Fonction d’ancrage, fonction de relais et diégèse de l’action royale dans les textes articulés à l’image

Lurson, Benoît
(2021) 12. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung. Synergie und Divergenz: Zum Zusammenwirken von Bild und Text in ägyptischen Tempeln. Würzburg, 2020 — 175-206, published

Files

No attached file found for this publication.

Details

Authors
  • Lurson, BenoîtUCLouvain
    Author
Abstract
(en) In this contribution, the relationships between image and text in Pharaonic Egypt are examined from the angle of the anchoring and relaying functions of the text, defined by Roland Barthes in 1964. The first consists in compensating for the polysemy of the image by identifying it, the second in completing it by providing information that image cannot by nature deliver, linked in particular to temporality and causality. This approach then makes it possible to highlight the diegesis that underlies images and texts related to each other. To this end, a group of three scenes engraved on the west wall of the second hypostyle hall of the temple of Seti I in Abydos is studied. The analysis of this group of scenes shows that Barthes’s anchoring and relaying functions of the text are relevant notions for studying the relationships between Ancient Egyptian image and text. But it also reveals characteristics proper to these functions in Pharaonic Egypt. Thus, the anchoring function in two different aspects happens to be shared between image and text, whilst the relaying function not only links elements of a single image, but also several images with each other, which, by specifying their chronological sequence and causal links, avoids any risk of an unclear message for the observer. Then, the importance of the support, here the temple, needs to be underlined in the process of adherence of the observer to the diegesis that these scenes stage, since the temple does prove its truth. In this case, it is the diegesis of royal action, whereby these scenes offer a detailed and refined figurative illustration of the contractual relationship that unites the king with the gods, who give him his office of king in exchange for his promise to act for them, to ensure their welfare. Yet, this illustration emphasizes the action of Seti I to the advantage of Osiris, the approval by the god of this action of him and the consequent reward of the king for respecting his part of the contract. The development of this specific aspect, of which historical dimension is certainly not to underestimate, shows again the uniqueness and liveliness of the iconographic discourse of New Kingdom temples.
Affiliations

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Lurson, B. (2021). Fonction d’ancrage, fonction de relais et diégèse de l’action royale dans les textes articulés à l’image. In Beinlich H. (ed.), 12. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung. Synergie und Divergenz: Zum Zusammenwirken von Bild und Text in ägyptischen Tempeln. Würzburg, 2020 (pp. 175-206). Harrasowitz Verlag. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/224504