Hieroglyphic Complexity at Esna

Unetymological Spellings, Trigrams, and Anadromes from Esna Temple and Finnegans Wake

Abstract

Exploration of various types of scribal innovation (particularly in the arrangement of hieroglyphs), as evidenced in Roman period inscriptions from Esna, compared to similar practices in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Beyond the much-discussed phenomenon of unetymological spellings, particular attention is paid to the reduction of chief divinities’ names to sportive bigrams and trigrams, which could be rearranged to express theological constellations.