Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:46:46 +0100 (CET) From: Ugo Bessi To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Teachings of Ptahhotep Dear Egyptians, whatever happened to Ptah-hotep? Best regards, Ugo Bessi. ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 21:35:09 -0800 (PST) From: Neoklis Kyriazis Subject: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Hi all I am new to the AEL list and a beginner in learning to read hieroglyphs. I also spend a lot of time working on my computer as I am retired so I recently completed a project to produce colored hieroglyph images. You can see a sample of these and download all from my website at: http://www.qsl.net/5b4az/pages/egypt.html I started by extracting glyphs as individual outline images from the Aegyptus.otf font file and then retouched and colored these using the Gimp image processing application. A lot of objects depicted in hieroglyphs suggest the correct colors to use but there are quite a few whose identity is difficult to guess and even so its still difficult to guess the correct colors to use. I wonder if there is any information on the objects depicted in hieroglyphs and the correct colors to use, or at least any indication on the colors used by Egyptian scribes. I might even attempt to write an application to produce hieroglyphic documents in color, which should be interesting! Thank you Regards Neoklis Ham Radio Call: 5B4AZ QTH Loc: KM64MR My Website: http://5b4az.chronos.org.uk/ ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:43:51 +0000 Subject: Re: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs From: Mark-Jan Nederhof To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Just my two cents. I'm not sure whether there is a notion of "correct color", even if one knows what a sign depicts. Have a look at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hieroglyphs_with_color Comparing the different photos, it seems there is little consistency, and often none of the chosen colors in various inscriptions matches the natural color of say the animal or the plant depicted. But undoubtedly, a closer study may reveal certain patterns or preferences. As to descriptions of what the signs represent, this would be useful, regardless of the issue of color. I pointed out the urgent need for this some months ago, and it remains urgent. Mark-Jan ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:20:34 -0600 From: Robert Myers To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs Hi; The other day, Mr. Raymond A. Usher-Cooper mentioned this site: http://www.72languages.com where we find: http://www.72languages.com/Egyptian_Griffith_Collection%20of%20Hieroglyphs.pdf This book has many useful comments about the colors used in painted mural glyphs. But, the text was scanned in as images without any text information, so searching has to be done the old way, rather than the PDF way. Bob ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:53:03 -0800 (PST) From: Neoklis Kyriazis Subject: Re: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Thanks Mark, I agree with your observations. Still, they are pretty, aren't they! And they do help, I can get an idea of what colors were availble the the Egyptians. Regards Neoklis Ham Radio Call: 5B4AZ QTH: KM64MR My Website: http://5b4az.chronos.org.uk/ http://www.qsl.net/5b4az/ ============================================================================== From: Cherif ELHAKIM To: Subject: RE: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 19:30:55 +0000 Profound question re colours: Sorry, I have been a long time observer on this list, but for once I have been triggered to write. This question of colours has had me pre-occupied too. I think it relates to life and death, and everything in between. So we have white, yellow, black, red, and green. Nothing else. Bravo for your beautiful work. Sherif ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:51:21 -0500 Subject: Re: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs From: Cooper/Stetson To: Ancient Egyptian Language List on 11/4/09 12:35 AM, Neoklis Kyriazis at n5b4az@yahoo.com wrote: > I wonder if there is any information on the objects depicted in hieroglyphs > and the correct colors to use, or at least any indication on the colors used > by Egyptian scribes. I might even attempt to write an application to produce > hieroglyphic documents in color, which should be interesting! Neoklis, I would recommend the following initial sources for what you seek. Each is currently available at no cost online. You should be able to find them without too much difficulty either at Googlebooks or through http://www.archive.org/ They are: Medum - W. M. Flinders Petrie. (This was published in 1892 and is not the same work as his Meydum and Memphis) Saqqara Mastabas Volumes 1 and 2 - Margaret A. Murray (1905). See especially plates XLI-XLV in V. 1 A Collection of Hieroglyphs - F. Ll. Griffith (1898) The Mastaba of Ptahhetep and Akhethetep at Saqqara Parts 1 and 2 - N. de G. Davies (1900) Best, Leon Cooper ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:38:31 +0100 From: Vincent Euverte To: Ancient Egyptian Language List CC: "malarde.gaetan" Subject: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs Dear Neokis, and all chaps on the list, I like very much your effort to color hieroglyphs. As said by other list members, it is not so easy to determine what were the exact colors used in Ancient Egypt, or even if there was a real "standard" for each hieroglyph. Moreover, we should consider that the colors we can see now probably suffered from time, sun, wind, and sand ; so the remains are certainly downgraded from their initial brightness. Just for your information, I suggest you have a look on the following website, created several years ago by Ga=EBtan Malard=E9, and well-known in the French community. Even if you can not read French, I am sure you will appreciate the effort. http://pagesperso-orange.fr/fmalarde/ Regarding the actual colors, you may also visit the Rosette website, which offers palaeographic images of original artefacts, of which some are colored (please note that this collection is under construction, far from completion). http://projetrosette.info/page.php?Id=480&Lang=EN Hoping that it will help, truly yours, /*Vincent Euverte*/* web = http://vincent.euverte.free.fr Projet Rosette : http://projetrosette.info * ============================================================================== From: "Michel Mudde" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: AEL Correct colours in hieroglyphs Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:04:49 +0100 Hi all, Chapter 4, 'Painting Materials', in 'Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology', Nicholson & Shaw ed. (isbn:0521452570) contains an extensive report of the pigments used during the dynastic periods. Kind regards, Michel Mudde ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 19:42:31 -0800 (PST) From: Neoklis Kyriazis Subject: RE: AEL Correct colors in hieroglyphs To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Hi all, I just like to thank everyone for the links an other info on the subject. It helps a lot since I found some hieroglyph images that help me understand the object depicted, and also that mwny objects (except people it seems) are not always in their natural colors. So if in doubt. I can improvise. Regards Neoklis ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:12:05 +0100 From: Vincent Euverte To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Correct colours in hieroglyphs Dear list members, Few additions to the already rich bibliographic reference on this topic := * Williams - The decoration of the Tomb of Per Neb, technique and color conventions, 1932 * B. Mathieu, =AB Les couleurs dans les Textes des Pyramides : approche des syst=E8mes chromatiques =BB, ENIM 2, 2009, p. 25-52 (including an impressive bibliography) * A. Lucas - Ancient Egyptian Materials, Chapter VI "Pigments and Varnish" - 1926 Hoping it will help. Best regards, /*Vincent Euverte*/* web = http://vincent.euverte.free.fr Projet Rosette : http://projetrosette.info * ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:40:07 +0100 (CET) From: "omezzab@tin.it" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor.mP3 audio version Hi all! Three or four years ago (I don't remember exactly) I was quite involved with Middle Egyptian (then unfortunately I had to give up and now I am starting from scratch again) -- anyway, at that time, while reading "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor" I was pleasantly captured by its inner sound, its rhytmic construction, so that I tried to make and audio version of it. Even though I consulted Antonio Loprieno's "Ancient Egyptian" and Gerhard Fecht "Wortakzent und Silbenstruktur" my approach was quite amateurish, based more on instinct than on scientific procedures. But my intention was not to reconstruct the aural sound of Middle Egyptian, but its rhytm, which seemed to me based on a three-tempoed measure. This seems to disagree with what Grandet & Mathieu say in their "Cours d'=C3=A9gyptien Hi=C3=A9roglyphique" and unfortunately I haven't been able to get B. Mathieu's "=C3=A9tudes de m=C3=A9trique =C3=A9gyptienne" for a more clear understanding - but, as I said, I am just an amateur and it would be quite silly of me to doubt their conclusions. Anyway those who are interested , were it not just for curiosity, may listen to my audio version at: http://digilander.libero.it/ormez/ I am not much satisfied by the result, but I think no harm is done and just take it for what it is: an unpretentious experiment come from my love of Ancient Egyptian. It goes without saying that any feedback, especially if metric-oriented, would be highly appreciated. Thank you and pardon me if I have been bothering you Regards Orlando ============================================================================== From: "Marianne Luban" Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 18:35:17 GMT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.org.uk Subject: Re: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor.mP3 audio version Well, Orlando, the sound of your voice is certainly very nice and you speak with a terrific expression. You know how to vocalize the "kh" and, if anyone should try to do this it probably should be you! Very impressive sounding. I think you do so well that I suggest you work with some of us here who have done research into the vocalization of Egyptian on another shorter piece and record that. I, for one, would really love to hear that as you are very good, indeed. The problem with the Shipwrecked Sailor is its age. If you could choose a bit of text from the 19th Dynasty, that would be far more workable. Better to avoid Middle Egyptian if you want to try to speak Egyptian because there is the nearly insurmountable problem of how /A/ was vocalized in the Middle Kingdom. It was surely not an "a" then when the Egyptians wrote foreign terms or names, although an "a" vowel was likely part of the syllabic sound that /A/ was involved in. Or....one could say that you could be a person from a later era reading "Shipwrecked" aloud as it would be pronounced in your day. Then, as I hear it, you are using the "default "e" vowel sound" too liberally and a little more research could help with that. Please, don't anybody start with "what vowels in Egyptian?" Writing and speaking are too different things. No one can speak without vowels. Anyway, there never was a "nefer". All that is just an impression left by Budge. By the New Kingdom, it was probably "nafe" or "nofe". As for "xpr", "kheper" is probably no good, either. By the Late Period it seems to have been "khope" or "shope" somewhere in the Delta. Probably, that went for an earlier time as well, since "xpr" was transcribed nothing like "kheper" in Akkadian cuneiform script when contained in the kingly names. If it were me, I would try for no more than a few sentences if trying to imitate spoken Egyptian with even marginal accuracy. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:13:56 -0500 From: Jerzy Prus Subject: Re: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor.mP3 audio version To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Hi Orlando, It is interesting possible vocal reconstruction based on a three-tempoed measure. Good separation of phrases and sentences. Will be more clear if will be added the paralel transliteration and translation. Regards, Jerzy Prus ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 05:18:09 +0800 (WST) From: gilbert To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor.mP3 audio version Thanks for your suggestion Marianne . It would be great to have some spoken text as closely to the (reconstructed) spoken language as possible (even if this is still far removed from the original). I hope Orlando will take you up on it. Gilbert ==============================================================================