5.3: Administrative Uses of Writing
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
Writing was needed to support local Canaanite government and the later imposed superstructure of Egyptian government. Both would have similar requirements, including account keeping to manage personnel and supplies, to maintain and legitimate communications and record legal matters. It seems likely that the language and script used to record these activities would have differed depending on the authority behind them.
Surviving texts suggest that Akkadian cuneiform was the writing used to manage local government, with 13 tablets recording lists of goods or personnel, 19 letters, and three legal texts ranging across Middle and Late Bronze Age contexts (Horowitz et al. 2006). Only a single administrative text has been found that utilises West Semitic language and alphabetic cuneiform script: a legal tablet from Taanach, dating to the early 12th century bc. The execution of the text is unusual on a number of grounds, including the way the letters are shaped, the direction the text is to be read, and the lack of word dividers, which may reflect a weakening of scribal tradition and the appearance of a less professional class of scribe at this time (Horowitz et al. 2006: Taanach 15). This rare example aside, what is noticeable in this assemblage is the standardisation in the way ‘official’ texts are being rendered, with no variation in material use or object form that we can see. Official writing is very much tied to the stylus and tablet paradigm, limiting the physical contexts of its use.
In Egypt itself hieratic is the traditional script used for administrative purposes, and this practice appears to have been imported to the Southern Levant during Egypt’s Late Bronze Age occupation of the region. However, remarkably few physical examples of these sorts of texts have survived, making us suspect that records were often made on perishable materials, such as papyrus or wooden writing boards, also mirroring scribal practice back in Egypt, which have left little trace in the archaeological record bar the occasional imprint on the back of clay bullae (e.g. Dothan 2008: 65; Mumford 1998: 1614 and n. 390). There are, however, hints at more casual uses of writing. A broken sherd at Tell Sera’ was used as a surface for a legal text, added in ink (Goldwasser 1984: pl. 7.2), and another inscription was inked onto the shoulder of a storage jar at the Egyptian garrison site of Beth Shan as a form of quality control (Wimmer 2007: 688–689, pl. 77.2). These examples hint at a greater flexibility in how this technology was applied.
Travellers between Egypt and the Levant were often used as couriers for official correspondence, as described on the recto of Papyrus Anastasi III, where letters are seen passing through a border post enroute to Egyptian officials and the Prince of Tyre (Higginbotham 2000: 48–49). It would appear that writing was used not only to give a message of authority and provide future accountability, but also to identify and legitimate the couriers themselves. Textual references point to the use of ‘passports’: government documents granting the bearer permission to travel through Egyptian territory without hindrance or charge, and offering proof of the official nature of their activities. Such a document, described as ‘rescripts from Amon-Re’, is referred to in the Report of Wenamun, an Egyptian literary text describing a journey into the Levant and thought to have been composed in the 21st dynasty; however, the physical appearance of this authorisation is never specified (Simpson 2003: 117).
One can nevertheless hypothesise that letters of passage would need to be both portable and secure against unauthorised tampering. While lightweight, papyrus must be rolled up and sealed with a clay bulla to secure its contents, which can only be read on breaking the seal. This would be of little use if the passport had to be shown on multiple occasions. A better solution would be to use a clay tablet, as once impressed with an official seal and then baked, its contents remain fixed. A few actual examples of these passports have survived, and they do indeed take the form of clay tablets. They were found in the Tell el-Amarna archives, dating to the later part of the 18th dynasty. One such is EA 30, a small sub-rectangular tablet, only 6 cm × 4.8 cm in size and so easily held in one hand, with its Akkadian text impressed on one side and running over to the top of the reverse where it was impressed with a cylinder seal (Moran 1992: 100; British Museum 1988.10-13.64). The contents of this tablet tell us that it accompanied a messenger sent by the King of the Mitanni, in Syria, to the Egyptian court.
A more ‘unofficial’ mode of communication may be represented by a unique clay cylinder seal from Beth Shan, inscribed with a letter addressed to the Canaanite ruler Lab’aya and written in Akkadian cuneiform. It has been suggested that this may represent a deliberate attempt at secrecy, by choosing a shape that could masquerade as a personal seal; both the sender and recipient were known to have been involved in anti-Egyptian activities (Horowitz 1997: 99).