GRAFFITI IN ANCIENT EGYPT - MEMORY IN CONTEXT

1.8. MEMORY IN CONTEXT

2.1.4. GRAFFITI IN ANCIENT EGYPT

2.1.4.1. LITERACY IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Before continuing with an analysis of graffiti, it is necessary to discuss the level of literacy in ancient Egypt. There is no consensus on the percentage of literate adults in the New Kingdom and several theories have been put forward, but it is likely that the number of fully literate persons was not high.30 Studies have, however, pointed out varying possible degrees of literacy (or ‘semi-literacy’), ranging from the skill to read and write full texts to an ability to understand basic signs.31 This suggests that those who were not able to write their own graffiti may still have been able to access meaning, and possibly some of those who wrote basic signs were not skilled enough in reading to understand other texts fully. While the people who wrote graffiti were clearly able to write, one cannot be so sure about the people who saw it; they have not left a record of their visit and so one cannot know their social

See Baines (1983: 584-586), Lazaridis (2010: 6), Der Manuelian (1999: 285), L. Lesko (1990: 656-657). 31

Baines (1983: 584), for example, writes that, ‘Several levels of literacy are possible: reading, of various degrees of competence; reading and the physical ability to write; reading and narrow composing ability ...; reading and the full ability to compose texts; and ... the carving of signs with limited reading ability’. Harris (1991: 5-6), furthermore, writes that the difficulty of assessing literacy in the ancient world is increased by the complexities of terminology for ‘illiteracy’; Greek and Latin terms suggest a both a lack of reading or writing ability, but also an absence of culture. Primary sources which may enlighten modern scholars on the levels of literacy in such cultures are, therefore, ambiguous (whilst also emphasising the ancient connection between literacy and culture).

background or literacy.32 Texts may have been accessible to a larger proportion of the population than studies of full literacy suggest, and even those whose literacy was minimal may have been able to recognise common symbols like cartouches.33

Did it, therefore, matter if people could not understand the whole text? Bryan (1996) examines the ways in which images may be understood by different individuals in different ways depending on how they interpret the context of the scene and the texts accompanying it,34 and Der Manuelian (1999: 285) suggests that the understanding of any scene is affected by the viewer’s level of literacy.35

He does not, however, suggest that the meaning is

diminished for those who cannot understand the whole, but simply that the meaning may be different. Although the examples discussed in this chapter are solely textual and not pictorial, the nature of the texts and their inclusion of common phrases, cartouches and epithets raises the question of whether low literacy would prevent an individual from accessing any meaning or whether it would simply alter the perception of the corpus. Commonly used signs and motifs may have been recognisable even to those with little or no literacy, in particular royal iconography such as cartouches which are found frequently in the texts examined in this

One should not dismiss the importance of ‘intermediaries’ as individuals who could provide access to written forms for those who were illiterate, either by reading aloud or by writing texts given to them in oral form (see, for example, Harris (1991: 34)). Harris (1991: 86) notes, for example, that the main way people in early Greece were able to access literature was through oral forms.

As Small (1997: 3) writes, even if one cannot read the words, one can still see them. She takes the analysis of writing a step further, looking not only at what was written but at how scribes physically researched and created their writing, and the ways in which this may have affected understanding of texts (Small 1997: 141-201); here, writing is viewed not only a literature but as an archaeological object. Harris (1991: 5), however, notes that there is no reason to assume that the numbers of semi-literate individuals (in this instance those who could read competently but not write) was high in his analysis of literacy in ancient Greece and Rome; without dismissing the importance of semi-literacy, therefore, one should not assume that it incorporated a large section of society. Livingstone (2011: 36) also warns against assuming that those who were literate would have been able to read texts without effort; he suggests that the act of reading, in this instance in early Greece, would have been a painstaking task ‘whose payoff was the words themselves’. Although the focus here is on Greece, it raises the important point that one cannot presume to understand literacy in the same way that one might understand it today; one must be aware of the fluid boundaries between what today might be defined as ‘literate’ and ‘illiterate’.

She writes (1996: 161) that ‘although in most cases inscriptions are read in concert with the objects on which they are placed, if they are considered separately it may be possible to identify two distinct messages

comprehended by different audiences’. The interaction of text and image is discussed in more detail in ch. 3.1.2. 35

study.36 It is these recognisable symbols of kingship that would have made graffiti accessible even to illiterate members of Egyptian society. One should not, therefore, draw a clear distinction between those who could and those who could not understand the content of the graffiti left on memorial monuments; instead, different levels of understanding must be recognised.

2.1.4.2. THE GRAFFITI OF THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY

This study looks at Eighteenth Dynasty graffiti which are found in a memorial context; they are either found on the memorial monument of a deceased royal individual or in a private memorial context but names one or more royal ancestor. Such examples are found primarily in the Memphite region37 although a small number of examples can also be located at Thebes. No relevant graffiti have been identified at Amarna, presumably because of the lack of royal or private memorial monuments at the sites during its short period of use. Many examples are badly damaged or have disappeared completely leaving the researcher to rely on tracings or transcriptions (or in some cases even translations) given by early excavators; this makes dating graffiti and quantification of the frequency of certain phrases or terms very difficult. This study will, therefore, focus on the graffiti which has been recorded and dated with at least reasonable certainty to the Eighteenth Dynasty38 at a number of sites at Memphis and

Bryan (1996: 161) writes that ‘even the illiterate, then, if they resided near cult centres, must have known some royal and divine iconography’ and notes that even if texts such as royal names were not actually readable to some people, they would still be recognisable as ‘iconographies of king and divinity’ and viewers would have some understanding of ‘the meaning of their placement and gestures’.

Under the term ‘Memphite region’ this study will include those sites which are found in the general vicinity of Memphis even if they are not regarded as official Memphite cemeteries; it will, therefore, include Saqqara, Dahshur, Meidum and Abusir (other sites may also be included in this category but are not relevant to this discussion).

Some graffiti include specific regnal dates or references which allow definitive dating, while that of others is based on the formation of specific signs or proximity to other, dateable, graffiti as well as the analysis of the style of the writing (see Navrátilová (2007) for explanations of specific datings). Although not infallible this offers an acceptable probability of accuracy whilst allowing for the inclusion of the maximum number of

Thebes including damaged graffiti, although those graffiti for which no discernible phrases can be ascertained will not be included in the corpus.39 Any statistical data based on the graffiti can only take into account those texts, and parts of texts, which have survived; while, therefore, providing interesting insights into the corpus as a whole, they should be treated as guides.40 The surviving texts, however, cover a wide range of themes and dates and so it is unlikely that any of the conclusions drawn here would be substantially altered by the inclusion of omitted graffiti or by the unreadable sections within the corpus. In total, thirty- nine graffiti have been identified as can be seen in app. 1.41

2.1.4.3. GRAFFITI FROM EARLIER PERIODS

The earliest example in the corpus dates to the reign of Amenhotep I and is found at the South Chapel of Djoser at Saqqara (G02M03). This shows that there was an interest in royal

memorial monuments and the royal ancestors who built them from the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. However, a small number of earlier graffiti relating to deceased pharaohs can also be found which shows that such texts were not a new phenomenon in the New

Kingdom. Some Middle Kingdom graffiti are located, for example, in the memorial temple at possible graffiti. App. 2, which gives the locations of the graffiti organised by date, totals the number of texts found dated to each reign. As can be seen, the largest number of texts are found in the reign of Thutmose III, although the high number of undated texts make it difficult to draw any conclusions from this.

See, for example, Navrátilová (2007: 42) which includes two such graffiti; one reads while the other signs can be identified as . In these cases there is no discernible benefit from including the graffiti in the corpus as no attempt to translate any part of the text (beyond, perhaps suggesting the existence of a dating formula in the first example) is possible.

Where statistical analysis is included, for example in giving the number of occurrences of a particular phrase or idea, the reader is advised to treat it with caution, as damage to graffiti in the corpus may affect the results. 41

The graffiti included in this study are those which can be dated with reasonable certainty to the Eighteenth Dynasty and so graffiti that date to the ‘New Kingdom’ have not been included. The numerous graffiti at the temple of Thutmose III, for example, have not been included as the majority are dated to the Twentieth Dynasty, despite the lack of confirmed dating (see Marciniak (1974: 37-42) for details). Further graffiti have been noted in the subterranean rooms of the pyramid complex of Senwosret III at Dahshur but, again, the date of these graffiti is uncertain and is likely to be post-Eighteenth Dynasty (although it is possible that they may have been earlier) (see Arnold (2002: 42)); these have also not been included in the study. The many graffiti found in the locality of the Valley of the Kings (see Černý et al. (1969-1970), Spiegelberg (1921)) have not been included in the

Sneferu’s Meidum pyramid; these are likely to have been written either by visitors to the monument or by personnel of the cult of Sneferu (Peden 2001: 27), for example:

‘The one who is beautiful’42

is the name of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Sneferu (Petrie 1892: pl. xxxii[i]).43

There are further examples at Thebes, in the Valley of the Royal Cache close to the temple of Nebhepetra Mentuhotep;44 again, these examples were probably written by personnel in the memorial cult of Nebhepetra Mentuhotep or of Sankhara Mentuhotep (Peden 2001: 30). Although the majority of these texts simply record the name of the graffitist, one reads:

a) The wab Neferabed(et).

b) Giving praise to Amun, kissing the ground before the lord of the gods at his festival, [in] the first of Shemu, [when] he appears on the day of the rowing across to the Valley of Nebhepetra. By the wab of Amun, Neferabed45 (Spiegelberg 1921: 968).46

Perhaps, then, interest in deceased kings in the Middle Kingdom was primarily caused by holding a position within a memorial cult and by the related activities.47 Wildung (1969: 128-

Wildung (1969: 118) translates this as ‘the one who is complete’ (‘Der, der vollkommen ist’), while Griffith (1892: 40) translates this as ‘thrice beautiful is the name of King Seneferu’.

The relevant part of the text reads (‘wn.n nfrw rn n nsw-bit %nfrw’). See Petrie (1892: pl. xxxii) for other examples.

See Kurz (1974: 190-193) for the location of graffiti in this area. 45