Depending on when the early state in Egypt emerged, the earliest known use of writing (in Tomb U-j at Abydos) may predate political unification of the north and south. Certainly by Dynasty o, writing was used by scribes and artisans of the Egyptian state. Although some scholars believe that the Egyptian writing system was invented in the late fourth millennium bc, with stimulus from Mesopotamia, where the earliest writing is found, the two writing systems are so different that it seems more likely that they are both the result of independent invention.
The earliest codification of signs probably occurred in Naqada III/ Dynasty o. Like Egyptian writing in the Dynastic Period, these early hieroglyphs consist of elements of ideographic and phonetic signs. Specific decipherments of many of the Early Dynastic inscriptions, however, remain uncertain. The use of writing by the early state in Egypt has a royal context, and was an innovation of great importance to this state. Just as a royal style of art developed as a court-centred institution following the unification, so did writing. The early state used Writing in two contexts: for economic and administrative purposes and in royal art.
The economic function of writing must have developed as more resources of the state came under royal control. Hieroglyphs appear on royal seal impressions, labels, and potmarks to identify goods and materials marshalled for and by the state, as well as on seals of officials of the state. Titles of owners of these goods and places of origin are also sometimes recorded.
Beginning in Dynasty o, royal serekhs are first seen. The serekh is the earliest format of the king’s name in hieroglyphs, comprising phonetic signs, placed inside a ‘palace-fagade’ design that was surmounted by the image of a falcon. Serekhs are found inscribed or painted on jars and labels and impressed on jar sealings. Such containers were probably storage jars, for agricultural products collected by the state (perhaps as taxation), and some of these goods were traded or exported abroad through the northern Sinai to southern Palestine.
From this economic use of writing it can be inferred that there was already a functioning administrative system by Dynasty o. Early in the ist Dynasty, a more complex message of identification developed, and a combination of hieroglyphs and graphic art is found on labels. In the absence of texts composed of signs ordered in a format by grammar, which are not known until later, the information conveyed on labels, especially those arranged in registers, is probably to be read as a text (a year name) containing historical information. Donald Bedford has suggested that the context of this information on royal labels is an annals system. The addition of the year sign by the middle of the ist Dynasty represents a more specific system for recording regnal years than on earlier labels.
The second use of early writing was on royal commemorative art, such as the Narmer Palette. Hieroglyphs identify specific persons and possibly places in representational scenes that are symbolic of the king’s legitimacy to rule. In such scenes, the king is depicted in roles, both real and symbolic, based on a new ideology: the institution of Egyptian kingship. Numerical signs, such as those on the Narmer Macehead, represent captured booty and prisoners, and are probably greatly exaggerated, as is so often the case in later Egyptian historical texts.
The iconography of power is clearly seen within the context of such royal art and includes the use of several important conventions. The king and his officials are shown in the special dress of their offices, while their conquered enemies wear next to nothing. A hierarchy of social classes is also evident, from the large-sized king, who is followed by his smaller sandal-bearer, to his even smaller officials, to the smallest figures of conquered enemies, farmers, and servants. The king is frequently depicted trampling on his enemies, in visual pirns. The early Egyptian signs do not replicate the information conveyed in the scenes, but serve as name labels for places and persons.
Part of the problem of understanding how writing developed in Early Dynastic Egypt is connected both with the types of artefacts on which early writing appears and with their archaeological contexts. Most examples of early writing are associated with the funerary cult and are not records of economic activities from settlements. Thus the early labels inscribed with hieroglyphs have been found in royal and elite tombs. From the royal cemetery at Abydos are stelae with the kings’ names in serekhs and smaller inscribed stelae associated with the subsidiary burials. The one funerary stele with a longer text, from the late ist-Dynasty tomb of Merka at Saqqara, is simply a list of his titles. The early state probably kept economic records of some sort to facilitate its economic and administrative control, but there is only indirect evidence of this in the form of inscribed labels.
World History
