My Ancient Eygpt Page 2
Note: All the questions and answers are taken from the AEL
discussions.
Silver
According to Josep Padro considering archaeological evidences ("Les relations commerciales entre l'Egypte et le mondephenico-punique", in B. Menu, N. Grimal, Le commerce enEgypte ancienne, Le Caire 1998, BdE 121 p. 41-58), the silver used in TPI burials at Tanis could have come from spanish
mines newly opened by phoenician colonist.
Renaud de Spens.
Religion
Information I found in the book "Religion in Ancient Egypt" - Cornell University/1991 - Part two: "Ancient Egyptian Cosmogonies and cosmology" by Leonard H. Lesko - p. 118-119
"... Early religious literature described the journey of the sun barque as it sailed across the sky to the horizon and descended to the purifying Field of Reeds in the eastern sky to the born anew. There is little doubt that the sky in the description was NUT, and the place names, such as the Winding Waterway, Nurse Canal, Field of Reeds, and Doors Thrown Open, may even have related to her female anatomy....."
Ludo Rosseels
Middle Egyptian?
Just because ME had a stable script, mostly.
The Egyptians considered it to be the classical form of their language, and in all hieroglyphic inscriptions from the Middle Kingdom to the very end they aspired to using Middle Egyptian. However as time prograssed it became more and more difficult for them to actually write "pure" Middle Egyptian, so most inscriptions after the end of the New Kingdom contain more or less mistakes and influences from the current form of the language (but then how many of YOU can read Chaucerian
English at a remove of 6 centuries, let alone compose texts in it?) Therefore it has Been the normal course of studying Middle Egyptian first, then going on to the other periods (Late Egyptian, Demotic, Coptic and MAYBE Old Egyptian). So the most available textbooks all cover Middle Egyptian. If you look at Loprieno's book you will get a much clearer overview of the language's development, and the relation of the various phases to each other.
I was a little worried when people here were discussing the biography of Weni, that the grammar was all being treated as Middle Egyptian, when it might be more appropriate to consider it Old Egyptian, which is a rather different topic. I would say that if you want to ask questions about or discuss other phases of the Egyptian language, go for it!
Sea and Ocean
Q-) (snip) I would point out in all fairness that _sometimes_ Wadj-wer can refer to the Nile, the Delta, or to the Fayyum, and that _sometimes_ yam likewise can refer to inland bodies of water -- hence
"Fayyum" < "pA Yam".
It seems that the Egyptians, like the Semites, did not distinguish between "ocean" and "sea" (and we sometimes don't, either). I can understand why the Fayyum would be called "pA Yam" in a kind of picturesque exaggeration (a "sea" of green?), but I am curious as to the contexts of the Nile or the Delta being called "wAD wr". I can only know of the phrase "mi Hapi Hr stA r wAD wr" -- "Like the Nile when he flows to the sea". For me, there is more confusion between "mr" and "S". Meanwhile, it should be said that the Fayyum was also called "tA S", which would make "S" correspond with "yam"
sometimes -- but not at other times, as witnessed by the phrase "S m-bAH=s mi wAD wr" or "The temple-lake before it is like the "Great Green", meaning this lake was large but not quite a "sea". All in all, a confusing matter, these Egyptian "water words". Perhaps the terms "mr" and "S" were so old that
their precise meanings had been lost and they became all-purpose aquatic terms.
West
imi-wr.t "
(1) [nautical] starboard ...
(2) West side (_of a place_)
(3) necropolis, the West
(4) [administrative] Imi-weret, 1st watch (_designation of a phyle of priests, troop of workers, watch of a ship_)", HWB, p. 49
Ann Macy Roth, Egyptian Phyles in the Old Kingdom, Chicago, 1991 discusses the different aspects of this term several times (see index), for example in the section "The Relationship of Phyle Names and Nautical Terms", pp. 46-52
Her discussions are based on Wolfgang Helck's proposals, which can be found, e.g. in -- LAe I, 371-374, s.v. "Arbeiterabteilungen und -organisation" [divisions and organisation of workers]
n LAe IV, 128-134, s.v. "Militaer" [army] LAe IV, 1044, s.v. "Phyle"
Children Representation
The representation of children in ancient Egyptian art (with the hand on mouth) follow the hieroglyphic way (determinative) of showing a child (again with the hand on the mouth).
The placement of the hand on the mouth or head in Egyptian hieroglyphic signs (determinative) shows that the word or action described has to do with the head (i.e.. they would put such a
determinative in word such as: think, eat, speak etc). In accordance, the children are represented in determinative with their hand on the mouth, an action usual for children in general.
Katerina Koltsida
Capacity for Abstraction'
This entry by the German egyptologist Eberhard Otto discusses the ability to generalize isolated cases or rules which is evident since the earliest time in different fields. This article itself is an abstract discussion and mentioned the number side in passing only. However, as I believe that some statements may be of interest to this list I give a short summary, which admittedly cannot do justice to Otto's reasoning.
Calendar
The creation of a year with 365 days is an abstraction of the average period between one inundation to the next. The division of the year in 12 months of 30 days is a schematic solution of the problem calendar month and lunar cycle. The use of a fiscal year of 360 days is another abstraction of the calender year.
Numbers
Obtaining cardinal numbers for objects, also for offices [?] and the labour force, was an achievement of equal importance. The value of a thing is converted to an abstract cardinality, thus making possible comparisons of different things. The same reasoning is basis of all measurement systems, each of them referring to a neutral standard.
Characterization of human types
Character and temperament are typified: "the silent one", "the hot one", "the timorous one" (for the first time in pPrisse), which is important for the problem of educability, discussed several times in ancient Egypt.
Moral standards
The abstract and systematic concept of Maat is faced with many casuistic rules of the Instructions, which are materializations of Maat. The same relation can be found between justice and law: Whereas justice is part of the Maat concept, laws are referring to concrete situations without a relation to a general rule, but in their entirety they represent the Maat concept.
Dualism
A very important concept is the dualism which is structuring the world view and especially the mythological systems. An important conclusion is that a primeval unity preceded the existence of the world and gods. One important example of the dualism can also be found in the administrative system.
Symbolic numbers
Many religious ideas and concepts are based on numbers, the ogdoad or the ennead, and many more. The ogdoad, for example, consists of four pairs (dualism!) of abstractions of non-existence, which represent the primeval time.
Abstraction and personification
On the other hand these abstractions are taking shape (frogs, snakes, human figures) to make them responsive and conceivable. This contradiction can be found in other gods, too: Maat as an abstract concept, as a goddess and as a collection of individual rules.
Abstraction and language
How the capacity of abstraction influenced the language has not been studied yet. Abstract terms can be masculine or feminine as there is no neuter. They can be formed with, e.g. bw lit. "place" - bw nfr "the good" etc. - or tp lit. "head". Other abstractions are derived from numbers (ogdoad, ennead) and have a feminine suffix. Metaphors are result of an abstraction process, as an attribute of comparability must be found. The "m of predication" is not an identification of two things but expresses a relation of similarity between two things referring to a characteristic feature which is common to both: "The King is Mont" (lit. "the King is equal to Mont in reference to his ability to emerge victoriously").
Abstraction and art
We owe the architectural forms of pyramid and obelisk - which are valid forever as such - to the abstracting ability of the ancient Egyptians. The union of abstract patterns and concrete wealth of forms is also present in such strange creations as the block statues. In fact, every sculpture is balancing these two poles. Sculptures of the OK can be divided in two forms, a slim one and a stocky one which are the result of a typification process of many different individual forms. Representatives of foreign peoples are also shown in a typical manner.
Abstraction and the writing system
The signs are abstract representation of real objects, but in such a
typified manner that many can be recognized with ease. The capacity of
abstraction can clearly be seen in the relations between signs and phonemes
and the usage of the same sign as a representative of a consonantal sequence
for another word with the same sequence.
[Note added: The ongoing work of Orly Goldwasser about the Egyptian determinatives as a system of classifiers is one of the few studies devoted to this problem. (Orly Goldwasser: The Determinative System as a Mirror of World Organization, GM 170, 49-68 (1999))]
Limitations of the capacity of abstraction
The possible derivation of an alphabetic consisting of one-consonantal signs only was never realized, neither the development of the concrete signs to more abstract and simple forms (in the hieroglyphic script). Religious or historical inertia may be the cause for that.
Michael Tilgner
---
On the number side of his discussion, I find Otto's use of cardinal numbers, as a limitation, to be consistent with Alan Gardiner's point, stated in a context that did not explain the existance of rich Egyptian finite series, as the ancient texts report. For sure the early use of a strong weights and measures system in ancient Egypt offered standards for comparison that provided a strong intellectual
basis to Egyptian business/trade, 'estate' transfers and taxation.
Concerning the lunar calendar point, this issue has been discussed on EEF several times, and concluded to be deficient, as I recall. I also find that the ancient Egyptian calendar abstracted several forms of time, two being solar and sidereal, sidereal related to the annual returning of Sirius, with a scientific calendar that marked a 365 1/4 day year.
More importantly, Boyer's point concerning ciphered numerals was not mentioned by Otto. Had he done so, he may have found that all Western numeration (except for the Roman numeral system) has
followed the one-one mapping of numbers to symbols that took place in the Middle Kingdom, and written in hieratic script.
As I read the history of Egyptian abstractions, the early use of a strong numeration system preceded the emergence of writing. Numeration systems were in place 500 years or more before writing has been documented to have emerged (a situation that was also found in Sumer). For this reason, the hieroglyphic form of writing may not have improved its abstract structure to a major degree, rather than as Otto cited was caused by religious or historical inertia.
However, on the mathematics side of Egyptian abstractions major improvements in its structure and use of numbers were continually made. A short list would include:
1. the general use of prime numbers (a foundation of the modern fundamental theorem of arithmetic),
2. general statements of inverse tables (again using prime numbers in a manner than Babylonians and other ANE cultures did not achieve),
3. Mentally selected numbers
a. as seen in false position (a method that continued in use until 1700 AD or so, a period of over 4,000 years)
b. using duplation multiplication,
c. selecting divisors of numbers to always partition 2/p, as inverse tables report.
d. least common multiples (as red auxiliary numbers have long been evaluated) to select an optimal inverse table series.
4. Algebra
5. Geometry
6. Weights and Measures
Milo Gardner
The Bull Cult
A very thorough analysis on the subject of the bull cults of ancient Egypt. Yes, the Apis cult starts with Dynasty I, as documents from that era show. Also, yes, it was linked to Ptah. As to its fertility aspects, of that I am not so sure, but it is worth noting that the mother cow of the Apis was alsobrought to Memphis and enshrined. In the Late Period, I would also agree, that Serapis was derived from Osiris plus Apis cojoined by the Ptolemies. In the Late Period, the Apis did develop a funerary role, as he is
depicted on the foot ends of Late Period coffins, carrying the deceased into the Afterlife on his back. As for the Mnevis cult, although its deep antiquity is not well attested, it also became very important in the Ptolemaic Era. Recall that Cleopatra VII enhanced her image among the Egyptians when she came to Armant to partake in the burial of A Mnevis bull that had just died as she came to the throne.
Frank Joseph Yurco
A very thorough analysis on the subject of the bull cults of ancient Egypt. Most of your points were very well taken, but a few other notes. Yes, the Apis cult starts with Dynasty I, as documents from that era show. Also, yes, it was linked to Ptah. As to its fertility aspects, of that I am not so sure, but it is worth noting that the mother cow of the Apis was also brought to Memphis and enshrined. In the Late Period, I would also agree, that Serapis was derived from Osiris plus Apis cojoined by the Ptolemies.
In the Late Period, the Apis did develop a funerary role, as he is depicted on the foot ends of Late Period coffins, carrying the deceased into the Afterlife on his back. As for the Mnevis cult, although its deep antiquity is not well attested, it also became very important in the Ptolemaic Era. Recall that Cleopatra VII enhanced her image among the Egyptians when she came to Armant to partake in the burial of A Mnevis bull that had just died as she came to the throne.
Frank Joseph Yurco
The Writing Style
In a large part of this papyrus, while the writing in the columns is from right-to-left (the normal direction for writing) the columns themselves are arranged to be read from left-to-right. This seems to be the result of the scroll being unrolled from the left end, so the reader of the scribe Writing it would meet the columns left-to-right. Normally one would expect that the Writing within the columns would then also be left-to-right, but in this case, the habit Of writing the signs right-to-left seems to have been too strong. This leads to the question of how many scrolls were written to be unrolled from the left as opposed to the right. The Middle Kingdom texts all seem to be unrolled from the right.
Stephen Fryer
The included page is an example of the wrong way to write Ramses in hieroglyphics. For one thing, the symbols point left and the writing points right. For another thing, the wrong symbols are used. There are 2 complications in determining which direction is correct. One is that books often print inscriptions in the opposite direction from the original. The other is more devilish. Many photographs are reversed too. Have you ever taken a picture with a sign in the background and then noticed
that the sign comes out backwards in the photograph? I've never been to Egypt. I can't trust books and I can't trust photographs. In Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, on page 10, Budge answers this question.
"Hieroglyphic characters may be written in columns or in horizontal lines, which are sometimes to be read from left to right and sometimes from right to left. There was no fixed rule about the direction in
which the characters should be written, and as we find that in inscriptions which are cut on the sides of a door they usually face inwards, i.e.., towards the door, each group thus facing the other, the scribe and sculptor needed only to follow their own ideas in the arrangement and direction of the characters, or the dictates of symmetry. To ascertain the direction in which an inscription is to be read we must observe in which way the men, and birds, and animals face, and then read towards them....Hieratic is usually written in horizontal lines which are to be read from right to left, but in some papyri dating
from the XII th dynasty the texts are arranged in short columns."
On page xxix of the preface to Budge's translation of the Book of the Dead, he writes "According to M. Maspero the scribes of the VI th dynasty did not understand the texts which they were drafting, and in the XIXth dynasty the scribe of a papyrus now preserved at Berlin knew or cared so little about the text which he was copying that he transcribed the LXXVII th Chapter from the wrong end, and apparently never discovered his error although he concluded the chapter with its title."
Phil
Seperation of the Senteces
Still, I find the separation of sentences quite arbitrary or obscure. So when I think Im dealing with a subordinate clause I find later Is a separate (although connected) sentence. For example, in the first sentence:
1) iw ir.n n.i Hm.f xt nbt nfrt rx.n.f wi m imi-r kat(w) iqr r imi-r kat(w) nb n Ta.
Should it be: His majesty made for me all sorts of good things at learning , I was the best project supervisor among the project suprvisors in this land.
Or should it be two separate sentences?
I think their might be a rule or else Egyptians wrote in a very ambiguous fashion.
I wish there was an all-inclusive, simple answer to this. In the sentence you give here, the main clause starts with "iw" whereas subordinate clauses don't. However, just to complicate the issue, in extended passages of text you may find that other main clauses following one with "iw" don't have it,
because they are considered some sort of continuation of the first one. There is a similar sort of thing in Biblical Hebrew where the exact nature of a subordinate clause was left unspecified; however continuing sentences were strug together with a special form of "and."
For your purposes, at the moment, if a sentence begins with "iw" and contains verbs after the main one which are not introduced by "iw" they are the start of a subordinate clause. Please note that a subordinate clause can start with something like "iw=f" since the function of the "iw" there is simply to give something for the suffix pronoun to attach to.
Now you COULD translate that sentence as two separate sentences:
"His Majesty did all kinds of good things for me. He knew I was the best
public works overseer in the land."
However, that seems rather choppy in English, so we would probably make the second part a subordinate clause:
"his Majesty did all kinds of good things for me because he knew I was the best public works overseer in the land."
Note however that elementary school students do tend to write things in the form of separate simple sentences, with little or no use of subordinate clauses, and the meaning is still reasonably clear. Not all languages are as insistent as English on having explicit conjunctions to introduce clauses.
Stephen Fryer.
"Ancient Egyptian Astronomy",
Regarding the query about the names of the stars and constellations,these and many more can be found in "Ancient Whispers from Chaldea" byArthyr W. Chadbourne:
Star - Sba
Mercury - Sebgu
Mars - Sba aabti tcha pet
Venus - Sba tcha
Jupiter - Sba Shema
Saturn - Sba amenti tcha pet
Orion - Sah
Sirius - Sopdet
Except for the planets, a few stars (like Sirius), a few constellations (Orion, Ursa Major) and the Late Egyptian zodiacs, there are no reliable identifications with modern names.
Short of consulting this massive scholarly work (not easily available anyway !) I would recommend the following paper:
"Ancient Egyptian Astronomy",
by R. A. Parker, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A. 276, pages 51-65, 1974.
Talking about "the sky and its affairs", it might surprise most people "that to the ancient Egyptian they were of much less importance than terrestrial matters".
Indeed it is only from late contacts with the Babylonians that astrology was imported into Egypt. Then the (main) Decans, a chain of 36 star groups merely used for time reckoning, each one for a period of 10 days, were shifted to become "identified" with a subdivision of the Zodiacal signs into 3 Decans per sign.
Table 1, p 62, of Parker's paper, reproduced from III, pp 170-171, gives the (main) Decan names in Egyptian (transliteration) and in Greek, taken from 3 lists. There is little agreement between them. Parker concludes "that the decanal names were adopted merely to name the 10 degree divisions of the zodiac, and little if any attention was given to their actual location in the sky".
[By the way, it is worth recalling that not a single Solar or Lunar eclipse is ever reported in any of the numerous surviving records from the whole ancient Egyptian civilisation. This is a real wonder ! Chronology suffers much from this silence and must fall back on "New Moon" festivals and heliacal risings of Sirius, plagued with both mathematical and observation uncertainties, when scribal
carelessness in writing figures doesn't make this uncertainty even worse. Astronomy (or even mathematics) was not of great interest to the ancient Egyptian, essentially a wonderfully pragmatic person.]
It will be clear from this and many other examples from Neugebauer & Parker's more complete work that any identification of Egyptian names for stars, circumpolar constellations and decans is completely illusory except for a few:
spdt ("The Bright One") = Sothis (Greek) = Sirius (Latin);
sAH = Orion;
msxtyw ("The Foreleg") = Ursa Major (at least that part called the Wain in
English).
Also from the Pyramid Texts the following translation is undoubted:
mr nxA ("The Winding Waterway") = The Milky Way.
The reason is the small number of records and the fact that the few we have are not reliable. Their modern interpretations are evenmore fanciful to say the least.
In some of the Egyptian records, the artistic licence even crosses the bounds of the absurd: to wit the marvellously funny "antics" of Ursa Major -- see: "The Position of the Foreleg", in III, p 51 -- depicted in a
bull sarcophagus of granite from Kom Abu Yasin, Dyn. XXX, Nectanebo II, where "the drawings are executed so carelessly that they have lost any astronomical meaning". Neugebauer & Parker's comment is an understatement!
- of Jupiter :
Hr - tAS - tAwy rn=f : his name is Horus-who-bounds-the-Two-Lands,
sbA rsy (n) pt : southern star (of) the sky;
Hr - StA - tAwy rn=f Smsw n pt : his name is Horus-mystery-of-the-Two-Lands, follower of the sky;
Hr - wpS - tAwy rn=f : his name is Horus-who-illuminates-the-Two-Lands;
.. and other minor variants.
- of Saturn:
Hr - kA - pt rn=f : his name is Horus-the-Bull-of-the-sky,
sbA iAbty (var: imnty) DA pt : the eastern (var: western) star which crossesthe sky.
- of Mars:
Hr - Axty rn=f : his name is Horus-of-the-Horizon (i.e. Horakhti),
sbA iAbty (var: imnty) (n) pt : the eastern (var: western) star of the sky,
sqdd=f m xtxt : he travels backwards;
Hr - dS(r ) : Horus-the-red.
- of Mercury:
sbg(w) : ? [meaning unknown],
stS m wx(A) nTr m dwA(y)t : Seth in the evening twilight, a god in the morning twilight.
- of Venus:
DA : the crosser;
(pA) - ntr - dwA(y): the-morning-star (in demotic).
Comments on the planetary names:
" The names ... of Jupiter and Saturn contain nothing of significance astronomically. That Jupiter was "southern star of the sky" tells us nothing nor does Saturn as "eastern" or "western star". All planets move in the ecliptic and the outer planets can be equally eastern, southern or western stars at different times of the year.
With Mars we are better off. Its late name, "Horus-the-red", identifies it beyond question, though calling it earlier "eastern star" is without significance. Its other epithet, "he travels backwards", refers of course, to retrograde movement [when the Earth overtakes the planet in their motions around the Sun] but this is no more significant for Mars than for any other planet.
The Ramesside text which follows the name of Mercury is also illuminating, viz., "Seth in the evening twilight, a god in the morning twilight". This is conclusive proof that at least by the time of Ramses VI ... Mercury was known as both evening and morning star. As evening star it was Seth and so perhaps of malevolent nature. As morning star it was still a god but presumably beneficent or at least neutral. How early Egyptians recognized Mercury as both evening and morning star, we cannot tell.
Venus, too, was known as both evening and morning star as surely as Mercury but proof is lacking. The late depiction of the planet as a two-faced or two-headed god is probably indicative of this knowledge, but the earlier evidence is inconclusive. The name, "the crosser", may be interpreted as meaning the star which moves back and forth about the sun but this is not compelling."
Ren J-M Grognard
Male and Female representation
----Also, I have seen Maya as a translitteration for both a male and a female statue. To what extent were (some) names used by both sexes?
Some names were *basically* the same, but the female names had the feminine ending, like "Bak" and "Baket". Other names seemed to be given only to one sex. However, the example you gave is the same for both and I can supply another. A tomb was found in the Saqqara necropolis of a king's daughter, "Tia" and her husband of the same name. The New Kingdom seems to have a lot of names like this --"Raya, Yuya, Thuya, Ay, Bay" " and sometimes it's difficult to know whether they were actual names, nicknames or foreign names. In the 21st Dynasty, names got considerably longer and more complex, consisting of entire phrases like "Djed-Ptah-iwf-ankh" (Ptah says he shall live) and the kingly name "Psusennes" simply reflects the vocalization of "Pasebakhaenniut". (The star appears in the city).
I am interested in names, too, but everytime I try to access the "Prosopographia" data base of the CCER, I get the message saying "the software is being updated". This would be a wonderful resource, but perhaps they should leave it alone long enough to let people actually benefit from it.
Marianne Luban
--The numbers 7 and 8
Egyptians from the Middle Kingdom stressed #seven as an interesting number, and cited #13 as special in only one case. Scholars need only read the last RMP problem in which the medievel 'St. Ives' riddle
connects, and look at the value for 2/7 found in the RMP, Moscow Papyrus and elsewhere, to see how special #7 was to Ahmes, and his mentor from 200 + years earlier, as given by:
2/7 = 1/4 + 1/28
The form can be computed Hultsch's 1895 suggestion, as well as several other methods, in the algebraic identity form:
2/p - 1/A = (2A -p)/Ap
such that:
2/p = 1/A + (2A -p)/Ap
allowing a mental search for A, as a highly abundant number in the range:
p/2 < A < p
much as used in the 'false position' method first recorded in the Middle Kingdom.
Note that the 2/7th case offers a duplation method, as discussed by Shute and others. However the value A = 4 can certainly be mentally computed, as suggested above is shorter steps than any other method.
Concering the first 3-term series found in the RMP, 2/13, the number 13 also plays a central role in Egyptian number theory. Note that the alternative values for A that are available to solve:
2/13 = 1/A + (2A -13)/(13*A)
1. 7 would work, however, Ahmes never chose A to be a prime number.
2. 8 does work, as noted by
2/13 = 1/8 + (16 - 13)/(13*8)
with a 'trivial' partition of 16 - 13 = 3 given as ( 2 + 1), or
2/13 = 1/8 + (2 + 1)/(13*8)
= 1/8 + 1/52 + 1/104
as the RMP includes,
3. 9 could have been considered, but odd numbers were never used by Ahmes.
Note also A = 9 fails since (18 - 13) = 5 can not be found from the aliquot parts of 9 (3, 1).
4. 10 could have been considered, as given by:
2/13 = 1/10 + (20- 13)/(13*10)
= 1/10 + (5 + 2)/(13*10), since the aliquot parts of 10 = 5, 2, 1
= 1/10 + 1/26 + 1/65
but strangely it was not 'found by Ahmes'.
Can anyone suggest a reason for Ahmes using the 2/13th case selecting A = 8 rather than the relatively more optimal A = 10 case (other than the obviousduplation aspect)? Note that 2/43 used A = 42, a case that tends not to be based on a straight forward duplation, a result that Ahmes seemed to stress by including it in his famous 2/nth table.
Regards to #13, and its inverse 2/13, the first 3-term series found in the, and the 1/13 series in the EMLR student failed to compute correctly (line 17 of 26 series stated 1/13 = 3/49 rather than the correct 3/39 unit fraction series equivalent).
Milo Gardner
The Advised Books
a- One of the new books to which you may be referring is James P. Allen's "Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs" (ISBN 0521653126). I believe this is due out in February, 2000.
b- Well, a good place to start would be Collier & Manley, _How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs
c- The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani): The Book of Going Forth By Day by Ogden Goelet (Editor), Eva Von Dassow, Raymond O. Faulkner (Translator), James Wasserman (Designer)
It is US$19.96 from amazon.com.
d- Leo Depuydt FUNDAMENTALS OF EGYPTIAN GRAMMAR, PART 1: ELEMENTS.
(Frog Publishing, 1999; ISBN: 0-9674751-0-4; 906 pp.; $57.62)
Textbook grammar and systematic analysis of ancient Egyptian. For teaching, self-teaching, reference. Full answer key to the exercises. All tools included for attaining independent proficiency in reading hieroglyphic Egyptian and an in-depth, professional understanding of its grammatical structure. Part 1.
e- Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs
James P. Allen / Paperback / Cambridge University Press / February 2000 Our Price: $29.95
f- Studies in Egyptian Antiquities. A tribute to T.G.H. James, ed. W.V. Davies
BM Occasional Paper 123, London 1999. ISBN 0 86159 123
f- noticed the post about the website with directions on how to draw
various hieroglyphs. i also wanted to let people know about a book that i
have on the subject that is very helpful:
"Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Hieroglyphs"
by Henry George Fischer
