Scribes - Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

The Ancient Egyptian scribe, or sesh, was a person educated in the arts of writing (using both hieroglyphics and hieratic scripts, and from the second half of the first millennium BCE the demotic script, used as shorthand and for commerce) and dena (arithmetics). Sons of scribes were brought up in the same scribal tradition, sent to school and, upon entering the civil service, inherited their fathers' positions.

Much of what is known about ancient Egypt is due to the activities of its scribes and the officials. Monumental buildings were erected under their supervision, administrative and economic activities were documented by them, and tales from the mouths of Egypt's lower classes or from foreign lands survive thanks to scribes putting them in writing.

Scribes were also considered part of the royal court and did not have to pay tax or join the military. The scribal profession had companion professions, the painters and artisans who decorated reliefs and other relics with scenes, personages, or hieroglyphic text. A scribe was exempt from the heavy manual labor required of the lower classes, or corvee labor.

The hieroglyph used to signify the scribe, to write, and "writings", etc., is Gardiner sign Y3,
from the category of: 'writings, & music'. The hieroglyph contains the scribe's ink-mixing palette, a vertical case to hold writing-reeds, and a leather pouch to hold the colored ink blocks, mostly black and red.

Thoth was a god associated by the Ancient Egyptians with the invention of writing, being the scribe of the gods, and holding knowledge of scientific and moral laws.

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