8/24/2023 0 Comments Egyptian scribe writingThe Egyptians did not use money, so taxes were collected and wages paid in goods. This made it essential to have a system of record-keeping, communication and measurement. The king and his deputy ruled the country via a hierarchy of civil servants, regional governors, local officials and administrators, who collected and distributed national resources and supplies. Governing Egypt was a highly complex task. Most everyday documents were written on scraps of pottery, wood or stone. Papyrus, made from the stems of a water plant, was expensive and normally only used for writing important documents. ![]() This in turn was replaced by the even faster demotic script. Instead, a more flowing script, hieratic, was adopted for everyday use. ![]() The original characters, hieroglyphs, were very detailed and time-consuming to draw, and were soon confined to religious inscriptions. Vowels were omitted when writing to save time and space. The same principle was now applied to other words, which made it possible to express abstract ideas. Scribes were already using simple pictograms and ideograms and had begun to use the sound values of these signs to write names. The development of writingįollowing the unification of the Nile Valley and Delta into a single Egyptian kingdom around 3100 BC, the establishment of a central administration created an urgent need for an efficient writing system that would allow Egypt’s rulers to communicate over long distances. Above the ink pans is the cartouche of Amenhotep III, suggesting that Pamerihu may have worked at the royal court. ![]() Red ink was made from gum and ochre, a kind of earth rich in iron oxide it was used for headings and titles. Black ink was made from soot mixed with gum and was used for writing the main part of texts. It has a central slot to hold reed pens and two recesses at the top to hold cakes of solid black and red ink. This typical example belonged to a high-ranking scribe called Pamerihu. Wooden palettes like this were used by Egyptian scribes in their daily work.
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