From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 08:33:03 +0000 Subject: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor 56-66 ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Mr. Wilson: Here's the next instalment. Thanks. James P. Allen, Curator Department of Egyptian Art Metropolitan Museum of Art -------------------------- Shipwrecked Sailor 56-66 Notes to previous posts (mostly response to Mr. Fryer's of Oct. 12). The suggestion that wAw (40 and 110) means "current" is intriguing, but doesn't really fit with the use of the same term in 58, where it makes a loud noise--something that waves do but current doesn't. nwyt (35 and 104) is unlikely to mean "wave," since it's normally used to describe the inundation, which does not have waves. The basic meaning seems to be "flood." That being the case, it probably refers here to higher than normal seas flooding the boat, sweeping everyone away, and sinking it. "Swell" is perhaps not entirely appropriate, but neither is "wave." The "house" determinative of kAp (43-44) doesn't necessarily indicate an artificial construction. It may only denote the idea of "shelter," or even more broadly "place"--as it does, for example, in the word Xnw "interior" used of the island throughout this story (which was hardly constructed). If the sailor lay in it for three days before going off to look for food, he was probably too weak to construct a shelter, even just of branches, in the first place. I retract my suggested reading Sd.n.j instead of Sdt.j in 54. The fact that the ending is written before the determinative argues against n (the length is less significant; the length of n can vary depending on the surrounding signs). The fact remains, however, that the use of the "narrative infinitive" rather than the sDm.n.f in this context cannot be easily explained. The verb Sdj has a range of meaning from "take along" to "get." Here the meaning is closer to "get": the sailor simply found a suitable stick to use. There is no indication that he brought it with him from the boat. As for the "emphatic" forms, the name is certainly inaccurate, but no one has come forward with a better one. It is somewhat appropriate, however, because the forms do indeed signal "emphasis" of a sort, by indicating that the focus of interest in the sentence is not on the verb form (where it usually is) but on some other element of the sentence. Technically speaking, they are "nonrhematic predicates." Since they are nothing more than the relative forms used in a special function (see my previous post, on terminology), the alternative name "nominal form" is also appropriate, though that does not reflect what their function/meaning in the sentence is. The term "Second Tense" is taken from Coptic, where the existence and function of these forms was first discovered (by Polotsky). It's appropriate for Coptic, where each Second Tense has a corresponding First (non-"emphatic," or whatever) form, but less so for Middle Egyptian, where there is not always a one-to-one relationship between "emphatic" and non-"emphatic" forms. 56-57) aHa.n sDm.n.j xrw qrj "Then I heard a thundering sound." Literally, "a sound of thunder." xrw can mean "noise, sound" as well as "voice." qrj is used of loud natural sounds, such as thunder and roaring water. In this context it is clear that the sound is caused by the snake's approach, which makes an earthquake. The xrw qrj is of the earthquake, and is therefore better translated "a thundering sound," even though qrj is not an adjective. 57-59) jb.kw wAw pw n wAD-wr "I thought it was a wave of the sea." This is a nice example of how Egyptian can do exactly what English does (as illustrated by the translation): use an independent sentence directly as the object of a verb. Here the nominal (A pw) sentence wAw pw n wAD-wr "it was a wave of the sea" is the object of jb.kw "I thought." Gardiner calls this "virtual" subordination (in this case, a "virtual noun clause"). A better name is contextual subordination: subordination is signaled just by the context, exactly as it is in English. 59-60) xtw Hr gmgm, tA Hr mnmn "Trees were cracking, the ground was shaking." A compound sentence (or two shorter ones), with Hr plus infinitive as predicate. This is a good example of how this construction expresses ongoing/incomplete action. 60-62) kf.n.j Hr.j, gm.n.j HfAw pw, jw.f m jjt "When I uncovered my face, I found it was a serpent coming." This is one of the most interesting sentences in the story. The first clause exemplifies a literary device we're often not even aware of: the elimination of unessential information. The writer doesn't have to have his narrator tell us "then I covered my face": by saying that "I uncovered my face," he (and we) make the logical assumption that the narrator covered it first. Movies do the same thing when they show, for example, a character getting out of a car in one shot and entering the front door in the next: we don't have to be shown the transition where he walks from the car to the door. The sentence is interesting grammatically as well. The important element is the statement HfAw pw "it was a serpent" that was making the noise, not "a wave of the sea." The verbs kf.n.j and gm.n.j both express less important information, and both are "emphatic" forms. The use of such a form in the first clause is one way that Egyptian has of putting an adverb clause at the beginning of the sentence: in this case, a clause of prior circumstance ("having uncovered my face"). The second clause is the main clause of the sentence, and it contains another example of contextual subordination, with the nominal sentence HfAw pw used directly as the object of gm.n.j, just as "it was a serpent" is used as object of "I found" in the English translation. The third clause is a third example of contextual subordination. The sentence jw.f m jjt "it was coming" can be used by itself as a full sentence or a main clause. But here it follows an undefined noun ("*a* serpent"). Egyptian uses contextual subordination after such nouns instead of clauses with a relative form or ntj: thus, "a serpent that was coming." The predicate in this clause is m plus the infinitive. This is not just a variant of the more common Hr plus infinitive. It is used in Middle Egyptian in the same way that the "progressive" present is used in English to express the future: jw.f m jjt "he's coming (tomorrow)" vs. jw.f Hr jjt "he's coming (now)." In this case it indicates that when the sailor uncovered his face, he didn't see the serpent in the distance coming along, but right on top of him, about to arrive. 62-63) n(j)-sw mH 30 "He was 50 feet long." Literally, "he belonged to 30 cubits." This is an adjectival sentence where the predicate is the prepositional nisbe n(j)--the same word that is used in the indirect genitive. The subject is the dependent pronoun sw, and the two are written as one word with the biliteral ns-sign. This kind of sentence has two patterns: n(j) sw B, with the dependent pronoun, is used when the pronoun is the subject ("he belongs to B"); n(j) ntf B, with the independent pronoun, is used when B is the subject ("B belongs to him"). The second pattern is often written without the first n (ntf B) which can be confusing, since ntf B also means "he is B" (an A B nominal sentence). 63-64) xbzwt.f wr s(j) r mH 2 "His beard was longer than 3 feet." Another adjectival sentence, with the nominal subject xbzwt put in front and resumed by the dependent pronoun s(j). Egyptian prefers this order when the subject of the sentence is a body part. 64-65) Haw.f sxr.w m nbw "His body was plated in gold." Here the nominal subject is in front because the predicate is the stative. Haw literally means "body parts," but it is often used as a term for the whole body. sxr is a verb associated with plating objects in metal: the image here is of gold leaf. 65-66) jn(H)wj.fj m xsbd mAa "His eyebrows were of real lapis-lazuli." The H has been omitted from jnHwj.fj, but the determinative makes clear what is meant. The suffix pronoun fj has an ending copied from the dual; the same phenomenon often occurs in the future participle (sDmtj.fj "who will hear"). The use of mAa "real" is meant to contrast with faience, a kind of artificial (and cheaper) lapis-lazuli. 66) arq sw r xnt "He was bent forward." Another adjectival sentence, this time with the perfective passive participle arq "bent" as predicate. r xnt means "toward the fore." The image is of a snake reared as if to strike rather than slithering along the ground. James P. Allen, Curator Department of Egyptian Art Metropolitan Museum of Art ============================================================================== From: Corset01@aol.com Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 08:04:40 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL (no subject) In a message dated 10/22/98 2:36:23 AM EST, journal@concentric.net writes: << Hello, it has been over a week since I have gotten anything from this list. Is everything ok? Also, please point me to the on-line translation chart. I seem to have misplaced the location and have been compleately lost ever since. >> I received your message posted to the AEgyptian list. I have been getting an average of 2-3 postings a day from the AE list, so there has been activity on the list in the past week. The website I go to for hieroglyphs is: http://guardians.net/egypt/hiero.htm there are others out there as well, but this is an excellent site. Good luck to you! If I can help by sending you the past week's postings, I'd be happy to do so. Christina Warren Borders Books (www.borders.com) Dearborn, Michigan USA 313-271-4441 (work) ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 13:50:25 +0200 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor 56-66 > I retract my suggested reading Sd.n.j instead of Sdt.j in 54. The fact that > the ending is written before the determinative argues against n (the length > is less significant; the length of n can vary depending on the surrounding > signs). The fact remains, however, that the use of the "narrative > infinitive" rather than the sDm.n.f in this context cannot be easily > explained. The verb Sdj has a range of meaning from "take along" to "get." Gardiner's interpretation is noteworthy : in the chapter about "narrative sDmt=f", he remarks that the forms in question, when at a sentence beginning, often seem to mark a previous circumstance. That is, it would mark an protasis. Grandet-Mathieu kept the idea in their grammar. Gardiner also seem to think the form is probably an infinitive. In this is true, we would have a special use of the infinitive as a protasis marker, specially when the subject for the infinitive is directly connected (versus senetences like *"iyt in BAk im"). The translation of Gardiner gives a very good sense : "Having taken a fire-stick, I made a fire and made an holocauste to the gods". 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 ============================================================================== From: LAHSR@aol.com Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:04:45 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL (no subject) I haven't gotten much from AEL for a while myself. I thought that somehow I was taken off of the list....could anyone tell me where to find the translation of Hatsheput's Obelisk at Karnak. Thanks Bud Henderson ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:18:16 -0700 From: Stephen Fryer To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL Emphatic? James P. Allen wrote: > As for the "emphatic" forms, the name is certainly inaccurate, but no one > has come forward with a better one. It is somewhat appropriate, however, > because the forms do indeed signal "emphasis" of a sort, by indicating that > the focus of interest in the sentence is not on the verb form (where it > usually is) but on some other element of the sentence. Technically speaking, > they are "nonrhematic predicates." Since they are nothing more than the > relative forms used in a special function (see my previous post, on > terminology), the alternative name "nominal form" is also appropriate, > though that does not reflect what their function/meaning in the sentence is. > The term "Second Tense" is taken from Coptic, where the existence and > function of these forms was first discovered (by Polotsky). It's appropriate > for Coptic, where each Second Tense has a corresponding First > (non-"emphatic," or whatever) form, but less so for Middle Egyptian, where > there is not always a one-to-one relationship between "emphatic" and > non-"emphatic" forms. Well, here's a chance for you all to make your mark in Egyptian linguistics! The term "emphatic" seems misleading for this verb form (it isn't the verb that is being emphasized), and "Second Tense" is really just meaningless applied to Middle Egyptian (which is why I, following James Hoch use it - at least it doesn't have any false implications regarding the use of the form). Neither Prof. Allen, nor I, seem to have a good alternative to propose. So there you are - who can come up with a really appropriate term for this? -- Stephen Fryer Lund Computer Services ************************************************** The more answers I find, the more questions I have ************************************************** ============================================================================== From: Corset01@aol.com Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 23:38:22 EDT To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: AEL (no subject) In a message dated 10/22/98 5:00:41 PM EST, LAHSR@aol.com writes: << could anyone tell me where to find the translation of Hatsheput's Obelisk at Karnak. >> As it happens, I just purchased a book today that has a translation of the text of the obelisk of Hatshepsut. The book is: "Cleopatra's Needles and Other Egyptian Obelisks" by E.A. Wallis Budge. ISBN: 0486263479, published by Dover. It's approximately $8.95 and is over 300 pages. This book has a wealth of information and contains 17 b&w photographs and 22 b&w line illustrations and gives the hieroglyphic and other texts of all the important Egyptian obelisks, with English translations. It is an excellent source for those learning hieroglyphs. It should be readily available through larger bookstores or online services. Please let me know if I can be of further help with the tranlations. Christina Warren Borders Books (www.borders.com) Dearborn, Michigan USA 313-271-4441 (work) ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:22:50 +0200 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: eruga Subject: AEL papyrus ani Dears All this is once time I write in this List. I love much hieroglyphic writing and I'm find a integral text in hieroglyphic version of "Papyrus of Ani" (file or other) Thanks, Ettore ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 21:43:35 -1000 From: rlarsen To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL papyrus ani Eruga, Chronicle Books, San Francisco has a paperback edition ot integrated text and full color images reproduced from Budge's 1890 edition. Raymond Faulkner's translation and various commentaries are included. hope this helps, Randall Larsen, University of Hawaii eruga wrote: > Dears All > this is once time I write in this List. > I love much hieroglyphic writing and I'm find > a integral text in hieroglyphic version of > "Papyrus of Ani" (file or other) > Thanks, Ettore ============================================================================== From: mschreiber@bigfoot.com (Michael S. Schreiber) To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL papyrus ani Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:05:02 GMT On Fri, 23 Oct 1998 09:22:50 +0200, ettore wrote: >this is once time I write in this List. >I love much hieroglyphic writing and I'm find >a integral text in hieroglyphic version of >"Papyrus of Ani" (file or other) >Thanks, Ettore There are several versions of the papyrus of Ani available; two that may be obtained from http://www.amazon.com are: A beautiful publication is The Egyptian Book of the Dead : The Book of Going Forth by Day, by Raymond Oliver Faulkner (Translator/Editor), James Wasserman (Producer/Editor). Aside from the beautifully rendered translation, the photographic reproduction of the entire papyrus of Ani. ISBN: 0811807673 Another version is The Book of the Dead by E.A. Wallis Budge. Budge's translation provides integrated heiroglyphic text, transliteration and translation. The translation is dated, and by all accounts Faulkner's is superior, however I find the coupling of text to transliteration to translation to be helpful. ISBN: 0140190090 On the world wide web you can find a complete reproduction of the Papyrus of Ani at http://www.noxtempli.com/Papyrus/index.html This appears to be a phtographic scan of the plates from Faulkner (I refrain from comment on the copyright issues involved). Several copies of Budge's translation of the papyrus of Ani are also on line. A good one, in hypertext, is located at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~drokk/BoD/toc.html you can also download the whole file from that site. I hope this helps. Michael S. Schreiber mschreiber@bigfoot.com http://members.aol.com/Egyptmouse "A day without laugher is a day wasted" - Charlie Chaplin ============================================================================== From: "olivier" To: Cc: Subject: AEL the text of Hatchepsut's Obelisk at Karnak - U of Chicago Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:53:30 +0200 Hi, you can find the entire text of this obelisk at this adress (University of Chicago) : http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU_REGINDX_EGYPT_PHILOL.HTML and try this one : Berens, Al [Typeset by] - The text of Hatshepsut's Obelisk at Karnak. You'll find the hieroglyphic text and translation. It's free! olivier.delvigne@skynet.be ============================================================================== Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 10:29:41 +0200 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL Emphatic? Stephen Fryer 'ecrit : > who can come up with a really appropriate term for this? The other concurrents names usually used are "nominal form", which is not too bad (except that there are other nominal forms, like the prospective), and "mrr=f", which has the advantage of being both accurate and theory neutral :-) Note also that some people use "second tense" only when the "mrr=f" is used to emphathise a circumstancial complement, and not in the other cases (balanced sentence, mrr=f as subject, object, or governed by a preposition). The same is true for the use of "emphatic" (which Polotsky took from Sethe, but changing the meaning of the term. Sethe had seen that the verb form in question tended to be used in argumentations and the like, but had not figured out why). Anyway, there's no ISO standard committee for naming Egyptian constructions, so it's important for people interested in the Egyptian language to know the various names. "I won't let you pass, say the nominal construct, lest you say our names I know you, I know thy names Thou are "emphatic" in Sethe Thou rise as "second tense" in Etudes de syntaxe Coptes Thou are transposed as nominal form in Polotsky mrr=f is thy name in some places." humm.. sorry.. 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 ============================================================================== From: Michael Tilgner To: 'Ancient Egyptian Language List' Subject: Re: AEL papyrus ani Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 18:13:09 +0200 Ettore wrote > I love much hieroglyphic writing and I'm find > a integral text in hieroglyphic version of > "Papyrus of Ani" (file or other) There is a facsimile edition of Papyrus Ani (BM 10470) with a German commentary (not translation) by E. Dondelinger, Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, 1978 (Codices selecti, Vol. LXII). ISBN 3-201-01048-0 - Price: DM 890 It consists of 37 segments in the original format (38 x 70 cm) - resulting in a total length of 24 m! - in a box. - The ultimate gift for every egyptomaniac! Michael Tilgner mtilgner@baan.nl ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:33:25 +0000 Subject: AEL (Fwd) [OL]Hiero-mania... This appeared on the OsirisList recently, and is such a nice tale that I thought AEL members might like it too. It's a little bit peripheral to the focus of the list, but you can put it down to list owner's privilege! :) It is posted here with the author's consent. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:20:55 +0100 From: Patrick De Smet - Rodrigues Reply-to: osirisl@idirect.ca To: osirisl@idirect.ca Subject: [OL]Hiero-mania... Dear List members, There are moments when I ask myself: why am I doing this? Why did I sacrifice so many years of my life studying Egyptology? Why do I still continue and study these hieroglyphic texts, this difficult language, the complex religion...? Why didn't I become a computer analyst, a doctor, lawyer, economist, pilot, dentist, car technician, whatever...? Anything else will do to earn some respect from common sense people around me... Anything else will save me the strange reactions and surprise-mixed-with-unbelief-looks that I am getting now... But then there are also moments like last weekend's. Totally unexpectedly I had been invited --two days before-- to represent Egyptology on a "Science festival" here in Belgium. This "festival" took place during two days in a large hall where every participating institution, university, lab or association, had a stand to present its own research and scientific technology. The purpose of it all is to draw the attention of schoolchildren (aged between 8 and 18) to science in general and scientific research in universities and labs in general... It is an annual project and is followed by a complete "week for scientific research" at schools and universities. I had the opportunity to show the latest (upcoming 2.0) version of "Glyph for Windows", the "Extended Library" which contains over 4,000 hieroglyphic signs (soon there will be over 6,800 of them!) and the way in which hieroglyphic texts can now be treated by scientists, be printed out in a cheap way, and are interchangeable and compatible between different platforms etc. (Encoding Manual, ASCII, Internet, E-mail). But the absolute favourite of the public (young *and* old) was a small program which lets anyone simply type in his or her name (in our Western alphabet), shows the hieroglyphic equivalent (of course with a few adaptations) of it on screen and prints it out on paper. So simple but o so effective to draw people's attention, interest and fascination. Its pure simplicity made that --in the course of those two days-- more than 2,000 people of all ages printed their own names in hieroglyphs. A stunning number considering the fact that this is Belgium and the total number of visitors to the festival was around 10,000. Actually, forty minutes before the end of the second day I ran out of paper! But people didn't give up and kept on coming, carrying all kinds of folders from other stands which could be printed upon on the reverse side... Never before --outside big exhibitions on Ancient Egypt-- I have seen such interest and appeal from the general public for hieroglyphs! Mind you, we are talking about a writing system, not sculptures, treasures or golden masks... Before the festival had started, I feared my stand would be looked upon as "weird" or "exotic". But no: people of all ages wanted to know more about those strange signs, wanted to know how the system works, were thrilled that they could *create* their own name in such an old script... If only the authorities in Belgium could have seen this. I was ever so lucky and proud to have our national TV-channel report on it as well. I am sorry if this is too personal and not what you expect to read on a List like this, but I could not resist sharing this with other people. In the past I have been rather pessimistic about the future of Egyptology in Belgium. Well, this might be a correction to that view. Somehow I hope this opportunity has sparked off a renewed interest and passion for the subject. Yours, Patrick De Smet - Rodrigues udjat@skynet.be Udjat, *Teaching* Eye in the Sky ============================================================================== From: Michael Tilgner To: 'Ancient Egyptian Language List' Subject: AEL Shipwrecked Sailor L54-56 Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:23:29 +0100 Prof. James P. Allen wrote on Oct. 12, 1998: > 54-56) Sd.n.j DA, sxpr.n.j xt, jr.n.j zj-n-sDt n nTrw "I took a firestick, > created a fire, and made a burnt offering to the gods." > The first form is normally transcribed Sdt.j rather than Sd.n.j, but in the > hieratic the sign could simply be a shorter n rather than a t. If it is > Sdt.j, it is a case of the "narrative infinitive" (literally, "my taking"), > which is sometimes used instead of the sDm.n.f--though usually to signal > major breaks in the narrative, which is not the case here. It used to be > interpreted as the "narrative sDmt.f" (which is how it is explained in > Gardiner, =A7 406), but about 20 years ago it was shown that this use of the > sDmt.f doesn't exist. All supposed examples are from verbs that have an > infinitive in -t, and are more probably the infinitive, which is attested in > this use. The next two clauses are continuative, with the sDm.n.f.zj-n-sDt > "burnt offering" is an infinitival phrase used as a noun: literally, "a > go-to-fire." Stephen Fryer wrote on Oct. 13, 1998: >> 54-56) Sd.n.j DA, sxpr.n.j xt, jr.n.j zj-n-sDt n nTrw "I took a firestick, >> created a fire, and made a burnt offering to the gods." >> The first form is normally transcribed Sdt.j rather than Sd.n.j, but in the >> hieratic the sign could simply be a shorter n rather than a t. > > I can't see it being n in the hieratic - there is no other instance I can see > where there is an n written short in this fashion in this papyrus: they are > all given full length. I'm not sure about translating it simply "I took" - it > seem to me the meaning is more that he "carved out" a firestick. If he had > been washed overboard from a ship, I don't know if he would have had such a > utensil with him. Prof. James P. Allen wrote on Oct. 22, 1998: > I retract my suggested reading Sd.n.j instead of Sdt.j in 54. The fact that > the ending is written before the determinative argues against n (the length > is less significant; the length of n can vary depending on the surrounding > signs). The fact remains, however, that the use of the "narrative > infinitive" rather than the sDm.n.f in this context cannot be easily > explained. The verb Sdj has a range of meaning from "take along" to "get." > Here the meaning is closer to "get": the sailor simply found a suitable > stick to use. There is no indication that he brought it with him from the > boat. Serge Rosmorduc wrote on Oct. 22, 1998: > Gardiner's interpretation is noteworthy : in the chapter about > "narrative sDmt=f", he remarks that the forms in question, when at a > sentence beginning, often seem to mark a previous circumstance. That > is, it would mark an protasis. Grandet-Mathieu kept the idea in their > grammar. Gardiner also seem to think the form is probably an > infinitive. In this is true, we would have a special use of the > infinitive as a protasis marker, specially when the subject for the > infinitive is directly connected (versus senetences like *"iyt in BAk im"). > > The translation of Gardiner gives a very good sense : > > "Having taken a fire-stick, I made a fire and made an holocauste to > the gods". In a brief communication David Berg, "Syntax, semantics, and physics: the Shipwrecked Sailor's fire" in JEA 76, 168-170 (1990) analyzed the passage in question. (1) The basic meaning of Sdi is "to remove" (see also: Hannig, pp. 842-843), so Sdt.i DA must have the meaning "I removed the fire drill"; alternative interpretations "to cut out" (Faulkner) or "to make" are on weak foundations, as the cited examples could also be translated with the meaning "to remove". (2) Removed from what? "The implied 'kit bag' is unconvincing." (3) "By taking sxpr.n.i as an example of the circumstantial sDm.n=f form, thus indicating an action which occurred prior to the verbal antecedent (fn. 14), we can translate the passage in a manner that does justice to syntax, semantics, and physics: 'Removing the fire drill when I had ignited the fire, I made a holocaust to the gods.' The first two verbal forms are a narrative infinitive [Gardiner, sect. 306, 2] followed by a circumstantial sDm.n=f. Logically, the second sDm.n=f cannot be circumstantial." fn. 14: See E. Doret, The Narrative Verbal Systems of Old and Middle Egyptian, Geneva, 1986, pp. 68, n. 740; 151; 167 (4) Berg cited some examples to justify sxpr "to ignite"; see also Hannig, p. 744 sxpr ... (2) ... to fan (fire) ... "While the English language does not have an idiom 'to activate a fire', 'to ignite' is a suitable synonym. Thus, the Shipwrecked Sailor removed his fire drill from the already-collected kindling when said kindling began to function in the manner of a fire, that it is to say, it ignited." zj-n-sDt "burnt offering" is zbj-n-sDt (Hannig, p. 684). Best wishes, Michael Tilgner mtilgner@baan.nl ==============================================================================