Toponymy on the Periphery: Placenames of the Eastern Desert, Red Sea, and South Sinai in Egyptian Documents from the Early Dynastic until the End of the New Kingdom(39 Probleme der Ägyptologie)

In Toponymy on the Periphery, Julien Charles Cooper conducts a study of the rich geographies preserved in Egyptian texts relating to the desert regions east of Egypt. These regions, filled with mines, quarries, nomadic camps, and harbours are often considered as an unimportant hinterland of the Egyptian state, but this work reveals the wide explorations and awareness Egyptians had of the Red Sea and its adjacent deserts, from the Sinai in the north to Punt in the south. The book attempts to locate many of the placenames present in Egyptian texts and analyse their etymology in light of Egyptian linguistics and the various foreign languages spoken in the adjacent deserts and distant shores of the Red Sea.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Preface and Conventions List of Figures and Tables Abbreviations Introduction  Scope 1 Toponymy and Ancient History  1 The Unit of Study: The Placename  2 Toponymy in Egyptology  3 Critical Toponymy and Semantics  4 Toponym Typologies  5 Toponymy, Texts, and Lexicography  6 Etymological Method: The Linguistics of Non-Egyptian Placenames  7 Localisation 2 Proper Nouns and Placenames in the Egyptian Script  1 Toponymic Classifiers: Ordering Egyptian Space  2 Classifier Mechanics  3 The Toponymic Classifier Signs  4 Multiple Determinatives O49, N25, and T14  5 Classifying Foreign Space 3 The Historic, Geographic, and Archaeological Context  1 Egyptians outside Egypt: The Historical and Archaeological Context  2 Zone 1: The Eastern Desert  3 Zone 2: The South Sinai, Edom, and Midian  4 Zone 3: The Southern Atbai and Further Red Sea  5 Conclusion 4 Foreigners on the Periphery: The Language and Phonology of Foreign Names  1 Foreign Ethnica  2 The Linguistic Map of the Red Sea  3 Phono-Graphemic Correspondences 5 Toponymic Databank  1 Areal Toponyms [1–9]  2 Zone 1: The Eastern Desert [9–50]  3 Zone 2: The South Sinai and Edom [51–74]  4 Zone 3: The Southern Atbai and Further Red Sea [75–85]  Excursus I: Diagnostic Resources and the Archaeology of Punt 6 Toponomastica: Toponyms from the Topographical Lists and Execration Texts  1 Egyptian Toponomastica  2 Hapax Toponyms from Toponomastica 7 The Toponyms and Labels of the Turin Map  1 The Map  2 Toponyms and Geographic Labels of the Turin Map [T1-T20]  Excursus II: Toponyms Possibly Located in the Eastern Desert, South Sinai, and Red Sea 8 Geographic Analysis  1 Mapping the Desert and the Sea: Problems of Historical Geography  2 Hierarchies and Allonyms  3 Routes in the Desert and the Sea: Using Placenames to Reconstruct Ancient Routes  4 Toponymy and Archaeology: New Sites in the Desert  5 Placenames as Symbols  6 The Expeditionary Context: The Arrival of Foreign Names in Texts 9 Linguistic Analysis  1 Foreign Languages  2 Orthographic Remarks  3 Morphology and Syntax  4 Toponym Motivation  5 Lexical Opacity and Toponymic Transparency  6 Making Placenames 10 Conclusion  1 Egyptians and Their Placenames  2 Territoriality: Placenames and Sovereignty  3 The Peripheral Toponymy of Egypt: Patterns in Marginal Landscapes and Language Contact Postscript: A New Puntite Topographical List from Old Dongola Appendix of Texts Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Julien Charles Cooper, Ph.D. (2016), Macquarie University, is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at Yale University. He has published a number of articles relating to toponymy and Egyptian exploration of distant regions and has conducted fieldwork in the Atbai desert of Sudan.

Review :
“The volume is an incredibly useful resource (…) As a reference work, I cannot praise Cooper’s work highly enough (…) The discussions of each toponym are well researched with ample supporting material, and the book includes a variety of helpful figures, maps, and illustrations that help to advance its key arguments.” - David A. Falk, Vancouver School of Theology, in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol 81, No 1 (2022)