Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, Volume 1: Towards an etymology of the place-name Km.t (2023), is on Pre-Sale now and will be released on August 22, 2023. Since you guys have been great supporters of me, I would like to offer you this text at the month of May discount price (regular price $40). As an incentive to purchase the text early, the text will be offered at a discount, but will increase each month leading up to August. The May pre-sale is $25 and will increase by $5 each month going to the release date: i.e., June $30; July $35; and August $40 + shipping.
So get your copy TODAY! In addition, for your early support, you will be given a sample chapter: Appendix E: Km.t and the Garden of Eden to hold you off until August. IF YOU LIVE OUTSIDE OF THE UNITES STATES, contact me first at info@asarimhotep.com.
This has been an incredible journey and preparations are being made for the subsequent volumes in this series. I appreciate each and every one of you and thank you for your continued support.
To apply the discount credit, use the following coupon code at checkout: MBONGI
DESCRIPTION: Who were the ancient Egyptians? Where did they come from? What were the central themes permeating throughout their culture? What other African cultural groups share these principal themes? What ‘race’ were the ancient Egyptians? What were their phenotypic characteristics? How did they identify themselves? How were they described by outsiders (in terms of looks, temperament, and culture)? In terms of genetics, language, psychology, politics, ritual, and religion, what other human groups do the ancient Egyptians best cluster with? These questions and more are systematically explored in the three-volume series, Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, by Asar Imhotep.
Volume 1, Towards an etymology of the place-name Km.t (2023), critically assesses and engages a long-standing debate on the etymology, meaning, and application of the place-name Km.t (Kemet), which was one of many names for ancient Egypt beginning around the XII dynastic period. In addition to the linguistic question of the name Km.t, Race and identity in Ancient Egypt Volume 1 asks, “Was the name Km.t used to describe, physically, the ancient Egyptians and what role did it play, if any, in their ethnic identity?” This treatment is the culmination of 23 years of research on this question and makes a major contribution to the advancement of the study of ancient Egyptian historical, linguistic, religious, and anthropological studies. This Volume will especially interest researchers in the fields of Egyptology, Africology, Historical Comparative Linguistics, Cultural Anthropology, African Art, and Comparative Religious Studies.
Volume 2 will be an edited work that explores the essential research questions regarding ancient Egyptian ethnicity, biology/genetics, language, philology, anthropology, and research methodology pertaining to Egyptian identity with contributions from various scholars.
Volume 3 will be a reference work of primary source materials that describes the ancient Egyptians, from the Greco-Roman period to the early 1900s.
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posted
Just to inform you all, that the text Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, Volume 1: Towards an etymology of the place-name Km.t (2023) is now available on Amazon.com. The link is below. Thank you all for your support and I look forward to your feedback.
posted
If you're asking feedback, you say you've spent 23 years looking into a very abstruse subject. No one else has done this, so this seems the wrong place to ask people to judge the quality of your translation of a contentious Egyptian word that has never been settled.
quote:Who were the ancient Egyptians? Where did they come from? What were the central themes permeating throughout their culture? What other African cultural groups share these principal themes? What ‘race’ were the ancient Egyptians? What were their phenotypic characteristics? How did they identify themselves? How were they described by outsiders (in terms of looks, temperament, and culture)? In terms of genetics, language, psychology, politics, ritual, and religion, what other human groups do the ancient Egyptians best cluster with? These questions and more are systematically explored in the three-volume series, Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, by Asar Imhotep.
Not one of these questions can be answered with linguistics. And translations of ancients who commented on ancient Egyptians' appearance are typically contaminated with presentism as commentators are generally unwilling to separate ancient anthro terms from modern social constructs.
As far as linguistics, people have been doing this since the 1800s and the end result is, everyone has their own tree of where the Egyptian language fits.
posted
Kinda feel that a three-volume series is a bit excessive for this topic. You’d think an academic paper or a single webpage expounding your views would be enough. Sometimes, less is more.
Come to think of it, Asar, have you ever presented your linguistic arguments in an academic (especially Egyptological or linguistic) context? I feel that peer review from trained experts would benefit you more than presenting this stuff to unqualified laypeople.
posted
I'm not following you here. This volume deals with the etymology of the placename Km.t. Can you tell me what other field besides linguistics does etymology fall under? I appreciate your time.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: If you're asking feedback, you say you've spent 23 years looking into a very abstruse subject. No one else has done this, so this seems the wrong place to ask people to judge the quality of your translation of a contentious Egyptian word that has never been settled.
quote:Who were the ancient Egyptians? Where did they come from? What were the central themes permeating throughout their culture? What other African cultural groups share these principal themes? What ‘race’ were the ancient Egyptians? What were their phenotypic characteristics? How did they identify themselves? How were they described by outsiders (in terms of looks, temperament, and culture)? In terms of genetics, language, psychology, politics, ritual, and religion, what other human groups do the ancient Egyptians best cluster with? These questions and more are systematically explored in the three-volume series, Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, by Asar Imhotep.
Not one of these questions can be answered with linguistics. And translations of ancients who commented on ancient Egyptians' appearance are typically contaminated with presentism as commentators are generally unwilling to separate ancient anthro terms from modern social constructs.
As far as linguistics, people have been doing this since the 1800s and the end result is, everyone has their own tree of where the Egyptian language fits.
Volume 1: Etymology of placename km.t Volume 2: The historical, socio-historical and anthropological examination of the 'race' question in Ancient Egypt (this is an edited work with contributing scholars) Volume 3: A reference text of primary source material with the actual glyphic, transliteration, and translations of source material of ancient texts pertaining to the physical description of the ancient Egyptians (and related material).
What is excessive given each volume serves a different purpose?
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: Kinda feel that a three-volume series is a bit excessive for this topic. You’d think an academic paper or a single webpage expounding your views would be enough. Sometimes, less is more.
Come to think of it, Asar, have you ever presented your linguistic arguments in an academic (especially Egyptological or linguistic) context? I feel that peer review from trained experts would benefit you more than presenting this stuff to unqualified laypeople.
posted
I just think these three volumes could be combined into one book, unless you really have so much content that you need to split it across three books. I’m sure most of your customers would prefer to buy one $35 book than three of them.
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I'm not following you here. This volume deals with the etymology of the placename Km.t. Can you tell me what other field besides linguistics does etymology fall under? I appreciate your time.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: If you're asking feedback, you say you've spent 23 years looking into a very abstruse subject. No one else has done this, so this seems the wrong place to ask people to judge the quality of your translation of a contentious Egyptian word that has never been settled.
quote:Who were the ancient Egyptians? Where did they come from? What were the central themes permeating throughout their culture? What other African cultural groups share these principal themes? What ‘race’ were the ancient Egyptians? What were their phenotypic characteristics? How did they identify themselves? How were they described by outsiders (in terms of looks, temperament, and culture)? In terms of genetics, language, psychology, politics, ritual, and religion, what other human groups do the ancient Egyptians best cluster with? These questions and more are systematically explored in the three-volume series, Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, by Asar Imhotep.
Not one of these questions can be answered with linguistics. And translations of ancients who commented on ancient Egyptians' appearance are typically contaminated with presentism as commentators are generally unwilling to separate ancient anthro terms from modern social constructs.
As far as linguistics, people have been doing this since the 1800s and the end result is, everyone has their own tree of where the Egyptian language fits.
Asar. I hope this is not a bait and switch. I quoted your comment talking about culture, 'race', self-identity, and so on. Now you're asking me what field etymologies fall under.
If you're saying you're planning on using archaeology, physical anthropology, ancient DNA, and so on, to reconstruct these things, feel free to share.
But linguists have made no real inroads solving the things you listed in that paragraph. Egyptian words with anthro connotations (e.g. Kmtyw, Nhsy, T3 Ntr, T3wy [mirrors biblical 'Mizraim', or 'two lands', and both have anthro meaning]), are unsolved. Egyptian documents that scholars have looked into for Egyptian ideas about anthropology, like the 'table of nations', or certain myths, have not taken linguists very far.
This makes sense because AE is a dead language and Egyptians seem to have not been very forthcoming with their ideas and beliefs (e.g. some scholars go as far as saying AE didn't have philosophers).
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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posted
Not to mention, I feel that Vol. 2 would work better as Vol. 1 since its focus is what Asar’s target audience is going to be most interested in. They probably won’t care as much about linguistic arguments over the exact meaning of kmt.
Asar Imhotep what is the km (I6) glyph meaning here? irrigated lands? so this the whole thing here would mean "people of the irrigated land" Of the different meanings of km how do we know that particular one is intended here?
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I just think these three volumes could be combined into one book, unless you really have so much content that you need to split it across three books. I’m sure most of your customers would prefer to buy one $35 book than three of them.
What you think is irrelevant if you do not understand the history of the discussion, the nature of the debates, and how much data has been accumulated due to intense research over a number of decades. Thus, the first book on the etymology of the word Km.t is 500 pages on a 7 x 10 book. To include the other volumes into one book would require, at minimum another 500 pages, making a single book over a 1000+ pages, which only a few of you would even read in its entirety. So no, it could not practically be combined in one book. And as stated previously, each book serves a different purpose within the larger conversation of Race and Identity in ancient Egypt. I encourage you to read the Preface and the Introduction to Volume 1, which will put the entire project into perspective.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: Not to mention, I feel that Vol. 2 would work better as Vol. 1 since its focus is what Asar’s target audience is going to be most interested in. They probably won’t care as much about linguistic arguments over the exact meaning of kmt.
Again, what you 'feel' is irrelevant because you don't know the scope of the discussion. There is a reason the Km.t discussion came first and is discussed in the text.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Asar. I hope this is not a bait and switch. I quoted your comment talking about culture, 'race', self-identity, and so on. Now you're asking me what field etymologies fall under.
If you're saying you're planning on using archaeology, physical anthropology, ancient DNA, and so on, to reconstruct these things, feel free to share.
But linguists have made no real inroads solving the things you listed in that paragraph. Egyptian words with anthro connotations (e.g. Kmtyw, Nhsy, T3 Ntr, T3wy [mirrors biblical 'Mizraim', or 'two lands', and both have anthro meaning]), are unsolved. Egyptian documents that scholars have looked into for Egyptian ideas about anthropology, like the 'table of nations', or certain myths, have not taken linguists very far.
This makes sense because AE is a dead language and Egyptians seem to have not been very forthcoming with their ideas and beliefs (e.g. some scholars go as far as saying AE didn't have philosophers).
It would've been nice if you actually read the comment in the context for which it was stated. Nowhere in the entire post was there mention that all of those topics would be addressed linguistically. What you cited were the research questions being asked for the ENTIRE project. Then right under that I discussed each Volume in the series and how EACH one of those volumes would address those topics. The first Volume has to deal with the ETYMOLOGY of the placename Km.t, which is a linguistic question. Some aspects of race will be discussed because of Cheikh Anta Diop's 1977 claim that Km.t means "black people" instead of "black land." So before we can delve into that claim, we have to first prove that Km.t has anything to do with "blackness" in the first place, which it does not.
Thus, your entire post makes no sense because, I guess, you were skimming through instead of actually reading the post. Now you're all over the place.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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Asar Imhotep what is the km (I6) glyph meaning here? irrigated lands, so this the whole thing here would mean "people of the irrigated land" Of the different meanings of km how do we know that particular one is intended here?
I discuss this in Chapter 3 of the text. I encourage you to read it.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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Riparian means relating to wetlands adjacent to rivers and streams.
However the km glyph also refers to the color black in many instances
What the I6 glyph, the particular glyph to the left of the owl is supposed to be cannot be certain. You might say it describes some kind of river edge soil or something wetland related.
However if the glyph hypothetically referred to black color in the above instance then it might not contradict your riparian theory if the above were to be construed as "people of the black colored wetlands" I don't think some sort of reference to a black color in the above can be excluded with certainty
Diop would theorize if people glyphs are used with it it is referring to their skin color so meaning "the black skinned people" and the common other theory is that it means 'people of the black colored land"
So your theory would have in common with the later, that it refers to a type land, the difference you say is that no reference is intended that the land color is often black around the Nile
But it seems when km is shown with bull glyph it is referring to a color. Thus if kmt meant "black colored land" or possibly "black colored waters" it would at at least have a commonality in describing black the color then describing just something water related, which in itself has virtually no commonality with black the color
Your book's title is "Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, Volume 1: Towards an etymology of the place-name Km.t "
Implies the word Km.t has to do with race or identity in Ancient Egypt,
If you have a set of 3 volumes and as a set it discuses race and also identity then since the word "race" is first one would expect the first volume to be about race (including skin color) One would expect a discussion of the word Km.t which you argue has nothing to do with race or skin color but potentially has to do with identity (identifying with irrigated land) to be discussed in the 2nd or 3rd volume.
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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^^ looking over this again you point to Gardiner sign O49 as meaning "land" here
.
So here we don't have O49
thus according to your analysis one could construe this lower glyph with the people as "people of the full"
or "people of the complete"
But going back to this working backwards, I don't see how km suddenly switches in meaning to wetlands after is introduced
it could be construed instead as "land of the full" or "land of the complete" rather than a water reference although one could hypothesize the land becomes complete when saturated with water but I don't see evidence specifying if the land is full, why it's full For instance it could be full of abundant food crops, or spiritually complete but that is unspecified
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Asar. I hope this is not a bait and switch. I quoted your comment talking about culture, 'race', self-identity, and so on. Now you're asking me what field etymologies fall under.
If you're saying you're planning on using archaeology, physical anthropology, ancient DNA, and so on, to reconstruct these things, feel free to share.
But linguists have made no real inroads solving the things you listed in that paragraph. Egyptian words with anthro connotations (e.g. Kmtyw, Nhsy, T3 Ntr, T3wy [mirrors biblical 'Mizraim', or 'two lands', and both have anthro meaning]), are unsolved. Egyptian documents that scholars have looked into for Egyptian ideas about anthropology, like the 'table of nations', or certain myths, have not taken linguists very far.
This makes sense because AE is a dead language and Egyptians seem to have not been very forthcoming with their ideas and beliefs (e.g. some scholars go as far as saying AE didn't have philosophers).
It would've been nice if you actually read the comment in the context for which it was stated. Nowhere in the entire post was there mention that all of those topics would be addressed linguistically. What you cited were the research questions being asked for the ENTIRE project. Then right under that I discussed each Volume in the series and how EACH one of those volumes would address those topics. The first Volume has to deal with the ETYMOLOGY of the placename Km.t, which is a linguistic question. Some aspects of race will be discussed because of Cheikh Anta Diop's 1977 claim that Km.t means "black people" instead of "black land." So before we can delve into that claim, we have to first prove that Km.t has anything to do with "blackness" in the first place, which it does not.
Thus, your entire post makes no sense because, I guess, you were skimming through instead of actually reading the post. Now you're all over the place.
Strictly speaking, a set of consonant glyphs is not a word, though. So we can't say it had nothing to do with blackness. To do so is to ignore the dictionary entries in which kmt can, in fact, refer to black things. At issue is whether kmt, when followed by the city determinative, means black nation.
Kmt with the aforementioned determinative meaning black land/soil is not attested in ancient non-Egyptian documents, unlike T3wy, which has similar words in ancient Semitic languages as a name for Egypt, which is still the case today (Musr is the name of Egypt in Arabic). Another example is the word Egypt itself, which has an etymology that comes from ancient Greeks who in turn got it from an actual ancient Egyptian phrase that is documented as being in use in ancient Egypt.
So, I'm not buying any proposed meaning of Kmt + O49 that has no ancient corroboration from nations that had to refer to Egypt often as an ancient military power, a diplomatic correspondent, a setting/backdrop in myths, a place to visit with unique African customs and geological features, and so on. Funny how allusions to 'black land/soil' do not show up in any of these diverse contexts in which foreigners had to mention their version of the word Egypt, unlike the many allusions to 'Two Lands' in Semitic languages, of which, like I said, at least one (Arabic) is still widely used today.
As far as your paragraph that talks about population affinity, and self-identity, I did make an assumption based on your earlier comments over the years, which tended to ignore physical anthropology and genetics when speaking on population affinity. It's usually Afrocentric works that today claim to have found evidence of Egyptians referring to a distant place as their homeland (e.g. the claim that a text has Egyptians referring to 'Mountains of the Moon' as their homeland ).
Anyone claiming to have solved "where Egyptians come from" automatically triggers red flags because of the underlying assumptions that they had to have came from elsewhere (usually conveniently in Sub-Saharan Africa) and that (pre)dynastics themselves were the migrants (as opposed to their palaeolithic ancestors). Your comment to have solved Egyptian self-identity similarly triggers red flags for the same reason. No one serious claims to have solved this, except certain 'scholars' who, among other claims, have said Egyptians self-identified as Bantu, which, unbeknownst to them, is a modern word coined, or at least popularized by a white European, and is not proved to be ancient . You yourself have a graphic floating around the net implying Kmt is somehow linguistically related to the word Bantu. So, you can imagine why your comments got that reaction.
I guess I'll have to wait and see what is really behind your claim to have solved ancient Egyptian self-identity, and homeland, because your work is behind a paywall, and I doubt you'd risk discussing vulnerable claims here.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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it could be construed instead as "land of the full" or "land of the complete" rather than a water reference although one could hypothesize the land becomes complete when saturated with water but I don't see evidence specifying if the land is full, why it's full For instance it could be full of abundant food crops, or spiritually complete but that is unspecified
My advice is to read the text for full context and come back and revisit this question.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: What you think is irrelevant if you do not understand the history of the discussion, the nature of the debates, and how much data has been accumulated due to intense research over a number of decades. Thus, the first book on the etymology of the word Km.t is 500 pages on a 7 x 10 book. To include the other volumes into one book would require, at minimum another 500 pages, making a single book over a 1000+ pages, which only a few of you would even read in its entirety. So no, it could not practically be combined in one book. And as stated previously, each book serves a different purpose within the larger conversation of Race and Identity in ancient Egypt. I encourage you to read the Preface and the Introduction to Volume 1, which will put the entire project into perspective.
I admit that I don't know what writing style you use in your books, or how much content you have for each of them. Maybe you do indeed have enough material for three 500-pg volumes (although, as a writer myself, I know from experience that word count is considered a more reliable metric for the length of a text than page count, as different formatting styles can affect the latter).
Could you kindly post an excerpt of text from the first book to give us an idea of how you write and how much material you have to work with?
Riparian means relating to wetlands adjacent to rivers and streams.
However the km glyph also refers to the color black in many instances
What the I6 glyph, the particular glyph to the left of the owl is supposed to be cannot be certain. You might say it describes some kind of river edge soil or something wetland related.
However if the glyph hypothetically referred to black color in the above instance then it might not contradict your riparian theory if the above were to be construed as "people of the black colored wetlands" I don't think some sort of reference to a black color in the above can be excluded with certainty
Diop would theorize if people glyphs are used with it it is referring to their skin color so meaning "the black skinned people" and the common other theory is that it means 'people of the black colored land"
So your theory would have in common with the later, that it refers to a type land, the difference you say is that no reference is intended that the land color is often black around the Nile
But it seems when km is shown with bull glyph it is referring to a color. Thus if kmt meant "black colored land" or possibly "black colored waters" it would at at least have a commonality in describing black the color then describing just something water related, which in itself has virtually no commonality with black the color
Your book's title is "Race and identity in Ancient Egypt, Volume 1: Towards an etymology of the place-name Km.t "
Implies the word Km.t has to do with race or identity in Ancient Egypt,
If you have a set of 3 volumes and as a set it discuses race and also identity then since the word "race" is first one would expect the first volume to be about race (including skin color) One would expect a discussion of the word Km.t which you argue has nothing to do with race or skin color but potentially has to do with identity (identifying with irrigated land) to be discussed in the 2nd or 3rd volume.
Read the text and come back here to revisit your question. It is always import to read someone's work first, then ask questions directly related to the arguments in the text and not to assume a priori what the arguments are.
As discussed in the Preface and Introduction, the issue with the word km.t is that it is being used to make racial arguments. So to see if this has merits, you first have to verify that the term means what it is said to mean. After a rigorous analysis, we come to find out that it doesn't mean "black people" at all, and furthermore it has nothing to do with Blackness at all.
Secondly, the placename 'Km.t' is found all over Africa as a staple placename, which furthers the argument that the originators of the term are closer to the people in West/Central Africa and NOT the people in the "Middle-East" where this is NOT a staple. So the underlying argument provides evidence for a clustural analysis which places Km.t in its proper African context. The other genetic, anthropologic, archeological, linguistic, and cultural analyses (Vols. II and III) reaffirm the data and conclusions from Vol. I.
This conversation is not for casual people who like to argue on messageboard forums with google and youtube searches. But for serious scholars who like to examine full multi-disciplinary analyses in context. Again, I encourage you to read the text, take notes, and come back and try not to make arguments about points and ideas that were not made or have no scientific backing what-so-ever.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
This topic has been discussed all too many times in this forum as far back as the early 2001s with Wally Mo giving his etymology on Kmt.
The problem with the study of etymology or philology is the tendency for scholars to project their notions and biases onto things. For example that Kmt means 'Black Land' even though the word for land 'ta' is not included. There is Kmt and the opposite dshrt with the prefix dshr meaning red just as km means black. The feminine suffix t suggests a collective grouping of some sort. Of course the meaning is modified by determinitves added.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: ^^ looking over this again you point to Gardiner sign O49 as meaning "land" here
Actually Gardiner sign O49 does not mean 'land' but 'settlement/community/state' with the pronounciation being niwt/niut.
Kmt Niut would be something like the state or community of Kmt. Note that niut like kmt is a pluralized collective noun.
Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Strictly speaking, a set of consonant glyphs is not a word, though. So we can't say it had nothing to do with blackness. To do so is to ignore the dictionary entries in which kmt can, in fact, refer to black things. At issue is whether kmt, when followed by the city determinative, means black nation.
Please do not try to project your ignorance of the Egyptian writing script onto others. YOU don't know what a 'word' is and that's fine. It is apparent given your statement because there is not word /kmt/ in the Egyptian language that refers to "black things" as there is no word /kmt/ that means "black." There is a word k-m "black" that is masculine. When it is used to describe an object that is grammatically feminine, then k-m adds a suffix -t to match, in concord, the feminine object it is describing. But there is no native /kmt/ word that means "black." So we have to get this straight before moving on.
quote:Kmt with the aforementioned determinative meaning black land/soil is not attested in ancient non-Egyptian documents, unlike T3wy, which has similar words in ancient Semitic languages as a name for Egypt, which is still the case today (Musr is the name of Egypt in Arabic). Another example is the word Egypt itself, which has an etymology that comes from ancient Greeks who in turn got it from an actual ancient Egyptian phrase that is documented as being in use in ancient Egypt.
You don't make any sense here.
quote:So, I'm not buying any proposed meaning of Kmt + O49 that has no ancient corroboration from nations that had to refer to Egypt often as an ancient military power, a diplomatic correspondent, a setting/backdrop in myths, a place to visit with unique African customs and geological features, and so on. Funny how allusions to 'black land/soil' do not show up in any of these diverse contexts in which foreigners had to mention their version of the word Egypt, unlike the many allusions to 'Two Lands' in Semitic languages, of which, like I said, at least one (Arabic) is still widely used today.
What are you talking about?
quote:As far as your paragraph that talks about population affinity, and self-identity, I did make an assumption based on your earlier comments over the years, which tended to ignore physical anthropology and genetics when speaking on population affinity. It's usually Afrocentric works that today claim to have found evidence of Egyptians referring to a distant place as their homeland (e.g. the claim that a text has Egyptians referring to 'Mountains of the Moon' as their homeland ).
No, you didn't read and that is why you made that non-sensical comment. And it is clear that you didn't read any other comments I made in the past because I never ignored any scientific studies on population affinities. You people on this page have no science background and be misrepresenting research material to make non-sensical arguments with data that don't go together. So you may have misconscrued me trying to help you out in interpreting the data in its right context and not trying to make it say more than it does; in fields of study that it has no opinion for.
quote:Anyone claiming to have solved "where Egyptians come from" automatically triggers red flags because of the underlying assumptions that they had to have came from elsewhere (usually conveniently in Sub-Saharan Africa) and that (pre)dynastics themselves were the migrants (as opposed to their palaeolithic ancestors). Your comment to have solved Egyptian self-identity similarly triggers red flags for the same reason. No one serious claims to have solved this, except certain 'scholars' who, among other claims, have said Egyptians self-identified as Bantu, which, unbeknownst to them, is a modern word coined, or at least popularized by a white European, and is not proved to be ancient . You yourself have a graphic floating around the net implying Kmt is somehow linguistically related to the word Bantu. So, you can imagine why your comments got that reaction.
That's a personal opinion and if you are going to be a scholar you need to get out of your feelings. Also, you keep using scientific terms wrongly. Please, learn to use them correctly. Geez.
quote:I guess I'll have to wait and see what is really behind your claim to have solved ancient Egyptian self-identity, and homeland, because your work is behind a paywall, and I doubt you'd risk discussing vulnerable claims here.
In order to know what is behind my claim you have to read the material. No way around it. That's how this works.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: This topic has been discussed all too many times in this forum as far back as the early 2001s with Wally Mo giving his etymology on Kmt.
The problem with the study of etymology or philology is the tendency for scholars to project their notions and biases onto things. For example that Kmt means 'Black Land' even though the word for land 'ta' is not included. There is Kmt and the opposite dshrt with the prefix dshr meaning red just as km means black. The feminine suffix t suggests a collective grouping of some sort. Of course the meaning is modified by determinitves added.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: ^^ looking over this again you point to Gardiner sign O49 as meaning "land" here
Actually Gardiner sign O49 does not mean 'land' but 'settlement/community/state' with the pronounciation being niwt/niut.
Kmt Niut would be something like the state or community of Kmt. Note that niut like kmt is a pluralized collective noun.
Always speak for yourself and not for others. In linguistics, there is a scientific process called the comparative method that helps to eliminate bias and coincidence from the data set. This is explained, with examples of the method, in Chapter 1.
Secondly, there is no paper in existence, before my text, that proves Km.t derives from km "black." There is no proof, what-so-ever, that dSr.t means "red." There are dozens of homographs that require you to prove that these terms are meaning "x" vs the other homographs "y" and this is why this debate has lasted so long.
This book was written because there are no formal arguments, either way, on this subject anywhere. Only internet debates with people who don't read the sS-md.w-nTr or know how to do linguistics making non-sensical arguments and arguing over hypothesis that have never been verified in any scientific paper. This book exist because guys like you (and many 'trained' scholars) are lazy. You are either serious or you are not. There is no shortcut scholarship.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: (Not worth reposting)
Asar, you are not going to drag me into your trademark battle royals. ES vereran posters have called you out for blatant defiance of Egyptian dictionaries entries and linguistics textbooks.
Asar's comeback: the textbooks are wrong, the dictionaries are wrong, and I'm right. Buy my book for 40 bucks and it will all be explained.
Asar asks for feedback, but hides his books behind a paywall.
The fact that you misrepresent Diop (who has never argued kmt itself means black people), and the fact that 23 years of research has not taught you that kmt is just a set of consonents whose meaning depends on the determinative, reveals you are in no position to talk about the Egyptian language, much less write a book.
===============
Anyone who wants a quick overview of Diop's comments can go here. Notice that, contrary to Asar's misrepresentations, Diop never claims kmt itself means black people, which would make no sense because kmt is just a set of consonants to be clarified by the determinative.
quote:In Egyptian, words are normally followed by a determinative which indicates their exact sense, and for this particular expression Egyptologists suggest that ¿q|^ km = black and that the colour qualifies the determina-tive which follows it and which signifies 'country'. Accordingly, they claim, the translation should be 'the black earth' from the colour of the loam, or the 'black country', and not 'the country of the black men' as we should be inclined to render it today with black Africa and white Africa in mind. Perhaps so, but if we apply this rule rigorously to ^ ^ ¿f j = kmit, we are forced to 'concede that here the adjective "black" qualifies the deter-minative which signifies the whole people of Egypt shown by the two symbols for "man" and "woman" and the three strokes below them which indicate the plural'.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Asar, you are not going to drag me into your trademark battle royals. ES vereran posters have called you out for blatant defiance of Egyptian dictionaries entries and linguistics textbooks.
Because a poster on ES has been here for a long time does not mean they are scholars of any sort as your posts continue to prove. Dictionaries are often wrong, which is why new dictionaries correct older ones (some of which I've cited in the text). Because something is found in a dictionary does not mean it means what it says. There are journal articles, texts, written prior that make arguments for words' meaning(s), which was never done for Km.t. A matter of fact, the earliest dictionaries do not even defined Km.t. It is left blank and only Erman & Grapow defined it as "black land" with no justification or discussion in prior texts. Everyone else just copied the Wb dictionary. As we are discovering now, the Wb has a whole bunch of entries wrong, just like Budge, which is why new dictionaries are being created with new data. That's how this works.
quote:Asar's comeback: the textbooks are wrong, the dictionaries are wrong, and I'm right. Buy my book for 40 bucks and it will all be explained.
I gave you the conclusions for free. The book is 500 pages and I'm not about to waste time to provide the analysis on this forum which took me 500 pages to write. Either you are interested in the conversation or you are not. If not, move on. If so, you know where the latest conversation is located and you can read it and come to your own conclusion. It's not rocket science.
quote:Asar asks for feedback, but hides his books behind a paywall.
I only ask for feedback from those who have read the text. I didn't ask for feedback from those who didn't. That makes no sense and would only be the logic of someone as lazy and non-sensical as you.
quote:The fact that you misrepresent Diop (who has never argued kmt itself means black people), and the fact that 23 years of research has not taught you that kmt is just a set of consonents whose meaning depends on the determinative, reveals you are in no position to talk about the Egyptian language, much less write a book.
===============
Anyone who wants a quick overview of Diop's comments can go here. Notice that, contrary to Asar's misrepresentations, Diop never claims kmt itself means black people, which would make no sense because kmt is just a set of consonants to be clarified by the determinative.
So how would the people have known what the words meant while speaking with no determinatives?
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: Could you kindly post an excerpt of text from the first book to give us an idea of how you write and how much material you have to work with?
So you're not going to do this, Asar?
I apologize if this comes across as a personal attack. It's just that claiming that you have 500 pages' worth of content per book while hiding almost all of it behind a $35-40 paywall is throwing up a red flag for me.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: This topic has been discussed all too many times in this forum as far back as the early 2001s with Wally Mo giving his etymology on Kmt.
The problem with the study of etymology or philology is the tendency for scholars to project their notions and biases onto things. For example that Kmt means 'Black Land' even though the word for land 'ta' is not included. There is Kmt and the opposite dshrt with the prefix dshr meaning red just as km means black. The feminine suffix t suggests a collective grouping of some sort. Of course the meaning is modified by determinitves added.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: ^^ looking over this again you point to Gardiner sign O49 as meaning "land" here
Actually Gardiner sign O49 does not mean 'land' but 'settlement/community/state' with the pronounciation being niwt/niut.
Kmt Niut would be something like the state or community of Kmt. Note that niut like kmt is a pluralized collective noun.
I was following Asar's premise above. According to his translation above "riparian land" (meaning river water saturated riverbanks) does not enter the scene until 049 So if a wetland reference or (commonly translated as the related "town") the question is what are we left with without 049? So according to the above the prior to the addition of 049 according to Asar, we are left with km, he says the meaning in this context: or "to complete; to fill" .
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As for 049, Asar circa 2014:
quote:A Lesson in Egyptian Determinatives: The Case of KMT by Asar Imhotep 2014
It is my beliefthat O49 is simply a ―bounded‖ section of the irrigation channels crossing. When we think of a city or town, these are ― bounded ‖ territories, which in Africa are historically designed in circles. The underlying concept behind the O49 glyph is that it is a territory inhabited by human beings. This habitat, however, can only be livable if they have access to water. So the O49 glyph became the symbol for human-occupied territories along the Nile River, within the larger territory of Egypt. The symbol indicates a farming center; a place where one can grow food and find water
I forgot he said this but I read most of this 42 page article before. I assume he still holds this view.
It should also be noted if km in some contexts we to means "completion" and there are many instances of this translation for km in the TLA ) there is also the possibility that is a reference to nighttime > which might be construed as completing after a day is done, blackness of night
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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@Asar Is this particular combination in the new TLA (or old) ? I was looking for it in km.t and km and couldn't find it Would like to know if there is an identifiable wall this is supposedly on
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: Could you kindly post an excerpt of text from the first book to give us an idea of how you write and how much material you have to work with?
So you're not going to do this, Asar?
I apologize if this comes across as a personal attack. It's just that claiming that you have 500 pages' worth of content per book while hiding almost all of it behind a $35-40 paywall is throwing up a red flag for me.
Before you get to that one you could start with this 2012, 92 page joint for $8.53
A Contribution to the Debate on the Meaning of the Place-Name Km.t Paperback – April 23, 2019
by Shemsu Heru Research Team (Author), Asar Imhotep (Author), Wudjau Iry-Maat (Author), Sonjedi Ankh-Ra (Author)
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: (Not worth reposting)
Asar, you are not going to drag me into your trademark battle royals. ES vereran posters have called you out for blatant defiance of Egyptian dictionaries entries and linguistics textbooks.
It is not a blatant defiance of Egyptian dictionaries entries and linguistics textbooks point out in certain contexts km can be translated as 'completion' and other things in addition to meaning black in other cases
posted
As far as the km.t discussion is concerned, right now I am inclined to think there was some color symbolism going on with it and dshr.t. IIRC, Egyptians associated the color black with fertility and rebirth and red with chaos and foreigners. It could be that they called their country "black" to represent what they perceive as black's positive qualities and lands outside as "red" to associate them with barbarians and chaos.
posted
^ That's always been my sentiment. There seems to be a common theme in Afroasiatic concepts of black having a connotation of positive power and red negative. Interestingly the same is found in Nilo-Saharan languages. For example, the Oromo chief deity Waaqa is called Guuracha 'Black one' and the Maasai chief deity Lengai is also called the 'Black One' while the malevolent deity is called red.
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26267 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ That's always been my sentiment. There seems to be a common theme in Afroasiatic concepts of black having a connotation of positive power and red negative. Interestingly the same is found in Nilo-Saharan languages. For example, the Oromo chief deity Waaqa is called Guuracha 'Black one' and the Maasai chief deity Lengai is also called the 'Black One' while the malevolent deity is called red.
Honestly, I do sometimes wonder whether there could be some degree of relatedness (or at least mutual influences) between Afroasiatic and the other African linguistic phyla. For example, I just uncovered this paper describing a couple of parallels between African-American English dialect and ancient Egyptian:
I admit it could simply be coincidence, but I am tempted to speculate that it might reflection interaction between early Afroasiatic speakers on the one hand and the predominantly Niger-Congo- and Nilo-Saharan-speaking forerunners of African-Americans on the other. It seems feasible to me that all three linguistic phyla had speakers rubbing shoulders with one another in the middle of the Sahara during the last African pluvial phase.
Or maybe there's more ancestry from West or Central African Chadic-speakers in African-Americans than we thought?
Thanks, Captn' Obvious. If what you mean to say is that I'm supporting Diop translation as the only correct one, I've stated several times that I don't believe in presentism, so that would also mean I disagree with Diop's attempt to project 'black people' and 'negroes' into Bronze Age times.
That TLA link was useful though.
---------
For the record, what I disagree with is Asar claim that glyphs put into a sequence, are specific words that have the same meaning every time they are put together in that manner. Any glimpse at an Egyptian dictionary will tell you the meaning of the same set of glyphs is determined by.. well... the determinative, not by exact resemblance to other cases.
quote: km.t A woman's ailment
km.t Black cattle (an example of km.t that Asar vehemently denies)
I would also say, that determinatives are mute glyphs not to be read along with the preceding glyphs that carry the intended meaning. But I didn't even get to that part, as I realized I don't have time to add to the promo page of a salesman posing as a seeker of feedback.
I salute Asar's attempt to make a career of this. But they will tell you on the first couple of pages in any book on Egyptian hieroglyphs, that determinatives are not to be read. If 049 is not supposed to be read, and if the word for land is t3 as DJ already pointed out, I don't see how 'Riperian land' could be among kmt's meanings. But then again, I'm no expert, and I'm not interested in speculative unknowables like the elusive meaning of Kmt + 049. My main reason for commenting in this thread is Asar's claim to have solved Egyptian self-identity and homeland, which he seemed to duck and dodge when I asked him about it.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: Could you kindly post an excerpt of text from the first book to give us an idea of how you write and how much material you have to work with?
So you're not going to do this, Asar?
I apologize if this comes across as a personal attack. It's just that claiming that you have 500 pages' worth of content per book while hiding almost all of it behind a $35-40 paywall is throwing up a red flag for me.
I don't see what the red flags are for. I discuss this topic freely on my Youtube channel all the time. My position is known to everyone. But the details to make complete arguments are too great and detailed for a messageboard post or youtube video. Thus, a book is required for a full and complete argument.
What you pay for the book nowhere compares to the cost it takes to produce these works, or for the texts cited and consulted to create the work. For example,
I paid $130 for this book when it came out earlier this year. I may have included two citations in my entire text.
This book cost $110 + shipping from overseas. The book is only 150 pages. Each chapter is an independent chapter. The chapter I needed was only about 20 or 25 pages. So I spent approx $6 a page for the content I needed and probably only cited 3 or 4 lines.
This is what it takes to write books and to come to sound conclusions based on a wide body of evidence and discourse on the subject. So I do not feel sorry for someone who feels some kind of way because he doesn't want to spend "$33-40 behind a paywall."
I won't even mention how much I paid for this entire series. Each book cost $150. In my book, not only do I cite the texts, for the k-m entries, I cite the entire list and translate it into English from German so that the English speaking world can move beyond Budge and the TLA. I've done that for a number of German and French texts.
So, if you are interested in the subject matter, just purchase the book, read it, and come to your own conclusion. If not, quit crying because you are being lazy. I don't have sympathy for those who are not serious about the work. It is what it is.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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@Asar Is this particular combination in the new TLA (or old) ? I was looking for it in km.t and km and couldn't find it Would like to know if there is an identifiable wall this is supposedly on
It's in the old TLA, but the entry is found in the Kahun hieratic papyrus. I have checked the primary source and it is in there twice. I discuss and translate the source material in my book, Chapter 3.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: (Not worth reposting)
Asar, you are not going to drag me into your trademark battle royals. ES vereran posters have called you out for blatant defiance of Egyptian dictionaries entries and linguistics textbooks.
It is not a blatant defiance of Egyptian dictionaries entries and linguistics textbooks point out in certain contexts km can be translated as 'completion' and other things in addition to meaning black in other cases
This is why one must expand one's search parameters beyond the easily accessible texts. There are a number of dictionaries, reference lists, and texts not known by the average person.
Also, and I don't know why I have to repeat this every single time to folks, the ancient Egyptian writing script (to our knowledge) did not write out their vowels. So we are only left with the consonantal skeletal frame. This leaves a wide list of HOMOGRAPHS with the same consonant sequences in the script.
It is not the case that km can mean both "black" and "complete." These are two separate words. Just like in English:
There is no a priori reason to assume Km.t derives from km "black; dark." You have to prove this and not one scholar before me has done that leg work. My analysis shows just how lazy Egyptology can be and why you must ALWAYS do your own work and ONLY judge based primary evidence and proper research methods.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: As far as the km.t discussion is concerned, right now I am inclined to think there was some color symbolism going on with it and dshr.t. IIRC, Egyptians associated the color black with fertility and rebirth and red with chaos and foreigners. It could be that they called their country "black" to represent what they perceive as black's positive qualities and lands outside as "red" to associate them with barbarians and chaos.
When it comes to scholarship, what you "think" and "believe" is irrelevant. What you can demonstrate is what is valued. For example, "black" was also associated with death and disease in ancient Egypt (see Appendix D in my recent text). What proof do you have, based solely on the primary texts, do you have to argue against the hypothesis that Km.t means "land of the dead" vs "fertile black land"? What is your process of elimination? Methodology is key and demonstration beats conversation.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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For the record, what I disagree with is Asar claim that glyphs put into a sequence, are specific words that have the same meaning every time they are put together in that manner. Any glimpse at an Egyptian dictionary will tell you the meaning of the same set of glyphs is determined by.. well... the determinative, not by exact resemblance to other cases.
Where have you EVER heard me or seen me write such non-sense EVER? This shows your laziness and your incomprehension of the arguments. Please, stay out of the discussion if you can't even get the basic arguments correct. Like how do you fumble something that you can easily cite my work on? Geez.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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@Asar Is this particular combination in the new TLA (or old) ? I was looking for it in km.t and km and couldn't find it Would like to know if there is an identifiable wall this is supposedly on
It's in the old TLA, but the entry is found in the Kahun hieratic papyrus. I have checked the primary source and it is in there twice. I discuss and translate the source material in my book, Chapter 3.
Examination of a woman aching in all her limbs and the sockets of [her] eyes [...] .. (?) You should say of it 'it is pains of the womb'. You should treat it with a measure of oil, [...] ished-fruit, grapes, notched sycamore fruit, beans, prt-Sny [...] [Grind] and refine, boil and drink for three days
(Although I don't see in the English translation, a translation of kmtw)
So the original is Hieratic, thanks for the info thus what we are looking at above is a modern transliteration of the hieratic script on papyrus into hieroglyphs
Is there any known instance of the above combination appearing in actual hieroglyphics carved into a wall or object?
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: @Asar what is the earliest source proposing the meaning of km and of kmt?
Which k-m are you talking about with what meaning? And regards Km.t "Egypt," this name doesn't appear until the end of the 11th Dynasty.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: Which k-m are you talking about with what meaning?
a translation of k-m of any meaning
Just go to the TLA and type in km and click the citations, which will tell you Old, Middle, or New Kingdom.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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In the document above, go to pdf page 20, Plate II and study that area.
thanks, the above second link has the following translation, which you would not agree with
quote:
Hymns to king Senusret III
Transcription of the papyrus UC 32157 (hymns on front side only)
Transliteration and translation of the papyrus
Columns 9-10
Part Four: the arrival of the king ii.n.f n.n iT.f tA Sma Xnm.n sxmty m tp.f ii.n.f smA.n.f tAwy Abx.n.f Swt n bit ii.n.f HqA.n.f kmt rdi.n.f dSrt m ab.f ii.n.f mk.n.f tAwy sgrH.n.f idbwy ii.n.f sanx.n.f kmt xsr.n.f Snw.s ii.n.f sanx.n.f pat srq.n.f Htyt rxyt ii.n.f ptpt.n.f xAswt Hw.n.f iwntyw xmw snd[.f] ii.n.f [..]A.n.f tAS.f nHm.n.f awA ii.n.f [..] Xrdw.n qrs.n iAw.n Hr (?)
He has come to us, grasping the land of Upper Egypt, the Double Crown has joined his head He has come, he has united the Two Lands, he has merged the reed with the bee He has come, he has ruled the Black Land, he has placed the Red Land in its midst He has come, he has protected the Two Lands, he has calmed the two riverbanks He has come, he has given Egypt life, he has dispelled her woes He has come, he has given the nobles life, he has given breath to the throats of the people He has come, he has trampled the foreign lands, he has struck the nomads ignorant of [his] fear He has come, he has [..] his border, he has rescued the oppressed He has come, [...] our children, we may bury our old .. (?)
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