Merer's Logbook - A Question

[Scott Creighton]

The papyri scrap below is a fragment from Merer's Logbook. 

As you can see it shows a column with the number '13' ( | | | n) written in old hieratic script which is always read from right-to-left and top-to-bottom. The ancient Egyptian decimal system did not use a place value system so I am wondering if the above number could have been written (horizontally) in old hieratic as n | | |? 

I have looked at a number of sources and it seems that the examples in Merer's Logbook (above) seems to have been the normal convention but I am not certain. Does anyone know the answer to this?  kmt_sesh?

Thanks in advance. 

SC

Edited February 10, 2018 by Scott Creighton

[mstower]

20 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

The papyri scrap below is a fragment from Merer's Logbook. 

As you can see it shows a column with the number '13' ( | | | n) written in old hieratic script which is always read from right-to-left and top-to-bottom. The ancient Egyptian decimal system did not use a place value system so I am wondering if the above number could have been written (horizontally) in old hieratic as n | | |? 

I have looked at a number of sources and it seems that the examples in Merer's Logbook (above) seems to have been the normal convention but I am not certain. Does anyone know the answer to this?  kmt_sesh?

Thanks in advance. 

SC

That would be the accounts papyrus and not Merer’s journal.

Let’s run ahead and see where he’s going with this. He’s going to conjure up one of his prescriptive rules and then use it to fault the numerals in Campbell’s Chamber. 

I’d suggest first of all that close attention be paid to the orientation of all of the numerals here:

We see in these cases that the unit strokes could be written horizontally:

The numerals on the ceiling blocks of Campbell’s are written horizontally relative to the characters they accompany (w3s and nfr ):

I’d suggest that Creighton stick to his present condition of uncertainty. The conventions (plural) are not so simple as would suit him.

http://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,1133868,1136377#msg-1136377

M.

Edited February 11, 2018 by mstower

[Scott Creighton]

3 hours ago, mstower said:

That would be the accounts papyrus and not Merer’s journal.

Let’s run ahead and see where he’s going with this. He’s going to conjure up one of his prescriptive rules and then use it to fault the numerals in Campbell’s Chamber.

 

SC: No, not to "fault", merely to 'question'.

 

I’d suggest first of all that close attention be paid to the orientation of all of the numerals here:

We see in these cases that the unit strokes could be written horizontally:

SC: Those horizontal strokes are days of the month (as denoted by the circumpunct circle). Month days (in old hieratic) are always written horizontally. You can clearly see in your example the days 8, 9 & 10. (See Moeller p.59-60 & Goedicke p.55a-57a).

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SC: These are examples of rise/run angular notation (in Royal Cubits). We see similar in the Rhind Papyrus:

 

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The numerals on the ceiling blocks of Campbell’s are written horizontally relative to the characters they accompany (w3s and nfr ):

SC: In which case these categorically cannot be general numbers painted onto these blocks as Egyptology insists. They appear more like numbers of the month. Which, if so, raises a number of other curious questions.

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I’d suggest that Creighton stick to his present condition of uncertainty. The conventions (plural) are not so simple as would suit him.

http://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,1133868,1136377#msg-1136377

M.

SC: The "prescriptive rules" look fairly conventional to me. The 'numbers' on those roof blocks in Campbell's look more like dates. If Egyptology continues to insist they are general numbers then they have to explain why the lower unit value has been placed before the higher unit value since this is not normal hieratic convention.

 

SC

Edited February 11, 2018 by Scott Creighton

[Kenemet]

9 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

SC: In which case these categorically cannot be general numbers painted onto these blocks as Egyptology insists. They appear more like numbers of the month. Which, if so, raises a number of other curious questions.

SC: The "prescriptive rules" look fairly conventional to me. The 'numbers' on those roof blocks in Campbell's look more like dates. If Egyptology continues to insist they are general numbers then they have to explain why the lower unit value has been placed before the higher unit value since this is not normal hieratic convention.

They are clearly not dates.  There are no determinitives with them, and dates will always have an indication that they are to be dates.  And as far as I am aware, hieratic is normally only written on a horizontal plane.

[mstower]

13 hours ago, Kenemet said:

They are clearly not dates.  There are no determinitives with them, and dates will always have an indication that they are to be dates.  And as far as I am aware, hieratic is normally only written on a horizontal plane.

All of which makes sense, but he’s got around to letting on with tolerable clarity where he’s going with this—and surprise, surprise, it’s as I predicted:

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But, as you'd no doubt expect from me, I simply don't buy into such utter baloney. There is a much simpler explanation which doesn't require looking for evidence that doesn't exist and which doesn't require turning AE maths literally on its head - well, its side. Let's just say this other explanation does not concern people who would know something about how to write AE hieratic numbers and is more to do with people who hadn't a clue about them but were trying to make them look like something they weren't. I'm sure you'll catch my drift. Doesn't take a lot to figure it out.

http://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,1133868,1136494#msg-1136494

I like the futurity of “I’m sure you’ll catch my drift.”

A very large part of the problem with Creighton is his wildly premature rush to prescriptive judgement—this through his having no real interest in the topic, other than its serving his rancid “forgery” agenda.

My replies may be found via this search.

M.

[Jarocal]

9 hours ago, mstower said:

 

I like the futurity of “I’m sure you’ll catch my drift.”

A very large part of the problem with Creighton is his wildly premature rush to prescriptive judgement—this through his having no real interest in the topic, other than its serving his rancid “forgery” agenda.

 

You could at least credit him with finding new materials regarding his pet theme to be refuted rather than spending a decade plus repeating the same catch phrases.

[Kenemet]

On 2/11/2018 at 6:47 PM, Kenemet said:

They are clearly not dates.  There are no determinitives with them, and dates will always have an indication that they are to be dates.  And as far as I am aware, hieratic is normally only written on a horizontal plane.

I should also have added that the signs next to them are not the names of months.  I could speculate that it's the start of various gang names ("beautiful is the soul of Khufu" as an example (not-a-real-gang-name-we-know-of)) and the number of stones they moved during a period.