Yale archaeologists discover earliest monumental Egyptian hieroglyphs

By Bess Connolly Martell

Photo courtesy of YaleNews

A joint Yale and Royal Museums of Art and History (Brussels) expedition to explore the the ancient Egyptian city of Elkab has uncovered some previously unknown rock inscriptions, which include the earliest monumental hieroglyphs dating back around 5,200 years.

These new inscriptions were not previously recorded by any expedition and are of great significance in the history of the ancient Egyptian writing systems, according to Egyptologist John Coleman Darnell, professor in Yale's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale, who co-directs the Elkab Desert Survey Project.

“This newly discovered rock art site of El-Khawy preserves some of the earliest — and largest — signs from the formative stages of the hieroglyphic script and provides evidence for how the ancient Egyptians invented their unique writing system,” says Darnell.

The researchers also discovered rock art depicting a herd of elephants that was carved between 4,000-3,500 B.C.E. One of the elephants has a little elephant inside of it, which, according to Darnell, “is an incredibly rare way of representing a pregnant female animal.”

The archaeologists also identified a panel of four signs, created circa 3,250 B.C.E. and written right to left — the dominant writing direction in later Egyptian texts — portraying animal images of a bull’s head on a short pole followed by two back-to-back saddlebill storks with a bald ibis bird above and between them. The arrangement of symbols is common in later Egyptian representations of the solar cycle and with the concept of luminosity. “These images may express the concept of royal authority over the ordered cosmos,” says Darnell.

What Is Coptic and Who Were the Copts in Ancient Egypt?

A short history of ancient Egyptian language

By Megan Sauter

What is Coptic, and who were the Copts in ancient Egypt?

The Coptic language is the final stage of ancient Egyptian language. Even though it looks very different from texts written in Old Egyptian using hieroglyphs, the two are related. In his article “Coptic—Egypt’s Christian Language” in the November/December 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Leo Depuydt gives a short history of the development of ancient Egyptian language and shows where the Coptic language fits in that timeline, as well as answering the question: Who were the Copts.

What Is Coptic?

The Coptic language developed around 300 C.E. in Egypt. It is Egyptian language written using the Greek alphabet, as well as a couple of Demotic signs. This script was much easier to learn than the earlier writing systems used in ancient Egypt: hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic scripts.

Coptic was the lingua franca of Egypt when Egypt was predominantly Christian. Many assume that the Coptic language was developed primarily to spread Christianity, but Depuydt disagrees. He supports the great Belgian Coptologist Louis Théophile Lefort’s theory that the Coptic language was created by another group—the Jews.

Museum Pieces - Tomb Relief

Tomb relief with an inscription in raised relief: rp´ h3tj-´ (sd3wtj) bjtj.

Photocredit: Medelhavsmuseet 2013

 
Titles and status were important. This relief fragment tells that the tomb owner was a nobleman, a member of the elite and a governor. The bee at the bottom of the column hints at a connection with the king, which was very prestigious.

Photocredit: Medelhavsmuseet 2013

Inventory number: MM 11433

Object: Relief

Material: Limestone; Stone

Period: 25th Dynasty (c.735-656 BC), Late Period

Dimensions: H. 36,5 cm, W. 25 cm, D. 4 cm

The ancient Egyptian Bee (hieroglyph), Gardiner sign listed no. L2, is the representation of a honeybee. The bee figures prominently throughout Ancient Egyptian history, and started in the early Protodynastic Period, for example with Pharaoh Den. His timeperiod famously produced 20 tomb-labels (tags) that recorded events, and told short stories, with the first use of hieroglyphs, that by 2900 BC time had included biliterals, some triliterals, and the Egyptian hieroglyphic uniliterals.

The form of the bee on Den's labels, and others in the timeperiod (Semerkhet), show similar form, a flying bee, at an angle. The later forms are more "horizontal, wings outspread".

 

The bee became the symbol for "King of the North" (the Nile Delta (Lower Egypt), and northern Egypt); the sedge (hieroglyph)

represented the opposite: the "King of the South" (the King of Upper Egypt). A combined form also came to be used: the "King of the South & and the King of the North".

Sources:
http://collections.smvk.se/carlotta-mhm/web/object/3013029
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_(hieroglyph)

Rosetta stone-style stele unearthed in the Mediterranean coast

By Rany Mostafa

CAIRO: A 2,200 year-old “an upright stone slab bearing a commemorative inscription” was unearthed at the Mediterranean coast, Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty announced Thursday.

The stele, which was discovered at Taposiris Magna archaeological site on Lake Mariout, southwest of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria,  “dates to the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (204B.C-180B.C) of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (332 B.C.-30 B.C) that has ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.” said Damaty in a statement on the ministry’s Facebook page.

The stele, measuring 1.05 X 0.65X0.18 meters, was discovered by an archaeology mission of the Catholic University of Santo Domingo in collaboration with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), he added.

“It consists of two registers carved in two different scripts; the upper one features over 20 lines of hieroglyphic inscriptions bearing the cartouches [oval shapes bearing royal names only] of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes, his sister Princess Cleopatra I, his mother Queen Arsinoe III and his father King Ptolemy IV Philopator,” said Damaty adding that archaeologists are currently working on transliterating the text.

The bottom register features a 5-line demotic script that seems to be a translation of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, said Damaty.

Demotic language was used by ordinary people while hieroglyphic was used by royals, high officials, priests and the elite of the ancient Egyptian society.

The famous Rosetta stone, currently displayed in the British Museum in London, dates back to the reign of the same Greek king but was carved in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek scripts, according to Damaty.

Chief of the Dominican Egyptian archaeology mission, Dr. Kathleen Martinez said that the mission, has been working at Taposiris Magna for six years, has made a lot of significant discoveries related to the history of Alexandria. “Some of the major discoveries are tombs of Nobles, a number of statues of goddess Isis in addition to many bronze coins belonging to Queen Cleopatra VII, the famous Cleopatra of Anthony,” said Martinez.

Source: http://www.thecairopost.com/news/137176/inside_egypt/rosetta-stone-style-stele-unearthed-in-the-mediterranean-coast

Did the pharaohs know hieroglyphics? - Polish Egyptologist explains

Could all the pharaohs read and write? Only 1-3 percent of the inhabitants of ancient Egypt mastered this exceptionally difficult art. Evidence of literacy of the rulers of Egypt are perhaps not numerous, but clear, argues Filip Taterka, Egyptologist, a doctoral student at the Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

In ancient Egypt, there were several types of handwriting. Currently, the best known are classical hieroglyphics, carved in stone on the walls of temples and tombs.

"For administrative documents and literary texts, ancient Egiptians used mainly hieratic, which was a simplified form of writing used since the Old Kingdom, the time of the builders of the pyramids in the third millennium BC. In the middle of the first millennium BC, even more simplified demotic appeared" - explained Taterka.

As it turns out, Egyptian written sources tell us very little about the literacy of the kings of Egypt. Poznań scientist tried to trace the problem since the beginning of pharaonic civilization in Egyptian texts.

"Relatively late sources suggest that even one of the first rulers of Egypt - Aha - mastered the writing skill. He was believed to be an author of a few medical treaties, although the reliability of this report is, of course, debatable" - added Taterka.

According to the reasearcher, the oldest source directly referring to pharaonic literacy comes from the end of the Fifth Dynasty, the end of the 3d millennium BC. Royal dignitary Inti an inscription carved inside his tomb at Saqqara near the oldest pyramid in the world, which mentions receiving a letter personally written by Pharaoh Isesi. The researcher found numerous allusions to skills in writing by the rulers of the land of the Nile in the Texts of the Pyramids, the oldest religious inscriptions carved inside the 10 pyramids.

‘Wonderful things,’ indeed

Wide fascination with ancient Egypt has long history, specialist says

By Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer

Britain’s Lord Carnarvon asked famed archaeologist Howard Carter what he saw as he first peered into King Tut’s tomb.

“Wonderful things,” Carter supposedly replied.

Carter would eventually catalog thousands of objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy king, including some of archaeology’s most recognizable artifacts. The 1922 find sparked a craze for all things ancient Egypt, but that was just the latest wave of “Egyptomania” to wash over the world, according to Bob Brier, a Long Island University senior research fellow and Egyptologist with a particular expertise in mummies.

The phenomenon started in force more than 200 years ago, Brier says, with Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 invasion of Egypt, where he defeated a Mamluk army in a battle fought near Cairo, within sight of the pyramids. French rule of the country wouldn’t last long, collapsing after British Admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed the French fleet days later in the Battle of the Nile.

But Napoleon did not go away empty-handed. His gains included the records of more than 100 artists, engineers, and scientists who, as the fighting raged, collected, drew, and documented the natural and manmade wonders of Egypt. The publication of their work in France fed a curiosity that hasn’t faded. According to Brier, it flows largely from three spheres of interest: mummies, the mystery of hieroglyphics, and the allure of a lost civilization, epitomized by Carter’s discovery of Tut’s tomb.

Andrew Robinson, Cracking the Egyptian Code: the Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Reviewed by William H. Peck, University of Michigan-Dearborn

[The Table of Contents is listed below.]

This book has two principal themes. One is a biography of Jean-François Champollion; the other details the steps to the modern decipherment of ancient Egyptian. Champollion’s life as an ardent student of ancient Egypt encouraged by his older brother and returning members of Bonaparte’s expedition was eventually rewarded with an assistant professorship of history at the university in Grenoble in 1809. His publication of L’Égypte sous le Pharaons in 1814 was produced long before he could successfully read the language. His summery of his dramatic breakthrough in the decipherment came in 1822 in his Lettre à M. Dacier which was followed by a more detailed exposition two years later. Champollion was able to put his knowledge to practical use in the joint Franco- Tuscan expedition of 1828-30 where scholars were able to identify the royal names on monuments with some security. Champollion’s short life of only 41 years was a continuous adventure both intellectual and political befitting the complexity of his eventual accomplishments. A linguistic prodigy, he had begun a study of Coptic in his teens, a language that would prove crucial to his work on ancient Egyptian.

In chapter one Robinson briefly surveys the history of attempts to decipher Egyptian. The most general misconception about the language was that each sign in hieroglyphic script represented a thought or an idea. That it was partly alphabetical, partly ideographic, and partly representative of signs of classification had not to that time occurred to any western investigator immersed in languages that were essentially alphabetical. It was the slow realization by several people during the first quarter of the nineteenth century of the varied uses of the signs that the author has explained with care and detailed examination. The first assumption, that the cartouches, elongated ovals, might contain the names of royalty spelled phonetically, proved to be correct but it was still a far reach to distinguish the varied ways the signs were employed and combined. Robinson has provided an explanation of the tentative steps taken by of Champollion, as well as the others involved, that explains that deciphering the language was not accomplished in a single moment of inspiration but over a period of years by trial and error.

How the Rosetta Stone Works

by Candace Keener

Ancient Egypt conjures up ima­ges of bearded ­pharaohs, mighty pyramids and gold-laden tombs. Centuries ago, before archaeology became a legitimate field of science, explorers raided Egyptian ruins, seizing priceless artifacts. Collectors knew that t­hese items were valuable, but they had no way of understanding just how much they were worth. Because the civilization's historical records and monuments were inscribed with hieroglyphics, a language no one -- Egyptian or foreigner -- could read, the secrets of Egypt's past were hopelessly lost. That is, until the Rosetta Stone was discovered.

The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a stela, a free-standing stone inscribed with Egyptian governmental or religious records. It's made of black basalt and weighs about three-quarters of a ton (0.680 metric tons). The stone is 118 cm (46.5 in.) high, 77 cm. (30 in.) wide and 30 cm. (12 in.) deep -- roughly the size of a medium-screen LCD television or a heavy coffee table [source BBC]. But what's inscribed on the Rosetta Stone is far more significant than its composition. It features three columns of inscriptions, each relaying the same message but in three different languages: Greek, hieroglyphics and Demotic. Scholars used the Greek and Demotic inscriptions to make sense of the hieroglyphic alphabet. By using the Rosetta Stone as a translation device, scholars revealed more than 1,400 years of ancient Egyptian secrets [source: Cleveland MOA].

The discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone are as fascinating as the translations that resulted from the stone. Controversial from the start, it was unearthed as a result of warfare and Europe's quest for world domination. Its translation continued to cause strife between nations, and even today, scholars debate who should be credited with the triumph of solving the hieroglyphic code. Even the stone's current location is a matter of debate. This artifact has long held a powerful grip over history and politics.

Since 1802, the Rosetta Stone has occupied a space in London's British Museum. While most visitors acknowledge the stone as an important piece of history, others are drawn to it like a religious relic. The stone is now enclosed in a case, but in the past, visitors could touch it and trace the mysterious hieroglyphics with their fingers.

In this article, we'll learn how the world came to regard this piece of stone as a harbinger of Egypt's secrets. We'll also discuss its history and the circumstances surrounding its discovery, as well as the long and difficult task of deciphering the Rosetta Stone's inscriptions. Last, we'll examine the field of Egyptology and how it evolved from the Rosetta Stone.

Ancient script, modern wisdom

Czech Egyptologist links hieroglyphics to mind mapping

By Fiona Gaze 

There are few people whose eyes will light up when you ask them about their jobs, or who will reply, "I have the most awesome job ever." But for Renata Landgráfová, being an Egyptologist with a specialty in translating and interpreting Egyptian hieroglyphics is about as cool as it gets. Her work at the Charles University Czech Institute of Egyptology has taken her not only to the sites of archeological digs in Egypt numerous times but also past the brink of a new discovery: the connection between hieroglyphics and the modern practice of mind mapping and memory coaching.

Landgráfová, 35, reads the writing on the wall - specifically, the messages in tombs, tablets and texts from ancient Egypt. She is often one of the first experts onsite at a newly opened tomb in Egypt, and the first to not only hold a text that has not seen the light of day in several millennia but to decipher its meaning and relevance. Through her various publications and her university teaching, she presents a new way to look at hieroglyphics, revealing histories and stories of an ancient civilization that hold much more than mythology for the modern age.

In addition to the excitement of quite literally holding history in her hands, Landgráfová says the study of hieroglyphics and the culture behind them holds lessons we can apply today.

"I think it helps us - as all history does - to understanding a little more about humanity, and this is, in the end, what mankind's quest for knowledge has always been about," she says.

What the Sphinx Said

By DAVID STUART

On Sept. 14, 1822, as legend tells the tale, Jean-François Champollion burst into his brother's Paris office at the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, flung a bundle of drawings upon the desk and cried, "Je tiens mon affaire!" ("I've done it!"). Champollion promptly fainted before he could utter news of the great intellectual feat for which he is still celebrated: the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The story of the young, frail, hotheaded scholar and his volatile time, full of upheavals political and scientific, is a remarkable tale, wonderfully told in Andrew Robinson's "Cracking the Egyptian Code: The Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion."

The founding father of Egyptology started young and lived a relatively short life. Born in 1790 in southwest France, Champollion became fascinated by Oriental history and languages not long after he was sent to school in Grenoble at age 10, having exhausted local teachers. France was still basking in the exotic glow of Napoleon's Egypt campaign (1798-1801), when scientists as well as soldiers helped introduce the wonders of ancient Egypt into Western consciousness. Images and accounts of pyramids, temples and mysterious hieroglyphs—including those on the recently discovered Rosetta Stone—enchanted the young Jean-François, who soon set his sights on learning the Coptic language of old Egypt.

Egyptology

September 10, 2011 By Alfred Jones

Once I was asked, “Why is it referred to as Egyptology, indicating that it is to be studies along with scientific subjects?” To answer this question, we must go back to the year l798 when Napoleon attempted to invade Egypt. His expedition, ill advised as it was from the military standpoint, had the long range effect of politically awaking Egypt and setting in motion a scientific examination of its antiquities that continued to this day. He had taken one hundred and seventy five scholars to study and record every aspect of Egypt that could be brought under the microscope of those who wanted to know more about it in as great a depth as possible.

Not only did he bring some of France’s greatest authorities on such subjects as astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, hierology, history, various technicians, painters, poets and a copy of every book he could find in France that contained information about the Nile Valley. He brought crates of scientific apparatus and measuring instruments.

Long after Napoleon gave up his military interest in Egypt and returned to France, the army of scholars remained in Egypt and continued to study, to measure and to record their findings. He was able to create a world wide interest in Egypt and after the other Europeans became interested in Egypt, there was a host of adventurers as well as scholars who descended upon Egypt and remain there to this day.