Middle Egyptian (3^rd Ed.) An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs

Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-six essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion, literature, and language. Grammar lessons and cultural essays allows users not only to read hieroglyphic texts but also to understand them, providing the foundation for understanding texts on monuments and reading great works of ancient Egyptian literature. This third edition is revised and reorganized, particularly in its approach to the verbal system, based on recent advances in understanding the language. Illustrations enhance the discussions, and an index of references has been added. These changes and additions provide a complete and up-to-date grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt for specialists in linguistics and other fields.

Lesson 1. Language and writing; Essay 1. Ancient Egyptian history; Lesson 2. Unliteral signs; Essay 2. Ancient Egyptian geography; Lesson 3. Multiliteral signs; Essay 3. Ancient Egyptian society; Lesson 4. Nouns; Essay 4. The gods; Lesson 5. Pronouns; Essay 5. The gods on Earth; Lesson 6. Adjectives; Essay 6. The king's names; Lesson 7. Adjectival and nominal sentences; Essay 7. Human nature; Lesson 8. Prepositions and adverbs; Essay 8. Death and the afterlife; Lesson 9. Numbers; Essay 9. Egyptian chronology; Lesson 10. Adverbial sentences; Essay 10. Maat; Lesson 11. Non-verbal sentences; Essay 11. The world before creation; Lesson 12. Verbs; Essay 12. The creation of the world; Lesson 13. The infinitival forms; Essay 13. The creative word; Lesson 14. The pseudo-verbal construction; Essay 14. The Memphite theology; Lesson 15. The imperative and particles; Essay 15. The creator; Lesson 16. The stative; Essay 16. Heresy; Lesson 17. The sdm.n.f; Essay 17. Phonology and writing; Lesson 18. The sdm.f; Essay 18. Egyptian literature; Lesson 19. The other forms of the suffix conjugation; Essay 19. Middle Egyptian wisdom literature; Lesson 20. Adverb clauses; Essay 20. Middle Egyptian stories; Lesson 21. Noun clauses; Essay 21. Historical texts; Lesson 22. Relative clauses; Essay 22. Religious texts; Lesson 23. The active participle; Essay 23. Hymns and poetry; Lesson 24. The passive participle; Essay 24. Non-literary texts; Lesson 25. Emphatic sentences; Essay 25. Letters; Lesson 26. Middle Egyptian grammar; Essay 26. Grammatical theory; Where to go from here; Sign list; Dictionary; Text references; Indices; Answers to the exercises.

James P. Allen is the Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egyptology at Brown University. He is a former curator of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and president of the International Association of Egyptologists. His previous publications include Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts (1989), The Heqanakht Papyri (2002), The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (2005), The Debate between a Man and his Soul (2010) and The Ancient Egyptian Language, An Historical Study (2013).