Aida, Aetos, and the Rosetta Stone

A study is presented that seeks to determine the origin of the name of the title character in Verdi's "Aida." Such a strong emphasis on ancient Egyptian-style sets and costumes and the insistence on having an egyptologist as a historical davisor makes it difficult to accept the hypothesis that Edouard Mariette or Khedive Isma'il would have allwed the name of both the tragic protagonist and the opera itself to be of modern Egyptian origin.