Stone Carved Manuscripts – The Use of Cursive Script on Stelae as a Phenomenon of Cultural Change in Egypt's Third Intermediate Period

The project will investigate an unusual phenomenon in ancient Egyptian writing culture observed during the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1076–723 BCE): the increasing use of the hieratic script instead of the conventional hieroglyphic writing system for the inscription of stone stelae.

Hieratic, an abbreviated form of the hieroglyphic script, is used in parallel to it throughout the pharaonic period to write with reed brush and ink on portable text carriers such as papyri and ostraca. For a brief period, in particular during the 22nd dynasty, this script is used uncharacteristically often to carve texts on stelae, especially those recording land donations to a temple. The ‘Stone Carved Manuscripts’ project aims to clarify the dynamics of this phenomenon through a combined study of the script and its associated textual content, and to formulate a hypothesis for the reasons that may have led to this deviation from the long-established norm of writing monumental inscriptions in hieroglyphic.

In addition to palaeographical and orthographical studies, the project plans to use 3D recordings of some of the stelae and their inscriptions to identify physical signs of the working process that may shed light on the engravers’ adaptation of the cursive script to the medium of stone. The results have the potential to be particularly informative after contextualising them within the historical period in which the stelae were produced, the period following the end of the Bronze Age, which was characterised by fundamental changes in Egypt's writing culture and socio-economic organisation.