Scribes’ palettes mostly held only red and black pigments and many bear inscriptions of the king’s name, suggesting the importance of the scribe in the eyes of the ruler. 1427-1401 BCE), boxwood with inscription inlaid in Egyptian blue, 7/8 x 8 1/4 x 1 7/16 inches, The Cleveland Museum of Art (courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art) 2055-1650 BC).“Paint Box of Vizier Amenemope” (ca. The coffin’s lid is inscribed with the name of the deceased, while the four sides are decorated with a series of doorways surrounded by niches and other architectural elements look generally like a false door which was an emblematic passage through which the deceased could travel spiritually to receive offerings.Īmong his artefacts are four alabaster canopic jars which were used during the mummification process, to store and preserve the viscera of the deceased for the afterlife. 1961-1878 BC), the overseer of prophets during Pharaoh Senusret I. He was among the first people to study in Egypt’s first high school of antiquities, a university founded by German Egyptologist Heinrich Karl Brugsch in 1869.Īmong his excavated artefacts on display is a coffin of Senbi (ca. The exhibit also displays some artefacts excavated by Ahmed Pasha Kamal (1851-1923), the first Egyptian Egyptologist to write an ancient Egyptian dictionary. Champollion played a major role in founding the study of Egyptology by deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, when he succeeded to solve the mysteries of the Rosetta stone in September 1822. There is also a limestone-inscribed stela with trilingual text, hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek inscriptions, dating back to the 18th year of Augustus, first Roman emperor (7 BC-14AD).Ī Coptic papyrus dating back to the fourth century contains magical text of 72 lines and drawings in the lower part is one of the artefacts on display.Ī bust of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) is also there. Scribal tools and materials used by the ancient Egyptians for writing include palettes, colours, stone for grinding the colours, brushes for painting, reed pens, columns to preserve the reed pens are on display.ĭon’t miss to see this wooden inscribed model papyrus roll dates back to the New Kingdom. Reeds were held in a palette (usually wood) which had a depression to hold especially the red and black inks. They used reeds to write texts, which permitted them to vary the thickness of the line. Green is made from malachite, and white is made from chalk. The Ancient Egyptians used other colours in painting statues or scenes on walls such as blue which is made from copper and iron oxides with silica and calcium and yellow which is made from ochre and oxides originally but, from the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BC-1069 BC) it was mixed from arsenic trisulphide. They used red ochre for dates, titles and headings to distinguish them from the rest of the text or in corrections. Red ink is made from oxidised iron, also known as haematite. The artefacts also show that scribes used black ink which is made of ground charcoal mixed with water and sometimes burnt animal bones. They invented papyrus parchment, wax plates, and before that they used shreds made of pottery, limestone, bone and wood. They took advantage of all the bounties of nature to achieve this. The ancient Egyptians invented various materials, tools and means for writing. It dates back to the 5t Dynasty, Old Kingdom (c. On display is a grey-granite statue of a scribe seated on a plinth wearing a long wig with little curls arranged in horizontal rows lapping over each other and a kilt. They were recording the tax collection process and calculating the harvest, accompanying the soldiers in military campaigns, and providing their services, especially in editing letters and wills and reading correspondence. Until the end of October, the Museum is holding an exhibition in the ground floor, Hall 44, to celebrate the 200 years of Egyptology.Īt the exhibit, there are banners and artefacts related everything about scribes and their work. But what did they write? What materials they used in writing and many questions that have answers at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. Scribes were highly valued and respected in ancient Egypt as a manifestation of the god of writing Thoth. A seated scribe holding a papyrus roll or sitting cross-legged and the papyrus roll placed on his lap is one of the most popular subjects in ancient Egyptian art, and even the highest officials chose to be depicted this way.
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