Talking Pyramids

Some of you have been keeping an eye on the “Recent Tweets” section on the right. This area displays posts imported from the micro-blogging service Twitter, where Bennu tweets his little heart away. He has become a lot more active lately so I just wanted to write a short post to share some of these new activities with you.

A little bit about how Bennu rolls
A handful of different categories have developed and these are heralded by an uppercase heading. So when a link to a video is the subject of the tweet it will be something like,

VIDEO: a small description of the video: http://link.com

Bennu has been breaking Egyptology news, linking to photos and videos of pyramids and other ancient Egypt related tid bits with an average of five tweets a day for the past 15 months or so. A headline, a short description and a link. Now that busy little bird is expanding his horizons by taking on the role of Teacher as well as Bard!

VOCAB: with Bennu…one tweet at a time
Bennu has begun tweeting in ancient Egyptian. Every single day, Bennu tweets an ancient Egyptian ‘Word of the Day’. In each tweet he gives the MdC along with the Gardiner hieroglyph system, the English translation and ending with a link to a picture of the hieroglyphs by utelising Twitter’s built in service Twitpic.

Here’s an example:

VOCAB: (MdC): Apd, (Gardiner): G1 Q3 D46 G38, (English): Bird, (Hieroglyphs): http://twitpic.com/1t27y

That’s a lot of learning crammed into a small 140 character limit message!

The Study at the Pyramid Texts Online
Because of the amount of positive feedback I have already been receiving about Bennu’s VOCAB: tweets (currently in it’s third week), I’ve started a weekly revision of them. The daily tweets are gathered together once a week and a revision video created to present them as flash cards. Watch the video to refresh what you learned through the week. A new page on Pyramid Texts Online has been created as a home for these videos and you can access it here: The Study.

Actually, Bennu hangs out at Pyramid Texts Online quite a bit. He can usually be found by clicking on the Unas cartouche on the main pages of the Pyramid Texts Online. He helps out there by offering a few helpful tips.

I hope you are taking notes because Bennu will begin testing you with sentences soon.

Poetry too? Oh Bennu
Yes, Bennu has now even gone out on a limb and is romancing the chicks with his ancient Egyptian poetry. He’s been chirping four lines of poetry a day usually following the daily VOCAB: tweet.

Follow what Bennu is saying directly here: www.twitter.com/bennu
Subscribe to Bennu’s RSS feed
Download the “Bennu’s Tweets” dashboard Widget (Mac only)
Watch his videos in The Study

If you have a Twitter account of your own you can add Bennu to the list of people you are following and interact directly with the bird himself.

Joining an online study group such as GlyphStudy or AEL remains one of the best ways to learn the language. The tweets and video flash cards Bennu is putting out there are just meant as a suppliment, based on the book by Janice Kamrin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglpyhs – A Practical Guide.

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Tags: Bennu, language