By employing the conceptual framework of book as idea noted in the field of Book History, and by explaining bibliographic models and cataloguing standards from the field of Library Science, interdisciplinary communication is sought to be fostered by demonstrating that a book cannot be understood nor defined by physical parameters.
It instead must be defined by intellectual content since in its original state, a book is a metaphysical entity born from literary thought processes. Ancient Egyptian literary works found on stone—a substrate seldom discussed in Egyptology as a book medium—are used as a case study to solidify the need to understand books firstly as ideas, and secondly, ideas which can then be manifested into any physical form.
The examination of the numerous literary genres found on a variety of stone forms throughout millennia ultimately demonstrates the fundamental importance this medium possessed in ancient Egyptian book culture, and that stone metaphysically carries books due to the practices of knowledge transmission.
Ancient Egyptian literary works found on stone—a substrate seldom discussed in Egyptology as a book medium—are used as a case study to underscore the need to understand books first as ideas, and second, as ideas that can then be manifested in any physical form.
The article is part of Permanence of Intellectual Creation through the Materiality of Stone: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Egyptian Book Culture.
