lthough in most cases inscriptions are read in concert with the objects on which they are placed, if they are considered separately it may be possible to identify two distinct messages comprehended by different audiences. A stela1 from Abydos, (fig. 1) recently republished by Anthony Leahy, illustrates well the disjunction of text and image possible in monumental settings. Due to the hiero-glyphic readability of both writing and art, some elements of both were often mixed in monumental settings: for example, as early as the Third Dynasty, flkr and ∂d signs were used as decorative elements on architec-tural friezes at the Step Pyramid and were no doubt intended to be read as well as viewed. Even the illiterate, then, if they resided near cult cen-ters, must have known some royal and divine iconography, and must also have been familiar with a number of hieroglyphic signifiers, such as cartouches and serekhs with falcons atop as identifications of rulers; or lapwings as writings of r∞yt, particularly combined with the dw£ sign to designate stations for people within temples.2 The mixture of hiero-glyphic forms with artistic compositional principles on this Abydos stela’s lunette scene would therefore have been readable: not as to the specific royal names, but rather as to the iconographies of king and divinity as well as the meaning of their placements and gestures.
Leahy’s discussion was largely centered on the stela inscription, but he nonetheless carefully illustrated the entire stela and discussed its lunette scene briefly. The text, a decree of the Thirteenth Dynasty, (which Leahy showed to have been reused in the same dynasty) forbade the building of tombs in the Wepwawet area of Abydos as marked by the stela. It also granted tomb construction outside the area designated by
1 Cairo JE 35256. Anthony Leahy, “A Protective Measure at Abydos in the Thirteenth Dynasty,” JEA 75 (1989), pp. 41–61.
2 Lanny Bell, “Les parcours processionnels,” Dossiers histoire et archéologie 101 (January 1986), pp. 29–30. See also mention of this topic, Betsy Bryan, “Royal and Divine Statuary,”
in A. Kozloff and B. Bryan, Egypt’s Dazzling Sun. Amenhotep III and his World, (Cleveland, 1992), pp. 125–36.
A
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Fig. 1. Abydos Stela, Cairo Museum JE 35256, after drawing in A. Leahy, JEA 75 (1989), pp. 41–61.
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the stela. The inscription was thus directed at the literate wealthy who might attempt to place constructions in the area.
The lunette scene, on the other hand, would have been viewed and understood by literate elites and nonliterate alike. In that scene the king’s Horus and cartouche names appear facing the name of the god Wepwawet, the writing of which was determined by a striding jackal on a standard. Possibly this determinative, a common writing for Wep-wawet,3 represented a processional cult emblem of that god. The ™n∞ and w£s signs are projecting out to the falcon atop the Horus name from the standard, enduing the king (through his name) with those two proper-ties. The winged sun disk identified stretches across the top, with the limits of Egypt identified as the northern and southern cult centers of Horus of Behdet.
It is useful to consider what the lunette scene and the form of a stela generally would communicate were the text lacking. Indeed, set in its original location the stela, absent its main inscription, would alert any viewer that it is a royal decree and therefore important to heed. In addition the lunette establishes Wepwawet, a god from a neighboring cult center, at Abydos, and it demonstrates that the king is favored by that god in particular.4 The form of the stela, therefore, alerted the non-literate to the king’s relationship with Wepwawet, perhaps in a proces-sional emblematic form, thereby increasing the ruler’s association with that god in whatever role he played at Abydos. The stela’s siting may have further suggested a specific association within Abydos generally.
This message for the illiterate was an entirely positive one with regard to the ruler and his cult involvement. Whether the particular ruler would have been known to the viewer is, of course, not possible to say.
We should acknowledge, however, that nonliteracy, like literacy, has degrees, and some may have known more signs than others. Some may also have been aware of the reason for the stela’s erection.
As Leahy’s discussion of the stela inscription reveals, the Thirteenth Dynasty rulers were unusual in their personal participation in the Osirian festivals held at Abydos.5 Thus the inscription, for Leahy, was composed and recarved on occasions of two Thirteenth Dynasty rulers attending such festivities. In addition, Leahy, following Kemp, argued persuasively that the protected region referred to in the inscription was
3 Wb. 1, p. 202,16.
4 See F. Gomaa, Die Besiedlung Ägyptens während des Mittleren Reiches, TAVO Beihefte (Wiesbaden, 1986), p. 202, with n. 16, for Wepwawet as resident in Abydos.
5 Ibid., pp. 59–60. Leahy notes the distinction between Thirteenth Dynasty rulers who attended the festivals in person and Twelfth Dynasty kings who sent emissaries.
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the wadi leading from the Osiris temple toward the archaic tombs of the First Dynasty at Umm el Qa`ab.6 He states that “the reason for the dedication of the area to Wepwawet also becomes clear; it was he who as ‘Opener of the Ways,’ led the sequence of processions in the Osiris mysteries.”7 Thus the lunette’s message of royal association with Wep-wawet in a processional form was background for the inscription itself.
For those who could read, however, the message was quite different from that of royal association with Wepwawet and involvement with the Abydene mysteries. The literate were informed of the prohibition from building tombs in the area, a point that was no doubt intended to enforce the ruler’s own wishes with regard to the processional and cemetery space. This was a message of power asserted over the affluent whose actions were potentially a threat to the crown. At the same time, the king’s granting of construction outside his protected area, further insisted on his overall ability to dispense privileges. As Leahy states,
“the fact that no burials were made in the wadi before Roman times, whereas the areas on either side of it were used and reused, confirms both the identification and the success of the decree.”8 Ultimately text and image speak to two distinct audiences with the appropriate message of royal display and power.
Egyptian art communicates without text and with it. Although it often does, art does not necessarily coincide with text in the meaning it conveys.9 Nor, then, does text in monumental uses, necessarily purely caption the art, as most writers have argued it does.10 Rather, art may provide a different version of the same subject expressed in accompany-ing text. For example, although the visual cues provided by the scenes from Ramesses II’s Kadesh Battle reliefs at the Ramesseum, Karnak, Luxor Temple, Abydos, and Abu Simbel (fig. 2) are not identical,11 the
6 Ibid., p. 54, after Barry Kemp, Lexikon der Ägyptologie 1, col. 37.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Thomas von der Way, in his excellent study, Die Textüberlieferung Ramses’ II. zur Qadeß-Schlacht: Analyse und Struktur, (Hildesheim, 1984), Introduction, notes that the texts and reliefs do not often coincide, but concludes that the text can stand alone, while the reliefs cannot. This I would argue is not the case.
10 While Roland Tefnin, “Image, écriture, récit. A propos des représentations de la bataille de Qadesh,” GM 47 (1981), pp. 55–78, was certainly mindful of the interconnections of text and image, he was not sensitive to the dissonance conveyed by the Kadesh reliefs placed next to the accompanying legends and War Bulletin. The most difficult view to accept is that of Alan H. Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II (Oxford, 1960), who attempted a chart to place text and image opposite one another to demonstrate their coincidence. It was a failure.
11 Charles Kuentz, La Bataille de Qadech, MIFAO 55 (Cairo, 1928–1934).
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essential elements of the camp, the fort of Kadesh, the Orontes river around it, and the meeting of chariot warriors exist in all versions. How-ever, the serious predicament in which Ramesses II found himself during the battle, as described in the Poem and/or the Bulletin or relief inscriptional legends are largely not evident in the reliefs themselves.
Fig. 2. Kadesh Battle Relief from Luxor Temple, after drawing in K. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant (Warminster, 1988), figs. 18–19.
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Lacking the texts, the viewer would conclude that Ramesses II was victorious against the vile Hittite foe, apparently nearly all alone.12 It is interesting to point out that one consistent addition was the mission of the Egyptian vizier to hurry the army for the ruler.
Although many Egyptologists might conclude that the uncomplicat-ed nature of the relief story underscores the dependence of art on text,13 it is more likely an illustration that Egyptian art was directed at more than one constituency, depending on whether the text was to be read or not. The nature of audience for monumental reliefs and inscriptions is problematic, but it would certainly be wise to consider first the low literacy levels in the New Kingdom.14 Even those who read hieratic rea-sonably well might have had difficulty seeing and reading monumental hieroglyphic texts on temple pylons. In addition, in my opinion, monu-mental Egyptian art was not intended as argument, but rather as state-ment.15 The work of persuasion must have taken place before the monumentalizing, i.e., before the statement was, quite literally, “set in stone.” Those who could read the text most probably knew of it as the story it tells was being composed.
The statement of the monument in the reign of Ramesses II, and later as well, to the vast non-literate majority of the population was a reminder of pharaoh’s victories, specific and continuous, on behalf of Egypt and its gods. The statement to the literate government elites provided an explanation of Egypt’s poor performance at Kadesh. To con-clude from the Kadesh texts, the army, largely an illiterate group led by officers answerable to the crown, was the scapegoat offered to the gov-ernment bureaucrats. It is noteworthy that the mission of the vizier to hasten the army of Ptah’s assistance to Ramesses II was prominently labeled in the reliefs. The court official did his duty, while, as could be read in full in the “Poem,” the army disgraced itself by its cowardly per-formance in battle.16
12 The conclusions reached also by von der Way and Tefnin, op.cit., but without further analysis of the meaning of this disjunction.
13 See above, concerning von der Way. In addition to Gardiner, Lichtheim too appears not to have noticed the discrepancy of reliefs and texts, seeming to think them inevitably read together; Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II, p. 26; Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature 2 (Berkeley, 1976), p. 58.
14 Even if one considers the Baines and Eyre estimate to be low, one would hardly push literacy above the level of 5% of the population; J. Baines and C. Eyre, “Four notes on literacy,” GM 61 (1983), pp. 65–96.
15 Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford, 1972), provides a similar view.
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It is a significant point in this example that the small number of elites who could read would not have interpreted the monuments of Ramesses II in the same way as the vast public. For this last group the temples were in any case distant and restricted centers of authority, royal and religious. Nonetheless a complete message was communicat-ed to both audiences. We cannot estimate with any certainty the degree to which the owner of a monument depended on the separate and com-bined messages of art and inscription. We are safe, however, in assuming that all those who viewed a monument did not take away the same message.
For example, a statue of a man and woman in a private decorated tomb chapel of the New Kingdom might depict the couple arm in arm, at the same scale. Stylistically, they would both have the features of the reigning king and iconographical details that identified them with a par-ticular generation. A female family member visiting the chapel would most likely have been illiterate, but would have recognized both a man and woman as primary recipients of the statue’s benefits. A male visitor, at the elite tomb-owning level of society, on the other hand, would possibly have been literate and therefore able to learn that the statue might have had an overwhelming preponderance of inscriptions relating to the man, or conversely might mention the woman prominently.17 The impressions of the two visitors about the statue owners would not have been identical and yet both received the communication of the monument.
Indeed, this dissonance in text and image can be found on nearly every inscribed object and must assert that the function of text with image was other than caption or explication. Rather, in the monumental setting the text preserved a statement that few could comprehend and appreciate. Although that statement was not intended as argument to the viewer, its very monumentalization and its limited accessibility made it likely to have been prestigious. This prestige might have invoked a “dialogue” between viewer and monument. And if discussion
16 This is an alternative view to that offered by von der Way, who considered the army itself needed to be propagandized. It is difficult for me to accept a level of literacy among the army at large that would have enabled their true knowledge of the inscription contents.
17 For example, compare the statue of Djehutyemheb and Iay, YAG 1947.81, Gerry Scott, Ancient Egyptian Art at Yale, Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1986), pp. 128–31 with Johns Hopkins University Archaeological Museum 9212, Betsy M. Bryan, “An Early Eighteenth Dynasty Group Statue from the Asasif in the Johns Hopkins University Archaeological Collection,” BES 10 (1989/90), pp. 25–38. Here the woman is more promi-nent than the man by both inscriptions and by her artistic placement on the proper right side.
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b
resumes with the viewer, it does so as part of further interpretation of the monument, and that interpretation is culturally sensitive—chang-ing not only from person to person, but from era to era.18
18 See, for example, the discussion of the communicative role of art, as discussed by Keith Moxey, in “Semiotics and the Social History of Art,” New Literary History 22 (1991), pp. 985–99.
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