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Geoff's Detailed Orthography of WENI's titles
This page is derived from a posting by Geoffrey Graham to the AEL [4/2/98; AEL Weni Detailed Orthography] and deals with the titles of Weni in greater detail than his first posting, concentrating particularly on the nature of the hieroglyphic signs used and their meaning. The table below gives all the titles in order. Click on the titles to go to their description below. 'back' takes you to the main page 1 commentary
 1. HAt.i-a  5. Hr.i-tp nxb
 2. im.i-rA Sma.w  6. smr wa.t.i
 3. im.i iz.t 7.  imAx.w xr Asiri xnt.i-imn.t.i.w
 4. zA.w nxn 8. wni (wr)
 
First title: HAt.j-a
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This consists of the first two signs: the foreparts of a lion and an arm. The lion's foreparts represent the consonatal skeleton of /HAt/, while the arm represents /`/. This title contains two words in a compound HAt.j and a.
 
The weak consonant /j/ is not written by the scribe. Weak consonants are often left out in all stages of Egyptian, particularly Old Egyptian. We do, however, know that they were present based on fuller writings and an analysis of the grammar.
 
The first word in the expression (HAt.j) is what we call a "nisba adjective". This is a term borrowed from Arabic grammar and it indicates an adjective which is formed from a noun by adding the ending /.j/ in Old Egyptian, /.y/ in Middle and New Egyptian, and /-I/ in Arabic and other Semitic languages. The root noun is HAt which means "front". When you put the nisba ending on it (HAt.j), it becomes the adjective "frontmost/foremost".
 
In Egyptian, as well as in Semitic and most all Afroastiatic languages, the categories of nouns and adjectives are somewhat flexible with certain rules applied. So, in this case, a noun meaning "front" has been converted into an adjective meaning "foremost", and then reconceived of as a noun meaning "foremost person".
 
Then this noun is set into relation with another noun (a, which means several different things, in this case "custom") which follows it. The relationship here employed is called a "direct genitive" by Egyptologists, and an 'idafa by Arab grammarians. The first noun in such a group is possessed by the second noun. Thus the title literally means "foremost person of custom".
 
This is, however, awkward, and should be translated by a much simpler term into English. It means the person who is regarded as the leader of some situation. There are many titles which indicate leadership of different kinds in Egypt, but this one seems to be most prevalent when the person is a leader of a town, region, or district. Therefore, some common translations currectly used by Egyptologists for a HAt.j-a are: Count, Mayor, Nomarch, President, etc. I think I feel most partial to "Nomarch" (governor of a nome, an adminsitrative district or territory in Egypt) at the moment, but context should be the principal guide.
 
Second title: jm.j-rA Sma.w
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jm.j-rA is extremely abbreviated in this text, and is often abbreviated in this fashion throughout the history of Egyptian. It has two signs: {m} and {r}. The weaker consonsants have all been left out.
 
How do you know not to read this title as /mr/? Well, the only way one can know is by context. Because it is occurring in a series of titles, one has to look for a title which might be written this way. All I can tell you is that jm.j-rA is such a common title that one has to get used to it.
 
Literally it means "what/who/that which is in the mouth", however, its effective meaning seems to be "overseer." This title has been compared with Arabic 'amIr, meaning prince, although it has not been definitively proven that there is any etymological relationship between the words.
 
Once again the full title is two words in a relation, the direct genitive. The second word is Sma.w "narrow". It is written with a flowering sedge plant sign alone. This plant is the sacred symbol of Upper Egypt, which is also called Sma.w which means "the narrow thing", because upper Egypt is an extremely narrow tract of land bordering the Nile Valley. Although "narrow" is an adjective, it can represent a noun, and this is how it comes to stand for Upper Egypt.
 
Put the two words together in a direct genitive rlationship and you get "Overseer of Upper Egypt".
 
Third title: im.i iz.t
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Here the scribe seems to be playing tricks on the reader. The title consists of two signs: a bundle of reeds which are tied with a knot and an owl. The bundle of reeds stands for the sound /jz/, and the owl stands for /m/. At first glance, the title appears to be *jzm. However, like I said, there is some graphic trick at work here from which one gets jm.j-jz.t.
 
For one thing the weak consonants of jm.j are not reperesented, and all we see from this word is the {m}. The feminine .t ending on jz.t is also not considered essential to the writing of the title, so it can be dropped so that the title will be simpler to write.
 
Why, however, are they written in reversed order? The answer lies first of all in the meanings of the two words employed. jm.j means "who/what/that is within". It is a nisba ajective formed on the preposition m "in", which is reconceived of as a noun meaning "a person who is within". jz.t means "palace". A palace is the residence of a king. Anything which relates to a god or a king is very sacred, and is supposed to precede other words which are combined with it. This feature in Egyptian writing is called "honorific transposition". The scribe will tend to write sacred words before profane words even when the sacred word comes second in the expression. For this reason, the jz sign must come before the m sign.
 
When you take this into consideration, and you combine these words in their relationship to one another, this time not a direct genitive, but something else, you get the meaning "person who is within the palace". This is a bit awkward, and it might be best to paraphrase it to "palace insider", or something like that.
 
Fourth title: zA.w nxn
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zA.w means "gardian". nxn means "Hierakonpolis" (Falcon-City, the home of Horus of the South). The first word is written with a picture of a guardian, a bearded man holding a rope and a riding crop. This person is actually a shepherd or cattleheard, and he is a guardian in the sense that he watches over the animals in his charge, using the rope to restrain them and the crop to goad them as necessary. The second word is written by an oval with two strokes in it. It has been suggested that this sign has something to do with the oval shaped platform of sand on which the original temple of Horus, excavated by Michael Hoffman at Hierakonpolis, stood. Whatever its origin, it always was the graphic writing, or at least determinative for the town of Hierakonpolis. When you put the two words together in a direct genitive, you get "Guardian of Hierakonpolis".
 
Fifth title: Hr.j-tp nxb
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This one consists of three words in relation, written with six signs. Now, this one is a bit confusing, but allow me to attempt to explain. First of all, there is an honorific transposition in which nxb is moved to the front of the title. nxb meaning "Eileithyaspolis" or simply "Nekheb" if you cannot pronounce that, is spelled out with the first four signs. The last two signs represent the other two words.
 
nxb was the city of Nekhbet, the white buzzard goddess of the white crown of Upper Egypt. It lay just accross the Nile from Hierakonpolis. Because it was the city of the goddess who personified the white crown which was a personal effect of the king, who was considered a god, and therefore sacred, her town was so holy that it was worthy of honorific transposition, and had to be written before the other elements in the title.
 
The name of the city is written by four signs. The first sign is the budding sedge plant, in its form before it blooms. This sign, represented Upper Egypt like the flowering sedge plant, but its phonetic value was different: nxb.
 
So, why do we need three more signs to represent the name of this town? Well, unfortunately, the budding sedge plant had one other phonetic value so it needs phonetic complements (signs which help in the pronunciation of a multiliteral sign) so that the reader will be positive about what word is intended. Therefore, following the budding sedge plant one finds {b} and {nw} as well as a city determinative, leaving no doubt that the word stands for the city of nxb and not some word with the same consonantal skeleton. The only sound not reiterated is /x/.
 
But how do you get from {nxb}{b}{nw}{city} to reading this nxb? Well, once again, the budding sedge plant is SO very sacred as a symbol of kingship that it has to come first in the word, then, because the {b} is a tall sign and the {nw} is a small round sign, these signs fit better with {nw} written over {city} than they do if you have to keep them in their proper order of pronunciation. Egyptian employed graphic blocks of signs organized so that they fit nicely into imaginary squares in the text. Order of pronunciation was sometimes sacrificed for these graphic considerations.
 
You will, of course, next ask why do they write {nw} if the sound is simply {n}? to this I cannot really answer. I believe it is just an ancient tradition. On the other hand, possibly this city's name actually was *nwxb, right from the beginning, and this would account for it.
 
The following two signs represent two words in relation. One is a face looking forward, and the other is a head in profile. Their phonetic values are /Hr/ and /tp/. This part of the title is actually Hr.j-tp. The weak consonant /j/ has been left out of the writing. Hr.j is a nisba adjective formed on the proposition Hr "upon/above". As a nisba adjective it means "who is upon/above". It is, once again, further re-nominalized as "person who is above".
 
tp means "head". Together the two words mean "person who is above the head". This can be translated as "supervisor". Now, when we put this compound word tgoether with nxb in a direct genitive, we get "Supervisor of Eileithyaspolis".
 
Sixth title: smr wa.t.j
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This one consists of two words written by five signs. Smr is written by the first two signs: {s} and {mr}. It means "companion". The second word is written with three signs: {harpoon in its launcher} {t} and {stroke}. The harpoon in its launcher represents the sound /wa/. wa means "one". the {t} makes it into a feminine abstaction (wa.t) meaning "singularity/solitariness/uniqueness". The stroke is a determinative indicating singularity. However, though it is not written, the intended word is a nisba adjective ending in the weak consonant /j/. With this ending the word is converted into an adjective meaning "unique/sole/solitary". Now, this adjective modifies the word before it (smr), and together we get "unique companion".
 
Seventh title (+name): jmAx.w xr Asjrj xnt.j-jmn.t.j.w Wni (wr)
The honorific designation of Weni the Elder: This phrase indicates to us where the author and speaker of the text is believed to be residing at the time that his message is read by people who enter his chapel to make offerings or say prayers on his behalf, or even beg favors from him as a powerful spirit from the beyond. This is not a title of his during his lifetime, but one earned in the next life.
 
jmAx.w: This word is written with five signs. {j}{m3}{jm3x}{x}{w}. Apparently the middle sign of the group, the {side of beef ribs} had the phonetic value of /jm3x/, which happened to correspond to the consonantal skeleton of /jm3x/ meaning "veneration/worth". All the other signs are employed as phonetic complements, which succeed in repeating all four consonants in the word plus its participial ending /w/. The second sign is a biliteral {m3}; it represents a scythe, which object must have had a name with this consonantal skeleton. By adding the final {w}, the word is transformed, much like a nisba adjective (which it could be argued that the word actually is), into an adjective meaning "worthy/venerated".

 

xr is spelled out with uniliterals {x} and {r}. This is a preposition used mostly when relating to the approach or vicinity of divine and royal beings. It can be translated as "under", "unto", or "in the realm/vicinity of". When less sacred beings are approached, the prepositions can be either n or r, however, these were regarded as too direct or forward for approach to a divinity. So, with the preceeding word and this preposition, we now have "worthy unto" or "venerated in the realm of".

 

Asjrj: This is Osiris' name. There is still considerable controversy over what its actual consonantal skeleton was. Many Egyptologists will transcribe it as {wsjr}, although I believe this to be erroneous, and based on later writings of his name after certain phonetic changes had taken place. You can use either {3sjrj}, as I do, or you can opt for {wsjr} as many other Egyptologists do. Generally, people are familiar with both possible transcriptions. The word is written with three signs: {jr(.t)}{3s(.t)}{seated god}. This name is sometimes also written in differnt order as {3s(.t)}{jr(.t)}{seated god}. The order is dependent on the scribe's sense of how the signs best fit the allotted space. The {eye} sign has the value of /jr/, because an eye was jr.t in Egyptian. The {throne} sign has the value of /3s/ (and in other situations, sometimes the value of /st/) because the Egyptian word for throne was 3s.t. This is why it can be used to represent the name of Isis (3s.t) whose name is identical to the word for throne. The {seated god} sign is the determinative which shows that the word was the name of a god. Incidentally, the Coptic name of Osiris was {ousiri}, and the Coptic name for Isis was {Ese}.

 

xnt.j: this word is a nisba adjective built on the noun xnt meaning something like "front/external face/facade". It is built from two signs: {xnt} and {t}. The final nisba ending /j/ was weak so it was not written. The first sign is a {group of water vases in a stand}. Such stands of fresh drinking water were called xnt in Egyptian, and through the rebus principle the sign can stand for the word xnt "facade". The {t} is a phonetic complement. xnt.j is an adjective meaning "before/at the front of/foremost".

 

jmn.t.j.w: the last word of the designation is a plural nisba adjective reconceived of as a noun. It is written by a single sign: {falcon on a plumed standard}. This sign alone was originally the nome {regional district} standard of the second Lower Egyptian nome, on the western fringe of the Delta of the Nile. It came to represent the word for "west", jmn.t. jmn.t meant "west" because jmn was the original word for "right hand", and the Egyptians regarded their country with Upper Egypt (Egypt's southern valley) at the top of the map, and thus the west was to the right. The final /t/ was a feminine ending, indicating that the direction was a feminine concept based on the word for "right-hand". When the nisba ending /j/ is added, the word was converted into the adjective "western". Then the plural ending /w/ was added, making it a plural noun, "westerners".

 

Neither the /j/ nor the /w/ are written in this text, however, we do have fuller writings of this word, which show us that they ought to be present. xnt.j-jmn.t.j.w was the name of the necropolis guardian of Abydos. It meant "Foremost of the Westerners". This is an epithet which masks the original name of the god, which may have actually been Wepwawet or Anubis, since his form is that of a jackal, and these gods are known to be preeminent in the region. Another suggestion, I recently found in an article by Florence Friedman in JEA, is that even Wepwawet is an epithet concealing the earlier name of the god Sed, after whom the Sed Feastival was named. However, early on, the deity behind the epithet Khentamenthes (xnt.j-jmn.t.j.w) was identified with Osiris, who was imported to the Thinite (This and Abydos) region by Dynasty V. Thus, we get Osiris-Khentamenthes in this text.

 

Now, the whole designation of Weni is: "worthy unto Osiris-Khentamenthes". This indicates that he has been accepted as a powerful spirit worthy of offerings into the next world, that of Osiris, chief of the West. A person with this designation is no longer among the living, and can be appealed to only through offerings and proyers in the necropolis. Thus, we are told that the author and speaker of the text is talking to the reader accross the limits of the two worlds, from the world of the dead under Osiris-Khentamenthes, to the world of the living who stand in his chapel and come to beseach his help or offer food, drink, and/or prayers for his eternal life.

 

This brings us to the function and purpose of recording one's autobiography in ancient Egypt. The earlierst texts in Egyptian tomb chapels were lists of titles of the deceased before their names, and lists of offerings which they hoped to receive. The lists of titles eventually developed into biographies, as they became more and more elaborate, and the deceased wished to assert more reasons why they were worthy of receiving their offerings. The biography is a testament to the great deeds that a person performed on earth, so that visitors to his/her chapel might think this person truly worthy and great enough to offer food, drink, and prayers to his/her spirit. The more elaborate the titles, and the more lofty the deeds of the individual, the more eternal veneration he/she expected to command. Weni's was the first really long autobiography which has come down to us.

 

As an aside, let me address what became of the lists of offerings, which were parallel to the lists of titles. These offering lists were to become the Invocation Offering Formula, a prayer which was said on behalf of the deceased, the words of which could magically substitute for actual physical offerings of food, drink, clothing, and other necessities placed in the tomb. The formula began something like this: "A boon which the king gives, and ("also", OR "to", depending on the date of the text, for there was a switch in the official ideology as to whether the gods also provided the boon, or if the boon was provided to the gods on behalf of the soul of the deceased) Anubis (or various other necropolis gods) for the Ka of {deceased's name}". Then the text proceeds to list the offerings which will be given.

 

So, back to Weni's biography, the text which follows these first statements will be designed to make us think that Weni was a beneficent, efficient, and powerful man, who must surely be well connected in the next life. Then, we are supposed to respond by reciting the offering formulas on his behalf, and maybe even bring some real offerings fo his soul.

 

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