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Document Details : Title: Labour and Collective in Old Kingdom Egypt Subtitle: A Corpus-Driven Analysis of Collocation, Keyness and Ideological Discourse in Royal Decrees Author(s): ALMANSA-VILLATORO, M. Victoria Journal: Ancient Near Eastern Studies Volume: 60 Date: 2023 Pages: 205-230 DOI: 10.2143/ANES.60.0.3292571 Abstract : This article examines the mechanics of royal power in the authoritarian state of Old Kingdom Egypt as transmitted through an ideological discourse of anonymous collectivism and compulsory state labour. A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Old Kingdom royal decrees is strengthened through the combined effort of Corpus Linguistic software to study collocation of the words used by the king to classify human groups and keyness of coerced labour. The results demonstrate that the Old Kingdom pharaoh was using language to subliminally transmit an ideological agenda that suppressed individual initiative and promoted cooperation for the state’s success. Corpus Linguistics reveals how the pharaoh’s ability to maintain his discourses of power degenerates as the country becomes decentralised, providing a linguistic correlate to historical observations, but showing that the ideological change in texts is more drastic than the archaeological evidence of decentralisation. Moreover, the Old Kingdom’s collapse is modelled as the result of individual empowering. It is argued that Corpus Linguistics software can effectively aid in data collection and provide insightful interpretations that nuance the semantic of words and show diachronic thematic patterns in even the shortest ancient corpora. |
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