Seen Not Heard

Contributors from the fields of Egyptology, Sinology, Hittitology, and Assyriology, together with Mesoamericanists, art historians and a sign language specialist, interrogate writing as a medium that is not simply a handmaiden to oral and aural exchange but a communication system that is richly layered and experienced.

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Traditionally, writing—a graphic, multidimensional form of communication—has been approached as a vehicle for representing, and therefore conveying, the spoken word. Moving beyond this manner of analysis, this volume interrogates writing as a medium that is not simply a handmaiden to oral and aural exchange but a communication system that is richly layered and experienced.


To exploit this aspect of visual code, scholars from the fields of Egyptology, Sinology, Hittitology, and Assyriology, together with Mesoamericanists, art historians, and a sign language specialist, are brought together in this volume. In its pages, these contributors incorporate into their analyses methods more commonly used in linguistics and semiotics, communication studies, art historical analysis, and traditional philology to new ends to form original trajectories of inquiry. Each contribution either lays bare explicit exploitation of visuality in scribal production as a means to cementing power, reveal the mystical, induce humour or expose clandestine views, or locates implicit knowledge schemes and cultural maps underlying and informing these same productions. The pioneering investigations presented in Seen Not Heard reveal that although writing may be heard, the fact that it can also be seen affects its reception and therefore the meaning of any transported phonological units.