The Emergence of Writing and the Construction of Cultural Memory in Egypt

In Egyptology a topic which is a subject of continuing debate is what led to the emergence of writing. Some – primarily older – theories ascribe the impulse to the necessities of political communication and the practice of the cult (funerary and divine). If such ideas are true, the question arises whether the invention of writing was stimulated by the need to preserve and transmit cultural memory. By contrast, if the invention of writing was motivated by practical considerations such as the management of affairs of state and administration of the economy, the preservation and transmission of cultural memory was rather a consequence of the potentiality of writing. This paper aims to investigate these suppositions and the possible relationship of the invention of writing to the construction of cultural memory.