Egyptian Scribe - sand sculpture
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47828527392_fee2a8cd5d_c.jpg)
As someone who is a bit dyslexic and more of a visual thinking person Egyptian hieroglyphics really seems like a better way to impart language through writing. I know it would get complicated pretty quickly and the nuances would be lost but for me having to think in abstract strings of letters when it comes to writing these posts really hurts my brain. Thanks be to Jebus for spell check and my English teaching wife. My first draft is usually underlined all in red and it takes me another several passed to get it to make some sort of sense for my reader. You really should thank me for not putting you through my gibberish.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47880623371_8568b78d46_c.jpg)
My writers sand block
Here's another sculpture I made as part of the 2005 Brighton sand sculpture festival. This one was about Egyptian hieroglyphics. We have learned lots from the writing they have left especially since the discovery of the Rosette stone. From what we know these times were very much an era when reality and the supernatural went hand in hand. In the wall paintings and other texts we can see mere mortals and Gods co- exist. Or, maybe something was lost in translation.
I wanted to make this piece about the idea that a deep spirituality was a guiding hand in the creation of these texts and of course to just have some fun with the theme. I'm no Egyptologist so don't take this as some sort of Wikipedia on the subject. Just some silly guy having a serious laugh.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47880623131_401799d74f_c.jpg)
Sand script
Thoth was the Egyptian god of writing (among other things) and is depicted as an Ibis bird. I took some artistic licence in his appearance and had him leaning over a scribe as he guided his hand in perfecting the symbol for the eye of Horus.
Using Thoths beak like a pen pretty much wrote itself into the composition. I needed it to be quite long to reach the scroll and so had to think of creative ways to support it and the head floating above. In a spark of creative madness I gave him what appeared to be a bag holding two balls hanging from the neck. I was hopefully the only one who saw what I saw in the piece (insert winking emoji here... I said 'winking')
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47828527632_2b3e196370_c.jpg)
The main sculpture flowed along into a big pile of sand which the organisers had no clue what to do with so, I quickly turned it into some sort of cloud like nonsense and joined it all together.
As I said my knowledge of ancient Egypt is quite limited so I just let my imagination run a bit wild. I liked the interaction between the two characters and am surprised now looking at it that I was able to keep it from collapsing on my head.
![clickablesm.gif](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4903/46235389482_b3c00c4f27_o.gif)
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use Steem to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, among other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Steem blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Mummified - sand sculpture
The upside down - sand sculpture
Hans Christian Andersen - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite
Hi @ammonite!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.781 which ranks you at #1418 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 2 places in the last three days (old rank 1420).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 319 contributions, your post is ranked at #98.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=ammonite
Post link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=egyptian-scribe-sand-sculpture
Want to have your post on the map too?
Nice work Daniel I like the free style a lot ! These days so many pictures are just copied , a lack of creativity! Unfortunately the works that are copied are always More popular!!
Posted using Partiko iOS
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
@c-squared runs a community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here
Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
and gifted with some virtually delicious cake
from the @helpiecake curation team!
Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!
Manually curated by @veryspider.
Very interesting composition, Daniel :) I love the idea, to be honest, the abstraction of shape turning into Thoth, whose beak is, in turn, being used to write with... As if there's a concept here about our ideas being inherited through intangible sources and abstractions from influences around us. Really cool :)
Thank you. I think there is always something guiding us to create. I think we just have to be open to let it in. For me the best way to create is to just go with the idea that pops up and see where it brings me. I leave all control up to IT whatever IT is.
Poor guy's face looks like my kids' when I was teaching them how to write XD
And so very mature with the "bits" of the sculpture XP LOL.
Dyslexic or dysgraphic? I would never have guessed dyslexic if you hadn't said something. I do know someone with dysgraphia though and they don't seem to have any trouble reading, trying to get thoughts into writing on the other hand is a mission.
I've never heard of dysraphic but now reading about it I share some symptoms. For me I seem to write phonetically and hope that the spellsheck will give me the suggestions for the correct spelling. I mix my d and bs up and even though I can see when everything looks wrong I can't think of what to do to make it right. Writing on Steem these last few years had been great exercise for me.
Hiya, @itchyfeetdonica here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made into our Daily Travel Digest #520.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://www.steemitworldmap.com/quickcomment/img/funditionbanner.png)
Your post has been manually curated by the @steemitworldmap team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider upvoting and supporting us.