Le calame et la pierre. A critical history of ancient Egyptian literature (continued)

This year, we completed the epistemological framework for this study, questioning, in particular, the implicit historical evolution of thought, conditioned by the invention of the written word [1]. We put Jack Goody's theories [2] into perspective with the comments of contemporary specialists in ancient thought [3]. A detour into figurative writing [4] and anthropological data [5] helped to moderate the debate and to place the first historical "narratives" in a position not usually accorded to them in literary studies: the "palettes à fard", which are both witnesses to the civilization that preceded the political unity of Egypt, and pictorial accounts of facts confirmed by later sources [6].

References

[1] See, among others, J. Baines, Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 34, 47, 53, etc.; O. Goldwasser, "The invention of the alphabet: On "lost papyri" and the Egyptian alphabet", in C. Rico, C. Attucci (eds.), Origins of the Alphabet, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015, pp. 124-140.

[2] J. Goody, Graphic Reason. The domestication of savage thought [1968], Paris, Minuit, 1979.

[3] J. Bottéro, F. Briquel-Chatonnet, F. Déroche, C. Duverger, J. Goody, P. Grandet, J. Irigoin, J. Kerlouégan, H.-J. Martin, M. Parisse, M. Sartre, P. Vernus, L'Écriture. Des hiéroglyphes au numérique, Paris, Perrin, 2007, p. 9-10, for the words of Jack Goody collected by Séverine Nikel.

[4] Among others, N. Beaux and L. Xiaohong (eds.), Créatures mythiques animales. Écriture et signes figuratifs, Paris, Éditions You Feng, 2013.

[5] J.-L. Le Quellec, Alcool de singe et liqueur de vipère. Légendes urbaines, Paris, Éditions Errance, 2012, to take just one example.

[6] See J. Baines, op. cit. p. 317, for the palette "aux canidés", now in the Ashmolean Museum (E. 3924), to be compared with the "palette de la Chasse" (Louvre E 11254) or the "palette aux Taureaux" (Louvre E 11255).