Written by one of the world's leading paleographers, this book
poses two fundamental questions: When did human beings begin--and
why have they continued--to decide that a certain number of their
dead had a right to a "written death"? What differences have
existed in the practice of writing death from age to age and
culture to culture? Drawing principally on testimonials intended
for public display, such as monuments, tombstones, and grave
markings, as well as on scrolls, books, manuscripts, newspapers,
and posters, the author reconstructs the ways Western cultures have
used writing to commemorate the dead, from the tombs of ancient
Egypt to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The author argues that the relation between funereal remains and
inscription is a profoundly political one. The recurring
question--Who merits a written death?--demands a multifaceted
reply, one that intersects such "modes" of human cultural history
as the relation between the living and the dead, the control of
territory, the formation and maintenance of power, the preservation
of wealth, the right to individuality, and the symbolic and
signifying value of written culture.
Apart from examining funerary writing in the light of this
analytical model, the author also studies the quality of
commemorative writing, the length and physical arrangement of the
text, and its link to any representational elements, such as a
likeness of the deceased, the techniques involved in executing the
testimonial, the number of people who participate in creating it,
and its outward appearance. Under the author's careful and informed
scrutiny, such developments as unidirectional script, the
separation of writing into horizontal lines, and the even spacing
of individual letters are revealed as indices of social and
technological change.
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