Investigations around an unrecognized genre: case study on speech captions in private tombs

Since the Old Kingdom, speech captions, generally known as “Reden und Rufe”, are found in the decorative program of private tombs. These captions are dialogs between workers in the “daily life” scenes. They appear in several topics, such as fishing, butchery, crafts, ... Quite surprisingly, they have never been studied exhaustively since their first mention in 1918 in Egyptological literature. My first goal is twofold: to show precisely where and when they are found, and what exactly defines “Reden und Rufe” as a genre. Besides, a chronological scope of nearly 2,300 years allows me to highlight diachronic, diatopic, and diastratic variations. It is particularly evident in New Kingdom and Late Period tombs, where “Égyptien de Tradition” features are found next to “vernacular” ones. It has long been taken for granted, incorrectly, that these speeches were written in an idiom very close to colloquial. This first comprehensive study aims to determine which state(s) of language is/are used.