Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : électronique
Auteur(s) : Westerfeld, Jennifer Taylor
Titre(s) : Egyptian hieroglyphs in the late antique imagination [Texte électronique] / Jennifer Taylor Westerfeld
Publication : Philadelphia : PENN, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020
Description matérielle : 1 Online-Ressource (256 pages) : 15 ill.
Note(s) : Bibliogr. p. 205-228. Index. - Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web
site, viewed 29. Feb 2020).. - In English.
Throughout the pharaonic period, hieroglyphs served both practical and aesthetic purposes.
Carved on stelae, statues, and temple walls, hieroglyphic inscriptions were one of
the most prominent and distinctive features of ancient Egyptian visual culture. For
both the literate minority of Egyptians and the vast illiterate majority of the population,
hieroglyphs possessed a potent symbolic value that went beyond their capacity to render
language visible. For nearly three thousand years, the hieroglyphic script remained
closely bound to indigenous notions of religious and cultural identity.By the late
antique period, literacy in hieroglyphs had been almost entirely lost. However, the
monumental temples and tombs that marked the Egyptian landscape, together with the
hieroglyphic inscriptions that adorned them, still stood as inescapable reminders
that Christianity was a relatively new arrival to the ancient land of the pharaohs.
; In Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the Late Antique Imagination, Jennifer Westerfeld argues
that depictions of hieroglyphic inscriptions in late antique Christian texts reflect
the authors' attitudes toward Egypt's pharaonic past. Whether hieroglyphs were condemned
as idolatrous images or valued as a source of mystical knowledge, control over the
representation and interpretation of hieroglyphic texts constituted an important source
of Christian authority.Westerfeld examines the ways in which hieroglyphs are deployed
in the works of Eusebius and Augustine, to debate biblical chronology; in Greek, Roman,
and patristic sources, to claim that hieroglyphs encoded the mysteries of the Egyptian
priesthood; and in a polemical sermon by the fifth-century monastic leader Shenoute
of Atripe, to argue that hieroglyphs should be destroyed lest they promote a return
to idolatry. ; She argues that, in the absence of any genuine understanding of hieroglyphic
writing, late antique Christian authors were able to take this powerful symbol of
Egyptian identity and manipulate it to serve their particular theological and ideological
ends
Sujet(s) : Égyptien ancien (langue) -- Écriture hiéroglyphique -- Religion -- 3e-8e siècles
Égyptien ancien (langue) -- Écriture hiéroglyphique -- Dans la littérature
Littérature chrétienne primitive
Indice(s) Dewey :
493.111 (23e éd.) = Langue égyptienne - Systèmes d'écriture ; 932 (23e éd.) = Histoire antique - Égypte - Des origines jusqu'à 0640
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780812296402. - ISBN 0812296400
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb45830918q
Notice n° :
FRBNF45830918
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
