“What is man?”

Inscriptions are traditionally classed as documentary texts, texts that are supposed to provide primarily matter-of-fact quantifiable information. The present contribution takes a radically different view of funerary inscriptions by arguing that funerary inscriptions are products of literary culture that do not coincide with the factual information they may happen to contain and deserve to be taken seriously as texts. They were often embedded in a wider ritual and monumental setting, which involved doing and saying things together, including praying and singing, and which in turn reproduced and reinforced social cohesion.

First published in: Adam Łajtar, and Jacques van der Vliet (eds.), Nubian Voices: Studies in Christian Nubian Culture (JJP Supplement 15), Warsaw: University of Warsaw/Raphael Taubenschlag Foundation 2011, 171–224.