Doktorand: Ahmed Osman
Betreuung: Prof. Dr. Richard Bußmann, Prof. Dr. Stephen Quirke

The project seeks to understand how ancient Egyptian scribes used graphemes, orthographical variations, and determinatives in ancient Egyptian Hieratic texts from the Middle Kingdom to encode meaning beyond basic segmental linguistic information. By applying a social semiotic and multimodal communication framework, the project aims to uncover how multiple semiotic modes (visual, phonetic, and suprasegmental) were integrated to create richer, context-specific meanings. The project hypothesizes that orthographic and graphemic choices served as semiotic tools that ancient scribes employed to shape the understanding of their language within specific social and institutional contexts.

This project has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the ancient Egyptian language by revealing how deeply interconnected language, visuals, and social context were in the construction of meaning.