lecturing us about paper straws or store-bought eggs or something.

Then, of course, there was the usual smattering of inside Simpsons jokes — like the guy who claimed he translated the hieroglyphics in the casket to “Lisa Needs Braces.” 

The discovery in Egypt has further fueled speculation that The Simpsons may have a much more ancient origin than The Tracey Ullman Show. Just as “The Hero’s Journey” has emerged organically in countless cultures throughout history, perhaps the Simpsons family has a similar subconscious ubiquity that’s been waiting millennia to manifest. And, if any skeptics choose to discount these disconcerting findings because the Simpsons clan is still absent an appearance in antiquity from the patriarch, let me ask you this: Who wrote The Odyssey?