Brown Bag Lecture with Dr. Aurore Motte, Université de Liège

About this event

The Making of Texts in Ancient Egypt What can a manuscript teach us even before we read its contents? Far more than simply a medium for text, a manuscript preserves traces of its creation, its use and those who produced it. Through the study of the Books of the Dead, scientific texts, literary works and accounting records, this lecture invites you to discover the techniques, skills, and choices that lie behind the production of these texts. Writing medium, inks, layout, corrections, marginalia and other paratextual marks reveal a history that is often hidden: that of the scribes and the creation of written texts in the time of the pharaohs. Aurore Motte is currently a postdoctoral researcher of the National Fund for Scientific Research (Belgium), working in the Ancient Worlds research unit, Department of Antiquity Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Liège. Her research interests focus on ancient Egyptian (icono)texts, which includes textual criticism, textual transmission, (socio)pragmatics, scribal practices, paratextual studies, and the materiality of writing.