Egyptian Texts Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by
- •
- Egyptology, Papyrology, Demotic, Greek Papyrology

Entries for 10 Egyptian objects from Museum August Kestner, Hannover / Germany (Cat. I.9 - I.17), and Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden / The Netherlands (Cat. I.8) in the beautiful publication (Schriftenreihe des Landesmuseums Natur und Mensch, Heft 63) accompanying the cross-cultural exhibition "Tierisch moralisch. Die Welt der Fabel in Orient und Okzident" at Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg / Germany (22 February - 1 June 2009). - For the relevant essay, see differendt PDF. - Egyptian stories in which animals act like humans are known from written sources only as late as the 2nd century AD (e.g. the famous Demotic papyrus Leiden AMS 75 - was part of the exhibition!). However, similar stories existed in Pharaonic Egypt for thousands of years. Proof are animal stories of which only "pictorial versions" are preserved (e.g. the "other side" of the famous pornographical papyrus Turin 55001 or numerous ostraca). Particularely fascinating in this respect is the purely "pictorial story" at Antikenmuseum Basel (Ae 1081) painted on stuccoed linnen from the New Kingdom (c. 1200 BC), which therefore is the focus of the essay. The text of this fairly complex animal story can unfortunaltely not be reconstructed. The existence of this purely pictorial story shows well that fables existed in Pharonic Egypt for millenia, however, only in oral transmission which - when not written down at one point AND also preserved - got lost ... likely forever. - (in German)

The present, ninth volume of Ramesside Inscriptions, compiled and edited by Joshua A. Roberson, collects Hieratic and Hieroglyphic documents of historical and biographical interest, which have been published since 1989, when the final text volume of Kenneth Kitchen’s Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical first appeared. The 385 texts anthologized in this new collection are presented in Hieroglyphic transcription, typeset digitally with internal and external line numbers for easy reference, primary bibliography, and select philological and palaeographic notes. The content of this material spans the full chronological range of the Ramesside Period, from Ramesses I through Ramesses XI. The subject matter is heterogeneous, including documents relating to local administration, state-sponsored construction, execution of criminals, military actions, and the accession and death of kings, among others. A series of indices, including object numbers, toponyms, ethnonyms, private names, private titles, posthumous royal names, and divine names, round out the volume and increase its utility as a tool for research.

- by Benedict Davies and +1
- •
- Egyptology, Egyptian History, Egypt, Egyptian Texts
- by Ezra Marcus
- •
- Archaeology, Egyptology, Maritime Archaeology, Egyptian Art and Archaeology

Collections of scenes and texts designated variously as the “Book of the Earth,” “Creation of the Solar Disc,” and “Book of Aker” were inscribed on the walls of royal sarcophagus chambers throughout Egypt’s Ramessid Period (Dynasties 19–20). This material illustrated discrete episodes from the nocturnal voyage of the sun god, which functioned as a model for the resurrection of the deceased king. These earliest “Books of the Earth” employed mostly ad hoc arrangements of scenes, united by shared elements of iconography, an over-arching, bipartite symmetry of composition, and their frequent pairing with representations of the double sky overhead. From the Twenty-First Dynasty and later, selections of programmatic tableaux were adapted for use in private mortuary contexts, often in conjunction with innovative or previously unattested annotations. The present study collects and analyzes all currently known royal and private Book of the Earth material, including previously unpublished scenes and texts from the tombs of Pedamenopet and Padineith at Thebes.

"Animal Stories and Fables in Ancient Egypt" - Essay in the beautiful publication (Schriftenreihe des Landesmuseums Natur und Mensch, Heft 63) accompanying the cross-cultural exhibition "Tierisch moralisch. Die Welt der Fabel in Orient und Okzident" at Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg / Germany (22 February - 1 June 2009). - Egyptian stories in which animals act like humans are known from written sources only as late as the 2nd century AD (e.g. the famous Demotic papyrus Leiden AMS 75 - was part of the exhibition!). However, similar stories existed in Pharaonic Egypt for thousands of years. Proof are animal stories of which only "pictorial versions" are preserved (e.g. the "other side" of the famous pornographical papyrus Turin 55001 or numerous ostraca). Particularely fascinating in this respect is the purely "pictorial story" at Antikenmuseum Basel (Ae 1081) painted on stuccoed linnen from the New Kingdom (c. 1200 BC), which therefore is the focus of the essay. The text of this fairly complex animal story can unfortunaltely not be reconstructed. The existence of this purely pictorial story shows well that fables existed in Pharonic Egypt for millenia, however, only in oral transmission which - when not written down at one point AND also preserved - got lost ... likely forever. - (in German)

- by Christian E. Loeben
- •
- Egyptology, Egyptian Art and Archaeology, Oral Traditions, Egyptian language
- by David A Falk
- •
- Egyptology, Apocalypticism In Literature, Egyptian Texts, Ancient Egyptian History

Among the many scenes and texts that occur for the first time in the Nineteenth Dynasty cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos is a representation of the awakening of Osiris by Horus, which appears directly beneath a vignette depicting the transit of the solar barques. The annotations to this bi-partite tableau appear in a mixture of standard, hieroglyphic Egyptian and cryptographic scripts. Similar groups of scenes and texts occur in the Twentieth Dynasty royal tombs of Ramesses VI (KV9) and Ramesses IX (KV6), the Twenty-Second Dynasty tomb of Sheshonq III at Tanis (NRT5), and the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty private tomb of Mutirdis at Thebes (TT410). In addition, significant, albeit partial parallels occur on the Twenty-Second Dynasty sarcophagus of Psusennes and a Ptolemaic sarcophagus inscribed for a certain Khaf. This study offers a summary of the scenes’ iconography together with the first synoptic edition of the relevant annotations, taking into account all currently published exemplars. Many of the cryptographic texts are translated here for the first time, with improved or significantly expanded readings for other texts, which had been discussed in prior literature. The author also considers the meaning and context of the paired scenes in both royal and private monuments, in order to demonstrate the status of the bi-partite tableau as a unified composition. This composition is identified as a concise representative of the cosmological genre referred to usually as the Books of the Underworld and Sky.

- by Kate Liszka
- •
- Egyptology, Egyptian language, Nubian-Egyptian Relations, Egyptian Texts

This book, for which John Baines acted as volume editor, offers metrically-formatted translations of over fifty biographical texts from the 19th and 20th Egyptian Dynasties, which were written in tombs, on statues, on stelae, and on temple walls. The author provides an introduction to each inscription, detailing its context and what the text and, where possible, other evidence reveals about the memorialised individual. She also presents a general introduction to the study of Ramessid biography, its cultural contexts, forms, and motifs.

The purpose of Professor Kenneth Kitchen’s magisterial Ramesside Inscriptions is simple—to make available the principal historical and biographical texts of the Ramesside age (c.1300–1070 bc) in a comprehensive, compact and accurate edition that should be comprehensive but handy to use. It does not, however, include purely literary, ritual and funerary texts.
Almost all of the texts in this volume come from the very beginning of this new era in Egypt’s history at the beginning of the 13th century bc—either from the reign of Ramesses I, founding father of the Egyptian 19th Dynasty, or that of his dynamic son and successor Sethos I. As Ramesses I reigned only into his second year, and the reign of Sethos I lasted between eleven and fifteen years, virtually everything here dates within a span of only twelve/seventeen years, at most.
Arranged by category, this hieroglyphic edition covers foreign wars and diplomacy (esp. dated), then internal affairs (dated documents, special topics or groups), a geographical series of royal monuments (from north to south), the principal documents of the reign (papryi, ostraca, letters, legal documents, and the like), in addition to further inscriptions pertaining to the royal family. A further twenty-eight categories are devoted to the private monuments of the principal administrators of the Empire, along with the vast store of documentation pertaining to the activities of the royal artisans from the village of Deir el-Medina in western Thebes.
First published in eight individual fascicles between 1969 and 1975 by B. H. Blackwell (Oxford), this volume is here re-printed for the first time in a single, handsome, book.

- by Benedict Davies
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptology, Egyptian Texts, New Kingdom (Egyptology)

The Austrian archaeological team led by Manfred Bietak that excavated the palatial district at Avaris (Tell el-Dab‘a) has produced some significant results for illuminating Lower Egypt’s history of the 2nd millennium BC. While Bietak’s subsequent publications related to the New Kingdom primarily have focused on the exquisite Minoan wall paintings and the site’s association with Peru-nefer, much less attention has centered on the timing of the mid-18th-Dynasty abandonment that Bietak says occurred “after Amenhotep II,” and was followed by an occupational gap. Did the abandonment occur during the reign of Amenhotep II, at the end of his reign, or during the reign of Thutmose IV? The present work seeks to bring together all of the relevant data—from the archaeological evidence at the site, the epigraphical record, and corroborative evidence from Theban tomb paintings—in an attempt to determine more precisely the timing of the site's mid-18th-Dynasty abandonment.

- by Douglas N Petrovich
- •
- Ancient History, Archaeology, Egyptology, Near Eastern Archaeology

Lloyd D. Graham (2020-21) JEOL 48: 63-68 [volume published 30 May, 2022]. The Great Hymn to Osiris on the Stele of Amenmose (Louvre C 286) constitutes the most complete Egyptian account of the Osiris myth. The Hymn says that, when Isis eventually located Osiris’s body, she “moored her brother”; accordingly, the verb mni is used to describe one of the most crucial events in the core myth of ancient Egypt. This communication argues that, in this context, mni concurrently carries up to seven layers of meaning.

- by Lloyd Graham
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptian Texts, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Polysemy
- by John Coleman Darnell
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptology, Egyptian History, Egyptian language

This article aims at giving an overall view of the real and mythical topography of the Abaton of Biggeh, which housed a relic, the left leg of the God Osiris, in connection with the rituals. After a geographical and archaeological presentation, I will stress in particular the different species of trees growing on and around the Abaton. A new French translation will be provided, with commentary, of the Abaton Decree, in relation to the depictions on the Gate of Hadrian in the temple of Philae. A discussion of all the classical sources in chronological order will follow, in order to draw comparisons with the Egyptian sources. Lastly, the possible location and spatial organization of the Abaton in comparison with other sacred mounds will be addressed.

- by Charly De Maré
- •
- Philology, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ancient History, Botany

This article offers an equation between eyes on false doors and Pyramid Text 534. It is argued, that eyes on false doors are not the eyes of the deceased, but evil eyes, which shall prevent a god or a human being from going through the door. The archaeological remains of false doors with eyes are collected and linked with the evil eyes, which are mentioned in Pyramid Text 534 § 1266c on a double door.
These eyes can be interpreted as magical protection for the tomb of a king or the last resting-place of a
private individual.

The study deals with different kinds of spatial relations of the Egyptian Elite of the New Kingdom that can be subsumed under and characterized with the term territoriality. The time span of the New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1070 BC) and its political situation and historical development form the cultural backcloth of the monograph to follow. Before entering into the descriptive and analytical part of the study, which focuses on the textual discourse, the prosopographical documentation and the archaeological record of the Egyptian Elite under a territorial perspective, a theoretical discussion of the three terms essential for this study – elite, territoriality, and space – is held. After the theoretical introduction, the study is divided into the three main sections III, IV and V. Part III deals with the textual discourse of the elite, which is examined in great detail to discern the different spatial relations expressed in the so-called (auto-)biographical texts, epithets and offering formulae. Part IV takes the problem of geographical provenance and its different kinds of expression into account, a central aspect of territoriality. The historical contextualization of how origin and descent are verbalised in Ancient Egyptian texts shows that this was not a widespread category of identity at all. But its existence in certain moments and circumstances indicates that it definitely had a specific meaning. Part V aims at establishing a contrastive territorial typology of two socially and functionally differentiated groups of people, the so-called 'viziers' and 'mayors of town'. The backbone of this endeavour is constituted by the collected prosopographical dossiers of these people incorporating all kinds of archaeological and inscriptional evidence. The available data on the viziers and mayors of the New Kingdom is studied from different perspectives. First, the functional agenda of both groups is characterized on the basis of official texts to determine the basic territorial relations in administrative terms. The social milieu of origin and recruitment of viziers and mayors, as well as their different titles, epithets, (auto-)biographical texts, official residences, and statues plus stelae are then taken into consideration to explicate the individual territorial relations which form the basis for a general picture on territoriality and spatial identity of both groups.

- by Johannes Auenmüller
- •
- Egyptology, Anthropology, Social Networks, Social Sciences

This chapter surveys the genre normally referred to by Egyptologists as ‘biography’ or ‘autobiography’, comprising texts, often inscribed on stone monuments, which recount, in various forms, events in a non-royal person’s life and/or aspects of their moral character. Such biographies are attested from the third millennium BCE to Roman times, making them one of the longest-lived and most characteristic textual genres known from ancient Egypt. The chapter begins by briefly summarising issues surrounding the genre's definition, as well as the range of approaches taken by Egyptologists to its analysis. An overview of the display contexts for biography is then given, ranging across the walls of tomb-chapels to the bodies of stone statues set up in temples. The discussion deploys a broadly chronological structure in order to give a sense of development and scope. Some potential analytical implications of these contexts are highlighted, for example around performance and audience. The final discussion centres on features of content; these texts were products of a predominantly elite male world so, unsurprisingly, are usually highly idealising presentations of character and action. The genre's richness and diversity in terms of themes and expression within this framework is highlighted.

- by Elizabeth Frood
- •
- Egyptian Texts, Ancient Egypt, Egyptian Biography
- by Jennifer Cromwell and +1
- •
- Historical Linguistics, Papyrology, Sociolinguistics, Coptic Studies

Since its discovery by Battiscombe Gunn, it is believed that Saqqara's Ostrakon is able to improve our understanding of how Egyptians designed curved elements, but the geometric significance of the hieratic values is still uncertain. Indeed, in order to obtain an indisputable result, the distance between the vertical ordinates is required, and this distance is not explicitly indicated on the limestone artefact.
But since there were no algebraic formulas at the time of the Pharaohs, a simple grid-based procedure was developed such as those used by the Egyptians to reproduce the scale drawings, to try to decipher the geometric meaning of the curve drawn on the find.
To conclude, this simple process permits to understand that the five hieratic values of the Saqqara Ostrakon describe a segmental arch whose span and rise correspond to the architectural proportions of several Egyptian tombs and arches, and that the numerical sequence of the artefact could be considered the most "ancient" mathematical formula of the circle.

- by Nicole Hansen
- •
- Egyptology, Magic, Late Antique Magic, Popular/Folk Magic

- by Paolo Di Pasquale
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, History, Mathematics, Geometry And Topology
- by Elizabeth Frood
- •
- Biography, Autobiographical Self-Representation, Egyptian Texts

Co-authors listed are members of the Organising Committee and Scientific Committee respectively.

- by Thérèse Clarke
- •
- Egyptology, Gender, Aegean Egyptian Interrelatlations, Text Linguistics

"The main point is that when one takes into account what we know about ancient Egyptian mathematics (based primarily on the Rhind Papyrus) and what we know about the system of measuring lengths in terms of "cubits," "palms," and "fingers"... more

- by Paolo Di Pasquale
- •
- Critical Theory, Philology, Religion, Ancient Egyptian Religion
- by Daniel A Werning
- •
- Textual Criticism, Reception, Reception History, Egyptian Texts

Constructed during the co-regency of Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III, the eighth pylon at Karnak bears some of the most distinctive clusters of New Kingdom graffiti known from the Amun temple complex. Elizabeth Frood, Chiara Salvador, and Ellen Jones report on recent discoveries of inked and painted hieratic graffiti in the staircase of the pylon, which help us understand this as a cultic and scribal space.

- by Elizabeth Frood and +1
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptian Archaeology, Graffiti, Egyptian Texts
- by Federico Contardi
- •
- Egyptology, Egyptian religion, Egyptian Ritual Texts, Egyptian Texts
- by David Klotz
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptian language, Middle Egyptian, Egyptian Texts
- by Jermaine Lyroed
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Mythology And Folklore, History, Mythology
- by Harold Hays
- •
- Ancient History, Egyptology, Political Science, Kingship (Egyptology)

Certain textual images of Ahhotep II and Ahmose-Nefertiry in stele of Ahmose I illustrate the authority of the principal queen as an active female counterpart of the king during the early 18th Dynasty, perhaps partly inspired by the mythological model of Osiris and Isis. These images may presage the accession of Hatshepsut as king, which can therefore be seen as the outcome of a cultural process rather than as an act of political opportunism. This discussion also draws a parallel between the representation of Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertiry in writing on stela Cairo CG 34002 and familiar pictorial images of the king and queen in art of the Amarna Period.

- by John Coleman Darnell
- •
- Egyptology, Middle Egyptian, Egypt, Ptolemaic Egyptian History

En Égypte ancienne, la propagande royale ne s’exprimait pas seulement à travers des décrets et récits édictés sur les stèles et murs de temples. Elle s’exerçait aussi par le biais de contes, à l’instar du récit merveilleux relatant la... more

- by Amandine Marshall
- •
- Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptology, Propaganda, Egyptian History

Dès les premières dynasties, des recensements ont été entrepris par le pouvoir pharaonique. Ces dénombrements concernaient différentes denrées, productions et main-d’œuvre. La documentation du Moyen-Empire signale l’existence de bureaux et de fonctionnaires responsables de ces actions. En parallèle, des opérations de grande envergure furent menées à travers le pays, sous la surveillance de hauts fonctionnaires envoyés par le roi en province, dans le but d’inventorier certaines ressources.

- by Adeline Bats
- •
- Egyptology, Egyptian Art and Archaeology, Egyptian Archaeology, Prosopography

In this paper, we propose to study the funerary dimension through iconographic representations and descriptions about the provision of offerings in relation to political institutions (temples and palaces) and the state administration of Ur in Mesopotamia and Thebes in Egypt, considering the places in the landscape, valuing both its physical properties, and weighing its intangible aspects. To this end, we focus on an approach that is based on the analysis of documents that refer to funeral spaces, but also highlighting aspects concerning their production, distribution, and storage. In this way, elements related to their systemic contexts and their semantic characters (or internal components) are emphasized. For this reason, we call this analysis perspective Landscape Epigraphy and it can be thought of in parallel to that of “materiality of the linguistic sign”, which maintains that writing can be considered a materiality that recreates the universe of social relations, by bring together in the modality of texts and iconographies, cultural interventions, and mental representations with the selected places in the regional space. To do this, a tripartition of the landscape between humans, places, and objects is contemplated, focusing on: (a) practices, (b) agents, and (c) spatialities.

Famines and epidemics (iAdt rnpt) are two of the natural catastrophes connected with the rhythm of the Nile: the former were determined by a low inundation, while the latter were the consequence of excessive stagnation of the waters. With regard to the famines, much has been written; in this paper, I focus on the interpretation of the textual sources of the First Intermediate Period in order to test the thesis of B. Bell (which occasionally still finds acceptance) who considered the end of the Old Kingdom as a consequence of a series of famines determined by climate change. As for the epidemics, their diffusion during the year is examined in the light of the calendar of the lucky and unlucky days (pSallier IV and pCairo JE 86637) and one tablet of the XVIII dynasty in the Louvre which seems not have been hitherto considered as a textual witness of this phenomenon.

- by Laurent Coulon
- •
- Egyptian Texts, Court history, Ceremony, Ritual and Performance, Eloquence

The Berlin Papyrus was written in the 1900 BCE era. An Egyptian Middle Kingdom scribe left the hieratic papyrus at Saqqara, Egypt. A brief analysis of the math contents was published in 1862, the first Egyptian fraction mathematical topic discussed in the modern era.A more complete analysis and translation of Egyptian math and Egyptian fraction aspects of the text was published in 1900. The papyrus disclosed two aspects of ancient Egyptian mathematical knowledge. The two main math aspects included solutions to two second degree equations that applied two approaches that included hieratic imagery of an inverse proportion named pesu. The text also included descriptions of an ancient pregnancy test procedure and other Middle Kingdom medical information.

- by milo gardner
- •
- Egyptian History, Egyptian Texts, Egyptian Mathematics, Egyptian Unit Fractions
- by Nika Lavrentyeva
- •
- Funerary Belief (Egyptology), Egyptian Texts, Funerary Papyrus