Ist ḥśjw-mw „Wasserzauber“ ein ‚Älteres Kompositum‘? Untersuchungen zu einem terminus technicus der ägyptischen lingua magica

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 77-129
Author(s):  
Roman Gundacker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Morphological Pattern ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Country Life ◽  
Formed Part

“Is ḥśjw-mw ‘water conjuration’ an ‘Älteres Kompositum’? Investigations into a terminus technicus of the Egyptian lingua magica” - Starting in the Old Kingdom, depictions of the work and dangers of herdsmen, who ford cattle and ward off crocodiles with magical gestures, formed part of the motif repertoire of country life and agriculture in many commoners’ tombs. The textual counterparts of such scenes are mentioned in seven literary, magical and religious texts from the Middle Kingdom to the Graeco-Roman Period. Regardless of the unity of meaning and context, the terminus technicus denoting those conjurations directed against crocodiles is written in three essentially different ways as ḥśjw-mw (Tale of a Herdsman, Hymn to Amun in Papyrus Leiden I 350, Cairo Love Songs, a magical papyrus in Budapest, Florentine Mythological Handbook), ḥśjw-m-mw (CT 836) and śḥśjw-m-mw (Magical Papyrus Harris). When compared to graphic peculiarities of ‘Ältere Komposita’, ḥśjw-m-mw (CT 836) and śḥśjw-m-mw (Magical Papyrus Harris) can be identified as phonetic writings, and the attestation in the Tale of a Herdsman, which exhibits the peculiar insertion of a “boat” (Gardiner P.1), as an unetymological writing. Consequently, all seven tokens can be assigned to a single morphological pattern, ḥśjw-mw ‘water conjuration’, which, tentatively, can be revocalised *ḥĭśjắw-măw.

Mathematical Texts (I): The Mathematical Training of Scribes

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Imhausen
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Mathematics ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Mathematical Procedure ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mathematical Problems ◽  
Mathematical Texts

This chapter discusses mathematical texts that originated from the Middle Kingdom. While this may well be caused by the vagaries of preservation, it might be that it reflects the actual situation, that is, that mathematical texts of the kind that we have from the Middle Kingdom did not exist in earlier periods. With the reestablishment of central power by the king in the Middle Kingdom also came about a complete new organization of the administrative apparatus that was designed to be much less independent than it had been at the end of the Old Kingdom. And this may well have entailed the organization of teaching mathematics to the future scribes in a centrally organized style, with prescribed problems and their solutions. The chapter considers extant hieratic mathematical texts, mathematical procedure texts, and types of mathematical problems.

The Wadi Zone Campus, Citadel, and C3 Bath

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Major Area ◽  
Military Base ◽  
Open Ground ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Military Control ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple ◽  
And Training

From the junction of H and 8th Sts, which gave access to the twin main axes of the military base zone on the plateau, H St led S to the bulk of the civil town and ultimately to the Palmyrene Gate, the steppe plateau W of the city, and the roads W to Palmyra and NW up the Euphrates to Syria. The fourth side of the crossroads followed a curving course SE, down into the inner wadi, then snaking through the irregularly laid-out old lower town to the now-lost River Gate, portal to the Euphrates and its plain. Of most immediate significance is that the Wadi Ascent Road also linked the plateau military zone with what can now be seen as another major area of military control, in the old Citadel, and on the adjacent wadi floor. The N part of the wadi floor is now known to have accommodated two military-built temples, the larger of which, the A1 ‘Temple of the Roman Archers’, was axial to the long wadi floor, which in the Roman period appears to have comprised one of the largest areas of open ground inside the city walls. This is interpreted as the campus, or military assembly and training ground, extension of which was commemorated in an inscription found in the temple. In 2011, what is virtually certainly a second military temple was found in the wadi close by the first, built against the foundation of the Citadel. This is here referred to as the Military Zeus Temple. Behind the Temple of the Roman Archers was a lane leading from the Wadi Ascent Road to the N gate of the Citadel. It helped define a further de facto enclosure, effectively surrounded by other military-controlled areas and so also presumed to have been in military hands. The Citadel itself, while in Roman times already ruinous on the river side due to cliff falls, still formed part of the defences. Moreover the massive shell of its Hellenistic walls now also appears to have been adapted to yet more military accommodation, some of it two storeys or higher.

The Planets in Ancient Egypt

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Friedrich Quack
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Maximum Power ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Late Period ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Night Sky

The five visible planets are certainly attested to in Egyptian sources from about 2000 bce. The three outer ones are religiously connected with the falcon-headed god Horus, Venus with his father Osiris, and Mercury with Seth, the brother and murderer of Osiris. Clear attestations of the planets are largely limited to decoration programs covering the whole night sky. There are a number of passages in religious texts where planets may be mentioned, but many of them are uncertain because the names given to the planets are for most of them not specific enough to exclude other interpretations. There may have been a few treatises giving a more detailed religious interpretation of the planets and their behavior, but they are badly preserved and hardly understandable in the details. In the Late Period, probably under Mesopotamian influence, the sequence of the planets as well as their religious associations could change; at least one source links Saturn with the Sun god, Mars with Miysis, Mercury with Thot, Venus with Horus, son of Isis, and Jupiter with Amun, arranging the planets with those considered negative in astrology first, separated from the positive ones by the vacillating Mercury. Late monuments depicting the zodiac place the planets in positions which are considered important in astrology, especially the houses or the place of maximum power (hypsoma; i.e., “exaltation”). Probably under Babylonian influence, in the Greco-Roman Period mathematical models for calculating the positions and phases of the planets arose. These were used for calculating horoscopes, of which a number in demotic Egyptian are attested. There are also astrological treatises (most still unpublished) in the Egyptian language which indicate the relevance of planets for forecasts, especially for the fate of individuals born under a certain constellation, but also for events important for the king and the country in general; they could be relevant also for enterprises begun at a certain date. There is some reception of supposedly or actually specific Egyptian planet sequences, names and religious associations in Greek sources.

Sheep and Sheep-Herders in South Africa

Africa ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 432-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Willcox
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Hair Sheep ◽  
South West ◽  
South West Africa ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphIn a recent paper Mr. C. K. Cooke, F.S.A., discusses the questions of the introduction of sheep into Africa and their arrival in southern Africa (Cooke, 1965).Mr Cooke quotes Zeuner's conclusion (Zeuner, 1963) ‘that the first sheep in Africa were screw-horned hair sheep from Turkestan or Persia which reached lower Egypt about 5000 B.C. and Khartoum by 3300 B.C. This breed disappeared with the Middle Kingdom when it was replaced by a wool sheep and the fat-tailed sheep reached Africa only from the Roman period.’ Zeuner further asserts thatOne breed of sheep descended from the Egyptian hair-sheep had reached South-West Africa before the arrival of the Europeans. In these animals the profile is convex, the eyes are placed high on the skull and close to the drooping ears. The rams carry thick horns and a long ruff on the throat.

Precious-Metal Polychromy in Egypt in the time of Tutankhamun

2001 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Schorsch
Keyword(s):  
Precious Metal ◽  
Precious Metals ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Monetary Value ◽  
Eighteenth Dynasty

Gold and silver appear in Egypt at least as early as the Predynastic Period, and remained thereafter in use for the manufacture of ritual and funerary objects and personal possessions. On occasion, the ancient metalworker or his patron would choose to combine them in the manufacture of an objet de vertu: a jewel, a vessel, a royal coffin. The earliest uses of gold and silver, and electrum—a naturally occuring alloy of the two—together can be described as random, as the juxtapositions appear to have no meaning in terms of relative monetary value or visual design, and to have no colouristic or symbolic associations. During the Old Kingdom there appear the first objects that use precious metals systematically for their contrasting colours, a practice that becomes more widespread in the Middle Kingdom. The greatest sophistication in the use of precious metals can be documented during the second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty, particularly in the time of Tutankhamun, when gold—including alloys that are reddish or have been intentionally coloured red—silver and electrum, were used together also to exploit their inherent colours and to evoke symbolic meaning.

Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 794-808
Author(s):  
Sandra Lippert
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Law Courts

The chapter gives a brief diachronic survey of ancient Egyptian law, covering the period from the Old Kingdom to the Third Intermediate (c.2686–664 bc). The article provides discussion of what we know about ancient Egyptian law during the pharaonic period, including legal regulations and practices that can be assembled from various textual sources; types and uses of legal documents; and the composition and workings of law courts. [Note that coverage of Egyptian law from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty to the Roman period (c.664 bc–ad 394) is provided in another OHO article—Lippert 2016, for details of which, see the bibliography.]

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