![]() But other times, poorly written and spelled student copies frustrate and mislead modern scholars. Sometimes multiple copies help modern scholars learn the meaning of the text. Sinuhe was a classic, composed and copied by scribes in the Middle Kingdom but still studied in the New Kingdom and Late Period. ![]() With Sinuhe, many of these variations stem from the time period when the text was written. There are almost always small variations in spelling and even word choice in different copies of the same work. Multiple copies both complicate and facilitate the establishment of the true text of a particular work. Knowing dozens of partial copies of the The Story of Sinuhe but only one copy of The Shipwrecked Sailor, two works of Middle Egyptian literature. Scholars who hope to establish the popularity or importance of a particular work in ancient times are frustrated by the accidents of discovery and preservation that result in Other works exist in only one sometimes heavily damaged copy. Some Egyptian works of literature still exist in multiple copies. The faience scarabs were created in molds and constitute one means of publishing multiple copies other than writing copies by hand. ![]() Scarabs-small images of beetles carved from stone or molded in faience with a smooth underside that could serve as a writing surface-also preserve kings' names and, rarely, preserve extended historical texts. Tomb and temple walls and stelae preserve the most extensive inscriptions written with hieroglyphs. The Egyptians placed them in tombs, memorial chapels, and in temples Stelae (singular: stela)-upright, inscribed slabs of stone-provided a surface for writing prayers, historical accounts, and royal decrees. Temple walls provided a surface for kings to publish long inscriptions that proclaimed royal success in military matters or to describe rituals. Many scholars view these biographies as the first literature in Egypt written with aesthetic values in mind. Tomb walls provided a writing surface for prayers, captions to sculptural reliefs, and, by the Sixth Dynasty, for extended biographies written either by or for the deceased. Yet inscriptions on stone that are normally abbreviated sometimes include the information that the full text was written on leather and stored in the library. Scribes also used leather as a writing surface, but very few examples have survived into modern times. Some scholars believe these boards served as a display text, a kind of writing sample that could be used when a scribe wanted to find work. Scribes also prepared wooden boards with a plaster surface to practice writing in hieratic. Archaeologists have recovered thousands of ostraca on limestone from the artists' village atÄeir el-Medina, one of the few places where large numbers of literate, but relatively poorer people lived. ![]() Students practiced writing literary texts on ostraca. Scribes used them to practice writing, nearly always in hieratic, but also for letters, contracts, and receipts. Ostraca were much cheaper and more plentiful than papyrus. Scribes made ostraca (singular: ostracon) from large pieces of broken pots or from limestone chips. Works of poetry, letters, and Books of the Dead preserved for eternity in tombs were normally written on papyrus using cursive hieroglyphs or hieratic and later Demotic or Coptic. Papyrus was relatively expensive but very durable so scribes used it for important texts that had to last a long time. Papyrus, the most famous of Egyptian inventions, was not the most commonly used writing surface. The Egyptians normally used a particular kind of writing surface for particular purposes. Egyptian Writing Materials and Publishing Medium and Message.
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