Ancient Egyptian Texts Research Articles

Speaking “Mouth to Mouth” (Num 12:8)

Abstract The phrase פה אל פה אדבר בו in Num 12:8a is generally taken to mean to speak with Moses “face to face.” However, commentators have noted that this understanding presents grammatical difficulties. In this study I propose a new understanding of the idiom and argue that it refers to oral transmission, from one speaking agent to the next in a linear chain. This idiomatic use of the phrase “mouth to mouth” is found in ancient Egyptian texts and widely across many cultures. This understanding of the idiom פה אל פה is animated further by a re-examination of four pieces of textual data: a) the meaning of the phrase בכל ביתי נאמן הוא in Num 12:7, and specifically an interpretation widespread in rabbinic commentary, but absent from modern exegesis; b) the meanings and diffusion of the prepositional verb דבר ב; c) the morphologies of various פה-פה expressions found in 2 Kings, Jeremiah, and Ezra; d) the structural and thematic similarities of Num 11 and Num 12.

The The Semitic Origins of the Term "Sūqa".

The term “sūqa”, which appeared continuously in ancient Egyptian texts from the Late Egyptian to demotic and continued to be used in Coptic, is similar to the Arabic word "souqa" meaning the lower class of society. A comparable word has attested in the Akkadian texts from the Old Babylonian and Assyrian periods. Thus, the aim of the study is to find an etymological link between the Akkadian word and its Egyptian and Arabic counterpart. The problem of the research and its hypothesis lie in linking the Akkadian origins of this term to the Egyptian ones and then the Arabic ones. The most important problem facing this study is that the word does not appear in the currently published studies of borrowed words or expressions borrowed from the Semitic languages to the Ancient Egyptian language, and therefore the bridge language that transports the word needs research and study. The aim of the study is to form a general perception about the development of the word and its transfer from one language to another. The hypothesis of the study is based on the fact that the Arabic word “sūqa” cannot be of Arabic origins; rather, it is a semitic word that has been transferred to the Arabic language through the Egyptian language. To prove this hypothesis, the methodology of the study will rely on analyzing texts of the three languages and the examination and analysis of this word “sūqa” and its synonyms in each language, according to their context to deduce their significance and to verfy the scientific hypothesis of the study. In conclusion, one main finding of the study is that it has demonstrated that the word “sūqa” appeared in Akkadian texts to mean "street", and then it was transferred to the Late Egyptian with a change of meaning to be associated with “foolishness” and “inferiority”, which is the same change of meaning with which it was transferred to Arabic. It also shows the congruence between the word in Arabic poetry and that in ancient Egyptian texts, but with a clear meaning associated with low social class and another associated with arrogance and class superiority.

The Egyptologist and his epoch: Political events of the 1880–1940s in V.S. Golenishchev’s Archival Documents

This article analyzes documents of the founder of Russian scientific Egyptology V.S. Golenishchev (1856–1947), stored in domestic and foreign archives. The article draws attention to the correspondence of Golenishchev with his colleagues, meaning their reflection of contemporary political events (from the speech of Orabi Pasha in Egypt in the early 1880s to the events on the eve of World War II). The material examined makes it possible to conclude that the personal position of the scientist was predominantly apolitical; he was primarily engaged in collecting and researching ancient Egyptian texts and clearly saw the feasible preservation of the sociopolitical situation to which he was accustomed as a guarantee of the stability necessary for scientific work.

Prerequisites for the Formation of Arabic Medieval Scientific Terminology in the Works of Arabic Scientists as a Special Transition to Scientific Knowledge

Jabir ibn Hayyan, is one of the greatest figures in Arab culture and in applied chemistry. He contributed to the formation of chemical terminology in the Middle Ages, the vast majority of which still continues to function in modern chemistry and medicine. The article discusses the significant contribution of the Arab thinker in the formation of the Arabic medieval scientific chemical discourse at the first stages of its formation, which was revealed on the basis of Aristotle's methodological principles, the language of alchemy, translation from ancient Greek and Egyptian texts into Arabic. This led to the synthesis of ancient scientific concepts and the emergence of Arabic scientific terms denoting specific concepts of chemistry and the emergence of the first classification of substances and medicines. Continuous experimental studies of substances led to the emergence of new names of previously unknown substances, such as alkali, nitric acid, etc. In this paper, the achievements of Arab medieval scientists in applied chemistry were characterized and the main chemical vocabulary used in the description of various substances was analyzed. On the basis of the collected material, attempts were made for the first time to generalize the achievements of the Arab chemist using modern methods of studying terms and concepts. The attention is drawn to the inner side of the Arabic scientific term, which constitutes its conceptual base and the definition of which largely depends on the regulation of linguistic activity in the sphere of alchemy.

Intellectual Decolonization and Harmful Nativism: Arabic Knowledge Production of Ancient Egyptian Literature

The essay argues that Eurocentric modernity continues to impact how ancient Egyptian language and literature is experienced, researched, and taught in Arabic-speaking Egypt as a direct result of its colonial history. It explores some reasons and justifications for the omission of Egyptian Egyptologists from the century-long formation and evolution of ancient Egyptian literary and linguistic studies. This hegemonic approach still causes intellectual suffering for those who were/are colonized. The essay seeks to deploy analytical approaches from the Arabic literary tradition to decolonize the overwhelming and illogical divorce between linguistic and literary studies. A comparative reading of ancient Egyptian literary devices provides the grounds for a further argument, which concerns more broadly the ways in which scholars should approach the literary devices of ancient Egyptian texts, and opens the door to previously unexplored literary and linguistic approaches. The aim of this essay is to investigate the possibility of offering a new and a closer textual reading of ancient Egyptian literary devices, based on Arabic balāghah methodology (literally, eloquence, and roughly translated as poetics). This comparative approach demonstrates that Arabic scholarship can reclaim a respected space in the knowledge production that re/defines the cultural heritage of ancient Middle Eastern literature(s). The essay calls upon Euro-American and Arab academics to endorse various methodologies of “intellectual decolonization” in order to avoid reinscribing the long-established Eurocentric elements of coloniality and to invest more deliberate efforts in helping ancient Middle Eastern literary cultures to speak for themselves without any impositions rooted in Eurocentrism or Arabocentrism.

Emotions in ancient Egypt—An overview

AbstractThe aim of the article is to present essential aspects of five emotions (joy, fear, love, sadness, anger) on the basis of written sources from ancient Egypt. Through selective analyses of the Egyptian emotion vocabulary, including metaphors and descriptions of physical states and reactions, some elementary concepts will be explained. In addition, it is a concern to point out some of the difficulties that can be associated with the investigation of emotions in ancient Egyptian texts. Therefore, brief references are given to current Egyptological studies that have been devoted to the topic adopting new methods.

The Coptic Particle hamoi 'Oh would that': Applying on a comparison between The Ancient Egyptian texts and Coptic texts

The Coptic Particle hamoi 'Oh would that': Applying on a comparison between The Ancient Egyptian texts and Coptic texts

Encoding Hieroglyphic Texts

With the help of data science, researchers in the humanities can study large amounts of data at once and find regularities that they might not otherwise detect. In order to use digital methods, the texts to be examined must be in machine-readable form, but the lack of such text corpora hinders the digital study of ancient Egyptian texts. A sign can be next to, above, or over another in a hieroglyphic text, and two or more signs can be nested. Egyptologists use encoding to maintain the information on the signs and their places relative to each other when preparing hieroglyphic texts for publication in printed form. The encoding uses letter-number combinations from the Gardiner list, a standard reference list for Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. To increase the number of machine-readable hieroglyphic texts, the plan is to develop a workflow that uses automatic transliteration. This paper aims to present the first steps towards this goal. Ancient Egyptian texts are encoded by hand in JSesh, an open-source hieroglyphic editor. The aim is to publish annotated texts in a structured form, and a tool is being built to turn the binary format files produced in JSesh into machine-readable form. This paper introduces Gly2Mdc version 1.0, which extracts and cleans the encoding from the binary file. The tool is openly available and can be used for files with the extension .gly and containing encoded hieroglyphic text.

KAYIP BİNYIL: İSLAM DÜNYASINDA HİYEROGLİFLER VE ESKİ MISIR-Okasha el-Daly(Ukâşe ed-Dâlî)

The Arab study of Ancient Egypt was the result of a universal understanding of history rather than the narrow purpose of verifying scriptures. They were critical of pre-Islamic written sources and did not accept even texts based on eyewitnesses uncritically. The Arabs' work, which included accurate descriptions of ancient monuments, was aimed at understanding their symbolic value and function. They noticed the relationship of the ancient Egyptian language to Coptic, the phonetic value of hieroglyphs, and that some were grouped like alphabets. Arab writers interested in deciphering Egyptian script were primarily alchemists and often Sufis. Access to Ancient Egyptian texts written in Demotic and Coptic – often in Greek translations – has helped Arab scholars better understand the complex nature of Egyptian religion.
 
 Studies of the origin of Sufism tend to concentrate on India and Persia, without mentioning the Egyptian sources. However, for example, Akhenaten's comparison of Suhrawardi- Illuminationism (Ishraqiyya) with sun hymns and studies on Mandaeanist/ Sabianist religious traditions in Iraq and Iran will shed light on the similarities between Egyptian religion and especially rituals and beliefs. 
 Medieval writers tried to find common ground between Islamic teachings and Ancient Egyptian religion.
 Studies of Arabic philosophy can shed light on the problems of Ancient Egyptian philosophy. Because some basic concepts of Ancient Egyptian philosophy formed the basis of later Arab and Greek philosophy. Arab writers, like their classical predecessors, thought that this country had been home to science and wisdom since Hermes of Egypt, to whom they attributed the invention of writing, alchemy and medicine. They knew that the pharaoh Moses was dealing with was not a typical pharaoh but an exception. Pharaohs were portrayed as skilled rulers, knowledgeable and pious figures who cared for the welfare of the people.
 Cleopatra is described in Arabic sources as a philosopher and scholar, without reference to her physical attractiveness.
 Despite more than two centuries of domination of Egyptology by the Eurocentric view that ignored the thousand-year Arab contribution, archaeologists working in other parts of the Near East have also begun to realize the problem of Western dominance among them. But we also owe much to our Western colleagues for their invaluable contributions.

Why Were the Leaders of the Sea Peoples Called ʿȝ.w and Not wr.w? On the Size and Raiding Character of the Sea Peoples’ Groups

This paper discusses the use of the terms ʿȝ and wr for the designation of enemy leaders in ancient Egyptian texts of the Ramesside period. Focus is placed on the choice of the term for leaders of the various Sea Peoples’ groups in the texts of the Medinet Habu temple of Ramesses III. The leaders of the Sea Peoples and Shasu are referred to as ʿȝ.w, whereas the leaders of other groups are referred to as wr.w. The terms used for different enemy leaders are indicative of the ancient Egyptian perception of the social organization of the enemy. Focusing on their social organization can provide us with a more stable ground for understanding the Sea Peoples. Several features indicate that they were warrior groups similar to pirates or mercenaries conducting raids, rather than large groups of migrants: 1) the choice of the term for their leaders during the reign of Ramesses III, 2) the relatively small numbers of their captives in the lists of spoils of war of Merneptah, and 3) the fact that no women and children are ever mentioned in these lists, although they are accompanying one of the Sea Peoples’ groups in a single scene from Medinet Habu.

Lost in the Void. Anxiety in Ancient Egyptian Texts

Lost in the Void. Anxiety in Ancient Egyptian Texts

„Verhülle nicht dein Gesicht vor mir“ – Konzepte von Gesicht und Wahrnehmung im alten Ägypten

Summary The face (ḥr) is one of the most documented body parts in ancient Egyptian texts and its semantics covers a wide range of meanings. The face is especially involved in bodily perception linked with the facial senses (eyes, ears, nose and mouth). In this paper concepts of the face in connection with perception and communication will be examined. The first part focuses on prototypical considerations about the composition of the face and Egyptian iconographic characteristics. The second part explores textual sources to illustrate the usages of the word ḥr in connection with perception, attention and communication.

Bee Pollen: Current Status and Therapeutic Potential.

Bee pollen is a combination of plant pollen and honeybee secretions and nectar. The Bible and ancient Egyptian texts are documented proof of its use in public health. It is considered a gold mine of nutrition due to its active components that have significant health and medicinal properties. Bee pollen contains bioactive compounds including proteins, amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, and polyphenols. The vital components of bee pollen enhance different bodily functions and offer protection against many diseases. It is generally marketed as a functional food with affordable and inexpensive prices with promising future industrial potentials. This review highlights the dietary properties of bee pollen and its influence on human health, and its applications in the food industry.

Revolution to Reticence, Halsted and The History of Mastectomy

The mastectomy techniques used to treat breast cancer patients today are a product of thousands of years of discovery. Early mentions of breast excision and cauterization can be found in Ancient Egyptian and Indian texts dating back to 3000 B.C. Formally developed by Halsted in 1894, the radical mastectomy marked an important innovation in breast cancer therapy. Employment of the technique nearly doubled the patient survival rate. Since Halsted’s time, the uses for this technique have also changed. Less invasive surgeries such as lumpectomies are often preferred by patients, with radical mastectomy surgeries now commonly used for prophylaxis. This article explores the significance of Halsted’s innovation, while providing contextual evidence that examines the noteworthy events that both precede and follow it. It also examines how Halsted’s innovation rose and later fell from public favour.

القبائل النوبیة خلال عصر الدولة القدیمة

تنوعت علاقات مصر مع القبائل النوبية خلال عصر الدولة القديمة نتيجة تنوع أغراض مصر من تلک القبائل وديارها، منها ما کان ذو طابع سياسية وحربي بحت مثل اهتمام ملوک الأسرة السادسة بالنوبة بسبب الضغط الذي وقع على الحدود المصرية من قبل البدو الأسيويين، وتعدي هذا الاهتمام من مجرد إرسال الحملات إلى استخدام الجنود النوبيون کمرتزقة في الجيش المصري، ومنها ما کان ذو طابع إقتصادي حيث کانت بلاد النوبة هي البلاد المصدرة للذهب والعاج والعديد من الخيرات التي کان الملک وحاشيته يتهافتون للحصول عليها بالإضافة إلي کونها معبر للتجارة المصرية إلي قلب أفريقيا. ونتيجة لذلک عمل الملوک المصريون على السيطرة على بلاد النوبة بيد من حديد في الوقت الذي کان يسکن بها القبائل المعروفة بأسم المجموعة (أ) ثم وفد عليهم قبائل عرفت بقبائل المجموعة (ج) مع نهاية عصر الدولة القديمة، تعني هذه الدراسة بذکر أثر القبائل النوبية على مصر خلال عصر الدولة القديمة من خلال المصادر المصرية والنوبية المعاصرة وتشمل أيضا على التعريف بأهم القبائل النوبية التي ظهرت في المصادر المصرية وما خلفته تلک القبائل من آثار تعطينا فکرة عن الجوانب المختلفة لحياتها. The Relations between Egypt and Nubian tribes diversed during old kingdom period, As a result of the diversed Egyptian needs from the Nubian tribes and their lands. Some of these relations were political and martial such as the sixth dynasty special care of Nubia because of the Asiatic Bedouin danger in their times, So Egyptian kings recruited the Nubian warriors as soldiers in the Egyptian army beside the military campaigns which they led on their lands. On the other hand we can consider the economic motive as a strong motive for the Egyptian king, As Nubia was a source of gold, ivory and other goods for the king and his courtyards, in addition to this Nubia was a passage for the Egyptian trade, which goes to center Africa. All of these motives make us believe that Egyptian domination over Nubia was very harsh when it was inhabited by the tribes known as group (A) tribes then a new tribes came in the latest days of the old kingdom period whom we know as group (C) tribes, in this research I will talk about the Nubian tribes effect on Egypt through the Egyptian and contemporarily Nubian resources, and I will talk about the Nubian tribes from the ancient Egyptian texts and Nubian monuments which give as an idea about How these Nubian tribes lived their life.

«СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ РЕВОЛЮЦИЯ» В ДРЕВНЕМ ЕГИПТЕ: ПОЛЕМИКА И КОНФЛИКТ МЕЖДУ В.В. СТРУВЕ И С.Я. ЛУРЬЕ В 1920-е ГОДЫ

The article considers an episode of the Leningrad academic life in the 1920s, the dispute between the Egyptologist Vassily Struve and the Classicist Solomon Lurye (Salomo Luria) on the problem of the alleged “social revolution” in Ancient Egypt. Such interpretation of a few Ancient Egyptian texts (first of all, The Admonitions of Ipuwer and The Prophecy of Neferty) was forwarded by V. Struve not later than in 1919; it was connected with the interpretations of his teacher Boris Turaev and of the German Egyptologist Kurth Sethe and largely coincided with the vision of these texts by Adolf Erman, the leader of the German Egyptological school at the beginning of 20th century. In the early 1920s, this hypothesis was met with strong objections by S. Lurye, who denied the historical message of the texts. The dispute turned into a conflict caused by S. Lurye’s accusations of plagiarism against V. Struve. Symptomatically, the background both for this dispute and the conflict that followed could be the difference between the attitudes of V. Struve and S. Lurye towards the Russian revolution: S. Lurye welcomed it (especially its stage between February and October 1917), while B. Turaev and, at that time, his pupil V. Struve saw in it, first of all, a great upheaval (the same must be true about A. Erman’s attitude towards the German revolution of 1918). The article publishes the detailed drafts of V. Struve’s response to S. Lurye’s accusations.

The ways and types of calendar festivals description in Ancient Egyptian texts

The ways and types of calendar festivals description in Ancient Egyptian texts

"النار العاتية التي ذاقت من طعم وهج اللهيب:"

This article offers the first Arabic translation of a praise hymn dedicated to Ramsess II (d. 1213 B.C.E.), with philological and poetic commentaries. The text was carved on the facade of Abū Simbel temple twice because of its exceptional literary nature, as this study demonstrates. I discuss why Euro- American scholars were unable to separate the literary dimensions of the praise hymns from its political framework, and also tackle the pictorial nature of ancient Egyptian writing, providing the Arabic reader with the necessary instruments for understanding the several visual features that were creatively deployed by the writer to enhance the reading process of this particular praise hymn. I then trace the early foundations of premodern Arabic khiṭāba and its close relation to constructing oral/aural arguments in comparison with balāgha that deals with the literary devices of the Qur’ānic text. This study breaks new ground in the discipline of comparative literature by establishing a collation between the two praise hymns of Ramsess II (d. 1213 B.C.E.) and Senwosret III (d. 1839 B.C.E.). This collation makes it possible to rediscover the way each eulogist built unique or similar images to describe the praised king. The article discusses several problematic questions of loanwords to pave the way for further research on ancient Egyptian words that were incorporated inside the classical Arabic dictionary, and the analysis ends with an ancient Egyptian-Arabic lexicon of the hymn under study. It is hoped that this may encourage the new generation of Egyptian Egyptologists to generate a comprehensive dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language based on direct engagement with ancient Egyptian literary texts.

An investigation of the pharmacological applications used for the Ancient Egyptian systemic model ‘ra-ib’ compared with modern Traditional Chinese Medicine

Ethnopharmacological relevanceAncient Egyptian texts only offer glimpses into their conceptual understandings of the inner-body and illness manifestation. Explanations of how prescribed materia medica were believed to work are rare and obscure, often resulting in modern approximations for ancient terminology such as ‘ra-ib’—an ancient Egyptian classification predominantly translated as ‘stomach’—leading to misunderstandings of historical texts, and therefore their use of pharmacology. Aim of the studyTo investigate the ra-ib and the explanatory models of illness from the Egyptian perspective, and to explore the link between these and the prescribed selection of materia medica. To then compare the conceptual mechanics of these treatment strategies with those of another non-Western tradition—namely Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)—to provide further insight into potential conceptual frameworks. Materials and methodsWe conducted a case study of a unit of Ancient Egyptian texts focusing on the ra-ib. Totalling 34 prescriptions, the first stage lexicographically analysed the texts using cognitive linguistic and translation theories to produce our new understanding. This enabled our comparison of the mechanics of materia medica usage within these texts with those found in TCM outlined by the Pharmacopoeia of the Peoples Republic of Pharmacopeia of the People's Republic of China 2015 for the relevant ingredients. Resultsthe study demonstrated that—rather than denoting the organ ‘stomach’–ra-ib instead constitutes a system running from the mouth, downward to the anus. This is best translated as ‘inner thoroughfare’, and changes the way in which we attempt to understand potential motivations in the selection of ingredients. By exploring common themes in the use of eleven securely translated ingredients from the Egyptian corpus and the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China—representing a modern traditional system which understands the body via a series of interconnected systems—we were able to highlight certain themes which might be ‘universal’ to system-based traditions; this provided new insights into the Egyptian motivations for treatment selection. ConclusionsHaving gained the ancient view of the body and illness, cultural comparisons are important for providing further potential insights and clarifications of a discontinued historical healing tradition. The new understanding of the ra-ib from our study greatly changes the way in which we understand the dynamics of Egyptian ethnopharmacological source material from this period.

THE KNOT IN EXAMPLES OF RELIGIOUS TEXTS

The knot was one of the most important symbols in ancient Egyptian texts, including the Pyramid texts, coffin texts or the Book of the Dead. This paper looks closely at the knot in Ancient Egyptian texts. It signified a symbol of life, flourish and sovereignty in the pyramid and coffin texts as well as The Book of the Dead. It also represents a symbol for the beginnings of life in the doctrines of creation in Ancient Egyptian believe. It appears in solar myths symbolizing the light of the sun and its daily cycle. For these reasons, the knot was used in amulets as a symbol of protection and conservation of the body.