The Egyptians valued literacy and education
as the keys to upward mobility. They called a literate person
sesh, or “scribe.” The author of the ancient Egyptian
text called Papyrus Sallier I pointed out: “a
scribe is the task-master of everyone.”
Writing and art were closely related in ancient Egypt. Scribes
wrote using hieroglyphs, which are pictures that stand for sounds
or ideas, and artists were also responsible for depicting hieroglyphs
in their work. In fact, an artist was called sesh-ked,
or “outline scribe,” confirming that most artists
were literate.
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