- #Egyptian scribe language manual#
- #Egyptian scribe language plus#
- #Egyptian scribe language professional#
The art of making papyrus is not lost it is still being produced and can be purchased at souvenir shops in Egypt and museum shops elswhere. It is not to be found there today except in specially cultivated plots-which is a pity, because it is a pretty plant, with tall slender stalks and a feathery green tuft on top. Papyrus used to grow lavishly in the swampy parts of Egypt. The pot of water was on the ground at his right, the palette in his left hand he dipped his pen into the water, rubbed it on the cake of ink, and he was ready to take dictation. The scribe wrote sitting on the ground, with his legs crossed the front of his kilt, pulled taut across his knees, provided a sort of writing desk on which he could unroll his papyrus. The most convenient eraser, however, was a quick swipe of the tongue. To complete his equipment a scribe might have a burnisher for smoothing out rough spots in the papyrus, a grinder for preparing his ink, a ball of linen thread to tie around the papyrus roll when it was finished, and a rag for rubbing out mistakes. One of the common hieroglyphic signs shows the scribe’s outfit-the little water pot between the long palette, with its two rounded ink cakes, and the pen holder. The scribe needed water to moisten his ink cakes it was kept in a small shell or pot. The ink came in solid form the black was usually some kind of soot, and the red, made of red ochre, was used for rubrics, or headings. The pens were slender rushes pounded or chewed at one end to form a fine brush when not in use they were kept in a pen case, which was often made in the shape of a pretty, rounded column with a flower capital. The so-called palette was a narrow, rectangular piece of wood with a slot down the center to hold the pens, and depressions for cakes of ink. The scribe’s outfit is well known, from actual examples and from drawings. Beginning students didn’t use papyrus it was too expensive.
#Egyptian scribe language plus#
The boys only needed writing equipment: the equivalent of pen and ink, plus a pile of ostraca-smooth fragments of broken pottery or stone which they used as slates. The equipment for a schoolroom was simple there were no little desks or blackboards to survive to gladden the eye of a future archaeologist. How boys were selected for this honor is unknown, but it must have smoothed the path of advancement. Others were Egyptians of various ranks and social status. Some of them were the children of foreign princes, sent (willingly or under pressure) to be brought up in Egypt. A few privileged youths were educated in the palace itself. Wealthy and noble youths, one may reasonably surmise, would have had private tutors. Others might have gone to a school run by a local scribe in one room of his house. Some of the boys may have been taught in the nearby temple. There were no little mudbrick school houses in Egypt-at least none have ever been found. Were they run by the temples, or by the state, or by private teachers? At what age did the boys start school? Did girls ever attend? How long did the course take? Were there postgraduate courses in foreign languages or accounting? We can guess at some of the answers, but we don’t really know. The boy whose father came of this “white kilt” class, and the boy whose ambitious father wanted to raise him into it, attended a school of some sort where he was taught to read and write.
#Egyptian scribe language manual#
The scribe’s clean white clothes were prestige symbols, like the long fingernails of Chinese nobles they meant that he did not have to do manual labor. Wilson has coined the term “white kilt” workers for this group it is a very neat and apposite expression, which would have made sense to the Egyptians.
On the lower rungs were army scribes, court scribes, temple scribes-the secretaries and clerks and white-collar workers who kept the machinery of the state running smoothly. At the top of the ladder were administrators, courtiers, high-ranking priests, and soldiers. Sometimes we talk about scribes as if they constituted a separate profession, but they were really the raw materials out of which most of the professions were formed.
#Egyptian scribe language professional#
If a boy wanted professional status and prestige higher than that of a mere craftsman, his career might end in a number of different ways, but it almost had to begin in one place-the scribal school. Now it is time we took a look at the professions. We have already discussed some of the trades, and others will fall into place as we proceed.
Candor compels me to admit, against my feminist inclinations, that Egyptian culture as we know it was primarily the product of these grown-up boys-artists, sculptors, administrators, kings, scribes, carpenters, goldsmiths. Let us return to the little Egyptian boy whom we left, some pages back, just entering into manhood.
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