From: Michael Tilgner To: 'Ancient Egyptian Language List' Subject: AEL AW: AEL Re: Conversational features of AEL Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 23:58:48 +0200 Dear Marianne, >>But to solve this question, one has to collect conversational examples. = At the moment I found only this one: "Three Tales of Wonder" Text: Sethe, Aegyptische Lesestuecke, p. 30, line 22 Translation: Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. I, p. 219 "His majesty said: 'Is it true, what they say, that you can join a = severed head? Dd.in Ddi tiw iw=3Di rx=3Dkwi iTi anx wDa snb nb=3Di Said Djedi: 'Yes, I can, O king [may you live, be prosperous, be = healthy], my lord.'" >> It's an excellent example, however not conclusive. The initial "iw" could be an independent statement from the rest of the phrase as in "Agreed." Or it could be "Agreed, I can..." The point I am trying to make is wherever one might write "yes", "agreed" could easily substitute in many cases, just as "indeed" is a natural substitute for "yes". [Somehow my text will be corrupted on the way to AEL (= -> =3D)] iw-i rx-kwi seems to me a "pseudo-verbal construction introduced by iw" (Gardiner, paragraph 323). Therefore it forms one syntactical unit. One more example (Lichtheim, Vol. I, p. 155): "Lo, there is much hatred in the streets, The wise says , 'Yes', the fool says, 'No', the ignorant is satisfied." (The admonitions of Ipuwer) Here is a "yes" without any reference to a particular statement. Unfortunately I don't have the hieroglyphic text. Can anybody else supply it? Best wishes, Michael Tilgner mtilgner@baan.nl ============================================================================== From: Michael Tilgner To: 'Ancient Egyptian Language List' Subject: AEL AW: AEL Chronology Confusion Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 23:37:43 +0200 Dear Michael, for some time I searched for an answer of your questions myself. Here are the results with the relevant literature: last hieroglyphic inscription: AD 394 last demotic inscription: AD 452 The last hieroglyphic inscription is to be found in the temple of Isis in Philae, near Hadrian's gate. A color photograph is in: A. Giammarusti/A. Roccati: File - storia e vita di un sanctuario egizio, Novara, 1980, pp. 86/87 with Italian translation. F. Ll. Griffith, Catalogue of the demotic graffiti of the = Dodecaschoenus, Vol. I (Text), Oxford, 1937, pp. 126/127 ("Ph. 436") and Vol. II (Plates), Oxford, 1935, pl. 69 Griffith, p. 126: "... later a figure of Mandulis was engraved in a different style four feet eastward accompanied by hieroglyphic and demotic inscription." The text is in three columns, the hieroglyphs are badly written, hardly recognizable, the grouping of the signs chaotic. If you look at them, = it is clear for you that hieroglyphic writing was nearing its end; in fact, = it was the end. Griffith did a great job in deciphering the text. I reproduce it in = WinGlyph format: U31\r3 D52 E22 Z7:r H8:Z1 G5 Aa13:D40 ..:f Q1 t:p V20:Z1 A1 i-G11=20 H8 S1 V20 R8 U36 t:Z1 Z1:Z1 t:H8 n:Q1*(t:H8) D:t:N17 H-N5-H ! D&md N N36:Z1 E22 Z7:r G5&Z1 G7 N102 A6:N33 t:O49:N33*N33 G5:aA Explanations: U31\r3 D52 is Aa58 Q1 t:p should be Q1 t:H8? G7 =3D G7d (G6 instead of G5) N102 was present in my demo version t:O49:N33*N33 should be t:O49:[& N33*N33 +l ? +s &] - did not function with my demo version My transcription: (1) m-bAH (?) mrw sA Hr m-a-f (=3D m-a n?) Ast-mD i-axm sA Ast(?) HDt-mD Hm nTr 2 n Ast Dt nHH (2) Dd mdw in mrw nb n(?) wabt nTr aA Translation (Griffith): "Before Merul son of Horus, by the hand(?) of (?) Esmet-Akhom(?) son of Esmet, second prophet of Isis, for ever and ever. (2) Words spoken by Merul, lord of Abaton, great god." Mrw =3D Mandulis m-a n caused by ? (Hannig, p. 312; see also demotic text) Abaton =3D Phylae? Griffith: "The name and titles of the sculptor would be unintelligible without the key given by the demotic." Therefore here is the demotic part of the inscription (only = translation), p. 127: "I Esmet-akhom, the scribe of the house of record(?) of Isis, son of Esmet-Panekhate the second prophet of Isis and his mother Eswe-re; I performed work on this figure of Mandulis for everlasting, because he is kindly of face(?) unto me. To-day, the day of the Birth of Osiris, his (?) dedication-festival, year 110." Griffith: "The 'birth of Osiris' ... was on the first epigomenal day, = corresponding to 24 Aug., and the year is AD 394 ... This is by far the latest date = known for hieroglyphic writing..." The hieroglyphic inscription is quite interesting. One sees the old = priest writing it into the wall of the temple. He only knows some standard = phrases and his name. It becomes to complicated and therefore he changes to the script he knows more fluently, demotic. Think about the last known sentence in hieroglyphs! "Words spoken (better: to speak) by Merul, lord of Abaton, great god." Normally it is an introduction, and the words spoken followed. But = here: "Words spoken by Merul: ---" The rest is silence. The last demotic inscription: "Lexikon der Aegyptologie", Vol. I, cols. 1052-1056, entry "Demotisch", footnote 4: The youngest known demotic texts are Philae 365 and 377 of the year AD 452. Best wishes, Michael Tilgner mtilgner@baan.nl > -----Urspr=FCngliche Nachricht----- > Von: Abu Elisha [SMTP:AbuElisha@aol.com] > Gesendet am: Samstag, 16. Mai 1998 19:35 > An: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk > Betreff: AEL Chronology Confusion >=20 >=20 > Can you help clarify something for me? I'm a little confused about = the > officially-accepted death date of the hieroglyphic system. I've > heard/read > everything from the 1st century A.D. to as late as the 7th century. =20 > =20 > Michael Akard > Modesto, CA ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 18:50:03 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Re: Conversational features of AEL In a message dated 98-05-17 18:34:42 EDT, you write: << Dd.in Ddi tiw iw=3Di rx=3Dkwi iTi anx wDa snb nb=3Di Said Djedi: 'Yes, I can, O king [may you live, be prosperous, be = healthy], my lord.'" >> It's an excellent example, however not conclusive. The initial "iw" could be an independent statement from the rest of the phrase as in "Agreed." Or it could be "Agreed, I can..." The point I am trying to make is wherever one might write "yes", "agreed" could easily substitute in many cases, just as "indeed" is a natural substitute for "yes". >> Ah no! I meant the initial "tiw". Marianne Luban ============================================================================== From: Patricia Cassonnet Subject: AEL Y3 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 10:58:15 +0200 (MET DST) Dear Marianne, If you need more information about the grammatial uses of the Late Egyptian particle Y3 ("auxiliaire d'enonciation") you can read this very useful paper: Francois Neveu, "La particule neo-egyptienne Y3", SEAP 11 (1992), p. 13-30. Patricia Cassonnet pcassonn@pasteur.fr ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 13:09:13 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Fwd: Loprieno Says On Subj: Re: "Y3" Date: 98-05-18 10:48:16 EDT From: h61@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Antonio Loprieno) To: Nubkhas@aol.com (Nubkhas) Dear Ms. Luban, The etymology of Coptic se is from the third person plural personal pronoun, Eg. st > Coptic se, lit. "these things," > "yes." As for xprS, your etymology is quite good (xp < Sem xph "to cover," rS < Sem r's "head"), but not new. You can check J. von Beckerath, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Aegyptens waehrend der 2. Zwischenzeit, p. 68. All the best, Antonio Loprieno On Fri, 15 May 1998, Nubkhas wrote: > In a message dated 98-05-15 10:19:47 EDT, you write: > > << As you know, the > words "yes" and "no" are far less frequent in Egyptian (and generall, in > the languages of the Ancient world) than they are in modern languages. One > usually preferred to answer with a confirmation or a denial of the > predicate of the question. "Will you go home"--"I will (iry=j)" or "I will > not" (nn jry=j) rather than just yes or no. >> > > Dear Prof. Loprieno, > > Thank you so much for your prompt and helpful response! I have just one more > question. It is about the Coptic word for "yes", which is "se". This must > have > originated from something. Do you suppose it might be "ys" or "yst"? > > Another unrelated thing I would like to throw at you. I have been thinking > about the > Blue Crown--the "xprS". It is first seen on the head of King Kamose, I feel > sure, although the word is attested one time earlier, but with a determinative > of a hat that does not resemble the "xprS" as we know it. My idea about > "xprS" is that it is > possibly Semitic and has two parts, the first being "khipui" (protection) and > the > second "rosh". Perhaps this head-covering, eventually become a crown, was > adapted from something first seen on the heads of Semitic charioteers by the > Egyptians. Does this seem feasible at all to you? > > Sincerely, > > Marianne Luban > I can't say I understand the etymology of the Coptic "se", as Prof. Loprieno gives it, but it is nice to know one is on the right track *sometimes*, as I was with "xprS". Those of you who put up with my mulling this over on another list--now you see it *does* pay to explore what's behind some of the more mysterious Egyptian terms. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 13:40:19 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Y3 In a message dated 98-05-18 13:25:36 EDT, you write: << Dear Marianne, If you need more information about the grammatial uses of the Late Egyptian particle Y3 ("auxiliaire d'enonciation") you can read this very useful paper: Francois Neveu, "La particule neo-egyptienne Y3", SEAP 11 (1992), p. 13-30. >> Dear Patricia, Have you read it? If so, what did Neveu think the primary function(s) of "y3" were? I would love to get my hands on a lot of papers, but... Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 08:19:25 +0200 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Francesca Subject: AEL word for pleasure ? Group, I have been reading an article (available on-line) written by Umberto Eco which says : << Sometimes the hieroglyphic sign is a number : pleasure, for example, is denoted by the number 16, because (allegedly) sexual activity begins at the age of sixteen. Since it takes two to have an intercourse, however, this is denoted by two sixteen's. >> Can anyone confirm that this is really how the word "pleasure" is written ? Thank you. Francesca ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 12:31:15 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion Abu Elisha wrote: > Can you help clarify something for me? I'm a little confused about the > officially-accepted death date of the hieroglyphic system. I've heard/read > everything from the 1st century A.D. to as late as the 7th century. And then > again, if only .4% of the people could read it during the Ptolemaic period, > does that qualify it to be a living language even then? Was it already being > eclipsed by an alternate system, or did the people simply not read and write > anything at all? This is an interesting topic - I was hoping someone with more information would answer it. However, I'll try to cover some of what I have read or figured out from what (little) evidence I have come across. First, let's get a slight confusion in terminology straightened out so it doesn't trip us up later: the hieroglyphic system was never a language, living or dead - it was a writing system. The Egyptian language had a history independent of its writing system. To begin before thePtolemies took over (let's say in the 26th dynasty and ignore the Persians): The language spoken by the Egyptians was the phase of the language which we refer to as "Demotic" and this was written in the Demotic script (descended from but not identical with the hieroglyphic system). This was used for all everyday writing - records, letters, stories. Two other writing systems were also in use: hieroglyphic and hieratic. These were restricted to religious uses, with hieratic as the script used for religious documents on papyrus, and hieroglyphic on monuments. The language that was written in hieroglyphs (and generally in hieratic too) was supposedly Middle Egyptian, however, since this was no longer a spoken language (for over 1000 years) it frequently diverges markedly, or gets garbled. How many of even the priesthood could read hieroglyphs at this time is questionable - even in the New Kingdom (1000 years earlier) it is apparent that the average scribe had at best a limited ability to read hieroglyphs. And even if they knew the hieroglyphic system, they would have faced a language at least as alien as Cicero's Latin is to a modern Italian. Into this situation came the Greeks. The official language of government, and of the ruling class, was generally Greek, written in the Greek alphabet - there are lots of letters, etc. from this period in Greek, and even in Demotic documents, many of the names are those of Greeks. I would presume that the leading priests would probably have been Greeks too, appointed by the Greek kings - does anyone have any specific information on theis point - which would have undermined event further the abitlity of the priesthood to maintain the tradition embodied in the hieroglyphs. The number of hieroglyphs in use expanded greatly in this period (from about 700 to thousands) and much use was made of esoteric symbolisms (I suppose is you find the writing and language mysterious, you attribute all sorts of mysterious meanings to it - and since this was religious writing, there were already enough mysteries there.) There also started to be a literature written in Egyptian but using the Greek alphabet, presumably used at the interface between the parts of the system which worked in Greek and the parts than worked in Demotic. This is the origin of the Coptic writing system, which seems to me from internal clues to have developed much sooner than the appearance of "Coptic" itself. The erosion of the use of Demotic and increasing use of the Greek alphabet to write Egyptian continued through the Greek and Roman periods, but got a great boost when Christianity came along. Two factors operated here: the need to disseminate the Christian gospels and other writings, and the desire to break completely with the pagans. The language of the time was written in a modified Greek alphabet, and this in its various dialects is what we know as Coptic. The waning of the old religion meant that the number of those who knew how to read either hieratic or hieroglyphic scripts or understand the language they were used to write (Middle Egyptian - now over 2000 years out of date) decreased, and especially after Christianity received official status in the Empire. Christian intolerance of non-Christians speeded things up. Exactly when the old writing systems were completely forgotten is something we don't really know. We can quote dates for the last known examples of each of them, but this is just a tempus post quem. Certainly their use persisted for quite a long time in Upper Egypt, and presumably died out with the last of the priestly caste, though even before this the knowledge and understanding of the old writings seems to have been in a rather sorry state. (And how many Catholic priests do you think really know what they are reciting when they do a Mass in Latin?) Anyway, that is the best I have been able to piece togaether from various sources, including a little of my own observations in comparing the use of the Greek alphabet in Coptic in comparison with what (little) I know about the development of Greek in the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. I hope it helps a little. Perhaps it will elicit some replies from people with more information about the period. -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== From: Aayko Eyma To: 'Ancient Egyptian Language List' Subject: AEL AW: AEL Re: Conversational features of AEL Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 22:03:51 +-200 Dear Michael, >One more example (Lichtheim, Vol. I, p. 155): "Lo, there is much hatred in the streets, The wise says , 'Yes', the fool says, 'No', the ignorant is satisfied." (The admonitions of Ipuwer) **This same saying also is in Instr. of Am.I (same volume, p.135), but with as last phrase "For no one knows it [...]'. So I think it means something like: the one says "it's is so-and so" and the other says "it's not so-and-so", and nobody really knows for sure. >Here is a "yes" without any reference to a particular statement. Unfortunately I don't have the hieroglyphic text. Can anybody else supply it? ***Not me. But regarding the words _tiw_ = Yes! and _m-bi3_ =No! used here: - Of course such interjections are spoken language and should be expected to occure rarely in written texts. - If someone could give an etymology of m-bi3 then perhaps that would tell us something about the pendant tiw ? Best wishes, Aayko Eyma ============================================================================== From: Abu Elisha Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 18:47:29 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Re: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion I appreciated Stephen Fryer's lucid and logical description of the decline of the hieroglyphic system. Steve, did I understand correctly that Demotic refers to both the spoken and the written form of Egyptian language during the Ptolemaic period? Moustafa Gadalla described Medu as the modern form of Egyptian. Moustafa, what is the relationship between Medu script and ancient hieroglyphic script? If the Medu is used primarily by secret societies, how can anyone be a native speaker? It sounds rather like an artificial, learned language, comparable to fuSHa Arabic, or perhaps a reconstructed language, similar to modern Hebrew. And what do we know about the beginning dates of Hieroglyphic script? Have any of you read Christian Jacq's Fascinating Hieroglyphics? I read the first 70 pages and had to put it down, the mixture of fact and fiction was so frustrating. He mentions, rather glibly and without explanation or reference, that the hieroglyphic system may have begun as early as 5000 B.C. I had always heard 3100-3200 B.C. as the earliest verifiable time of usage. Can anyone clarify this? What was Jacq talking about? Michael Akard Modesto, CA ============================================================================== From: Michael Tilgner To: 'Ancient Egyptian Language List' Subject: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 01:03:39 +0200 Stephen Fryer wrote: > Exactly when the old writing systems were completely forgotten is something we > don't really know. We can quote dates for the last known examples of = each of > them, but this is just a tempus post quem. Certainly their use = persisted for > quite a long time in Upper Egypt, and presumably died out with the = last of the > priestly caste, though even before this the knowledge and = understanding of the > old writings seems to have been in a rather sorry state. (And how = many > Catholic > priests do you think really know what they are reciting when they do = a Mass in > Latin?) The last meaningful inscription is a stela of November 4, AD 340. see: jean-Claude Grenier, La Ste`le fune=B4raire du dernier taureau = bouchis, BIFAO 83, 197-209 (1983), pl. XLI It was also discussed earlier and attributed to an unkown Roman = emperor. Grenier could at last identify the name of the King in the cartouche, = namely Diocletian, and as a consequence could give a date for it. In the upper part you see a bull lying on a kind of a bed with a = bouquet of lotus flowers before him. The text is of bad quality, the birds are = very difficult to recognize. Usage of Late Period signs makes reading = difficult. Part of the text is as follows: "(1) Year 33, (2) under the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower = Egypt, the Lord of the Two Lands ( ? ... ?)|; Son of Re, Lord of the Diadems ( = ... )|, (3) Lord of the gods, who made the goddesses. He was born in Thebes, his mother being Ti-Aset. (4) He was brought to Hermonthis ... in the = year 39. He was firm (?) [in ?] the temple (?) (5) in the great festival in the Theban Nome of Re at the New Year. (6) [Year] 37 [57 according to Grenier], = Hathor 8, the seventh hour of the day, his Ba entered (7) [heaven ?]. [His] reign = was 24 years, 8 months, 20 days, and 7 hours (8) ... may he give all life, stability, well-being, health, and joy like Re for ever and ever." (Translation by = H. W. Fairman, Bucheum II, p. 19; photo and hieroglyphic transcription = Bucheum III, pl. XLVI [41st Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Society, 1934]). The decline of the hieroglyphic writing knowledge was described by Heike Sternberg-El Motabi, Der Untergang der Hieroglyphenschrift, = Chronique d`E=B4gypte 69, 218-245 (1994) She describes that the decline of the hieroglyphic writing was a longer process. It can be studied for example in the temple of Esna. The most important texts are from the time of Domitian (81-96) and Antonius Pius = (138-161). Then the quality of the texts decreases under Marc Aurel (161-180) and Commodus (180-192) in such a way that Sauneron termed them as me=B4diocre (modest). Texts = under Septimius Severus (193-211) are hardly readable and "the hieroglyphic decorations" of the time of Decius (249-251) couldn't be termed "inscription" at = all. She cites a study about 144 stelae of the greco-roman period (until 350 = AD): 75 don't have any inscriptions, 34 have demotic, 28 greek and only 3 hieroglyphic inscriptions. A papyrus of about 107 AD reports that in a temple of Osiris in Abydos = (?) there were only 5 people capable of cutting hieroglyphs - without any=20 apprentices. She gives more examples of degraded or unreadable inscriptions. Her study is about Horus stelae, on which the continuous hieroglyphic = text is suddenly interrupted by hatching or other sign groups (like s-b), = which she termed "catch-words". Example: r xtm + hatching + s-b + rA ni ddf(.t) nb(.t) to close - hatching + s-b - the mouth of every snake (retranslated from German) Another example: On a stela the standard text was written correctly = until the beginning of line 7, then in the middle of a sentence only catch words = were written without any meaning until the end of the inscription (line 15). Without giving more details it is clear that the process of losing the knowledge began in the middle of the first century AD and that the circle of = priests became smaller and smaller until the knowledge of the hieroglyphic writing = system finally "died out". Best wishes, Michael Tilgner mtilgner@baan.nl ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 13:29:59 -0500 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Christina Paul Subject: Re: AEL Medu (was AEl Chronology Confusion) At 08:28 AM 5/20/1998 EDT, you wrote: >Michael Akand wrote, in 98-05-20 03:38:12, >an 'an artificial, learned language'? > >BTW, I am glad I read your message, because I delete most of the AEL messages >before opening them. Then one might be tempted to ask you why you are on the AEL list, Moustafa? I know of no one here or anywhere that knows so much about the Egyptian hieroglyphs that they cannot be bothered with perhaps learning more. Respectfully, Christina Paul sekhmet@netins.net "Evaluate things and opportunities as you encounter them; don't be afraid, listen to the voices and act on them." "Believe in your culture, be confident, and attend to community" - Jhon Goes in Center - Lakota http://www.netins.net/showcase/ankh ICQ # 4699385 ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 10:06:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion Dear Stephen, Thanks for your summary. I do have to correct you on the following point, however. > many of the names are those of Greeks. I would presume that the leading > priests > would probably have been Greeks too, appointed by the Greek kings - does > anyone > have any specific information on theis point - which would have undermined > event > further the abitlity of the priesthood to maintain the tradition embodied in > the > hieroglyphs. Absolutely not so... The Greeks were excluded from priesthood in Egyptian temples by a carefully designed caste system which only allowed Egyptians of the right ancestral background the right to hold priesthoods. The hieroglyphic writing of this period was deliberately made more difficult so that outsiders would not be able to penetrate the meanings of texts. The idea was to create a specialist Egyptian caste into which no one else could gain admittance, and who would be the SOLE interpretors of the Egyptian religion. On the other hand, the undoing of the Egyptian religion and culture was beginning in this very movement. When the Romans took control of the country they institutionalized an official caste system in which Roman citizens were first class citizens with all rights and privileges, Greeks were second class citizens who had some rights and privileges, and Egyptians, along with all other ethnic groups such as Jews, Persians, etc., were third class citizens with virtually no rights or privileges at all. The Romans felt that this system was necessary in order to tie the Egyptian people to the land and limit their mobility so that the highest agricultural yield could be extracted from the Nile Valley. The only Egyptians who were able to avoid taxation and hardship to a small degree were the priests, and because of this the Romans put even heavier restrictions on who could and could not be an Egyptian priest. One had to present pedigree papers and get several witnesses just in order to perform a circumcision. All persons except for priestly caste members were prevented from obtaining this operation for their children because the Roman government could not afford a proliferation of ritually pure people who might technically become exempt from taxation. With the caste system so strict, an adversarial situation was created within Egyptian society, in which peoples of different ethnic groups were polarized against one another, and anyone with the slightest bit of Greek blood attempted to prove that they were really Greek and not Egyptian. This caused a rapid Hellenization. During the previous era, under the Ptolemies, there had been considerable interplay between Greek and Egyptian society, and one could reap the benefits of both worlds. But during the Roman domination, the Greeks and Romans were in a major class struggle with the Egyptians and Egyptian-ness began to be regarded as almost "sub-human-ness", as the insecure half-breeds vied with one another to be more Greek than the Greeks. Then another important factor, perhaps THE most important one, came onto the scene. Christianity, a new religion from Palestine, billed itself as a salvation from the tribulations of this world. Christianity could never have spread without the help of the Roman Empire. One had to be exceedingly oppressed and abused to give up a focus on this world in a rich country like Egypt, where traditionally life had been very good. However, the Romans continually stripped Egypt of almost all its harvest, all its wealth of any kind, forced the people to work like slaves for no benefit to themselves, and then even imposed duties upon the upper classes through the liturgy system... anyone with any wealth was required to pay for all public works for the rest of the community. This caused the last bastions of Egyptian wealth to become bankrupt, and people began to run away to the desert in flight from taxes, persecution, torture, extortion, and civic burdens. At first they devoted themselves to the cults of Apis and other mortuary deities, but soon enough there were Early Christian communities of ascetics populating almost every desert tomb or cave. Meanwhile, the Egyptian temples were being supported by the government in a last ditch effort to win popular support by funding Egyptian religion. What eventually happened, however, was that the Egyptian people lost their trust in the old religion, the old temples, and the privileged priesthood. They were oppressed and miserable, and these priests continued to perform ancient rituals to which they were not privy with funding from their oppressors. While the priests became richer because they were not forced to pay taxes, they did not provide any emotional, spiritual, or even financial support from their non-priestly neighbors. Thus, the do-gooder Christian ascetics became much more popular and beloved of the people than the priests who bore the last remnants of their own culture. People began to convert to Christianity in droves, abandoning the temples, abandoning the old writings, and everything associated with paganism. Hieroglyphs were simply dead. Demotic was a dying script used only by old pagan priests, and anyone who was coming up in the world wanted to learn Greek. It is not known exactly when the Egyptian language began to be written with the Greek alphabet. However, due to the archaism of the values assigned to such letters in the Coptic scripts, it is believed that this experiment must have begun way back in the Ptolemaic era. However, the problem is that we only have Coptic Texts from the second century AD, and we suppose that the Egyptian language must have first been transcribed into Greek letters in the second century BC! Another important gap is also present. From about 150 BC, Demotic documents seem to disappear altogether. Meanwhile, since it is not until about AD 150 that the earliest Old Coptic documents appear, we are at a loss to know what people were recording the Egyptian language in during the interim. Clearly there were Greek documents all throughout these periods, but not everyone knew Greek. Are we to assume that there were no Egyptians who were literate in their own language during this time? Anyway, someone someday is going to discover a trove of some kind of documents in the Egyptian language which come from the period between 150 BC and AD 150, and then we will finally know what on earth was taking place in writing during that period. Yours, Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 13:17:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL Suspicious "Medu" Dear AEL Subscribers, Recently various posters have been bandying about the term "Medu" on this list, and I gather that there are people who claim to have preserved the ancient Egyptian language over all these thousands of years saying that they call their speech by this designation. I cannot help but be very suspicious of anyone who would claim to have preserved the "Medu". It seems to me that most likely some disingenuous person has concocted this notion as a scam to fool others into giving that person undue respect, admiration, or possibly financial support. I cannot precisely know the story behind these supposed "Medu" speakers, however, I can share with you one cogent reason that it seems particularly difficult for me to trust their story. First of all, as an Egyptologist, I have been studying Egyptian for many many years, and have been exposed to all stages of the language as well as its historical linguistics. To the best of my knowledge, and to that of most of my professors, there was never ever any stage of the Egyptian language during which the word represented by the sequence of consonants we transcribe into ascii as "mdw" was ever pronounced as "Medu". It is an extreme improbability. In fact, "Medu", as a pronunciation for this word, is how a modern Egyptologist might say it. Let me explain the reasons why. First of all, as most of you are already aware, Egyptian did not have any means of expressing vowels. Therefore all words were written as sequences of consonants. Secondly, because modern scholars have to say Egyptian words out loud in order to talk about them, they insert short vowels between consonants. Thus the following sentence in Egyptian might be pronounced by a modern, English-speaking Egyptologist thusly: Dd mdw jn jnpw dj.n=j n=k 3w.t-jb nb.t djed medew yen yenpew dey-en-ey en-ek awt-yeb nebet or djed medu in inpu di-en-i en-ek awt-ib nebet While a modern student or scholar might say these words in this way while discussing a text in class, no one with any knowledge of Egyptian actually believes that the language was ever pronounced this way. It is an artificial construct which allows us to quickly express these words out loud, and that is all any of us take it for. Meanwhile, those of us who DO attempt to reconstruct the vocalization of ancient Egyptian do so by working backwards from Coptic. Through a painstaking process, scholars have discovered that by comparing Amarna period transcriptions of Egyptian words into Akkadian, Greek transcriptions, and Coptic orthography, we can produce some relatively reliable rules for reconstructing vocalization, at least when the word survives into Coptic. I have devoted some years to the pursuit of this field, so I am familiar with its principles, and can tell you that mdw was certainly NEVER pronounced as "Medu" by any native Egyptian. Now, the word mdw DOES indeed come down to us in Coptic. It is {moute}, which would be pronounced as *mu:te (m as in English, u: as "oo" in "toot", t as an unaspirated t like in "mutter", and e as in "pet"). Now, if anyone were continuing to hold onto a tradition of ancient Egyptian they would most likely have pronounced the word this way (*mu:te) at the end of the Coptic Period, and this would more than likely have continued to evolve, unless they had some special way of preserving the language which no one else has yet discovered. On the other hand, if they were claiming to have kept the language exactly as it had been spoken in Pharaonic times, then we could take *mu:te back at least to the New Kingdom using the rules of reconstruction which are presently employed, and which were basically taught to me by Jim Allen in a class on the history of the Egyptian language. Then we would be able to reconstruct mdw as *ma:aw (m as in English, a: as "augh" in "taught", as an emphatic t like Arabic a:wilah, a as in "father", and w as in "now"). The history of the word could be reconstructed as follows: ma:aw > mo:ew > mu:te Where is this stage of "Medu"? I can tell you where it seems to come from. It seems to come from the works of a modern Egyptologist having been read by a person who did not have the knowledge or understanding to realize that that was just an intellectual conceit, and who took perhaps Budge's transcriptions as literal renditions of what Egyptian had once sounded like. I can tell you this too: not even Budge deluded himself into thinking that Egyptian EVER sounded just like he transcribed it. Any scholar knows that transcription is just a tool, and that it does not necessarily reflect actual pronunciations. Anyway, I just felt that I had to let this off my chest on here, because I get really tired of seeing crackpot people passing themselves off as this or that, or as reincarnations of so-and-so, so THEY know better than anyone else. These kinds of claims, I am sorry to say, are nothing more than fantasy. These people are preying on the desires of innocent people to find some link with the ancient past which is still alive. I am, however, sorry to report that I know of no such claim which has ever turned out to be genuine. So, readers, please beware of taking these people seriously. Always remember that there are plenty of people out there who wish to fool us. Yours, Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 11:55:09 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Re: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion Abu Elisha wrote: > I appreciated Stephen Fryer's lucid and logical description of the decline of > the hieroglyphic system. Steve, did I understand correctly that Demotic > refers to both the spoken and the written form of Egyptian language during the > Ptolemaic period? The language written with the Demotic script is generally referred to (as far as I have seen) as Demotic also. So starting sometime around 700BCE. > And what do we know about the beginning dates of Hieroglyphic script? Have > any of you read Christian Jacq's Fascinating Hieroglyphics? I read the first > 70 pages and had to put it down, the mixture of fact and fiction was so > frustrating. He mentions, rather glibly and without explanation or reference, > that the hieroglyphic system may have begun as early as 5000 B.C. I had > always heard 3100-3200 B.C. as the earliest verifiable time of usage. Can > anyone clarify this? What was Jacq talking about? As far as I know, the earliest evidence for hieroglyphic writing is Late Predynastic, perhaps 3400BCE or later. (_Early Egypt_, A.J. Spencer, is a recent survey of the origins of Egyptian culture and state the mentions this) I would like to thank Michael Tilgner for his excellent fleshing out of the decline of the hieroglyphic script - just the sort of thing I was hoping to get in response to my general framework message. Does anyone have similar information on the decline of hieratic (probably closely parallel to the decline of hieroglyphic, I would expect) and demotic, and on the rise of the use of a Greek-based alphabet for the writing of Egyptian? -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 14:58:40 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Manetho I am assuming, for starters, that "Manetho" was an Egyptian name. What does it mean? My guess is "Mer n neteru". Anybody? Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 15:34:32 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion Graham wrote: > Thanks for your summary. I do have to correct you on the following point, > however. > > > many of the names are those of Greeks. I would presume that the leading > > priests > > would probably have been Greeks too, appointed by the Greek kings - does > > anyone > > have any specific information on theis point - which would have undermined > > event > > further the abitlity of the priesthood to maintain the tradition embodied in > > the > > hieroglyphs. > > Absolutely not so... The Greeks were excluded from priesthood in Egyptian > temples by a carefully designed caste system which only allowed Egyptians > of the right ancestral background the right to hold priesthoods. The > hieroglyphic writing of this period was deliberately made more difficult > so that outsiders would not be able to penetrate the meanings of texts. > The idea was to create a specialist Egyptian caste into which no one else > could gain admittance, and who would be the SOLE interpretors of the > Egyptian religion. > Thanks for this correction, and the following information on the cessation of demotic documents and the gap before we get Egyptian documents written in Greek-based alphabetic script. It rather surprises and puzzles me that there would be NO documents with Egyptian written in alphabetic script in the Ptolemaic period. Do you think this is just a case of not having found any? Some of the features built into the Coptic use of the Greek alphabet seem too early for the period when we first are getting Coptic documents - unless what I think I know (not much) about the development of Koine Greek is totally wrong. > On the other hand, the undoing of the Egyptian religion and culture was > beginning in this very movement. When the Romans took control of the > country they institutionalized an official caste system in which Roman > citizens were first class citizens with all rights and privileges, Greeks > were second class citizens who had some rights and privileges, and > Egyptians, along with all other ethnic groups such as Jews, Persians, > etc., were third class citizens with virtually no rights or privileges at > all. > > The Romans felt that this system was necessary in order to tie the > Egyptian people to the land and limit their mobility so that the highest > agricultural yield could be extracted from the Nile Valley. The only > Egyptians who were able to avoid taxation and hardship to a small degree > were the priests, and because of this the Romans put even heavier > restrictions on who could and could not be an Egyptian priest. One had to > present pedigree papers and get several witnesses just in order to perform > a circumcision. All persons except for priestly caste members were > prevented from obtaining this operation for their children because the > Roman government could not afford a proliferation of ritually pure people > who might technically become exempt from taxation. > > With the caste system so strict, an adversarial situation was created > within Egyptian society, in which peoples of different ethnic groups were > polarized against one another, and anyone with the slightest bit of Greek > blood attempted to prove that they were really Greek and not Egyptian. > This caused a rapid Hellenization. > > During the previous era, under the Ptolemies, there had been considerable > interplay between Greek and Egyptian society, and one could reap the > benefits of both worlds. But during the Roman domination, the Greeks and > Romans were in a major class struggle with the Egyptians and Egyptian-ness > began to be regarded as almost "sub-human-ness", as the insecure > half-breeds vied with one another to be more Greek than the Greeks. > > Then another important factor, perhaps THE most important one, came onto > the scene. Christianity, a new religion from Palestine, billed itself as > a salvation from the tribulations of this world. Christianity could never > have spread without the help of the Roman Empire. One had to be > exceedingly oppressed and abused to give up a focus on this world in a > rich country like Egypt, where traditionally life had been very good. > However, the Romans continually stripped Egypt of almost all its harvest, > all its wealth of any kind, forced the people to work like slaves for no > benefit to themselves, and then even imposed duties upon the upper classes > through the liturgy system... anyone with any wealth was required to pay > for all public works for the rest of the community. This caused the last > bastions of Egyptian wealth to become bankrupt, and people began to run > away to the desert in flight from taxes, persecution, torture, extortion, > and civic burdens. > > At first they devoted themselves to the cults of Apis and other mortuary > deities, but soon enough there were Early Christian communities of > ascetics populating almost every desert tomb or cave. Meanwhile, the > Egyptian temples were being supported by the government in a last ditch > effort to win popular support by funding Egyptian religion. What eventually > happened, however, was that the Egyptian people lost their trust in the > old religion, the old temples, and the privileged priesthood. > > They were oppressed and miserable, and these priests continued to perform > ancient rituals to which they were not privy with funding from their > oppressors. While the priests became richer because they were not forced > to pay taxes, they did not provide any emotional, spiritual, or even > financial support from their non-priestly neighbors. Thus, the do-gooder > Christian ascetics became much more popular and beloved of the people than > the priests who bore the last remnants of their own culture. > > People began to convert to Christianity in droves, abandoning the temples, > abandoning the old writings, and everything associated with paganism. > Hieroglyphs were simply dead. Demotic was a dying script used only by old > pagan priests, and anyone who was coming up in the world wanted to learn > Greek. > > It is not known exactly when the Egyptian language began to be written > with the Greek alphabet. However, due to the archaism of the values > assigned to such letters in the Coptic scripts, it is believed that this > experiment must have begun way back in the Ptolemaic era. However, the > problem is that we only have Coptic Texts from the second century AD, and > we suppose that the Egyptian language must have first been transcribed > into Greek letters in the second century BC! > > Another important gap is also present. From about 150 BC, Demotic > documents seem to disappear altogether. Meanwhile, since it is not until > about AD 150 that the earliest Old Coptic documents appear, we are at a > loss to know what people were recording the Egyptian language in during > the interim. Clearly there were Greek documents all throughout these > periods, but not everyone knew Greek. > > Are we to assume that there were no Egyptians who were literate in their > own language during this time? Anyway, someone someday is going to > discover a trove of some kind of documents in the Egyptian language which > come from the period between 150 BC and AD 150, and then we will finally > know what on earth was taking place in writing during that period. > > Yours, Geoff Graham > sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 15:40:00 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Manetho Nubkhas wrote: > I am assuming, for starters, that "Manetho" was an Egyptian name. What does > it mean? My guess is "Mer n neteru". Anybody? Considering that god is noute in Coptic, I would think it was rather unlikely. -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 16:29:28 -0700 From: Ron Fellows To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL Ancient Egypt Study Tour The Archaeological Institute of America, San Diego Society announces its second study tour of Ancient Egypt within this year. If you have ever dreamed of travel to Egypt - this is the tour for you! Assignment: Egypt - features as your hosts: Ron Fellows, Editor of The Glyph magazine, and Thomas Brochu-Mudloff, Egyptologist with the Field Museum, Chicago, and Northwestern University. A graduate of the University of Chicago's department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Professor Mudloff makes the tour a learning experience that is unforgettable. For the itinerary of our November 15-28 tour including 20 beautiful photos taken in January, see the Society Web-site at: http://www.web-sculptors.com/glyph/glyph.html and click on Assignment: Egypt. Note: The Society also has available Centimeter Scales used to indicate object size in photographs. Ron Fellows, CM, Editor, The Glyph ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 19:36:53 -0400 (EDT) To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Ogden Goelet Subject: AEL Medu Dear Listers, I thought I might add in a few words about the "Ammonites." As any professional Egyptologist can tell you, one of the most delightful benefits of the job is the almost endless number of cranks that one runs across. You cannot claim to be an Egyptologist until you've listened to someone tell you that he's discovered an Egyptian treasure under the Long Island Railroad tracks, watched someone unravel a hugh rock identified as the "navel of the world," or look at a blurry photograph of a typical (modern) Egyptian brass tea serving dish which someone is trying to pass off as "the golden disk of the Aten from Amarna" (found hidden in someone's backyard in Alabama, of course). I wish I could say that I made these things up, but life always seems to have a much more vivid imagination than I do. About four years ago I received a call from John (?) Cott, the author of a good, but rather credulous biography of Omm Seti. He told me that he was in touch with some members of this secret society and wanted my opinion of what they were telling him. I tried to reason with him as much as possible, showing him one after another of the improbabilities of their reconstruction of the "Medu," much along the lines that Graham set forth. However, Mr. Cott had a book under contract and wasn't about to let anything pesky like mere facts about the Egyptian language get in the way of the tall tale he was spinning for me. The real prize was an absurdity about a family living in Cairo, no less, whose young son was the pretender to the phraaonic throne, or some such. This poor kid was (according to them) made to go about dressed in an approximation of princely costume, including the priestly/princely sidelock! They were annoyed that their neighbors were somewhat hostile to them -- imagine that! The "Egyptian" they spoke was, as Graham pointed out, essentially a poor version of vocalized transliteration. The clincher came when they said that they demanded that people address him as the "Suten"! At that point I realized that the source of their "Medu" was nothing more than some old version of a Budge dictionary which had the old transliteration of ni-swt "king" as swtn. (Incidentally, a prime example of how Budge refused to keep up with developments in his field). I explained how this was contradicted by a lot of evidence such as cuneiform vocalizations of the royal titulary. Cott ended the conversation soon after. I sent Mr. Cott a copy of Griffith's amusing article on "Some Claims of Xenoglossy(?) of Egyptian (?)" (I'm not quite sure of the title, but it's in the recently published collected papers). Even though I had spent about an hour and a half with him, Mr. Cott never sent me a copy of the book. Obviously these guys are a secret society in order to avoid threats from angry descendants of the Hittites or the Mitannians (or the scorn of anyone who examines their nonsensical claims). Ogden Goelet ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 06:58:08 -0500 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Christina Paul Subject: Re: AEL Medu At 07:36 PM 5/20/1998 -0400, you wrote: >Dear Listers, > > I thought I might add in a few words about the "Ammonites." (snipped) > About four years ago I received a call from John (?) Cott, the >author of a good, but rather credulous biography of Omm Seti. Jonathan Cott was also the author of a book called "Isis and Osiris", now not suprisingly out of print. In this, his second book, he devotes and entire chapter to the so-called Ammonite Foundation. (snipped) > The real prize was an absurdity about a family living in Cairo, no >less, whose young son was the pretender to the phraaonic throne, or some >such. This poor kid was (according to them) made to go about dressed in an >approximation of princely costume, including the priestly/princely sidelock! The grand dame of the Ammonites calls herself, Sekhmet Montu. I have it from very reputable sources that this woman is an American from Texas who is now living with her husband and "High Priest" and their son whom you mention. >They were annoyed that their neighbors were somewhat hostile to them -- >imagine that! Perhaps this hosility of the neighbors is also ibecause of the secret "Ancient Egyptian Ninjas" this group claims is always there protecting thier leader and her family. Not to mention the fact that they think nothing of the use of ' heka' or words of power that "Her Grace" Sekhmet Montu uses to knock hapless victims off of bicycles in the Cairo streets whenever she feels threatened. I wish I was making any of this up but it is in Cott's book that I mentioned earlier. If anyone cares to read it this book, Im sure it can be obtained through interlibrary loan, but I wouldnt recommend it. There isnt much more in there that has not been discussed on this list. I belive Mury Hope, a new age author, also gives this group a good deal of press as well. Admittedly, I did have a brief encounter with the Ammonites and was not overly impressed either. Thier story makes good science ficton/fantasy but has little basis in reality. >The "Egyptian" they spoke was, as Graham pointed out, >essentially a poor version of vocalized transliteration. The clincher came >when they said that they demanded that people address him as the "Suten"! >At that point I realized that the source of their "Medu" was nothing more >than some old version of a Budge dictionary which had the old >transliteration of ni-swt "king" as swtn. (Incidentally, a prime example of >how Budge refused to keep up with developments in his field). If they were truly "speaking the Medu", they would know that. I explained >how this was contradicted by a lot of evidence such as cuneiform >vocalizations of the royal titulary. Cott ended the conversation soon after. Which is of course, no surprise. No one likes to be made a fool of, especially when they are under contract. Christina > I sent Mr. Cott a copy of Griffith's amusing article on "Some Claims >of Xenoglossy(?) of Egyptian (?)" (I'm not quite sure of the title, but >it's in the recently published collected papers). > > Even though I had spent about an hour and a half with him, Mr. Cott >never sent me a copy of the book. Obviously these guys are a secret society >in order to avoid threats from angry descendants of the Hittites or the >Mitannians (or the scorn of anyone who examines their nonsensical claims). > > Ogden Goelet > > "Evaluate things and opportunities as you encounter them; don't be afraid, listen to the voices and act on them." "Believe in your culture, be confident, and attend to community" - Jhon Goes in Center - Lakota http://www.netins.net/showcase/ankh ICQ # 4699385 ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 00:52:44 +1000 To: Ancient Egyptian Language From: Mike Dyall-Smith Subject: Re: AEL Gardiner Exercise IV Dear members who are following Gardiner's exercises. Please continue pushing forward. I give my comments with two intentions. For those who just want to follow Gardiner (and not worry yet about current verb theories), just look at my unasterisked comments. The comments after asterisks are for any of you who wish to delve more deeply. Following on from Ivo's answer and Stephens recent analysis of problem IV a)3. > Ivo: 3. How evil is a river empty of water! > bin.wy itrw Sw m mw Sentence with adjectival predicate. bin.wy (emphasised adjective) "how bad" itrw, 'river', nominal subject of the sentence. Sw m mw: I find this difficult. The sense is plain ('empty of water'); the grammar not so clear. If we take Gardiner's intention, it is probably meant to be an adjective (acting as a noun), followed by 'm mw' ('from water'). You got the sense fine Ivo! > Ivo > 4. Say it to the sovereign, and he in turn will say it to his manservant. > Dd=k st n it.y ix Dd=f st n bAk=f Gardiner probably wants: "You say it to the monarch, then he says it to his man-servant." or perhaps "When you ..." Which is pretty much what you had Ivo ! *Unfortunately the verb forms involved would not fit this translation. Why? The initial verb form is not preceded by 'iw' or by another sentence that it continues (that we are given). In the second clause, the verb after the particle 'ix' is probably the prospective ('then he shall/may say ....'). > Ivo > 5. How great is your house! It is rich in every beautiful thing. > aA.wy pr=k aSA sw m x.t nb.t nfr.t The first sentence is another one with adjectival predicate, similar to problem 3 above. It begins with the emphasised adjective ('How great'), followed by the subject ('your house'). The second sentence is a similar construction but without the emphasised adjective. After the adjective there is the pronominal subject (3rd pers. masc. sing. dep. pron.), followed by an adverbial phrase 'm x.t nb.t nfr.t', in every beautiful thing'. Note the agreement of the adjectives with the feminine noun (x.t) and the precedence of 'nb' over 'nfr' in being closer to the noun. Good work Ivo. > Ivo >6. He does not know this excellent plan. > n rx=f shr pn iqr Ivo, my version of this problem uses the verb 'xm', 'to be ignorant' and is 'xm=f sxr pn iqr'. You have used a negative construction of the verb 'rx',"to know", and the 'h' in 'shr' should be 'x'. Are you using the 3rd edition of Gardiner? I will use my version: (iw) xm=f sxr pn iqr Verbal sentence. As a plain statement of fact, unconnected with any previous text, it would be best to begin with the particle 'iw'. Verb has a pronominal subject (3rd person masc. sing. suffix pronoun), and a nominal object (this excellent plan). > Ivo >7. They send the boat to the city so that he may ferry you across in it. > hAb=sn pA-dp.t r niw.t DAi=f Tw im=s My edition does not have 'pA'. Otherwise you have translated and transliterated according to Gardiner. *This sentence is not simple! Without an initial particle to start the sentence ('mk' or 'iw'), the sentence is not likely to be a simple statement of fact. The two verbs are potentially prospectve forms, and so the translation could be: "May they send a boat to the city so that he may ferry you across in it." Very good Ivo. I'll try and get to the next section soon. Ask any questions you like or just keep on pushing through lesson 5. Regards, Mike D-S ******************************** Mike Dyall-Smith, Melbourne, Australia m.dyall-smith@microbiology.unimelb.edu.au ******************************** ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 12:11:58 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Manetho In a message dated 98-05-21 03:36:25 EDT, I wrote: << > I am assuming, for starters, that "Manetho" was an Egyptian name. What does > it mean? My guess is "Mer n neteru". Anybody? >> If it weren't such an unlikely name for the time, I would be tempted to say that "Manetho" could even be "Amenhotep". How? Look at what happened to the original month "Pen-Amenhotep". It became "Phamenoth". In fact, in some very old books, I have seen the pharaohs named Amenhotep called "Manothes" in the Greek style. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 14:44:53 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Medu In a message dated 98-05-21 03:36:43 EDT, you write: << At that point I realized that the source of their "Medu" was nothing more than some old version of a Budge dictionary which had the old transliteration of ni-swt "king" as swtn. (Incidentally, a prime example of how Budge refused to keep up with developments in his field). I explained how this was contradicted by a lot of evidence such as cuneiform vocalizations of the royal titulary. >> Well, in fairness, Budge did recognize "nsw". On page 653a of his dictionary, he gives examples of the latter phonetic spelling and says that he thought in the Old Kingdom the king was styled "nsw". Obviously, Budge considered that, later, it should have been "swtn". After all, it is pretty easy to see, from the writings of the word, why he thought this. Then there are some strange things: What in the world could be the significance of the tongue-twister or word-play that Erman gives on page 396 of his "Life In Ancient Egypt"? It is, written as he has it, suten sut en suhanef er d'aut, 'auef em red'aut The reference is L.D., iii. 65a and Erman writes "though the rest of the inscription is perfectly clear; (this part isn't) the reason being that the author, in order to make his double pun, has unduly strained the language." Budge, himself, has got a strange writing on page 653 from the Rhind Math. Pap. 203. It is "swtk", written with the usual "south sign" plus "wt" and /k/. The determinative is the "house sign" as used in the word "pr <3". What can this be? Marianne Luban ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 16:19:16 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Medu In a message dated 98-05-21 14:44:53 EDT, I wrote: << suten sut en suhanef er d'aut, 'auef em red'aut The reference is L.D., iii. 65a and Erman writes "though the rest of the inscription is perfectly clear; (this part isn't) the reason being that the author, in order to make his double pun, has unduly strained the language." >> Say...without ever having seen the glyphs, I could swear this must say "A king is one who, while he boasted of giving alms, steals from the rich." Eh??? Marianne Luban ============================================================================== From: Nebet Het Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 21:31:23 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Re: AEL Medu and Change of Subject Peace to the AELlisters: I must also second Dr. Goelet's caution about being taken in by groups like the Ammonites. I have seen some of their "lessons" (for which you are expected to pay a rather hefty fee before you are even allowed to see them, and which are described as having been hand-translated by their leader from a book of hieroglyphs kept in secret since the time of its author, Tutankhamen himself), and they are very poorly cribbed meditations and hymns from several Budge books - even the drawings appear to be exactly out of several of his texts (with time, I could probably tell you which books, but why bother?). There is a great appeal to the idea of a sacred chosen people in hiding, perhaps springing out of our politically-correct victim mentality in the "end times" (sigh), but these Ammonites are most certainly not it. I feel sorry for those well-meaning individuals who are taken in by this sort of thing, because I myself have an interest in and deep love for the Egyptian religion both from the spiritual and the scholarly standpoint - but I would not deign to imply that it has continued since antiquity, or that I have a corner on the market of its understanding. I suspect that all of us shall be receiving a visit from the "Egyptian ninja" mentioned as the royal bodyguards in Cott's book anytime soon.... ::sigh:: Tamara nebethet@aol.com PS: new subject: Anyone up on their "Shipwrecked Sailor" who might like to clarify a strange term for me? There is a description of a substance which the snake gives to the traveller as gifts for his return trip to Egypt, using the hieroglyphic word "iwdnb(w)", which is translated as "laudanum." Laudanum, if I understand correctly, is a tincture of opium used as a sleeping-draught. I am wondering, as the reference occurs in a long list of differing kinds of incense and other temple offerings, if the word should actually have been translated "ladanum" which is a kind of incense, and if Faulkner's dictionary just has a misspelling. I confess I don't know enough about opium use to know if it'd be something Egyptians would give in a temple (though I know they had opiates and used them in other spheres of life). Thanks in advance to any assistance. ============================================================================== From: Scarabs RR Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 20:09:15 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Manetho Hi Mariann! as per Waddell and Robins "Manetho", Loeb Classical Library - "The name Manetho has been explained as meaning 'Truth of Thoth", and a certain priest under Dynasty XIX is described as 'First Priest of the Truth of Thoth'. According to Dr. Cerny "Manetho" is from the Coptic 'groom', 'herdman', and 'horse'; but the word does not seem to occur elsewhere as a proper name." Suidas believed there were two Manethos: 1. Manetho of Mendes in Egypt, a chief priest who wrote on the making of kyphi (incense/perfume) 2. Manetho of Diospolis (Sebennytus)... Hope this helps. Russ ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 21:18:18 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Medu << In a message dated 98-05-21 14:44:53 EDT, I wrote: << suten sut en suhanef er d'aut, 'auef em red'aut The reference is L.D., iii. 65a and Erman writes "though the rest of the inscription is perfectly clear; (this part isn't) the reason being that the author, in order to make his double pun, has unduly strained the language." >> Say...without ever having seen the glyphs, I could swear this must say "A king is one who, while he boasted of giving alms, steals from the rich." >> I am probably talking to myself here, but I actually managed to find the correct spelling of one of the terms in the phrase. It is "swh3" and it has determinatives that would probably exclude the meaning of "to boast" and calls for "to terrify, bewilder, confuse", instead. So now it looks like some king might be trying to confuse someone with "gifts" or even possibly "honors" while stealing from them (I think). It certainly would be nice to have the glyphs for all the words, but, in case someone missed it, the main point seems to be that the word-play involves "swtn" and not "nsw". Anyhow, that is what I see. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 05:26:47 -0500 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Katherine Griffis Subject: Re: AEL Change of Subject/iwdnb Cc: nebethet@aol.com At 09:31 PM 5/21/98 EDT, Tamara Siuda wrote: >new subject: Anyone up on their "Shipwrecked Sailor" who might like to >clarify a strange term for me? There is a description of a substance which >the snake gives to the traveller as gifts for his return trip to Egypt,= using >the hieroglyphic word "iwdnb(w)", which is translated as "laudanum." >Laudanum, if I understand correctly, is a tincture of opium used as a >sleeping-draught. I am wondering, as the reference occurs in a long list= of >differing kinds of incense and other temple offerings, if the word should >actually have been translated "ladanum" which is a kind of incense, and if >Faulkner's dictionary just has a misspelling. I confess I don't know= enough >about opium use to know if it'd be something Egyptians would give in a= temple >(though I know they had opiates and used them in other spheres of life). >Thanks in advance to any assistance. Hello Tamara -- The work "iwdnb" is translated in Hannig and the W=F6rterbuch as "R=E4ucherwerk", or 'incense'. I think the spelling in Faulkner is= incorrect. Unfortunately, which _type_ of incense is not given in either book, but I would think that your reference to ladanum is well-spotted. Best -- Katherine Griffis-Greenberg University of Alabama at Birmingham Special Studies http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/1692/index.html ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 09:34:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Medu Dear Marianne, > "A king is one who, while he boasted of giving alms, steals from the rich." > > >> > > I am probably talking to myself here, but I actually managed to find the > correct spelling of one of the terms in the phrase. It is "swh3" and it has > determinatives that > would probably exclude the meaning of "to boast" and calls for "to terrify, > bewilder, > confuse", instead. So now it looks like some king might be trying to confuse > someone with "gifts" or even possibly "honors" while stealing from them (I > think). No, s-wh3 is "topple/cause to fall" or "despoil". It probably is the word which someone has translated as "steals" in that sentence. Just a guess, because I have not seen it and don't know what inscription you are talking about. However, I do know the word s-wh3. Yours, Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 16:10:10 +0200 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion About uses of the greek alphabet for Egyptian, we do have a few attestations before the roman times. A very old text is the following graffito, from Abydos, which dates from the beginning of the 2nd century BC, during the revolt of the Thebaid : (in greek letters :) L poro urgonafor mei esi nom ousire mei emounlasonter (Year) 5 of Pharao Hor-oun-nefer beloved of Isis and Osiris, beloved of Amon-Re king of the gods (Yoyotte, Charvet, Gompertz, "Strabon, le voyage en Egypte", editions Nil, p. 251 or Pestman, "Horonnophris and Chaonnophris", in Vleeming, Hundred gated Thebes, pp. 101-137, E.J Brill, Leiden) An interesting article about Old Coptic (Egyptian written in greek letters before coptic) can be found in Osing, Aspects de la culture pharaonique, memoires de l'academie des inscriptions et belles lettres. "Vocabulaires et manuels sacerdotaux a l'epoque romaine" regards, -- Serge Rosmorduc, (rosmord@iut.univ-paris8.fr) IUT de Montreuil 140 rue de la Nouvelle France 93100 Montreuil FRANCE tel 01 48 70 37 09 fax 01 48 70 86 49 http://webperso.iut.univ-paris8.fr/~rosmord/AEgypt.html ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 09:42:20 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Re: AEL Medu and Change of Subject Nebet Het wrote: > PS: new subject: Anyone up on their "Shipwrecked Sailor" who might like to > clarify a strange term for me? There is a description of a substance which > the snake gives to the traveller as gifts for his return trip to Egypt, using > the hieroglyphic word "iwdnb(w)", which is translated as "laudanum." > Laudanum, if I understand correctly, is a tincture of opium used as a > sleeping-draught. I am wondering, as the reference occurs in a long list of > differing kinds of incense and other temple offerings, if the word should > actually have been translated "ladanum" which is a kind of incense, and if > Faulkner's dictionary just has a misspelling. I confess I don't know enough > about opium use to know if it'd be something Egyptians would give in a temple > (though I know they had opiates and used them in other spheres of life). > Thanks in advance to any assistance. I couldn't find the word anywhere in Faulkner, and Shennum's Index doesn't list the word "laudanum" (it does have "ladanum(?)" but gives a different word). Lichtheim translates it as "laudanum." Hoch gives "a type of incense(?)" Considering that the determinative is that for dry materials (powdered spices, minerals, etc) a liquid like laudanum would be unlikely. The item preceding it is antiw (usually translated as "myrrh") has a determinative for a liquid or paste. The spelling of the word is rather interesting too - starting with "iw" written as though it is the verb "come" - perhaps it is originally a two-word term, though I don't know what to propose as the meaning of "dnb" The whole list of items looks rather like a brief onomasticon, with the items arranged in some sort of order by category. Unfortumately we don't really know what most of the terms in the vicinity of iwdnb refer to, so that isn't very helpful. -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 04:08:12 +1000 To: Ancient Egyptian Language From: Mike Dyall-Smith Subject: Re: AEL Gardiner Exercise IV Continuing the answers to lesson IV, Ivo and Patrizia wrote: IV(b) (translating from english to egyptian) 1 nfr.wy pr=k pn mk sw m Hr=i p.t mi [patriz] 1. nfr.wy pr=k pn mk sw m Hr=i mi p.t [Ivo] How beautiful is this house of yours! Look, it looks to me like heaven. Transliterations almost identical. The only difference is the reversal of the last two words. Patrizia, why did you put the preposition last? Is this like a construction in italian? In english and egyptian the prepositions come before nouns (eg. "in the house"," like heaven"). Translation by Ivo shows that there are two sentences here. The first is a typical sentence with adjectival predicate. The adjective is emphasised (using the enclitic particle .wy) and comes first ("How beautiful..."). The subject is nominal ('pr', house) and has a suffix pronoun attached. The suffix cannot be displaced from its noun, so the demonst. pron. 'pn' comes afterwards. The second sentence begins with a particle ('mk', see!) followed by the dependent pronoun (not a suffix). It is a simple statement of fact, with a pronominal subject ('sw', 3rd pers. masc. sing. dep. pron.) and an adverbial predicate ('m Hr=i mi p.t', "in my sight like heaven"). Isn't it funny that this idiom 'in my face' is so similar to the current expression from the USA, 'in your face', meaning pretty much the same thing.... ;-) In macscribe (MdeC) the exercise would look like: i-w-nfr-f:r-w-y-pr:Z1-k-p:n-m-D36:k-sw-w-m-Hr:Z1-k-mi-i-p*t:pt 2 iw Htp r<< m <i-w-Htp:t*p-r:a-ra-m-anx-n:x-r:a-ra-nb 3 mk Tw m bAk xr=i [Patr.] 3. mk Tn Hna=i m bak.t [Ivo} Look, you (f. sing.) and I are maidservants. Ivo, my Gardiner has: "Look, you are with me as a maid-servant.", which is rather different to yours (above). Yet your egyptian indicates you are following the version in my book (?). This is a simple statement of fact. It is a non-verbal sentence beginning with the particle 'mk', "see!" If a pronominal subject is used, it is the dependent series. Patrizia has used 'Tw' which is the masculine (2nd person sing.) dep. pronoun, and Ivo has used the feminine (2nd pers. sing.) dep. pronoun. Since it is referring to the maidservant, it is probably 'Tn', but given the blurring of sex and gender in current society, who knows??? ;-) If I follow the sentence I see in Gardiner, then "with me" would 'Hna=i' in egyptian ("together with me", as in Ivo's transliteration), and 'as a maidservant' is pretty much as both Ivo and Patrizia have shown it, ie. 'm bAk.t'. Note the feminine ending '.t' and the vulture 'A'. If you haven't already guessed, the predicate here is adverbial. Patrizia, 'xr=i' is not used for maid-servants. The preposition 'xr' seems to be reserved for being 'before' a king. **Now I am not sure whether having the adverbial phrase 'with me' after 'as a maidservant' is incorrect, but it would change the meaning somewhat I think. In english, if you play around with the order of adverbial phrases you can change the emphasis of them. Can anyone comment on this? 4 nfr sy r sA.t=s [Patriz.] 4. nfr sy r sA.t=s [Ivo] She is more beautiful than her daughter. They are identical and fit the english perfectly. It is a sentence with adjectival predicate, beginning with the adjective (used as a noun). The subject is pronominal (dep. pron.) and there is an adverbial phrase modifying the predicate adjective. 5 Dw.t Hr wA.t nb.t [Patriz.] 5. iw Dw.t Hr wA.t nb.t [Ivo] The evil is over all roads. My Gardiner has: "Evil is on every side (lit. road)". As a simple statement of fact I would prefer to start with the initial particle 'iw', as Ivo has shown. Apart from that, your answers are identical and spot on. You have converted the adjective "evil" ('Dw') to the general concept "the evil/an evil (thing)" by using the feminine form (.t). This is now a noun, acting as the subject of a non-verbal sentence with adverbial predicate. You have both made sure the adjective (nb) agrees in gender with its preceding noun (wA.t). Regards, Mike D-S ******************************** Mike Dyall-Smith, Melbourne, Australia m.dyall-smith@microbiology.unimelb.edu.au ******************************** ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 10:15:04 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Manetho In a message dated 98-05-22 03:32:14 EDT, you write: << as per Waddell and Robins "Manetho", Loeb Classical Library - "The name Manetho has been explained as meaning 'Truth of Thoth", and a certain priest under Dynasty XIX is described as 'First Priest of the Truth of Thoth'. According to Dr. Cerny "Manetho" is from the Coptic 'groom', 'herdman', and 'horse'; but the word does not seem to occur elsewhere as a proper name." Suidas believed there were two Manethos: >> Hi Russ! Thanks for this. The only trouble I have with the first is that it looks like Tehuty or Thoth was pronounced "thoout" or "thoth" in Coptic, so why loss of the final "t/T"? I don't know the Coptic term Cerny is thinking of, but there is the Egyptian "mniw- ipdw" for "herdsman", so perhaps the Coptic was derived from this. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 14:49:34 +0100 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Marc Line Subject: AEL Shipwrecked - Incense Hello Tamara You scribed: >the hieroglyphic word "iwdnb(w)", which is translated as "laudanum." I presume you're looking at legs, quail, hand, water, leg, circle, pluralstrokes? Can't find it in Faulkner but Hannig has it as "Raucherwerk", which my dodgy German takes to mean something to do with working as smoke (could be incense OR opium I suppose!). snip >I am wondering, as the reference occurs in a long list of >differing kinds of incense and other temple offerings, if the word should >actually have been translated "ladanum" which is a kind of incense, and if >Faulkner's dictionary just has a misspelling. I thought ladanum was rendered as "ibr": reed, leg, mouth, sealedoiljar (W1), pot, pluralstrokes. Back to lurking Best regards Marc ============================================================================== From: Aayko Eyma To: "AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk" Subject: AEL AW: AEL Manetho Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 20:50:06 +-200 Hi Marianne, > I am assuming, for starters, that "Manetho" was an Egyptian name. What does it mean? My guess is "Mer n neteru". Anybody?>> > >"merynetjeru" = [Coptic] mei-nouto. ***His name (ManethOs, ManethOn; with omega) has been explained thus (see Loeb volume): 1- elder explanations: "Gift of Thoth", "Beloved of Thoth" or "Beloved of Neith" 2- Cerny: Coptic for "groom". The term is not found as personal name though. [I shall not try to give the Coptic transcription; btw. "groom" in the oldest sense of course, in this case made up out of the Coptic words for "herdsman" and "horse". In the first part, _mane_, I think I may recognize AE _mniw_.] 3- Speigelberg 1928/9: "Truth of Thoth"; cf. a priest from dyn.19 being described as 'First Priest of the Truth of Thoth' I think this is still the prefered explanation. The supposed Coptic forms alas are not given in the first and thirth case, nor the AE forms actually. Can someone help here, notably with the Coptic? I presume: Coptic: - 'Beloved of Neith' = Mry-(n)-N.t => Mei-(...)-Neth - 'Beloved of Thoth' = Mry-n-DHwty => Mei-..... - 'Gift of Thoth' = M3'-n-DHwty =>.... - 'Truth of Thoth' = M3't-nt-DHwty =>.... Note that ManethOn/s is with omega, not just the standard Greek ending -os, so I presume that indeed an Egyptian u is hiding there. Cf. Nekau-NechaO/NekOs, Senwosret-SesOstris, Tawosret -ThuOris. (Although there are a few cases where the -Os/-On seems to drop from the sky; cf. Sety-SethOs, Shabaka-SabakOn). Makes Meineth a less likely explanation I think. Don't know about all the suggestions with Thoth though - why is the last t in Dhut supposed to drop? > In fact, Tawosret was also known as "Twore" **Cf .the Greek form of Tawosret in Manetho: ThuOris kind regards, Aayko Eyma ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 18:25:31 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Change of Subject/iwdnb In a message dated 98-05-22 16:29:35 EDT, you write: << cense and other temple offerings, if the word should >actually have been translated "ladanum" which is a kind of incense, and if >Faulkner's dictionary just has a misspelling. I confess I don't know enough >about opium use to know if it'd be something Egyptians would give in a temple >(though I know they had opiates and used them in other spheres of life). >Thanks in advance to any assistance. Hello Tamara -- The work "iwdnb" is translated in Hannig and the Wrterbuch as "Rucherwerk", or 'incense'. I think the spelling in Faulkner is incorrect. Unfortunately, which _type_ of incense is not given in either book, but I would think that your reference to ladanum is well-spotted. >> Labdanum or ladanum (Arabic and Persian "ladan") is a dark resin obtained from certain varieties of the rockrose. The myrrh mentioned in the Bible (see Psalms 45:8; Song 4:14) is believed to have been a mixture of myrrh and the oleoresin labdanum. As for drugs, there are 200 listed in the Vindob papyrus, but I don't know where to find a translation of them. William Kelly Simpson has it "I shall have brought to you ladanum, heknu-oil, iwdeneb, cassia, and incense for the temples with which to satisfy every god." From the looks of it, perhaps "iwdnb" is something else. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:17:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL AW: AEL Manetho Dear Aayko, You asked: > The supposed Coptic forms alas are not given in the first and thirth case, > nor the AE forms actually. Can someone help here, notably > with the Coptic? > > I presume: Coptic: > - 'Beloved of Neith' = Mry-(n)-N.t => Mei-(...)-Neth mai-nei > - 'Beloved of Thoth' = Mry-n-DHwty => Mei-..... mai-Oou > - 'Gift of Thoth' = M3'-n-DHwty =>.... This one is not likely... I can think of nothing meaning that in Coptic which would produce Manetho. > - 'Truth of Thoth' = M3't-nt-DHwty =>.... me-n-Oou I prefer the horse-groom explanation actually: man-hto, at least in Bohairic. (The last text I read with the first word was a Bohairic one.) In Sahidic, I think it would be moone-hto, but I don't hve the books to check this right now. > Note that ManethOn/s is with omega, not just the standard > Greek ending -os, so I presume that indeed an Egyptian > u is hiding there. Cf. Nekau-NechaO/NekOs, Senwosret-SesOstris, > Tawosret -ThuOris. (Although there are a few cases where > the -Os/-On seems to drop from the sky; cf. Sety-SethOs, > Shabaka-SabakOn). Remember also that words ending in -y.t often have Coptic OmEga at their ends too, like boutO from pr-w3D.y.t. His name could also just as well have been mai-n-outO! For that matter, why not mr.y-n-nb.t-Hw.t (mai-nephthO)? It is very difficult to reconstruct what a name was from Greek evidence, as you can see though. It could be almost anything!! Yours, Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 18:41:07 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL Medu In a message dated 98-05-22 16:30:04 EDT, you write: << suten sut en suhanef er d'aut, 'auef em red'aut > I am probably talking to myself here, but I actually managed to find the > correct spelling of one of the terms in the phrase. It is "swh3" and it has > determinatives that > would probably exclude the meaning of "to boast" and calls for "to terrify, > bewilder, > confuse", instead. So now it looks like some king might be trying to confuse > someone with "gifts" or even possibly "honors" while stealing from them (I > think).>> >> No, s-wh3 is "topple/cause to fall" or "despoil". It probably is the word which someone has translated as "steals" in that sentence. Just a guess, because I have not seen it and don't know what inscription you are talking about. However, I do know the word s-wh3. >> Ach, Geoff! As I said I only found the spelling of one word and someone else gave me this advice: "The reference LD III 65a is to the Amada Stela of Amenhotep II. The text in question says that the king "shouts against the rebels" (swh3.n=f r D3.w) and that "his arms are directed towards rebellion" ('.wj=fj r r3-D3w)." Doesn't much resemble what Erman wrote! It was I who translated "'auef " as "he steals". But my dictionary doesn't list "shout" for "swh3", either. The person who helped me didn't address the "suten sut en" part. Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 18:18:48 -0500 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Katherine Griffis Subject: AEL Medicine or Incense? (WAS Re: AEL Change of Subject/iwdnb) Cc: Tamara Siuda At 06:25 PM 5/22/98 EDT, AEL wrote: The first reference to iwdnb: >>William Kelly Simpson has it "I shall have brought to you ladanum,=20 heknu-oil, iwdeneb, cassia, and incense for the temples with which to satisfy every god." From the looks of it, perhaps "iwdnb" is something else.>> It is possible. From the make-up of the word iwdnb, it appears to render as= =20 "(a thing which) comes twisted/crooked" or "(a thing which is) bent ,=20 turned, crooked" [iw as D54 + G43 and dnb (D46:N35 + D58]. This is from=20 the word breakdown in Hannig and Gardiner (p. 457, Sign list), at least. =20 Yet, Hannig and the W=F6rterbuch render as "R=E4ucherwerk" or "incense". = This=20 may be presumed from the dry/"sand" determinative (N33), I think (referring= =20 to Gardiner , p. 490, noting its use with other incense OR medicines). = =20 So, Stephen Fryer has a very good point about iwdnb being a dry substance as= =20 well. Perhaps it is a description of how the object appears. I have not=20 thought about it until Tamara inquired. BTW: Lichtheim also translates the word iwdnb as "laudanum", in Vol. II,=20 page 214. Her first reference is similar to Kelly's. This is the second=20 reference to it in the story: "Then he gave me a load of myrrh, Hknw-oil, laudanum, Hsyt-spice,=20 tiSpss-spice, perfume, eyepaint, giraffe's tails, great lumps of incense,=20 elephants' tusks, Greyhounds..." etc. To follow these phrases on iwdnb in glyphs, see: The first reference to iwdnb at: http://home.prcn.org/~sfryer/Hieratic/papyrus/hieroglyph11.htm (Lines 8-10) The second reference at: http://home.prcn.org/~sfryer/Hieratic/papyrus/hieroglyph14.htm (Lines 2-4) Tamara had queried: > I am wondering, as the reference occurs in a long list of >differing kinds of incense and other temple offerings, if the word should >actually have been translated "ladanum" which is a kind of incense, and if >Faulkner's dictionary just has a misspelling. I confess I don't know= enough >about opium use to know if it'd be something Egyptians would give in a= temple The question as to whether it is "ladanum" or "laudanum" (ladanum is, as=20 Marc Line says, rendered as "ibr") referred to here is interesting. =20 Ladanum, as I understand it, is a resin that adheres to the wool of sheep= =20 as they past through the fields, and is "harvested" by combing from the=20 fleece with a comb-like instrument called a "ladanisterium". Since the=20 resin combined with the sheep's fleece, it had a "musk-like perfume". =20 (Manjo, _The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World_, 1975: 210. = =20 Manjo also emphasizes that he is NOT talking about laudanum). From the=20 sound of it, ladanum could have been used as either an incense or a=20 medicine. It definitely sounds like a solid matter, which could have been= =20 formed into a shape, which may not rule out the above interpretation of=20 "iwdnb", though "ibr" seems preferred. Perhaps one term referred to its=20 "medicinal" name and the other to its use as an incense? John Nunn identifies "ibr"/ladanum with the resin of the plant _Cistus=20 creticus_ (_Ancient Egyptian Medicine_, 1996: 154) and this is not related= =20 to the poppy family, as far as I know. Perhaps someone with an herbal=20 dictionary can look this up, as Manniche's _Ancient Egyptian Herbal_ does=20 not list it at all. Its use medicinally was related to trachoma [nehat disease, mixed with=20 tortoise bile] (Nunn, 199 and 201) and hair problems [in 10-20% dosages,=20 possibly with blood and ink-powder] (J. W. Estes, _The Medical Skills of=20 Ancient Egypt_, 1993: 110). There was another reference I saw to the=20 treatment of ear infections. However, exactly how it works _as a medicine_= =20 is not defined. =20 However, the question of laudanum remains. Perhaps someone else can give a= =20 post on the forms in which a tincture of opium/laudanum could be shipped as= =20 a solid, dry and possibly "twisted" form, for example. Perhaps the word iwdnb gives a=20 clue by description. Best -- Katherine Griffis-Greenberg University of Alabama at Birmingham Special Studies http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/1692/index.html ============================================================================== Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 12:02:04 -0700 From: Patrick De Smet - Rodrigues To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL word for pleasure ? Francesca wrote: > > Group, > I have been reading an article (available on-line) written by Umberto Eco > which says : > > << Sometimes the hieroglyphic sign is a number : pleasure, for example, is > denoted by the number 16, because (allegedly) sexual activity begins at the > age of sixteen. Since it takes two to have an intercourse, however, this is > denoted by two sixteen's. >> > > Can anyone confirm that this is really how the word "pleasure" is written ? > > Thank you. > Francesca Dear Francesca and other List members, Has anyone been able to answer this question? Francesca, could you please give the URL of Umberto Eco's article? To attempt to give an answer, I need more details. Yours sincerely, Patrick De Smet - Rodrigues udjat@skynet.be Udjat, Eye in the Sky ============================================================================== From: Aayko Eyma To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL AW: AEL Chronology Confusion Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 22:29:59 +-200 Serge Rosmorduc[SMTP:rosmord@iut.univ-paris8.fr] wrote: >About uses of the greek alphabet for Egyptian, we do have a few >attestations before the roman times. A very >old text is the following graffito, from Abydos, which dates from the >beginning of the 2nd century BC, during the revolt of the Thebaid : >(in greek letters :) > L poro urgonafor mei esi nom ousire mei emounlasonter >(Year) 5 of Pharao Hor-oun-nefer beloved of Isis and Osiris, beloved > of Amon-Re king of the gods >(Yoyotte, Charvet, Gompertz, "Strabon, le voyage en Egypte", editions >Nil, p. 251 or Pestman, "Horonnophris and Chaonnophris", in Vleeming, >Hundred gated Thebes, pp. 101-137, E.J Brill, Leiden) **Interesting and thanks. I just had read an article yesterday in which was said "the form of Amon, 'Amon-Re King of the Gods' (Amonrasonter)" and had wondered what was behind the () form cq. where they got it. What's the 'L'? It's not labda (=30). Horwennefer (205-199 BC) and Ankhwennefer (199-86 BC) were rebel kings during the Ptolemies (names not known from hieroglyphic source) (Quirke - Who Were the pharaohs). kind regards, Aayko Eyma ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 22:35:09 +1000 To: Ancient Egyptian Language From: Mike Dyall-Smith Subject: Re: AEL Gardiner Exercise IV Continuing the discussion on Ivo's and Patrizia's answers to lesson 4 questions. As before, I have split up the discussion into Gardinerian and *post-Gardinerian. I have been consulting with a number of egyptologists who tell me that learning from Gardiner does little harm, as long as the current theories on verbs are introduced later (eg. at lesson 21) and the students can go over their previous lessons, examples and problems in light of these. 6 ix To: "AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk" Subject: AEL shipwrecked incense Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 16:49:10 +-200 Lichtheim: "I shall send you ibi and Hknw oils, laudanum, Hsyt-spice and the incense of the tempels"(140-141) "He gave me a load of myrrh, Hknw-oil, laudanum, Xsyt-spice, tiSpss-spice, perfume, eye-paint, giraffe's tails, great lumps of incense, "etc (162-163) [And wouldn't we all want giraffe's tails for our birthday? ;)] [Lichtheim has wrongly Hsyt in 140, the glyphs have Xs3yt. 'myrrh' in 162 is _'ntyw_. I suppose the double ss at the end of tiSpss is a matter of taste?; glyphs have _tj-Sps-s_ ] Marianne mentionned: " William Kelly Simpson has it "I shall have brought to you ladanum, heknu-oil, iwdeneb, cassia, and incense for the temples with which to satisfy every god." ***Borghouts 1993 has [my side-remarks]: ibi = ibr = resin [cf. definition of Labdanum or ladanum by Marianne; in Greek ledonon designated 'resin'. Faulkner has ibi/ibr "ladanum(?)"] Hkn.w = fragrant oil [is there a link with Hkn.w "praise"?? Cf. the Hebrew symbolism between incense and prayer. 'cheering oil' for aromatic oil is not too bad :) Like 'living water' for flowing water][Faulkner: "sacred oil"]. iwdnb = unknown product [that really helps!] Xs3y.t = fenugrek, a plant species [ fenegreek = foenum greacum; medicinal plant][Faulkner: "kind of spice(?)"] tiSps = an exotic kind of wood [Faulkner: "a tree and its spice(?)"] So no cassia here - don't know where the Greeks got that name. I think the cassia produced edible pods, not incense or the like, so it would not fit here, but neither does fenugreek I suppose. Unless there are more medicines hiding in the list. Regards, Aayko Eyma ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 10:46:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL word for pleasure ? Dear Francesca and Patrick, I was too b usy to answer this message when it first came by. Now, I can actually say something. Thanks for bringing the subject back. Francesca: > > << Sometimes the hieroglyphic sign is a number : pleasure, for example, is > > denoted by the number 16, because (allegedly) sexual activity begins at the > > age of sixteen. Since it takes two to have an intercourse, however, this is > > denoted by two sixteen's. >> > > > > Can anyone confirm that this is really how the word "pleasure" is written ? Patrick: > Has anyone been able to answer this question? No, I have never seen any such writing for "pleasure" in Egyptian and the concept seems very "un-Egyptian". I do, however, know of a owrd for sexual pleasure, probably the word for "orgasm". It is nDmm.t, which of course derives from nDm "be pleasant". Yorus, Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== From: Nubkhas Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 18:48:21 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL shipwrecked incense In a message dated 98-05-24 12:27:18 EDT, you write: << bi = ibr = resin [cf. definition of Labdanum or ladanum by Marianne; in Greek ledonon designated 'resin'. Faulkner has ibi/ibr "ladanum(?)"] Hkn.w = fragrant oil [is there a link with Hkn.w "praise"?? Cf. the Hebrew symbolism between incense and prayer. 'cheering oil' for aromatic oil is not too bad :) Like 'living water' for flowing water][Faulkner: "sacred oil"]. iwdnb = unknown product [that really helps!] Xs3y.t = fenugrek, a plant species [ fenegreek = foenum greacum; medicinal plant][Faulkner: "kind of spice(?)"] tiSps = an exotic kind of wood [Faulkner: "a tree and its spice(?)"] >> I reported what William Kelly Simpson had but, personally, I would not argue against "iwdneb" being "ladanum". "iwd" would be a good candidate for turning into "lad" --such as Egyptian "iwn" (color) is likely a cognate with Semitic "lawn". tiSps is "cinnamon" I thought cassia is "xs3y.t", but I will check my notes on Egyptian spices. Are you out there somewhere, Ishinan? (He is the *Man* when it comes to this stuff!) Marianne Luban ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 19:42:26 -0500 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Katherine Griffis Subject: Re: AEL Medicine or Incense? (WAS Re: AEL Change of Subject/iwdnb) Cc: Tamara Siuda A bit of a follow-up to my own post here: At 06:18 PM 5/23/98 -0500, I wrote: From the make-up of the word iwdnb, it appears to render as >"(a thing which) comes twisted/crooked" or "(a thing which is) bent , >turned, crooked" [iw as D54 + G43 and dnb (D46:N35 + D58]. ... "incense". This >may be presumed from the dry/"sand" determinative (N33), I think (referring >to Gardiner , p. 490, noting its use with other incense OR medicines). >So, Stephen Fryer has a very good point about iwdnb being a dry substance as >well. Perhaps it is a description of how the object appears. > >BTW: Lichtheim also translates the word iwdnb as "laudanum" ...(in) the second >reference to it in the story: > >"Then he gave me a load of myrrh, Hknw-oil, laudanum, Hsyt-spice, >tiSpss-spice, perfume, eyepaint, giraffe's tails, great lumps of incense [sntr], >elephants' tusks, Greyhounds..." etc. >The question as to whether it is "ladanum" or "laudanum" (ladanum is, as >Marc Line says, rendered as "ibr") referred to here is interesting. >Ladanum, as I understand it, is a resin that adheres to the wool of sheep >as they past through the fields, and is "harvested" by combing from the >fleece with a comb-like instrument called a "ladanisterium". Since the >resin combined with the sheep's fleece, it had a "musk-like perfume". >(Manjo, _The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World_, 1975: 210. >Manjo also emphasizes that he is NOT talking about laudanum). From the >sound of it, ladanum could have been used as either an incense or a >medicine. It definitely sounds like a solid matter, which could have been >formed into a shape, which may not rule out the above interpretation of >"iwdnb", though "ibr" seems preferred. Perhaps one term referred to its >"medicinal" name and the other to its use as an incense? >John Nunn identifies "ibr"/ladanum with the resin of the plant _Cistus >creticus_ (_Ancient Egyptian Medicine_, 1996: 154) and this is not related >to the poppy family, as far as I know. Perhaps someone with an herbal >dictionary can look this up, as Manniche's _Ancient Egyptian Herbal_ does >not list it at all. My thanks goes to an herbalist of acquaintance who noted the following from an herbal reference manual: "...>From Grieve's herbal. Cistus Creticus - alias Helianthemum Corymbosum - aka European Rock Rose This plant yields the gum resin Ladanum or Labdanum, a natural exudation valued as a stimulant, expectorant and emmenagogue. It can be used in plasters, formerly in catarrh and dysentery. An oil with the odour of ambergris has been obtained from the resin. Ladanum is found in masses up to several pounds, enclosed in bladders. It softens in the hand when broken, becoming adhesive and balsamic. It burns with a clear flame. An adulterated form is found in contorted (twists?), hard pieces, mixed with sand and earth." This does not seem to rule out "ladanum" as a possible connection with iwdnb, then, since it is noted for its contorted shape in bulk. It also shows the use as an incense as well as a medicine. >Its use medicinally was related to trachoma [nehat disease, mixed with >tortoise bile] (Nunn, 199 and 201) and hair problems [in 10-20% dosages, >possibly with blood and ink-powder] (J. W. Estes, _The Medical Skills of >Ancient Egypt_, 1993: 110). There was another reference I saw to the >treatment of ear infections. However, exactly how it works _as a medicine_ >is not defined. Based upon Grieve's herbal, its purpose medicinally appears to have been related to draining pustule infections in these instances. >However, the question of laudanum remains. Perhaps someone else can give a >post on the forms in which a tincture of opium/laudanum could be shipped as >a solid, dry and possibly "twisted" form, for example. Perhaps the word >iwdnb gives a clue by description. An interesting aside on the Laudanum/Ladanum question, however: Etymologically, "laudanum" is a corruption of "labdanum", another way of referring to ladanum. The American Heritage Dictionary notes: "... (def): A tincture of opium, formerly used as a drug. [New Latin, perhaps alteration of Medieval Latin _labdanum_, labdanum). Labdanum/Ladanum: A resin of certain Old World plants of the genus Cistus, yielding a fragrant essential oil used in flavorings and perfumes. [Middle English from Medieval Latin lapdanum, labdanum alteration of Latin ladanum; from Greek ledanon from ledon, rockrose of Semitic origin: Akkadian ladunu] It seems clear that the two terms are NOT related pharmacologically, with one a narcotic and the other a stimulant, expectorant and emmenagogue. Hope this helps a bit, Tamara. Best -- Katherine Griffis-Greenberg University of Alabama at Birmingham Special Studies http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/1692/index.html ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 23:05:44 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor I have (finally!) finished the parallel transcription into hieroglyphics of the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor from pLeningrad 1115. Each page of the original hieratic has a parallel page of hieroglyphic text in which the lines/columns and sign groupings match those in the original. This may be of value to those working on learning hieratic, or to those who need access to the text of this story. A number of spin-off projects are percolating in the back of my mind, but I don't think it would be wise for any of us to hold our breath waiting for them. Vague ideas I have are: complete vocabulary KWIC (key-word in context) index sentence structure analysis of the whole text That should be enough to keep me busy for a few years! -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 22:51:02 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Chronology Confusion Serge Rosmorduc wrote: > > About uses of the greek alphabet for Egyptian, we do have a few > attestations before the roman times. A very > old text is the following graffito, from Abydos, which dates from the > beginning of the 2nd century BC, during the revolt of the Thebaid : > (in greek letters :) > L poro urgonafor mei esi nom ousire mei emounlasonter > (Year) 5 of Pharao Hor-oun-nefer beloved of Isis and Osiris, beloved > of Amon-Re king of the gods Thanks for this Serge. Just one question: is there really a "g" in "urgonafor". -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 22:56:27 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Medicine or Incense? (WAS Re: AEL Change of Subject/iwdnb) While to us there is a distinction between incense and medicines, to the Egyptians I doubt if there was any clear distinction (or between spices and medicines - after all spices have been used for many medicinal purposes). If it was associated with the gods, surely it must have a positive effect on peoples' health? > To follow these phrases on iwdnb in glyphs, see: > > The first reference to iwdnb at: > > http://home.prcn.org/~sfryer/Hieratic/papyrus/hieroglyph11.htm > (Lines 8-10) > > The second reference at: > > http://home.prcn.org/~sfryer/Hieratic/papyrus/hieroglyph14.htm > (Lines 2-4) I was rather surprised that Katherine found these pages already - I finished them less than two weeks ago, and hadn't told everyone about them yet. -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ==============================================================================