Lee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> My edition (Penguin 1996) says that conversion is
> impossible but that one drachma was the daily wage
> for a skilled worker or rower in the Athenian navy
> in the th century BCE. 1 talent = 6000 drachma,
> so huge indeed,

Yes, I've got this, too.

(Incidentally, I now note that the Introduction - that I had supposed was the work of de Selincourt - is actually by one A.R. Burn. Belated apologies to both writers ... )

but how would one relate this to
> "wages" in Khufu's time?

Well, I did wonder ...

> I think your point about misinterpretation or
> misunderstanding of the inscription is a very good
> one. Even assuming that the priest/interpretor
> was able to read glyhs, it does not follow that he
> understood them as they were originally intended
> to be understood, or read all of them correctly.



> Some 2100 years elapse between Khufu and
> Herodotus. The Egypyian of the OK was very
> different from the Egyptian the priest/interpretor
> would have spoken and written on a daily basis,
> and differed as well from Middle Egyptian, the
> "classic" form of the language that we learn first
> today and that was used for most religious writing
> well almost throughout Egyptian history. Thus
> even if the priest were well-acquinted with NE and
> demotic, his ready understanding of OK texts is
> not a foregone conclusion. I don't plunge
> recklessly into Chaucer (or even Shakespeare)
> without a glossary, and that language as common
> speech lies nowhere near so far in the past. I
> also agree that neither the interpretor nor
> Herodotus need be seen as mendacious here: the
> priest gives his honest (though slightly mangled)
> translation of the inscription; Herodotus honestly
> passes it on, and we, somewhat confused, are left
> with the burden of providing a useful footnote.
> Such are the joys of scholarship.

Thanks for clearing this up ...

Hermione
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