Meroitic Stela (Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History)
Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.
― José Saramago
This week in Beirut, my Egyptology students practiced writing their names in Meroitic–an ancient language from the Kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Sudan. Though the grammar of this ancient African language has not yet been deciphered, the transliteration of Meroitic letters is thankfully known. Now that my students have learned Meroitic letters–along with ancient Egyptian grammar–perhaps it’s time to starting teaching them some Coptic or Ge’ez?
