Audiences

A search for audiences in ancient Egypt involves an assessment of the concept of cultural communications, accepted communicative practices, understanding of space, and other elements. Traces of many communicative acts and performances in antiquity will remain elusive, yet it is possible to recognize dedicated communicative spaces as well as strategies that involved ancient audiences. Edifices and texts targeted their specific audiences, for instance in a royal monumental discourse or a private commemorative discourse included within Egyptian autobiographies. Ancient works of art also often bear marks by a second or a third hand that was engaged in inspecting, changing, copying, as well as destroying them, as well as by visitors, exemplified by graffiti. Apart from the emic audiences, there are also etic audiences, standing outside the Egyptian culture, but constituting a distinct link in the chain of cultural memory.