Writing Knowledge

Writing Knowledge explores how ancient students and scholars learned to write and become expert in the Egyptian language during the last millennium of native script use (c. 700 BCE - 300 CE). This study analyzes late "technical" texts from two different writing contexts: grammatical paradigms and alphabetic texts produced within scribal schools and word and sign handbooks produced within elite priestly circles. These case studies, each paired with a close cultural analysis of the contexts of their production, provide new insights into writing as a field of knowledge, one whose parameters are defined by ancient Egyptian concepts, rather than one circumscribed by either the Greek grammatical tradition or by modern disciplines like linguistics.