The use of documents in Pharaonic Egypt /
This volume reconstructs the history of documentary practice in pharaonic Egypt from the early Old Kingdom to the major administrative changes imposed by the colonizing regimes of the Graeco-Roman period. Relating administrative and legal practice to the physical practicalities of the media used for...
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Format: | Electronic eBook |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Oxford :
Oxford University Press,
2013.
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Series: | Oxford studies in ancient documents.
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | CONNECT |
Summary: | This volume reconstructs the history of documentary practice in pharaonic Egypt from the early Old Kingdom to the major administrative changes imposed by the colonizing regimes of the Graeco-Roman period. Relating administrative and legal practice to the physical practicalities of the media used for writing, and through the close reading of primary textual sources, it examines how different types of documents - private and official - were created and used. It explores the ways in which the writing of documents was embedded deeply in the interactions between customary social practices, which were essentially oral, and in the penetration of outside hierarchies into local government. Eyre argues that the potential of the written document as evidence or proof was never fully exploited in the pharaonic period, even though writing was a powerful symbol and display of hierarchical authority. He presents the government as a system rooted in personal prestige and patronage structures, lacking the effective departmental hierarchies and archive systems that would represent a true bureaucratic system. |
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Item Description: | EBSCO eBook History Collection EBSCO eBook Academic Comprehensive Collection North America |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 425 pages) : illustrations, map |
Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
ISBN: | 9780191655296 0191655295 9781306046466 1306046467 9780191761478 0191761478 |