Decipherment

Day 16: Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Dr. Andrew M. Byrd

Review

Think back to Tuesday’s lecture. How did the following lead to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs?
- Cartouches
- Coptic
- Rosetta Stone
What is the different between hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic?

Review: Ptolmes & Cleopatra

Famous Leader

How do hieroglyphs work?

Very similar to Sumerian cuneiform…

Logograms
Phonograms
Determinatives
Semantic Complements
Phonetic Complements

Logograms

/r’/ ‘sun, day’

Logograms

/pr/ ‘house’

Phonograms

Determinatives

Semantic Complements

Phonological Complements

Biggest Difference…

2…

3…

Linear Orientation

Aesthetic Rearrangement

Actual Text

Phonetic Complements

Inventing Egyptian Phonograms

How were phonograms invented?

Just like Sumerian! (And how was that?)

Inventing phonograms

Logograms

/r’/ ‘sun, day’

/pr/ ‘house’

Logograms –> Phonograms

/r’/ ‘sun, day’

/pr/ ‘house’

Does something seem off?
Is there something missing in Egyptian words?

Why Consonantograms?

Egyptian morphemes are phonemically composed only of consonants.
- Triconsonantal – n f r ‘good, complete’
- Biconsonantal – p r ‘house’

Why Consonantograms?

Egyptian speakers would provide grammatical and lexical modifications to these roots by providing different vowels
- This is called ablaut

nafir ‘good’ (masc.) vs. nafra-t ‘good’ (feminine + t suffix)

Ablaut in English

bear vs. bore vs. burden
see vs. saw vs. seen vs. sight

Ablaut in English

sing = present tense
sang = past tense
sung = past participle
____ = noun

Identifying Ablaut Forms

drink, drank, drench + ______ ‘past participle’
food, fed + _____ ‘give food’
rise, rear ‘make rise’ + _____ ‘past tense’
sit, sat + ______ ‘make sit’ + ______ ‘a place to sit’

Ablaut allows English to be an abjad?

drw
- “Drw th pctr!”
- “Thy drw th pctr tdy.”
- “H drw th pctr ystrdy.”

Abjads

Let’s Read This Sentence

Reading from right to left (as is done in Egyptian), what does this say?

tfl t thgr mrf trw yht djb ctmS ht N.

Activity

Inventing the Alphabet

Today (and likely some next time), we’ll see:

The English alphabet – and most writing systems used around the world – go back to hieroglyphs

Alphabet

Semitic Abjad

What is Semitic?

branch of Afro-Asiatic, distantly related to Egyptian Semitic
notable languages:
- Arabic
- Hebrew
- Aramaic
- Babylonian & Akkadian

How did the abjad come about?

Highly unlikely that the abjad arose from simple stimulus diffusion;
- much more likely that it evolved from another writing system

How did the abjad come about?

The Levant was a crossroads between two important empires

Unlikely that Semitic Abjad from cuneiform…

Cuneiform is logosyllabic;
- abjad represents only consonants
Plus, just look at it!

How about Egyptian?

They had logograms, determinatives, phonetic complements, two-C characters, 3-C characters, etc.

How about Egyptian?

But also:

Semitic Abjad

“Egyptian for Dummies”

But the Semitic mercenaries and delta dwellers who created the Semitic alphabet were not interested in maintaining the old fuddy-duddy Egyptian tradition.
Some Semitic speakers must have acquired at least some literacy in Egyptian, and they must have understood the benefits of writing

“Egyptian for Dummies”

But it’s clear not all of them knew Egyptian, and they certainly didn’t know the complex logophonographic system that was set in place by the Egyptians, which only a few Egyptians had been able to master

“Egyptian for Dummies”

So, as Amelia Gnanadesikan writes: they created their own bare-bones set of uniconsonantal signs, modeled after the Egyptian ones.

This was the “For Dummies” version of writing, stripped of all complexity and redundancy.

From Egyptian to Semitic

Acrophony

The value of Semitic symbols, like their Egyptian precursors, were derived through acrophony

Acrophony

When the value of an iconic writing character is taken from the first sound of the name of the object it represents

Acrophony

An Acrophonic Greeting

Acrophony

Following the principles of acrophony, what does this say?

Acrophony in Proto-Canaanite

The symbols and the acrophonic principle were borrowed from Egyptian – the sound values of the graphemes were not!

< pr > → < b >, Semitic bēt ‘house’
< n > → < m >, Semitic mem ‘water’
< ɟ > → < n >, Semitic nahas ‘snake’
< r > → < ʕ > , Semitic ʕayin ‘eye’

Acrophony in Proto-Canaanite

Progression of the Semitic Abjad

The first Semitic speakers to use the abjad are speakers of “Proto-Canaanite”, beginning around 1700 bce
These speakers worked in the Egyptian mines and had relatives living in Middle-Bronze-Age Palestine

Progression of the Semitic Abjad

We’ve only got a few inscriptions, all quite short Initially the number of letters within the abjad was 27 – reduced to 22 by the 13th c.
The linear orientation was originally anything goes:
- L → R
- R → L
- vertical columns
- horizontal / vertical boustrophedon

Proto-Sinaitic / Proto-Canaanite script

Oldest text: Wadi el Hol, 1800 BCE, undeciphered

Which letters can you identify?

Lineage of Semitic Writing Systems

Phoenician

In 1050 BCE the Semitic people in the northern Levant became known as the Phoenicians
- They were important traders in the Mediterranean and founded a number of colonies, - most notably Carthage off the coast of North Africa (present-day Tunisia)

Phoenician

Written R → L and the script has lost its iconic quality entirely Phoenician evolved into Punic, with the latest inscription attested in 200 ce

Phoenician inscription of Aḥiram

The Alphabet

Gnanadesikan:

“The alphabet has been touted as one of humankind’s greatest inventions – and not without cause. Equally, though, the alphabet is a monument to human stupidity and hidebound conservatism. Originally conceived as a dumbed-down version of writing for the illiterate, it was simple enough to spread easily from one language to the next; however, it was rarely adapted thoughtfully to the new language. (G 143)

Origins of the Greek Alphabet

The Semitic abjad was probably brought to Greece by Phoenician traders
It’s the first application of the Semitic consonantal alphabet to a non-Semitic language.

Phoenician Abjad → Greek Alphabet

Phoenician Traders

Greek Alphabet < Phoenician Abjad

They look extremely similar.

Greek Alphabet < Phoenician Abjad

The order of the letters is pretty much the same.

Where did this order originate?

Ugaritic, ca. 1300 BCE

Greek Alphabet < Phoenician Abjad

The letter names are basically the same.

Greek Alphabet < Phoenician Abjad

Names actually mean something in Semitic, but nothing in Greek:
- ’aliph = ox
- bēt = house
- gimel = camel
- waw = crook

Greek Alphabet < Phoenician Abjad

The Greeks called their alphabet:
- φοινικεῖα γράμματα ‘Phoenician letters’ [phojnikeja grammata]
- καδμεῖα γράμματα ‘Cadmean letters’ [kadmeja grammata]
- Cadmus = legendary creator of alphabet who just happened to be Phoenician

Problems

The date of borrowing of the Greek alphabet is quite problematic:
- although the earliest Greek text dates to the 8th c. bce, the earliest form of Greek writing most resembles Phoenician writing from the 11th c. bce
- Shapes of Letters & Boustrophedon = 11th c. Phoenician

Why the gap?

We can always say that the early Greeks wrote on “perishable materials”, but this is an unfalsifiable argument!
So scholars keep on digging for those older texts.