Eski Mısır’da Mektupların İdari İşleyişin Sürdürülmesi Amacıyla Kullanımı

Yıl 2025, Sayı: 9, 10 - 22, 21.10.2025

Ercüment Yıldırım

https://doi.org/10.62425/culture.1683749

Öz

Mektuplar, eskiçağ krallıklarında idari işleyişin sürdürülmesi için binyıllar boyunca kullanılmıştır. Monarşik yapılar ortaya çıktıktan sonra bir kralın birden çok şehri, vekil yöneticiler aracılığıyla yönetebilmesinin yolunu açan mektuplaşmanın sağladığı iletişim kolaylığı olmuştur. Krallar, göndermiş oldukları emirnameler ile idaresi altındakileri uzaktan yönetebilmişken edebilmişken; alt düzey görevliler, raporlarla sorumlulukları altında gerçekleşen olumlu ve olumsuz durumları önce üst yöneticilere, onlar vasıtasıyla krala dahi bildirmişlerdir. İdari amaçlar ile yazının kullanımının gelişimi, öncelikle bir kâtip zümresinin sonrasında bürokrasi sınıfının oluşumuna yol açmıştır. Eski krallık döneminden itibaren bürokrasi sınıfı mensupları arasındaki basit mektuplaşma, zamanla kralların ve üst yöneticilerin gönderdiği buyrukların emirnameye, alt idarecilerin amirlerine ilettikleri bilgilerin ise raporlara dönüştüğü bir sistem halini almıştır. Bu dönüşümün sonucunda Eski Mısır’daki bürokrasi sınıfının kullandığı gelenekselleşmiş iç yazışma sistemi oluşmuştur. Bu yazışma sisteminde, memurlar aksaklık, şikâyet ve genel durumu amirlerine, önceden belirlenmiş bir üslup ile yazılmış bir raporla iletmişlerdir. Bu çalışmada, Eski Mısır tarihine ait iç yazışma konularını ihtiva eden mektuplardan seçilen örnekler incelenerek, emirname ve raporların krallığın idari işleyişinin sürdürülme biçimine yaptığı etki ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Eski Mısır , Papirüs , Yazışma , Mektup.

The Use of Letters in Ancient Egypt for the Continuation of Administrative Operations

Öz

Letters were used for thousands of years to maintain administrative functions in ancient kingdoms. After monarchic structures emerged, the ease of communication provided by correspondence paved the way for a king to govern multiple cities through proxy administrators. While kings were able to govern those under their control remotely with the decrees they sent, lower-level officials reported the positive and negative situations that occurred under their responsibility to the upper administrators first and through them to the king. The development of the use of writing for administrative purposes led first to the formation of a clerk group and then to the bureaucracy class. Starting from the period of the old kingdom, simple correspondence between members of the bureaucracy class gradually turned into a system in which the decrees sent by kings and upper administrators turned into decrees and the information conveyed by lower administrators to their superiors turned into reports. As a result of this transformation, the traditional internal correspondence system used by the bureaucracy class in Ancient Egypt was formed. In this correspondence system, officials conveyed problems, complaints and general conditions to their superiors with a report written in a predetermined style. In this study, examples selected from letters containing internal correspondence from Ancient Egyptian history were examined and the effect of decrees and reports on the way the administrative functioning of the kingdom was carried out was tried to be revealed.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Ancient Egypt , Papyrus , Correspondence , Letter.

Kaynakça

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