Egyptian Scribe - sand sculpture

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.

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.

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')

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.

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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