Meroitic
Encyclopedia
Meroitic is an adjective referring to things related to the kingdom of Meroë
in pre-Islamic Sudan
.
Meroë
Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...
in pre-Islamic Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
.
- The Meroitic period was approximately 300 BC300 BCYear 300 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Corvus and Pansa...
to 400 AD400Year 400 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Stilicho and Aurelianus...
. - The Meroitic scriptMeroitic scriptThe Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed in the Napatan Period , and first appears in the 2nd century BCE. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian...
was their writing system. - The Meroitic languageMeroitic languageThe Meroitic language was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was...
was the language they spoke.