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Much of what we hope to know about ancient Egyptians was transmitted in writing. We aspire to know their religion, their politics, and their finances; we eavesdrop in their correspondence and their love poetry. A modern view of the Egyptian world has often been through the lens of a scribe – a trained, schooled, literate individual who was present at many levels of Egyptian society, from local accountant to the highest echelons. The image of the scribal world was a complex one and never presented by the Egyptians as some immutable ideal.

The life of an ordinary scribe was demanding, though not lived in deprivation. The literate Egyptians ran the state and in theory should have formed a well-oiled meritocratic system of local administration and government. Far from assessments by some early Egyptologists, who saw the Egyptians on occasion as verbose simpletons, the scribes included sophisticated thinkers among their ranks. Yet despite all the wealth of information they left relatively little is known about what underpinned their world, about their mentality and about their everyday life.

This book follows ten persons who claimed the title or the qualities of a "scribe" at some point during their career. It is not always easy to follow in detail their biographies; however, together they present a portrait of what it was to be a scribe in New Kingdom Egypt. The case studies look at accountants, draughtsmen, scribes with military and dynastic roles, the authors of graffiti, and literati who interacted in different ways with pharaohs and other leaders.

The book consists of an introduction, prologue, ten "biographical" chapters, and an epilogue. The introduction explores Egyptological conventions characterizing the scribe and his doings. It addresses the Egyptian term zXA.w (also transcribed sS), which is often translated "scribe". Many connotations are tied to the term, and this chapter aims to problematize current understanding and approach "scribes" through studies of different figures who bore this title. The prologue explores the material aspect of writing and practical skills that most literate Egyptians had to master. Ten biographical chapters include the administrator and artist Paheri of El Kab, the courtier Senenmut, military scribe Tjanuni, a graffiti writer named Amenemhat, royal literati Tutankhamun and Haremhab, artist Dedia, copyist Inena, the case of papyrus Anastasi I, and a scribe of the royal tomb Djehutimose. The epilogue suggests that scribes kept the administrative as well as the cultural memory of Egypt running, while they also had to define their position as culturally competent individuals among other literate members of the elite.

This book is based on the author's doctoral thesis submitted to University College London in September 2014. This publication now includes a few modifications to the text and new images. It aims to answer the question of how archaeology can help revise the interpretation of literacy in ancient Egypt. The author not only focuses on the material culture, but also on the intellectual underpinnings that shape the Egyptological thought and the process of categorisation. The term "literacy" raises a complex bundle of related questions, which are also addressed in this work, such as the status of the "scribe" in society, writing practice, and the materiality of writing.

A bibliography, indices, and colour plates close the volume.

This paper is a presentation of some results of the research on the scribal titles in the third millennium B.C., in the capital and in the provinces: the first known occurrences, the meaning that can change in the course of time, and the chronological, spatial and hierarchical distribution.

The community of Deir-el-Medineh had a local council (qnbt) which was manned, besides the local scribe, by the most esteemed inhabitants in the locality. This council was responsible for directing the current affairs and for keeping order in the village; equally, it was frequently summoned for jurisdiction over the citizens. In the present study the role played by the scribe in the judiciary is particularly focused upon. The scribe's obligations show him surprisingly as the central figure whenever the inhabitants went to law. Little wonder, then, that the scribe become eponymous; mentioning his name alone sufficed largely as reference to the qnbt-session that decided on a given case. – Given the wide range of the scribe's responsibilities at Pharaonic law-courts, it would seem that he was the forerunner of the Hellenistic Eisagogeus at Ptolemaic law-courts.