The Professions of Writing
Dialogues between Ancient and Contemporary
The exhibition "The Professions of Writing" places two figures distant in time but close in different aspects in dialogue: the scribe and the typist.
Through the story of their respective experiences and the typical tools of their trades, a social reading of the two roles is grafted: the prestige of the job of scribe turns out to be the same as that resulting from the profession of typist. The pride associated with social ascent was exhibited both by typists, who became to a certain extent style icons, and by scribes.
The figure of the typist, then, opens the reflection on the new possibility for women of the late nineteenth century to learn a trade - that of writing - which allowed them to be independent.
The exhibition features two iconic representatives of the professions of Writing: Imhotep, architect scribe under the reign of Djoser, and Miss Remington, influencer ante litteram.
The scribe was someone who, in Ancient Egypt, was responsible for writing, keeping accounts and administering the country. Knowledge was synonym with power and, in this sense, scribes were admired as they acted as a real intermediary between the world of illiteracy and the one of culture.
At the end of the 19th century , the typist was the symbol of modern times: she was the one who, better than anyone else, managed to combine speed and precision.
She was that woman who, through her dedication, her skills and her work, finally managed to be economically independent and socially recognized.
Imhotep
Profession: Scribe
Visir and chief architect at the court of Djoser (2592-2566 BC), Imhotep is considered the inventor of worked stone buildings: he designed the first stepped pyramid of Saqqara, the capital of the time.
Beginning in the New Kingdom, Imhotep was venerated as the patron saint of scribes .
He was considered the god of wisdom, writing and medicine.
Rose Fritz
Profession: typist
At the end of the 19th century, companies producing mechanical writing instruments put their products to the test by organizing typing competitions, in which those who used a quality instrument and had method and skills prevailed.
Rose Fritz became a stenographer, in 1907 she won her first world speed writing title and the following year she was hired as a testimonial by the Remington company, thus becoming Miss Remington as well as an admirable example of talent and speed .
With "The Professions of Writing" the objects from the Officina della Scrittura Museum enter the Egyptian Museum for the first time.
Inside the Scholar's Laboratory, an area of the museum currently used to host temporary exhibitions and thematic insights developed in parallel with the permanent collection, the scribe Imhotep and Miss Remington meet and discuss.
Scholar's Laboratory, Egyptian Museum of Turin.
From this meeting was born an installation which, taking advantage of the historical showcases already present in the room, tells the daily life of these two characters, on the one hand their educational path and their social ascent, on the other, the tools of the profession.
Showcase 1
Scribe's biography
To become a scribe it was necessary to undertake a training course that began as a child. The scribes learned, first of all, hieratic and only the painters and the priests, at a later stage, studied hieroglyphics.
The support used to learn to write was not papyrus, which was too expensive, but ostraka (fragments of vases) and wooden tablets. Unlike today, on the ostraka the exercises were done in red ink and corrected with black ink.
Allestimento della vetrina 1
Proveniente da Deir el-Medina, 1292-1070 a.C. (Nuovo Regno, XIX-XX Dinastia)
Provenienza incerta, 1292-1076 a.C. (Nuovo Regno, XIX-XX Dinastia)
Allestimento della vetrina 1
Showcase 2
The typist: training and rise
The typewriter allowed texts to be transcribed and then presented and preserved in a form more similar to typographical ones. Since it is a complex tool , it was essential to train the staff who would use it: this is where typing courses were born.
At first attended only by men, soon women were participating en masse: they were faster at typing and made fewer typing mistakes, an essential feature since the first machines were blind typing.
Allestimento della vetrina 2
Copertina di rivista, 1908
Pubblicità della Remington modello n. 12 con scena d'ufficio, 1930
Allestimento della vetrina 2
Showcase 3
The tools of Scripture
This showcase presents writing instruments, in ancient times and today. In Ancient Egypt, scribes used brushes and straws made of plant fibers to write on supports such as ostraka, papyrus and tablets. It is interesting to note the similarity between these instruments and fountain pens contemporary to typists: the real evolution lies not in the shape of the instrument but in the writing autonomy. Writing that becomes even freer from constraints with the introduction of the portable typewriter.
Allestimento della vetrina 3
Penna Aurora a doppia cartuccia, 1955
Proveniente da Deir e-Medina, Tomba di Kha, 1425-1353 a.C. (Nuovo Regno, XVIII Dinastia)
Allestimento della vetrina 3
Showcase 4
The reuse of tools and supports
In Ancient Egypt, objects whose primary function had been lost, were often reused. An example of this are the already written papyri that were used for the creation of funerary masks (cartonnage technique).
Similarly, the typewriter is not an instrument that has fallen into disuse: "typewriters" are artists who create works of art by typing letters, numbers and other symbols on the keyboard. Depending on the pressure of the beat and the letterr used, nuances of different intensity are created.
Allestimento della vetrina 4
Proveniente da Assiut, 323-31 a.C. (Epoca ellenistica)
Scocca metallica, 1925-1928
Allestimento della vetrina 4
About the project...
The Professions of Writing is the group project carried out as part of the Civil Service 2023/2024 at the headquarters of the Officina della Scripture Museum in collaboration with the Egyptian Museum of Turin.
For more information write to me at project.giada@gmail.com