Nubian hieroglyphics and Phoenician alphabet

[PaulMarcW]

New Rosetta Stone? Nubian Hieroglyphics are the source of Phoenician & Western alphabets?


http://www.beforebc.de/Related.Subjects ... 00-12.html

[Minimalist]

You may find this site interesting, Paul.

http://www.dignubia.org/bookshelf/meroitic.php

[Rokcet Scientist]

Interesting projection. Projection, because "Nubian still has not been deciphered" and that's necessary to confirm it as the source of Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan, and Latin.

[War Arrow]

Don't know about this. Seems like it could be plausible I guess.

[Forum Monk]

PW, if you want to claim Nubian script predates Phoenician or other alphabets you may need to push those dates back about 1000 years or more.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/alphabet.html

[PaulMarcW]

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Minimalist. Really interesting page you showed.

About the title for the thread, at another site, someone wrote:

The problem with the title of this thread is that Western alphabet is derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs but Egyptian hieroglyphs originated in so-called 'Nubia'!

Remember the proto-hieroglyphs of Sayalah and Qustul??..

Which begs the question, What came first, the chicken or the egg?!"

However, Interesting article you showed indeed.

[Minimalist]

Just in the photo given on the right edge are supposed representations of the Greek Upsilon and Phi. But both seem to be part of hieroglyphs: The "phi" is the sceptre for the seated figure and the "Upsilon" seems to be part of the drawing of a bird head-like figure.

Some of the others do bear similarities to Greek letters but whether that is directly linked or just in the eye of the beholder is something for scholars to figure out.


The relationship between Egypt and Nubia, though, is long and hopelessly intertwined. About the time that the Old Kingdom faded away the kingdom of Kush grew to power but never seems to have developed writing, according to this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/scien ... gewanted=2

Nubia had gold and one would think that Old Kingdom pharaohs would have been eager to control that resource. Once Egyptian control lapsed it is easy to see how gold could have formed the basis of a local kingdom's wealth. Now, here is your chicken and egg argument. Did Kush emerge because Egyptian power lapsed or did Egyptian power lapse because a successful Kushite revolt damaged their economy and military? Off hand, I would give each hypothesis an equal chance but it is a matter for endless speculation, no?

We also know that a later Kushite ruler invaded Egypt and set up his family as the 25th Dynasty c 750 BC. They ruled for perhaps a century before being driven out by the Assyrians.

Finally, Meroitic script appears later in the first millenium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroitic_script

but I find it hard to believe that Kashta and Taharqa could have ruled Egypt without literacy. Could they have been literate in Egyptian? Of course. Could they also have made do with Egyptian scribes the way illiterate Christian princes used literate monks? Absolutely. A historical model exists for each possibility. Barring some further discovery, we may never get to an answer.

[PaulMarcW]

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Hi Minimalist. You mention characters that aren't perfect fits and this is the reason why I referred to them as "analogies."

Here, an upright "spine with three arms pointed rightwards (i.e. "E") would be in the same ROTATIONAL family of similar "three-armed spines" with arms facing backwards, upwards, or downwards. And we see these other orientations over time.

Any letter would have ROTATIONAL qualities that, I'd say, relates them (if they belong to an alphabetic group where large numbers of letters have counterparts in letters of alphabets in neighboring countries) as their orientation changes over centuries and millenniums.

You mention that the 25th dynasty was Nubian and also transient. I think it could be a misconception that there is some substantive difference between Nubians and Egyptians as dental affinities show that from the Neolithic to outset of the Greco-Roman period, the populace was the same.

For instance, first dynasty Narmer, a in picture 4, a so-called Egyptian, (going forwards in time) isn't different from Shabaka (18), Taharka (19), or Pentamen Hotep (20) all of the 25th Kushitic / Nubian dynasty.

Conversely, going backwards in time, Narmer is so-called Egyptian but resembles the Badarian goddess figure of Nubia, an early Group A individual predating him by 1400 years. Throughout, the people are the same.

That discussion is in the column below to the right of the images:


http://www.beforebc.de/all_africa/200_e ... 00-01.html

[Rokcet Scientist]

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Throughout, the people are the same.

They still are today. Sadat was a half-Nubian, but Mubarak is a Semite. Egypt has always been a hodgepodge of archetypes from the Middle East and Africa (Nubia). At least for the last 5,000 years as far as we know now. I see no reason that would have been much different 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.

[Minimalist]

Yeah, but 3 lines doesn't seem all that unlikely a combination, though.


The Egyptians used 3 lines to indicate the number "3." It doesn't seem all that complex. The Romans did the same thing but no one suggests that they then copied the idea from the Egyptians.



This pottery inscription from Egypt contains (at the bottom) a symbol which looks a little like a pound sign.....that doesn't mean they invented the cell phone.

Aside from that there still is the problem of dating that particular artifact.

Scholars regard Meroe as the second oldest culture in Africa, behind Egypt, and its script from the later end of that period.

http://wysinger.homestead.com/latestfindings.html

At the height of their culture, Nubian kings are said to have ruled Egypt from 750 to 650 BC. They were driven south by the Syrians, says Grzymski.

Ancient trash heaps have revealed many details of daily life for the Nubians. Olive pits suggest the Nubians either imported olives from the Mediterranean or grew them on the banks of the Nile. And the animal bones they left behind reveal much about the climate and environment they lived in. Along with sheep and goats, the Nubians consumed gazelle, antelope, warthogs and other wild animals now seldom seen in Sudan. The bones, and ancient water reservoirs, suggest rainfall patterns have changed in the past 2000 years, shifting 300 to 400 kilometres to the south. "There has been quite a change in environment," says Grzymski.

But it is the Nubians' written language that he finds most intriguing. Borrowing 24 signs from Egyptian hieroglyphics and using them as an alphabet, they developed their own writing system, Grzymski says.

"It's the second-oldest writing system in Africa, but it has still not been deciphered."

Far more than anything I say you have to overcome the apparent consensus among scholars that Meroitic dates from the second half of the first millenium and there was nothing prior to it except Egyptian.

And we've previously discussed the "artistic" similarities in sculpture so let's no go there again.

[PaulMarcW]

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Page modification. Following now found at page bottom:



http://www.beforebc.de/Related.Subjects ... 00-12a.jpg

[PaulMarcW]

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New addition to web page of column 2 showing “Egyptians” as Negroes / Africans. I don’t know that it makes sense to draw a distinction between "Egyptians" and Nubians (one people, Nubgyptians) when, as shown in the “captive” character, the use of script is shown to be earlier among Nubians than use of the same characters by “Egyptians” at a later date archeological records show.

[Minimalist]

It seems that there is Youtube for damn near everything, Paul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgUlHjeWvUw

[PaulMarcW]

Minimalist. What a presentation in that Youtube. Wow!

Thank you.

[Minimalist]

De nada, amigo.

(I'm frequently amazed by what one can find out there!)


My son sent me this one of two guys playing Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca on one guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WD3DncRK3c&NR=1

Some people have waaaayyy too much time on their hands.