Egyptian Epigraphy of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3250-2700 BCE)

The essay presents current perspectives on the corpus of Egyptian inscriptions of the Early Dynastic period, covering the documentation from the earliest written attestations dating to the late fourth millennium BCE up to the first known full registration of continuous language at the time of king Djoser (c. 2700 BCE). It reviews the corpus, addresses past scholarship, and discusses major issues on the material, historical, and social setting for the emergence, development, and exploitation of the writing system. A strong focus is on typology, scale, material practice, spatial dimension of the written artefacts in order to situate their production, circulation, and reception against the background of previous forms of visual expression as well as to assess their status within the nascent state.