The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

The Survey of Memphis continued in 1991 with three main objectives: (1) to explore the buried stratigraphy beyond the ruin field by means of drill cores and resistivity meter survey; (2) to study the material excavated from six seasons of excavation on Kom Rabi'a; (3) to complete the first stage of the Epigraphic Survey by copying the large Middle-Kingdom inscribed block found re-used as a support beneath the granite statue of Ramesses II at the west gate of the Ptah enclosure. As in previous seasons, work was also carried out at Memphis in collaboration with inspectors of the EAO, notably on Kom Qal'a and Kom Rabi'a, as well as with other colleagues at Saqqara.

A brief account, with facsimile, of the recording of two fragments of an exceptionally important inscription dating to the reign of Amenemhet II.

The preliminary survey of this site identified archaeological material ranging in date from the Old Kingdom to Coptic period. Three areas were assessed for their archaeological potential: a group of quarries apparently associated with an inscription of Ramesses III (north of El-Khazindariya), large quarry terraces (Nazlet el-Haridi), and a complex association of quarries, tombs and domestic dwellings (Abu el-Nasr). The main focus of work was at Abu el-Nasr, where tombs of Old (and possibly New) Kingdom date, situated in terraces at the top of the slope, were planned and photographed. Two large quarries, containing previously unrecorded Ptolemaic inscriptions, were also studied. Preliminary investigation was started on a area of mud-brick and occupation debris, located directly below the terraces, at the base of Abu el-Nasr.

This paper attempts to introduce a research tool essential for the study of production and trade and the way they were organized in ancient Egypt by examining marl clay pottery fabrics from the New Kingdom. Marl clay was the preferred raw material for the containers used in the transport of food within the Nile Valley and beyond. Sample sherds from Memphis, Saqqara and Amarna are described and illustrated macroscopically (20 × magnification) and microscopically (from thin sections). The results are used to create a concordance between the fabric classifications used at these sites, and with that used at Qantir and with the Vienna System. The data given will allow other archaeologists to link their own material to that described and so have access to the evidence this pottery provides on chronology and commodity exchange.

The publication of a series of five limestone offering niches from the private cenotaph of the Sekwaskhet family of the early Middle Kingdom. The monument, excavated to the north of the Teti pyramid by Firth and Gunn in 1921–22, is now displayed in the Cairo Museum (JE 55618). The family was associated with the cult of the Teti pyramid.

In archaeological and textual evidence alike, the psš-kf-knife consistently occurs as part of the same collection of objects. In the Pyramid Texts, these objects are presented in a sequence that is the earliest attested form of the ‘opening of the mouth’ ceremony. The speeches accompanying the presentations suggest that the psš-kf and the objects associated with it were the equipment for a ritual mimicking birth and childhood, and that the role of the psš-kf in this process was to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn baby. Further archaeological, textual, and iconographic evidence is adduced to support this interpretation.

In this comparative study of ancient belief and practice, the Egyptian evidence is analysed first, then placed in the wider context of the Near East. It is argued that, while laws and curses are both ways of preventing damage by threatening potential evildoers with punishment, the difference lies in the fact that in the one case punishment is to be enforced by social institutions, in the other by divine agents. Curses take over where laws are bound to fail, as when crimes remain undetected and when the law itself is broken or abandoned. The law addresses the potential transgressor, the curse the potential law-changer who may distort or neglect the law. The law protects the social order, the curse protects the law. These points are illustrated by extensive quotation from Egyptian and Near Eastern texts.

The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant is a complex work, for the interpretation of which literary form is crucial. The text is a unity, incorporating diverse styles and genres. It combines two modes of narrative and discourse which are indirectly complementary, being antithetical in their articulation of meaning. This antithesis is also presented through stylistic contrasts within the Tale and by a pervasive use of irony. Although the Tale is concerned with its own writing, the subject matter is not restricted to this. The formal tension between narrative and discourse parallels the dichotomy of awareness which underlies the plot, and which is between the situation as it appears to the protagonist and as it is presented to the audience. Form and content cannot be separated; the literary form which embodies this dichotomy is at one with the creation of the Tale's meaning.

During excavations at the Great Palace at Amarna, three large floor-paintings were found in the area known as the North Harim. Two of the pavement designs are published here for the first time. All three were connected by a painted pathway of captives. Study of the painted pavements, together with plans of the Great Palace and other New Kingdom palaces, suggests that the room called the Main Hall may have been a throne room.

It is generally agreed that the workmen engaged in agricultural activity, although not to what extent. Farming is best documented in the late Twentieth Dynasty, when conditions were perhaps exceptional, but there is indirect evidence of agriculture at all periods. The workmen kept oxen and donkeys which they may have used in cultivation, and some had large numbers of private servants who perhaps worked the land. Agricultural tools and silos found in the village are further signs of farming. The source of land is a matter of speculation; some fields may have belonged to local cults, but a few texts suggest that workmen themselves owned land. Baer has shown that farming could be very profitable, and it is known that some New Kingdom officials enjoyed an extra income from land. Despite the lack of explicit textual evidence, it is possible that some Deir el-Medina workmen did the same.

The social context of the Adoption Papyrus is discussed. It is argued that the motivation behind the text was to ensure the material security and social position of a childless woman, first through a ‘non-divorce’ settlement, and then through control of succession to the role of head of the family. This is related to issues of family solidarity, marriage strategies, and the administration of property rights. These are discussed in the context of norms of social behaviour in the Near East, and in particular through comparison with Aramaic documents from Elephantine and with more modern village life in Egypt.

The Thirtieth Dynasty biography and figure caption on the sarcophagus of the dwarf Djeho (Cairo CG 29307) and a passage from the sarcophagus of the high official Tjaiharpta (CG 29306) are presented in annotated translation. Djeho's longer text appears unique in being concerned more with the other-worldly destiny of another person, Tjaiharpta, than with Djeho himself. The two similar hard-stone sarcophagi were buried in a single tomb near the Sarapieion road at Saqqara, together with at least seven other people. The presentation of one person's merits through another is probably connected with Djeho's role in dancing at the mortuary ceremonies of the Apis and Mnevis bulls. Among other questions, the find raises issues of royal and non-royal patronage, of the location of tombs, the placing of biographies on sarcophagi, the use of intermediaries before the gods, and the implications of Tjaiharpta's partial deference to Djeho in relation to general conceptions of the person.

‘I have examined Mr Cyril Aldred and I have found him to have a very fair knowledge of Egyptological subjects especially that of Egyptian Art.’

A brief account of the papers of Sir Gardner Wilkinson and the circumstances leading to their deposition in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The nature of the magic crocodile is defined by a pun on its size.

Report on the examination of two groups of Egyptian and Nubian skulls with head injuries. A system of categories to define head injuries is presented and comparison made with work done by other researchers.

The cartouches naming Psamtik II as the king shown on the ‘intercolumnar slab’ in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum 213) are secondary. The monument was originally made for Psamtik I or Necho II.

A number of Iranian names found in demotic papyri and ostraca from the ‘Sacred Animal Necropolis’ in North Saqqara are identified and discussed.

A recent suggestion that nearly 45 per cent of all early demotic texts once belonged to a single archive is challenged, and the reading of a personal name in P. Louvre 7854 on which it was based is corrected.

Publication of a rare pair of funerary papyrus sandals in the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam (APM 11988), belonging to the singer of Amon-Re, Mry-'lmn-it. s. Probably from Thebes, and dating to the Ptolemaic Period.

A drawing preserved in the Griffith Institute, Oxford, records an early Meroitic relief block which is now lost. It shows a woman's arm and an inscription, and comes from a tomb chapel in the southern cemetery of Begarawiya, where it was found by Ferlini. Its precise provenance may be either S1 or S9. The inscription attests a hitherto unknown Kandake, who can be dated to the first half of the third century BC. From about the same time comes the representation of another royal lady, whose demolished tomb chapel was at least partly reused in the construction of the pyramid Beg N 16.

Publication of an inscription painted on a sherd of a Roman ‘carrot’ amphora found at Carlisle. Its apparent reference to the fruit of the doum palm (κoύκια) suggests that this class of amphora, whose provenance has been uncertain, was made in Egypt and was used to export Egyptian preserved fruit.