Bakhtin, Gramsci, and the Materiality of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs: When the ‘Official’ Culture Leaks into the ‘Folk’ Domain

The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is an extremely permeable field (given its materiality and performative character), more prone to introducing material variations in the sign during the ‘performance’ of its (re)production: some targeted hieroglyphs were deliberately manipulated, modified, and altered. The custom first appeared in the royal sphere (c. 2345 BCE) and then slowly moved into the private domain (till c. 2000 BCE), being continuously transformed and adapted, becoming increasingly inconsistent, unsystematic, and confused, till complete abandonment (c. 1500 BCE). This path can be read in the light of the socio-linguistic ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin and Antonio Gramsci, which see a deep connection between language and society. In its diachronic evolution, the patchy and inconsistent absorption and transformation of mutilation hieroglyph practice from the lower levels of society can be imagined as the ‘leak of fragments of hegemonic culture into a folk domain’.