«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

Does Aten Live On in Kawa (K ó wwa) m 45 n will now be examined in detail to see how convincing it may still be and whether any additional points can be made pro or con. One obstacle to the transmission of the modern name Kówwa from ancient times is the apparent lack of a settled population at certain periods of history. This was noted during the SARS Northern Dongola Reach Survey around Kawa. Derek Welsby (2001, 2, 597) reported that for the Post-Meroitic pe- riod (c. A.D. 350–550) ‘not one piece of post- Meroitic pottery has been recognised nor are there any tumuli which can be assigned to that period’. This is a serious consideration, but not a conclusive one. Geographical names have a potential for survival in travellers’ ac- counts and folklore when they are associated with the sites of ancient buildings close to a navigable stretch of river. Therefore, it is saf- est to examine Priese’s suggestion on its own merits. Priese identified a particular Meroitic in- scription as the potential link between the ancient name Gm-’Itn and the mod- ern name Kówwa . It is the inscription REM 0704 (Kawa 104), see Leclant et al . (2000, 1250). When Macadam published the inscription originally, he recognised that it could be ‘made to read Amn[i] Qmetnte , i. e. “Amūn in Gematen”’ (1949, 1, 116f.). He attempted to interpret the elements of the geographical name as follows: Qm (< Gm , ancient Egyptian ‘Perceiving’), etn (< ´It ( n ) ancient Egyptian ‘Aten’) and te (Meroitic locative suffix ‘in’). He noted that the characters of the inscription ‘were a mixture of Meroitic hieroglyphic and cursive’ and probably dated ‘to the time when the Meroitic hieroglyphs first evolved’ (Second century B.C.?). An important feature of this text is that ‘Aten’ is marked as an independent element within the geographical name. The rules of Meroitic writing indicate a clear word division beforeAten. Aten begins with the character of a seated man. This character is used only at the beginning of a word. It has traditionally been transliterated as the vowel / a /, although there are problems of interpretation. Meroitic inscription REM 0704 from Kówwa