Fredrik Hagen | University of Copenhagen (original) (raw)
Books by Fredrik Hagen
A. Bausi, C. Brockmann, M. Friedrich and S. Kienitz (eds.), Manuscripts and Archives (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 11, De Gruyter, 2018), 2018
The article gathers and describes the evidence relating to archives in ancient Egypt in the peri... more The article gathers and describes the evidence relating to archives in ancient
Egypt in the period c. 2500–1000 BCE, and discusses its importance for our
understanding of archival practices and functions. The material, which consists
primarily of papyri, ostraca and, in some extraordinary cases, of clay tablets, is invariably
fragmentary, widely distributed both chronologically and geographically,
and in many cases largely unpublished. The article provides a convenient overview
of the contents of the surviving archives with a notable focus on types of documents
and their uses, as well as archaeological context and the materiality of manuscripts.
Contextual material is only occasionally cited, and the emphasis throughout is on
the physical documents as remains of archival holdings.
The vast collections of Egyptian objects on display in Western museums attract millions of visito... more The vast collections of Egyptian objects on display in Western museums attract millions of visitors every year, and they reinforce a cultural fascination for this ancient civilisation that has been a feature of European intellectual history since Roman times. This book tells the story of how these objects came to be here.
The book presents the first in-depth analysis of this market during its “golden age” in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th Century. It is primarily based on the archival material of the Danish Egyptologist H. O. Lange (1863-1943) who, during two prolonged stays in Egypt (1899/1900 and 1929/1930), bought objects on behalf of Danish museums. The travel diaries, and the accompanying photographs, are complemented by a wide range of other sources, including contemporary travel guides and various travel memoirs, which together paint an extraordinarily detailed picture of the extensive antiquities trade.
The book looks at the laws governing trade and export, both in theory and practice, and the changes over time. The practicalities of the trade are described: its seasons, the networks of supply, the various methods available for acquiring antiquities, and the subsequent routes of transmission of objects, as well as the different types of dealers operating in Egypt. The geographical distribution of dealers is mapped, and the role of the Egyptian state as a dealer is investigated, both through official sale rooms, and as a seller and exporter of more or less complete tomb-chapels.
The final part of the book contains a list, with short biographies, of over 250 dealers active in Egypt from the 1880s until the abolishment of the trade in 1983. Most of them are described here in detail for the first time.
The book will be of interest to archaeologists, Egyptologists, papyrologists, museum curators, and historians of science, and is a useful starting point for anyone wishing to understand how the great Western collections of Egyptian antiquities were formed.
The book attempts to reconstruct the social context for Egyptian wisdom literature during the Mid... more The book attempts to reconstruct the social context for Egyptian wisdom literature during the Middle and New Kingdoms (c. 2000-1000 BC), using The Instruction of Ptahhotep as a case-study. By looking at the archaeology and material culture of manuscripts, intertextual references and editorial changes to the text over time, the book traces the life of a wisdom poem from the hands of its copyists to the minds of its readers, charting its use and reception over hundreds of years.
Papers by Fredrik Hagen
English version of the French original (F. Hagen, "Les supports mobiles de l’écrit: papyrus, ostr... more English version of the French original (F. Hagen, "Les supports mobiles de l’écrit: papyrus, ostraca, tablettes et rouleaux de cuir", in S. Polis (ed.), Guide des écritures de l’Égypte ancienne (Cairo, 2022), 218-225).
There are few institutional archives extant from ancient Egypt, which makes even rather fragmenta... more There are few institutional archives extant from ancient Egypt, which makes even rather fragmentary examples impo,•tant for the modelling of both scribal practices and broader questions of socioeconomic structures. This paper presents some key documents, both published and unpublished, from Petrie's excavations at Korn Medi net Gu rob, where he found parts of a palace archive. The focus is on administrative practice, particularly as regards the organization and control of workforces, as well as on contextualising the documents in view of the patchy record of New Kingdom institutional management.
collections include hieratic material from excavation finds and, at an equal scale, from purchase... more collections include hieratic material from excavation finds and, at an equal scale, from purchases by W.M. Flinders Petrie during his fieldwork seasons in Egypt over the years 1880-1924. There is limited documentation for either the provenanced or the purchased material, beyond the indications given in his excavation reports. Major groups of hieratic material from particular sites include the Ramesseum literary ostraca published by Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Amarna content inscriptions on pottery, and the important if fragmentary set of Gurob papyri, presented in more detail here as a case study. Among the unprovenanced material in the collection is the Petrie Hieratic Ostraca series, one of the larger groups in J. Cerny & A.H. Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca. Further items of note are a literary fragment from Rifa and two unprovenanced early 18th Dynasty writing boards. Future study of other items, particularly the two hundred unpublished ostraca and content inscription sherds, may reveal links to other collections.
The chapter provides an overview of the ostraca and papyrus fragments from the Temple of Millions... more The chapter provides an overview of the ostraca and papyrus fragments from the Temple of Millions of Years ofThutmose III. Most of these come from the rubbish dumps outside the enclosure wall, but a small number where also found inside the temple itself. The material includes both administrative and literary texts. The administrative texts relate to the building and running of the temple, including offering accounts and the celebration of various festivals. These papyrus fragments mainly come from the day-book of the temple, and so constitute the only surviving temple archive of the New Kingdom. The literary texts on ostraca include many of the classics that are known to have been copied during scribal training (Kemit, The Instruction of Amenemhat I, The Instruction of Khety, etc.), while several of the papyrus fragments are from of cultic or ritual rolls, occasionally in several different versions (e.g. The Opening of the Mouth in both a regular hieratic and an illustrated version).
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 2020
The article publishes a set of three previously unknown writing boards from the Carnarvon and Car... more The article publishes a set of three previously unknown writing boards from the Carnarvon and Carter excavations in the lower Asasif area at Thebes in the period 1908-13. Dated on palaeographical grounds to the Second Intermediate Period, they constitute the earliest manuscripts identified so far of two classical literary compositions: Khakheperreseneb and The Instruction of a Man for His Son. The extant text is transcribed and translated, with a brief philological commentary, and it is hypothesised that another literary passage found on two of the boards, in three copies, is the otherwise unattested continuation of Khakheperreseneb.
The chapter presents an overview of the evidence relating to private and institutional libraries ... more The chapter presents an overview of the evidence relating to private and institutional libraries during the New Kingdom, in an attempt to map part of the social context for the transmission of ancient Egyptian literature.
Published in J. Helmbold-Doyé and T. Gertzen (eds.), Mosse im Museum: Die Stiftungstätigkeit des Berliner Verlegers Rudolf Mosse (1843-1920) für das Ägyptische Museum Berlin (Hentrich & Hentrich / Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, 2017), 59-74, 2017
The article argues for a model of governance in New Kingdom Egypt comparable to that of many othe... more The article argues for a model of governance in New Kingdom Egypt comparable to that of many other pre-modern monarchies, where the king and his court would have travelled regularly throughout Egypt as part of the exercise of royal power. The evidence is fragmentary but administrative documents as well as royal inscriptions demonstrate that the current whereabouts of the king was a matter of some concern to scribes working at (or for) royal institutions.
The article publishes the hieratic ostraca from the collection of the National Museum, Copenhagen... more The article publishes the hieratic ostraca from the collection of the National Museum, Copenhagen, consisting of a magical text, an unidentified literary text, and an administrative text. They were all bequeathed to the museum by the Danish Egyptologist H. O. Lange, and the article includes a discussion of archival material related to their provenance, as well as photographs, hieroglyphic transcriptions, translations and commentaries.
The article presents a writing tablet from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It contains various admi... more The article presents a writing tablet from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It contains various administrative accounts as well as one of the earliest-known copies, in duplicate, of the initial lines of The Hymn to the Nile, written by different hands, probably made by a teacher and his student. The variants of the two copies are compared and analysed, and the use of writing boards in New Kingdom Egypt is outlined. Finally, the social context of the hymn is discussed.
In R. Enmarch and V. Lepper (eds.), Ancient Egyptian Literature: Theory and Practice (Proceedings of the British Academy 188, Oxford University Press, 2013), 185-209.
A. Bausi, C. Brockmann, M. Friedrich and S. Kienitz (eds.), Manuscripts and Archives (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 11, De Gruyter, 2018), 2018
The article gathers and describes the evidence relating to archives in ancient Egypt in the peri... more The article gathers and describes the evidence relating to archives in ancient
Egypt in the period c. 2500–1000 BCE, and discusses its importance for our
understanding of archival practices and functions. The material, which consists
primarily of papyri, ostraca and, in some extraordinary cases, of clay tablets, is invariably
fragmentary, widely distributed both chronologically and geographically,
and in many cases largely unpublished. The article provides a convenient overview
of the contents of the surviving archives with a notable focus on types of documents
and their uses, as well as archaeological context and the materiality of manuscripts.
Contextual material is only occasionally cited, and the emphasis throughout is on
the physical documents as remains of archival holdings.
The vast collections of Egyptian objects on display in Western museums attract millions of visito... more The vast collections of Egyptian objects on display in Western museums attract millions of visitors every year, and they reinforce a cultural fascination for this ancient civilisation that has been a feature of European intellectual history since Roman times. This book tells the story of how these objects came to be here.
The book presents the first in-depth analysis of this market during its “golden age” in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th Century. It is primarily based on the archival material of the Danish Egyptologist H. O. Lange (1863-1943) who, during two prolonged stays in Egypt (1899/1900 and 1929/1930), bought objects on behalf of Danish museums. The travel diaries, and the accompanying photographs, are complemented by a wide range of other sources, including contemporary travel guides and various travel memoirs, which together paint an extraordinarily detailed picture of the extensive antiquities trade.
The book looks at the laws governing trade and export, both in theory and practice, and the changes over time. The practicalities of the trade are described: its seasons, the networks of supply, the various methods available for acquiring antiquities, and the subsequent routes of transmission of objects, as well as the different types of dealers operating in Egypt. The geographical distribution of dealers is mapped, and the role of the Egyptian state as a dealer is investigated, both through official sale rooms, and as a seller and exporter of more or less complete tomb-chapels.
The final part of the book contains a list, with short biographies, of over 250 dealers active in Egypt from the 1880s until the abolishment of the trade in 1983. Most of them are described here in detail for the first time.
The book will be of interest to archaeologists, Egyptologists, papyrologists, museum curators, and historians of science, and is a useful starting point for anyone wishing to understand how the great Western collections of Egyptian antiquities were formed.
The book attempts to reconstruct the social context for Egyptian wisdom literature during the Mid... more The book attempts to reconstruct the social context for Egyptian wisdom literature during the Middle and New Kingdoms (c. 2000-1000 BC), using The Instruction of Ptahhotep as a case-study. By looking at the archaeology and material culture of manuscripts, intertextual references and editorial changes to the text over time, the book traces the life of a wisdom poem from the hands of its copyists to the minds of its readers, charting its use and reception over hundreds of years.
English version of the French original (F. Hagen, "Les supports mobiles de l’écrit: papyrus, ostr... more English version of the French original (F. Hagen, "Les supports mobiles de l’écrit: papyrus, ostraca, tablettes et rouleaux de cuir", in S. Polis (ed.), Guide des écritures de l’Égypte ancienne (Cairo, 2022), 218-225).
There are few institutional archives extant from ancient Egypt, which makes even rather fragmenta... more There are few institutional archives extant from ancient Egypt, which makes even rather fragmentary examples impo,•tant for the modelling of both scribal practices and broader questions of socioeconomic structures. This paper presents some key documents, both published and unpublished, from Petrie's excavations at Korn Medi net Gu rob, where he found parts of a palace archive. The focus is on administrative practice, particularly as regards the organization and control of workforces, as well as on contextualising the documents in view of the patchy record of New Kingdom institutional management.
collections include hieratic material from excavation finds and, at an equal scale, from purchase... more collections include hieratic material from excavation finds and, at an equal scale, from purchases by W.M. Flinders Petrie during his fieldwork seasons in Egypt over the years 1880-1924. There is limited documentation for either the provenanced or the purchased material, beyond the indications given in his excavation reports. Major groups of hieratic material from particular sites include the Ramesseum literary ostraca published by Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Amarna content inscriptions on pottery, and the important if fragmentary set of Gurob papyri, presented in more detail here as a case study. Among the unprovenanced material in the collection is the Petrie Hieratic Ostraca series, one of the larger groups in J. Cerny & A.H. Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca. Further items of note are a literary fragment from Rifa and two unprovenanced early 18th Dynasty writing boards. Future study of other items, particularly the two hundred unpublished ostraca and content inscription sherds, may reveal links to other collections.
The chapter provides an overview of the ostraca and papyrus fragments from the Temple of Millions... more The chapter provides an overview of the ostraca and papyrus fragments from the Temple of Millions of Years ofThutmose III. Most of these come from the rubbish dumps outside the enclosure wall, but a small number where also found inside the temple itself. The material includes both administrative and literary texts. The administrative texts relate to the building and running of the temple, including offering accounts and the celebration of various festivals. These papyrus fragments mainly come from the day-book of the temple, and so constitute the only surviving temple archive of the New Kingdom. The literary texts on ostraca include many of the classics that are known to have been copied during scribal training (Kemit, The Instruction of Amenemhat I, The Instruction of Khety, etc.), while several of the papyrus fragments are from of cultic or ritual rolls, occasionally in several different versions (e.g. The Opening of the Mouth in both a regular hieratic and an illustrated version).
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 2020
The article publishes a set of three previously unknown writing boards from the Carnarvon and Car... more The article publishes a set of three previously unknown writing boards from the Carnarvon and Carter excavations in the lower Asasif area at Thebes in the period 1908-13. Dated on palaeographical grounds to the Second Intermediate Period, they constitute the earliest manuscripts identified so far of two classical literary compositions: Khakheperreseneb and The Instruction of a Man for His Son. The extant text is transcribed and translated, with a brief philological commentary, and it is hypothesised that another literary passage found on two of the boards, in three copies, is the otherwise unattested continuation of Khakheperreseneb.
The chapter presents an overview of the evidence relating to private and institutional libraries ... more The chapter presents an overview of the evidence relating to private and institutional libraries during the New Kingdom, in an attempt to map part of the social context for the transmission of ancient Egyptian literature.
Published in J. Helmbold-Doyé and T. Gertzen (eds.), Mosse im Museum: Die Stiftungstätigkeit des Berliner Verlegers Rudolf Mosse (1843-1920) für das Ägyptische Museum Berlin (Hentrich & Hentrich / Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, 2017), 59-74, 2017
The article argues for a model of governance in New Kingdom Egypt comparable to that of many othe... more The article argues for a model of governance in New Kingdom Egypt comparable to that of many other pre-modern monarchies, where the king and his court would have travelled regularly throughout Egypt as part of the exercise of royal power. The evidence is fragmentary but administrative documents as well as royal inscriptions demonstrate that the current whereabouts of the king was a matter of some concern to scribes working at (or for) royal institutions.
The article publishes the hieratic ostraca from the collection of the National Museum, Copenhagen... more The article publishes the hieratic ostraca from the collection of the National Museum, Copenhagen, consisting of a magical text, an unidentified literary text, and an administrative text. They were all bequeathed to the museum by the Danish Egyptologist H. O. Lange, and the article includes a discussion of archival material related to their provenance, as well as photographs, hieroglyphic transcriptions, translations and commentaries.
The article presents a writing tablet from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It contains various admi... more The article presents a writing tablet from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It contains various administrative accounts as well as one of the earliest-known copies, in duplicate, of the initial lines of The Hymn to the Nile, written by different hands, probably made by a teacher and his student. The variants of the two copies are compared and analysed, and the use of writing boards in New Kingdom Egypt is outlined. Finally, the social context of the hymn is discussed.
In R. Enmarch and V. Lepper (eds.), Ancient Egyptian Literature: Theory and Practice (Proceedings of the British Academy 188, Oxford University Press, 2013), 185-209.
The article presents a little-known wisdom text of the New Kingdom attested on a handful of ostra... more The article presents a little-known wisdom text of the New Kingdom attested on a handful of ostraca from Deir el-Medina. The text is interesting for its rare stichical structure, each line beginning with imi=k, 'You should not...', and for the thematically independent nature of the sentences. Included is the hieroglyphic text and a translation with a philological commentary, as well as a discussion of the text's place within the ancient Egyptian didactic literary tradition. Sources 1. ODeM 1090 (fig. 10). Published: G. Posener, Catalogue des ostraca hieratiques litteraires de Deir el Medineh, I (DFIFAO 1; Cairo, 1938), pls. 49 and 49a. Limestone ostracon, 9 x 9 cm, Ramesside (possibly Twentieth Dynasty),6 from Deir el-Medina. * My thanks are due to Stephen Quirke, Richard Parkinson and the JEA referees for reading drafts of this article. All made valuable suggestions and corrections, but all opinions expressed and any mistakes present remain my own. Photographs, and permission to publish them, were generously supplied by the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London), L'Institut Frangais d'Archeologie Orientale (Cairo) and Museo delle Antichita Egizie (Turin). I gratefully acknowledge their help. 1 First mentioned by G. Posener, 'Les richesses inconnues de la litterature egyptienne (Recherches litteraires, I)', RdE 6 (1951), 43 n. 56 and 'Ostraca inedits du Musee de Turin (Recherches litteraires, III)', RdE 8 (1951), 184-5. 2 A. H. Gardiner's brief translation of OPetrie 11, 'A New Moralizing Text', WZKM 54 (1957), 43-5, lacked that author's usually thorough philological commentary. 3 H. Brunner, Die Weisheitsbiicher der Agypter (Duisseldorf, 1988), 215-17; A. G. McDowell, Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Lovesongs (Oxford, 1999), 142-3 and, most recently, P. Vernus, Sagesses de l'Egypte pharaonique (Paris, 2001), 291-7. 4 M. Lichtheim, Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context (OBO 52; Gottingen, 1983), 7-10, briefly discussed the relationship between the text and Late Egyptian wisdom instructions, but based only on OPetrie 11. Her arguments are outlined under Interpretation below. 5 I have examined and collated OPetrie 11 as well as OBM EA 5631 and OPetrie 45 (see Other possible sources below) in person, and OTurin 57089, ODeM 1632 and 1633 from photographs. Unfortunately, photographs of ODeM 1090 were not available, so the text of that ostracon is reproduced from Posener's line drawing in the IFAO catalogue. 6 The dates were suggested to me by R. J. Demaree of the University of Leiden (personal communication). He based this partly on the palaeography and partly on the findspots. The IFAO ostraca (ODeM 1090, 1632 and 1633) were found in the 'Koms du sud' south of the village by Bruyere in 1930, and, as Demaree points out, 'as far as we know at least, all non-literary ostraca from this spot date to the mid-20th dynasty-which may also point towards a similar date for the literary ones'. -1 0G e D j J G\ <:1-I® o<) Co© F7 GJ (^^ {L_ I -, G\ IL 128 JEA 91 A6 ODeM 1632 I(a), 6: Traces at the end suit f: \ OTurin 57089, 2: Traces of two horizontal signs at the end, is probable: " A7 OTurin 57089, 4: ( is certain, the faint traces following were read as// and l^ (?) by Lopez. I cannot see although the position is curious (after rather than under ( ). There are traces of a sign below//: A9 OTurin 57089, 5: The traces at the beginning are unusual, but can hardly be anything but^ X: ' /J L a-|I. Although not impossible, the traces would also suit I =-I as suggested by OPetrie 11 (th singular here). The final traces are the top of the [sign (for an example with rounded top, see G. M6ller, H 1909), 547, under 'Gurob P9784, 2', and compare OTurin 57048, 3). The apparent tick is simply a smudg OPetrie 11, 1: The last four signs were written on the side of the ostracon (see fig .
