Between Old and Middle Kingdom : palaeography of the clay documents from Balat

Abstract

The documents from the 6th dynasty governors’ palace in Balat-‘Ayn Asil were found more or less in situ. Texts on clay tablets and notes on clay sealings form a sizeable corpus. They give us an acute insight into the range of writing practices in this provincial administration at the end of the 3rd millennium. Although mostly incised by a stylus, it appears that some of the tablets were written with ink before the text was incised. In spite of the rather limited range of texts at play, several signs appear here for the first time in hieratic script. Different graphic registers can be perceived, depending on the status of the text and the writing skills of the officials. The general palaeographical trends in Balat are in line with what was recorded at that time in the Nile Valley.