Center series "studies"

It is a refereed scientific series, aiming at publishing specialized books and volumes that deal with the studies of inscriptions and calligraphies all over the world, starting from the prehistoric period up to the digital age. This series will be published in several languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish and German.

Some of these series are:

1. The Writings on the Walls of Al Hamra Palaces,

by Dr. Mohamed El Gamal

This catalog is the comprehensive collection of Arabic inscriptions on the walls of Al Hamra palaces. It provides a full analysis of the verses and prose inscribed on the walls of Al Hamra palaces. The inscriptions include a number of poems of famous Arabic poets, such as Aben Zoumrak, Lesan el Deen bin El-Khateeb and Ibn El-Gayab. These poems romantically describe the magnificent palaces of Al Hamra. The inscriptions are considered to be the pattern of Islamic architecture and Arabic calligraphy.

2. Scripts (Alexandria 2002)

This book was published on the occasion of the inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on 16 October 2002. It is complementary to the special exhibition on “the Wall” concerning the granite cladding of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina building.

The author of this book is Olaf Berggren, born in Alexandria. His parents were Swedish citizens, however his mother was originally Greek. He commands a number of languages to support his interest in scripts, especially French and Swedish, German, Greek, Italian and English

His wealth of information on the scripts of the world is the outcome of a lifetime of interest in all aspects of geography of place, cultures and customs, and all that influenced them within their own environment. He tried, in this book, to display all languages of the world and their roots and branches. In addition, he has demonstrated how language has continually evolved where the written word has been much slower to adapt to the changes, further illustrating how the script “artists”, were and still, are offered a unique status and rank, apart from the quickly changing world around them.

3. Necropoles Memphiticae inscriptions from the Herakleopolitan period.

by Dr. Khaled Dawoud

“The core of the thesis is the compilation and study of a group of monuments, many are published for the first time and difficult of access. These are presented with a brief general survey of the sites of known archaeological contexts of the monuments. The corpus consists of the inscribed stone remains of the offering locations of tombs from the general region of Memphis from the so-called First Intermediate Period: primarily the standard so-called false door, a stele in the form of a door, where the tomb-owner is shown receiving offerings, together with a limited number of decorated side-pieces that framed a stela or formed a niche around it, and a number of the stone-offering tables which were in front of a stela. The majority of these monuments were excavated a long time ago, in excavations that were not properly recorded, and they are from rather poor tombs. From a period where central government was unstable, the texts do not include dating formula, nor by and large do they mention royal names, so that the primary contexts for dating do not exist. As a result, a significant body of inscribed material survives that can only be dated generally between Late Old Kingdom and Early Middle Kingdom. They are available in museums, in the storerooms of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, and occasionally even on their original site. Attempts have been made to organize some of this material, especially from provincial sites, but this thesis study is the first targeted at identifying and presenting a coherent body of inscriptions from the necropolis of the capital”.

4. The Fatimide inscriptions and writings on the architectural monuments (968/1171-358/567).

Archaeological and artistic study, by Dr. Farag Hussein Farag

“This thesis aims at studying the Fatimide writings and inscriptions in an archaeological and artistic prospect. The research demonstrates, as well, the development of the Kufi Calligraphy: its origins, emergence, evolution and its forms”. The study focuses on the material on which the inscriptions were engraved, and its impact on the way and quality of performing it. On the other hand, the research displays the relationship between the Fatimide inscriptions and the historical, economic and political evolution in the society. Finally, the research studies the Shiite doctrine through the Fatimide writings and inscriptions.

5. "A Study of some Coptic Papyri in the Coptic Museum",

by Maher Eissa

This thesis aims at studying the Coptic Language, which is used to refer to the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language. Then the characters of the ancient Egyptian language are explained. The kinds of scripts and the times of the ancient Egyptian language are briefly mentioned. After that it focuses on the importance of the Coptic language, the reasons of disappearance of the Coptic language from public use and the time and way the Egyptian people invented the Coptic script and how the early Christian proselytizers in Alexandria employed the Coptic in the end of the second century A.D as a way of presenting the Bible to the Egyptian masses.

6. Tuhaf El-Khawass Fi Taraf El-Khawass,

(the masterpieces of art of people of distinction, newly acquired by leading personalities) by El Kalalousy.
It is a rare Andalusian Manuscript interpreted and commented by Dr. Hossam ElAbady.

7. Cryptography in Ancient Egypt

This study deals with the origin and development of Cryptography in Ancient Egypt up until the Late Period. It consists of an introduction and four main parts: Part One, Introduction; Part Two, Cryptography in Ancient Egypt; Part Three, some samples of Cryptography in Ancient Egypt throughout the ages; and finally Part Four, specializes in scarabs and the cryptographic writing.

The history of Cryptography in Ancient Egypt dates back to the initial steps in deciphering the Ancient Egyptian Language by Champollion; as we find the differentiation of some signs and words which were written in untraditional way, known as The Secret Script. After the mid– nineteenth century, the Cryptography witnessed a great concern when some researchers had become uninterested in it because of its difficulties and the insignificance of its text. The most important achievements in the study of Cryptography dates back to the activities of Dreton who contributed to facilitating the study of Cryptography, he had introduced a major number of articles in this field, beside some basic steps from which one can understand and analyze the texts of Cryptography.

 8- Mauritanian Rock Art: A New Recording

“Mauritanian Rock Art: A New Recording” is an attempt to utilize new methods and techniques for recording rock art in north-west Africa. The main aim of this book is three-fold: to bring attention to the Mauritanian rock art which has received little attention compared with the rock art of other parts of the Saharan zone; to make a new recording of this corpus with special emphasis on a number of elements that previous work either ignored or omitted; and to carry out two different interpretative analyses in order to gain a better understanding of the recorded corpus (as an example of the Mauritanian rock art).
Dr. Hamdi Abbas Ahmed Abd-El-Moneim is an eminent Egyptian scholar and one of a few scholars specializing in the history and development of rock art. After he obtained his PhD from the University of London on Mauritanian rock art, he was keen to publish his valuable and unique work.
 

9-Geography of Languages

This book is considered the first of its kind in its field of specialization published in the Arabic language. Researchers Dr. Muhammad Mudhat Jabir and Dr. Fatin al-Banna, in composing this book, based their research on a large amount of recent, practical references in the field of languages and their geographic distribution and subsequently tracking their emergence, disappearance, transformation and development.
We have raised a number of questions in Geography of Languages, including:  What is the purpose of this book? What is the difference between it and other linguistic books that have dealt with languages in analysis and study? What is the difference between the geography of languages and linguistic geography? The book’s chapters will answer all of these questions and several others.
The book “Geography of Languages” takes place in 11 research investigations included in 31 chapters that treated the topic of languages from many geographical aspects. The reader will perceive a difference in the size of the chapters. That difference reflects the importance of exhibited topics for research and the nature of dealing with it and not the paucity of data or special information as well. The reader will discover that the book sometimes shows some clear linguistic issues that were difficult to arrive to through geographical study even if the subject was brief from the linguistic perspective. The authors desired to show all the terms in Geography of Languages and in languages, Arabic and what not, to the benefit of the researcher.