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2019
Mormon’s Chronological Summary of the Period from the 19th Regnal Year of the Reign of MosiahI to the Coming of the Limhites and Mormon’s Synopsis of the Book of Mormon Prophetic Calendar A small scrap of paper entitled “Caractors” (also known as the Anthon Transcript) that contained reformed Egyptian characters copied from the plates from which the Book of Mormon has remained an enigma for more than a hundred years. The characters were successfully translated in 2015. This initial translation has been recently revised and updated, with additional supporting documentation. The number system found there is extensively analyzed and shows to preferentially use the Hebrew and Mesoamerican sacred numbers. Additional work shows that the time frame of the Egyptian hieratic identified there correlate to the correct time frame as the Book of Mormon. The author’s approach is meticulous and scientific. This book is a landmark event in Book of Mormon studies and is a book that must be read by every serious student of the Book of Mormon and of Mesoamerican studies.
Translation and Commentary by TRANSLATION OF THE " CARACTORS " DOCUMENT
2010, in Christopher Woods, ed., Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Oriental Institute Museum Publications 32 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago), pp. 237-240
An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary: With an Index of English Words, King List, and Geographical List with Indexes, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets
A review of early dynastic naming conventions which result in a fresh understanding of the choices they made, and how it may relate to an ancient Egyptian view of the environment. This brief study therefore aims to purify and contextualize some of the king's titles.
2019, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt
I would like to give my full gratitude to Stephen Quirke (UCL) who offered a close reading of this paper and provided many valuable suggestions for future research in comparison with Arabic. I am also grateful to several colleagues who offered their constructive criticism on earlier drafts of this article, including Steven Gregory (University of Birmingham), Ramzi Baalbaki (American University of Beirut), John Baines (University of Oxford), Federico Contardi (Université Paul-Valéry), Rune Nyord (Emory University), Filip Taterka (Polish Academy of Sciences), Claus Jurman (University of Birmingham) Shih-Wei HSU (Nankai University), Juan Castillos (Instituto Uruguayo de Egiptología), Richard Bussmann (University of Cologne), Elizabeth Thornton (UCLA), and Fayza Haikal (AUC). I thank the two peer reviewers of JARCE for their careful reading and suggestions. This article is dedicated to May Trad of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo for her beautiful friendship, which I dearly miss. May her soul rest in peace. This work has received support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under ERC-2017-STG Grant Agreement No 759346: “Global Literary Theory: Caucasus Literatures Compared.” This article highlights the significance of considering the visual mediums of the ancient Egyptian (henceforth AE) writing system, in reading and translating AE literary texts. Despite their importance for understanding the internal mechanism of AE literary expressions, modern scholarship has not assimilated these visual mediums into its exploration. A possible theoretical framework for AE morphology structure may identify two input systems, one visual for visually presented materials that are more related to visual comprehension, and the other phonological for material presented using the auditory modality. The studied examples confirm that the AE writers had the opportunity to invite their receivers to take part in two experiential tasks (visual and phonological) to provoke two different behaviors, to get the right meaning intended by the resourceful writer. Rashwan, Hany. “Ancient Egyptian Image-Writing: Between the Unspoken and Visual Poetics”, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, volume 55, (2019): 137-160. https://doi.org/10.5913/jarce.55.2019.a009
2020, in L’homme 233 (2020), p. 9-43. https://journals.openedition.org/lhomme/36526
2013
Catalog of an exhibition at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (April 13, 2013 until January 4, 2014). Expanded on-line catalog entries available at http://echoesofegypt.peabody.yale.edu/.
2020, in : I. Shaw, E. Bloxam (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology. Oxford, OUP, 2020, p. 869-893.
2014
this report of two phases First report: The state of knowledge in Egyptology from the ancient Egyptian religion, "Symbols and signs" the most important, in the ancient Egyptian language, and the depth of hieroglyphics, in the Hieroglyphs line used style Graphical for recording events on the monuments Religious, and on the walls of temples, tombs, texts carved stone, and colored wooden panels, because of their nature, were considered since ancient system of writing and beautiful art decorative at the same time, like that of the Latin line or Arab. The ancient Egyptian lines key: hieroglyphic lines, and hieratic and demotic.
2020, in Andréas Stauder, David Klotz (eds), Enigmatic Writing in the Egyptian New Kingdom I: Revealing, transforming, and display in Egyptian hieroglyphs
"If you rotate the Phoenician alphabet ninety degrees counter-clockwise, and join the twenty-two letters into sequential couplets, a pattern appears that resembles the eleven constellations of the Egyptian solar zodiac. The alphabet doesn’t follow a simple circular pattern, but instead follows a more complex pattern that incorporates letter reversals at the solstices. It also forms two loops that meet at the constellation Gemini. Furthermore, this astro-alphabetic pattern is not only found in Modern Hebrew, the Chinese Lunar Zodiac, Phoenician, Proto-Sinaitic, Egyptian Hieratic and Hieroglyphs, but, in accord with Petrie’s assertion, proto-astro-alphabetic glyphs also appear on a European stag bone from 3800 BC, and on a Karanovo Culture zodiac from 4800 BC."
The aim of this paper is to suggest a taxonomy that allows for a systematic description of the functions that can be fulfilled by hieroglyphic signs. Taking as a point of departure the insights of several studies that have been published on the topic since Champollion, we suggest that three key-features – namely, semography, phonemography and autonomy – are needed in order to provide a description of the glottic functions of the ancient Egyptian graphemes. Combining these paradigmatic and syntagmatic features, six core functions can be identified for the hieroglyphic signs: they may behave as pictograms, logograms, phonograms, classifiers, radicograms or interpretants. In a second step, we provide a definition for each function and discuss examples that illustrate the fuzziness between these core semiotic categories.
2011, Kartvelian-Sumerian-Egyptian Linguoculturology
The translation of Part II of my monograph titled Kartvelian-Sumerian-Egyptian Linguoculturology (Tbilisi 2011) offers readers a unique opportunity to take a linguistic and culturological tour across millennia where their guide is the Phoenician Āleph and its super-informational group (SIG). The SIG is a completely novel phenomenon whose formation occurs only when the Kartvelian languages and culture are involved in prehistoric studies. The SIG is targeted NOT at familiar phono-semantic etymons known from historical linguistics, but at huge culturological information of our past: linguistic, religious, paleographic, historical, geographical, ethnological, archaeological, and symbolic, pointing to the genetic source of the analyzed word. The Phoenician ‘Āleph and its six Kartvelian etymons (qalibi ‘mold, x̣ai/xari ‘bull’, xareba ‘give joyful tidings’, xalepo ‘vicious’, ‘deadly’, xar ‘(you) are”, and xarxar ‘silly laughter’) are a good example to demonstrate how Kartvelian archetypes enable analyzed words to develop multiple visible and invisible ties not only with their source, but also within their native languages and culture, and far beyond.
2016
New translation of two hymns to the goddess Isis from Philae, with an analysis of the (crypto-)graphic principles found in inscriptions from the early Ptolemaic Period.
2021, Stellaquila Edizioni
This volume, 'Enduring Manifestation of Ra: Aspects of Ancient Egypt,' written by Prof. S. A. Saint-David in collaboration with his wife, photographer E. L. J. Saint-David, is a brief survey of the intellectual, material, and artistic cultures of the Two Lands during the pharaonic period. It is a companion volume to 'In the House of Eternity,' their collaborative general survey of the history of ancient Egypt, circa 4000 BCE to 395 CE, published by Editions Elgiad in 2020.
2013
A survey of standard Egyptian Encyclopedias and earliest mythology demonstrates Egyptian knowledge of Creation and the Flood consistent with the Genesis account. The Table of Nations (Genesis 10-11) describes how Noah's sons populated the earth after the Babel dispersion. We are told in Genesis 10:6 that Ham was the father of four sons (Cush, Mizraim, Put, Canaan). The MT Text of Scripture does not contain the name 'Egypt' but refers to this territory using the names of Mizraim and Ham. Scripture's first reference to Mizraim as the Eponymous ancestor of Egypt occurs at Gen. 13:1, and following, refers to Egypt as 'Mizraim' 652 times in the OT (cf. Genesis 50:10-11). Ham is referred to poetically as the Eponym of Egypt in Psalms (78:51; 105:23, 27; 106:22) describing Egypt as the 'land of Ham'. Has Scripture revealed that Ham founded Egypt, and his son Mizraim succeeded him, as the first of Egypt's Pharaohs? Gen. 9:28 reveals that Noah lived 350 ye...
Introduction to the Hungarian Interpretation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs Finally we may conclude that the continuous writing preserved, and protected a once existing culture and its mediator, the language of the Nile-Valley, which is identical to the ancestor of the Hungarian language.
2019, Altorientalische Forschungen
This article explores the role of donkeys in ancient Egypt through a lexicographical lens. It presents the terminology used for the animal in religious texts focusing on three case studies. Firstly, the most common word used for donkey aA, which appears in economic, literary and religious texts, will be examined. The second section will look into the entity hiw opening to a world of fantastic beings and hybrid creatures. And finally we will see that the number of signs associated to donkeys multiplied in the Ptolemaic period and are generally connected with the god Seth. With these three short investigations, different facets of the donkey are explored, revealing an animal that can be both an evil being and a threatening tool.
The monograph is organized in the following sections and posits the thesis that Meluhha language speakers followed the spiritual values of Veda cultural traditions, used Harappa Script inscriptions to create data archives of metalwork, accounting for Bronze Age trade transactions. 1. Pre-Sanskrit civilization of Meluhha speakers. Harappa Script is hieroglyphic in nature and decipherment can be attempted the way Egyptian hieroglyphs were decrypted 2. Preparation for the decipherment attempt 3. Methodology developed 4. Steps of the Decipherment with illustrations 5. Decipherment. Instances of the decipherment covering all aspects of the matter deciphered. 6. Harappa Script Decipherment in the context of wealth creation, evidenced by Archaeometallurgy 7. Conclusion & Executive Summary 8. Some select Critical comments on the decipherment by other leading experts. Section 1. Pre-Sanskrit civilization of Meluhha speakers. Harappa Script is hieroglyphic in nature and decipherment can be attempted the way Egyptian hieroglyphs were decrypted On the salient features of Harappa (Indus) Script, some remarkable observations -- related to decipherment researches -- were made by John Hubert Marshall, who was Director-General of Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1908 and associated with excavations of two major sites: Mohejo-daro and Harappa. That he made these observations based on the then available corpus of 541 seal impressions should be underscored. “The proper names and names of professions on these seals do not supply sufficient material for successful decipherment. It is not possible to separate word and sign groups; the declensions and verb inflections cannot be detected here, and the pronouns are entirely absent. Until longer inscriptions of a literary and historical character are discovered, not much advance in the interpretation can be expected. A good many important facts can be determined, however, to clear the ground for satisfactory research. In the first place this script is in noway even remotely connected with either the Sumerian or Proto-Elamitic signs…The Indus inscriptions resemble the Egyptian hieroglyphs far more than they do the Sumerian linear and cuneiform system. And secondly, the presence of detached accents in the Indus Script is a feature which distinguishes it from any of these systems. Although vowels must be inherent in all the signs, nevertheless some of the signs and accents must be pure vowel signs. For this reason alone it is necessary to resign further investigation to Sanskrit scholars. If future discoveries make it possible to transliterate the signs, and the language proves to be agglutinative, it will then be a problem for Sumerolotists…I am convinced that all attempts to derive the Brahmi alphabet from Semitic alphabets were complete failures…This study of the script of a pre-Sanskrit civilization of the Indus Valley is made from the material supplied by 541 impressions of small press seals.” (Marshall, J.H., 1931, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, Repr. Asian Educational Services, 1931, Vol. I, Delhi, pp. 423-424) These observations provide the framework for the decipherment attempted by this researcher who started the investigations by delineating the courses of a ‘Pre-Sanskrit’ Vedic River called River Sarasvati in North-western Bharata. Since the days of Marshall’s archaeological work of 1920’s, remarkable progress has been made by the explorations identifying over 2000 archaeological sites (or 80% out of a total of over 2600) on the Sarasvati River Basin. These explorations and limited excavations in about twenty sites have now taken the Harappa Script Corpora to a substantial size of over 8000 inscriptions making them fit for cryptographic analyses or cryptanalyses. The Corpora constitute a quantum leap from 541 seal impressions studied by Marshall. Corpora of Harappa Script inscriptions Based on numerous resources and from the collections of inscribed objects held in many museums of the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Harappa Writing Corpora include Sarasvati heiroglyphs, representing many facets of glyptic art of Harappa Civilization. The corporas also transcribes many texts of inscriptions, corresponding to the epigraphs inscribed on objects. The compilation is based mostly on published photographs in archaeological reports right from the days of Alexander Cunningham who discovered a seal at Harappa in 1875, of Langdon at Mohenjodaro (1931) and of Madhu Swarup Vats at Harappa (1940). The corpus includes objects collected in Bharata, Pakistan, other countries and the finds of the excavations at Harappa by Kenoyer and Meadow during the seasons 1994-1995 and 1999-2000. Parpola’s initial corpus (CISI 1973) included a total number of 3204 texts. After compiling the pictorial corpus, Parpola notes that there are approximately 3700 legible inscriptions (including 1400 duplicate inscriptions, i.e. with repeated texts). Both the concordances of Parpola and Mahadevan complement each other because of the sort sequence adopted. Parpola’s concordance is sorted according to the sign following the indexed sign. Mahadevan’s concordance is sorted according to the sign preceding the indexed sign. The latter sort ordering helps in delineating signs which occur in final position. Two subsequent volumes of the pictorial corpus include a total of inscriptions as collections from Bharata and Pakistan (e.g., Harappa 2590, Mohenjo-daro 2129, Lothal 281, Chanhudaro 50). Additional inscriptions have been discovered which are not included in the three volumes of Corpus of Inscriptions of Parpola et al.: e.g. Khirsara, Farmana, Gilund, Bhirrana, Kunal, Garo Biro, Rakhigarhi). Mahadevan concordance (1977) with only 2906 artifacts, excludes inscribed objects which do not contain ‘texts; for example, this concordance excludes about 50 seals inscribed with the ‘svastikā’ pictorial motif and a pectoral which contains the pictorial motif of a one-horned bull with a device in front and an over-flowing pot. Parpola concordance has been used to present such objects which also contain valuable orthographic data which may assist in decoding the inscriptions. Many broken objects are also contained in Parpola concordance which are useful, in many cases, to count the number of objects with specific ‘field symbolś, a count which also provides some valuable clues to support the decoding of the messages conveyed by the ‘field symbolś which dominate the object space. Along the Persian Gulf, in sites such as Failaka, Bahrain, Saar, nearly 2000 Harappa script inscriptions (so-called Dilmun or Persian Gulf seals) have been found on seals and sealings. These are in addition to the Gadd seals of Ancient Near East (Gadd, CJ, Seals of Ancient Bharata Style found in Ur in: Possehl, GL, ed. 1979, Ancient Cities of the Indus, Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, p.119). In many sites of Ancient Near East such as Shahdad, Susa (lady spinner artifact with Harappa script hieroglyphs, pot containing metal implements with Harappa script hieroglyphs of fish, quail, flowing water), Tepe Hissar, Haifa (three tin ingots with Harappa script found in a shipwreck), Anau, Altyn Depe (also spelt as Altin Tepe), caravan routes from Ashur and Mari to Kish, Anatolia. Many cylinder seals with cuneiform inscriptions also contain uniquely characteristic Harappa script hieroglyphs such as ‘overflowing pot’, sun’s rays, safflower, pine-cone, fish, scorpion, zebu, buffalo, hair-styles with six curls. With the publication of CISI Vol. 3, Part 1, the total number of inscriptions from Mohenjo-daro totals 2134 and from Harappa totals 2589; thus, these two sites alone account for 4,723; bring the overall total number of inscriptions to over 6,000 from all sites (even after excluding comparable inscriptions on ‘Persian Gulf type’ circular seals from the total count).
The main purpose is to show that many different scripts were used for writing West Semitic languages in ancient times. These include Egyptian hieroglyphic, Babylonian cuneiform, Linear A on Crete, and the Cyprian syllabary (derived from Cretan Linear A), as well as a variety of West Semitic forms of syllabary and consonantary. Texts relating to such commodities as wine, beer, olive oil, and cheese are examined.
The suggested decipherment framework covers both the Script and Itihāsa of Bhāratam Janam. https://youtu.be/m6LIiVflpGc (19:41) Abstract Sindhu-Sarasvati Script: Repository of Economic Prosperity in Ancient India This paper narrates the economic history of the Indian nation (with its center in the Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization) over the first millennium during which India enjoyed the status of being the most prosperous nation of the world with 32% share of the total world economy (Global GDP). The paper is developed with reference to the Sindhu-Sarasvati Script Corpora which, I have argued elsewhere, constitute Bronze Age metalwork catalogues. The paper will discuss in greater detail the following points (reproduced in the corresponding ppt slides): The rediscovery of the Sarasvati River using satellite imagery, archaeological reports and ancient texts has been a multi-disciplinary milestone in knowledge discovery about the antiquity of culture in Bharat. This rediscovery has been followed up by identifying the people who lived on the banks of Sarasvati River in over 2000 archaeological sites. A breakthrough discovery occurred thanks to the work of students of Institute of Archaeology, Delhi in a site called 4MSR in Binjor on the banks of River Sarasvati, near Anupgarh (about 7 kms, from the present international border with Pakistan). This discovery is momentous and firmly anchors the Harapap (or Sarasvati-Sindhu) civilization on Vedic culture. The historic epoch-making discovery in April 2015, includes the finds of a Vedic fire-altar with the signature tune of an octagonal yupa अष्टाश्री यूप, as described in Vedic texts (Rigveda, Taittiriya Samhita, Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa) for a Soma Samsthā, Soma Yāga. The finds also include a Harappa Script seal with inscription describing a metalwork catalogue). The owner of the seal is deciphered from the 'standard device, sangaḍa, 'lathe, brazier or portable furnace') as rebus: samgraha, samgaha 'arranger, manager'. Following the octagonal Yupa found in Binjor dated to ca. 2500 BCE as a Mature Harappan site (4MSR), 19 yupa inscriptions have been found in historical periods in Rajasthan, Mathura, and East Borneo (Mulavarman) recording performanceof Soma Samsthā Soma Yāga. This astonishing continuity of Vedic culture in Sarasvati River Basin is a breakthrough in studies of History and Culture in Ancient Bhārata. Using data mining techniques and tantra yukti doctrine to document the matches between hieroglyphs on Harappa Script inscriptions and the vocabulary of Meluhha (Indian sprachbund). As a first step in delineating the Harappa language, an Indian lexicon[(file://HP-PC/Users/HP/Google%20Drive/IndianLexicon.pdf )] provides a resource, compiled semantically in clusters of over 1240 groups of words/expressions from ancient Bhārata languages as a Proto-Indic substrate dictionary. Decipherment of over 4000 inscriptions in Harappa Script as metalwork catalogues results in the knowledge discovery about archaeo-metallurgical contributions of Bhāratam Janam to Bronze Age Revolution along a Maritime Tin Route from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Haia (Israel). The knowledge discovery also covers the weltanschuaang of dharma-dhamma because the artisan and merchant guilds treated their workplace of kole.l smithy/forge as kole.l ‘temple’. Octagonal shaped Yupa provides the iconography framework for worship of Sivalinga with octagonal Rudra bhāga. Find of five Sivalinga in Harappa link with Atharva Veda Skambha Sukta (AV X.7,8) reinforcing the vedic ādhyatmika foundations of Bhārata culture. Slide One Sindhu-Sarasvati Script: Repository of Economic Prosperity in Ancient India S.Kalyanaraman; Sarasvati Research Centre; March 24, 2017 Slide Two Sindhu-Sarasvati Script is a continuum of Vedic culture of wealth-creation through the institution of yajña. Slide Three-Four Sindhu-Sarasvati Script is also a continuum of Bhāratiya Sprachbund i.e. a commonwealth of languages spoken in India (including Austro-Asiatic languages) where unique linguistic features and vocabularies were absorbed from one another to give rise to the Sprachbund that facilitated economic cooperation leading to prosperity. Indian Lexicon Slide Five Bhāratiya sprachbund remained active and contributed to the continuity of economic prosperity over the first millennium because of the presence of mlecchita vikalpa (cipher-writing code or system) that was regularly taught to youth who were inducted in the family trade/business as part of the Varnashramadharma model (see Vidyāsamuddeśa of Vātsyāyana). Slide Six-Seven Examples of mlecchita vikalpa (cipher-writing) as an art/science The writing continued on Punch-marked coins of mints from 600 BCE Sindhu-Sarasvati Script Corpora (made of over eight thousand glyphs based on languages from the Sprachbund) constituted catalogues of metal works that acted as engines of economic prosperity from the Bronze Age on until the end of first millennium. Slide Eight-Nine-Ten-Eleven Bronze Age revolution occurred when Tin-Bronzes replaced the scarce arsenical bronzes, 4th millennium BCE Hypertexts read rebus from the toy chariot excavated from Daimabad is one illustration of how the Sindhu-Sarasvati Script Corpora yields data for extrapolating the continued presence of vigorous economic activity in ancient India. Slide Twelve-Thirteen-Fourteen Maritime Tin Route linking Hanoi and Haifa, which preceded the Silk Road by two millennia, was witness to a prosperous India. Slide Fifteen-Sixteen Dong Son (Vietnam)/Karen Bronze Drums with cire perdue tympanums signify metalwork using Sindhu/Sarasvati Script hieroglyphs/hypertexts. Cultural traits developed in the Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization had spread over most of South-East-Asia. Slide Seventeen People of ancient India (Bhāratamjanam) contributed to 32% of Global GDP from 1 CE on until the end of the first millennium according to Angus Maddison. This was made possible thanks to the ‘artha niti’(work ethics and philosophy) documented by Kautilya and others. Slide Eighteen-Nineteen-Twenty Domestication of crops like cotton, rice, millet, creation of śreṇis (guilds), i.e., institutions acting as corporate forms for wealth-creation that were consistent with the Weltanschauung of dharma were other supporting factors of continued economic prosperity (abhyudaya) during the first millennium in Bharata. Slide Twenty-one Sindhu-Sarasvati Script Corpora constitute Bronze Age metalwork catalogues Slide Twenty-two-Twenty-three Ātmā of Bhāratam Janam The gesture of welcome and greeting (namaste), yogasana (yoga posture), parting of hair, a variety of terracotta toys etc constitute metaphors of life principles and life activities of the people of India (Bhāratam Janam) that continue from the Vedic and Sindhu-Sarasvati times. Thanks to Dr Shrinivas Tilak Namaste Sarasvati Script.pdf Full Paper
2012
2016, Damqatum
p.03 The Mediterranean Diet in Ancient West Semitic Inscriptions / Brian E. Colless. p.21 CEHAO’s New Book: Flammini & Tebes (eds.), Interrelaciones e identidades culturales en el Cercano Oriente Antiguo. p.22 The Socio-political Organization of Southern Jordan during the Iron Age: a GIS analysis / Shauna McGlone. p.34 CEHAO Scholarly Participation 2016 and Antiguo Oriente Vol. 16 Index.
egyptian fractional numerals the grammar of egyptian nps and statements with fractional number expressions 1 Helena Lopez palma, university of a coruña abstract egyptian fractional numerals are partitive expressions of two types: (a) a simple substantive specific for naming the natural fractions 'half' gÈ, 'quarter' HÈb, 'third' r, 'two thirds' r.wj. (b) a complex partitive numeral formed with the substantive r 'part' and a number, r-num (meaning 'the nth-part'), which became generalized – also for 'quarter' and 'third' – as the standard Middle egyptian denomination for fractional numbers. fractional numerals documented in Middle egyptian hieratic mathematical papyri are related to their argument by means of geni-tival syntax: gÈ n r.wj 'half of two parts'; oHo, r.wj=f 'a quantity, two parts of it'. We propose a syntactic structure for Egyptian fractional numerals that specifies the lexical and grammatical categories and the linguistic operations used to build the numeral and its relation with the argument operated over.
2016
The funerary literature from ancient Egypt has long been studied. However, the final manuscripts in this tradition have received negligible attention. In the first two centuries of the Common Era, a new funerary composition appeared, with papyrus as its most common medium for transmission. The composition consisted of a series of formulaic phrases, voiced primarily in the third person, concerning the deceased’s postmortem existence, participation in the following of Osiris, reception of offerings, the proper mortuary treatment, and well wishes for remaining children. All known manuscripts can be dated to the first and second centuries of the Common Era, were written in Demotic script and grammar, and derive mostly from the Theban area. A small portion of the corpus was illustrated with a variety of vignettes reinforcing the main concepts of the textual formulae. The composition has been referred to by its opening phrase as the ʿnḫ pȝ by “May the ba live” formulae. The identity of the original owners of the manuscripts, despite the indication or preservation of personal names, remains mostly obscure. In the few cases where an individual can be identified, it is clear that they belong to the upper class of Egyptian society. Therefore, the small size and often hasty appearance of the texts cannot be taken as evidence that they were cheap substitutes for the poor. The papyri were specifically intended to be placed among the mummy wrappings, implying a certain level of social standing. The origin of the formulae can be traced to an oral tradition that circulated at least by the time of the Ptolemaic Period. Short formulaic phrases would have been recited during the funerary rituals and similar formulae would have been uttered by grieving family and tomb visitors. At some point in the early Roman Period, a selection of these common phrases was committed to writing, initiating the manuscript tradition preserved today. The formulae represented the mourning lamentations of the bereaved and were therefore stated in the texts to derive from Isis. Several features in the manuscript tradition demonstrate the oral circulation of the formulae and suggest that scribes composed some of the manuscripts from memory without resorting to a template text from which to copy. Once committed to writing, the ʿnḫ pȝ by “May the ba live” composition became part of a textual tradition. The surviving manuscripts preserve fragmentary evidence for the redaction of the text. Roman Egypt had a vibrant funerary literature industry in which this new composition became the most codified and most often reproduced. Scribes had intimate knowledge of all of these texts as is reflected in the highly intertextual nature of the texts with respect to both topical content and borrowing of formulae across multiple scripts (hieratic, hieroglyphs, Demotic) and registers (graffiti, literary texts, ritual texts).
2018
The purpose of this work is to prove that the sole reason why Cretan Linear A class documents cannot be read yet is because the Ventris grid is wrong. The paper summarizes the most obvious objections against the mainstream decipherment of Linear B. Furthermore, it challenges the core of its substance, i.e. its syllabic character and finally proposes a more suitable alternative model which works for all Linear documents and above all, is open to corrections.
2020, Shishak Mystery Solved
"In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt marched against Jerusalem." (1 Kings 14:25) Nearly all Egyptologists identify Shishak with Shoshenq I of the 22nd dynasty (943 BC -716 BC) and this is still the majority position. However, it is a position which is based on old-school chronology that stems way back to 1828 when Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) identified the person called Shishak in the Bible as the pharaoh known to history as Shoshenq I. As the two names sounded similar, 'Shishak' was identified by Champollion as Pharaoh Shoshenq I. Shoshenq's identification was also based on Champollion's interpretation of reliefs he viewed on a wall of the Bubastite Portal at Karnak in that year. If you recall, it was Champollion, who only six years before, succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphs on the Rossetta Stone in 1822. When Champollion travelled to Egypt, the only time he did so, he visited the temple complex at Karnak which consists of a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings near Luxor, in Egypt. However, it was the scenes inscribed on the walls of the Bubastite Portal in hieroglyphs which captured Champollion's attention. Among the 150 hieroglyphic name-rings on the Bubastite Portal, each represented as a bound and tethered Asiatic captive and representing the names of the towns conquered by Sheshonq during his northern campaign, one of them caught Champollion's eye. This was name ring 29. To him it appeared to say, "Ioudahamalek", which Champollion interpreted to mean "Judah the Kingdom". As far as Champollion was concerned, what other proof was needed. Here it was in black and white, so to speak, that Shoshenq I had fought against Judah and therefore must have captured Jerusalem. The identity that Shoshenq and Shishak of the Bible had therefore been confirmed in the most satisfactory manner." From henceforth, anybody who was anybody in Egyptology agreed with Champollion, that is until William Max-Muller (1862-1919) who was one of the last students of the famous Egyptologist Georg Ebers (1837-1898), took a closer look. In 1888 Max-Muller pointed out that ring 29 should be read as "Yad-ha-Melek" which, when translated, means "Hand of the King." Suddenly, the "proof" that Judah was listed on the Bubastite Portal had become untenable. Yet despite this error, which modern scholars like Peter James, David Rohl and Kevin A. Wilson have made known through their books, the status quo that Shoshenq I and Shishak are one and the same has been maintained to the present day. So who was Shishak? The answer to this mystery is not as difficult as it appears to be. I can say this with self-assurance because if one simply looks for the clues that are in plain sight in the Biblical text and put them together, the solution becomes inescapable. Nobody, as far as I am aware has used the methodology presented herein, at least not in the way I am about to show you. I therefore would like to invite you to join me in solving this mystery by using a methodology hitherto not tried before and one which truly identifies who Shishak was, and I can tell you without a shadow of doubt, he was not Shoshenq I.
A brilliant insight in the orthography of Indus Script hieroglyphs is the matching of orthographic components with the semantics of the message in Meluhha (Prakritam). A unique example is the deployment of an ellipse (also as a rhombus or parenthesis) to signify the semantics of mūhā '(metal) ingot'. An allograph also signifies the semantics: mũhe ‘face’. Semantics: mūhā mẽṛhẽt 'ron smelted by the Kolhes and formed into an equilateral lump a little pointed at each of four ends.' Matching orthography of a rhombus or ellipse: This monograph deciphers m1429 Prism tablet with Indus inscriptions on 3 sides. Three Sided Moulded Tablet with a boat and crocodile+fish Indus inscription Fired clay L.4.6 cm W. 1.2 cm Indus valley, Mohenjo-daro,MD 602, Harappan,ca 2600 -1900 BCE Islamabad Museum, Islamabad NMP 1384, Pakistan. One side of a Mohenjo-daro tablet. baTa 'quail' Rebus: bhaTa 'furnace' (i.e., supercargo out of furnace) What was the cargo carried on the boat? I suggest that the cargo was Meluhha metalwork. The shape of the pair of ingots on the boat (shown on the tablet) is comparable to following figures: 1. the ingot on which stands the Ingot-god (Enkomi); 2. Copper ingot from Zakros, Crete, displayed at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum But the script used on the tablet is NOT Cypro-Minoan or Cretan or Minoan but Meluhha: . The shape of the pair of ingots on the boat (shown on the tablet) is comparable to following figures: 1. the ingot on which stands the Ingot-god (Enkomi); 2. Copper ingot from Zakros, Crete, displayed at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum But the script used on the tablet is NOT Cypro-Minoan or Cretan or Minoan but Meluhha: One side of a Mohenjo-daro prism tablet (Full decipherment of the three sided inscription is embedded). What was the cargo carried on the boat? I suggest that the cargo was Meluhha metalwork -- castings and hard copper alloy ingots. Together with the pair of aquatic birds, the metalwork is with hard alloys (of copper). bagalo = an Arabian merchant vessel (Gujarati) bagala = an Arab boat of a particular description (Ka.); bagalā (M.); bagarige, bagarage = a kind of vessel (Kannada) Rebus: bangala = kumpaṭi = angāra śakaṭī = a chafing dish a portable stove a goldsmith’s portable furnace (Telugu) cf. bangaru bangaramu = gold (Telugu) karaṇḍa ‘duck’ (Sanskrit) karaṛa ‘a very large aquatic bird’ (Sindhi) Rebus: करडा [karaḍā] Hard from alloy--iron, silver &c. (Marathi)
2014, Antiguo Oriente
The Semitic alphabet evolved out of the West Semitic syllabary. This fact refutes the hypothesis of Orly Goldwasser, that Semitic workers at the Sinai turquoise mines invented the West Semitic consonantal alphabet with borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs, even though they were ignorant of how writing systems worked; but the way the proto-alphabet was used (as also the syllabary) involved logograms and rebuses, just like the Egyptian system; and the choice of some signs whose meaning is not obvious (notably nefer 'good', for Tet, from t.ab 'good') shows a close acquaintance with Egyptian writing. In their supposed ignorance they allegedly invented the acrophonic principle in the process. On the contrary, acrophony was already employed for constructing the West Semitic syllabary in the era of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The syllabary already had at least eighteen of the twenty-two letters in the Phoenician alphabet, with the same consonantal value. This proto-syllabary continued to function alongside its offspring the proto-alphabet, and both are attested at Byblos and other sites around the Mediterranean world, and beyond. However, Egypt seems to be the locus for the evolutionary simplification of the syllabary into a consonantary, presumably influenced by the absence of vowels in Hieroglyphic writing. As I see it, the evolution of early West Semitic writing runs: Proto-syllabary > Proto-consonantary > Neo-consonantary > Neo-syllabary. Each of the three new scripts developed out of its predecessor, and the Proto-syllabary (an acrophonic logo-morpho-syllabary) was the progenitor of them all. The Neo-consonantary survived as the West Semitic Proto-alphabet (the Phoenician consonantal alphabet), from which were derived the Greek and Roman vocalic alphabets (with vowel-letters A E I O U). This new paradigm is explained in a set of essays at this site: http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/
2010, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections
2017
During excavations at the temple of Taharqa at Semna, George Reisner discovered an exceptional New Kingdom private statuette covered with short cryptographic inscriptions. The peculiar texts on this statuette, now in the collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA 24.743), received a preliminary treatment by Étienne Drioton in the extensive catalogue of the Semna excavations by D. Dunham and J. Janssen (1960). Nevertheless, this object has otherwise garnered little scholarly attention. A new translation of the enigmatic texts raises important considerations for understanding both the function of cryptography in private statuary and the evolution of viceregal authority in the Eighteenth Dynasty. The texts reveal that the statue belonged to a high official from the Egyptian administration in Nubia, the jdnw n Wзwз.t (deputy viceroy of Wawat), Djehutymose. Several stylistic features of the statuette suggest a date to the reign of Amenhotep III, when Djehutymose would have been deputy to the viceroy Merymose; this administrative relationship finds additional support from a previously overlooked rock inscription in the Wadi Allaqi. This article contends that the jdnw n Wзwз.t Djehutymose should be identified with the viceroy of the same name dating to the reign of Akhenaten. Representing the earliest-known attestation of the division of the deputy viceroy position into two geographically defined offices, this small statuette provides insight into hitherto little known aspects of viceregal succession and the evolution of the dual deputy offices.
2018, Nubian Archaeology in the XXIst Century Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Neuchâtel, 1st-6th September 2014, edited by M. Honegger
[As the original paper contains some misprints, I have updated a corrected version here] Offering tables are very common in Nubia under the Napatan rulers, but at that time written samples remain an exclusive component of the tomb superstructure only for kings and queens. During the XXVth dynasty, the texts engraved on the royal offering tables were stereotyped "hetep di nesu" formulae and a list of offered objects addressed to the deceased. Only starting from the 5th century these common short texts were replaced by chapter 59 of the Book of the Dead. It deals with the vital breeze and fresh water for revitalizing the soul in the necropolis by the help of Nut’sycamore. Malowiamani’s offering table (Merowe Museum n° 22) is the first evidence of these funerary texts on this kind of support, as documents of this type appeared in Egypt only from the Ptolemaic Period, in particular at the sites of the region of Akhmim. The aim of this paper is to discuss this unpublished artifact making comparison with other examples from Nubia.
(Books and papers have been entered in alphabetical order as they were incorporated into the Library, therefore it is a primarily chronological and then alphabetical list)