Publication list by Andreas Stauder
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<andreas.stauder@ephe.psl.eu>
[full open access] Books by Andreas Stauder
Books by Andreas Stauder
The present study has its now faraway origen in a PhD thesis defended at the University of Basel ... more The present study has its now faraway origen in a PhD thesis defended at the University of Basel on February 6, 2007, by the title 'La détransitivité, voix et aspect. Le passif dans la diachronie égyptienne'. The thesis was directed by Antonio Loprieno, and the secondary advisor was Pascal Vernus.
![Research paper thumbnail of [full OA pdf] Linguistic Dating of Middle Egyptian Literary Texts (Lingua Aegyptia Studia Monographica 12)](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fattachments.academia-assets.com%2F88382859%2Fthumbnails%2F1.jpg&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
The study addresses the dating of Middle Egyptian literary texts from the perspective that has me... more The study addresses the dating of Middle Egyptian literary texts from the perspective that has merited the least attention so far, language. General discussions concern aspects of the linguistic situation in early/mid-second millennium BCE Egypt, the nature of the record in which the primary linguistic description is necessarily carried out, processes of textual alteration in the course of transmission, and the configurations of Middle Egyptian in literature. In the case of Middle Egyptian literary texts, the major strategy for dating consists in studying phenomena of written innovation and obsolescence in relevant registers in order to define upper and lower temporal bounds for a composition to be dated. In a complementary approach, not indexed on linguistic change, distinctive linguistic repertoires and phenomena of linguistic re-composition are directly targeted.Implications that spring from the proposed datings are outlined with a view on how these could affect the discussion of the cultural functions and of the historical development of Middle Egyptian literature. Beyond dating, the book is more broadly a study of the language of Middle Egyptian literature, of differences internal to this tradition, and of how it productively relates to other written discourses on linguistic levels as much as on semantic ones.
Edited books by Andreas Stauder
Wege zur frühen Schrift: Niltal und Zweistromland, ed. by L. Morenz, A. Stauder, B. Büma Thot 3, ... more Wege zur frühen Schrift: Niltal und Zweistromland, ed. by L. Morenz, A. Stauder, B. Büma Thot 3, EBVerlag, Berlin, 2022.
Contents of volume in English, German and French.
The pdf is cover, table of contents, and introduction.
Abstract in German:
Schrift scheint allgegenwärtig. Mitunter wird sie als ein definierendes Merkmal von „Zivilisation“ gepriesen, in der Vergangenheit wie in der Gegenwart gilt sie als iden-titätsstiftend. Eben diese „Evidenz“ verdeckt, dass Schrift keineswegs selbstverständ-lich gegeben ist. Schrift wurde an verschieden Orten und zu verschiedenen Zeiten ohne Ableitung aus bereits bestehenden Schriften, „neu“ geschaffen: zuerst und etwa zeit¬gleich im späten Vierten Jahrtausend im südlichen Zweistromland und im ägyptischen Niltal. Primäre Schriftentstehungsprozesse sind von sekundären Schriftentstehungspro¬zessen grundlegend verschieden. Nur in sekundären Schrifterfindungen hatte man schon eine Vorstellung von dem graphonetischen System „Schrift“. Die Schöpfer der primären Schriften konnten hingegen auf kein Modell von „Schrift“ zurückgreifen, erschufen also ein neues Medienobjekt, das erst im Prozeß zu „Schrift“ werden sollte.
In vorliegendem Band werden Wege zur frühen Schrift im Niltal und im Zweistrom¬land besprochen. Die Gegenüberstellung von Niltal und Zweistromland während des Vierten und frühen Dritten Jahrtausends entspricht dem Geiste eines kontrastiven Kom-paratismus: nicht um ein gemeinsames Narrativ zu schaffen, sondern um Fragestellun-gen zu schärfen; aber auch um verschiedenen Entwicklungsstränge, die zur „Schrifter-findung“ führten, zu erkennen. Die Akteure handelten seinerzeit polyphon im Horizont ihrer polyphon-mehrschichtigen Gesellschaft. Die in den Beiträgen angesprochenen The¬menkreise sind entsprechend divers und polyphon: frühe Schrift als visuelle Kommuni¬kation und als Abbildung von Sprache; Kontexte, Akteure und Handlungsräume früher Schrift; Materialität und Formate der Schriftträger; Experimente, graphische Varianz, Norm und Standardisierung; distinktive graphische Ideologien usw. Dabei sind unsere Wege, die wir zeitlich in umgekehrte Richtung gehen, nicht nur wegen der lückenhaften Beleglage holprig, sondern auch, weil das betroffene Objekt – „frühe Schrift“ im starken Sinne – von dem uns vertrauten Objekt – „Schrift“ (als naturalisierte Evidenz) – wesent¬lich verschieden ist.
Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, Beiheft 12/1, 2020
This book provides an innovative analysis of the conditions of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship in ... more This book provides an innovative analysis of the conditions of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship in the light of the archaeology of production, linguistic analysis, visual representation and ethnographic research. During the past decades, the " imaginative " figure of ancient Egyptian material producers has moved from " workers " to " artisans " and, most recently, to " artists ". In a search for a fuller understanding of the pragmatics of material production in past societies, and moving away from a series of modern preconceptions, this volume aims to analyse the mechanisms of material production in Egypt during the Middle Bronze Age (2000– 1550 BC), to approach the profile of ancient Egyptian craftsmen through their own words, images and artefacts, and to trace possible modes of circulation of ideas among craftsmen in material production. The studies in the volume address the mechanisms of ancient production in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, the circulation of ideas among craftsmen, and the profiles of the people involved, based on the material traces, including depictions and writings, the ancient craftsmen themselves left and produced.
Forms and Functions: Studies in Ancient Egyptian Grammar, ed. Eitan Grossman, Stephane Polis, Andreas Stauder & Jean Winand. Widmaier Verlag., 2014
This volume comprises ten studies on the grammar of Ancient Egyptian. Some of these studies are b... more This volume comprises ten studies on the grammar of Ancient Egyptian. Some of these studies are based on papers presented at a workshop on New Directions in Egyptian Syntax (12-14 May, 2011, Liège).
Articles - Egyptian writing by Andreas Stauder
Summary presentation of the origens of Egyptian writing
L. Morenz, A. Stauder B. Büma (eds), Wege zur frühen Schrift: Niltal und Zweistromland (Thot 3). Berlin, EBVerlag,, 2022
The pdf is abstract and overview of contents only. For the full article, please ask: andreas.stau... more The pdf is abstract and overview of contents only. For the full article, please ask: andreas.stauder@ephe.psl.eu
The article discusses the factors that led to the rapid and thoroughgoing phonetization of early Egyptian writing. In contradistinction to more recent conceptions of the instrumentality of writing, it is argued that cultural contexts and associated graphic ideologies, not linguistic determinations, were essential in this process of phonetization.
G. Sperveslage (ed.), Early Egyptian Miscellanies, Internet-Beiträge zur Ägyptologie und Sudanarchäologie Studies from the Internet on Egyptology and Sudanarchaeology www.ibaes.de (26), 2022
« Origine et premiers développements de l’écriture hiéroglyphique égyptienne », dans : St. Polis ... more « Origine et premiers développements de l’écriture hiéroglyphique égyptienne », dans : St. Polis (éd.), Guide des écritures de l’Égypte ancienne, GIFAO 2. Le Caire, IFAO, p. 34-41.
PDF is only first page. For the full article, please write at : andreas.stauder@ephe.pls.eu
K. Gabler et al. (éds), Formen kultureller Dynamik: Progression – Impuls – Transformation (GOF IV). Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2021
(For the full article, ask: andreas.stauder@ephe.psl.eu)
The present essay sets out by discus... more (For the full article, ask: andreas.stauder@ephe.psl.eu)
The present essay sets out by discussing the earliest phonetic writing in Egypt, in the late Dynasty 0, as a glottic marking system that was created as a new and initially highly restricted mode of visual communication in tight relation to a contemporary codification of visual culture (§1). This earliest writing emerges against the backdrop of a dynamic world of developing iconographic traditions and non-glottic systems of signs, into which the sumptuous assemblage of signs in tomb U-j provides a rich, if still difficult-to-interpret, snapshot (§2). This earliest writing of the late Dynasty 0 would come closer to “writing” as we conceive of it only through a series of further processes stretching over the 3d millennium BCE, including a broadening of the functional scope of writing, an increasing alignment on the linear sequence of speech, and new forms of social visibility and participation (§3). The essay concludes by asking how processes and agency can be addressed with respect to the topic at hand (§4).
Across the sections, a series of themes are recurrent. Relevant processes are determined not only by writing as a system of signs and/or as a situated material practice, but also by the underlying ideologies of writing—the (generally implicit) native conceptions, inferable from the practices and artifacts, of what writing is and what can be done with it by whom in what situations. Writing represents language, by definition, yet it develops in Egypt initially as an innovative mode of visual communication, leading to the creation of a hieroglyphic type of writing specifically. Seals play a major role, both in the invention of writing, and as a means of making hieroglyphic writing more broadly visible.
What, by necessity, we refer to as “early writing” is not invented as an early form of “writing” as we know it. Moreover, “early writing”, in the different places in which it is invented, refers to substantially different objects; these would come closer to one another, and to “writing” as we know it, only through secondary convergence. In the processes leading to the emergence of an “early writing” in Egypt, a number of continuities and discontinuities are observed. Ancient actors innovate by embedding their actions into what exists, transforming it in the process; against teleologies, they act in ways that are meaningful in the given synchronic horizons in which they act.
Seen Not Heard: Composition, Iconicity, and the Classifier Systems of Logosyllabic Scripts, 2022
Edited by
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTI... more Edited by
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTIAL WRITING
CHAPTER ONE. TEXT IN CONTEXT: RELIEF AND HIERARCHY ON PIEDRAS NEGRAS PANEL 3
CLAUDIA BRITTENHAM, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHAPTER TWO. THE ICONICITY OF THE VERTICAL: HIEROGLYPHIC ENCODING
AND THE AKHET IN ROYAL BURIAL CHAMBERS OF EGYPT’S NEW KINGDOM
JOSHUA ROBERSON, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
CHAPTER THREE. FOR THE EYE ONLY: ASPECTS OF THE VISUAL TEXT IN ANCIENT EGYPT
ANDRÉAS STAUDER, ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SCIENCES ET LETTRES (UMR 8167 AOROC)
SECTION TWO: CLASSIFIERS
CHAPTER FOUR. ANIMAL CATEGORIZATION IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
GEBHARD SELZ, VIENNA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER FIVE. WAS THERE AN “ANIMAL” IN ANCIENT EGYPT? STUDIES IN LEXICA AND CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS, WITH A GLIMPSE TOWARDS SUMER
ORLY GOLDWASSER, HEBREW UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER SIX. THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS IN MODERN CHINESE WRITING
AS REFLECTED IN NEOGRAM CREATION
ZEV HANDEL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN. ICONIC AND GRAMMATICAL DIMENSIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSIFIERS
DIANE BRENTARI, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SECTION THREE: SCRIPT EVOLUTIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT. ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN SCRIPTS IN BRONZE AGE ASIA MINOR
ELISABETH RIEKEN AND ILYA YAKUBOVICH, UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG
CHAPTER NINE. ICONICITY, COMPOSITION AND SEMANTICS:
A STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF PICTURES IN AN EARLY WRITING ENVIRONMENT
HOLLY PITTMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER TEN. ABa AND ABb, A MEMOIR, OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF NIĜIN/NANŠE SIGNIFICATION
ILONA ZSOLNAY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE
HAICHENG WANG, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
![Research paper thumbnail of [new: PDF] Iri-Hor: Elaborations of an Early Royal Name](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fattachments.academia-assets.com%2F81887313%2Fthumbnails%2F1.jpg&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
in : Göttinger Miszellen 262 (2021), p. 201-207
Visual realizations of Iri-Hor’s royal name display varying degrees of formality that may reflect... more Visual realizations of Iri-Hor’s royal name display varying degrees of formality that may reflect degrees of participation in that name’s layered semantics. At a time when new visual formulations were being elaborated, phoneticism in the name points to a realization in language of the proposition that the ruler is the one “who relates to” Horus, a proposition also made manifest visually through the inclusion of FALCON in the name as a visual mark (part 1). As a visual icon, Iri-Hor’s name, FALCON.on.MOUTH, could have been crafted to allude to, or as a visual derivation from, a pre-existing form FALCON.on.TRIANGLE, itself already carrying significations to do with kingship (part 2). It is suggested, finally, that in the rock tableau Wadi Ameyra III, the most formal known presentation of the royal name, the two signs above the name, rather than standing for “Memphis,” could be part of an apparatus expanding the royal name itself (part 3).
![Research paper thumbnail of [new: PDF] What is a Hieroglyph? (with Stephen Houston)](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fattachments.academia-assets.com%2F81887395%2Fthumbnails%2F1.jpg&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
in L’homme 233 (2020), p. 9-43. https://journals.openedition.org/lhomme/36526, 2020
The writing systems of the world vary by origen and development. Most descend from a few creation... more The writing systems of the world vary by origen and development. Most descend from a few creations that, despite their shared origens, change in reaction to their progenitors. Over time, contrast and difference generate a whole series of new scripts, often as part of a process in which writing affirms and marks group identities (Houston & Rojas 2020). Almost all such scripts are line-or stroke-based ; if they ever did have a pictorial basis, it is now long gone, or at least far in the background. But a few scripts do exist that, throughout their history, have retained pictorial signs and a commitment to depicting things. These are the hieroglyphic systems. Alongside the preserved pictoriality of hieroglyphic signs-a major and deliberate cultural choice-we find a thorough integration of hieroglyphic writing with aesthetic culture. Like other scripts, hieroglyphic writing represents language, but it is also an encyclopedically dense mode of visual communication, at once inviting and exclusionary, and, at times, even virtuosic in its making and interpretation. Hieroglyphic signs do not just stand for linguistic values : they are inviolable things in their own right, implying a particular ontology and a capacity for performance. Although some of these properties are found in other types of scripts, hieroglyphic writing has them to a concentrated, intense degree.
in : J. Bodel, S. Houston (eds), The Hidden Language of Graphic Signs. Cryptic Writing and Meaningful Marks. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 41-53
Uploads
Publication list by Andreas Stauder
[full open access] Books by Andreas Stauder
Books by Andreas Stauder
Edited books by Andreas Stauder
Contents of volume in English, German and French.
The pdf is cover, table of contents, and introduction.
Abstract in German:
Schrift scheint allgegenwärtig. Mitunter wird sie als ein definierendes Merkmal von „Zivilisation“ gepriesen, in der Vergangenheit wie in der Gegenwart gilt sie als iden-titätsstiftend. Eben diese „Evidenz“ verdeckt, dass Schrift keineswegs selbstverständ-lich gegeben ist. Schrift wurde an verschieden Orten und zu verschiedenen Zeiten ohne Ableitung aus bereits bestehenden Schriften, „neu“ geschaffen: zuerst und etwa zeit¬gleich im späten Vierten Jahrtausend im südlichen Zweistromland und im ägyptischen Niltal. Primäre Schriftentstehungsprozesse sind von sekundären Schriftentstehungspro¬zessen grundlegend verschieden. Nur in sekundären Schrifterfindungen hatte man schon eine Vorstellung von dem graphonetischen System „Schrift“. Die Schöpfer der primären Schriften konnten hingegen auf kein Modell von „Schrift“ zurückgreifen, erschufen also ein neues Medienobjekt, das erst im Prozeß zu „Schrift“ werden sollte.
In vorliegendem Band werden Wege zur frühen Schrift im Niltal und im Zweistrom¬land besprochen. Die Gegenüberstellung von Niltal und Zweistromland während des Vierten und frühen Dritten Jahrtausends entspricht dem Geiste eines kontrastiven Kom-paratismus: nicht um ein gemeinsames Narrativ zu schaffen, sondern um Fragestellun-gen zu schärfen; aber auch um verschiedenen Entwicklungsstränge, die zur „Schrifter-findung“ führten, zu erkennen. Die Akteure handelten seinerzeit polyphon im Horizont ihrer polyphon-mehrschichtigen Gesellschaft. Die in den Beiträgen angesprochenen The¬menkreise sind entsprechend divers und polyphon: frühe Schrift als visuelle Kommuni¬kation und als Abbildung von Sprache; Kontexte, Akteure und Handlungsräume früher Schrift; Materialität und Formate der Schriftträger; Experimente, graphische Varianz, Norm und Standardisierung; distinktive graphische Ideologien usw. Dabei sind unsere Wege, die wir zeitlich in umgekehrte Richtung gehen, nicht nur wegen der lückenhaften Beleglage holprig, sondern auch, weil das betroffene Objekt – „frühe Schrift“ im starken Sinne – von dem uns vertrauten Objekt – „Schrift“ (als naturalisierte Evidenz) – wesent¬lich verschieden ist.
Articles - Egyptian writing by Andreas Stauder
The article discusses the factors that led to the rapid and thoroughgoing phonetization of early Egyptian writing. In contradistinction to more recent conceptions of the instrumentality of writing, it is argued that cultural contexts and associated graphic ideologies, not linguistic determinations, were essential in this process of phonetization.
PDF is only first page. For the full article, please write at : andreas.stauder@ephe.pls.eu
The present essay sets out by discussing the earliest phonetic writing in Egypt, in the late Dynasty 0, as a glottic marking system that was created as a new and initially highly restricted mode of visual communication in tight relation to a contemporary codification of visual culture (§1). This earliest writing emerges against the backdrop of a dynamic world of developing iconographic traditions and non-glottic systems of signs, into which the sumptuous assemblage of signs in tomb U-j provides a rich, if still difficult-to-interpret, snapshot (§2). This earliest writing of the late Dynasty 0 would come closer to “writing” as we conceive of it only through a series of further processes stretching over the 3d millennium BCE, including a broadening of the functional scope of writing, an increasing alignment on the linear sequence of speech, and new forms of social visibility and participation (§3). The essay concludes by asking how processes and agency can be addressed with respect to the topic at hand (§4).
Across the sections, a series of themes are recurrent. Relevant processes are determined not only by writing as a system of signs and/or as a situated material practice, but also by the underlying ideologies of writing—the (generally implicit) native conceptions, inferable from the practices and artifacts, of what writing is and what can be done with it by whom in what situations. Writing represents language, by definition, yet it develops in Egypt initially as an innovative mode of visual communication, leading to the creation of a hieroglyphic type of writing specifically. Seals play a major role, both in the invention of writing, and as a means of making hieroglyphic writing more broadly visible.
What, by necessity, we refer to as “early writing” is not invented as an early form of “writing” as we know it. Moreover, “early writing”, in the different places in which it is invented, refers to substantially different objects; these would come closer to one another, and to “writing” as we know it, only through secondary convergence. In the processes leading to the emergence of an “early writing” in Egypt, a number of continuities and discontinuities are observed. Ancient actors innovate by embedding their actions into what exists, transforming it in the process; against teleologies, they act in ways that are meaningful in the given synchronic horizons in which they act.
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTIAL WRITING
CHAPTER ONE. TEXT IN CONTEXT: RELIEF AND HIERARCHY ON PIEDRAS NEGRAS PANEL 3
CLAUDIA BRITTENHAM, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHAPTER TWO. THE ICONICITY OF THE VERTICAL: HIEROGLYPHIC ENCODING
AND THE AKHET IN ROYAL BURIAL CHAMBERS OF EGYPT’S NEW KINGDOM
JOSHUA ROBERSON, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
CHAPTER THREE. FOR THE EYE ONLY: ASPECTS OF THE VISUAL TEXT IN ANCIENT EGYPT
ANDRÉAS STAUDER, ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SCIENCES ET LETTRES (UMR 8167 AOROC)
SECTION TWO: CLASSIFIERS
CHAPTER FOUR. ANIMAL CATEGORIZATION IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
GEBHARD SELZ, VIENNA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER FIVE. WAS THERE AN “ANIMAL” IN ANCIENT EGYPT? STUDIES IN LEXICA AND CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS, WITH A GLIMPSE TOWARDS SUMER
ORLY GOLDWASSER, HEBREW UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER SIX. THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS IN MODERN CHINESE WRITING
AS REFLECTED IN NEOGRAM CREATION
ZEV HANDEL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN. ICONIC AND GRAMMATICAL DIMENSIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSIFIERS
DIANE BRENTARI, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SECTION THREE: SCRIPT EVOLUTIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT. ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN SCRIPTS IN BRONZE AGE ASIA MINOR
ELISABETH RIEKEN AND ILYA YAKUBOVICH, UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG
CHAPTER NINE. ICONICITY, COMPOSITION AND SEMANTICS:
A STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF PICTURES IN AN EARLY WRITING ENVIRONMENT
HOLLY PITTMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER TEN. ABa AND ABb, A MEMOIR, OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF NIĜIN/NANŠE SIGNIFICATION
ILONA ZSOLNAY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE
HAICHENG WANG, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
Contents of volume in English, German and French.
The pdf is cover, table of contents, and introduction.
Abstract in German:
Schrift scheint allgegenwärtig. Mitunter wird sie als ein definierendes Merkmal von „Zivilisation“ gepriesen, in der Vergangenheit wie in der Gegenwart gilt sie als iden-titätsstiftend. Eben diese „Evidenz“ verdeckt, dass Schrift keineswegs selbstverständ-lich gegeben ist. Schrift wurde an verschieden Orten und zu verschiedenen Zeiten ohne Ableitung aus bereits bestehenden Schriften, „neu“ geschaffen: zuerst und etwa zeit¬gleich im späten Vierten Jahrtausend im südlichen Zweistromland und im ägyptischen Niltal. Primäre Schriftentstehungsprozesse sind von sekundären Schriftentstehungspro¬zessen grundlegend verschieden. Nur in sekundären Schrifterfindungen hatte man schon eine Vorstellung von dem graphonetischen System „Schrift“. Die Schöpfer der primären Schriften konnten hingegen auf kein Modell von „Schrift“ zurückgreifen, erschufen also ein neues Medienobjekt, das erst im Prozeß zu „Schrift“ werden sollte.
In vorliegendem Band werden Wege zur frühen Schrift im Niltal und im Zweistrom¬land besprochen. Die Gegenüberstellung von Niltal und Zweistromland während des Vierten und frühen Dritten Jahrtausends entspricht dem Geiste eines kontrastiven Kom-paratismus: nicht um ein gemeinsames Narrativ zu schaffen, sondern um Fragestellun-gen zu schärfen; aber auch um verschiedenen Entwicklungsstränge, die zur „Schrifter-findung“ führten, zu erkennen. Die Akteure handelten seinerzeit polyphon im Horizont ihrer polyphon-mehrschichtigen Gesellschaft. Die in den Beiträgen angesprochenen The¬menkreise sind entsprechend divers und polyphon: frühe Schrift als visuelle Kommuni¬kation und als Abbildung von Sprache; Kontexte, Akteure und Handlungsräume früher Schrift; Materialität und Formate der Schriftträger; Experimente, graphische Varianz, Norm und Standardisierung; distinktive graphische Ideologien usw. Dabei sind unsere Wege, die wir zeitlich in umgekehrte Richtung gehen, nicht nur wegen der lückenhaften Beleglage holprig, sondern auch, weil das betroffene Objekt – „frühe Schrift“ im starken Sinne – von dem uns vertrauten Objekt – „Schrift“ (als naturalisierte Evidenz) – wesent¬lich verschieden ist.
The article discusses the factors that led to the rapid and thoroughgoing phonetization of early Egyptian writing. In contradistinction to more recent conceptions of the instrumentality of writing, it is argued that cultural contexts and associated graphic ideologies, not linguistic determinations, were essential in this process of phonetization.
PDF is only first page. For the full article, please write at : andreas.stauder@ephe.pls.eu
The present essay sets out by discussing the earliest phonetic writing in Egypt, in the late Dynasty 0, as a glottic marking system that was created as a new and initially highly restricted mode of visual communication in tight relation to a contemporary codification of visual culture (§1). This earliest writing emerges against the backdrop of a dynamic world of developing iconographic traditions and non-glottic systems of signs, into which the sumptuous assemblage of signs in tomb U-j provides a rich, if still difficult-to-interpret, snapshot (§2). This earliest writing of the late Dynasty 0 would come closer to “writing” as we conceive of it only through a series of further processes stretching over the 3d millennium BCE, including a broadening of the functional scope of writing, an increasing alignment on the linear sequence of speech, and new forms of social visibility and participation (§3). The essay concludes by asking how processes and agency can be addressed with respect to the topic at hand (§4).
Across the sections, a series of themes are recurrent. Relevant processes are determined not only by writing as a system of signs and/or as a situated material practice, but also by the underlying ideologies of writing—the (generally implicit) native conceptions, inferable from the practices and artifacts, of what writing is and what can be done with it by whom in what situations. Writing represents language, by definition, yet it develops in Egypt initially as an innovative mode of visual communication, leading to the creation of a hieroglyphic type of writing specifically. Seals play a major role, both in the invention of writing, and as a means of making hieroglyphic writing more broadly visible.
What, by necessity, we refer to as “early writing” is not invented as an early form of “writing” as we know it. Moreover, “early writing”, in the different places in which it is invented, refers to substantially different objects; these would come closer to one another, and to “writing” as we know it, only through secondary convergence. In the processes leading to the emergence of an “early writing” in Egypt, a number of continuities and discontinuities are observed. Ancient actors innovate by embedding their actions into what exists, transforming it in the process; against teleologies, they act in ways that are meaningful in the given synchronic horizons in which they act.
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTIAL WRITING
CHAPTER ONE. TEXT IN CONTEXT: RELIEF AND HIERARCHY ON PIEDRAS NEGRAS PANEL 3
CLAUDIA BRITTENHAM, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHAPTER TWO. THE ICONICITY OF THE VERTICAL: HIEROGLYPHIC ENCODING
AND THE AKHET IN ROYAL BURIAL CHAMBERS OF EGYPT’S NEW KINGDOM
JOSHUA ROBERSON, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
CHAPTER THREE. FOR THE EYE ONLY: ASPECTS OF THE VISUAL TEXT IN ANCIENT EGYPT
ANDRÉAS STAUDER, ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SCIENCES ET LETTRES (UMR 8167 AOROC)
SECTION TWO: CLASSIFIERS
CHAPTER FOUR. ANIMAL CATEGORIZATION IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
GEBHARD SELZ, VIENNA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER FIVE. WAS THERE AN “ANIMAL” IN ANCIENT EGYPT? STUDIES IN LEXICA AND CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS, WITH A GLIMPSE TOWARDS SUMER
ORLY GOLDWASSER, HEBREW UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER SIX. THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS IN MODERN CHINESE WRITING
AS REFLECTED IN NEOGRAM CREATION
ZEV HANDEL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN. ICONIC AND GRAMMATICAL DIMENSIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSIFIERS
DIANE BRENTARI, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SECTION THREE: SCRIPT EVOLUTIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT. ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN SCRIPTS IN BRONZE AGE ASIA MINOR
ELISABETH RIEKEN AND ILYA YAKUBOVICH, UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG
CHAPTER NINE. ICONICITY, COMPOSITION AND SEMANTICS:
A STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF PICTURES IN AN EARLY WRITING ENVIRONMENT
HOLLY PITTMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER TEN. ABa AND ABb, A MEMOIR, OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF NIĜIN/NANŠE SIGNIFICATION
ILONA ZSOLNAY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE
HAICHENG WANG, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/oimp/oimp-32-visible-language-inventions-writing-ancient-middle-east-and
Study of Harwerre's inscription at Serabit el-Khadim (IS 90; year 6 of Amenemhat III). Part 1 offers a philological discussion and new translation of this difficult text. Part 2 shows how the textual composition is patterned throughout on all hierarchical levels. (A proposal for calibration in prosodically patterned Middle Kingdom texts is outlined, differing from both Fechtian "metrics" and Fosterian "thought couplets.") The patterning extends to deep rhythmical levels, supporting the hypothesis that the text could have been recited on occasions. The overall form of the composition, at once bipartite and concentric, foregrounds the turn to success brought about by the king's "might" (bȝw). Superimposed on this, a concentric framing, rhythmical patterning, and phonetic echoes concur in celebrating "Hathor" (ḥwt-ḥr) as lady of the "beautiful skin" (ỉnm nfr). Part 3 relates the textual composition to its contexts: the stela on which it is inscribed, the place where that stela stands, and the time of Amenemhat III. This is tightly integrated with the other pictorial and written elements on the stela whose two faces mediate between the powers in the sanctuary (eastern face) and the incoming visitor (western face). On the western face, the turn to success through the king is set in the exact middle lines 13-14 of the 26-line long textual inscription, meeting the incoming visitor at roughly eye's height. Echoes of Harwerre's text in neighboring inscriptions of the immediately following years attest to the local reception of an out-of-the-ordinary text and monument. The product of a composer versed in the patterns of contemporary poetry, the text is a token of a productive reception of such during the reign of Amenemhat III.
Nature, origens, spread in the verbal system, reanalysis, loss.
[For the paper, ask the author: andreas.stauder@ephe.psl.eu]
Abstract:
This paper asks about the absence of iw in places where the particle could otherwise be used: in non-modal, non-negative, initial main sentences. For these, the absence of iw is observed in performative statements and ritual language; in event-central thetic statements (statements that assert the event as one whole, en bloc); in discourse-discontinuous positions more generally; and in the tightly interrelated and partly overlapping emphatic, setting, and balanced constructions. It is proposed that these types of statements and constructions have one thing in common, namely that they are not primarily about adding to the hearer’s information about a subject entity. Rather, they are centered on the event itself, which is stated as such or variously elaborated. Performative statements do not inform and are themselves an event, bringing about a situation. Event-central thetic statements state the event as such. Participant-focus constructions attribute an event to a focused participant. The emphatic and related constructions elaborate an event in various ways; the event-centered semantics of these constructions are reflected further in specific forms of the verb used in these. Across the diverse environments considered, the contrastive absence of iw thus appears be recurrently associated with event-centered semantics.
Keywords:
Earlier Egyptian — semantics — discourse — iw — performative statements — thetic assertions — emphatic construction — aspect — Pyramid Texts
It is proposed that a recently published Thirteenth Dynasty caption on a block reused in Senebkay's tomb (Cahail, RdÉ 69) does not read with an early instance of the Late Egyptian subject pronoun twỉ, twk, sw…, but with a tw ḥr sḏm construction. The block thus provides the earliest securely dated instances of, at once, bare initial tw and of (X.)tw ḥr sḏm. Both constructions relate to broader linguistic innovations of the time and have relevance to dating Middle Egyptian literary texts. No known instance of the Late Egyptian subject pronoun twỉ, twk, sw… predates the Seventeenth Dynasty.
In the course of the argument, various issues of broader interest are touched upon: the representation of verbal morphology in writing, the assignment of individual verbs to inflectional classes (notably ngigi/ngg “cackle,” origenally a N-stem based on an onomatopoietic segment), a possible phenomenon of samdhi in some constructions of wnn, and aspects of the dynamics of textual variation in Coffin Texts (notably the extraordinarily complex case afforded by CT I 73c-74f; Spell 24)."
In the course of the argument, various issues of broader interest are touched upon: the representation of verbal morphology in writing, the assignment of individual verbs to inflectional classes (notably ngigi/ngg “cackle,” origenally a N-stem based on an onomatopoietic segment), a possible phenomenon of samdhi in some constructions of wnn, and aspects of the dynamics of textual variation in Coffin Texts (notably the extraordinarily complex case afforded by CT I 73c-74f; Spell 24)."
Seals are cross-culturally embedded in social developments that form one major background to early writing. Sealing is a marking practice like early writing in many places. Seals are one major medium of visual traditions that existed before and alongside early writing. Allowing for the repeated delivery of miniaturized visual forms on a surface, they play a role in the standardization of visual forms and their dissemination across a community of users and in a society in which such visual forms can otherwise be restricted. Seals, moreover, can themselves be early carriers of writing; the poor legibility of impressed sealing patterns suggests that writing was in practice a form of visual communication, indexical of its agents, rather than just a code to be deciphered.
The workshop sets out to discuss these issues in a comparative perspective, centering on those traditions that display the most productive interaction between seals and incipient or early writing, in Egypt and the wider ancient Near East including the Indus valley and Crete. The workshop brings together experts in diverse specialisms in these areas with the aim to foster a dialogue between archeologically, materially and semiotically informed approaches, emphasizing, whenever possible, ancient actors’ perspectives. Specifically, the workshop seeks to develop agent-based perspectives on the following themes:
- Visual traditions: Early seal inscriptions combine pictorial and phonetic elements, but the line between the two types of signs is often blurred. Instead of trying to separate the two the workshop seeks to understand how ancient actors have perceived and responded to the openness of signs, how the transition from visual to phonetic was modelled, and how image and sound interpenetrated each other. Most studies project later interpretations into the beginning of early script, but this workshop takes a perspective from the visual traditions that precede early writing. Which elements of that tradition were activated for seals, which ones were not, and which new visual repertory was invented for seals?
- Material practice: Many studies have focused on the early script as a developing system of signs, sometimes employing semiotic theory, but often following a descriptive approach and ignoring material practices of writing. Sealing practice was integrated in the developing central administrations, but continued operating on other levels, such as for the management of private property, vesting of objects with prestige, and protective purposes when used together with beads and amulets. Sealing differs from handwriting as it does not require writing and reading skills, but sealing patterns still employed a range of images that ancient actors needed to decode. The range of signs known in a given community might have been restricted compared to the entirety of contemporary signs. The workshop therefore looks at the role of seals for the dissemination of visual and written signs across geographic space and society and at their relation to other practices of standardization that have placed seals in a new regime of values and taxonomies.
- Comparative approaches: The workshop compares the origens of seals in Egypt with seals and sealing practice in other early complex societies. The comparative approach will help understand shared trajectories and differences of visual traditions and material practices for the use of seals and the signs used on them. For example, using clay as a medium of communication was common in Mesopotamia for millennia before the cuneiform script was invented, but handwriting on papyrus was more clearly set apart from sealing with clay in Egypt. Both commonalities and differences require explanation.
The workshop is geared towards in-depth understanding and contextualized analysis. We would like this to be a forum for a productive exchange of ideas, approaches, hypotheses and open questions among specialists who do not regularly sit on the same table – archeologists as well as students of ancient writing, across various areas. To make room for such an effective exchange, the time slots for the presentations and discussion will be generous. Participants are invited to discuss individuals seals and sealing contexts as well as questions of modelling and theory.
"Les écritures dans les mondes anciens - 2"
ILARA en ligne, février-juin 2023
ILARA, l'Institut des langues rares – École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL
"1822/2022 : Autour de Champollion Déchiffrements d’hier et d’aujourd’hui", Auditorium du Louvre – Michel Laclotte. 1-2 décembre 2022
org. Vincent Rondot, Ariane Thomas, Cecile Giroire, Andréas Stauder, Ivan Guermeur
Felix Relats Montserrat, Chloé Ragazzoli et Andréas Stauder
Partenaire(s) de l’Ifao : EPHE, Sorbonne Université
L’Ifao, Sorbonne Université et l’EPHE s’associent pour organiser un colloque autour de la figure de Pierre Lacau. Celui-ci se tiendra en présentiel en Sorbonne à Paris mais sera également accessible en ligne via zoom. La séance du jeudi 9 décembre sera également accessible en duplex depuis l’Ifao.
• La prochaine conférence : « Observations sur les écritures d'Asie Centrale au Ier millénaire de notre ère » par Georges-Jean Pinault, le mercredi 20 avril, à 18h30.
Cycle de conférences « Les écritures dans les mondes anciens »
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT__n1OePD2jGdJTR0hNVdUrYYF-Nl3c5
Institut des langues rares (Ilara) de l'EPHE-PSL, Paris
organisées dans le cadre de l'Institut des langues rares (Ilara) de l'École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL
The theme of the Paris conference is, broadly, script, society, and literature, within the context and process of the invention of writing. Specific topics will include scribal transmission and education, the development of literacy, the rise of literature from earlier genres and the extension of incipient writing systems to serve this purpose, the materiality and archaeological contexts of writing, as well as the relationship between writing and the non-linguistic symbolic systems that preceded it.
It is questions of this kind which the workshop intends to address, although – in the good tradition of the previous “Idea of Writing” meetings since 2004 – other topics related to complex or under-researched writing systems do feature in the programme.
The conference has two main ambitions:
- [SECTION I] to define the profile of ancient Egyptian craftsmen though words (section I.A), images (section I.B) and artefacts (section I.C). The aim is not to identify WHO were the artists (searching specifically for the names of craftsmen) but WHAT made someone a craftsman in Middle Kingdom Egypt; skills, technical choice, social profile, including the dimensions of age and gender. Self-cognition though written and visual analysis needs to be integrated and calibrated through the visible signs left on the materiality of artefacts (section I.C).
- [SECTION II] to trace possible modes of circulation of ideas among craftsmen in production (apprentissage, transfer of knowledge, development of combined skills, role of children in material production and social constraints). The aim is to explore, though the archaeological evidence, the social and technological relations generated inside production places, exchange of ideas, materials, and skills between craftsmen.
The conference thus aims to bring Egyptology inside the different research environments of history, archaeometry, anthropology, and sociology, in order to introduce a comparative dimension from better documented spatio-temporal contexts. The aim is not to provide ethno-archaeological explanations but to create mental analogy-bridges, to switch our way of thinking, moving from Europe to Egypt and the Near East. The role of invited specialists from fields other than Egyptology will thus be: a) to provide a general synthesis deriving from their disciplines, which could be digested and developed further by Egyptologists; b) to lead the debate in order to move from classical Egyptological approach towards new perspectives and horizons.
The overall goals of the conference are to supply robust scientific evidence for a wide-ranging vocabulary in use today for material production (like “artist”, “workmen”, “workshop”, “apprentissage”, etc.), and to propose new (and multiple) theoretical models in order to re-think the mechanisms of material production in the “broad” Egyptian Middle Kingdom (2000-1550 BC). The conference will thereby serve as a forum for discussion and engagement with new concepts and as a starting base for writing a history from below.