new (to me) of the day – old nubian language
I clicked through a Google search for “old pictures” today, looking for inspiration. I was thinking more of something “retro”. Instead I found this and thought it was interesting. It definitely qualifies as “old”.
A page from an Old Nubian translation of the Instructions of the Archangel Michael, from the 9th-10th century AD
Here’s what wikipedia has to say:
Old Nubian is an ancient variety of Nubian, spoken until about the 15th century AD. It is ancestral to modern-day Nobiin and related to other Nubian languages such as Dongolawi. It was used throughout the medieval Christian kingdom of Makuria and its satellite Nobadia. The language is preserved in at least a hundred pages of documents, mostly of a religious nature, written using a modified form of the Coptic script; the best known is The Martyrdom of Saint Menas.
Old Nubian had its source in the languages of the Noba nomads who occupied the Nile between the First and Third Cataracts and the Makorae nomads who occupied the land between the Third and Fourth Cataracts following the collapse of Meroë sometime in the 4th century AD. The Makorae were a separate tribe who eventually conquered or inherited the lands of the Noba: they established a Byzantine-influenced state called Makuria which administered the Noba lands separately as the eparchy of Nobadia. Nobadia was converted to Monophysite Christianity by the priests Julian and Longinus, and thereafter received its bishops from the Pope of Alexandria.
They also say a bit more, mostly on the subject of the Coptic language and the variation used in these texts. Nothing earth shattering but still – new to me, so…
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Theriomorph
That’s gorgeous.
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