But the Egyptians explored art in many ways other than just hieroglyphics; they had murals covering their temples intermixed with hieroglyphics that told stories of their culture, beliefs, religious practices, history, and their every day life. Because this art tells a story, I see this too as a form of written language. Just because it may not be written like a modern day novel, they wrote it in a storybook form instead.
I know that a lot of historians might feel frustrated that the Egyptians chose to preserve their writing this way, because so much of their history is left to personal interpretation; however, I feel like this was a blessing. The reason I feel this way is because the written language that we DO have is still so often misinterpreted. Take this picture for example…I found it in a book I was reading in the library. I have a slight inkling that it wasn't translated correctly…
Because a lot of the Egyptian written language is misinterpreted anyways, I am very grateful that we have a visual idea of what Egyptian culture was like then. Of course, this too, can be misinterpreted--but at least it aids in our understanding of their time.
I find it brilliant that they used art as a form of written language because art can illustrate things that are not usually expressed through text. For example, body language makes up a huge portion of communication, but often writers have a hard time capturing body language and putting it into words. However, with the use of pictures, the Egyptians were are to illustrate these things, which helps us to have a greater understanding of their culture, which would have been otherwise lost.
Think of the minute details they depicted in their murals. For example, they often drew people with two left hands. Of course this could easily be interpreted as a drawing style, but with a little help from interpreted text, we know that the left hand signified giving, whereas the right hand meant receiving. Now taking this knowledge and inspecting their art, we can see how important it was that they use both their hands to serve and not one to receive. Hopefully you can see that this art is an aid to their text.
Other great examples are shown in the documentary below. This documentary really emphasizes the matriarchal and patriarchal differences shown in their art:
After watching this documentary, I would like to bring up a very interesting idea that Carmen Boulter speaks of (at 3:15). She mentions how we view ancient cultures through our own cultural paradigm. It is an interesting psychological phenomenon, and it makes sense that we would do this. I mean, we have only experienced the world in the present; so it can be hard to think outside of the box and recognize that perhaps other cultures functioned differently and had a completely opposite cultural perspective.
Unfortunately, this causes us to misinterpret the past, which inhibits us to understanding the truth. For example, during the matriarchic rule in Ancient Egypt, women were the educators, the ones whom the priesthood was passed on through, and the source of life. But because of how our society portrays men and women today, we interpret this woman in the statue to be submissive to her husband, whereas in reality, it was her actually showing ownership of her husband. And the list goes on.
My point is that so many historical facts would have been lost if the Egyptians would have solely relied on a written language comprised of only words. Thankfully, because art was a huge part of their culture, those little details of life were preserved through illustration; another form of written language.
After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
I know what you mean about the ambiguity of Egyptian writing/art. On my art history exam last year, there was a papyrus scroll (image on page 13: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap11_frq_art_history.pdf). The characters are of course inseparable from the images if we really want to know what was going on, but as this was an art history exam and as I don't read Egyptian, I had to focus on the images alone. I was able to pluck some information, for example Anubis weighing the souls of the dead at the bottom center and Set to the right of him. However, it was difficult to know whether the row of people at the top were deities or a lineage of pharaohs. I ended up saying they were pharaohs (because they weren't all anthropomorphic and because there were occasionally two people seated together, which I took to be a joint-monarchy, not entirely unheard of in Egypt) and later asked my teacher about it. She said that she couldn't be certain and that the test makers didn't actually expect us to be able to tell one from the other (the information was not entirely related to the question), largely due to the difficulty of interpreting Egyptian texts due to ambiguity in the images themselves and then how the written text relates to the images.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the images can certainly give us context that is necessary to understand the text. However, in my very limited experience with Egyptian scrolls, I have found the ambiguity to be more of a hindrance than a tool in finding absolute meaning. But then again, who's to say that they aren't supposed to hold multiple meanings at once?
This is why context is so important!! Even something very straightforward, written out in plain English so to speak, can be interpreted many ways. However, put that sentence or phrase into the context of a few lines, a paragraph, or a situation, and most things become crystal clear.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that seems to be lacking in the Egyptian text is punctuation. I remember this classic example from high school about this letter a woman wrote to her boyfriend/husband/whoever that was reproduced on the next page. The two versions contained the exact same words, but their punctuation differed so that on the left was a love letter while on the right was a break-up letter. (If anyone happens to know who wrote this, posting a link would be great so everyone could see the contrast.) Some of those Egyptian symbols could indicate punctuation for all I know or so could the different columns of text, but to my unlearned eyes, there doesn't appear to be punctuation.
ReplyDeleteNotice the effect of the following Dear John love letter with different punctuation: (Source: http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=9748&page=1)
ReplyDeleteDear John
I want a man who knows what love is all about.
You are generous, kind, thoughtful.
People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior.
You have ruined me for other men.
I yearn for you.
I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart.
I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?
Gloria
___________________________________________________________________
Dear John
I want a man who knows what love is.
All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you.
Admit to being useless and inferior.
You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn.
For you, I have no feelings whatsoever.
When we're apart, I can be forever happy.
Will you let me be?
Yours,
Gloria
Because the letters were short (about as long as the first comment on this post), I just posted it as a comment so you could immediately see it. Yes, that's an interesting point regarding punctuation. How do other civilizations punctuation systems work? I wonder if there has been misinterpretations due to a lack of fully understanding an ancient punctuation system. . . Anyone know of any research on this?
ReplyDelete