Hovenweep Inscription A SUGGESTED DECIPHERMENT OF THE HOVENWEEP INSCRIPTION by Donal Buchanan In the Fall of 1981 I became aware of the Hovenweep inscription and responded to its challenge. I had been told that Dr. Barry Fell had worked on this inscription and requested that I not be told Dr. Fell’s findings because I did not want to prejudice my own investigation by “knowing the answers ahead of time.” In any case, I never got to see what Barry came up with. I present below my suggested decipherment. If I differ from Barry, the difference is amicable. The inscription is shown below. This was copied from a drawing not a photograph. For the provenance of this inscription, I direct the reader to Philip Leonard. Hovenweep is a Ute Indian word meaning “deserted valley.” The Hovenweep canyons site is in Mesa Verde National Park which was established as a National Monument on 2 March 1923. It is located about 43 miles west of Cortez, Colorado. The dotted line is not part of the inscription, but represents a division between the two parts of the inscription caused by the structure of the rock face. I suggest that the characters might be Egyptian. The inscription thus involves Hieroglyphic, Hieratic and Demotic symbols. I read them in the following order: This could be the hieroglyph = semi-t or set, which can mean “foreign country” or “desert” or “mountainous land” (B.598B). Here, however, I read it phonetically for set = “to sow seed” (B.707A). is the hieroglyph read by Budge at (B.96B) and by Gardiner idt (G.466). By itself or in combination with certain other characters it means “womb.” Here it is apparently used for its phonetic value. Thus, the first word in this two-word combination is fa-khet = “to make offerings.” The second word, ata, is made up of a Demotic a (the fourth letter in the two-word combination —and also the sixth, although harder to recognize), used twice, and t —here closer in form to the Hieratic than the Demotic. The word ata = “to make, cause.” So, fakhet ata = “cause to make offerings.” This is , the hieroglyph of a foot. Gardiner (G.457) reads it bw. Budge reads it b (13, 197A). Here I believe it is phonetic for ba = “soul, spirit” (B. 197B). the hieroglyph for “house, palace” This is (per)(B.237B). It can also mean “to come forth” or “to go out, to depart” (B.cxxvii). Here the latter meaning is emphasized by the arrow departing from the house and moving off to the side. Note that a single arrow, rather like a spear, coming through the,’door’: would be a hieroglyphic combination used to mean “sepulchral offerings.” It is possible that an echo of this second meaning is intended. Here we have two characters, poorly drawn. (B.633A) = s and a or i (B. 15). I read it as sa = “to go, depart,” emphasizing the previous hieroglyph. The hieroglyph , read k (B.782A), can stand for the 2nd pers. sing. masc. pronoun (“thou, thee, thy”) as well as the 1st. pers. sing. pronoun. While it may look like a knife, Gardiner says that it is a picture of a wickerwork basket with a handle (G.525). Read syllabically as ka, it could mean “behold” (B.782A). Here we have four symbols: and read it as I see this as fa-kh-at a-t-a (fakhet ata). The first character is a Demotic f The second character is a demotic kh or h, reversed so that it resembles , the hieroglyphic h (see the accompanying table and B.438). The third character 136 which I read herta shebu. is a reversed , which is a hieroglyphic h (W.115; B.438). is a Demotic r (W.115). is a Demotic t (W.115). These three together form herta = “feast, festival” (B.449B). The final character, , is read seb according to Budge (EL.77) and sb ESOP * The Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers * Volume 25 Hovenweep Inscription according to Gardiner (G.496). It is the hieroglyph for “door, gateway,” here used phonetically. In Egyptian, sbw is “a kind of offering” (B.657B) and sheb or shebu means “food offerings; food” (B.734B). I take herta shebu to mean “festal food-offerings.” These two glyphs are which together read kh-k or k-kh which I take to mean “Rise to Thee” or possibly “Thy Rising.” We have already seen that can stand for the 2nd. pers. sg. pronoun. The glyph is the hieroglyphic form of the Demotic read h or kh (W.115). Budge reads it kh (B.525). Kh or khi can mean “to rise” or “the rising sun” (B.525A) usually with at least one more glyph, but here again the hieroglyph is used phonetically. Here we have = heri = “Chief, master; a celestial being; He who is over” (B.494A). I translate it as “King.” This is = ra, which means “the Sun-God, Ra” or “sun” (B.418A). In this case, I read it “Heaven.” (Hieroglyphic form: ) Three glyphs are shown here: (here shown vertically) can be read phonetically mr and nm (G.493).In this inscription it appears to be doubled ( ) and takes both readings. Mera is the ancient name of Egypt (B.315A). Nem = “star” and nemu refers to a group of star gods (B.374A). I suggest that mer-nm-k here is meant to be read as “Thou Star of Egypt” or “Thou God of Egypt.” The use of Demotic argues that this inscription is probably relatively late. According to Gardiner, Demotic was in use from c. 715 BC to c. 470 AD. Whoever wrote this was not a scribe. He was someone with an imperfect knowledge of Demotic and of the use of the hieroglyphs. Perhaps we have here a case of a fading memory of the proper use of the script due to isolation from the mother country. Of course, a modern hoax is always a possibility. I must emphasize that I do not regard myself as any kind of expert on ancient Egyptian. No attempt has been made to address questions of authenticity. This is a suggested decipherment, nothing more. All in all, however, it was a fascinating problem. References 1. Budge, E. A. Wallis: An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, in two volumes, Dover Publications, paperback, 1978. (B) 2. Budge, E. A. Wallis: Egyptian Language, Dover Publications, 1966. (EL) 3. Gardiner, Sir Alan: Egyptian Grammar, Oxford Univ. Press, 1969. (G) 4. Wemyss, Stanley: The Languages of the World, published by Stanley Wemyss, 1950. (W) So we have: I render this rather freely as follows: “(When) sowing, (we) cause to be made offerings (to the) soul departed. Thy festal food offerings rise to Thee, King of Heaven —to Thee, Star (or God) of Egypt.” can mean “foreign country,” an Since the glyph argument could be made for replacing “(When) sowing” with “(In) a foreign country.” The use of the glyph for festival, however, argues that more likely some kind of fertility rite is involved here. ESOP * The Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers * Volume 25 137