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Egyptian Perspectives on Writing and Grammar in the Late Period and Greco- Roman Period

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Egyptian Perspectives on Writing and Grammar in the Late Period and Greco- Roman Period CONCEPTIONS OF LANGUAGE: EGYPTIAN PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING AND GRAMMAR IN THE LATE PERIOD AND GRECO- ROMAN PERIOD by Katherine Eastwick Davis A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland October, 2016 © 2016 Katherine Eastwick Davis All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the Egyptians’ consciousness of their own language and scripts as a structured system and its influence on the scribal culture from 700 BCE to 300 CE. During this period, while Greek and Demotic, and their attendant scripts, developed into the everyday languages, scribes still employed archaic Middle Egyptian and the classical hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts to varying degrees within in a priestly environment. Through an investigation of technical texts and their larger scribal and cultural context, I contend that Egyptian scribes were aware of their own language and scripts as a structured system and exploited that knowledge in contemporaneously produced texts. In the first part, I examine the grammatical and alphabetic texts in demotic. Based on their development and internal organization, they reveal an awareness of syntactic and phonetic units. Moreover, by contextualizing their role in the larger process of scribal education, I show that forerunners of these exercises can be seen in New Kingdom scribal education and that they do not in fact reflect Greek influence, as some scholars have suggested. In the second part, I analyze onomastica and sign lists and their role in the elite scribal activities of the House of Life. These lists transmit not just a list of things, but also information regarding orthography, lexical nuances and parallels, and phonetic value. Both this information and the actual content of the list, I claim, constituted priestly knowledge. There was also a practical aspect to these lists, in that they provided raw material for the creation and adaptation of texts. Thus, by breaking the language and writing system down into the basic units of words and signs, organizing those units in structured lists, and providing explanations for ii entries, scribes had the resources to interact effectively with both the everyday demotic language and archaic texts in Middle Egyptian and the classical hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts. Moreover, elite temple scribes, I argue, were actively engaged in mastering and transmitting the complex relationship between visual and auditory meaning across script and language stage in order to include wordplay in contemporaneous produced demotic, hieratic, and hieroglyphic texts. Dissertation Committee: Advisor: Richard Jasnow Second Reader: Betsy Bryan Chair: Rochelle Tobias Readers: Paul Delnero Stephen Campbell iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of numerous people. First and foremost, I want to thank my advisor, Richard Jasnow, for his tireless mentorship, advice, and encouragement. I am a better scholar for his patient criticism and insightful observations. I also must thank Betsy Bryan whose guidance and careful questioning so often gave me clarity when I was lost. Similarly Paul Delnero was always available to answer my questions and offer his own invaluable perspective on language and scholarship. I owe my thanks to my other committee members, Rochelle Tobias and Stephen Campbell, whose astute questions and careful reading clarified my own thoughts. Finally I want to thank James P. Allen, who early on encouraged my studies and inspired me to pursue further research into ancient Egypt. I have received generous financial support from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins. Funding from the University of Tübingen allowed me to spend a wonderful year there as a Teach@Tübingen fellow. I am deeply grateful to Christian Leitz for his warm welcome in Tübingen, as well as his advice and suggestions on my research. To my friends in Tübingen: Susanne Beck, Alexa Rickert, Emmanuel Jambon, and Audrey Eller, I cannot thank you enough for putting up with me in the last busy months of writing. Several scholars have also generously shared their unpublished work or brought key texts to my attention and I am deeply indebted to them: Emily Cole, Sandra Lippert, Günter Vittmann and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert. I have had the incredible good fortune to spend my graduate school years with a wonderful group of fellow students: Maggie Bryson, Ashley Fiutko, Marina Escolano- iv Poveda, Meredith Fraser, Christopher Brinker, and Gaultier Mouron. They have always been there to lend a hand, throw a party, watch football, or just hang out. Perhaps most importantly, I must thank Katie, who has been my best friend, roommate, study partner, cooking buddy, and so much more these past six years. I would never have survived all the craziness without you. Finally I must thank my family for all their love and patience. I am so grateful to my parents who have unstintingly supported my pursuit of Egyptology and to my brother who has been my partner in the highs and lows of academia. They have put up with years of me babbling incomprehensibly about grammar at the dinner table. It is to them that this dissertation is dedicated. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................1 Chapter 2. Grammar and Alphabetic Organization in Demotic ........................................28 Chapter 3. Scribal Education .............................................................................................91 Chapter 4. Onomastica and Sign Lists .............................................................................157 Chapter 5. House of Life ..................................................................................................188 Epilogue ...........................................................................................................................213 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................217 Curriculum Vitae .............................................................................................................244 vi ABBREVIATIONS ÄAT Ägypten und Altes Testament AEO Ancient Egyptian Onomastica ASAE Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte BACE Bulletin of the Australian Centre of Egyptology BdÉ Bibliothèque d’Étude BIFAO Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale CDD Chicago Demotic Dictionary CdE Chronique d’Égypte CNIP Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, Publications Glossar Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar GM Göttinger Miszellen IFAO Institut français d'archéologie orientale JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies LÄ Lexikon der Ägyptologie. Helck, Otto, and Westendorf, 7 volumes LingAeg Lingua Aegyptia MDAIK Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis OIMP Oriental Institute Museum Publications OIP Oriental Institute Publications OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta Ptolemaic Lexikon A Ptolemaic Lexikon: a lexicographical study of the texts in the Temple of Edfu. Penelope Wilson. Leuven: Peeters, 1997. RdÉ Revue d’Égyptologie SAK Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur SAOC Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization TM Trismegistos (http://www.trismegistos.org/) Wb. Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache. Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow. Seven volumes (and five volumes Belegstellen). Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1971. UPZ Urkunden der Ptolemäerzeit (ältere Funde), ed. U. Wilcken ZÄS Zeitschrift für ägyptische sprache und altertumskunde vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1—Typical Use of Native Egyptian Language Stages and Scripts ......................27 Table 2.1—Constructions in Grammatical Exercises ........................................................41 Table 2.2—Egyptian Grammatical Texts 700 BCE-300 CE .............................................87 Table 2.3—Egyptian Alphabetic Texts 700 BCE-300 CE ................................................89 Table 3.1—Sign Exercises .................................................................................................97 Table 3.2—Lists of Royal Names ......................................................................................98 Table 3.3—Lists of Personal Names .................................................................................99 Table 3.4—Assorted Lists .................................................................................................99 Table 3.5—Literary Exercises in Demotic ......................................................................150 Table 3.6—Writing Exercises in Demotic .......................................................................152 Table 3.7—List Exercises in Demotic .............................................................................154 Table 3.8—Arithmetic/Mathematical Exercises in Demotic ...........................................156 viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION The Egyptian language survived for thousands of years, from the earliest instances of writing
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