Recent content by Oracle of Sobek 𓆋

This might actually be doable if Arzawa is keen on becoming a naval power (how is Uhha-Ziti's relationship with the Lukka-land factions?) that rules inland Anatolia through vassal-kings... But they'll have stiff competition from the Mycenaeans on that front. Anyway, I dig a stronger Arzawa...

Someone's been looking into reconstructed Egyptian pronunciation! Personally I've grown more partial to some kind of /l/ for the original value of <Ꜣ> (hence Old Egyptian *Lūsat for <Ꜣst>), but the rhotic interpretation is also valid - this is an ongoing debate. That said, by the time this TL...

Hieratic really only gave rise to Demotic, which in turn contributed a few letters to Coptic and served as the basis for cursive Meroitic. Otherwise early alphabetic scripts derived direct inspiration from Hieroglyphs (except Ugaritic - being cuneiform-based), and the OG of those...

-Scenario 1- Step 1. The Magyars are completely Oghurized, and remain in *Etelköz (roughly central-to-west Ukraine) as confederates of a Khazar state. Step 2. Slavic expansions push the Oghur-Magyars south and east across the Dnipro - basically into the Donbas. Migrations and conquests come and...

Not to be that guy but <Ḥryw Rnpt> is the "(which are) Upon the Year" part of <Hrw 5 (djw) Ḥryw Rnpt> "the 5 (five) Days Upon the Year". Akhenaten's reforms here are reminding me of a certain 7th century prophet and lawgiver... Some of these changes - notably the ban on slavery for...

Neat! I was not aware of those details... That said, I stand by the broad strokes of my analysis. Early Christianity proved itself very adaptable and slotted neatly into a lot of Mediterranean theological discourse; it'll be near impossible to keep out of the country if Egypt wants to maintain...

Nice, it's "Illuyanka's Revenge"!

Assuming everything goes right, Rome is riven by internal strife for a generation or two, and Isidorid (?) Egypt prospers... Like @Sarufiyyun pointed out, Isidorid Egypt is part of the broader Hellenized world. That said, it still has a robust native culture at this point... The Egyptian...

Praise the living Re-Horakhty!

The stones of Akhenaten's building project were recycled - they were used as filler for other structures. When those buildings fell to ruin and were later reconstructed, archaeologists also rebuilt some of Akhenaten's buildings (at least partially) by figuring out which of the recycled blocks...

Egyptian (it wasn't quite yet "Coptic") was still a prestigious language in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Ptolemies governed arm-in-arm with the traditional Egyptian priestly class, and while Greek was the primary administrative language of Egyptiote Greeks and the Alexandrian court, business and legal...

They have more to overcome than Sea Peoples and Kaskas, or Phrygians for that matter. The late Hittite Empire was very decentralized, with rival dynastic power bases emerging in Tarhuntassa and at Kargamish. This fragmentation was not helped by the droughts, cold snaps, and nigh inevitable...

Some post-Roman possibilities include: - a successful Revolt of Isidorus (the "Bucolic War") in the 2nd c. AD. - an alternate outcome Crisis of the Third Century that leaves Zenobia in charge of Egypt, talking up her claims of Ptolemaic descent. - [insert contrived collapse of Roman authority...

The 25th (Kushite) and 26th (Saïte) dynasties of Egypt. Both presided over periods when Egyptian civilization was culturally dynamic and economically robust. Both had ambitious foreign policies and were tied deeply into cosmopolitan trade networks. Both played very important roles in the...