Writing- It's Kind of a Big Deal

So I've basically given up on finding new information on the ancient Kush language... As much as I want to find out more about them, for the time being it appears that they will remain one of the great mysteries of ancient history, at least until some remarkable discovery is made in The Sudan. Sadly the prospects of that seem rather slim because of the more pressing issues they face like slavery, civil war, drought, and genocide, which puts archeological efforts and decoding a dead language pretty much on the back burner.

But as you've probably already guessed, I've found out some interesting stuff about Ancient Egyptian writing! Follow after the jump to find out what!

An Egyptian Scribe

In an earlier post I made about the Ancient Egyptian educational system I talked about the unique process for training scribes. They received more of what we could consider a conventional education compared to the rest of their peers. They went to special schools where they learned to read, write, do math, and about science, rather than the rest of the children who learned a very basic knowledge of reading and proper societal behaviors, until they began to work in their fathers' trades or as mothers. As evidenced by this drastic difference in educational quality, the position of scribe (or "sesh" as is was called in its time) was very much an elevated office in this society. They were exempt from paying taxes, preforming manual labor, or even joining the military! They were also counted as part of the royal court and often found themselves in important administrative jobs or other positions of influence. That's not to say becoming a scribe was all roses though. One source I found explained that becoming a scribe was in most cases hereditary, meaning that most new scribes were the sons of old ones which makes the field very difficult to enter. If you did by chance make it in, scribal training often took about ten years to complete because of the complexity of the hieroglyphic system. That's ten years of hard work and harder discipline; the ancient Egyptian word for teach, "seba," also means beat.

Thoth

Apart from the practical value placed on writing and those with the ability to do so, one thing that I found really intriguing was just how important, even divine, writing was to the Ancient Egyptians. There are multiple Egyptian gods associated with writing, chief among them being Thoth. Thoth wasn't just some obscure deity who made brief appearances in a few stories, rather he was incredibly integral to Egyptian beliefs. In one version of their creation story he laid the egg that Ra (the Egyptian Sun God) hatched from. Another says he created himself through the power of words, along with the Gods of the Ogdoad, which is just another testament to the power that Egyptians felt language to have. (The source I read from also drew an interesting comparison from this story to the Biblical scripture that reads, "in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.")

The Ogdoad

The Book of the Dead

The writing God Thoth also held a number of other roles in Egyptian mythology. He was the "Voice of Ra" or his scribe, he was the patron of scribes, the inventor of writing, magic, civil traditions, music, medicine, and even religious practices. He was also credited with inventing the calendar, (which is interesting given his connection to writing, and the moon) recording the fates of all those who enter the underworld, and also the origin of Egyptian rhetoric. You might have even heard of the Book of the Dead, (in The Mummy series of films) where it is said that Thoth wrote down all of the secrets of the universe. 

Thoth in the weighing of souls

Given all these examples of how Egyptians venerated the act of writing, it's easy to see how fundamentally it must have changed their culture, and how they preserved knowledge, because they treated it with the utmost reverence and mysticism. Are there any other examples in history where a culture treated writing and language in such a way? Or going even further, are there any examples in history when a people treated a seemingly mundane, secular practice in such a way?