A desert writing idiom: North Kharga’s ancient carvers modify and appropriate standard Egyptian scribal practices

The corpus of ancient graffiti discovered by the North Kharga Oasis Survey-Darb Ain Amur team in Egypt’s Western Desert provides numerous examples of Egyptian standard writing conventions’ informal appropriation by literate or semi-literate travelers. In this essay, I discuss ancient Egyptian rock graffiti whose traveling carvers, feeling little to no pressure to follow spelling norms or grammatical rules, chose to record their fleeting presence by carving text that often deviated from their contemporary standard writing conventions. I pay special attention to the connection these graffiti’ complex script usage had to the carvers’ educational background, as well as to the influence North Kharga’s environment exercised over these carvings. Among other things, I argue that the “written idiom” of these graffiti was often a result of their carvers’ bi-scriptural education and of their informal character, which allowed for frequent deviations from grammatical and decorum-related rules.