The Study Of The Semantic Meaning Of WAD And The Color "Green" In The Old Kingdom Of Ancient Egypt

Basic Color Terms thoery was proposed by Berlin and Kay in 1969,then soon was adopted as a theoretical reference for the study of color terms in Hieroplyphics by Egyptologists who have contributed their own efforts.However,with the further study about the color terms in Hieroplyphics,more and more Egyptologists started qustioning the validity of putting the study of the color terms in Hieroplyphics under the Basic Color Terms's system.From then,several Egyptologists started to separate these two things,and gave the color terms in Hieroplyphics a specifical discussion based the language itself.Although,a great deal hase been written on color(blue,yellow)and color terms(HsbD expecially)by Egyptologists,but no specific attention has been put on the word wAD,and the validity of translating it as green.Egyptian created two words for expression the specific concept "color",which are inm and iwn.After the basic analysis about these two words,then we found that the semantic of iwn is more abstract than nm,and these two words' determinatives are two signs represents hair and hide respectively,which tells us that Egyptian take these two specific objects as the symbol of there congnition of "color".But even Egyptian use the very concrete objects as the symbol of their congnition of color,but they did not use the materials of their making "green",the pigment.Then next step was put on the analysis of texts and art which includs the word wAD,and the color green respectively.The best palce to begin such a lexicographic inquiry,naturally,is with the texts of Old kingdom,since the usage during this period will at least show what the original meaning of the word wAD in question was.Of course,in Egyptian,as with all languages,this meaning can change with the passage of time,somethimes radicaaly altering its original sense.But within these paper,we just confine the dicussion to the Old kingdom.In concluding this study of the word wAD,we can see that when it referred to several specifc things such as the Wadjet amulet,it is trully served as a color terms.But we also find that the Egyptian may hold a confusion between the color bule and green,which can be recongized by the color applying for the Wadjet amulet,namely sometimes blue,and sometimes green,also blue is more the more common color for this object than green.So,at least based on all the information we got within this period,it is no reason to take to wAD equal to the color green.