Text as metaphor and as artifact: Why Structuralism was rejected by Egyptology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2021-7-2-93-114Keywords:
linguistic turn, textual turn, History of egyptology, structuralism, Egyptian mythology, material turn, cultural texts, materiality of texts, philosophy of scienceAbstract
‘Myth as language' and ‘culture as text' metaphors were productive in the humanities for interpretation of mythological and religious traditions since the middle of the 20th century. In this milieu some attempts to apply basic assumptions of structuralism to the monuments of Egyptian religion and literature were undertaken by scholars in the 1960s and 1970s. However, they did not have a lasting effect, and structuralism was mostly rejected by Egyptology. This essay highlights the fact that the initiative of structural analysis emerged in Egyptology in marginal zones. Some of its proponents had a background in religious studies, some were graduates of universities with a strong structuralist tradition such as the University of Geneva and Charles University in Prague. We would say that structuralism was not accepted by mainstream or ‘normal' Egyptology where philological and anthropological approaches traditionally hold strong positions. Meanwhile, without a linguistic turn no textual turn occurred in Egyptology as well. Language and text did not become productive metaphors which could project a new interpretative framework for description and comparison not only of verbal but of visual and actional messages. However, this approach still can produce valuable results in the analysis of Egyptian mortuary literature, which was born in the interplay between myth and ritual and was highly sensitive to its architectural and decorative context.Downloads
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