“New Texts from Ancient Egypt: Revisiting the Egyptian Alabaster Quarries at Hatnub” Roland Enmarch (EEG Meeting Talk)
At the beginning of March Roland Enmarch came to the Essex Egyptology Group to talk to us about the ancient texts left on the walls of an Egyptian alabaster quarry in Middle Egypt. He started his talk by giving us the geographical and geological context for the quarry. Hatnub is in the Eastern desert fairly close to Amarna. The name “Hatnub” (hat-noob) is how the original excavators of the site in the 1890s pronounced the ancient name that they read on the walls (which is transliterated ḥwt-nbw). Modern Egyptologists would pronounce it more like “Hut nebu” (hoot neb-oo) because the assumptions made about how the vowels sound have changed, but the name has stuck with the original pronunciation. It’s quite likely that neither pronunciation bears much resemblance to what an actual Ancient Egyptian would’ve said. The name means “Mansion of Gold” which is reminiscent of the names of areas in… Read More »“New Texts from Ancient Egypt: Revisiting the Egyptian Alabaster Quarries at Hatnub” Roland Enmarch (EEG Meeting Talk)