Comments on: Tutankhamen: A mummy story for grown-ups

By: Amelia_G

Amelia_G — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:38:00 +0000

just learned there’s a King Tut-like Viking ship burial, namely Oseberg! Only in this case the king was a queen. Fanciest Viking ship burial excavated so far.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 07:06:00 +0000

Yes. I did not check it, I was not absolutely sure. But I think the fundamental point about grammatical structure and vowelling holds. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

By: Raggle Fock

Raggle Fock — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 06:59:00 +0000

It should be noted that Berber, Egyptian (including Coptic), Hausa, Somali, and many other related languages within the wider area of Northern Africa and the Middle East do not belong to the specific Semitic group, but are related the larger Afroasiatic language family of which the Semitic languages are also a subgroup. Yay wikipedia?

By: Raggle Fock

Raggle Fock — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 06:54:00 +0000

DNA of both modern and ancient Egyptians would appear to support the UNESCO view that modern Egyptians are genetically much the same as the ancient population.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:26:00 +0000

That’s actually addressed in the book. There are many correct ways to spell Tut’s name because, like several other ancient languages in that part of the world, the Egyptians didn’t include vowels in written language. We know what the general sound was, but we don’t actually know what vowels were supposed to be in the name.

By: mjfgates

mjfgates — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:29:00 +0000

Yeah, we know. So what?

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:24:00 +0000

Spell it the right way: feather, bed on water, bread, chick, bread, ankh, crook, UML input connector, plant. And if you don’t put it in a cartouche, may Sobek attempt to give you oral.

By: strangefriend

strangefriend — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:38:00 +0000

The Ancient Egyptians were black, as W.E.B. DuBois, Chancellor Williams, Cheikh Anta Diop, John G. Jackson, Ivan van Sertima, and Martin Bernal stated.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:06:00 +0000

It is not simply a question of transliteration. The Egyptian script itself frequently ignored and omitted vowels. Often the correct vowelling of a word (it was a semitic language) is not actually known anyway.

By: Andreas Schou

Andreas Schou — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:38:00 +0000

Either is an acceptable transliteration, though ‘-amun’ is more conventional, and ‘-amon’ is more consistent with how the name root is transliterated elsewhere. Egyptians didn’t use the Roman alphabet, there isn’t a single consistent system of transliteration, and there’s no reason other than silly formalism to impose one now.

By: VicqRuiz

VicqRuiz — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:05:00 +0000

Maggie -

Wondering if you’ve read one of my favorite history books ever -

Tutankhamun – life and death of a Pharaoh by Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt

and if so, how Tyldesly’s book compares.

By: the man

the man — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:27:00 +0000

Tutankhamun not Tutankhamen