Different Strategies in Copying Retrograde Writing Texts on Manuscripts

What is it about?

The importance of the scribe's individuality in the production of his manuscript is seen in the variability of practices, and therefore of personal apprehensions, observed in different copies of the same composition. The problems posed by the "Amduats" funerary papyrus of the 21st dynasty (1069-945 BC) are a good example. In addition to conveying a restricted content in a then archaic language level, these compositions depicting the night travel of the sun god in the Otherworld are most often read from left to right in retrograde writing, an uncommon formal characteristic, then obsolescent in the Books of the Dead and therefore particularly unusual. The material analysis of the ink refills of these texts highlights the variety of copying techniques. Some are written in the direction of reading, others in reverse - which sometimes leads to text destructuration. A few examples will highlight this variability of practices. The tenth hour of Horemakhbit's Amduat (Berlin, P 301/c) was inscribed in a kind of boustrophedon way - the upper register following the reading order and the lower registers the reverse. Although both were copied in reverse order on the same model – so probably by scribes close to each other, the text from the books of Khonsumes (Paris, BnF Égyptien 153-155) is destructured whereas this from Nesmutâaneru (London, BM EA 9982) is partly deleted to avoid this problem. The analysis of these different case aims to highlight the variability of writing practices, and probably of personal culture of the scribes, even for a single composition.

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Photo by Lea Kobal on Unsplash

Photo by Lea Kobal on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The problematic of retrograde writing copy is analyzed through material study in order to highlight the different strategies developed by the scribes to cope with specific texts.