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

m 46 n Herman Bell, Muhammad Jalal Hashim The seated man indicates a word division in just the right place between the two elements of the geographical name presumed to be ‘Perceiving Aten’ or ‘Finding Aten’, for the latter version, cf. Pierce (Eide et al . 1994-, 135 passim), similarly Gardiner (1961, 223). Priese’s representation of this name as / qawata / should now be modified to indicate the break between words: / qaw-ata /. The word division in / qaw- ata / is identical with the word division in the ancient Egyptian name Gm-’Itn . The position of this word break considerably strengthens the link between the ancient Egyptian name and the Meroitic name. Macadam first tried to interpret the consonant(s) after the seated man as / t + n /, two characters. Later he acknowledged that it was ‘very doubtful’ that more than one Meroitic sign was involved. Priese construed it as a single sign / t / rather than / tn /. The absence of a final / n / in the divine name Aten is con- sistent with the loss of the final / n / ( Yaata ), demonstrated by Fecht (1960) to have occurred already in the 14 th century B.C. The absence of / n / appropriately represents the pronunciation of the name of Aten and further strengthens the argument that / qaw-ata / signifies ‘Perceiving Aten’ or ‘Finding Yaata ’. Macadam admitted that the Meroitic sign he had been attempting to read as / m / in Qm was probably a / w /. The Meroitic spelling indicates that the first syllable of the name was pronounced Qaw , and no longer as Gm . The transi- tion from / m / to / w / is a straightforward sound change. It involves relaxing and opening the lips. Both sounds have the same place of articulation (bila- bial). The change from / m / to / w / may already have been triggered in ancient Egyptian by the influence of a following consonant / y /. If an / m / shifted to the manner of articulation of a / y / (proximant), it would become a nasalized / w /. Rule 1: Partial assimilation ( /m/ becomes a proximant /w/ before a proximant /y/. ) Gm-Yaata > Gw-Yaata If the letter is indeed / w / rather than / m / in the Meroitic inscription REM 0704 and if that inscription does contain the place-name ‘Finding Yaata ’, then these points provide evidence that Rule 1 had taken place prior to that inscrip- tion. A further sound change is plausible, but has no written evidence to support it. If there were two neighbouring consonants / w / and / y / with the same manner of articulation (proximants), then they might arguably have undergone total assimilation to each other as follows: Rule 2: Total assimilation (/w + y / > /w + w/) Gw-Yaata > Gw-Waata