Does anyone know a source of the heiratic text for the trial of Rameses III's queen? I recently saw a documentary by Bob Briar on this conspiracy and he showed a copy of the trial text, so it must be available out there somewhere.

I'm trying to learn to read Heiratic, and this looked like an interesting text to dig into. (Actually, I'm a real beginner in Heiratic, and have more practice with deciphering hieroglyphs -- and can always use help there as well!)

Thanks!

--Djehuty

I didn't see that documentary yet, but it's probably because I'm in Italy and it is not in the programs yet....I'll ask somebody here, we have a good expert about hieratic writings.....may you need also some other good hieratic text? in case I don't find the one about teh trial of RamsesIII 's queen....here in Turin we have very nice papyrus....

I don't mean to sound supercilious or anything, but a trial text is probably not the easiest text to begin with. I expect that most Egyptologists would have great difficulty in translating such an odd text, as it probably uses lots of unusual vocabulary that would be nigh impossible to find (and Budge is useless for that sort of thing). Are you sure that this is the best place to start? Unless you could find an interlinear translation, or you are a very skilled translator then I believe that the text may be quite tricky to get to grips with. Especially considering the hieratic language is not just comprised of simplified hieroglyphs but instead a mesh of complex joined characters and symbols. On the page, hastily scrawled texts look very different to those you find in hieratic exercise books, where all the symbols are neatly separated and uniform. Simple writings in hieratic are hard enough to decode- the scribes rarely have good handwriting. Even in the hieroglyphs it is stunningly complex and difficult. I most certainly wouldn’t be able to do it without a vocab list of some sort, and hopefully a Basically, it is not at all easy.

It might be an idea to get hold of an interlinear translation, a transcription, vocabulary list and a hieroglyphic transcription if you really want to get stuck into the text. Might I suggest that you get a copy of the Book of the Dead of Nebseni, or any other hieratic versions of the BOTD. That is what helped me to begin hieratic, as you can easily compare the hieroglyphs with the hieratic, and get a feel for how they differ. The command of a few glyphs, or being able to read cartouches will not enable you to translate immensely complex texts. Sorry if I have the wrong idea, but this is my advice.