Ink was carried in a flat pallet with two depressions cut into it one for red ink and the other for black ink. The end of the reed was hammered soft to cause it to fray, and then trimmed to create a brush. The pen of a scribe was made from a thin-stemmed reed, usually around nine inches long. Writing palette of Princes Meketaten, NK, MET The scribe was generally depicted carrying the tools of his trade: a wooden palette with brushes and reed pens and a roll of papyrus. This harsh discipline is underlined by the fact that the route of the word “teach” (“seba”) also means “beat.” Scribal equipment Students would study hieroglyphics, hieratic, demotic (from around 400BC), and mathematics (“dena”), as well as writing, as this was required for many high level jobs such as architect, tax collector, and treasurer.ĭiscipline in an ancient Egyptian school was strictly enforced with some tutors resorting to the stick. Most students started their studies in a temple school at the age of five, but their formal scribal education would begin when they were around nine years old. As a result, scribal training could take up to a decade to complete. The Egyptian’s hieroglyphic language is very complex, comprising of over seven hundred unique signs which could be combined to give layers of meaning. It is, however, likely that the worker’s village was not typical of ancient Egyptian villages of the time, but this evidence certainly challenges suggestions that as little as one percent of the population could write. Jars with re-usable labels would have been pointless if the residents could not read and write, and there were a number of notes written to the wives of the villagers which again would have been of limited use if these women were unable to read.
The evidence from Deir el-Medina also suggests that a large number of the inhabitants could read. The fragments also confirm that the students included children from the lower ranks (such as the children of a stonecutter) and at least one woman. Instead, the teachers included a number of draughtsman, a chief workman, and a deputy. The fragments suggest that while the teachers were of course literate, many of them did not hold the specific occupation of scribe.
#Scribe meaning manual
They were considered to be members of the royal court and as such did not have to pay tax, undertake military service, or perform manual labour.ĭjedkhonsuefankh, Scribe and Prophet of Montu, Late Period, METĪ large number of ostraca and papyrus dated to the New Kingdom were discovered in a pit close to the worker’s village at Deir el-Medina and many more fragments were scattered around the village itself.
The scribes not only copied existing texts preserving them for future generations, they also edited existing works and wrote new texts. Scribes were the protectors and developers of ancient Egyptian culture and central to academic research and the smooth running of the state apparatus. The hieroglyphic language of the ancient Egyptians was complex and beautiful and those who mastered it held a valued position in society. There are depictions of scribes (identified by the traditional scribal crossed legged pose and their scribal equipment) dating back to as early as the Old Kingdom. The occupation of scribe is also one of the earliest jobs. The terms is more properly translated as “to draw” or “to create” rather than simply “to write” or “to read”. It is perhaps no surprise then that one of the most respected titles in ancient Egypt was “sesh” – “scribe”. In truth, very little happened in ancient Egypt which did not involve a scribe in some manner. Scribes were central to the functioning of the centralised administration, the army, and the priesthood. Henka, Scribe and overseer of the pyramids of Sneferu, Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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