Workshop Ergaleion 3 : From one meaning to another Polysemy and borrowings in the lexicon of material life in Egypt

Ergaleion - Papyrological lexicography of material life

Conceived as part of the Ifao program " Realia d'Égypte de l'époque ptolémaïque aux débuts de l'Islam : mots et mobiliers " (dir. P. Ballet, M. Mossakowska, V. Schram), Ergaleion - Outil de lexicographie papyrologique de la vie matérielle is a multilingual database designed to study the lexicon relating to material life in Egypt from the Persian to the early Arab periods, based on papyrological sources.

While one of the main aims of the database is to provide easy access, in the form of an evolving lexicon, to the results of lexicographic work recorded in the " Chronique de lexicographie papyrologique de la vie matérielle " (ed. J.-L. Fournet & S. Russo) published in the Comunicazioni dell'Istituto Papirologico " G. Vitelli ", Ergaleion has also been designed as a tool to facilitate lexicographical research into the vocabulary of realia (artifacts, materials, crafts, products, structures, landscapes, plants or animals) by defining the contexts in which words are attested, by highlighting the evolution of terminology over time, and by comparing the designations of the same reality in the different languages used in Egypt (Greek, Demotic, Aramaic, Coptic) using various visualization tools (chronological friezes and maps). Last but not least, it provides a privileged medium for systematizing the dialogue between philology and archaeology, since it enables us to connect words to the realities they are likely to designate, and to verify the presence of these realities in ancient Egypt by identifying archaeological remains.

As part of the " Realia d'Égypte " program (2022-2027), three axes have been defined as priorities for the database:

Vessels (especially cooking equipment, containers for agricultural practices, perfume vases, receptacles for precious objects), lighting ;
Textile production ;
Plant resources ;

However, Ergaleion is open to a wider range of lexicons relating to all aspects of material life, depending on the interests of associated contributors.

Workshop Ergaleion 3 : From one meaning to another Polysemy and borrowings in the lexicon of material life in Egypt

This third workshop, organized as part of the research program " Realia d'Égypte de l'époque ptolémaïque aux débuts de l'Islam : mots et mobiliers " (dir. P. Ballet, M. Mossakowska-Gaubert, V. Schram) from the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, follows on from the previous two by exploring the questions raised by the new exploratory online database " Ergaleion - Outil de lexicographie papyrologique de la vie matérielle ". After exploring the methodological and technical aspects involved in developing the database and linking its lexicographic and archaeological components in 2022, this workshop will focus on the words in the lexicon of material life that are polysemous with the thematic axes of the Realia program. In particular, it will look at the borrowing process, through which shifts in meaning are sometimes revealed : are these real semantic remotivations, or the revelation of an unknown meaning in the source language ? What might be the motivations behind the borrowing ? Discussions on these questions by specialists from different languages, periods and disciplines should enable us to set up working groups for the diachronic study of realia whose lexicon has yet to be explored, and for which the use of Ergaleion could prove useful. The second part of the workshop will be devoted to a practical workshop on the database itself (https://heurist.huma-num.fr/Ergaleion/web).

Program

Introduction to Ergaleion

9 h 30 - 12 h 30

1. Plants and animals (Jean-Luc Fournet, Collège de France)

Damien Agut (CNRS-ArScAn) : " Les emprunts des mots du ricin de l'égyptien, vers l'araméen, l'akkadien et... le grec "
Antonio Ricciardetto (CNRS-HiSoMA) : " From the Nile to Ergaleion : the mullet (or muge) in Greek papyrological documentation "

2. Tableware and containers (Pascale Ballet, U. Paris Nanterre)

Jean-Luc Fournet (Collège de France) : " How to deal with polysemy and multilingual sources ? The case of τράπεζα "
Korshi Dosoo (U. Würzburg) : " Notes on dishes and trays in Coptic magical texts "

14 h - 17 h 30

3. Textiles (Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert, U. Copenhagen)