May 10, 2004

The mystery of Meroitic could be on the way to a solution at last. (Nicest site run by a People's Front I've seen, by the way) There is a large amount of Meroitic writing and we know what sounds it represents - we just don't know what the sounds mean. Meroe is often seen as a small southern afterthought to Ancient Egypt, but others argue that the civilisation of Egypt was actually drawn from the ancient black culture of Meroe.

Although Meroe had kings , it was equally inclined towards queens, and had a remarkable succession of powerful queens called Candace . As a slight concession to sexism, they apparently wore false beards. The Meroitic script replaced earlier hieroglyphs. The 'write your name in Meroitic' facility on this site doesn't seem to work, but a full Meroitic font is available for download. This chap thinks he has already solved the problem and that Meroitic is cognate with Tocharian, an Asian language. Some of the inscriptions are apparently about graphic depictions of sexual experiences. On the other hand, Meroitic is, or has something to do with, the Reformed Egyptian of the Mormon scriptures. I wish someone would hurry up and translate it, anyway...

posted by Plegmund 20 years ago
  • Excellent links, you little beauty!
  • [banana]
  • [and nice blog!]
  • There are a lot of people going around claiming they've "solved" some epigraphic mystery. Usually they're crackpots; this guy is an Egyptologist, which means he's not your garden-variety crackpot, but it doesn't mean he's right either. I'm dubious about the dependence on what he admits is "one fairly long study published in 1874 by the German linguist Leo Reinisch. But this study is outdated and gives no account of the dialectal differences. The lexical data are insufficient and there are many contradictions." It will take a lot more work by a lot of scholars to decide if he's right, and I wouldn't hold your breath for translations. On another front, of course Cush/Meroe and Egypt influenced each other a great deal, but anyone who claims "the civilisation of Egypt was actually drawn from the ancient black culture of Meroe" is peddling Afrocentric snake oil. That aside, Meroitic civilization is fascinating and deserves more exposure than it gets. Great post!
  • Thanks, chaps. Looks like I'll have to make do with playing with my font for a bit longer (as it were).
  • languagehat's bang on the money. The guy who claims to have decyphered Meroitic, Clyde A. Winters, is a complete crank. In fact, he's the Internet's very own language uber-crank. There's hardly a mysterious language out there that he hasn't deciphered (and here and here and here). He's also something of a kingpin in the Afrocentrican snake oil industry.
  • The Internet's very own language uber-crank Can it be that languagehat has his Dr Moriarty? I must admit that I've come across one or two other Meroe-related sites which had a certain gleam in their eye. I wouldn't exactly say they were selling snake oil, but you got the feeling that if you were looking for snake oil, they just might happen to know someone who could fix you up. Afrocentrism might deserve a post of its own sometime. While palpably bonkers, it is interesting, I think, both as a phenomenon and because just occasionally it draws attention to something like the black member of the Medici family , which is actually worth looking at
  • John Hardy, hello! Marvy to see you here!
  • OT Why is the son of a black woman and a white man a black man? /OT
  • Well, he couldn't exactly be a black woman now could he.
  • Dude! You just moebiussed my brain, dude!
  • /me advises PF to listen to some Allman Brothers, maybe drink a beer.
  • How about the George Michael? He's whose playing, and I'm into my like fifth beer, since I have to sleep in the daytime. *sings* hit me again like you did just now like you did just then Words to live by, peteypoo_the_42nd_aka_the_bald
  • I think the son of a black woman and a white man (or vice versa) is only considered black in predominantly white countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, I think someone like Colin Powell, for example, would be regarded as white.
  • There are states in the yoo-ess-of-ayy where you are considered legally black if you're 1/32nd African descent. That's your dad's dad's dad's dad's dad.
  • pete_best - that's what I was thinking of. Also oldish laws about Indians to same effect. But Plegmund's point, I, well, take it. It be well taken.
  • but is it true? details! *clap!* *clap!*