Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:15:44 +0100 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: eef@lists.yale.edu, Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL A small correction about the call for paper on Natural language processing and ancient languages There was a small typo on the call for paper: The journal address is http://atala.org/-Revue-TAL- (and not http://atala.org/TAL ) Best regards, Serge Rosmorduc ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:27:03 +0000 From: "Mark-Jan Nederhof" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: AEL hieroglyphic font (Aegyptus) This is a message primarily for the software developers among you: The lack of a comprehensive (and free!) font of hieroglyphs has been a frequent subject of discussion, so unless this is old news and nobody has told me about it, I am pleased to pass on the URL of a website that I discovered yesterday, offering just such a font, containing over 7000 glyphs. I contacted the designer, who was very helpful and encouraged me to share this information with you. See: http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/download.html Regards, Mark-Jan ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:02:59 -0500 From: "John Corridan" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: AEL members in New England area Hi everyone: I am from Massachusetts and am working on translating Egyptian texts at the MFA in Boston and the Met in New York. I'd be very interested in comparing notes with other AEL members from New England who might have translated some of the same texts. Can someone help me out? Thank you. John Corridan ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:19:31 +0000 From: "Mark-Jan Nederhof" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL members in New England area Hi John, Translating texts together with others in real-life meetings is always preferable, and I hope you will find people in your area. (I still hope to find interested people around St Andrews or Edinburgh, Scotland, some day.) If geographical constraints do not allow personal meetings, then the second best thing would be to propose a joint translation on this very AEL list. The last time we did this was a long, long time ago. If you have available a clear picture or transcription of a text, then I might consider helping to render it into an electronic encoding. Mark-Jan ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:51:36 -0000 Subject: Re: AEL members in New England area Hi John, Mark-Jan, and the list, It is indeed a very long time since we had a joint translation here on AEL. I certainly would second Mark-Jan's proposal. I would also like to add that there is always space available on http://www.rostau.org.uk for any transcriptions or supporting material required for on-list translation. Just let me know if you you would like me to host anything. Kind regards, Mark Wilson ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:23:11 +0000 From: "Mark-Jan Nederhof" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: AEL annotated sign list (was: JSesh version 2.8.1) On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 5:23 PM, Serge Rosmorduc wrote: > [...] I have also worked on the glyphs description, and the "man and its occupation" family is on its way. More to come > While I'm saying this, I will had that JSesh includes a tool to describe > glyphs, which can be found in the "bin" folder. Anyone with a reasonable > knowledge of hieroglyphs can help... The glyph description data can only be > created "by hand", and it takes time. It's also a task that can be easily > shared by many people. So, consider this as a call to volunteers :) About two years ago I distributed an XML file that contained sample content of descriptions of signs, calling for a joint effort to make something decent out of this, and in particular to extend this to the full sign list from the Unicode proposal. Nothing came of this then. Some thoughts: One may distinguish between descriptions in the narrow sense, of phrases describing a sign (e.g. A4: 'sitting man with hands raised'), and descriptions in the broad sense of listing usage of signs, such as use as phonograms, determinatives, etc. For the descriptions in the narrow sense, I finished this for the signs from GEG, but this alone took me a considerable amount of time, and still I'm not happy with it and I've never been able to formulate sound principles by which descriptions should be chosen, especially in the light of anticipated future additions to the list. For one thing, my initial purpose to find a unique description for each sign seemed rather hard to achieve; e.g. I14 and I15 now both: 'snake', and F46 through F49 all: 'intestine'. For the descriptions in the broad sense, I finished this up to A33 at the time, collating GEG with other sources, such as Hannig's and Faulkner's dictionaries. I discontinued this however, as it was not clear the effort was going to pay off, first because nobody seemed interested in collaborating (a recurring theme in computational Egyptology), second because the principles by which the descriptions should be put together were unclear (to me), and third because the status of the end result would be dubious in the absence of an endorsement by a reputable Egyptologist. The descriptions in the broad sense may be partly machine-interpretable, but one may prefer to keep some comments in free-text format, e.g. for A19: 'Clearly distinguishable from A21 in hieratic, not always so in hieroglyphic.' For the machine-interpretable part, especially interesting is the relation between signs and their allowable functions in terms of phonograms, ideograms and determinatives. One crucial question remains unanswered however: how many such functions are there, and how should we characterise them? For example, Hannig also distinguishes between 'Abk', 'Log', 'Log/Det', 'Phono-Det', etc. What are the exact criteria by which signs are to the classified as one or more of these? I know of two papers by Schenkel (Lexicon der Aegyptologie 1986 and MDAIK 1971) that try to make a very fine inventory of functions of signs, but it is not clear to me how his work is to be used to effectively create a corresponding annotation of Gardiner's sign list that would be of use in practice. If there is anyone out there reading this who has thoughts to contribute, or who knows about relevant literature beyond the two papers by Schenkel, I would be most grateful to hear. PS Some of my recent work using annotated sign lists is reported in the paper "Automatic alignment of hieroglyphs and transliteration", currently at the top of http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~mjn/publications/ Mark-Jan ============================================================================== From: Rhio Barnhart To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL hieroglyphic font (Aegyptus) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:52:39 -0800 Mark-Jan, Thanks for the Aegyptus font info. I downloaded it and successfully installed it on my MacBook running Mac OS 10.5. Using the character palette built in to the Mac OS, one can easily insert the glyphs into a document. It is indeed a massive collection. The only shortcoming is that there is no key to Gardiner numbers for any of the glyphs and in order to find a specific symbol, one must scroll through some 7200 lines of 9 characters! It is nice to have such a huge collection, however. Cheers, RHB ******************************* Rhio H. Barnhart Head of the Music Department Library Systems Manager for Music University of California, Davis, CA 95616 ******************************* ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:01:21 -0800 (PST) From: Weben Banu Subject: AEL Looking for sources on Dunanwy To: aegyptian-l@rostau.org.uk Hello again, everyone! I'm looking for a little background information on a god known as Dunanwy who seems to be associated with the god Anti- he shows up in papyrus Jumilhac, but regretfully I can not seem to find the actual glyphs printed anywhere. The closest I have gotten is this, which is the name of Anti: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/webenbanu/Digital%20Papyrus/anti.jpg From what I've seen so far, which is little, I suspect that this Dunanwy is perhaps not so much a different deity but rather a different title used to refer to the god Anti. If anyone agrees or has a different opinion, I'd love to hear from you! Specifically, however, I am looking for aspects of Dunanwy's character or mythology which might explain why he is included in purification texts paired with Horus, Set, and Thoth. Many thanks! Katherine ============================================================================== Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:24:23 +0100 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL annotated sign list (was: JSesh version 2.8.1) Mark-Jan Nederhof a écrit : > About two years ago I distributed an XML file that contained sample content of > descriptions of signs, calling for a joint effort to make something decent out > of this, and in particular to extend this to the full sign list from the > Unicode proposal. Nothing came of this then. > > > Some thoughts: > > One may distinguish between descriptions in the narrow sense, of phrases > describing a sign (e.g. A4: 'sitting man with hands raised'), and descriptions > in the broad sense of listing usage of signs, such as use as phonograms, > determinatives, etc. > > For the descriptions in the narrow sense, I finished this for the signs from > GEG, but this alone took me a considerable amount of time, and still I'm not > happy with it and I've never been able to formulate sound principles by which > descriptions should be chosen, especially in the light of anticipated future > additions to the list. For one thing, my initial purpose to find a unique > description for each sign seemed rather hard to achieve; e.g. I14 and I15 now > both: 'snake', and F46 through F49 all: 'intestine'. > > It's really difficult to do, especially if you consider the extended list. F46 to F49's case is not complex in theory, but is hard to describe in words . However, when one goes beyon the original list, where Gardiner gives at least a short description, there is a real lack of actual description of the sign. It's very difficult to know what is relevant and what is not. If you explore the signs available on JSesh's site, you will find many variants of Manuel de Codage signs, often built from genuine glyphs. I had sometimes a hard time selecting the sign to use for the "official" code, because of this lack of published documentation. To be fair, publishing it is a huge and complex task, which requires considerable expertise... To give an example of the difficulties, the original sign for E35 (a sitting baboon) in JSesh had an upward tail, which is also the case of the sign in Gardiner's extended font. The sign itself was taken from NK royal tombs (but I think the model was not a hieroglyph, but a large-scale figure). Now, when I talked about JSesh with specialists in Ptolemaic, they told me that it wasn't the correct shape. Now, is it the case that a) we should have two sitting baboon, one for Ptolemaic texts, and one for older texts ? b) Gardiner font-drawers also used a New Kingdom large scale figure instead of an actual glyph ? To find it out requires a small search, and so on. > For the descriptions in the broad sense, I finished this up to A33 at the > time, collating GEG with other sources, such as Hannig's and Faulkner's > dictionaries. I discontinued this however, as it was not clear the effort was > going to pay off, first because nobody seemed interested in collaborating (a > recurring theme in computational Egyptology), second because the principles by > which the descriptions should be put together were unclear (to me), and third > I have tried to describe the principles I chose for JSesh in page : http://jsesh.qenherkhopeshef.org/qensub/docs/english/apas02.html#d0e1049 But the main goal of the "palette" is to help people to find a particular sign, not to document them, so a number of issues have been left floating. For instance, you will notice that I did only list phonetic values, not determinative values, simply because it's easy to find a sign from its phonetic value, but which search term would I use for determinatives ? (well, in fact, I did coin a system for this, which is the "typical" value... type "bin" and you have G37. > because the status of the end result would be dubious in the absence of an > endorsement by a reputable Egyptologist. > > The descriptions in the broad sense may be partly machine-interpretable, but > one may prefer to keep some comments in free-text format, e.g. for A19: > 'Clearly distinguishable from A21 in hieratic, not always so in hieroglyphic.' > > The fact is that there is no full commented catalogue with signs values yet, For Ptolemaic signs, there are two articles by Fairman. One is available on the BIFAO site; http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bifao/43/ The other is Fairman, H.W., „Notes on the Alphabetic Signs Employed in the Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of. the Temple of Edfu“, ASAE 43 There is the Montpellier's list (Valeurs phonétiques des signes hiéroglyphiques d'époque Gréco-Romaine), but it's basically a list of signs values with bibliographic references, but without commentaries, so it's more a starting point than a complete encyclopedia of signs. There are also a number of works on particular monuments, like S. Cauville's "Dendara, le fond hiéroglyphique à l'époque de Cléopâtre". Things are however on the move, with the ongoing publication of the Paléographie Hiéroglyphique by the IFAO. Volume 1 by D. Meeks contains an long introduction, presenting the problems and issues linked with the subject. > If there is anyone out there reading this who has thoughts to contribute, > or who knows about relevant literature beyond the two papers by Schenkel, > I would be most grateful to hear. > > Mark-Jan > There are a number of recent works on determinative, in particular O. Goldwasser, "From Icon to Metaphor"; OBO 142. I know that Pr. Kammerzell's team is also working on determinatives and their uses. There's an article by Kammerzell in the beginning of Hannig GHWB with a somehow formal presentation, esp. table 3. There is also not a general agreement. For instance, when I presented my automated transliteration system, where I used the Phono-Det category, pr. Vernus told me that those were in fact ideograms, and indeed the rules I had written for both were quite similar. Best regards, S. Rosmorduc ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:06:03 +0000 From: "Mark-Jan Nederhof" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL hieroglyphic font (Aegyptus) Rhio, In fact I wrote to the designer last week, requesting a plain ASCII file mapping Gardiner names to code points, which he most helpfully sent to me. I propose I get back to him, convey to him the gratitude of our community, and ask whether he could put the mapping on his web site, for everyone to find. Regards, Mark-Jan ============================================================================== From: "Jenny Carrington" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL Looking for sources on Dunanwy Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:30:16 +1100 Hi Katherine, There doesn't seem to be much info about Dunanwy. I came across his name in a purification scene in the tomb of Sennefer (TT96). It is written as a falcon with outstretched wings sitting on a nome standard. http://www.geocities.com/jennycarrington/sep.html ====================== Some references provided by Michael Tilner on the AEL list back in 2001: (Subject: Re: AEL Sep(?)- god of the east) http://www.rostau.org.uk/Aegyptian-L/archives/week230.txt dwn-anwi "Dun-anui", HWB, p. 1249 The sign in question is G148 of the extended library, HWB, p. 1143 LAe I, 1152-1153, s.v. "Dunanui" ... mentioned in the purification ritual in the pyramid texts besides Thoth and in parallel to Horus and Seth, representing the East in this group of four gods ... Part of the mouth opening ritual Dd mdw sp 4 "words to speak 4 times" wab=k wab Hr Ts pXr "your purity is the purity of Horus - and vice versa" wab=k wab stX Ts pXr "your purity is the purity of Seth - and vice versa" wab=k wab DHwty Ts pXr "your purity is the purity of Thoth - and vice versa" wab=k wab dwn-anwi Ts pXr "your purity is the purity of Dunanui - and vice versa" Ref: -- Eberhard Otto, Das aegyptische Mundoeffnungsritual [The Egyptian mouth opening ritual], Wiesbaden, 1960, p. 37-42 -- wab=k wab Hr ... "your purity is the purity of Horus ...", HWB, p.183 ======================= ~ Jenny Carrington ==============================================================================