Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 19:00:00 -0500 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Katherine Griffis Subject: Re: AEL I'm with Tony! At 08:52 PM 10/18/97 +1000, Chad wrote: >I'm in about the same position as Tony - I want to learn >hieroglyphs but all our library has is Gardiner's "Egyptian >Grammar". I've started working through the first few exercises, >which seem fine ... have I picked the wrong starting point? I have >no problem investing some money in some textbooks, I just didn't >know where to begin. By the way, is trying to learn Egyptian >fruitless without a teacher/tutor? In addition to the texts referred to you on Hoch and Gardiner, I also suggest _Middle Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction_, by Gertrude Englund, from Uppsala University. As I mentioned in a post of about a week ago, persons who are interested in acquiring this book should e-mail me offlist for the access e-mail address at Uppsala to order this book. It costs about 140 SEK/$22 US. Very good and quick reference. Regards -- Katherine Griffis-Greenberg American Research Center in Egypt International Association of Egyptologists University of Alabama at Birmingham Special Studies ftp://newton.newton.cam.ac.uk/pub/ancient/egypt/email.addresses.txt ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 20:30:01 +1100 From: Michael Dyall-Smith Subject: AEL Westcar P8 L1 To: to AEL REGARDING Westcar P8 L1 Geoff finished off page 7 with: aHa.n mzA.n sy msi-xn.t r=f . "Then Meskhenet extended herself toward him (leaned over him), and..."#000# This passage continues on page 8. I looked at P8, line 1 for a while in utter despair. As luck would have it, I stumbled across a translation in one of my books, and then it made sense. aHa.n Dd.n=s ; " n.y-sw.t iri.ty=fy n.y.t-sw.t m tA pn r Dr=f !"#000# ...then she said, "A king who will exercise the kingship of this entire land!" NOTES: aHa.n Dd.n=f - Narrative verb form "Then she said..." n.y-sw.t - noun, "a/the king" iri.ty=fy - a future participle (the sDm.ty=fy form, see Gr #363; Hoch #125) from the verb iri "do, make, etc." Means "(he) who will do/make/exercise". n.y.t-sw.t - feminine (neutral) form of this word, meaning the abstract position, "kingship". m tA pn r Dr=f - lit." in this land to its end" Now, is the goddess Meskhenet making a prediction or is she deciding the boy's future? Regards, Mike Dyall-Smith Melbourne, Australia m.dyall-smith@microbiology.unimelb.edu.au ============================================================================== From: "Leo Bores, MD" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 07:21:29 +0000 Subject: Re: AEL I'm with Tony! > In addition to the texts referred to you on Hoch and Gardiner, I also > suggest _Middle Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction_, by Gertrude Englund, > from Uppsala University. As I mentioned in a post of about a week ago, > persons who are interested in acquiring this book should e-mail me offlist > for the access e-mail address at Uppsala to order this book. It costs > about 140 SEK/$22 US. Very good and quick reference. > I'm game! Leo === Leo D. Bores, MD 8049 N. 85th Way Scottsdale,AZ 85258 VOICE:602-998-1984/FAX:602-998-1552 ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 16:46:01 +0100 From: Marc DIEBOLD To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Gardiner v. Hoch > Plus, Gardiner's concepts of how the > Egyptian verb worked are, by his own admission somewhat confused. > Things have become much clearer with futher reseach. > -- > Stephen Fryer > Lund Computer Services Bonjour, What book that has become much clearer with futher reseach would you recommend? (not for a beginner) Amicales salutations / kind regards / mit freundlichen Gruessen, Marc. /////// ( o o ) ----oOOo-----U-----oOOo---------------------------- Marc DIEBOLD Universit. Louis Pasteur Tel: 03.88.416.149 4 rue Blaise Pascal Fax: 03.88.416.060 67070 STRASBOURG FRANCE Email: mailto:diebold@cournot.u-strasbg.fr Fr : http://cournot.u-strasbg.fr/diebold/homepage.htm US : http://cournot.u-strasbg.fr/diebold/us.htm --------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 13:44:38 +0200 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL I'm with Tony! Chad Bochan writes: > I'm in about the same position as Tony - I want to learn > hieroglyphs but all our library has is Gardiner's "Egyptian > Grammar". I've started working through the first few exercises, > which seem fine ... have I picked the wrong starting point? I have > no problem investing some money in some textbooks, I just didn't > know where to begin. By the way, is trying to learn Egyptian > fruitless without a teacher/tutor? > > Chad. Your starting point is perfectly valid. In fact, to complement what Stephen said, Gardiner started working on a grammar for students, but decided at some point (around chap. 13) to make it also a reference grammar. But it is possible to work with it. If you can get a recent grammar as well, do it, as you will get there a more recent treatment of the verb. The problem lays mainly in Gardiner's "perfective" and "imperfective" sDm=f verb-forms theory, which is outdated now. As for Working alone, it is not fruitless, but certainly a little frustrating at time. regards, -- Serge Rosmorduc, (rosmord@iut.univ-paris8.fr) 66, rue Alexandre Dumas 75011 Paris tel 01 48 70 37 09 fax 01 48 70 86 49 http://webperso.iut.univ-paris8.fr/~rosmord/AEgypt.html ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:22:55 +0000 Subject: AEL Introductory Grammar Dear all, Those looking for an introductory grammar might be interested in a new book that is apparently due out next year. The following was posted to the ane list on September 2nd 1997: > Those interested might like to know that Mark Collier has just sent > to press an introductory grammar of Egyptian that is intended to > enable amateurs in particular to read simple monumental texts but does > notpretend to cover the language completely. It will be in a > relatively (but maybe not absolutely) small format. It is to be > published by British Museum Press in 1998 and no doubt also by a US > publisher. This will be a work by a leading contemporary linguist of > Egyptian that will give a short introduction. We shall probably have > to wait rather longer for a full Egyptian grammar for the general user > to set alongside Gardiner. -- Mark Wilson weneg@rostau.demon.co.uk http://www.rostau.demon.co.uk/AEgyptian-L/ ============================================================================== From: Salvador Ramirez To: Aegyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:29:32 GMT Subject: AEL AEL: Egyptian by yourself (re:I'm with Tony!) Trying to learn Middle Egyptian by oneself is not impossible. In fact it is necessary many times as in many countries there are not departments of this subject at the universities. Anyway it is difficult and, a lot of times hard. But of course it is possible. I really think that Gardiner's grammar is still very useful, and it should not be ignored at all, although I recognise that it may be difficult for the beginner sometimes. Hoch's is another excellent grammar to learn Egyptian by oneself. Englund's grammar, although concise, is useful, but it should not be used instead of Gardiner's. Another good grammar is the one by Grandet (in French), it is very complete and quite clear. Of course there are some other Egyptian grammars, but most of them are too concise and incomplete to adquire good knowledge of the Egyptian language by oneself. Salvador Ramirez SOAS, University of London sr13@soas.ac.uk ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:21:58 +0300 To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk From: Dan-El Kahn Subject: AEL libyan words hello everybody. I would like to know if there exists a list of Libyan or Nubian words in egyptian like Hoch's work on Semitic words in egyptian texts thanks a lot Dan-El ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 00:57:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Westcar P8 L1 Hi, Mike, > aHa.n Dd.n=s ; " n.y-sw.t iri.ty=fy n.y.t-sw.t m tA pn r Dr=f !"#000# > ...then she said, "A king who will exercise the kingship of this entire You got it. > Now, is the goddess Meskhenet making a prediction or is she deciding the boy's > future? I could not say for sure. In other stories it is the "seven Hathors" who perform this task and with them it is clear that any fate they pronounce cannot be avoided no matter how much one might try. However, it is not clear that these prophesies are always fulfilled in the way one might guess, and ironic twists can make them take surprising turns. However, the end of the Tale of the Doomed Prince is not preserved, so we do not know how it turns out, while that of the Two Brothers makes the fabricated woman come to a terrible end, just as predicted. The seven Hathors can be found in the Ptolemaic and Roman Mammisi reliefs, where they all carry what appear to be tambourines, unless they are full moons, which seems less likely. Now, having tackled one of the births of the kings, and since each of them is practically identical, except for one or two errors, and the specific names given to each child, why doesn't someone new take a crack at them? You now have a cheat sheet from which to prompt yourselves, so there should be no great pain in the endeavor. Yours, Geoff ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 02:11:29 -0400 (EDT) From: BisnoCC@aol.com To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Subject: AEL Teaching and Learning Egyptian I used to teach an introduction to Middle Egyptian for mostly members of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History who had no ancient language training whatsoever. After becoming infatuated and then disinfatuated with a number of books, I took several - Gardiner, Bakir, Rose, and even Budge - and extracted what I found most useful from each of them, and then chose a number of mainly funerary inscriptions which one might find in a museum or tombs in Egypt, and made my lesson plan from those. It was extremely interesting and successful, and the lessons seemed to stick with the students. The interesting part is the key. If they enjoy what they're learning, they'll remember and then be able to add on the rest. There is still no greater thrill for a student than walking into a museum or a tomb and being able to read one of the inscriptions. I just got Englund's new book and I like it. John Rose is also useful, too. Actually, they all have something you can incorporate into your own lessons. J. Bisno Culver City ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 01:12:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL libyan words Hi, Dan-El, > I would like to know if there exists a list of Libyan or Nubian words in > egyptian like Hoch's work on Semitic words in egyptian texts I don't know of one, but if there are resources, you might also pose this question on the ANE or Osiris Lists, since there are several people there who might share your specific interests. Yours, Geoff ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 19:17:22 +0000 Subject: AEL Osiris list On 21 Oct 97 at 12:41, Dan-El Kahn wrote: > thanks for the information but I haven't got the email address of the > osiris list. could you give me their address? The Osiris List is at OsirisList@aol.com. Simply send a message with SUBSCRIBE in the message body. Best Regards, Mark. -- Mark Wilson weneg@rostau.demon.co.uk http://www.rostau.demon.co.uk/AEgyptian-L/ ============================================================================== From: "Kerry" To: Subject: AEL Egyptology Studies Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 02:45:21 -0700 Hello everyone! I am a long-time lurker to this list. I have found your suggestions for textbooks very useful, as I am a complete beginner in AEL. However, it is becoming obvious to me that self-study is not going to be sufficient in my case. I hold a BA in International Studies - a far cry from Egyptology. I would like to return to college, working toward a Masters in Egyptology. Could any of you please give me an opinion or suggestion regarding any university with a good Egyptology program, or any other suggestions toward this course of study? I would appreciate your help greatly. Thank you! ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 12:41:12 +0300 To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: Dan-El Kahn Subject: Re: AEL libyan words At 01:12 AM 10/21/97 -0400, you wrote: >Hi, Dan-El, > >> I would like to know if there exists a list of Libyan or Nubian words in >> egyptian like Hoch's work on Semitic words in egyptian texts > >I don't know of one, but if there are resources, you might also pose this >question on the ANE or Osiris Lists, since there are several people there >who might share your specific interests. Yours, Geoff > > >thanks for the information but I haven't got the email address of the osiris list. could you give me their address? thanks again ============================================================================== Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 19:35:35 +0000 From: "Kasia & Malcolm Jarrett (www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/egyptology/Szpak/kasia.html)" To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL Teaching and Learning Egyptian Kasia & Malcolm Jarrett (www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/egyptology/Szpak/kasia.html) wrote: > > Hi! > > Borghouts also has an excellent teaching grammar, complete with exercises, but > it's currently in Dutch. I have heard a rumor that it is being translated into English.. > > --kasia > > BisnoCC@aol.com wrote: > > > > I used to teach an introduction to Middle Egyptian for mostly members of the > > Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History who had no ancient language > > training whatsoever. After becoming infatuated and then disinfatuated with a > > number of books, I took several - Gardiner, Bakir, Rose, and even Budge - and > > extracted what I found most useful from each of them, and then chose a number > > of mainly funerary inscriptions which one might find in a museum or tombs in > > Egypt, and made my lesson plan from those. It was extremely interesting and > > successful, and the lessons seemed to stick with the students. The > > interesting part is the key. If they enjoy what they're learning, they'll > > remember and then be able to add on the rest. There is still no greater > > thrill for a student than walking into a museum or a tomb and being able to > > read one of the inscriptions. > > > > I just got Englund's new book and I like it. John Rose is also useful, too. > > Actually, they all have something you can incorporate into your own lessons. > > > > J. Bisno > > Culver City Hi! Borghouts also has an excellent teaching grammar, complete with exercises, but it's currently in Dutch. I have heard a rumor that it is being translated into English.. --kasia BisnoCC@aol.com wrote: > > I used to teach an introduction to Middle Egyptian for mostly members of the > Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History who had no ancient language > training whatsoever. After becoming infatuated and then disinfatuated with a > number of books, I took several - Gardiner, Bakir, Rose, and even Budge - and > extracted what I found most useful from each of them, and then chose a number > of mainly funerary inscriptions which one might find in a museum or tombs in > Egypt, and made my lesson plan from those. It was extremely interesting and > successful, and the lessons seemed to stick with the students. The > interesting part is the key. If they enjoy what they're learning, they'll > remember and then be able to add on the rest. There is still no greater > thrill for a student than walking into a museum or a tomb and being able to > read one of the inscriptions. > > I just got Englund's new book and I like it. John Rose is also useful, too. > Actually, they all have something you can incorporate into your own lessons. > > J. Bisno > Culver City ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 08:25:52 +1100 From: Michael Dyall-Smith Subject: AEL The Autobiography of Weni To: to AEL REGARDING The Autobiography of Weni Encouraged by Geoff Graham, I have produced a web site of resources for examining the Weni text. This is a 6th dynasty inscription, largely autobiographical, carved on a slab of limestone and originating from the ancient city of Abydos. The website contains links to the typeset pages at the CCER (a copy of the K. Sethe publication, and an interlinear version), a new typeset and condensed AEL version, and a published hand-drawn copy of the actual inscription. Like the Westcar site, I have developed a 'clickable' vocabulary (first page only) so you can identify the hieroglyphic words easily (and so concentrate more on the grammar and meaning). There is a complete transliteration (Geoff's of course!), and a commentary section which will derive from the AEL discussion of each line. Weni was a remarkable character. He had a long career that spanned three pharaoh's, Teti, Pepi I, and Merenre. Those of you who are not familiar with the text will be surprised at what this guy got up to ! The text is Old Kingdom, so the language is early egyptian, but Geoff will comment on the finer details of this. Finally, don't see the presentation of this text on the AEL as in any way detracting from the other texts under discussion. With Geoff and Mark, I am waiting for someone else to grab the opportunity of delivering the next two babies about to come forth in Westcar!! Don't delay, poor old RdDdt is labouring.... Best wishes to all, Mike Dyall-Smith Melbourne, Australia PS: If anyone sees a technical problem with the website, or detects an error in the typeset texts, please let me know and I will correct it. ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 20:46:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL The Language of Weni the Elder Hi, everyone, I am so pleased that Mike has finally gotten his fantastic website for the autobiography of Weni in place and announced it to this list. I think we have some real fun in store! This is one of my very favorite texts in the Egyptian corpus. It is this amazing story of the life of one of Egypt's most talented officials during the Old Kingdom. Weni began as a lowly palace employee and rose to the highest ranks of the land. Three things are phenominal about his biography: 1) The man seems to have lived to the ripest of old ages! He had to be ninety if not more elderly, yet he seems to have been sharp of mind and very active to his last dying breath! Weni's nickname was "the elder" for very good reasons, indeed. Those who knew him probably could not help but marvel at his age coupled with integrity of mind, and his incessant activity up and down the Nile! He served under every king of the Sixth dynsaty except for Pepi II! 2) Weni was involved in pyramid construction! So, if you ever wondered how the pyramids were built, you may find some incredible and intriguing answers, spoken from the mouth of an Egyptian himself! He went on missions to procure the building materials, off to Aswan for granite, off to Amarna (Hatnub) for alabaster, to the Wadi Hammamat for Basalt, on, and on, and on, and he was no young man to be hauling blocks of stone! The diversity of his endeavors, including military campains in Palestine, diplomatic and trading missions in Nubia, and even dealing with conspiracies of a nefarious nature in the palaces and harems of the various kings.... It just boggles the mind that anyone could have had such a colorful and successful life, and enjoyed it for so many years, year after year, until he was as old as the hills! 3) This biography is the culmination of the Old Kingdom literature that we still possess. The biography had very humble beginnings, but it was to become the most significant genre of the Egyptian repretoire. During the Archaic Period down through Dynasty IV, tomb inscriptions consisted of two types of texts. 1) lists of offerings, and 2) lists of the titles of the occupant of the tomb. Now, the offering list changed during the Old Kingdom into a prayer, known as the Invocation Offering Formula. The title lists also evolved until people began to add narrative, explaining how the person achieved his/her offices. This genre developed into the Biography. It was not, however, until Weni's that the genre had reached its fruition, from Weni on out, down through the end of Egyptian History, these texts were filled with wonderful anecdotes and history. They only presented the good sides of people, so we have to realize that they are biased history, but they are the source of much of our knowledge of life along the Nile in acnient times. Now, having said all that, let me get to the meat of this message, which is to let you know what to expect from Old Egyptian. Old Egyptian is very much like Middle Egyptian except for a few details. You will be happy to learn, however, that Weni's biography is very late Old Egyptian, and thus closer to Middle Egyptian than most other Old Kingdom texts. The shifts in perspective will be subtile, and not so confusing as to make it impossible for you to read. Phonology: Old Egyptian had very stable consonants, which did not have the kind of variations to which you may have become accustomed in Middle and Late Egyptian. The inventory of sounds was mostly the same, with a few small differences. *Old Egyptian did not yet write the /y/ phoneme, which Middle Egyptian developed as two reedstalks or dual strokes. Instead, it only had {j}. When you see {jj} (two reedstalks written side by side), it is because the sound of {j} occured twice in the word. *Old Egyptian had two /s/-phonemes. You are probably already used to my use of {z} and {s} as distinct sounds, though Middle Egyptian texts could substitute one sign for the other and both were at the time pronounced /s/. {z}, a very inept character, devised in earlier periods in Egyptology, actually represented the sound of {th} as in English "think". {s} was a simple sibilant {s}. *In Old Egyptian, the distinction between /d/ and /D/ was still carefully maintained. Middle Egyptian rdj "give" was rDj, and spd was spD, and fnd was fnD. You could not replace a {D} with a {d}. *The same was true of /t/ and /T/. One could not substitute one for the other. *Old Egyptian had not yet made a distinction between /S/ and /X/. {S} represented both, for the most part. The cow belly sign came to repreent /X/ rather late. I am not saying that it never occured, but it was not originally a common alphabetic sign. However, for the purposes of keeping our words straight, just like I use {z} and {s} separately for Middle Egyptian, when it is not necessary, I also maintain the difference between {X} and {S} in Old Egyptian, as do other scholars, just for the sake of clarity, since everyone learns Middle Egyptian before Old Egyptian. Morphology: There were a few different features in the grammar, but most of them are not very daunting. We will work with them as they come along. *For one thing the indicative sDm=f, also called the perfective sDm=f was very strong. You could express the past tense with sDm=f, rather than sDm.n=f. *The most frustrating thing in an Old Kingdom text is that they had not yet developed a way of writing the first person singular pronoun suffix. This is because it was a vowel. Because Old Egyptian never wrote vowels, the ending =j, as we have come to represent it, was not expressed in writing. So, if you encounter something which makes no sense, see if putting in a =j "I/me/my" helps you to make progress. Anyway, I do not want the message to become too long. We will have so many interesting things to discuss as they come up. Be well, and enjoy. Yours, Geoff Graham sokar@minerva.cis.yale.edu ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 21:58:26 -0700 (PDT) To: Ancient Egyptian Language List From: reeder@sirius.com (Greg Reeder) Subject: Re: AEL The Autobiography of Weni Dear Mike, Post the address. The site sounds great. I want to see it. Best Regards, Greg > REGARDING The Autobiography of Weni > > Encouraged by Geoff Graham, I have produced a web site of resources for >examining the Weni text. This is a 6th dynasty inscription, largely >autobiographical, carved on a slab of limestone and originating from the >ancient city of Abydos. The website contains links to the typeset pages at >the CCER (a copy of the K. Sethe publication, and an interlinear version), a >new typeset and condensed AEL version, and a published hand-drawn copy of the >actual inscription. Greg Reeder http://www.egyptology.com reeder@sirius.com ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 22:30:00 -0700 From: Al & Barbara Berens To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL ARCE/NC WEBSITE The Northern California Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt welcomes all interested Egyptophiles tvisit their website at http://home.pacbell.net/djoser While philology is not specifically the only interest of our group, it is among the subjects covered by our group. This is currently a basic site with plans to add much more material in the next few weeks, including synopses of past lectures by such Egyptologists as T.G.H. James, Joyce Filer, Donald Redford, and Geoffrey Martin. Your comments are welcomed. Al Berens Editor, Cartouche ARCE/NC newsletter ============================================================================== Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 20:46:12 +1100 From: Michael Dyall-Smith Subject: AEL Weni To: to AEL REGARDING Weni A few extra comments about the Weni web site: a) the CCER location of the site (which is linked via the AEL web site) is: http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/texts/ael/weni.ael/index.htm b) If the main page of the Weni website shows the text on a dark background (ie. difficult to read) rather than on yellow, then you should upgrade your browser to something more recent. c) I've fixed a problem with the vocab of page 1, which did not operate properly under Internet Explorer 3. If you have any problems, or suggestions, please contact me. Regards, Mike Dyall-Smith m.dyall-smith@microbiology.unimelb.edu.au ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 26 Oct 97 17:42:07 UT From: "mark vygus" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: AEL Westcar P8 / L1-6 I`ve decided to have another go :) P8/L1 aHa.n D .n=s Then she said n.y-sw.t iri.ty=fy n.y.t-sw.t m tA pn r Dr=f A king, he will exercise kingship in this entire land P8/L2 Xnm.w Hr s-wDA Ha.w=f Khnum was causing his limbs to be healthy P8/L3 rdi.in sy As.t xft Hr=s Isis placed herself infront of her nb.t-Hw.t HA=s Nephthys behind her P8/L4 Hq.t Hr s-xx msi.w.t Heket was hastening the birth P8/L5 Dd.in As.t Said by Isis imi n=k sAH m X.t=s m rn=k You will not kick in her belly in (this) your name P8/L6 pwy n.y sAH.w-ra (this) of Sahure [Re the kicker ?] Mark Vygus ============================================================================== From: "Mark Wilson" To: AEgyptian-L@rostau.demon.co.uk Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:51:58 +0000 Subject: AEL (Fwd) Hieroglyphic Game 1 ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 12:30:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Graham To: Mark Wilson Subject: Hieroglyphic Game 1 Hello, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Enthusiasts! Go to the AEL website to find the first installment in an activity which will be beneficial to both beginners and afficionados of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script! The first hieroglyphic game challenges your ability to recognize hieroglyphic signs as they were carved and painted in real Egyptian tombs. This excercise will first focus on bird signs, since even the experts sometimes have difficulty in recognizing which bird was which under certain circumstances. Do not feel bad if you have troubles deciding their values. Some are easy and others are difficult! All attempts are welcome, and hopefully will generate some discussion on the values of signs, and what features to look for when recognizing them. The image contains twenty birds which I have traced from publications of two tombs, 18 from the Old Kingdom tomb of Ptahhotep, that great old sage, and 2 from the New Kingdom tomb of Rekhmire, the vizier of Thutmose III. There are more than one representation of some of the same birds, done in slightly different styles. The hieroglyphs also face in their original directions, meaning that they can face either left or right. What you should do, if you choose to play this game, is to post whichever answers you feel comfortable posting. You don't have to identify them all. Here is a kind of form you can use to indicate what answers you like: # Phonetic Value Ptahhotep or Rekhmire? 1. ___ ___ 2. ___ ___ 3. ___ ___ 4. ___ ___ 5. ___ ___ 6. ___ ___ 7. ___ ___ 8. ___ ___ 9. ___ ___ 10. ___ ___ 11. ___ ___ 12. ___ ___ 13. ___ ___ 14. ___ ___ 15. ___ ___ 16. ___ ___ 17. ___ ___ 18. ___ ___ 19. ___ ___ 20. ___ ___ If the list seems to enjoy this, and people have interesting comments and suggest features which they think are important to look for, then I will produce more excercises like this one, and we can build our knowledge of signs together. There are no tricks in this exercise, and if you get one wrong, you certainly won't be the first person to do so! The images are black and white line drawings to conserve space, but if you want to talk about what colors they were or should be painted, then we can certainly do that too. There is also the question of which species were depicted in the glyphs, and what the natural colors, not always the same as the artistic conventions would have been. I hope that people will enjoy this. Yours, Geoffrey Graham The URL is http://www.rostau.demon.co.uk/AEgyptian-L/games/game1.html -- Mark Wilson weneg@rostau.demon.co.uk http://www.rostau.demon.co.uk/AEgyptian-L/ ==============================================================================