Motivations, Context, Visibility: Ludic Orthographies in Egyptian Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of the Roman Period
Building Inscription (Dendera)
As the hieroglyphic script developed over millennia, ancient Egyptians invented new signs and phonetic values for traditional glyphs. While standard orthographies varied little through the Pharaonic era, a Roman period scribe could use a variety of signs for each word. Numerous factors motivated each sign choice. Certain hieroglyphs reproduce visual elements from the associated offering scene. Elsewhere, signs create visual puns with similar hieroglyphs in their proximity, even making intertextual allusions to nearby walls. Some bandeau inscriptions employ exclusively anthropomorphic deities and sacred animals, elevating banal texts into festive divine processions.
To understand each ludic orthography, one must consider context, iconographic allusions, and location in the temple. I will investigate all published Roman period temple inscriptions to develop a typology of sportive writings. The assembled textual corpus will permit quantitative answers to various lines of inquiry: In which temples are ludic writings most common, and at what times? Which areas of the temples have the highest concentration of ludic orthographies, and how visible would they have been? Egyptologists often link cryptography to Osirian mysteries in the Netherworld books. Yet most examples of Monumental Cryptography (large-scale ludic inscriptions) occur on exterior walls and in festival courts, clearly visible to the uninitiated masses. Two notorious hymns from Esna, composed entirely with crocodiles and rams, were located in the publicly accessible pronaos, hardly fit for obscuring restricted knowledge. Analyzing the distribution of such ludic orthographies in all Roman period temples may reveal additional insights into cryptography and paronomasia in general throughout ancient Egyptian history.
To understand each ludic orthography, one must consider context, iconographic allusions, and location in the temple. I will investigate all published Roman period temple inscriptions to develop a typology of sportive writings. The assembled textual corpus will permit quantitative answers to various lines of inquiry: In which temples are ludic writings most common, and at what times? Which areas of the temples have the highest concentration of ludic orthographies, and how visible would they have been? Egyptologists often link cryptography to Osirian mysteries in the Netherworld books. Yet most examples of Monumental Cryptography (large-scale ludic inscriptions) occur on exterior walls and in festival courts, clearly visible to the uninitiated masses. Two notorious hymns from Esna, composed entirely with crocodiles and rams, were located in the publicly accessible pronaos, hardly fit for obscuring restricted knowledge. Analyzing the distribution of such ludic orthographies in all Roman period temples may reveal additional insights into cryptography and paronomasia in general throughout ancient Egyptian history.