Required Reading;

[anansi]

The peopling
of ancient Egypt
and the deciphering
of Meroitic script
Proceedings of the symposium
held in Cairo
from 28 January to 3 February 1974
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0003/000328/032875eo.pdf

Will add more when I find really good stuff on a Pdf format.

[eternalsky]

Mar 2, 2014 0:57:19 GMT -5 anansi said:

The peopling
of ancient Egypt
and the deciphering
of Meroitic script
Proceedings of the symposium
held in Cairo
from 28 January to 3 February 1974
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0003/000328/032875eo.pdf

Will add more when I find really good stuff on a Pdf format.

Thanks anansi, this looks interesting, especially given the fact that it is a UNESCO book. Do you happen to know if this is available in any other formats? Any HTML or epub version would be nice.

Thanks in advance.

[anansi]

If I come across other formats I'll sure add them.

[karem]

Nice link. Thanks for this Anansi.

[amunratheultimate]

There's been great development in the decipherment of the Meroitic language since 1974. Especially by french specialist Claude Rilly. The language of the Meroitic Kushite has been deciphered and determined to be Nilo-Saharan. I already posted this on ES.

The Meroitic Language and Writing System By Rilly and Voogt




In the Conclusion (p.174) you can read:

Both the lexical and morphological correspondences have left no doubt that the Meroitic language shares an origin with Nilo-Saharan Group of North Eastern Sudanic.

It adds on p177:

These lexical elements direct the Urheimat toward the Sahel region rather than the Nile. The geographic distribution of the NES languages follows the same idea. Out of the three branches of North Eastern Sudanic, Taman and Nyima are the last to split off and are found in the Darfur-Kordofan region. If the principle of least movement is followed, this would also be the area of origin for the Nubians. It is likely that here proto-NES first appeared.

It must also be noted that while modern Nubian languages, like Nobiin, are closely related to the Meroitic language, they are not a child language to Meroitic but a sister language. Nubian languages doesn't descend from Meroitic, they both share a common ancestor language.

The movements of the Proto-Nubians, the third group of the Eastern branch, are more difficult to reconstruct. As argued elsewhere (Rilly 2008), it is not plausible that they ever reached the Nile prior to the end of the Meroitic Kingdom in the third century AD. On the other hand, the chronology of phonetics changes in the Nubian languages indicates that the split in the Nubian groups did not occur much prior to this date. The proximity of proto-Nubian and Meroitic , despite two millennia of separation, and Meroitic's conservative character in relation to proto-NES are such that they presuppose a relatively isolated position during a long period. The phonology of proto-Nubian, for instance, was not affected by influences that changed Meroitic or Nyimang phonology. It is likely that the Proto-Nubians were nomads wandering between still hospitable zones until the first millennium BC. Some portion of the middle part of Wadi Howar or the valley of Gebel Tageru may have served that purpose.

[anansi]

Thanks for the above,while I have never read the book I did know that progress was being made,so are they saying that they can now read Meriotic and understand it,for that's the news I am waiting for I would surely like to see the Meroitic version of the secession of hostilities between them and the Romans according to the treaty signed by the Kandake.

On the symposium, I posted it as required reading another reason for as that was the watershed in African studies for after that date nothing would be the same in either Nile Valley studies or African studies in general,it was one back peddle after another off course improvements and updates were made since then,for general public it was the African Origins Of Civilization,but for academics it was this symposium.

[anansi]

Dental Indicators of Health and Stress in Early Egyptian and Nubian Agriculturalists:
A Difficult Transition andGradual Recovery
Anne P. Starling* and Jay T. Stock
Lever hulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Biological Anthropology,

ABSTRACT: 
Although agriculture is now the globally predominant mode of food production, studies of the skeletal remains of early agriculturalists have indicated high levels of physiological stress and poor health relative to hunter-gatherers in similar environments. Previous studies identifying this trend in different regions prompt further research of the causes and effects of subsistence transitions in human societies. Here, 242 dentition from five ancient Egyptian and Nubian populations are examined: 38 individuals from Jebel Sahaba (Upper Paleolithic), 56 from Badari (Predynastic), 54 from Naqada (Pre dynastic), 47 from Tarkhan (Dynastic), and 47 from Kerma (Dynastic). These populations span the early period of agricultural intensification along the Nile valley. Skeletal remains were scored for the presence of linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) of the dentition, an established indicator of physiological stress and growth interruption. The prevalence of LEH was highest in the‘‘proto-agricultural’’ (pastoralist) Badari population, witha gradual decline throughout the late Predynastic and early Dynastic periods of state formation. This suggests that the period surrounding the emergence of early agriculture in the Nile valley was associated with high stress and poor health, but that the health of agriculturalists improved substantially with the increasing urbanization and trade that accompanied the formation of the Egyptian state. This evidence for poor health among proto-and early agriculturalists in the Nile valley supports theories that agricultural intensification occurred as a response to ecological or demographic pressure rather than simply as an innovation over an existing stable subsistence strategy. Am J Phys Anthropol 134:520–528,2007.
V
V
C
2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

link

For those seeking information on the how and why the move towards urbanization came to be for the two primary civilizations in the Nile Valley this is required reading,the transition period was very tough they suffered poor health and the dental and skeletal record showed it.

good luck searchers