Semantic perspectives on the nude/naked body in Ancient Egyptian texts

Abstract

Starting from the assumption that bodies are relational entities, this paper dedicates itself to conceptualisations of nudity/nakedness as they manifested themselves in ancient Egyptian texts (funerary, literary, documentary, monumental, medico-magical, 'private' texts) in diachrony (c.2300–350 BCE). The focus of this work lies on a lexicological and lexicographical study of lexemes—especially the verbs ḥꜣı͗, sḥꜣı͗, szꜣı͗, and kfı͗/kfꜣ—attested in the ancient Egyptian lexicon referring to the process of exposure/unveiling of the body or the state of nudity/nakedness. The goal of the study is to visualise culture-specific perspectives on ancient Egyptian bodies by means of a relational network (semantic conceptual field) transferred from ancient Egyptian to English as target language.

In order to introduce the resulting conceptual field and under consideration of one textual and one visual example from the Ramesside period, the semantic concept of [EXPOSURE] of the verb kfı͗/kfꜣ is discussed. The article closes with a presentation of the conceptual field, which is composed of four superordinate semantic domains [OPENING], [COGNITION], [SEPARATION] and [EXPOSURE]. The resulting visualisation shows the range of semantic meanings of the studied verbs in comparison to each other in providing information on their semantic overlaps (partial synonymy) and distinctions.