Length: 39.400 cm
Width: 36.800 cm

EA 1541

Room 65: Sudan, Egypt & Nubia

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Sudan Past and Present: Early cultures to the Arrival of Christianity

Sandstone offering table

Kushite offering tables tend to be roughly square in shape, with a central depression for holding liquids. Some examples, such as this, bear representations of the food which would be placed on the table, while others have figured decoration. Around the outside is an inscription which names the owner and gives his parentage.

Meroitic was the first Nubian language to be recorded in written form and it used two scripts. The Meroitic hieroglyphic script was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs but with different sound values. It was used chiefly for monumental inscriptions. The cursive script was a shorthand version of hieroglyphs, partly based on Egyptian demotic (colloquial) script. It occurs in less formal contexts, such as on this offering table, on funerary stelae, papyri and graffiti.

The sound values for the hieroglyphic signs were established by Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934) through a comparative study of inscriptions in Meroitic and ancient Egyptian. The key to the breakthrough was a book stand from Wad Ben Naga, inscribed with royal names in both Egyptian and Meroitic hieroglyphs. Griffith's work enabled names, titles and a few standard phrases to be translated. Further progress towards understanding Meroitic texts has been hampered by the scarcity of other bilingual inscriptions and by the failure to link Meroitic to other African languages.