Among Other Histories: Nilotic Imageries and Fictionality in Early Middle Kingdom Narratives from the Wadi Hammamat Quarries
Résumé
In the desert, rock engravings exist in various form, ranging from the nominative graffiti of simple expedition members to decrees and official texts ordered by the sovereign, some of which, by their very texture and sophisticated language, are even the fruit of veritable precise textual craftsmanship. However, usually examined via mere transcriptions, removed from the context in which they were created, these texts have but seldom been studied for themselves. Rather than using this epigraphic material for other purposes, especially to fill the gaps of historic documentation, the communication will offer a glimpse of a new interpretive history of these texts.
Among the Wadi Hammamat textual material, a forthcoming publication of which is under preparation, the presentation will be based on the analysis of selected early Middle Kingdom narratives which mention a transformation of the desert into a Nilotic area. While highlighting the ways in which these texts were produced in the very locality, on the basis of the forerunners’ ‘already-said’, it will point out the interest of studying them as part of the textual landscape in which they emerged. Beyond the ‘referential rationalization’ that constitutes the lens through which these texts—too often considered as mere ‘expedition reports’—are read, the lecture will query the referential regime of expedition narratives by examining how some of them are deeply rooted in imageries and fictionality.