Ancient Place-Names in the Governorate of Kafr el-Sheikh

This book is a diachronically oriented toponomastic study of a single

northern Egyptian governorate. At its core it is a gazetteer of ancient

place names that are likely to have, or have been claimed to have,

origins either in ancient Egyptian, Coptic, or Greek. It provides an

extensive list of attestations, collected from diverse sources that

range from Predynastic hieroglyphic labels to modern town signs. Despite

the focus on ancient toponyms, its point of departure is current

non-Arabic place-names in modern Egypt because so much documentation

from antiquity is lacking. The book also includes results from onomastic

fieldwork that was conducted in the area with the aim of ascertaining

local pronunciations and folk etymologies. It highlights the high

density of ancient names still present in a region that is

under-represented in ancient texts, and thus offers a new perspective on

the development of the northern fringes of the Delta. The study should

be of interest to Egyptologists, Arabists, and anyone concerned with the

origins and development of place names.