Journal issue

“The block-statue of Hr-jb=s-n=f: Egyptian Museum Cairo JE 37141”
Publication of the block-statue of Hr-jb=s-n=f (Egyptian Museum Cairo JE 37141) found on 6 of June 1904 in Karnak Cachette. The owner of the statue is the Prophet of Amun-Re, jrj-Sn in his month, jrj-ps, wab-priest of the temple of Mut, and TAy-scribe of Amun temple. On the basis of stylistic features, examination of text and orthography, the statue can be dated to the 30th Dynasty or the Early Ptolemaic Period.

The presence of names and words from the Beja language in Egyptian texts is well-documented from a number of studies, which have demonstrated contact between Beja speakers and Egyptians since before the Middle Kingdom (c. 2050 BCE). This would mean that Beja and Egyptian have a shared history of over 3,000 years until the termination of Coptic as a spoken tongue. But this supposition of a monolithic Beja language as the correlate of the historical ‘Medjay’ is partly an oversimplification of our linguistic evidence. This study aims to assess and problematize some of our suppositions on the nature of Beja and Cushitic materials in Middle Egyptian records by using case studies of personal names on the sarcophagus of the ‘royal-wife’ and ‘priestess of Hathor’ Aashayet.

This paper aims to analyse the È@m.n-t|/tw(=f) form by means of the historical linguistic method. First of all, it will be argued on syntactic grounds that È@m.n-t|/tw(=f) is the Egyptian impersonal construction with an indefinite subject denoting a generic and defocused agent corresponding to the use of “one” in English, “on” in French, “man” in German, “uno/si” in Italian and “uno/se” in Spanish. The historical development of È@m.n-t|/tw(=f) in texts from the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2686–1650 B.C.) will then be studied and its use in Middle Kingdom textual genres will be examined under a synchronic perspective. Finally, new syntactic uses of È@m.n-t|/tw(=f) will be discussed.

“Indirect and Direct Evidence for the ‘Dreisilbengesetz’. Reflections on the History of the Ancient Egyptian Language with Particular Attention to the Names Nefertiti and Nefertari as well as a Peculiar Spelling of the Toponym Memphis”
The greater part of the Egyptian language’s history down to the Coptic era is marked by a strict syllable structure and stress law, which only allowed for word stress on the penultimate or last syllable of any given word (“Zweisilbengesetz”). However, masculine and feminine nouns, singular and plural forms, base nouns and nisbe adjectives arranged in pairs have traditionally served as key witnesses for the reconstruction of an earlier stage of the Egyptian language, which was characterised by the ability to form words with word stress on any of the three last syllables (“Dreisilbengesetz”). A set of peculiar compound nouns (“Ältere Komposita”), which, when revocalised, display word stress on the antepenultimate syllable, is often regarded as evidence in favour of the “Dreisilbengesetz”, but, to date, there is a want of definitive proof therefor. In this article, the morphology of the personal names nfr.t-jrj.t “Nefertari” and nfr.t-jjj.tj “Nefertiti” is analysed with the result that they comprised the adjective *nắfĭrăt, which here, under peculiar circumstances, evolved to *năft-, but else to *nắfră(t). A hitherto largely unrecognised attestation of the “Älteres Kompositum” mn-nfr “Memphis”, which looks as if it contained the noun mnw “monument”, is identified as a sportive writing in order to indicate an actual pronunciation *mĭ́năfă(r). Either of these discoveries strongly supports the existence of the “Dreisilbengesetz” during the Old Kingdom, but further discussion reveals that, though this fits the elite idiom of the Memphite region, some parts of Upper Egypt had already advanced towards the “Zweisilbengesetz”. With this to start, the syllable structure rules during the time of the “Dreisilbengesetz” and processes of vowel elision as well as further prerequisites for the transition to the “Zweisilbengesetz” are investigated.

“Notes on the Coptic dialect H”
The sole witness of the little-known Coptic dialect H still remains unpublished, but quite a bit of information is nevertheless scattered in various published sources and is assembled here, including a glossary of almost 600 lexical items provided at the end of this paper. The evidence of lexical and morphological isoglosses shows that H does not belong to the Fayyumic dialect cluster, as has been suggested, but must be considered a late, vulgar offshoot of Sahidic, possibly of a northern subvariety of Sahidic. A number of sound laws and morphological issues are discussed, which also bear on the understanding of Coptic dialects other than H.

“‘Wordplays’ and ritual acts. About relationship between Pyramid Texts, Offering lists and tombs’ iconography”
Whatever the name they bear, the so-called “Wordplays” in Pyramid Texts (PT) have been commented and interpreted as epigraphic peculiarities with literary and ritual significance. In fact, their performativity is indubitable, as is their relationship with Offering lists that first appear in private tombs. But the depth of this puns – mostly phonetic – has not been enough underlined, their phonological analysis being usually superficial. Moreover, if the connection between PT and private iconography is sometimes noticed, a systematic study of the royal formulas can shed new lights on their relation with the depicted rites. This paper aims at expose the variety of phonetic and semantic wordplays attested in the offering formulas of the PT, chapters that take the items of traditional offering lists and tables. Then I will submit new hypotheses about their link with the iconography that usually accompany these lists.
Keywords: Pyramids Texts; Iconography; Offering lists; Funerary rituals; Wordplays; Phonology

Earlier (Old and Middle) Egyptian object complement structures are shown to form a hierarchy of increasing semantic integration with the matrix clause that directly corresponds to growing morpho-syntactic integration between the two. This is argued to provide a prima facie case of the so-called iconicity of cohesion that appears to be a major factor in organising the grammar of complementation in languages generally.

“Regarding Sandhi Phenomena in Earlier Egyptian. Considerations on the Occurrence in funerary Texts”
The term Sandhi is used in linguistics to cover sound changes which occur between two words or morphemes. Sandhi phenomena appear in many languages and are to some degree well attested in the Earlier Egyptian language, especially in funerary texts. The nature of those phenomena is explored and some already proposed Sandhis are reviewed. Especially the pronoun w| seems often to be subject of Sandhi phenomena: After suffix pronouns ending with -n it can become nw|, after n.tt it can become tw|. In both cases the ending consonant of the first word, which was dropped out over time, is preserved by the Sandhi. Although both phenomena are known for more than hundred years, but only the first one was already analyzed as Sandhi. While nw| became a new form in “Égyptien de tradition”, combining the function of the dependent and the independent pronoun, tw| was grammaticalized and from Late Egyptian on used as proclitic pronoun tw=| in adverbial (or durative) clauses. Thus the research on pronominal Sandhi phenomena can provide important insights not only in phonology, but in the history of the Egyptian language and grammaticalization processes too.

“On the expression m sxm.t.n(=j) jm ‘with what I had had power over’ in the autobiographical inscriptions of the Old Kingdom”
In the autobiographical inscriptions of the Old Kingdom, the expression m sxm.t.n(=j) jm „with what I have taken power of“ occurs several times: The texts can be assigned to three different contexts that are all documented several times. This suggests that the „compilation“ within the autobiographical text templates was not freely interchangeable but was bound and passed on in fixed text sequences.

“The Reading of the Word S1:N17:Z1*N21 in the Inscriptions of Esna”
In the temple of Esna a word spelled S1:N17:Z1*N21 occurs several times in hieroglyphic texts from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, mostly in connection with field offering scenes. It is argued that this word can be understood as a local interpretation of #Ht “field”. The motive for rendering the word in this peculiar, phonetically not very accurate way can be explained by the desire to evoke numerous metaphors and graphic puns related to local religious ideas.

“An early attestation of mSt / ⲙⲟⲩϣⲧ in a key passage of Ramesses II’s Qadesh programme (B 28, Version L1)?”
This contribution suggests a new reading for a verb that appears in the Luxor versions (L1 and L2) of the Qadesh-Bulletin (B 28). It is based on a lexicographical study and explains the different writings in the two versions. The subsequent discussion of the passage and its role in the Qadesh programme as a whole confirms the new reading.