21 april 2022 | Hieroglyphic Handwriting

Hieroglyphic Handwriting: Encounters with a scribe/painter of Deir el-Medina

The two underground chambers in the 20^th Dynasty tomb of Chief Workman, Anhurkhawy were painted with exquisite iconography and hieroglyphic texts. The hieroglyphs on the walls inform us that two scribe/painters (sS-qd.w), brothers Harmin (i) and Nebnefer (ix), painted them. In this lecture, dr. Bettles focuses particularly on one brother, Harmin (i) and presents what we already know about him biographically from other sources. Then she will examine what his hieroglyphic handwriting style in this tomb reveals about him as a worker, as a family man, and even as a person. This is further indication of how remarkable the surviving evidence from the artisans’ settlement of Deir el-Medina can be for granting us an opportunity to encounter a non-elite person who lived more than 3000 years ago.