Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:31:08.194Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two - Dazzled and Absorbed

Delayed Reading in Altered Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing

from Part I - Hidden Writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2021

John Bodel
Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island
Stephen Houston
Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines writings from Bronze Age China that might at first glance seem to be hidden, asking about their audience and the intentions behind them. It begins at the late second millennium Anyang site with a pit deposit of inscribed oracle bones in the royal precinct. Arguing that the pit was part of a representation of sacrifice, it suggests that the buried writing was offered to the royal ancestors in thanks for their replies to the divination questions. Next it looks at inscriptions on bronze ritual vessels. These originated in the late second millennium as display texts addressed to deceased ancestors but early in the first millennium came to be consciously written for the living as well. A third case is stone tablets inscribed with covenant texts and buried in sacrificial pits at the fifth-century BCE Houma site. Here it seems that rulers seeking to enforce loyalty not only called the spirits to witness but also kept duplicate copies of the covenants as witnesses that could be called in evidence. The chapter concludes with some camouflaged writings from the latter part of the first millennium. These were designed to entertain highly literate readers by provoking mental gymnastics.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Hidden Language of Graphic Signs
Cryptic Writing and Meaningful Marks
, pp. 41 - 53
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×