Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, December 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-75). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures. / A Dissertation, submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature, in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures. Includes bibliographical references.

The utilisation of minerals in Ancient Egyptian medicine from procurement through to use is examined here in a case study investigating the role of sodium salts. The sodium salts, salt and natron are two of the three most commonly used minerals in the Egyptian pharmacopeia. The results of the project are important to medical historians and archaeomineralogists alike in that they formulate a systematic understanding of the way in which minerals were used in medical and medically associated industries. Key sources of salt and natron were examined and the Wadi Natrun was identified as the probable main site of natrun exploitation. A comprehensive study conducted of this area involved examining sources of a historical geographical nature and analysis of mineralogical samples gathered from fieldwork in the Wadi Natrun. From the source of exploitation, natron and salt were sold to the Egyptians to be used in a number of everyday industries as well as for their use in medical and medically associated industries. Salt and natron were found to be used for their astringent and cleansing qualities, and are still being used in traditional medical formulations. Prescription replication showed that these substances worked effectively. Additional research into medically associated industries showed commonality between sodium salts use between all three industries investigated. The results of this research shows that a comprehensive study of the use of minerals in medicine could be established. Primary sites of exploitation of both salt and natron were identified, and minerals from theses sites were categorised and identified. The results showed that the chemical nature of these deposits had changed in the last 2000 years. The results also demonstrate reasons why the language surrounding the term natron needed to be revised. These results have implications for both archaeology and the history of medicine.

The utilisation of minerals in Ancient Egyptian medicine from procurement through to use is examined here in a case study investigating the role of sodium salts. The sodium salts, salt and natron are two of the three most commonly used minerals in the Egyptian pharmacopeia. The results of the project are important to medical historians and archaeomineralogists alike in that they formulate a systematic understanding of the way in which minerals were used in medical and medically associated industries. Key sources of salt and natron were examined and the Wadi Natrun was identified as the probable main site of natrun exploitation. A comprehensive study conducted of this area involved examining sources of a historical geographical nature and analysis of mineralogical samples gathered from fieldwork in the Wadi Natrun. From the source of exploitation, natron and salt were sold to the Egyptians to be used in a number of everyday industries as well as for their use in medical and medically associated industries. Salt and natron were found to be used for their astringent and cleansing qualities, and are still being used in traditional medical formulations. Prescription replication showed that these substances worked effectively. Additional research into medically associated industries showed commonality between sodium salts use between all three industries investigated. The results of this research shows that a comprehensive study of the use of minerals in medicine could be established. Primary sites of exploitation of both salt and natron were identified, and minerals from theses sites were categorised and identified. The results showed that the chemical nature of these deposits had changed in the last 2000 years. The results also demonstrate reasons why the language surrounding the term natron needed to be revised. These results have implications for both archaeology and the history of medicine.

Mainstream media use “the protest paradigm” in framing social movements. The protest paradigm frames protests negatively by marginalizing protesters, trivializing their demands, focusing more on violent and dramatic issues instead of trying to establish a rational discussion around the reasons behind the protests and by neglecting the existence of their presence by simply not covering the protests at all. . The main function of a social movement is to challenge the status quo, while a main function of the mainstream media is arguably to contribute to the governance of society and the maintenance of public order; in a sense, to maintain the status quo. Thus, a main reason behind the consistent usage of the protest paradigm in covering protests is the conflict between social movements and mainstream media in society. But is it easier for mainstream Canadian media to challenge the status quo abroad than at home? Are Canadian media more reliant on the protest paradigm for covering global protest than local ones? Grounded in the theory of Media Framing, particularly the works of Entman (1993) this thesis compares the framing strategy that various Canadian media outlets applied while covering the 2011 Egyptian Uprising and the Occupy Toronto Movement. Empirical data collected by conducting deductive content analysis is applied to the coverage of the Toronto Edition of the Toronto Star, The Global and Mail and The Toronto Sun during the 18 days of the Egyptian uprising in January and February 2011 and the 42 days of Occupy Toronto from October 14th till November 24th, 2011 . The main argument of this thesis is that the Canadian media did not follow consist framing strategy in covering the two protests’ activities. The literature of the protest and media only focus on the notion of challenging the status quo without taking into consideration the factor of the location of the protests. Consequently, this paper is trying to add the location factor to the literature by trying to discover if the Canadian media is taking the same position from social movements that challenge the status quo regardless of where it is taking place or not.

Historically, political mobilization within the Egyptian Canadian community in Ottawa for homeland politics has been minimal. Yet, since 2011, its members have taken part in a wide range of activities with the hope that they could contribute to the Egyptian uprising and shape the new political environment that arose from it. What compelled them to do so, and why only since 2011? Rooted in both the literatures on diaspora and transnationalism, this thesis argues that there were two simultaneous processes behind their mobilization. First, their sense of belonging to Egypt led some individuals within the Ottawa community to give a new political aspect and meaning to their Egyptian identity, and second, a series of events linked to the Egyptian uprising acted as catalysts to turn these identity-related feelings into action, which subsequently created new rifts within the community.

Scholarship to date on the Nag Hammadi Codices has been predominantly concerned with establishing the compositional history and doctrinal affiliations of each tractate within the collection. Much less attention has been paid to the library as a fourth-century collection of texts, which must have been understood by the compiler/s of the codices as having ideological coherence, and overarching messages. The present thesis is first and foremost an attempt to address this deficiency. Due to the site of the codices’ discovery in the Egyptian desert being in close proximity to the Pachomian monastery at Phbow, the suggestion was made that perhaps these monks were once the owners of the collection, forced to purge their monastery of these texts due to the increasing concern of the Alexandrian Church over the circulation of what it viewed to be ‘heretical’ religious documents. This ‘Pachomian connection’ was substantiated mainly by the apparent promotion of ascetic practice and a value placed on knowledge both in the Pachomian movement and many of the tractates from Nag Hammadi, as well as the presence of some monastic documents in the waste paper used to strengthen the covers of the codices. None are sufficient to conclude a relationship between the two. Moreover, scholarly conception of the Nag Hammadi Library as a representative of ‘Gnosticism,’ which since the critiques of this category by the likes of Williams (1996) and King (2004) has been something of a taboo term, meant that inquiry into connections with Pachomian monastic literature was too invested in searching for so-called ‘Gnostic’ overlap. On the contrary, this work argues that in order to gain a better understanding of why the Nag Hammadi texts were collected and collated in the way that they were, and how and why they might have been utilised by Christian inhabitants of the Egyptian desert, they must be viewed primarily as a fourth-century Christian collection. The thesis attempts to offer a fresh perspective on the question of monastic usage by viewing the Nag Hammadi texts simply as part of the Egyptian Christian landscape, rather than as a ‘heretical’ invasion of it. In order to conduct a controlled and sufficiently detailed analysis, this thesis examines one sub-collection of the Nag Hammadi Library – Codex II, alongside contemporaneous Pachomian monastic literature, and suggests agreement on various centralised issues. Building on the suggestions of Michael Williams (1996) and James Robinson (2004), that meaningful order can be detected in the arrangement of the Nag Hammadi Codices, the thesis contends that Nag Hammadi Codex II develops certain key themes through the particular sequencing of its tractates. Each of these, it is argued, would have been attractive to a fourth-century Pachomian monastic readership. Firstly, asceticism must be moderated so as not to lose sight of its spiritual value amidst competitive arrogance. Secondly, one’s duty to share and encourage the promulgation of spiritual truths among one’s brethren is of vital importance. Thirdly, identification as an ‘elite’ spiritually superior individual is in no way predetermined, as older definitions of ‘Gnosticism’ have suggested, but based entirely on one’s conscious choice to leave behind worldly pursuits.

The aim of this study is to semantically analyze the use of marked and unmarked adjunct clauses in Middle Egyptian documentary texts in order to investigate the limits of choosing an unmarked form in more informal language use. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used in the analysis. The results show that marked adjunct clauses are more frequent than unmarked, and the choice between these two is to a great extent based on the semantic role of the clause. Additionally, unmarked forms can often be regarded as marked, e.g. by tense or mood, and the overall co(n)text, which indicates that markedness should be seen as a continuum, instead of two polar opposites marked and unmarked. Consequently, the results indicate that markedness – although in different forms – is the norm in non-literary Middle Egyptian texts, thus differing from the official language that is used in literary, royal, and religious texts. Furthermore, the present study has a diachronic dimension. The comparison between texts from the earlier and later Middle Kingdom clearly show the development in the use of adjunct clauses that took place between Old and Late Egyptian, when marked forms eventually became the norm in all language use. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att semantiskt analysera markerade och icke-markerade bisatser i mellanegyptiska dokumentära texter för att klargöra gränserna för användningen av icke-markerade former i ledigare språkbruk. För denna studie tillämpades både en kvalitativ och en kvantitativ metod. Resultaten visar att markerade bisatser är mer frekventa än icke-markerade, och att valet mellan dessa två former i stort sett beror på bisatsens semantiska roll. I många fall kan icke-markerade bisatser dessutom vara mer eller mindre markerade, bl.a. med hjälp av tempus och modus. Därför bör fenomenet markerad och icke-markerad betraktas som ett kontinuum istället för två motpoler. Resultaten tyder med andra ord på att markering – om än på olika sätt – är norm i det mindre formella mellanegyptiska språkbruket. Denna norm skiljer sig i detta avseende från det officiella språkbruket, som är typiskt i bl.a. litterära och religiösa texter. Denna studie innefattar dessutom en diakronisk del. Jämförelsen mellan tidigare och senare texter från Mellersta riket visar tydligt den utveckling i användningen av bisatser som skedde mellan gammalegyptiska och senegyptiska, då markerade bisatser till slut blev norm i allt språkbruk.

This thesis examines the difference between conditional phrases in Egyptian Colloquial (EC) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It focuses on two different conditional particles 'iḏa and law. Verb tenses featured after the conditional particle determine the difference between EC and MSA usage. Grammars for EC and MSA provide a prescriptive approach for a comparison with empirical data from Arabic corpora. The study uses data from the ArabiCorpus along with a corpus of Egyptian Colloquial that were compiled specifically for this study. The results of this study demonstrate that each particle (‘iḏa and law) and register (EC and MSA) favors a certain tense. Also, the data contrast with rules prescribed by grammars for MSA. Present tense verbs appear in the proposed condition for particle law a total of 22 out of 400 tokens (5.5%). Verb tense also plays an important role in determining the connecting particle for MSA sentences. The results demonstrate that the selection of connecting particles for law does not occur by chance but is instead systematic in nature. An apodosis containing a past tense verb strongly favors the connecter la, while one with a non-past tense verb strongly favors the connector fa.