Songs, speeches, and captions in Ancient Egyptian Tombs

This paper will present part of my PhD research results, focus of which was the speech captions (the so-called ‘Reden und Rufe’) in the private tombs from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. It will explore the layout and the mise-en-texte of these captions added in the so-called daily-life scenes in private tombs, with insight on paratextual marks. This concept of paratextuality, coined by Gérard Genette in 1987, was rarely applied to ancient Egyptian texts (mostly papyri and ostraca) until quite recently, although it is a fruitful material in this regard. This corpus of texts, embodied in a monumental context, reveals just as much potential. Such formal means are highly indicative for a better understanding of the material textual culture as well as the categorization of these captions as a textual genre per se. This paper will accordingly show, from an emic perspective, several means used by the Egyptian scribes to formally distinguish these speeches from other captions and inscriptions displayed in private tombs. After a short presentation of the most common layouts and the pregnant text-image relationship, I will turn my attention to the mise-en-texte and trace back the appearance of discursive marks in Old Kingdom mastaba as first evidence of paratextuality. I will then discuss further paratextual means, from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom, which were used to indicate the discursive nature of some captions.