The Writing and Language of Ancient Egypt* Khaled Daoud he civilization of Ancient Egypt existed of the original corpus and partly because the Tbetween around 5500 BCE and 30 BCE. writings only preserve those things the Egyptians It occupied the area of the valley and Delta of the themselves thought were important. They do, River Nile northward from its First Cataract in however, give us a point of interaction with the the north-east corner of Africa. With desert to minds of the Ancient Egyptians. (Fig. 1) the west, east, and south and sea to the north Ancient Egyptian as an Afro-asiatic language and further east, the Nile Valley delineated the Egyptian state. The land was rich in all kinds of Ancient Egyptian is a member of the Afro- resources including abundant fish, birds, wild and asiatic family of languages, a family to which domesticated animals, many varieties of stone in many of the other ancient and modem languages the desert quarries, and metals, especially gold, in of the Near East and of North Africa belong. The the eastern wastelands. Most importantly there main branches of Afro-asiatic are: was a flood which invigorated the agricultural 1. Ancient Egyptian (with its descendant lands every year with fresh mud. The people of Coptic). Egypt have left behind monuments and objects, 2. Semitic languages including ancient. Akkadian many of them covered in the writing now known (later: Babylonian and Assyrian), Eblaite, as Egyptian hieroglyphs. They used this pictorial Amorite, various Canaanite dialects (Ugariric, writing system to write down their language and Phoenician, Hebrew), Aramaic and Syriac, record aspects of their culture. The information Ethiopic (including Ge’ez and Amharic), from the writing tells us something about how the Arabic (Sabaean, Safaidc, Nabataean, Egyptians governed their land and people, about Himyaridc, Qur’anic Arabic); modern: Arabic their beliefs, and about their hopes and dreams. (in numerous dialect forms), Amharic (and Though we can read hieroglyphs this does not other Ethiopic languages), Hebrew. mean that we know every thing there is to know 3. (Libo-) Berber languages including: Tuarcg, about Ancient Egypt, partly because the writings Shilish, Tamaright. have survived accidentally and so are a fraction 24 The Writing and Language of Ancient Egypt (Fig. 1) Map of Egypt. 25 Journey of writing In Egypt 4. Cushitic languages including: Bedja. Saho- has focused on establishing word correspondences Afar, Somali, Oromo. (‘isoglosses’) between the various Afroasiatic 5. Chadic languages: principally Hausa. languages, for example: 6. Omotic languages (disputed). Egyptian ink (read ‘anek’, Coptic anok) ‘I’, Oromo ana, Hausa ni, Tamazight nekk, Somali The comparative study of this language family aniga, Arabic ana, Akkadian anaku, Eblaite and the study of the place of Ancient Egyptian a(n)na. Egyptian xnt ‘face, front’, Hausa hancii within it is hampered by differences in knowledge ‘nose’, Arabic khanna ‘speak nasally’. of these languages: some have a long recorded history and have been studied intensively (the Examining early textual evidence Semitic languages), whereas others are only now Writing in the tombs of the Early Dynastic becoming well known (e.g. the Oromo languages Period at Abydos was used carefully, however, the of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia) or have a much tombs seem to be miniature versions of the houses shorter and more scanty written tradition (the of the kings and stored all his requirements for the Berber languages). At present Ancient Egyptian afterlife. These ranged from food and clothing to has no known close cognate within the Afro-asiatic oil for anointing plus imported goods worthy of group (and is assigned alone to its own branch in a king in the afterlife, so that his royal status was the language family). apparent to the gods. It was thought vital to record Although various languages have become the ownership of these items so that there could extinct in this group (including Ancient Egyptian) be no doubt of it. It was also necessary to record and others are now spoken in areas where they the quantities and provenance of the goods so that previously were not (e.g. Arabic), it seems likely the living would know how much had been placed that these languages have been spoken very in the tomb and therefore removed from the real roughly in the same broad areas at least since the storerooms of the palace. This suggests that the so-called ‘agricultural revolution’ and its initial tomb records would then be compared with the spread in the millennia following the end of the palace magazine records and the two tallied so that last ice age. On the basis of comparative work, the debits from the real stores could be accounted it seems clear that the various language-branches for. The royal stores no doubt comprised goods had been distinct for some considerable time at from all the king’s domains and trading contacts the dawn of their written history (c. 3000-2500 and each of those places must have had its own BCE). Egypt lies at the juncture of the two main accounts recording the taxes and tributes due geographical areas for Afro-asiatic -North Africa to the king, what was actually paid and when it and the Near East- and Ancient Egyptian displays was sent to the residence. The tomb is the tip of some of the lexical and grammatical properties the iceberg of a huge state organization and the found in its Near Eastern and/or North African use of writing in it hints at the huge accounting neighbors. Much of the comparative work to date machinery at work in the background. 26 The Writing and Language of Ancient Egypt It may seem less than glamorous to suggest that the invention of writing happened for taxation purposes, but whether material is recorded for the warehouse or for the afterlife, it is part of the same process. The tomb too was a focus for the display of the cult practices surrounding the dead king and was not only the means for transferring him to another sphere of existence with the ancestor gods, but provided a restricted arena for the display of his power and status. In this sphere, the tomb architecture funnels life-restoring power to the king’s spirit, whose existence is assured by the presence of hieroglyphs naming him. Label of Den from Abydos (Fig. 2) Den was one of the first great kings of Egypt, around 2800 bc. He ruled a united kingdom centred on the capital city at Ineb-Hedj, ‘White Walls’ (Memphis), and his tomb at Abydos is a good guide to how much written material might have been produced at that time. At the entrance of the tomb were two monolithic stelae inscribed (Fig. 2) Label of king Den. © Trustees of the British Museum. stone slabs bearing only the name of the king. It was written inside the serekh-rectangle, with a Abydos shows how far the use of hieroglyphs and falcon representing the god Horus standing upon pictures had come up to this point. The wooden it. Inside are the two hieroglyphs spelling the label (British Museum 32.650) measures 8cm king’s name: a human hand and a zig-zag water by 5.4cm and the text on it reads from right to sign. Inside the tomb many inscribed labels and left. At the top right of the label is the attaching jar sealings were found and they also record a hole and the tall vertical sign at the very right is a second name of the king which is read either as notched palm rib meaning: Khasety or Semty. ‘year’, so this reads: ‘the Year of ...’. Some of the labels record ‘events’ or ‘festivals’ in the reign of the king and served as a yearly The scene at the top right shows a account (annal) of his rule. They record the kind figure seated on a stepped platform inside a of living myth that is the life of a successful king. booth. He wears a White Crown and holds a flail A close examination of one of Den’s labels from of office. In front of him a figure wearing the 27 Journey of writing In Egypt Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and anointing oil or offering oil. The tablet records holding a flail and rod is running around two ‘The year of a Sed-festival, Opening the festival of sets of hemispherical markers. The event is the the Beautiful Doorway’, and perhaps something Sed-festival, when the king proved his fitness and connected with the building of the king’s palace. strength after a period of time in office by running As is clear from this part-interpretation, the signs around a marked course. have much information to give and act as a fully The scene below is less clear but seems to show fledged writing system. a walled enclosure containing several hieroglyphs, Altogether fragments of thirty-one such ‘annal’ perhaps the name of a town. To the left is what was labels are known from Den’s tomb and they originally interpreted as a small squatting figure mention events such as the ‘Journey of the Reput of a woman with several hieroglyphs in front of on the Lake’ or ‘Capture of the wild bull near Buto’. her which may be her name. Behind her is a man There is a clear tradition of recording events both wearing a head-dress and carrying an oar and a with cultic and economic benefits. Other inscribed staff. Three hieroglyphs above him show a vessel objects were found in Den’s tomb including stelae with human legs, a bolt of cloth, and possibly a with the names of people buried with the king, vulture sign.