An archaeological discussion of writing practice : deconstruction of the ancient Egyptian scribe
This thesis contests the reified status of âscribeâ and its Egyptological construction as social category, and returns to the ancient Egyptian writing practices attested in the archaeological record. It aims to deconstruct the âscribeâ category and to suggest a new perspective that takes into account historiography and museum displays, particularly in the way that specific object typesâi.e. pen and paletteâhave been used to fetishise the âscribeâ as a distinct class of people in ancient Egyptian society. As a first step, the thesis presents a complete dataset of those two object types so far recorded from documented excavations, to test the distribution and detailed context of each example. The research then further concentrates on archaeological methods to recontextualise writing implements, presenting a case study on the material culture from the ancient Egyptian site of Balat âAyn AsÄ"l in the western desert. There, a more diffuse material culture of writing practices provides a marked contrast with the dataset of conventionally defined writing equipment. From this comparison, the thesis questions the image of literacy as primary marker of social distinctionâone of the most persistent
Pinarello, M. S.
An archaeological discussion of writing practice : deconstruction of the ancient Egyptian scribe. This thesis contests the reified status of âscribeâ and its Egyptological construction as social category, and returns to the ancient Egyptian writing practices attested in the archaeological record. It aims to deconstruct the âscribeâ category and to suggest a new perspective that takes into account historiography and museum displays, particularly in the way that specific object typesâi.e. pen and paletteâhave been used to fetishise the âscribeâ as a distinct class of people in ancient Egyptian society. As a first step, the thesis presents a complete dataset of those two object types so far recorded from documented excavations, to test the distribution and detailed context of each example. The research then further concentrates on archaeological methods to recontextualise writing implements, presenting a case study on the material culture from the ancient Egyptian site of Balat âAyn AsÄ"l in the western desert. There, a more diffuse material culture of writing practices provides a marked contrast with the dataset of conventionally defined writing equipment. From this comparison, the thesis questions the image of literacy as primary marker of social distinctionâone of the most persistent
archaeological discussion write practice deconstruction ancient_egyptian scribe contest reify status scribe egyptological construction social category return ancient_egyptian writing practice attest archaeological_record aim deconstruct scribe category suggest new_perspective take_account historiography museum_display particularly way specific object type pen use scribe distinct class_people ancient_egyptian society first_step present complete dataset object type far record documented excavation test distribution detail context example concentrate archaeological method write implement present case_study material_culture ancient_egyptian site western desert diffuse material_culture write practice provide marked contrast dataset conventionally define write equipment comparison question image literacy primary marker social distinction persistent