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The Ban

kes Late Ram

esside Papyri

A

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9 7 8 0 8 6 1 5 9 1 5 5 8

ISBN 0-86159-155-0

Research Publication no.155

Robert J.Demarée

with contributions by Bridget Leach and Patricia Usick

The BankesLate RamessidePapyri

Robert J.Demarée

with contributions by Bridget Leach and Patricia Usick

The Bankes Late RamessidePapyri

Publishers

The British Museum

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Angela Flanagan

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Josephine Turquet

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The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri

Robert J. Demarée

With contributions by Bridget Leach and Patricia Usick

ISBN-13: 978 0 86159 155 8

ISBN-10: 0 86159 155 0

ISSN 0142 4815

© The Trustees of the British Museum 2006

Front cover: BM EA 75019 + 10302, rto (left), vso (right) (see pp. 14–19).

During reconstruction the top right-hand fragment on the rto was

positioned more to the left. For current positioning see Plates 13–16.

Note: the British Museum Occasional Papers series is now entitled

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Abbreviations iv

Preface v

R. B. Parkinson

Introduction 1

Robert J. Demarée

William John Bankes in Egypt 3

Patricia Usick

The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri 7

Robert J. Demarée

BM EA 75015 7

BM EA 75016 9

BM EA 75017 10

BM EA 75018 11

BM EA 75019 + 10302 14

BM EA 75020 19

BM EA 75021 21

BM EA 75023 25

BM EA 75024 26

BM EA 75025 26

BM EA 75039 28

Conservation of the Late Ramesside Papyri 29

Bridget Leach

Index of Personal Names 32

Index of Words and Expressions Discussed 32

Plates and Transcriptions 33

BM EA 75015 rto Plates 1–2 34

BM EA 75015 vso Plates 3–4 36

BM EA 75016 rto Plate 5 38

BM EA 75016 vso Plate 6 39

BM EA 75017 rto Plate 7 40




BM EA 75019 + 10302 rto Plates 13–14 46

BM EA 75019 + 10302 vso Plates 15–16 48





BM EA 75023 + 75024 Plates 25–26 58





Contents

iv | The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri

Abbreviations

The abbreviations used in this publication are generally those customary in Egyptology.Abbreviations referring to periodicals are taken from the Annual Egyptological Bibliography. Someparticular instances are:Allam, HOP: Schafik Allam, Hieratische Ostraka und Papyri I–III, Tübingen, 1973.AIPHOS: Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves, Brussels.Bakir, Epistolography: ‘Abd el-Mohsen Bakir, Egyptian Epistolography. From the Eighteenth to the

Twenty-First Dynasty (=BdE 48), Cairo, 1970. Caminos, LEM: Ricardo A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, London, 1954.Cvv

erný, Workmen: Jaroslav Cvv

erný, A Community of Workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period (BdE50), Cairo, 1973, 2001.

Cvv

erný-Gardiner, HO: Jaroslav Cvv

erný and Alan H. Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca I, Oxford, 1957.Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar: Jaroslav Cvv

erný and Sarah Israelit Groll, A Late Egyptian Grammar, Rome,1975.

Gardiner, AEO: Alan H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, 2 vols., Oxford, 1947.Gardiner, EG: Sir Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Oxford, 19573.Gardiner, RAD: Sir Alan H. Gardiner, Ramesside Administrative Documents, London, 1948.Gardiner, Wilbour: Alan H. Gardiner, The Wilbour Papyrus, 4 vols., London, 1941–1952.Helck, Materialien: Wolfgang Helck, Materialien zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Neuen Reiches (Abh.

Akad. d. Wiss. und Lit. Geistes- und Sozialwiss. Kl., Jhrg. 1960–9), 6 vols., Wiesbaden,1961–1969.

Janssen, Commodity Prices: Jac J. Janssen, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period, Leiden, 1975.Janssen, LRLC: Jac J. Janssen, Late Ramesside Letters and Communications (Hieratic papyri in the

British Museum VI, 1991), London, 1991.KRI: Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, 8 vols., Oxford, 1969–1989.Lesko, Dictionary: Leonard H. Lesko, A Dictionary of Late Egyptian, 5 vols., Berkeley, 1982–1990.LRL: Jaroslav C

vv

erný, Late Ramesside Letters (=Bibliotheca aegyptiaca IX), Brussels, 1939.Meeks, AL: Dimitri Meeks, Année Lexigraphique I–III (1977–1979), Paris, 1980–1982.Peet, Tomb-Robberies: T. Eric Peet, The Great Tomb-Robberies of the Twentieth Egyptian Dynasty,

Oxford, 1930. Pleyte-Rossi: W. Pleyte and F. Rossi, Papyrus de Turin, Leiden, 1869-1876.Ranke, PN: Hermann Ranke, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen, Hamburg-Glückstadt, 1935–1952.Spiegelberg, Correspondences: Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Correspondences du temps des rois-prêtres

publiées avec autres fragments epistolaires de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1895.Sweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue: Deborah Sweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue: Pragmatic

Factors in Late Ramesside Letter-Writing (Ägypten und Altes Testament 49), Wiesbaden, 2001.Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’: Deborah Sweeney, ‘Idiolects in Late Ramesside Letters’, Lingua Aegyptiaca 4

(1994), 275–324.Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’: Michelle Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’, I, RdÉ 31, 81–96; II, RdÉ 33,

79–87; III, RdÉ 34, 101–114; IV, RdÉ 36, 125–143; V, RdÉ 37, 131–137; VI, RdÉ 39, 131–146; VII, RdÉ42, 213–230; VIII, RdÉ 43, 163–168; IX, RdÉ 45, 175–188; X, RdÉ 46, 171–186; XI, RdÉ 52, 265–276;XII, RdÉ 54, 177–190; XIII, RdÉ 55, 149–159; series published 1979–2004.

Wente, Letters: Edward F. Wente, Letters From Ancient Egypt, Atlanta, Georgia, 1990.Wente, LRL: Edward F. Wente, Late Ramesside Letters (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No.

33), Chicago, 1967.Warburton, State and Economy: David A. Warburton, State and Economy in Ancient Egypt. Fiscal

Vocabulary of the New Kingdom, Fribourg/Göttingen, 1997.Winand, Études: Jean Winand, Études de néo-égyptien, 1. La morphologie verbale, Liège, 1992.

The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri | v

This occasional paper publishes a group of papyri that supplement those included in J. J. Janssen’scomprehensive Late Ramesside Letters and Communications (Hieratic papyri in the British MuseumVI, 1991). The papyri in this new publication were transferred to The British Museum for specialistcare, conservation and storage by the National Trust in the 1950s and 1990s when they wereidentified among the papers of William John Bankes (1786–1855), and the Museum is indebted tothe Trust for this remarkable addition to the corpus of ‘Late Ramesside Letters’. The Bankes Papyriare a particularly exceptional group of manuscripts, since they include previously unknown lettersby the best known of Ramesside correspondents and the missing half of an already publishedletter, and the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan is extremely grateful to Robert Demarée ofthe Institute of Egyptology, Leiden University, for undertaking their study and publication with hisaccustomed expertise and flair. In collaboration with him, the papyri have been conserved byBridget Leach of the Museum’s Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, and anaccount of this process is included here, together with a summary of Bankes’ travels in Egypt byPatricia Usick, honorary archivist in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, and Bankes’biographer. The photographs for this publication were taken by Sandra Marshall (Photographyand Imaging), and the publication has been expertly seen through the press by Josephine Turquet,British Museum Research Publications Editor, and Angela Flanagan, copy editor.

R. B. Parkinson,Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan,

The British Museum

Preface

The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri | 1

Introduction

It is a well-established fact – in accordance with one of Murphy’sfamous laws and applicable also to Egyptology – that no soonerhas a coherent group of documents been assembled, studied andpublished, then new documents of the same type or groupemerge. An exemplary case of this remarkable phenomenonmay be seen in the appearance of Jac J. Janssen’s publication in1991 of a group of Late Ramesside Letters in the British Museumcollection.1 Just a few years later several new letters belonging tothis 'archive' were found among a large group of papyri thatcame to enrich the collection of the British Museum in 1996.These documents had been 'discovered' in the early 1990s in thelibrary of Kingston Lacy, the stately home bequeathed to theNational Trust by Ralph Bankes in 1981. The story of therediscovery of the Bankes papyri in two successive ‘campaigns’will certainly become a classic in the history of Egyptology. Sincemost of the intriguing details of this find have been describedalready by others,2 it would seem sufficient here to evoke onlythe most important facts.

The small but fine collection of Egyptian antiquities housedat Kingston Lacy House, Dorset, was not known to hold papyriuntil in the 1950s Dr. I.E.S. Edwards, following a suggestion byProf. P.E. Newberry, visited the library of this mansion andfound a small group of such documents, two of which he laterpublished as P. Bankes I and II.3 The biggest surprise, however,came many years later after the takeover of Kingston Lacy by theNational Trust, already referred to above: during an inventory ofthe papers and books in the same library quite unexpectedlyanother collection of papyri and papyrus fragments was found.Among these documents several were immediately recognizedas belonging to the private papers of a family of scribes attachedto the Theban necropolis administration of the Late RamessidePeriod. As a long-time student of this institution and itsemployees, I considered it a real privilege to be given theopportunity to study and work upon these documents, all ofwhich provide us with additional information concerning thelife and works of some key figures in the history of AncientEgypt.

The completion of this volume would not have been possiblewithout the help I received from several colleagues and friends.

First of all I have to thank the Keeper of the Department ofAncient Egypt and Sudan, Dr. Vivian Davies, for allowing me tostudy and publish the group of documents presented here. ThenI would like to acknowledge with deep gratitude the help of Dr.Richard Parkinson, Assistant Keeper of the same Department,who as a true friend assisted me in many ways during the longyears studying the Bankes letters and preparing theirpublication, and above all carefully polished my English.

Two people deserve my special thanks for their valuablecontributions to the present volume: firstly, Miss Bridget Leachof the British Museum, who not only skillfully completed thetask of the conservation of the papyri, but also submitted asummary on the technical details of her work on thesedocuments; secondly, Dr. Patricia Usick, who kindly agreed towrite a chapter on William Bankes’ acquisitions of papyri.4

I am indebted to my colleagues Prof. Joris Borghouts, Dr.Ben Haring and Dr. Koen Donker van Heel of the Institute ofEgyptology, Leiden University, for not only reading andcommenting upon parts of my text, but also their help inelucidating several grammatical details. Guillaume Bouvier(Strasbourg) deserves my gratitude for drawing the facsimile ofthe ‘ghost’ letter BM EA 75025, and Marcel Marée of theDepartment of Ancient Egypt and Sudan for providing somehieroglyphs in my text.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to AngelaFlanagan for her work in copy editing and laying out the bookand to Dr. Josephine Turquet, who acted as the senior editor ofthis book. I really appreciated her patient perseverance andunderstanding during the final stages of my work on thispublication when I was repeatedly ‘plagued’ by physicalproblems.

Notes

1 Late Ramesside Letters and Communications, Hieratic Papyri in the

British Museum VI (London, 1991).

2 I.E.S. Edwards, JEA 68 (1982), 126; S. Quirke, British Museum

Magazine, No. 24 (Spring 1996), 16–17.

3 In JEA 68 (1982), 126–133.

4 See also Patricia Usick, Adventures in Egypt and Nubia. The Travels of

William John Bankes (1786–1855) (London 2002).

IntroductionRobert J.Demarée


extensive exploration of the Near East in which he recordedmany sites including Petra and Djerash, he returned to Egypt in1818–19 for a second voyage into Nubia. He was accompanied bythe British Consul-General, Henry Salt, and his secretary HenryWilliam Beechey.2 They took with them two artist-draughtsmen,Linant de Bellefonds and Alessandro Ricci; the latterexperienced in copying hieroglyphs. Bankes’ father Henry hadforwarded to him a letter from Thomas Young, the naturalscientist and polymath. Young, like Salt, was fascinated by theprospect of decipherment raised by the discovery of the RosettaStone, with the same inscription written in Greek, Demotic, andhieroglyphs. Bankes party’s intention was to make a thoroughsurvey of the ancient monuments and collect as manyhieroglyphic inscriptions as possible at the request of Young.Their ambitious aim was to penetrate far into Nubia anddiscover the ‘lost’ city of Meroe, known from classical sources.

Salt and Beechey were both professionally trained artistsand Bankes himself a proficient draughtsman with a passion forarchitecture. Ricci and Linant added fine copies of reliefs andinscriptions. Sites were cleared of sand, not merely to record theinner decoration of monuments but also to determine and planthe extent of any structure. Changes, additions, function, andthe causes of the fall or destruction of monuments were allexamined and recorded. Forced to turn back near Amara,Bankes later commissioned Linant and Ricci to explore furthersouth along the Nile in 1821–22, mapping and recording thesites. The extraordinary accuracy of the copies of reliefs andhieroglyphic inscriptions makes them an important record ofarchaeological information.

Despite a failed attempt to remove the colossal ‘Head ofMemnon’ in 1815,3 and the successful removal of the Philaeobelisk, Bankes did not amass a large collection of Egyptianantiquities. In addition to a number of small items are twoimportant groups: stelae from Deir el-Medina,4 and paintedstucco fragments from Theban tombs. A large granitesarcophagus was an unsolicited gift from Salt.5 It seems unlikelythat Bankes himself viewed his antiquities with the sameaesthetic that informed his connoisseur’s eye for westernEuropean art and architecture. An obelisk was an exception; anantiquity which encompassed both cultures through itsincorporation into the art and architecture of ancient Rome. TheEgyptian collection is now displayed in the former billiard-roomat Kingston Lacy, but a full catalogue has yet to be published.6

Like so many other contemporary travellers, Bankesunfortunately seldom notes the provenance of objects, and thereis little other helpful documentation. The few surviving bills forshipping are vague and illegible. It seems likely that much of hiscollection was purchased from local dealers, probably in Thebes,or obtained from friends, rather than found during his ownexcavations. The local people of Thebes were offeringantiquities for sale, but, as John Fuller, a contemporary traveller

William John Bankes (1786–1855) was a remarkable man whosecontemporaries feared he would dissipate his talents and veryconsiderable scholarship by the breadth of his interests and hisvolatile personality. This ultimately proved to be the case for hisinterest in the inscriptions so carefully recorded on his travels inthe Near East which, despite his intentions and preparations,were never published. Entreaties from the renowned explorerJ.L. Burckhardt, not to hide his ‘treasures’ of Egyptian antiquitiesat his country house ‘so that they can never generally beadmired’, were ignored.1 Bankes’ interest in ancient Egypt wasneglected in favour of the reconstruction of Kingston LacyHouse, Dorset, which he filled with a major collection of oldmaster paintings collected in Europe. The Egyptian drawingsand notebooks, his antiquities and papyri, and the Nubiandrawings and journals commissioned from Linant de Bellefonds,languished forgotten at the house.

However the obelisk, which Bankes brought back fromPhilae temple and erected to ornament the grounds of KingstonLacy, remains to mark his serious and scholarly interest inancient Egypt and its history. The obelisk played its part in thestory of the decipherment of hieroglyphs and stands as areminder of the portfolio of over 1,500 drawings made between1815 and 1822 which constitute an extraordinary record of thesites and monuments of ancient Egypt, many now damaged orlost. A small collection of Egyptian objects and papyri are alsotestimony to the fact that Bankes was more interested indecipherment and in what could be learned of ancient Egyptianhistory than in assembling a grand collection of antiquities.

Rich, charming, and good-looking, Bankes was a luminaryof the undergraduate set at Trinity College Cambridge whichincluded Byron, a life-long friend. London Society found himbrilliant but also pretentious and arrogant, and perhaps,ultimately, tedious. Self-exiled after 1841, having been forced toflee England on indecency charges, he continued to direct theembellishment of his house from abroad. He died in Venice.

In 1812 at the age of 26 he had begun what was to be eightyears of a Grand Tour. In Spain, where he pursued a Bohemianlifestyle among the gypsies at Granada, he was able to obtain animportant collection of paintings in the aftermath ofWellington’s victories in the Peninsula War. These wereaugmented by later purchases in Italy. Beyond Europe the riskand adventure of travel in the Near East undoubtedly appealedto his attraction to situations of danger and excitement.Suspended perilously on a rope to inspect the rock shrines in thesteep cliff of Qasr Ibrim or narrowly escaping discovery onclandestine trips to the forbidden mosque in Jerusalem, Bankeswas in his element.

Bankes’ first three-month voyage up the Nile in 1815 to WadiHalfa, alone except for servants, produced a serious andscholarly set of plans, views and descriptions of the monuments,and fragments of a journal. Following a further two years

William John Bankes in EgyptPatricia Usick

4 | The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri

Usick

without Bankes’ connections complained, ‘all that is mostvaluable is immediately bought up by the agents of theEuropean Collectors at Cairo or Alexandria.’7 Bankes, like othertravellers, may have crunched his way through Theban tombswithout much scruple, but he was on the lookout for papyri. Hisdragoman noted in his own Narrative of the Life and Adventuresof Giovanni Finati8 that on their outward journey in 1818:

It happened one evening, as I was returning with Mr Bankeshomewards, behind the Memnonium, [the Ramesseum] that wesurprised three women very busy in lifting out mummies of bulls,from a sort of pit near the foot of the rock. They seemed little pleasedat being discovered; but after purchasing two of the bulls, we madethem a small present, and descended by the pit into a long lowchamber, without ornament, and rather crudely excavated, whichwas three parts full of embalmed bodies, laid one upon another like astack; none of them were in cases, but only with linen coverings, ofwhich, however, some few were painted over in a coarse trellispattern. The bull-mummies, and a few rams intermingled, stood onthe top of the pile. It is not in the more splendid sort of mummies thatthe papyrus-rolls are most commonly found; and it was thiscircumstance that induced Mr Bankes to make an immediate search,of which the result was so far remarkable that a papyrus-sheet wasfound on the breast of the very first body that was opened by him,and although we occupied ourselves afterwards for hours with theremainder, we could never discover a second; yet the corpse onwhich it was found had been drawn out from the heap quite athazard, and proved to be a female, in which case these writings somuch sought for are rarely met with. The feet in this instance werebeautifully preserved, and the toe-nails gilt with leaf-gold.9

Unfortunately for the provenance of what Bankes describedas the ‘parcel’ of papyri, evidence of his activities in Thebes in1818–19 is limited. Nothing on the drawings of Thebes refers topapyri, finds or purchases, nor do any of the miscellaneousmanuscripts relating to Egypt, which are now catalogued. TheBankes Albums in the British Museum contain few references toThebes and these are not relevant. Finati notes that on theirreturn journey Bankes removed the stucco tomb paintings; butsays nothing else about their stay. In fact they were in Thebesfrom 5–24 June 1819 on their return; Salt was no longer withthem having returned to Cairo earlier because of illness.

We do know how Bankes obtained the inscribed fragment oflinen from the mummy wrapping of Djedher born of Ta, bearingpart of the Book of the Dead in hieratic (BM EA 75047), which hekept in a red leather case. Other parts of the same linenwrappings are in the British Museum and were known to havebeen acquired from Joseph Sams (1784–1860) or from laterowners of the 19th century. Sams was a British bookseller andantiquities dealer who travelled to Egypt in 1832–1833 andbrought back many antiquities. Bankes’ correspondencecontains a letter from Sams whose antiquities collection Bankeshad viewed. Since Bankes had remarked that ‘the curiousancient Mss. on linen were new to him’, Sams ‘begs to enclose aspecimen in a box… to place with his other antiquities fromancient Egypt.’ Bankes scribbled on the envelope: ‘Thesewritings on linen are rarer than those on papyrus’.10

The only papyrus we know Salt sent Bankes from Egypt is aGreek one, said to be part of Homer’s Iliad. In any case, Bankeshad mixed feelings about the value of the hieroglyphic texts.11

He expressed surprise that everyone seemed to agree that allhieroglyphic writing was religious since the Rosetta Stone was ‘arecord of facts’, and several Classical writers were also of theopinion that the script was not just used for religious writing.What mainly worried him was that ‘the great repetition

observable in the characters’ might mean that there was notmuch variety in the matter to which they related. Hieroglyphswere ‘little worth the pains’ if they were only used for ‘hymns &homilies’ rather than ‘History & Chronology’. It was claimed thatsome Dendera inscriptions represented the Psalms of David; ‘Wehad the Psalms of David before, & without any disrespect tothem, I had rather that he had found the annals of Sesostris’.Here Bankes echoed Young’s views that

All the inscriptions on temples, and the generality of the manuscriptsfound with the mummies, appear to relate to their ridiculous ritesand ceremonies: I see nothing that looks like history: the obeliscsseem to be the only kind of monument likely to be worth reading,even if one could make out the characters, and there are too few toafford us much of importance.12

Nevertheless Bankes’ always astute scrutiny led him torecognise that one of his papyri was a palimpsest and he notedon it that this implied that ‘papyrus was either not veryabundant or not very cheap’ (see page 26). His other notes areequally pertinent since he made a guess as to the status of thewriter and the fact that the papyrus was a discrete entity;without, of course, understanding anything of its contents.

Bankes’ reputation as a decipherer rests not on the extensivestudy of hieroglyphs over many years, but on a brilliantcombination of observation and deduction typical of hispersonality. He assumed (wrongly) that his obelisk representeda second Rosetta Stone with a Greek inscription on the pedestalwhich translated the hieroglyphs on the obelisk. Havingdeduced the presence of the name of Cleopatra from his carefulscrutiny of reliefs in Egypt, he correctly identified it inhieroglyphs, thereby adding several additional phonetic valuesfor signs to the few already recognised. Bankes had realised thaton the temple reliefs at Hiw (Diospolis parva), the presence ofthe female royal figure offering to the gods took precedence overthe male royal figure with the name Ptolemy; thereby indicatingCleopatra. He confirmed this name on his obelisk which wasknown, from the Greek inscription, to be a ‘memorial of aPtolemy and his two Cleopatras’.13 Whether Champollion madethe discovery of this name independently, as he claimed, or fromseeing Bankes’ annotations on the printed text of the obeliskwhich Bankes distributed, remains unknown. The usual cries ofplagiarism were raised (Bankes’ other claims of this kind led to acourt action by James Silk Buckingham) and Bankessubsequently rebuffed Champollion’s request for access to hispapers.

Young also claimed that Bankes ‘had identified the use of thevase [the nw-pot hieroglyph] as an N’. This had been achievedby a simple comparison of ‘different modes of writing parallelpassages in different manuscripts or inscriptions, or in differentparts of the same monuments’.14

Bankes, as a fine Greek scholar, saw the Greek inscriptions asa means to reveal the history and chronology of Egypt. It was asecure way of dating while the decipherment of hieroglyphsremained in its infancy, and Bankes himself neatly recorded andcommented on hundreds of Greek inscriptions. After his returnto England, Bankes corresponded with Young, mainly aboutthese inscriptions. Young himself was more interested in thehieroglyphs: ‘at present, I see little encouragement to return tothe charge in comparison at least with the temptation that yourhieroglyphical tablet [the Abydos king-list] holds out: I wish youwould have it engraved and publish it with a few other select


William John Bankes in Egypt

materials as pledges of your future intentions.’ Despite Bankes’failure to arrange and publish his journals and drawings, 56lithographic stones were engraved with Near Easterninscriptions including some hieroglyphs. John Murray, London,1821, is given as the publisher and C. Hullmandel as the printer.However there is no record that these plates were actuallyproduced.

What Bankes did publish was his dragoman Finati’s versionof their travels. In recording the swashbuckling adventures andsimplistic descriptions of Finati, Bankes was excused fromproducing a work of high importance, clearly expected from himjudging by the many flattering remarks made by his colleagues.That much of Finati’s story is taken almost word for word fromBankes’ own journal notes is now clear, but Bankes extended theillusion of merely being the editor by adding erudite footnotes tothe work. The myth that he did in fact also publish his owntravels in the Near East has somehow been perpetuated, but nosuch book exists.15

Notes1 Dorset Record Office, D/BKL H I/57.2 See also Deborah Manley and Peta Rée, Henry Salt. Artist, Traveller,

Diplomat, Egyptologist (London 2001).

3 The colossal granite head of Ramesses II now in the British Museum;BM EA 19.

4 See J. Cv

erný, Egyptian Stelae in the Bankes Collection (Oxford 1958).5 See J. Assmann, Das Grab des Amenemope (TT 41), 2 vols. (Mainz

1991), 267ff. for the sarcophagus.6 See T.G.H. James, ‘Egyptian Antiquities at Kingston Lacy, Dorset’,

K.M.T., A modern journal of Ancient Egypt, vol. 4, no. 4, Winter 1993-4, 20-32; the main source for information on Bankes’ collection.

7 J. Fuller, Narrative of a Tour through some parts of the Turkish Empire(London 1829), 230.

8 Translated, edited and arranged for publication by Bankes.9 Finati II, 305–7. If the ‘we’ included Salt then these mummies of bulls

may be among British Museum EA 6771, 6772, and 6773, which are allfrom Thebes and marked ‘Salt 1821’.

10 Letter to W.J. Bankes, 10 April 1833. Dorset Record Office D/BKL HJ1/384.

11 Dorset Record Office D/BKL HH.12 Letter to Hudson Gurney, early 1816. A. Wood (later completed by F.

Oldham), Thomas Young, Natural Philosopher, 1773–1829,(Cambridge 1954), 215.

13 H. Salt, Essay on Dr. Young’s and M. Champollion’s Phonetic System ofHieroglyphics; with some additional discoveries etc. (London 1825),7ff.

14 J. Leitch (ed.), Miscellaneous Works of the late Thomas Young, M.D.,F.R.S., &c., vol. III, Hieroglyphical Essays and Correspondence, &c.(London 1855), 467.

15 See now: Patricia Usick, Adventures in Egypt and Nubia. The Travels ofWilliam John Bankes (1786–1855) (London 2002).


you told them, ‘and I gave full payment for her’. 9 And they told you, ‘We should join up/come to an agreement

with the man who gave/sold [her] to you’, so they said to you. 10 I went with you before the commander of foreign Tuhir-

troops Iuhepy,11 your superior, and he told me, ‘Leave the maidservant be! She

has been entrusted to the merchant Amenkhau’,12 so he said. I had confidence in you and entrusted you with

this maidservant up until today. 13 Now look, you have sent the scribe Efnamun to me with the

message, ‘Your maidservant has been carried off14 just like those many others who were carried off’. So you

wrote to me,15 although you know that some came and took my maidservant

away, while I16 was inside the walled enclosure of (the Temple of) Mut, and

they [said to the?] people, ‘She is our sister’. 17 So they used to say regarding her. So you deal with her affair

while you are here. As soon as my letter

Verso (Plates 3 and 4 )1 reaches you, you shall deal with the affair of this maidservant

[and go to?] the people2 who took her. And if they prevail over you, and you find out

that she is an abducted servant, 3 it being the master of serfs who abducted her, you will make

him give you (as replacement) a satisfactory maidservant 4 who has a son at her bosom just like them, and you will bring

them south 5 when you return. See, I have written in order to provide you

with authorization.6 Now you know the many good things that I have done for you.

Don’t forget them. 7 If you disobey (me), your misdemeanours will get the better

of you.

Address8 The builder Wenenamun of the Temple of Amun to the

business agent Amenkhau of the Temple of Amun.

Notes

Recto 1. In spite of Edwards’ doubts, the name of the sender isclearly to be read as Wnw-n-Imn (Wn(=i)-n-Imn – ‘I belong toAmun’), cf. Ranke, PN I, 79,1; P. Mayer A, vso 12,17; O. Cairo25829, vso 4 (and some other unpublished ostraca from the late20th–early 21st dynasty in the British Museum). It would seem tobe a variant writing of the name Wnw-Imn which was verypopular at the end of the Ramesside Period, cf. Ranke, PN I, 78,21.A builder (od/iod) Wnw-n-Imn of the Temple of Amun-Re seems tobe unknown from elsewhere. For builders attached to temples,see Gardiner, Wilbour, II, 83.

Author’s note

Words enclosed in square brackets [ ] in the translationsrepresent words lost in the original. Round brackets ( ) denotewords supplied by me to help out the sense. A dotted line signifiesthat the text is unintelligible to me, or lost.

Bibliographical references are given in standard shortenedforms, which will, I trust, be instantly recognized. In case ofdoubt recourse may be had to the list (of abbreviations) placed atthe beginning of this volume.

BM EA 75015

Registration number 1996-2-17.1A sheet of good quality papyrus, on both sides of a light browncolour, measuring 24cm high by 22.5 cm wide. Several folds arediscernible, and as a result the papyrus shows a number ofhorizontal strips of c. 2.2cm. The papyrus is almost complete,except for a small strip missing at the top, slight damage to the lefthand border and a large hole at the lower right, all as seen fromthe recto. The recto (V/H) bears 17 lines, and the verso (H/V)eight lines including the address at the bottom. Top recto =bottom verso. The damage has resulted in some loss of writing onthe recto in the upper half of line 1, slight loss at the end of lines 4,9 and 11, severe loss in lines 16 and 17; and on the verso in line 1and at the end of lines 2 and 8.

In Bankes’ alphabetical numbering this papyrus is possibly ‘B’.It is one of the documents of the first group rediscovered in thelibrary at Kingston Lacy in the 1960s. The papyrus was firstpublished by I.E.S. Edwards as ‘P. Bankes I’ in JEA 68 (1982),126–132, with figs. 1 and 2 and pl. XII. A translation of this letterwas also provided by Wente, Letters, 129–130 no. 154, includingsome corrected readings.

Translation

Recto (Plates 1 and 2)1 The builder Wenenamun of the Temple of Amun-Re, king of

the gods, greets the business agent2 Amenkhau of the Temple of Amun-Re, king of the gods: In

life, prosperity and health, and in the favour of Amun-Re,king of the gods!

3 Every day I am calling upon Amun, Mut, and Khonsu to keepyou alive, to keep you healthy and to invigorate you. Andfurther:

4 You only left here from Ne/Thebes, after (I) had entrusted toyou the slave-woman Tentuendjede and

5 the slave Gemiamun, her son, and after you had given themto the fisherman Pamer-

6 shenuty and the retainer Hori, and after they had told you, inmy presence, ‘It was illegally/by stealth that this

7 woman was taken’. So they said to you, but you replied, ‘It isnot true! It was from

8 the master of serfs Ikhterpay that I bought this woman’, so

The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri Robert J.Demarée


Demarée

For the introductory formula NN Hr nD-xrt NN, seeCommentary below.

Recto 1–2. R. Navailles and F. Neveu, GM 103 (1988), 53–54, aptlyremark that the title Swyty is better translated as ‘commercialagent’ (business agent) than simply ‘merchant’. To their referencesadd the article on the Swyty.w by M. Römer, ‘Der Handel und dieKaufleute im Alten Ägypten’, SAK 19 (1992), 257–285 (esp. 274and 283 on ‘merchants’ selling slaves); S. Allam, ‘Affaires etopérations commerciales’, in N. Grimal and B. Menu (eds.), Lecommerce en Égypte ancienne (BdE 121; Cairo, 1998), 154–156; S.Bickel, ‘Commerçants et bateliers au Nouvel Empire. Mode de vieet statut d’un groupe social’, in N. Grimal and B. Menu (eds.), Lecommerce en Égypte ancienne, 161–167; S. Allam, ‘Vermittler imHandel zur Zeit des Neuen Reiches’, SAK 26 (1999), 18.

A merchant Amenkhau is not known from other sourcesdating to the Late Ramesside period. His name, however, wasvery common. In view of the revised dating of the letter (seeCommentary below), the proposed identification of thismerchant Amenkhau with the brother of the Memphite officialKhay, in G.T. Martin et al., The Tombs of Three Memphite Officials(London, 2001), 29, can no longer be upheld.

Recto 3. For the position and the meaning of ra nb, see below thenote on P. BM EA 75018, rto 3.

Recto 4. The female name 6A-nt-w-n-9dw, ‘She from the districtof Busiris’ is not recorded in Ranke, PN, or Thirion, ‘Notesd’onomastique’. For this type of name, cf. 6A-nt-w, Ranke, PN I,359,2.

Recto 5. The female determinative after Hm in the beginning ofthis line is clearly a mistake by the writer. The name Gm=i-Imn isrecorded only as ‘spät’ in Ranke, PN I, 351,2.

Recto 6. For Sms.w, ‘retainer’, see below the note on P. BM EA75019+10302, rto 4.

Recto 6–7. Sweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue, 155, aptlytranslates: ‘This person was kidnapped’, adding in n. 29 that‘kidnapping free people to sell them as slaves was commonduring the unrest at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty’, referringto C. Aldred in J. Ruffle, G.A. Gaballa and K.A. Kitchen, Glimpsesof Ancient Egypt: Studies in Honour of H.W. Fairman (Warminster,1979), 73. See also the reference to abducting a woman in P. PragNáprstek Museum 2886, vso 1: H.W. Fischer-Elfert, ‘Viehdiebstalim ramessidischen Hermopolis’, Annals of the Náprstek Museum24 (Prague, 2003), 73–87 (esp. 81–82).

Recto 7. For the pregnant use of aDA, ‘false’, ‘it is not true!’, cf. P.Mayer A, 5, 18 and P. BM EA 75020, rto 8 (see below); see alsoSweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue, 187–188.

Recto 8. The title Hry-mrw (‘master of serfs’) is translated by R.Navailles and F. Neveu, GM 103 (1988), p. 55, as ‘responsable dumain-d’oeuvre servile’ and by H. Satzinger, in Essays inEgyptology in honor of Hans Goedicke (San Antonio, 1994), 233, as‘Arbeitskräftevermittler’.

The personal name Ix-tr-pAy is not recorded in Ranke, PN, orThirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’. Compare for this type of name

also its female counterpart Ix-tAy, Ranke, PN II, 267,9 (referring toCvv

erný, LRL, 8,14).

Recto 10. On the 6whr or thr-troops and their commanders, seeD. Kessler, SAK 2 1975), 103–134. The conclusions by A.M. Gnirs,Militär und Gesellschaft. Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte des NeuenReiches (SAGA 17; Heidelberg, 1996), 58–59, regarding an earlyappearance of these foreign military troops are still based on a19th dynasty dating for this letter, and are therefore no longervalid (see Commentary below).

The personal name Iwhpy is not recorded in Ranke, PN, orThirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’; it may well be of Libyan origin,but does not appear in the list compiled by J. Yoyotte,‘Anthroponymes d’origine libyenne dans les documentségyptiens’, GLECS 8 (1960), 22–24.

Recto 10–11. For Swyty.w under the command of an aA-n-thr, seethe group of these agents mentioned in P. BM EA 10068, rto 4,4–10 and 16, and the remarks by M. Römer, SAK 19 (1992), 282.

Recto 12. nH/nHt, ‘to wish, desire, request’, can in certain contextsmean ‘to believe’ or ‘to trust’, like the Coptic naHte, cf. M. Gilula,JNES 36 (1977), 295–296; J. C

vv

erný, Coptic Etymological Dictionary(Cambridge, 1976), 188; R. Jasnow, A Late Period Hieratic WisdomText (P. Brooklyn 47.218.135) (SAOC 52; Chicago, 1992), 68, 3/11 n.O and 71, 3/19 n. CC; for an 18th dynasty example see also R.J.Demarée, in E. Teeter and J.A. Larson (eds.), Gold of Praise.Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente (SAOC 58;Chicago, 1999), 80 n. z.

Recto 13. Although his personal name Iw=f-n-Imn is notuncommon in this period, the scribe mentioned here may well beidentical with the colleague of the necropolis scribe Dhutmose,for whom see C

vv

erný, Workmen, 193–194.

Recto 13–14. Lit. ‘It was just like those many others who werecarried off that your maidservant has been carried off’. Theproblem of translating second tenses into modern languages iswell-known and was already touched upon by H. Polotsky,Egyptian Tenses (Jerusalem, 1975), §§18 and 21. Sweeney,Correspondence and Dialogue, 26, n. 168, rightfully considers thisphrase to be a quotation from a letter.

Recto 15–16. Another second tense leading to a literaltranslation: ‘It was while I was inside … that some came and took…’.

Verso 6–7. Translation according to Edwards, who devoted aspecial note to this use of the conjunctive in MDAIK 37 (1980),135–137. In this he was followed by R. Navailles and F. Neveu, GM103 (1988), 59. Wente, LRL, 130, clearly opted for the conjunctivecontinuing the negative imperative, which seems equallypossible–hence his translation: ‘Don’t forget them and disobey(me), or your misdemeanors will get the better of you’.

In view of the determinative, the writing of the verb btn, ‘todisobey’, seems to have been influenced by that of the verb ba,which has a similar notion (cf. below, the note to P. BM EA 75020,rto 8). Therefore the horizontal stroke under the b would not bethe result of the scribe’s carelessly writing the negative particlebn, but more likely the a in ba.


Commentary

The early history of the case described in this letter seems clear:Wenenamun had bought a slave-woman and her son fromIkhterpay. He then entrusted them to Amenkhau to sell them.Amenkhau offers them to Pamershenuty and Hori, but they havesomehow found out that there is something wrong with themerchandise and they demand that Wenenamun and Amenkhaushould settle this matter with Ikhterpay. Instead they went toAmenkhau’s superior Iuhepy, who decided the slave-woman andher son were to stay entrusted with Amenkhau.

Now the main reason for the present message by Wenenamunis that Amenkhau has written him about the information byEfnamun that the slave-woman was abducted/stolen.Wenenamun replies that once while he was absent she was stolenby people who said that she was their sister. Therefore Amenkhauis now urged to find out if this is right, and if so, he has to go toIkhterpay and get satisfactory replacement.

This text has become the subject of several subsequentstudies, particularly from a grammatical point of view. Importantimprovements to the understanding of its grammar and contentswere proposed by R. Navailles and F. Neveu, ‘Une ténébreuseaffaire: P. Bankes I’, GM 103 (1988), 51–60. Illuminatingcomments were also presented by H. Satzinger in his‘Übersetzungsvorschläge und Anmerkungen zu einigenneuägyptischen Texten’, in B.M. Bryan and D. Lorton (eds.),Essays in Egyptology in honor of Hans Goedicke (San Antonio,1994), 233–235.

Mainly on the basis of stylistic features such as the wording ofsome of the formulae (i.e. the criteria formulated by Bakir in hisEpistolography, 47, 62–4 and 90), Edwards, JEA 68 (1982), 127,was inclined to date this letter to the 19th or early 20th dynasty.Without specifying his reasons, Wente, LRL, 129, ascribed it to the20th dynasty. After his study of the grammatical criteria and theoccurrence of the introductory formula NN Hr nD-xrt NN and theformula invocating the gods built on causative imperatives, J.Winand, RdE 46 (1995), 198, concluded that it was necessary toreconsider Edwards’ dating of the letter and he proposed a datebetween the reigns of Ramesses V and Ramesses IX. Similarly,according to the dating criteria established by S.I. Groll,‘Diachronic Grammar as a Means of Dating Undated Texts’,Scripta Hierosolymitana 28 (1982), 11–104, the letter was writtenin the late 20th dynasty, since most of the prepositions areomitted. All these views are corroborated by D. Sweeney in hertranslation of and commentary on the core of this letter, inCorrespondence and Dialogue, 175–178.

In fact, both formulae used as criteria for an earlier dating byBakir did not become ‘obsolete’ during the 20th-dynasty at all. Tothe twelve 20th dynasty examples of the formula NN Hr nD-xrt NNlisted by J. Winand in RdE 46 (1995), 198 (quoted after KRI, V 567;VI 156; 254,6 and 14; 267,15; 268,11; 673,13; 674,2; VII 322; 355; 383;398), one may add: O. Ashmolean Museum (Gardiner) 153, 1(unpub.); O. Ashmolean Museum (Gardiner) 761, 1 (unpub.); O.Berlin P 14353, rto 1 (unpub.); O. Berlin P 15295, rto 1 (unpub.); O.DeM 128, 1; O. DeM 322, 1; O. IFAO 1328, 1 (unpub.); O. Leipzig 5, 1(= C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO 36, 3); P. DeM 3, rto 1; P. DeM 8, vso 1–2;P. Louvre E 27151, rto 1 (cf. JEA 64 (1978), 85 with pl. XIV–XIVA)and P. Louvre E 32309, rto 1 (unpub.), all dating to the mid-20thdynasty. These examples convincingly prove that – pace Bakir –this formula was very much alive in the 20th dynasty. Moreover,it still occurs in two Late Ramesside Letters: the ‘ghost’ letter P.

BM EA 75025 (see below) and P. Rifaud D (Y. Koenig in CRIPEL 10[1988], 57–60). The formula was only used in letters whensender and addressee were of equal rank, and since this is seldomthe case in the Late Ramesside correspondence, its rareoccurrence is easily explained.

In view of the above, this letter may very well date to the sameperiod as all other Late Ramesside documents of the Bankespapyri. Further, although at first sight a direct connection withthe Dhutmose-Butehamun archive seems to be lacking, the lettermay yet belong to this corpus if the scribe Efnamun mentioned inrto 13 is to be identified with the necropolis scribe Efnamun whowas a well-known colleague of Dhutmose.

BM EA 75016

Registration number 1996-2-17.2A small sheet of coarse quality papyrus, max. 12cm high and max.21cm wide. The recto (V/H) is of a greyish brown colour,smudged as a result of carelessly washed out earlier writing. Theverso (H/V) has a brighter orange-brown colour and also showsclear signs of being palimpsest. Top recto = bottom verso. A sheetjoin, c. 2cm wide, runs vertically almost through the middle of thepapyrus.

The papyrus is obviously incomplete at the top of the recto,has several big gaps, and all borders are broken off. A few smallfragments have been wrongly placed by the 19th-centuryrestorer, a situation which is difficult to remedy due to the fragilecondition of the papyrus.

The surviving part is obviously only the lower section of theoriginal document. In its present state the recto bears seven linesof writing, the first of which is represented by only a few traces.Quite probably the present line 7 was the last line on the recto.The verso bears five lines. Any address would have been writtennear the bottom of the now lost lower part of the verso.

In Bankes’ alphabetical numbering this papyrus is labelled ‘F’.Just like the preceding number, it was part of the first group to berediscovered in the library at Kingston Lacy in the 1960s and isalmost certainly the document described as ‘an incomplete NewKingdom letter’ by I.E.S. Edwards, JEA 68 (1982), 126, n. 1.

Translation

Recto (Plate 5)1 (… traces only …)2 [it was the p]oliceman Nakht(?) (who) came to take away

this field of the temple of Sobek which I hold’. So he said tome. And …

3 his commission was with him. It was from his father that hereceived [it]. And he …

4 in it(?) his harvest in/with it, year after year(?). If it was small5 what made for him the inundation of the year and he did not

find6 his supply(?) of (the) field, he went to take away the

supply(?) of this foreigner.7 When my letter reaches you, you shall reprove/penalize this

little boy.

Verso (Plate 6)1 And you shall remove his … foreigner(?). And you shall not

[…]2 …. repulse(?) him because of his trespassing(?). And if you

will speak(?)


Demarée

3 with him… . Indeed, my superior has placed a load of(?) 4 grain(?) …this(?) year. I am sending/have sent (this) to let

you know.5 Farewell.

Notes

Recto 2. I hesitatingly read the name of the policeman as Nxt, acommon name in the New Kingdom, cf. Ranke, PN I, 209,16.

The scribe forgot to write the important element r nHm beforetAy AHt and, realizing his omission, added it above the line. Thiscorrection, together with a similar case in the next line and the‘nervous’ writing-style of the whole letter, seem clear signs of thescribe’s irritation or haste.

For the notion of ‘taking away a field’, see P. Berlin 8523, rto8–9: m ir nHm tAy AHt, cf. Allam, HOP I, pl. 76.

AHt, ‘field, holding’, is clearly feminine here, as originally. It issometimes treated as masculine, cf. P. Leiden I 370, rto 9 (LRL,11,3); O. IFAO 855, 1 and P. BM EA 75018, rto 5 (see below); seealso Alan Gardiner, RdE 6 (1950), 119–120.

nty Xr=i, ‘which I hold’. For this meaning of Xr, cf. P. Lansing, 9,1: iw=k Xr iAwt wsr, ‘you hold a powerful office’, and in general Wb.III, 389, 13–14. Usually a AHt is m-Drt, ‘in the charge of (someone)’,e.g. P. BM EA 10412, vso 4 (LRL, 56,4) and P. Berlin 8523, rto 9(Allam, HOP I, pl. 76); cf. also Sally L.D. Katary, in: Deir el-Medinain the Third Millennium AD (Leiden, 2000), 184–187.

As for ‘the temple of Sobek’, the text provides no informationabout its location. In view, however, of the Theban origin of ourletter, it was most probably one of the important cult centres ofthis deity in the Theban region, either Sumenu (4wmnw) orImiotru (Iw-m-itrw); cf. Gardiner, AEO II, 20*–21* and 275*.

The grammatical construction starting at the end of this lineis unclear. I propose to read iw wn pAy=f sHn Xry=f , ‘for hiscommission was with him’, but the traces at the end of line 2 seemto indicate that there was more than just iw, although there ishardly enough space left for a longer construction.

Recto 3. As in the preceding line, the scribe forgot to write aword, here sHnw, and added it above the line.

iw i.iri=f Ssp=f n pAy=f it. The second tense stresses the fact thatit was his father who gave him his commission, his paid job.

Recto 4. m rnp.t m rnp.t, ‘year by year’, cf. Wb 2, 430,8:‘alljährlich’; compare the more common expression rnp.t n rnp.tin e.g. P. Cairo 58057, 9 (KRI I, 238,15) and, also in an agriculturalcontext, ‘the Legal Text of Mose’, N 29 and N 32 (G.A. Gaballa, TheMemphite Tomb-Chapel of Mose [Warminster, 1977], 24 and pls.LXI, LXII).

Recto 5. pA 1apy n tA rnp.t, a clear reference to ‘the yearlyinundation’, but the expression is not known to me elsewhere.

Recto 6. Xr.t, ‘belongings, supply, ration’, in the present contextmeaning ‘yield, produce’ (see also Meeks, AL 1 [1977], 295: ‘lerevenu’).

Recto 7. The verb saHa, ‘to cause to stand’, is commonly usedmeaning ‘to reprove’, ‘to correct’, cf. Wb. IV, 55,3–6. For the senseof ‘to penalize’, cf. Gardiner, Wilbour II, 57, n. 2; or ‘to accuse’, cf.Caminos, LEM, 274 (referring to P. BM EA 10403, 3,15; but thesame meaning also in P. BM EA 10052, 8,22; 12,27; 15,2; 15, 8 and P.

Mayer A, 4,14; 8,24) and H.-W. Fischer-Elfert, MiscellaneaAegyptologica (Festschrift W. Helck; Hamburg, 1989), 57 (P.Berlin 14384a, vso 1).

Verso 2. dgs literally means ‘to tread’, here ‘to trespass’ as in, e.g.P. BM EA 10052, rto 1,2 (cf. Peet, Tomb-Robberies, pl. XXV).

Verso 2–3. xr inn iw=k iri md.t im=f, ‘And if you will dispute withhim’. For inn with the affirmative third future as a clause ofcondition, cf. C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 563; F. Neveu, Le particulexr en néo-égyptien (Paris, 2001), 94, quotes an example with anegative third future (P. BM EA 10416, vso 10). Since md.tsometimes denotes a ‘pleading, law-suit, legal case’ (cf. R.A.Caminos, A Tale of Woe [Oxford, 1977], 26–27), the phrase may betranslated as ‘And if you enter into a law-suit with him’.Alternatively, the expression iri mdt im may be considered avariant of mdw m/im, ‘to dispute’, ‘to litigate’, cf. A.G. McDowell,Jurisdiction in the Workmen’s Community of Deir el-Medina(Leiden, 1990), 20–21.

Verso 3. After xr inn + third future as protasis, the continuationclearly demands as apodosis an imperative i.hAb n=i, ‘write to me’,although the form of the suffix i beneath the n looks more like a k.

Verso 5. The classical terminal formula nfr snb=k is used in lettersto persons of equal rank, or to superiors, see Bakir,Epistolography, 65–66.

Commentary

In this extremely difficult fragmentary letter we are dealing withat least seven persons, almost all anonymous, at least in thepreserved part of the text:A the sender (‘me’ in rto 2, ‘my’ in rto 7, ‘I’ in vso 4, ‘my’ in vso 3) B the addressee (‘you’ in rto 7, vso 1–4)C a man holding a field of the Sobek-temple (‘I’ and ‘he’ in rto 2,

‘his’, ‘him’ and ’he’ in rto 3–6, ‘this young man’ in rto 7, ‘his’ invso 1–2)

D the father of this man (rto 3)E a policeman (rto 2; Nakht(?))F a foreigner (rto 6)G the superior of the addressee (vso 3).

After the now lost address and introductory phrases, Aapparently started to explain to B the causes of a dispute betweenC and F concerning a plot of land. So much is clear that B isordered upon receipt of this letter to take appropriate measuresagainst C.

An explanation for the presence of this poorly preserved textamong the papers of Dhutmose (see also below, the introductionto P. BM EA 75023 and 75024) may well be found in this scribe’sactivities in connection with the grain collection, as amplydescribed in the Turin Taxation Papyrus. Several entries in thatlengthy document written by Dhutmose bear witness to hiscontacts with personnel of the temple of Sobek in Imiotru, nearGebelein, e.g., rto 2,1–2 (Gardiner, RAD, 36,10–13) and rto 5,8–9(Gardiner, RAD, 42,8–10); cf. also D. Valbelle, Les Ouvriers de laTombe (BdE 96; Cairo, 1985), 151, n. 12.

BM EA 75017

Registration number 1996-2-17.3A small sheet of average quality papyrus, on both sides of a


(P. Brooklyn 47.218.135) (SAOC 52; Chicago, 1992), 109, 5/17 n.FF.Compare also Coptic dwte: J. C

vv

erný, Coptic EtymologicalDictionary (Cambridge, 1976), 320.

BM EA 75018

Registration number 1996-2-17.4A sheet of medium-quality papyrus, on both sides of analternating dark and medium brown colour, and measuring20cm high and 13.4cm wide. The papyrus is almost complete,except for a few tiny strips at the right edge and some small partsmissing at the left edge and the lower left corner of the recto;moreover there are several holes as a result of folding. Accordingto the usual practice, the letter had been folded from the top ofthe verso outwards. Some folds are still recognisable by thebreaks they have caused. The recto (V/H) bears 10 lines, and theverso (H/V) 10 lines including the address at the bottom. Toprecto = bottom verso.

Due to the coarse structure of the material, the surface hassuffered from abrasion and the ink has come off or has becomepale in several places. The effects of this process and the missingfragments have resulted in the loss of writing in all lines on therecto and lines 3 and 6–10 on the verso.

There are no traces of earlier writing, i.e. the papyrus is not apalimpsest. No sheet join can be discerned.

Translation

Recto (Plates 9 and 10)1 (From) the chantress of Amun-Re, king of the gods,

Henutnetjer[u]2 to my(?) sister Tadiese: In life, prosperity and health, in the

favou[r of Amun]-Re,

3 king of the gods, my good lord, every day. And further: I(?)have sent [to you?] P[a-]

4 tjauemdimehy(em)hab. I(?) caused to come(?) […]5 to register(?) this field where the […] When he reaches6 you, you shall give him seed. And you shall give him one khar

of emmer7 as a ration. And you shall cause that it will be made for him as

bread. [And you] 8 shall not neglect him in any matter which he will9 (do?) there in Ne/Thebes. Really, he does not know(?)

people(?) […]10 […] And you shall have a look at the 5 measures of yarn

which are with […

Verso (Plates 11 and 12)1 …] together with the others which are with Semen-2 sekheru. You shall hand them over to ‘Anatem-3 hab together with Qed-Hathor. And you shall cause4 them to be made into clothes for these 3 woman-servants.5 Indeed, (it) was not yet done yesterday (for?) those who are

with me. (And?) Pa- 6 sebty[…?]7 enclosure(?). And you shall not disregard(?) […]8 to let them be made as goods(?) for me(?) […]9 here(?). Let them be made of wool. Farewell.10 Address: It is for Tadiese.

greyish brown colour and measuring 7cm high and max. 21cmwide. A sheet join can be observed in the middle of the papyrus.Two folds are discernible and as a result the papyrus was brokeninto three horizontal strips of c. 2.2cm.

The papyrus is almost complete with only slight damage onthe left border, resulting in the loss of writing at the end of line 1and a small piece missing at the end of line 3 of the recto. Therecto (V/H) bears four lines and the verso (H/V) only one line:the address. Top recto = top verso. The position of the addressindicates that it was written on the second fold from the bottomof the verso, according to the procedure described by C

vv

erný, LRL,XIX.

In Bankes’ alphabetical numbering this papyrus is labelled ‘D’and it carries a note in his handwriting: ‘I believe this to be intire.There is writing on the back’. This papyrus was part of the firstgroup to be rediscovered at Kingston Lacy in the 1960s, and waspublished by I.E.S. Edwards as ‘P. Bankes II’ in JEA 68 (1982),132–133 with fig. 3 and pl. XIII. A translation was also included inWente, Letters, 203 no. 330.

Translation

Recto (Plate 7)1 (To the) scribe Butehamun. As soon as this letter for

Peter(i)payneb reaches you, you shall look at [the]2 letter which has been brought for Peter(i)payneb, and you

shall take it and read it out to him3 and you shall take it again and you shall deposit it in your box,

and you shall tell him the words,4 they being very penetrating.

Verso (Plate 8)

Address

(From) the scribe of the great and noble Necropolis Tjaroy to (thescribe) of the Necropolis Butehamun.

Notes

Recto 1–2. The man Ptr(=i)-pAy=i-nb is not known from any otherdocument in the Late Ramesside Letters. His name is notrecorded in Ranke, PN, or Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’.

Recto 3. An afdt-box is frequently used to store documents, cf. e.g.… nAy=k sS.w nty m tAy=k afdt in C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO, 75, 9, and inan unpublished fragment of a necropolis journal in the Turincollection we read (in a broken context): … afdt sS.w n pA imy-rn[=f]…, ‘... box of documents of the name list …’. In O. Louvre698 (Butehamun’s Letter to the Dead, C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO, 80),rto 1, the tomb as a receptacle for petitions to the underworld iscalled tA afdt Spsy n Wsir, ‘the noble (mail)-box of Osiris’,comparable with the ðýîéò, ‘(deposit)-box’, in Greek magicaltexts, cf. R.K. Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian MagicalPractice (SAOC 54, Chicago, 19952), 181; P.J. Frandsen, The Letterto Ikhtay’s Coffin, in: R.J. Demarée and A. Egberts (eds.), VillageVoices (Leiden, 1992), 34.

Recto 3–4. nA mdw.t iw=w Ddt sp-sn was translated by Edwards as‘the very perspicacious words’ or literally ‘the words, they beingvery penetrating’, and by Wente as ‘such words as get right to thepoint’. For Ddt, ‘to stare, glance piercingly, pierce and penetrate’,cf. Wb. V, 636,1, and R. Jasnow, A Late Period Hieratic Wisdom Text


Demarée

Notes

Recto 1. Both title and name of the sender are very common inthe late Ramesside Period, but this 1nw.t-nTr.w is not known tome from any other source. For her name, cf. Ranke, PN I, 243,25.

Recto 2. ‘My sister’ is the most probable reading. Cf. O. Berlin P10618+O. Glasgow D.1925.87, rto 1: NN Dd.n sn.t=i NN, A.G.McDowell, Hieratic Ostraca in the Hunterian Museum Glasgow(Oxford, 1993), 28; O. DeM 177, rto 1: NN Dd.n sn.t=i NN; and O.DeM 132,1–2: Dd.n NN n sn(.t)=i NN. In another letter a womanaddresses ‘her sister’: O. Prague 1826 (C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO 70.2),1–2: Dd.n NN n sn(.t)=st NN.

The female name 6A-di-As.t, ‘Tadiese’, is not known from otherdocuments in the corpus of the Late Ramesside Letters. The nameis recorded in Ranke, PN I, 372,13 as ‘spät’, but this type ofpersonal name was already en vogue during the late RamessidePeriod, cf. e.g. 6A-i.di-Imn, the owner of an amuletic papyrus fromDeir el-Medina, published by Y. Koenig, BIFAO 99 (1999),259–281, and 6A-di.t-Mw.t, KRI VI, 850, 1–8.

Recto 3. For the discussion on whether ra nb refers to the timewhen the prayer is uttered, or just marks the division between theopening blessing of the letter and the text proper, see D. Sweeney,JEA 84 (1998), 104 n. a, and the earlier comments by A.H.Gardiner, RdÉ 6 (1950), 126 n. a.

The partly effaced and damaged group after ra nb most likelyrepresents an abbreviated writing of Hna Dd. This, in turn, isclearly followed by a writing of the verb wDi, ‘to send’.

Recto 3–4. PA-TAw-m-di-mHy.t-m-Hb occurs as an alternativewriting for 7Aw-m-di-mHy.t-m-Hb, cf. Ranke, PN I, 193,12 and II,368. For this type of personal name cf. also PA-TAw-m-di-Imn,Ranke PN I, 121,9 and II, 355 (more examples given by Y. Koenig inHommages à Serge Sauneron I [Cairo, 1979], 202); PA-TAw-m-di-Mwt, Ranke PN I, 121,10 and II, 355; and PA-TAw-m-di-2nsw, P.Turin 1887, rto 2,4 (Gardiner, RAD, 76,7).

This man may very well be identical with the wab-priest 7Aw-n-mHy.t-(m)-Hb, who is known from P. Leiden I 370, rto 7 (the -n-was omitted by C

vv

erný in LRL, 9,10). The same person probablyappears in P. BM EA 75021, rto 2, 5 and 6 (see below). Both thesedocuments relate his activities in the domain of agriculturalaffairs, just as in the present letter.

Recto 4–5. The damaged writing and the lacunae at the end ofthese lines seriously hamper the understanding of the text. Of thefirst groups in rto 5 only the lower signs are partly preserved,which may possibly represent the remains of the final elements ofa verb like spXr, ‘to register’.

In view of the first group (r=T ?) and the continuation in rto 6,the damaged text at the end of rto 5 is most likely to be read wnn=f(Hr) spr, ‘When he reaches (you)’. For this temporal wnn+firstpresent followed by a third future, see now J.-M. Kruchten, ZÄS124 (1997), 68.

Recto 6. At the beginning of this line there is a tiny misplacedfragment sticking onto the surface above the suffix .i; mostprobably this patch covers the expected preposition r.iw=T (r) di.t n=f, ‘you shall give him’, is a third future, which isfollowed here and in the next lines by a series of conjunctiveformations.

Recto 7. diw, ‘rations’, is of course the common term for themonthly wages of the workmen of Deir el-Medina, but it is alsoused, as here, to denote the ration or wages for one person; seee.g. P. BM EA 10326, vso 6 (LRL, 19,9).

mtw=k di.t iry.tw=f n=f, ‘and you shall cause that it will be madefor him’. For the passive non-initial prospective after forms of rdi,see C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 462, and Winand, Études, 321–324. Itis used several times in this letter, e.g. vso 3–4, 8 and 9.

Recto 7–8. mtw=T tm nni n=f. For this exhortation, cf. e.g. P. LeidenI 370, vso 17 (LRL, 11,14) and P. BM EA 10326, vso 1 (LRL, 19,2). Theurge ‘not to neglect matters or persons’ regularly occurs inperiphrastic requests in the Late Ramesside Letters, see Sweeney,Correspondence and Dialogue, 47 (sub d.).

Recto 9. The first groups in this line are almost completelyeffaced, but they must contain the verb of the affirmative thirdfuture formation starting in the preceding line after the relativeadjective nty, i.e. nty iw=f r [iri=w/Ssp=w?].

yA iw bw rx=f rmT […]. The presence of the dependent iw isslightly surprising, but otherwise the construction after the non-enclitic particle yA follows the rules of the standard grammar, cf.Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 146 and 320. In view of the remarks byWinand, Études, 198–199, the bw sDm=f formation here wouldseem to represent somewhat of an archaism.

Recto 10. The first group in this line is unintelligible, but the textmost probably continued with a following conjunctiveconstruction: mtw=T ptr. For ptr with the meaning ‘look after’,‘have a look at’, cf. LRL, 10,15 and 61,6.

nwt, ‘yarn’, cf. Janssen, Commodity Prices, 436; see also O.Petrie 37 (C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO 29.3), vso 3 and P.BM EA 10326 vso6 (LRL, 19,9: measures of yarn, ‘fabrics’, to be woven by a MedjayKasa), where – as in the present instance – no indication of thequantity of the measure is given.

The name of the person possessing this amount of yarn waswritten at the end of this line on the now missing fragment of thedocument.

Verso 1. The first groups in this line are almost completelyeffaced, but they must have contained a female name in view ofthe remaining determinative. The length of the lacuna at the endof rto 10 and the available space at the beginning of vso 1 is evenenough for two personal names.

nA kt-xt, ‘the others’, i.e. ‘other measures of yarn’.

Verso 1–2. The personal name 4mn-sxr.w is not recorded inRanke, PN, or Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’.

Verso 2–3. The personal name ant-m-Hb is not recorded in Ranke,PN, but see M. Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique III’, RdÉ 34(1982–1983), 108. For other theophoric names composed with thename of the goddess ‘Anat, cf. Ranke, PN I, 69,15 and II, 272,9–11.

Verso 3. The female name Od-1w.t-Hr seems to be unrecorded sofar, but see e.g. Ranke PN I, 337,4: Od-PtH, ’Ptah schafft’, and idem337,5: Od-nmH.w, ‘der die Geringere schafft?’.

Verso 4. bAk.w st-Hm.wt, ‘female servants’. For the use of the


compound st-Hm.t to express gender, see e.g. Urk. IV, 1305, 7: mswwrw st-Hm.t, ‘female children of princes’ and Wb IV, 527, 2: Sri.t st-Hm.t, ‘daughter’. Cf. also A. Erman, Neuägyptische Grammatik(Leipzig, 1933), § 129 and Demotic iH.(t) s.Hm.t, ‘cow’, and nA ntr.ws.Hm.t.w, ‘the goddesses’: W. Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar(Copenhagen, 1954), 307; and Coptic bwki nsHimi, ‘femaleservants’: W.E. Crum, Coptic Dictionary (Oxford, 1962), 30.

The issue of clothes to servants is also mentioned in another20th dynasty letter, P. DelM III, rto 7–8, cf. J. C

vv

erný/G. Posener,Papyrus hiératiques de Deir el-Médineh I (Documents de Fouilles,T. VIII; Cairo, 1978), 13–14. The workmen of Deir el-Medinaregularly received clothes as part of their wages, cf. Janssen,Commodity Prices, 492; and D. Valbelle, Les Ouvriers de la Tombe(BdE 96, Cairo, 1985), 152.

Verso 5. yA bw iri.tw … sf (n) nA nty dy m-di=i. For the groupbetween the verbal construction and the adverb, I can onlysuggest a reading tr, ‘time’, or At, ‘time’, but I am not convinced.The meaning of the sentence seems clear though. The verbalform might be bw + passive perfect without subject.

Verso 5–6. In view of its position in the new clause, PA-sbty-[…?]is almost certainly a masculine name. It is not recorded in Ranke,PN, or Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’, but see e.g. PAy=i-sbty in P.BM EA 10068, rto 4,12 (Peet, Tomb-Robberies, 90); PA-sbti in O.Cairo JE 96318 (= O. Cairo prov.nr. 209, unpub., a list of workmenof the mid-20th dynasty), and PAy=i-sbty-WAs.t in P. Milan E0.9.40127, vso I, 8, cf. F. Tiradritti, Sesh (Milan, 1999), 133.

Verso 6–7. The text of vso 6 is almost completely illegible, mainlydue to the damages as a result of an original fold. The sentenceclearly ends with the word xtm at the beginning of vso 7, but Ihave no suggestion as to what may be the precise meaning of thextm, ‘enclosure’, here. A reference to the famous xtm n pA xr seemsunlikely; for this institution see now G. Burkard, ‘…die imDunkeln sieht man nicht’, in: H. Guksch, E. Hofmann and M.Bommas (eds), Grab und Totenkult im Alten Ägypten (Munich,2003), 133–136; and idem, MDAIK 59 (2003), 37–38.

Verso 7. The small loose fragment at the end of this line hasprobably been mounted upside down, but even in its correctposition it hardly permits a trustworthy transcription. In view ofwhat is said further on in vso 9, the expected object of the phrase‘you shall not disregard(?)’ is evidently a plural: ‘textiles’ or even‘clothes’.

Verso 8. The writing in this line has extremely blurred. Mytranscription, and accordingly my translation, are thereforepartly guessed. Hnw may stand for ‘task’, ‘commission’, as in P.Turin 1975, vso 3 (LRL, 37,11), or more generally ‘goods’.

(Note that the word Hnw listed by the WB III, 104, 6 as ‘ArtKleidungstück’ does not seem to exist and is based on a faultyreading of sSr-nsw, ‘royal linen’, Pleyte-Rossi 60,10, = P. Turin1887, rto 2,10 = Gardiner, RAD, 77, 1)

Verso 9. For Snw, ‘wool’, as a garment material, see Caminos,LEM, 4, in a note to P. Bologna 1094, 1,1, and referring to P. LeydenI 352, 11 (J. C

vv

erný, JEA 23, 186) and Gardiner, RAD, 22, 4; cf. ingeneral also A. Lucas and J.R. Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materialsand Industries (London, 1962/1989), 146–147 and Janssen,

Commodity Prices, 443–444.Nfr snb-T is the classical terminal formula used in letters to

persons of equal rank or to superiors, for which see Bakir,Epistolography, 65–66.

Commentary

Since the names of both correspondents of this letter,Henutnetjeru and Tadiese, are so far unknown from the LateRamesside Letters, there seems at first sight to be no directrelation to that corpus. However, if the Patjauemdimehytemhabmentioned in rto 3–4 is identical with the wab-priestTjauenmehytemhab known from P. Leiden I 370 and P. BM EA75021, this man’s activities may well constitute the link betweenour letter and the other Late Ramesside Letters.

Although damaged and incomplete, this document is awelcome and interesting addition to the as yet small corpus ofletters between female correspondents. According to thedistribution list presented by D. Sweeney in her ‘Women’scorrespondence from Deir el-Medineh’, Atti VI CongressoInternazionale di Egittologia II (Turin, 1993), 523ff., 66 letters outof the 470 known from the village were sent by, or addressed to,women. Of this number only 6 were exchanged between women.As well as these 6, all of which are on ostraca, and the Bankespapyrus, I know of one other such letter in the Turin Museumcollection; this is an unnumbered, unpublished papyrus, derivingfrom Schiaparelli’s 1908 excavations at Deir el-Medina.

The subject matter of the Bankes letter falls under the last ofSweeney’s four broad groups (Atti VI Congresso …, 524–525):‘transactions, confrontations, family matters and errands’. In herdefinition ‘errands’ are described as ‘… any arrangement whichdoes not require payment and is not linked with family matters.Usually the sender asks the recipient to do something for her’.

In spite of the problems in reading due to the lacunae and theeffaced writing in several places, it is clear that the ladyHenutnetjeru is asking her correspondent Tadiese to take care of,broadly speaking, two commissions: assisting and cooperating inagricultural matters, and looking after or organizing themanufacture of clothes. Active participation by women in thehandling of affairs is sometimes mentioned in the Deir el-Medinasources, see e.g. J. Toivari-Viitala, Women at Deir el-Medina(Leiden, 2001), 235–237. One well-known example is the activitiesby the lady Henuttawy on behalf of the necropolis scribeNesamunemope, as described in P. Geneva D 191 (LRL, 57–60; cf.JEA 80, 208–212), dating to the same period as this letter andoriginating from the same community. For the role of women inagricultural affairs, see also S. Allam, ‘Implications in the HieraticP. Berlin 8523’, in B.M. Bryan and D. Lorton (eds.), Essays inEgyptology in honor of Hans Goedicke (San Antonio, 1994), 3–4.

With regard to the issue of female literacy, D. Sweeney, Atti VICongresso …, 526, concludes ‘women in Deir el-Medineh couldprobably cope with reading and/or writing a short letter onoccasion’, but ‘the evidence is inconclusive. Most of the letterscould have been written or read by the women themselves or by ascribe’. This topic was also touched upon by J.J. Janssen, ‘Literacyand Letters at Deir el-Medina’, in R.J. Demarée and A.E. Egberts(eds), Village Voices (Leiden, 1992), 89–90. To Janssen thecontents and the subject matters of the known letters suggest thatat least some women at Deir el-Medina were literate or semi-literate. One would like to agree with him, but one also has toadmit that final proof is still lacking, and unfortunately, this letter


Demarée

provides no conclusive evidence. The writing of the first personsuffix pronoun without a dot in rto 3 (pAy=i) may even be regardedas an indication that the scribe of the letter was a man, although adot is, of course, easily omitted. Otherwise the language of thetext shows no distinctive features, which would be in accordancewith the fact that there appears to have been no distinct ‘women’slanguage’, as noted by D. Sweeney, ‘Women and Language in theRamesside Period or, Why Women Don’t Say Please’, in C.J. Eyre(ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress ofEgyptologists. Cambridge, 3–9 September 1995 (Leuven, 1998),1109–1117.

BM EA 75019+10302

On the original frame of BM EA 10302: ‘Salt 1821’ and the number8/A.131.BM EA 75019 Registration number 1996-2-17.5When I first set eyes upon the Bankes portion (P. BM EA 75019) ofthis papyrus, I was immediately struck by the characteristic boldhandwriting which I remembered having seen not long before,although I was uncertain where. While checking somepublications of Late Ramesside Letters, I soon recognized the onethat I had seen, in Jac J. Janssen’s Late Ramesside Letters andCommunications as P. BM EA 10302 (his no. VII, on pls. 23 and 24).Since this very fragmentary papyrus contained the ends of lines,while the Bankes papyrus clearly showed the beginnings of lines,there was a possibility of a join. It took some time, however, tounderstand the original appearance of the complete document,for while the Bankes papyrus was in reasonably good condition,the strips of the other part had not been mounted in the correctorder (which is quite understandable when one has to work withhalf lines of writing on loose fragments). The first clue wasjoining the start of the verb swr on one part with itsdeterminatives on the other (now in rto 9). Subsequently, somerearrangement of the separate strips resulted in joining the twohalves into one whole letter. A small, but not unimportant piecewas later identified among some loose Bankes fragments (then,in a separate frame, numbered BM EA 75022) and was added tothe top of the document.

The two ‘halves’ of this letter must have been bought in 1818separately by William Bankes and Henry Salt during their visit toThebes. The first half, P. BM EA 10302, already entered the BritishMuseum in 1821 as part of the collection of Henry Salt. The otherhalf, P. BM EA 75019, followed nearly two centuries later with theBankes collection.

Even in its present combined state, this large sheet of goodquality papyrus is still incomplete. Its measurements are 26.5cmhigh by 20.5cm wide. The left ‘half’ (BM EA 10302) is of a lightbrown colour, the right ‘half’ (BM EA 75019) is darker brown. Asseen from the recto, both at the top and at the lower left cornersubstantial fragments are missing. This may be explained partlyby the fact that after the letter had been rolled up, the top rectowas on the outside and therefore more vulnerable, but partly alsoas a result of careless handling following discovery or duringtransportation.

The recto (V/H) contains 14 lines of writing and the verso(H/V) 16 lines. Top recto = bottom verso. Since rto 1 is clearly thefirst line of the letter, not much is lost on the top of this side,which seems to imply that there was no address at the bottom ofthe verso. There are no signs of earlier writing, i.e. the documentis not a palimpsest. Two sheet joins are discernable. One runs

near the top, between lines 2 and 3 of the recto. The other is moreobvious and runs exactly at the bottom of the recto, beginning c.1–1.5cm above. The distance between the two joins is c. 22cm,which is slightly more than the average as reported by J. C

vv

erný,Paper and Books in Ancient Egypt (London, 1952), 8.

The missing fragments are responsible for a severe loss to thetext in lines 1–3 and 13–14 on the recto, and lines 1 and 13–16 onthe verso. Smaller losses can be observed in lines 10–12 on therecto, and lines 2–3 and 10–12 on the verso.

Four small additional fragments certainly belong to thisdocument, but their exact position remains uncertain.

According to the usual practice, the letter had been foldedfrom the top of the verso outwards. Sixteen folds can berecognised, the strips increasing in height from the bottom rectoto the top. The sheet had also been folded double, but not quitethrough the middle, as proven by traces of a break at c. 9cm fromthe left-hand border; this resulted in the later division of thedocument into two halves acquired by different buyers.

Translation

Recto (Plates 13 and 14)1 [Fan-bearer on the King’s] right, royal scribe, general [… to

… In life, prosperity and health, and in the favour of Amun-Re king of the gods.]

2 […] I say to Pre-Harakhte [when he rises and sets, to give youlife, prosperity and health,]

3 a long lifetime, a great old age and to give you [very manyfavours before NN …]

4 To wit. I have sent to you this messenger of mine. I caused tocome to you another messenger

5 of mine at the end of summer(?), and you did not cause himto come (back) quickly. When my

6 letter reaches you, you will dispatch this messenger of minequickly. Do not let him linger

7 at all, (after) he has reached the place where you are, and youcaused to be brought to me all about which I have written toyou.

8 You caused to be brought to me the rr-bracelet of gold, beingfine. And you shall cause to be brought to me

9 a Tbw-cup of silver from which I will drink. And you shall causeto be brought to me

10 the smooth clothes, good ones. And you shall cause to bebrought to me two spears […]

11 craftsman made those which the son of Penparei caused to bebrought to me. And it was he

12 who has caused to make them, their sty.w being of fine gold.And you shall cause to be brought [to me a]

13 chariot, a good one, together with its […]14 my messengers made it(?) there. You shall collect(?) […]

Verso (Plates 15 and 16)1 she being of/in/with some good ropes(?) and the […]2 bow-case(?) in it as well. And you shall cause to be brought to

me some clothes of mAmA-material [of which I said?]3 to you: ‘Give them’ previously when/while I was there. But

you said: ‘There are no bandages(?) […]4 If you will write again, I shall cause to have (it) brought to

you’. So you said. Let them be brought to me as good ones.And you shall cause

5 to be brought to me a quiver which can hold a hundred


arrows and which is together with her6 very good bow. And you shall cause to be brought to me a ship

fully loaded with all good things 7 (namely) wine, beer, meat, cakes (and) a load(?) of bread-

rations as well. For the one who used8 to dwell there(?) is the one from whom I received which is the

name of your ship, after he came to9 the place where I am. You know that the great ones of the

Meshwesh are guarding(?) 10 me daily. You shall cause to be filled one big(?) Dpr.t-jar with

sweet oil. And you shall cause to be brought11 it to me. After they told you my message, namely that it was

[…?] who went away [to?]12 look after the condition of chief Imtuy after [he(?)] came in

the company of Pharaoh, while (he?) was with(?) a hundred13 chariots […]14 […] the(?) […]15 […] to the fortress […]16 […] look/watch/supervise […]

Notes

Recto 1. According to the standard pattern of the introductoryformula in the Late Ramesside Letters – ‘sender – recipient’ (cf.Bakir, Epistolography, 51) – the remaining traces of the first lineallow the titles of the sender of this dispatch to be reconstructed.He certainly was a high-ranking official, as also becomesapparent from the ‘no-nonsense’ tone in the main body of theletter. In view of the sequence of the titles, TAy xw Hr wnmy nsw.timy-r mSa.w, the most likely candidate would be General Payankh,the well-known sender of many other letters in the LRL dossier.One has to admit, however, that the same sequence of titles is alsofound with his predecessor and opponent, Panehsy, cf. TurinTaxation Papyrus, rto 1,4 (Gardiner, RAD, 36,4).

Regrettably, the name of the intended recipient or addresseeis lost in the lacuna.

Recto 2. The length of the lacuna in this line would be enough toaccommodate for the reconstruction of the end of the god’s nameHarakhte, followed by the usual phrase iw=f wbn Htp imi n=k aHaw.For ‘Pre-Harakhte when he rises and sets’ in the complimentarypreamble of letters, cf. Bakir, Epistolography, 59 and P. Geneva D407, rto 3 (LRL, 14,3), P. Turin 54100, verso 8 (LRL, 26,1–2) and P.BM EA 10411, rto 3 (Janssen, LRLC, 12 and pls. 1–2).

Recto 4. For Sms.w, ‘messenger, letter-carrier’, see J. Cvv

erný, JEA33 (1945), 57 and J.J. Janssen, Two Ancient Egyptian Ship’s Logs(Leiden, 1961), 24. In the present context this meaning seemspreferable to the less specific ‘retainer’, cf. A.H. Gardiner, AncientEgyptian Onomastica II (Oxford, 1950), 80*; Caminos, LEM, 3;and P. BM EA 75015, rto 6 (see above).

Recto 5. m pA Smw mH, ‘in full summer’, ‘when the summer isfull/completed’. This expression is not known to me fromelsewhere, but one may compare the phrase wn pAy mw mH in P.Leiden I 370, rto 11–12 (LRL, 9,16) – ‘when this water/theinundation is completed’ (Wente, LRL, 27, translates ‘when thiswater floods’, but the verb mH rather points to the completion ofthe inundation).

iw=k tm r di.t iw.t=f, ‘you did not cause him to come’. The rbefore di.t is noteworthy, as the full form of the infinitive rdi.t was

no longer used in the 20th dynasty, cf. Winand, Études, 82–84. Fora comparable case, see also the conjunctive mtw=k r di.t in rto 8 below.

The author of this letter is obviously enraged by thenegligence of the addressee. Similarly, in the famous letter fromPayankh about the affair of the two Medjay-policemen, theGeneral reproaches Dhutmose for not having sent the gold andsilver he requested already three full months ago (LRL, 36,12–14).

Recto 6–7. m dy aHa=f m aHa nb. Examples of the negativeimperative written with a t are rare, as Janssen, LRLC, 38 n. 3,rightly remarks (quoting Gardiner, LEM, 71,13 and P. DeM XXVIII,4, but see also P. Bologna 1086, 20 and LRL, 8,7). It is well-known,however, that this negative imperative can be spelt in variousways, cf. C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 358. For the second element, aHam aHa nb, cf. Caminos, LEM, 261 and 309–310, on P. Anastasi V, 22,3and P. Sallier I, 4,11: ‘juxtaposition of verb and noun of the sameroot, which is a well-attested stylistic device’; A.H. Gardiner, RdE6 (1951), 127, n. e on P. Valençay II, 8. Other examples in the LateRamesside Letters are e.g. P. Berlin 10494, vso 1 (LRL, 24,2–3) m diaHa=w m aHa nb, ‘do not let them linger at all’, and probably P. Turin2069, rto 8–9 (LRL, 61,9–10). Compare the earlier 18th dynastyvariant in O. Brussels E. 315, 4: m rdi aHa=f , the classical MiddleEgyptian, cf. Gardiner, EG, §340,3. For this type of element usedto reinforce requests in letters from superiors to subordinates, seealso Sweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue, 60.

Recto 7. iw=f spr r pA nty tw=k im iw di=k in.tw n=i pA hAb(.i) n=k Hr=f.The sequential past tenses here imply the sender assumes that theaddressee took measures to meet the requests immediately onthe arrival of the messenger.

Recto 8. I suggest reading pA rr (n) nbw iw nfr, with the materialof which the object was made indicated in apposition, as in thesimilar case in rto 9 below. By writing pA rr the sender refers to aspecific object: the bracelet. rr.w of gold (also together with Tbw.wof silver, as here in rto 9) are mentioned in P. BM EA 10052, rto5,10 as objects stolen from the tombs, cf. Peet, Tomb-Robberies,148 with n. 39. For the meaning of rr, ‘bracelet’, Coptic lhl, cf.Meeks, AL I, 77.2394, referring to P. Montet, La nécropole royale deTanis III (Paris, 1960), pl. XXIX; see now also E. Graefe, MDAIK 35(1979), 112.

The apposition iw nfr here is the first of five examples in thisletter of the use of an elliptic virtual clause – iw + stative – whichis not explicitly mentioned in the existing grammars. The otherexamples are: rto 10 nA Hbs.w Smay.w iw nfr.w; rto 12–13 [wa.t?]mrkbt iw nfr; vso 5–6 tAy=s pD.t iw nfr m sSr sp-sn and vso 4 imi.tw=wn=i iw nfr.w. Clearly the sender of this letter, in using thisconstruction instead of a ‘normal’ adjective, wanted to stress thatthe requested objects should be of real good quality. For asomewhat similar use, cf. J. C

vv

erný/G. Posener, Papyrushiératiques de Deir el-Médineh I (Documents de Fouilles, T. VIII;Cairo, 1978), 13, n. (c), and P. Grandet, Ostraca hiératiques nonlittéraires de Deîr el-Médînéh IX (Documents de Fouilles, T. 41;Cairo, 2003), 37, 139 and 141. This reminds me of my visit to thequartermaster, when I entered military service, whose list ofissued supplies accompanying my new outfit nowhere stated ‘twopairs of green socks’, but instead ‘two pairs of socks, army-green’.

mtw=k r di.t in.tw n=i, ‘you shall cause to be brought to me’, thefirst of a chain of conjunctives in the form mtw=f r sDm, cf. J.D.


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Ray, JEA 59 (1973), 156–159 and Winand, Études, 471–472. The useof these conjunctives clearly illustrates the hierarchical relationbetween the sender and the addressee: his requests have beenformulated as orders. The sender of this letter almost equalsDhutmose as ‘the all-time conjunctive chain champion’(Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 288, n. 138).

Recto 9. Tbw n HD, ‘a silver Tbw-cup’; for this method of indicatingthe material of which an object is made, cf. Wente, LRL, 29, n. c.Interestingly, the Tbw is here expressly stated to be a drinkingvessel, cup or beaker. For Tbw as a general word for ‘vessel’, cf. E.Frood in Woodcutters, Potters and Doorkeepers (Leiden, 2003),55–56. Silver Tbw-vessels from Ashkelon are mentioned as a giftfrom a royal butler to a chief workman of Deir el-Medina in the20th dynasty donation stela published by J.J. Janssen, JEA 49(1963), 67–68 (line 3 with n. c.). And Tbw.w n swr, ‘drinking cups’,are among the plunder from the Libu and the Meshweshrecorded in Merenptah’s Libyan War Inscription at Karnak, cf.KRI IV, 9,8.

iw iw=i (r) swr im=f, ‘from which I will drink’: a fine example ofthe iw iw=f (r) stp=f construction as a virtual relative clause, cf.Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 251.

Recto 10. Since parts of these niw, ‘spear, javelin, lance’, are to bemade of gold (see rto 12), probably ceremonial weapons aremeant here. For an illustration of such a spear, see H. Nelson,Medinet Habu IV (Chicago, 1940), pl. 198 top.

Recto 11. The personal name Pn-pA-ra in this spelling is well-known from the end of the 20th dynasty, cf. Ranke, PN I, 107,20. Itis, however, too common to permit any reliable identificationwith e.g. either the scribe or the chief-workman of that name, forwhom see B.G. Davies, Who’s Who at Deir el-Medina (Leiden,1999), 104 and 233–234.

Recto 11–12. iw mntf i.iri=f iri=w, ‘and it is he who will cause tomake them’. For the construction, cf. C

vv


Recto 12. sty.w, determined as metal objects, said to be of gold,and described as elements belonging to spears or javelins, areapparently unknown to the dictionaries (sty, Wb. IV 334, 4, beinga part of a ship from cedar wood). The orthography suggests thatit is unlikely to be a substantive derived from the verb sty, ‘toshoot’ (in which case the sty.w would be the points of the spears).Also, it is hard to imagine a use for spears or javelins with goldenpoints, unless they were just ceremonial weapons.

There is a slight possibility that we have to read sry.w, sincethe r and the t are written almost alike by this scribe. If so this isprobably a word sry(t) otherwise only attested as a singular in thetitle TAy-sryt, Wb. IV, 192, 13–18. There the word sryt means‘standard’ or ‘banner’, cf. R. Faulkner, JEA 27 (1941), 12–18.However, I know of no clear example of a spear or javelin with astandard or banner.

For nbw nfr, ‘pure gold’ according to J. Harris, LexicographicalStudies in Ancient Egyptian Materials (Berlin, 1961), 34, see now J.Ogden in P. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds), Ancient EgyptianMaterials and Technology (Cambridge, 2000), 160–166, esp. 163:‘refining was not used … before the Late Period’.

Recto 13. mkrb with metathesis for mrkb must be a miswriting of

mrkb.t, ‘chariot’ (Coptic brGoout), which in spite of the missing.t is a feminine word, also in agreement with pAy=s, ‘its (f.)’, laterin this line. The word is written mrkb in vso 13. It always refers to awar chariot or a chariot of state, never to a wagon or cart, cf. M.Littauer and J. Crouwel, Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals inthe Ancient Near East (Leiden, 1979), 73–98.

The lacuna at the end of this line obscures which part of achariot was meant. In view of the preceding pAy=s, it must havebeen a masculine word. For a detailed discussion of the variousparts, of both masculine and feminine gender, that arementioned in the texts of the so-called ‘Poem on the king’schariot’, see A.R. Schulman, JSSEA 16 (1986), 19–35 and 39–49.

Recto 14. […] nAy=i Sms.w i.iri=f im. The grammar of this clause,which must have started at the end of the preceding line, isunclear. The =f probably refers to the earlier mentioned chariot-part.

The verb twt regularly occurs in the Late Ramesside Letterswith the sense ‘to assemble (men)’ (e.g. LRL, 23,14; 37,10 and45,3), but this can hardly be the case here in view of what followsafter the lacuna at the end of this line in vso 1.

Verso 1. nhy snH.w, ‘some ropes(?)’. Possibly the same word snHoccurs in P. BM EA 10053, vso 3,3 (cf. Peet, Tomb-Robberies, 121),meaning perhaps ‘girdles’ or similar; it is, of course, related to theverb snH, ‘to bind’.

Verso 2. pr-pDt: this compound noun seems to be unlisted in theexisting dictionaries, but may well be the appropriate term for abow-case. The hieratic inscription on a wooden label from thetomb of Thutmosis IV (CG 46125, cf. Th.M. Davis et al., The Tombof Thoutmôsis IV (London, 1904), 40, fig. 36) probably refers tothe same object: (1) . An example of this itemof military equipment is depicted on a late 18th dynastyMemphite tomb relief: C. Manasse, SAK 30 (2002), 259, fig. 1 and263, fig. 2. For a splendid example of a somewhat different typefrom the tomb of Tut’ankhamun, see W. McLeod, Self Bows andOther Archery Tackle from the Tomb of Tut’ankhamun(Tut’ankhamun’s Tomb Series IV; Oxford, 1982), 26–38, 61 andpls. VI–XVI (Cairo J.E. 61502).

The writing mAmA seems certain, but since the determinativeis lost in the lacuna at the end of the line, it is hard to tell whethermAmA, ‘dôm-palm’, was really meant. Another, but unlikely,possibility would be to regard mAmA as a writing for MaAm, Anîba,as in P. BM EA 10326, rto 3 (LRL, 17,6). I have no idea what ‘clothesof mAmA-material’ could be. Clothes made from leaves or fibresfrom this kind of palm-tree?

Verso 3. […] n=k imi.tw=w m pA HA.t m-Dr wn=i im. Due to themissing end of the preceding line, both the grammar of thephrase and the translation are uncertain. For the construction mpA HA.t, ‘before’, ‘previously’, cf. m tA HA.t in P. Mayer A, 8,4 and 9,15(possibly also in P. Chester Beatty V, rto 7,3). The orthography ofHA.t here is probably caused by a confusion with HAw.ty, as inanother possible example of m pA HA.t, see P. Grandet, Ostracahiératiques non littéraires de Deîr el-Médînéh (Documents deFouilles 41; Cairo, 2003), 25 (ad ODM 844, rto 3). For this type ofconfusion between HA.t and HAw.ty, see also R.A. Caminos, TheChronicle of Prince Osorkon (Analecta Orientalia 37, Rome, 1958),12.

(2)


For mn preceding a bare noun denoting ‘there does not exist’,compare C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 399.The reading pyr ‘bandages’ is not certain. In view of

the request for some clothes in the preceding sentence, however,a claim that no textile material is available would make sense. InP. Bibl.Nat. 196 V, rto3–vso2 (LRL, 35,13–14) General Payankhorders Dhutmose to send ‘some old clothes in the form of manystrips… they shall be made into pyr-bandages with which to wrapup men’. Pry/pyr, ‘cloth strip, band, bandage’, can be written ptr

, cf. Caminos, LEM, 136. Since only the p is certain,another possibility would be to read pt for p(A)q.t, ‘fine linen’, butthis seems less likely in the present context.

Verso 4. ir iw=k hAb an iw=i r di.t in.tw n=k, ‘If you write (to me)again, I will cause (it) to be brought to you’. As indicated by thefollowing i.n=k, ‘so you said’, this clause represents a quote froman earlier letter by the correspondent. For the construction, cf.Cvv


Verso 5. The syllabic orthography spwy for ispt, ‘quiver’, isunusual and not recorded in J.E. Hoch, Semitic Words in EgyptianTexts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period(Princeton, 1994), 40–41 (nr. 34). The scribe may have beeninfluenced, or confused by the pronounced preceding indefinitearticle wa.t.

A quiver holding 100 arrows is quite a large container, butprobably a similar object is also referred to in P. Koller 1,4(Gardiner, LEM, 117,1) ‘80 arrows in the quiver’. For quivers see G.Jéquier, BIFAO 19 (1922), 230–232; W. Wolf, Die Bewaffnung desaltägyptischen Heeres (Leipzig, 1926), 86; N. de Garis Davies,Private Tombs at Thebes IV (Oxford, 1963), pl. VIII (a scene inTheban tomb 66 of Hapu). A clear depiction of such a quiverhanging on a chariot is found on the late 18th dynasty Memphitetomb relief mentioned above, note to vso 2. Actual examples ofquivers are e.g. the two found in the tomb of Maiherpri, cf. G.Daressy, Fouilles de la Vallée des Rois (Cairo, 1902), 32–33 and pl. X(Cairo CG 24071 and 24072, both of leather and both 77cms long),and one now in the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, cf. C.Leemans, Monumens égyptiens du Musée d’Antiquités des Pays-Basà Leide II (Leiden, 1838–1865), 14 and pl. LXXXI, 17 (= cat.Leemans, I 17).

Verso 6. wa imw(?) iw=f mH m, ‘a ship fully loaded with’. The wordfor ‘ship’ is probably imw, and in spite of the plural determinative(perhaps influenced by the final w), the following suffix =f clearlyrefers to this masculine word.

Verso 7. wa … aow mit.t, ‘and a … of bread-rations as well’. I haveno suggestion for the reading of the damaged word in the middleof this line. One expects a term for a quantity or a container, butalthough the remaining signs are clear, I failed to recognise theword; Aaa, ‘container’, aro, ‘basket’, or Htp, ‘basket’, are unlikely.

Verso 7–8. pA wn pA wn im Hms i.iri=f pA Ssp=i n=f nim rn n pAy=kimw/wsx. The grammatical construction is difficult. For theconstruction of the phrase pA wn im Hms, ‘the one who used todwell there’, cf. C

vv


Verso 8. Ssp n, meaning ‘to receive from’ (cf. LRL, 8,16 and 45,3and 51,2), was already noted by A.H. Gardiner, JEA 27 (1941), 60,

n. 7; see also Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 99.The orthography of nim, ‘which’, is unusual in Late

Egyptian. Normally this particle is used in interrogativesentences, e.g. Blinding of Truth 5,5 (Gardiner, LES, 32,16–33,1),nim rn n pAy=i it, ‘what is the name of my father?’; and O.DeM1264,9, nim rn n tAy=k mrk[b.t], ‘what is the name of your chariot?’

Verso 9. The aA.w, ‘great ones’, of the Meshwesh are alsomentioned among the leaders of the Libyan coalition opposingthe armies of Ramesses III in his Year 11, cf. KRI V, 53,2. Theirposition within the Libyan leadership is discussed by D. O’Connor,‘The Nature of Tjemhu (Libyan) Society in the Later NewKingdom’, in A. Leahy (ed.), Libya and Egypt (London, 1991),29–115, esp. 78. For general information concerning the Libyansand particularly the Meshwesh in the late 20th dynasty, see thearticle by D. O’Connor above quoted; B. Haring, ‘Libyans in theLate Twentieth Dynasty’, in R.J. Demarée and A. Egberts (eds),Village Voices (Leiden, 1992), 71–80; and idem, ‘Libyans in theTheban Region, 20th dynasty’, in Atti VI Congresso Internazionaledi Egittologia (Turin, 1993), 159–165.

Verso 9–10. tw=k rx.tw nA MSwS Hr-Hr r=i m mnt. In view of thespelling of the first element, Hr-Hr r=i seems to stand for ‘(they)are far from me’. However, as the phrase presumably states thereason for the preceding orders, it is difficult to understand whatthe sender of the letter means. If he was indeed General Payankh,this remark can hardly bear a very negative connotation, since forall we know his relations with the Meshwesh were anything butrestrained; see e.g. B. Haring, in Village Voices, 77–78. It seemstherefore also unlikely that the phrase means: ‘they are uponme’, i.e. ‘they are pressing me daily’. A similarly puzzlingexpression Hrw-n-Hr r=k occurs in P. Anastasi IV, 11,4, cf. Caminos,LEM, 181. Probably the best option, in view of the context, is tointerpret the group as a spelling of HrHr, ‘to guard, to protect’. Thisverb is not quoted in the Wb., but see Meeks, AL I, 256 (77.2819)and I.E.S. Edwards, Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, FourthSeries (London, 1960), vol. I, 48, n. 19 (P. BM EA 10730, 31). Itrepresents the Coptic HareH and is also found in demotic (W.Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar, Copenhagen, 1954, 326–327),sometimes followed by a direct object, but more usually by r, ashere, or Hr.

Verso 10. For the vessel Dpr.t or dpr, see now E. Frood,Woodcutters, Potters and Doorkeepers (Leiden, 2003), 46, n. 104(cf. also O. Brussels E 305, vso 1).

sgnn nDm, ‘sweet oil’, was used in cosmetics (cf. Janssen,Commodity Prices, 336–337); also for anointment, cf. Caminos,LEM, 82 on P. Anastasi III, 3,7 (quoting Horus and Seth, 11,7). Theterm most probably refers to bAo or moringa oil; for thisingredient and its use, see Lise Manniche, Sacred Luxuries.Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt(London, 1999), 30 and 134.

Verso 11–12. The grammar of the sentences after theintroductory ir m-Dr Dd.tw=w tAy=i mdt r-Dd is obscure, mainly dueto the many lacunae in these lines.

Sm n=f, ‘to go away’, with dativus ethicus, cf. Wb. IV, 463,12; seeanother example, O. IFAO 562, 1–2, J. C

vv

erný, BIFAO 35 (1936), 47.

Verso 12. ptr a NN, ‘to look after the condition of someone’, is a


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common expression in the Late Ramesside Letters.For wr as the title of a chief of the Meshwesh, cf. J. Yoyotte,

Mélanges Maspero, I, fasc. 4, (MIFAO 66; Cairo, 1961), 122–123 and134–135; D. O’Connor, in Libya and Egypt, 66–81 and 104–105.

The personal name Imtwy is not recorded in Ranke, PN, orThirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’. It may well be of Libyan origin,and as such could be added to the brief list of Libyan namescompiled by J. Yoyotte, ‘Anthroponymes d’origine libyenne dansles documents égyptiens’, GLECS 8 (1960), 22–24.

The preposition r-or is usually translated as ‘near, next to, inthe company of’. It can be followed by n + suffix (C

vv

erný-Groll,Grammar, 124–125), but it can also, as here, be followedimmediately by a substantive, such as a personal name (in LRL,3,7, written i-or, and 45,9) or a toponym (in LRL, 55,10). In P.Berlin 8523, vso 19–20, it is used in the sense of ‘to someone’, cf.Allam, HOP I, pl. 77.

Pr-aA, ‘Pharaoh’, clearly refers to the reigning king, i.e. mostprobably Ramesses XI, who is alluded to in a similar way in P. BMEA 10487, rto 8–9 (LRL, 36,11–12). The cursive writing of the wordis very common in documents and letters from this period, cf. e.g.P. Abbott, 7,11; P. Bibl.Nat. 196 II, rto 2 (LRL, 21,5) and P. Turin2021, vso 1 (LRL, 61,16); see also A.S. von Bomhard, Paléographiedu Papyrus Wilbour: L’écriture hiératique cursive dans les papyrusdocumentaires (Paris, 1998), 55 (M: LXVI).

Verso 12–13. iw m 100 n mrkb[.t], ‘(he?) being with 100 chariots’.The grammatical construction of this clause is obscured by thefollowing textual break. I suggest to read iw(=f) followed by the mof concomitance. The 100 chariots of the Libyan chiefrepresented a sizeable cavalry force. According to the booty listdrawn up after the war of Year 11 of Ramesses III, 92 chariots ofthe Meshwesh were captured, cf. KRI V, 53,8; see also D.O’Connor, in Libya and Egypt, 57 and 81.

Verso 15. For nxt as a term for ‘fortress, stronghold’, precisely inthis period, cf. K. Jansen-Winkeln, Biblische Notizen 71 (1994), 89,n. 53.

Verso 16. I am unable to suggest a reading of the faint traces ofthe first groups of this line. The precise nuance of the verb nwremains unknown because of the following lacunae whicheffectively conceal the meaning of the final sentences.

Commentary

The contents of this letter make it the most historically importantdocument among the Bankes papyri. As argued in the note to rto 1above, its sender is most probably General Payankh. Theextremely bold handwriting has no exact parallel among themany different scripts in the Late Ramesside Letters, althoughsome of those from, or in the name of, the General were written ina somewhat comparable and self-confident hand. As noted atvarious places above, both grammar and orthography present anumber of peculiarities, some of which may be due to the effectsof dictation. Stylistically, the main body of this letter reveals mostof the known features of Payankh’s personal epistolary style: atthe earliest opportunity he starts off with ‘when my letter reachesyou …’ and subsequently orders are given brusquely, usuallycouched in a chain of conjunctives. Although his personal style iseasily discernable, it remains unknown whether he ever actuallywrote a letter himself. Concluding her discussion of the

characteristics in style and handwriting of his letters, D. Sweeney,‘Idiolects’, 302–303, rightly remarks: ‘It seems more plausible toassume that all letters attributed to Piankh were dictated by himto his scribes and owe their stylistic similarity to this, rather thanthat he told them in general what to say and left them to composethe letters on their own’.

In one respect this letter differs from almost all othermessages in the General’s name so far known. In spite of thedamaged state of the upper part of the recto, enough remains ofthe first three text lines to show that the usual ‘sender to recipient’phrase is followed by introductory blessings. Payankh in hisletters virtually never utters such formal phrases, except in theletter he wrote to the noble lady Nodjmet, probably his daughter(on this lady see A. Thijs, GM 163 (1998), 101–110). The reason forthe omission of greetings is probably the fact that all the othercorrespondents are subordinates (see the remarks on courtesyand status in Sweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue, 232–236).Unfortunately, the identity of his correspondent in this letter isunknown, although the suffix =k indicates that the addressee orintended recipient was male. Judging from the length of thelacunae in rto 1 and 2 there was not much space available for hisname and title. The combination of the introductory blessingsand the characteristically brusque style of his orders make itdifficult to decide whether the General is here communicatingwith a close relative (perhaps one of his sons) or one of hissubordinates. In the latter case, I suggest that the most likelycandidate is the scribe of the necropolis Dhutmose, whose specialposition as a highly trusted associate of Payankh is welldocumented by several of the Late Ramesside Letters. If he werethe intended recipient, this would also explain the presence ofthis letter among a group of documents, many of which areclearly connected to him. However, these are no more thanplausible possibilities, and the letter itself contains no certainevidence/indication.

The first sentences after the transitional r-nty in rto 4,immediately reveal the mood and the intentions of the sender: aspecial servant of the General is personally taking this letter tothe intended recipient, who had failed to respond with adequatespeed to a previous request. This somewhat irritated explanationis then followed by the usual ‘when my letter reaches you…’,introducing the main subject of the message: a long series oforders, which form a sort of ‘shopping-list’. As supremecommander, Payankh naturally held the authority to issueorders, and almost all of his letters bear witness to thisprerogative: Late Ramesside Letters nos. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 32,34, 35, 40, and the two of which the content is only known eitherfrom a reply (P. BM EA 10375=LRL, nr. 28) or a mere reference (P.Turin 2026, rto 18=LRL, 72,16) to them. But this new, impressivelist of requests is unparalleled and effectively shows the range ofhis powers.

In the final paragraph, the sender starts communicatingsome of the reasons for his message by describing the situation heis facing. These lines would have provided us with vitalinformation concerning the background of this letter and itshistorical setting, but unfortunately, by one of the unwritten lawsof papyrology, the crucial passages are lost in lacunae. All thatcan be gathered from the incomplete phrases is that the Generalsomehow has dealings with the Meshwesh. For the first time weeven learn the name of one of their leaders, the wr Imtuy, who isseemingly in contact with Pharaoh and commands a unit of


chariotry. The nature of the contacts between the General andthese Meshwesh remains uncertain, since it is difficult to becertain whether the remark about ‘looking after the condition of’should be understood in a friendly way or not. At least one otherletter gives the impression – but no more than that – that therelations between Payankh, his subordinates at Thebes and theMeshwesh were good. In P. Bibl.Nat. 196 I (LRL, 35,2–8) theGeneral orders Dhutmose to arrange that the usual bread-rationsfor the Meshwesh are properly distributed to them. This newletter further establishes that (groups of) Libyans were present inUpper Egypt at the end of the Ramesside Period. The model of theearly 21st dynasty population as being distributed between a‘Libyan Delta and a largely Egyptian South’, as advocated by A.Leahy, Libyan Studies 16 (1985), 56 and K. Jansen-Winkeln,Biblische Notizen 71 (1994), 83, can no longer be upheld; see alsothe contributions by B. Haring quoted in the note to vso 9 above.

This letter, despite the uncertainty of the correspondents, isof great value as a historical source. The full details of thetransitional period covering the end of the 20th dynasty and thebeginning of the 21st dynasty are still far from clear, in spite of thegreat number of studies of various aspects of its intriguing historyand development. Every new document therefore constitutes awelcome new piece of evidence. The known Late RamessideLetters clearly indicate that between the years 6 and 10 of theWHm-mswt-period, General Payankh was the highest authority inUpper Egypt, who even dared at least verbally to question thepower of Pharaoh. Recent studies by K. Jansen-Winkeln (ZÄS 119[1992], 22–37; GM 157 [1997], 49–74) have established that,contrary to earlier opinions, he held office before Herihor.Otherwise, however, we know for certain only that he led acampaign into Nubia in year 10 of the WHm-mswt-period, mostprobably against the former viceroy Panehsy. The evidenceconcerning his actual role and position during the final phase ofthe Ramesside Era is conveniently discussed by A. Thijs, SAK 31(2003), 298–306 (see also Thijs’ contribution on the possibilitythat Payankh campaigned to Nubia on two separate occasions,GM 165 [1998], 99–103). Although the validity of part of Thijs’argumentation (within the framework of his postulated ‘shortchronology’) may be contested, the traditional picture of thechronology of this period and its protagonists is based on fewfacts and many assumptions. While this new letter adds to ourknowledge, any new answers elicit new questions. One can onlyhope for additional information to emerge from other, as yetunpublished, sources; the existence of this letter shows this is notimpossible.

BM EA 75020

Registration number 1996-2-17.6When this papyrus arrived in the British Museum, it was in greatneed of restoration, since all strips were mounted on a sheet ofthick brown paper. Careful restoration produced this fine letter.After I started to prepare this publication, one of the loosefragments collected in a separate frame (then BM EA 75022) wasdiscovered to belong to the upper left corner of this document,where it has now been placed.

The sheet of good quality papyrus, of a light brown colour, isunfortunately incomplete: seen from the recto, a large fragmentat the upper right-hand corner and a smaller fragment at thelower right-hand corner are missing; moreover, at the right edgea small strip of about 0.5–1cm is missing.

In its present state the papyrus measures 20cm high by 21cmwide. The original height will have been only slightly more than20cm, since the remains of the first line on the recto almostcertainly represent the beginning of the letter, while the 12th lineclearly is the last one on the recto.

The recto (V/H) bears 12 lines and the verso (H/V) nine lines.Any address would have been written at the bottom of the verso(on the now missing fragment at the lower right-hand corner).Top recto = bottom verso.

The missing fragments are responsible for a severe loss of textin lines 1–4 and 10–12 on the recto and lines 1–2 (plus the eventualaddress) on the verso. Further, the beginnings of all other lines onboth recto and verso have suffered slight losses, due to a missingtiny strip.

As both recto and verso show traces of carefully washed outearlier writing, the papyrus is a palimpsest.

A sheet join is visible between lines 8 and 9 of the recto.The letter had been folded from the top of the verso outwards,

according to the usual practice. Twelve folds can be recognised,with the strips increasing in height from the bottom recto to thetop. The sheet had also been folded in two, almost through themiddle, as is proven by the traces of a break.

Translation

Recto (Plates 17 and 18)1 [To the scribe Dhutmose of the great and noble Necropolis of

Millions of] Years of Pharaoh life, prosperity and health, from2 [... In life, prosperity and health and in the favour of] Amun-

Re king of the gods, Mut,3 [Khonsu and all the gods of Ne/Thebes. I tell Amun to give

you life, prosperity and health, a] long [lifetime], a great andbeautiful old age, and very many favours

4 before the General, your lord. May Amun United withEternity and Amenophis life, prosperity and health.,

5 Nefertari l.p.h. and Amun of the Beautiful Encounter bringyou back safe and may we fill (our) embrace with you -

6 every day. And further: I have heard/noted all mattersconcerning which you have written to me. As for your having

7 written, to wit ‘The guardian Kar(oy) and the scribeButehamun caused to have brought to me

8 [a?] letter, while you did not cause to be brought to me (one).What does it mean, you showing disrespect?’ So you said. It isnot true!

9 [Reall]y, I did not show disrespect towards you. And if you(think to) know (that) I did not pass a day

10 […] together with you and we were eating together in theevening. Say it!

11 […] I have caused to come to you a letter through (the handof) Hori son of Ankhma’at(?). And if

12 […] my son which you caused to stay/stand here, as said toyou Buteh-

Verso (Plates 19 and 20)1 [amun. …] I pass the day while I am standing in the forecourt2 of Amun United with Eternity, Amenophis life, prosperity and

health, Nefertari life, prosperity and health and Amun of theBeautiful

3 Encounter, saying/praying: save and bring him back alive,prospering and healthy, and let me fill my eye with seeingyou.


Demarée

4 Another matter for Shed(su)hor, scribe Qenykhnum and theguardian

5 […?]. I tell Amun king of the gods, and the gods of the heavenand the gods of the earth, every god and

6 every goddess(?) […?] to give you very many favours in frontof the General,

7 our lord, and may Amun king of the gods bring you back alive,prospering and healthy, and may you fill your embrace withNe/Thebes,

8 and may I fill my embrace with you. I am writing/have sent(this) to let you know through (the hand of) the policeman

9 Hadnakhte of the Necropolis.[Address: To Dhutmose from …]

Notes

Recto 1–2. Due to the large missing fragment at the top right,only the final elements of the title of the addressee of this letterremain. However, in combination with the wishes for his safereturn (cf. rto 5, vso 3 and 7), these leave no doubt as to hisidentity: the letter was written to the Necropolis scribeDhutmose.

The n at the end of the first line introduces the now lost name(and title) of the sender which must have filled the space ofalmost the first half of the second line. For his possible identitysee Commentary below.

Recto 4–5. The names of the divinities cited indicate that theletter was dispatched from the Theban West Bank.

Recto 5. For the spelling of THn as TnH, here and in vso 2–3, cf. LRL,29,6 and 31,10 (also in letters written by Butehamun).

Recto 6. Normally ra nb is used after the prayer wishes and notafter ‘may NN bring you back safe, etc.’; see above, the note on P.BM EA 75018, rto 3.

Recto 6–7. After the common opening phrase in the LateRamesside Letters (e.g. LRL, 9,6–8; 27,11–12; 34,9 and 36,5): ‘Ihave noted all matters (or every matter) concerning which youhave written to me’, the following pA hAb i.ir=k or pA Dd i.ir=k isunderstood by some as an apposition to mdw nb and by others asnot being grammatically linked with what precedes it andstanding in anticipatory emphasis. Consequently the translationis either ‘(namely) your having sent (or stated)’ or ‘(As for) yourhaving sent (or stated)…’. See Wente, LRL, 28 n. b; A.H. Gardiner,RdE 6 (1951), 126, b, and Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 284.

Recto 7. The guardian Kar(oy) is a well-known companion ofButehamon in Western Thebes, see LRL, Index, No. 127 and P. BMEA 10440, rto 2 (LRLC, 22 and pls. 9–10). Wente, LRL, 6, places allthe letters in which he occurs in Group III, dated to year 10 of theWHm-msw.t-period.

Recto 8–9. The grammatical construction of the vehementdenial: aDA [y]A bwpwy=i bay, finds a close parallel in the statementby a suspect in P. Mayer A, 5, 18–19: aDA bwpwy=i ptr=f, ‘False, I didnot see him’. For the bwpwy=f stp form after the particle yA, cf.Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 239. The pregnant use of aDA, ‘false’, ‘it isnot true’, is also found in P.BM EA 75015, rto 7 (see above) and inP. BM EA 10335 (Nevill Papyrus), rto 4–5; see also Sweeney,

Correspondence and Dialogue, 187–188. The verb ba is usually better translated as ‘to reject’, ‘to show

disrespect’, ‘to neglect’ than ‘to respect’ (as in Wb. I, 446, 6 andLesko’s Dictionary, I, 152); see also Janssen, LRLC, 23, n. 20, and Y. Koenig, CRIPEL 11 (1960), 57 n. (q) (translating ‘négliger’).

Recto 10. The idiomatic expression wnm m wnm wa can becompared with the well-known Sm m Sm wa, ‘go in a single party’in P. Anastasi IV, 8,3; see Caminos, LEM, 162 and Wente, LRL, 41 n.aa; cf. also aHa m aHa wa, ‘standing (being) all together’, in P. BM EA10052, 6,16 (Peet, Tomb-Robberies, 149). The reference to ‘eatingtogether’ recalls a similar reproach in another letter, P. DeM 4, rto5–6: ‘What have I done, what is (my) offence against you? Am Inot your old table companion?’ and rto 10–11: ’A man is happywhen he is together with his old table companion. While certainnew (things) are good to have, an old companion is better’. Forthis topic see also D. Sweeney, ‘Friendship and Frustration’, JEA84 (1998), 101–122; and H.-W. Fischer-Elfert, “Kumpan;compagnon” auf Ägyptisch’, GM 200 (2004), 9–10.

The orthography of rwhA, ‘evening’, looks somewhat clumsy,but Butehamun frequently writes the combination h+A in asimilar way, e.g. in the verb hAb in vso 8. In another letter he alsowrites rwhA somewhat unorthodoxically: P. BM EA 10284, rto 9(LRL, 49, 3; C

vv

erný, in his n. c, remarks that there is no diacriticalstroke after the sun-disk, but this may well have been originallypresent, since the papyrus is slightly damaged at the end of thisline).

i-Dd sw, ‘say it’; for the imperative with prothetic yod, seeWinand, Études, 151–160.

Recto 11. I read […iw] di=i iw n=k, ‘I have caused to come to you’,for ‘I have sent’, cf. a similar construction in P. Turin 1972, rto 5(LRL, 7,11).

The Hori mentioned here as messenger is almost certainly theSherden Hori, who is well-known as a letter-carrier; cf. LRL, 19,12(from Dhutmose to Butehamun), 45,1 (from Butehamun andcolleagues to the General) and 72,14 (from Dhutmose toButehamun). The name of his father is not known from any othersource; it most probably reads anx-mAa.t, a name not recorded inRanke, PN, or Thirion, ‘Notes d’onomastique’, but cf. Ranke, PN I,64,11 and 12.

Recto 12. r-Dd n=k must stand for i-Dd n=k, a relative construction;cf. Winand, Études, 376–377.

Verso 1–3. The ‘forecourt of Amun of the Beautiful Encounter’ isalso mentioned in P. Turin 1971, rto 6–7 (LRL 31,10–11) byButehamun, while in another letter he refers to the forecourt ofAmun United with Eternity with his Ennead and Amun of theThrone(s) of the Two Lands (P. BM EA 10411, rto 3–4 (LRLC, 12and pls. 1–2). See for wbA, ‘forecourt, courtyard’, J. Baines,Journal of Near Eastern Religions 1 (2001), 9, n. 2, and the remarksby James P. Allen, The Heqanakht Papyri (New York, 2002), 57.

Verso 2–3. For the spelling TnH for THn, see above, the note to rto 5.

Verso 4. ky Dd n… is a formula of transition, introducing aseparate message. Several texts confirm that Shedsuhor andQenykhnum accompanied Payankh on his expedition into Nubia.The troop commander and prophet Shedsuhor arrived at the


General’s quarters together with Dhutmose/Tjaroy: P. BM EA10100, rto 3 = LRL, 50,5–6. Butehamun sent him a letter,specifically asking him to keep watch over his father: P. BM EA10284 = LRL, 48–49. Qenykhnum clearly acted as the General’sscribe and secretary, see Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 302–303. The thirdman addressed in this separate message is a guardian (sAw) whois not known from any other Late Ramesside Letter. Although thetraces seem clear, I cannot read his name; it possibly starts withPn-tA.

Verso 5. The collective ‘the gods of the heaven and the gods ofthe earth’ does not occur elsewhere in the Late RamessideLetters, but compare similar phrases like ‘all the gods of heavenand earth’ in P. DeM 5, rto 1 (KRI VI 265, 16), and ‘all gods andgoddesses of heaven and earth’ in P. Valençay II, 3 (KRI VII 371, 10).

Verso 6. Due to a gap in the papyrus, only minimal traces of thetext at the beginning of this line remain. For the possible reading‘(every god and) every goddess in the vicinity’ I cannot quote anexact parallel.

Verso 7. ‘May you (pl.) fill your embrace with Ne’; cf. the sameexpression in the singular form in BM 10375, rto 9 (LRL 44,14–15);or in the first plural: ‘may we fill our embrace with you’ in P. BMEA 10471, rto 6–7 (LRL 27,10–11); P. Phillipps, rto 9–10 (LRL 29,9–10), and P. Turin 1971, rto 10 (LRL 31, 16) and vso 10 (LRL 33,4).It seems that the scribe here wrote mtw=n instead of mtw=tn.

Verso 8. iw=i (Hr) hAb r rdi.t amA=tn, ‘I am writing to inform you(pl.)’; the use of this phrase is a characteristic feature of thepersonal style of Butehamon, cf. Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 307 (to herexamples–LRL, 16,4; 28,7; 30,2; 30,9–10; 33,4–5; 46,16–47,1 and49,7–add P. BM EA 10411 vso 1 (LRLC, 12 and pls. 3–4)).

Verso 8–9. For the policeman Hadnakhte as a letter carrier, seethe Commentary, and the note to P. BM EA 75021, vso 4.

Commentary

Although his name is lost on the missing top fragment of thedocument, the Necropolis scribe Dhutmose/Tjaroy wasdoubtless the addressee of this letter. There is less certainty,however, about the sender. Both the writing and the style showthe characteristics of Butehamun, such as the long series ofintroductory phrases, the introductory prayers for the recipientto be in the general’s favour and for the recipient’s safe return,and the typical phrase ‘I am writing to inform you’ (see Sweeney,‘Idiolects’, 295–299). The orthography of some words points inthe same direction (cf. the note at rto 10 above), as do somespellings like TnH for THn in rto 5 and vso 2–3. However,Butehamun was clearly not himself the sender, since he isreferred to by name in rto 7 and 12. I would suggest that the mostlikely candidate is the prophet of Amenophis Amenhotep, who isalso the sender of the Letters 14 and 15 (LRL, 27–30) which werewritten by Butehamun. In view of the many featurescharacteristic of this scribe’s style and handwriting, the letter wasmost probably not dictated by the sender. In her discussion on theauthorship of Letters 14 and 15, Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 306–308,concludes that they were: ‘maybe a joint production, written byButehamon with Amenhotep looking over his shoulder?’ Thesame verdict may well apply to this new letter.

The addressee, Dhutmose, is apparently away from home andon expedition to the south, so this letter belongs to the core groupof Nubian letters from year 10 of the WHm-msw.t. In vso 8–9 thesender remarks that he is sending his message ‘through the handof’ the policeman Hadnakhte. Possibly it was carried byHadnakhte together with two other existing letters, one fromButehamun to his father Dhutmose (P. Turin 1971 = LRL, 31–33),and the other from the two foremen, Butehamun and Karoy toGeneral Payankh (P. BM EA 10375 = LRL, 44–48): both mentionthe date of departure by the messenger as I Smw 29. The referencein this new letter, rto 11, to a previously sent letter via the SherdenHori confirms the order of the movements by various messengersas reconstructed by Wente, LRL, 11–14.

BM EA 75021

Registration number 1996-2-17.7The papyrus sheet of average quality measures 22.2cm high by13.3cm (maximum) wide. It is of a dark greyish brown colour onthe recto and a middle brown on the verso, smudged all over as aresult of the incomplete removal of an earlier text, of which cleartraces can be seen on the lower half of the verso. The papyrus isincomplete, missing the right-hand part which would havemeasured between c. 7 and 10cm wide if the scribe had used aportion of a halved roll of 20–22cm (see the remarks and cautionsby Janssen, LRLC, 48–50).

The recto (H/V!) bears 15 lines of writing, the verso (V/H) 11lines. There are clear traces that the papyrus is a palimpsest,particularly below the last line of the verso. A sheet join (left overright) of c. 3cm runs vertically, ending about 3.5cm from the left-hand border on the recto. Top recto = bottom verso.

Cvv

erný (LRL, p. xviii) was probably the first to notice that thewriting on the recto of almost all (Late Ramesside) letters is onfibres running vertically and that the occasional joins are allhorizontal. Remarkably, the exceptions to this rule are all, like thepresent letter, palimpsest (e.g. BM EA 10300, 10302+75019, 10373and 10440) although this fact alone cannot be the sole reason(see e.g. BM EA 10100, 10402, 10411 and 10416).

The document as preserved only represents the left half of theoriginal letter, and the beginnings of all lines on both recto andverso are lost. Some small gaps have caused further losses in lines2–4 on the recto. An address, if any, would have been writtentowards the bottom on the verso of the now lost right half.

According to the usual practice, the letter must have beenfolded from the top of the verso outwards. Only a few horizontalfolds can still be recognized. The sheet had also been foldeddouble, and as usual not quite through the middle; this probablycaused the break of the papyrus into two ‘halves’, of which onlythe left one has survived.

Translation

Recto (Plates 21 and 22)1 [(From) the scribe Dhutmose of the Necropolis to the scribe

Buteha]mun of the Necropolis. In life, prosperity and healthand (in) the favour of Amun-Re, king of the gods, your goodlord.

2 [… Paypen]u and Tjauenmehi(em)hab have(?) come to theplace [where] I am.

3 […the?] 5 jars of beer (and) the 50 loaves which …(?)…4 […]. Let them look into the matter of the wab-priest […] 5 [… whether(?)] he levied him. And I shall levy/assess(?)


Demarée

Tjau(en)mehi(em)hab as he said to me(?)6 [… arranged that(?)] Paypenu together with

Tjauenmehi(em)hab transport 7 […] loaves. And they shall go, either of the two, to(?) say to 8 […] they(?) enter in it/therein. And you shall say to him: ‘If

this is true9 […the(?)] 50 loaves which the Medjay told me 10 […] Write to me about him/it. And look at11 […] until comes … Pa(y)ankh (to?) drink12 […] so you shall say to him. And I shall look after this13 […] one. And they shall transport them to …(?)14 […which?] the General gave to you. And you shall look after15 […] …? of the Medjay. If there is not(?)

Verso (Plates 23 and 24)1 […] You shall deliver them to the owners. And you shall say to

them …2 […] transport their grain which is in the3 [… the scribe] of the army Pentahunakhte - give them. And

you shall4 […] I caused to come to you the policeman Had-5 [nakhte …] grain together with Tjauenmehi(em)hab. And

you shall6 […] …? bread-rations(?) therewith(?). And you shall give 12

khar of emmer7 […] the donkey and the she-ass of Amenhotep to8 […] put them(?) to transport straw. And the straw9 […] this big black box. And you shall seek out(?) the(?)10 […] to keep (me) safe from the eye of a dead one. And you

shall cause to have it brought to me. And you shall speak11 […] (And you shall give) your attention to the Medjay who

…(?)

Notes

Recto 1. Although the name of the sender of this letter has notbeen preserved, due to the missing right portion of the papyrus,there is no doubt about his identity. Both the handwriting and thecontents of the letter unmistakably point to the necropolis scribeDhutmose. In all letters to his family, Dhutmose introduceshimself as sS 9Hwty-ms n pA xr (aA Spsy) and this, together with thefirst elements of the name of Butehamun, was most probably alsowritten in the lost part of this line.

Dhutmose often omits the m before Hsw.t in this introductoryformula, cf. C

vv

erný, LRL, 3, n. 1a. It may also be noteworthy that innone of his other known letters does he call Amun-Re ‘your goodlord’. The two vertical strokes after pAy=k nb may stand for theusual as in P. BM EA 10326, rto 4, cf. LRL, 17 n. 8a.

Recto 2. Given the available length of the now missing beginningof this line, the text apparently did not continue with the usualextended complimentary preamble, but immediately came to thepoint, probably after a transitional Hna Dd or Hna Dd r-nty. I know ofno other example of such an ‘abbreviated’ introduction in thecorrespondence between Dhutmose and Butehamun.

The first groups on the preserved half of this line surelyrepresent the final elements of the personal name PAy-pnw, forwhich see below, rto 6.

7Aw-n-mHy.t-(m)-Hb, here and in rto 5 and 6, and vso 5, isalmost certainly the same man mentioned in P. Leiden I 370, rto 7(LRL, 9,10) as a wab-priest. In that letter he is, as in the present

text, also involved in agricultural matters. Most probably thispriest is also mentioned in P. BM EA 75018, rto 4 (see above),where his name is written PA-TAw-mdi-mHy.t-(m)-Hb. Personalnames following the pattern TAw-n-… are listed in Ranke, PN I,193,14ff.

The missing beginning of the phrase makes it impossible totell whether the two men, Paypenu and Tjauenmehiemhab, camein person or sent a message or a messenger.

Recto 3. At the end of this line the i-prefix is possibly part of arelative construction, for which I can only suggest i-Dd n=w, ‘saidto them (by…)’, but I am unconvinced by this restoration.

Recto 4. For the imperative construction imi.tw=w ptr, cf. Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 349–350.

The preserved traces at the end of this line most probablycontain the first element of the name of the wab-priest. They maystand for pA, but this hardly helps to identify the person. BesidePA-TAw-mdi-mHy.t-(m)-Hb the only other wab-priest known from theLate Ramesside Letters and whose name begins with pA is PA-wnSin P. Geneva D 191, vso 11 (LRL, 59,8).

Recto 5. The remaining traces of the first group at the beginningof this line are problematic. My only suggestion would be to readinn and to consider the phrase to be an indirect question:‘whether he has levied him’. A similar construction occurs in P.Leiden I 370, vso 14 (LRL, 11,9–10), also in a letter by Dhutmose.

The verb Htr is used both in this phrase and in the followingconjunctive construction (perhaps with different determinativein each case). J.-M. Kruchten, in AIPHOS 24 (1980), 39–52,concludes that the meaning of this verb in the New Kingdomevolved into ‘to subject someone to a tax’ and ‘to put someone towork’. However, P. Grandet in his Papyrus Harris I, vol. 2 (BdE109; Cairo, 1994), 63, remarks that Kruchten’s philologicalreasoning was methodologically flawed. His opinion was sharedby D. Warburton, State and Economy, 275, who also rightfullyindicates that none of the determinatives signifying action isassociated with the word during the New Kingdom, the usualdeterminative being the papyrus roll suggesting an abstractmeaning, as here; this would suggest that Htr is not a verb ofaction. Concerning the verb and noun he therefore concludes(idem, 277): ‘Understanding Htri as meaning “assess”,“assessment”, “levy” is probably the best consistent rendering…’.Unfortunately the broken context of this passage severelyhampers understanding of exactly what is going on. The subjectof the verb is clearly the sender of the letter, i.e. Dhutmose, whilethe object is the prophet Tjauenmehi(em)hab. In view ofDhutmose’s activities in relation to the collection of (grain) taxes,as documented by the Turin Taxation Papyrus (Gardiner, RAD,35–44), a translation of Htr here as ‘to levy, to assess’ seemspossible, although in all other known instances the subject of theverb is always a high ranking person like Pharaoh or the Vizier.

Recto 6. The personal name PAy-pnw (‘This-Mouse’) seems to beunknown from other sources, but cf. Ranke, PN I, 108,1 (PA-n-pnw;the female name listed in PN I, 356,21 as 6A-pnw.t is based on afaulty reading of P. Leiden I 370, vso 12, see C

vv

erný’s note in LRL,10,8).

Recto 7. wa m pA s 2, ‘one of the two men’, ‘either of you’.


Otherwise m pA s 2 means ‘both’, ‘both together’, cf. Wb. III, 405,7;P. Geneva D 191, vso 6 (LRL 58,16); P. Leopold II, 3,1; P. DeM 39,vso 7; see also J. C

vv

erný, Coptic Etymological Dictionary(Cambridge, 1976), 157.

The prothetic i before Dd most probably stands for r, ‘to’.

Recto 8. In this line Dhutmose writes the interrogative pronouninn with the short hieratic form of the sign while in rto 15 inthe same word he uses the full one. Generally both Dhutmose andhis son Butehamun show a preference in their letters for thecursive form, cf. Janssen, LRLC, 36. This use of both cursive andelaborate forms in one letter by one and the same scribe - which isnot at all uncommon - would seem to contradict the possibility ofdistinguishing patterns of use between different letters, assuggested by D. Sweeney, JEA 84 (1998), 114, in relation to P. DeM IV–VI.

The form of the A below the t in tAy is noteworthy, andcomparable to the A in nA here in rto 9 and rto 15; cf. for a similarwritten tAy P. BM EA 10100, rto 11 (LRL, 50,13) and P. Turin 2026,rto 18 (LRL, 73,1).

Recto 9. Most probably the same 50 aow are meant here as in rto 3.

Recto 10. i.hAb n=i Hr=f must be an imperative, here followed bythe non-enclitic particle xr + another imperative. Thedeterminative of the verb hAb has an unusual form, but cf. P. BMEA 10100, rto 6 (LRL, 50,8), and P. BM EA 10440, rto 16 (Janssen,LRLC, 22), for a similar orthography. Although no sufficient proofin itself, this peculiar writing may well be an indication that P. BMEA 10100 was dictated by Payankh, but penned by Dhutmose (cf.the considerations by Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 303); see also thewriting of tAy in rto 8 above and in P. BM EA 10100, rto 11.

The verb nw usually has a more literal meaning in the LateRamesside Letters, but it can sometimes be translated as ‘to lookafter’, ‘to keep an eye on’, cf. Janssen, LRLC, 18, n. 16 (on P. BM EA10419, vso 2), or ‘to supervise’ as in P. Leiden I 370, rto 14 (LRL,10,3), cf. Wente, LRL, 30 n. p.

Recto 11. [i].iri.tw iy, ‘until comes’, cf. Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar,pp. 415–416.

The group of signs before the name PA-anx most probablyrepresents a title or the first element(s) of a longer personal name(like 4Awy-pA-anx), but I fail to grasp the correct reading. Beforethe verb swr at the end of the line possibly the scribe hasinadvertently left out r, ‘to’. In view of the uncertainties, mytranslation of this whole line is a guess.

Recto 12. ‘so you shall say to him’, xr=k reporting a conjunctiveformation, cf. C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, p. 158 (Ex. 490, whichcomes from another letter by Dhutmose: LRL, 20,3).

Recto 13. The lack of context, caused by the missing first part ofthis line, makes it impossible to tell who are meant by ‘they’, andwhat by ‘them’.

For the writing of the ‘direct object’ pronoun in mtw=wfAy=tw.w, see C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 32 and 184; J.F. Borghouts,OLP 11 (1980), 99–109, and Winand, Études, 54 and 98–100.

After this conjunctive construction the i most probably standsfor r, ‘to’, as in rto 7. I cannot, however, suggest a convincingexplanation for the following DAr…(?), unless it is a toponym.

Recto 14. The first group in this line may stand for . It shouldprobably read: [… nty bwpwy] di.t n=k pA imy-r mSa, as part of anegated relative form, cf. C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 494 (52). For thenominal subject following the infinitive in the bwpwy sDmformation, cf. C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 229 (15.5.2.).The mention of the General–Payankh–in this letter, which

clearly belongs to the ‘early group’ of the Dhutmose–Butehamuncorrespondence, is noteworthy, see Commentary below.

xr mtw=k ptr is a clear example of a construction considered‘incompatible’ by the current grammars. According to C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 143 (9.2.4.a).), ‘xr is incompatible with a non-initial main clause’, although they refer to a negative conjunctiveintroduced by xr in P. Turin 54101, 3 (LRL 60,12; Ex. 1227). In his‘Resumé’, F. Neveu, Le particule xr en néo-égyptien (Paris, 2001),153, states ‘Le particule xr ne peut figurer devant… leconjonctif…’, explaining in his discussion on pp. 150 and 204 thatthe scribe must have started to write xr + an initial main clause,then changed his mind by choosing a conjunctive, and then forgotto cross out the particle. Neveu also quotes another, damaged,example of this negative conjunctive introduced by xr in P. BM EA10430, rto 10 (LRL 63,8), and an example of a positive form in theAmenophis Decree, which has, however, already been refuted byJ.F. Borghouts, ‘A New Approach to the Late EgyptianConjunctive’, ZÄS 106 (1979), 16, n. 19. See also Sweeney,‘Idiolects’, 309 with n. 423. The new example suggests we shouldbe more cautious in formulating explicit grammatical rules and inconsidering any supposed deviation from them as an error by thescribe.

Recto 15. The first groups in this line are difficult to interpret.Could they stand for the final elements of mXr.w, ‘magazines’, asin P. Leiden I 370, rto 11 (LRL, 9,15)?

For the conditional clause inn mn, ‘if there is not’, ‘if … do(es)not have’, cf. C

vv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 563–564. In the position of aprotasis it may be followed by a third future as an apodosis, as invso 1 here. See for a similar example, P. Louvre E 27151, rto 10–11,Paule Posener-Kriéger, JEA 64 (1978), 85–86, n. (l).

Verso 1. The orthography of the last group in this line is unusual:st is no more than a guess, and wab or obH would make little sense.

Verso 2. Probably read ‘grain which is in the magazines (mXr.w)’,as is mentioned in P. Leiden I 370, rto 11 (LRL, 9,15).

Verso 3. Possibly read i-Dd n=k sS mSa.w P. imi.tw=w, ‘of which P.said to you: give them’. The army scribe Pentahunakhte is a well-known colleague of Dhutmose, see e.g. LRL 10,3; 21,11; 23,5.14;24,12; 37,8.12; 57,9; 66,10; and the letter P. Rifaud D (CRIPEL 10[1988], 57–60). Cf. also C

vv

erný, Workmen, 209, no. 33. In P. LeidenI 370, 14 (LRL 10,2–3) Butehamun is told by Dhutmose to executehis orders in collaboration with scribe Pentahunakhte.

Verso 4. … di=i iw n=k, the stroke of the k runs straight to the rightuntil just under the suffix =i.

The policeman Hadnakhte often acted as a messengerbetween the father and son, cf. e.g. P. BM EA 10326, vso 7–8 (LRL,19,11), a letter from Dhutmose to Butehamun: ‘You shall sendpoliceman Hadnakhte and you shall cause him to come to mequickly’, and P. BM EA 10411, rto 14–15 (Janssen, LRLC, 12), fromButehamun to Dhutmose: ‘When the policeman Hadnakhte


Demarée

reaches you, you shall dispatch him very quickly’. The spelling ofthe preserved first element of his name here is the same as that inP. BM EA 10326, vso 7, also written by Dhutmose. Hadnakhte alsocarried several other letters, cf. LRL, Index, no. 91, and P. BM EA75020 (see above).

Verso 6. aow could also here have its primary meaning ‘income’,‘salary’; cf. James P. Allen, The Heqanakht Papyri (New York,2002), 145–146.

Verso 7. The use of donkeys as draught animals is, of course,well-documented. In another letter from this period, P. Leiden I370, rto 6–10 (LRL, 9,9–14), Dhutmose expresses his approval ofhis son’s giving the donkeys to the wab-priestTjauenmehi(em)hab to transport the grain, and tells him to putthese donkeys at the disposal of the chief of the Medjay Sermontuto transport his grain which is in the fields. The donkeysmentioned in P. BM EA 10326, vso 6–7 (LRL, 19,10), were probablyemployed for different transport tasks, as also were thosementioned in P. BM EA 10440, rto 15 (Janssen, LRLC, 22).

Since the animals are said to be used to transport straw, thismay indicate that the present letter was written after the harvestseason, and therefore later than P. Leiden I 370.

The orthography of the name ‘Amenhotep’ is somewhatpeculiar, but for the second element Htp compare Dhutmose’swriting of this name in P. Turin 1973, rto 9 (LRL, 3,9). The name is,of course, too common to allow for a positive identification, butsince he is mentioned without any title, this Amenhotep may wellbe a member of the family.

Verso 8. dHA, ‘straw’, cf. Helck, Materialien V, 808 and Janssen,Commodity Prices, 450. The determinative here in both instancesclearly represents the ‘backbone and ribs’ sign (Gardiner Sign ListF 37a), which is often confused with the plant-determinative ofsm (M 21).

Verso 9. For a somewhat similar writing of km, ‘black’, cf. P. Turin1887, rto 1,2 (Gardiner, RAD, 74,2).

It is difficult to explain the role of the ‘big black box’ here.Generally, an afdt seems to have been a rather small box, cf.Janssen, Commodity Prices, 197–198, and E. Brovarski, in: E.Teeter and J.A. Larson (eds.), Gold of Praise: Studies on AncientEgypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente (SAOC 58; Chicago, 1999),29–30. In O. Ashmolean Museum 1945.37+1945.33, vso 9 (C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO, 75, 9) an afdt is said to contain written documents,and in P. BM EA 75017, rto 3 (see above) Butehamun is told by hisfather to put a letter in his afdt-box, possibly the place where hekept the family papers. The loss of context in our letter does notallow us to say whether the same object was referred to here.

The last groups in this line must contain the verb of theconjunctive, after mtw=k, but the signs are difficult to read, aresult of damage caused by the rubbed off surface of the papyrus.Dar, ‘to seek out’, seems possible, but is no more than a guess. Inview of what follows in the next line, Butehamun is probablyordered to find or send a certain magical spell or an amulet. If thelast group of this line is indeed to be transcribed as pA, this mayrefer to a kind of amulet, which in other texts is also denoted by amasculine article, cf. Janssen, LRLC, 14.

Verso 10. The phrase Sd(=wi) n ir.t mt, ‘to keep (me) safe from the

eye of a dead person’, finds a clear parallel in one of the ‘promises’in the Oracular Amuletic Decrees: iw=i (r) Sd=st …r ir.t mt, ‘I shallkeep her safe from … the eye of a dead person’ in L 2, rto 50, cf.I.E.S. Edwards, Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, FourthSeries, vol. I (London, 1960), 16, with n. 37 (referring to a similarprotection against the ir.t mt in P 4, 23), and vol. II, pls. IV–IVa.The fear of the eye of dead persons is also known from other texts,cf. J.F. Borghouts, JEA 59 (1973), 147–148. In general, protectionagainst the evil eye (ir.t bin.t) could be obtained with the help ofmagical spells and amulets. In this connection Borghouts, JEA 59,148, refers to the spell inscribed on the Berlin wooden tablet23308 (cf. S. Schott, ZÄS 67 [1931], 109–110), the many wDAt-eyesworn as amulets, and the wDAt-eyes on the small magical papyrialmost entirely comprised of ‘vignettes’, which were rolled up andworn as amulets (cf. e.g. B. Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de DeirEl Médineh, années 1948 à 1951 [FIFAO 26; Cairo, 1953], 72, nos. 2and 3).

Dhutmose was obviously highly interested in magicalpractice. In their later correspondence father and son alsoexchanged information about amulets, a subject which may wellbe related to the oft mentioned ill health of Dhutmose, cf.Janssen, LRLC, 14.

Verso 11. Most probably read: [mtw=k dit] Hr=k (n) nA MDAy.w i-iri.w … I have no suggestion about the remaining traces of thefinal groups. For the phrase mtw=k di.t Hr=k n NN as a periphrasticrequest, cf. Sweeney, Correspondence and Dialogue, 46 (sub a.).

Commentary

Although the defective state of the papyrus has unfortunatelyresulted in the loss of a substantial part of this letter, enoughremains to understand the main elements. It was no doubtwritten by Dhutmose and addressed to Butehamun. As usual inthe letters to his son, Dhutmose sends a whole series of ordersand advice. Several topics and persons referred to also occur in P.Leiden I 370 (LRL, 9–11), which seems a clear indication that thisletter was also written sometime during year 6 of the WHm-mswt-period. The mention of ‘the General’ – Payankh – in rto 14 is ofhistorical interest. Contrary to the opinion of Janssen, LRLC, 19,the reference to ‘the General’ would not point to a date for thisletter later than year 6 of the WHm-mswt-period. The earliestreference to this authority in the Late Ramesside Letters occurs ina letter dated to the same year 6 of the WHm-mswt-period,although it is only in the introductory blessings, as ‘the General,your lord’ in P. BM EA 10417, rto 5–6.

Since no specific deities or toponyms are mentioned, theintroduction seems to provide no indication of the whereaboutsof Dhutmose, ‘the place where I am’. This must therefore havebeen known to his correspondent, Butehamun, and may well bean indication that this letter was sent some time later than P.Leiden I 370, which contains a long list of instructions regardingsome of the same, or similar, matters. Another indication for adate after P. Leiden I 370 may be found in the reference to thetransport of straw, as commented upon in the note to vso 7 above.

In general, Dhutmose once again shows in this letter a keeninterest in all domestic affairs, although he is away from home.However, contrary to his usual habits – at least as far as thepreserved part of the letter allows us to tell – he refrains fromenquiring about the condition of other members of the family.


BM EA 75023

Registration number 1996-2-17.9EA 75023 and EA 75024 are strips of papyrus that have been fixedonto a sheet of paper, at the top of which Bankes wrote theaccompanying note:

From Thebes (2d. Journey). These & all the rest of those(?) markedalphabetically were found together in one parcel. They are coarse &probably relate to the lower class. I believe these two to be intire.

In Bankes’ alphabetical numbering these two papyri arelabelled together ‘A’. They belonged to the second group ofdocuments rediscovered at Kingston Lacy in the 1990s. Withwidths of 7.1 and 8.1cm respectively, they both are of a completelydifferent size from the standard in the late 20th dynasty, forwhich see the ‘Appendix’ in Janssen, LRLC, 48–50. They do noteven belong to the small group of letters written on a quarteredroll (P. Bibl.Nat. 196 II: 10cm; P. BM EA 10440: 10.5cm; P.Strasbourg 31: 12cm; P. Strasbourg 39: 10cm; P. Berlin 8523:10cm). Another exceptional case is the unpublished P. Turin 2014(C

vv

erný Notebook 15.41–46), a tall strip, 30cm high and 8.8cmwide containing a difficult letter followed by a list of servicepersonnel of the ‘left side’ of the gang of workmen of Deir el-Medina, datable to the late 20th dynasty.

In the case of the present documents, it seems that the scribessimply used an available strip of papyrus to write down thesebrief communications.

EA 75023 is a strip of light brown papyrus, of good quality,23.3cm high by 7.1cm wide. The recto (V/H) bears 11 lines ofwriting and shows no signs of earlier writing. The verso is fixedonto paper, but is presumably uninscribed.

Translation (Plates 25 and 26)1 (From) the troop commander/chief of the archers Ionr (?)2 of the archers of Pharaoh life,.prosperity and health to3 the prophet Paynedjem of the temple of4 Horus-Behdety: In life, prosperity and health and in the

favour of5 Horus-Behdety, your lord,6 every day. And further: I am writing to you7 to wit: Let there be brought to me 208 pomegranates9 (and) let the retainer hasten10 to fetch them from the or-11 chard, quickly. Farewell.

Notes

1. The two signs above the first line are puzzling. The first oneresembles pr and the second is clearly pDt, but no convincingreading and meaning for the group as a whole can be offered.

A Hry-pDt (n) nA pDt Pr-aA a.w.s. Ionr(?) is not recorded in thelist of officers with this rank in P.-M. Chevereau, Prosopographiedes cadres militaires égyptiens du Nouvel Empire (Paris, 1994),64–77. Instead of the traditional translations of the title Hry pDt,Chevereau prefers ‘commandant de régiment’, as moreadequately conveying the status of this rank directly subordinateto that of a general.

The personal name Ionr/ Iol, if correctly read, is not found inRanke, PN, nor in Thirion, Notes d’onomastique. In spite of thediffering orthography, it may be related to the names Ior and Pn-ior listed as N 75 and N 228 in Th. Schneider, AsiatischePersonennamen in ägyptischen Quellen des Neuen Reiches (OBO

114; Freiburg Schweiz/Göttingen, 1992), 46 and 107; or to thename Ioni recorded by R.A. Parker, A Saite Oracle Papyrus fromThebes (Providence, Rhode Island, 1962), 50 n. h; or else it may beof Libyan origin.

2. The sign at the end above this line is puzzling. It resembles aclumsy pDt.

3. The prophet of the temple of Horus-Behdety Paynedjem isunknown to me from other sources. In fact, the history of thetemple at Edfu during the New Kingdom is poorly documented. Ahigh priest of Horus-Behdety, Amenmose, dated to the reign ofRamses III, is known from two lintels, cf. K.A. Kitchen and G.A.Gaballa, Serapis 6 (1980), 75–76. Other members of the clergy ofthis cult are listed by Helck, Materialien, II, 155–156. Ananonymous Hm-nTr of Horus-Behdety is mentioned in P. Turin2013+2050+2061, recto 1, 4, of year 6 of Ramesses IX (KRI VI 600,2; not, as Kitchen says, P. Turin 1930/2050+2013; this mistakewas initially made by C

vv

erný, but was already corrected by him onthe original fragments in Turin). An almost certainly contemporarycolleague of our Paynedjem occurs in another administrativedocument dating to the late 20th dynasty, and found at Thebes:the Hm-nTr Nebnetjeru of the temple of Horus-Behdety, in P. BMEA 10401, I, 22 and II, 1, cf. J.J. Janssen, ‘Requisitions from UpperEgyptian Temples’, JEA 77 (1991), 79–94. In view of the closerelations between Edfu and Thebes, especially during theRamesside Period, it is not surprising to find documents aboutEdfu at Thebes. In the Late Ramesside Letters we are told how thenecropolis scribe Dhutmose is collected at Edfu on his way southto participate in the expeditions of Payankh (LRL, 7,12), andelsewhere he refers to ‘the fowlers in the town of Edfu’ (LRL,6,10–11).

8. For inhrmA/inhmn ‘pomegranate’, see L. Manniche, An AncientEgyptian Herbal (London, 1989), 139–140; N. Baum, Arbres etarbustes de l’Égypte ancienne (OLA 31; Leuven, 1988), 149–154; P.Grandet, Le Papyrus Harris I, vol. 2 (BdE 109; Cairo, 1994), 85 n.315; B. Mathieu in Encyclopédie réligieuse de l’univers végétal(Orientalia Monspeliensia X; Montpellier, 1999), 102 with n. 11;S.H. Aufrère in Encyclopédie réligieuse de l’univers végétal(Orientalia Monspeliensia X; Montpellier, 1999), 221.

The earliest occurrence of this word, which may havesurvived in modern Arabic as ‘rummân’, is found in P. Ebers 19, 19,where the root of the plant is used as a medicinal ingredient. Thetree (Punica granatum L) seems to be attested for the first time inthe biography of Ineni (Urkunden IV, 73, 12). The presentreference to its fruit is, besides the occurrences in the PapyrusHarris I, the oldest known from an administrative document notbelonging to the sphere of the historical texts, medical treatises ormiscellanies (e.g. Caminos, LEM, 77).

9. As in P. BM EA 75015, rto 6 (see above), Sms.w is probably besttranslated here as ‘retainer’ instead of the more specific‘messenger’.

10–11. kAmw is not only ‘vineyard’, as translated by Lesko,Dictionary, IV, 34, but also more generally ‘garden’ or ‘orchard’,see already Caminos, LEM, 80 and 157.

11. iw=f As, an element to reinforce requests, cf. Sweeney,


Demarée

Correspondence and Dialogue, 59–60.For nfr snb=k as the terminal formula in letters to persons of

equal rank, or to superiors, cf. Bakir, Epistolography, 65–66.

Commentary

Since there is still no adequate palaeographic study of the hieraticof the late New Kingdom papyri, it is difficult to date the text ofthis little memo from its writing, although it certainly resemblesthat of the administrative papyri and the letters of the late 20thdynasty. If, as the note by Bankes himself indicates, it was indeedfound together with some of the correspondence betweenDhutmose and Butehamun, its presence may be due to theactivities of the former - either during his journey southwards tocollect grain in year 12 of Ramesses XI, or later when heparticipated in the expeditions of Payankh.

BM EA 75024

Registration number 1996-2-17.10A strip of light brown papyrus, of good quality, 23.5cm high(including the loose strip at the top) by 8.1cm wide. It is fixed ontopaper, together with BM EA 75023 (see above), but upside downin relation to the latter. The recto (H/V) bears eight lines ofwriting, although the first line is almost completely lost in thelacuna. There are no signs of earlier writing. A sheet join is visiblerunning vertically near the left edge. The verso is fixed ontopaper, but is presumably uninscribed.

Translation (Plates 25 and 26)1 (?)2 What is for the chief of servants3 Nakhtenamun4 Emmer, 5 khar5 rwDw-garments of smooth cloth, 26 dow seed, 27 Upper Egyptian barley seed, 28 Fish, 50.

Notes

2. Brief notes or memoranda introduced by nty or nty n are knownfrom Ramesside ostraca, e.g. O. Petrie 82 (C

vv

erný-Gardiner, HO35,2); O. IFAO 389 (unpub.) and O. Brussels E. 6463 (unpub.),but I am unaware of any on papyrus.

3. The name Nxt-n-Imn occurs as a variant to Nxt-Imn, cf. Ranke,PN I 209,22 and 210,20. A Hry-mrw, ‘chief of servants’, with thisname is otherwise unknown to me.

5. For the rwDw-garment (a ‘shawl’?) and its material (naa, theordinary quality of cloth) cf. Janssen, Commodity Prices,284–286, and idem, JEA 77 (1991), 89, n. (ff).

6–7. dow seed is unknown to me, but for dow as a specific vegetalproduct, probably ‘date-flour’, see J.J. Janssen, JEA 77 (1991), 86,n. (m). This commodity was usually measured in baskets (P. BMEA 10401, I, 10) or sacks (P. Turin 1903, rto 4), or in hin (LRL, 55,15), as possibly here too. In line 7 the amount of barley seed isprobably also meant to be understood as 2 hin.

8. Fish is usually measured in deben, cf. Janssen, CommodityPrices, 478–481 and idem, Village Varia, 43–54.

Commentary

Although, as Bankes indicated, this memo was found togetherwith some documents belonging with the Dhutmosecorrespondence, its contents do not allow any clear relation tothat dossier to be established.

It is remarkable that a ‘clean’ strip of papyrus was used for asimple memo concerning the delivery of some commodities.Whereas Janssen would probably term a brief note like this a‘communication’ (LRLC, 8), Sweeney prefers to categorise suchtexts as letters, ‘since they are written messages that passbetween two persons’ (Dialogue and Correspondence, 17).

BM EA 75025

Registration number 1996-2-17.11A small sheet of medium quality papyrus, 12.8cm high and22.3cm wide. The recto (V/H) is of greyish light brown colour andbears the remains of three lines of writing. The severe damages inthe upper part suggest that the papyrus was folded starting fromthe bottom of the recto and resulting in a roll of which the top ofthe recto formed the outermost, and therefore most vulnerable,strip. The document is clearly palimpsest and the reuse of thepapyrus may also have contributed to its deterioration. The tracesof almost all of the 10 lines of the original text are still visible.With the indispensable help of Guillaume Bouvier it was possibleto produce a facsimile showing both the later text and as much aspossible of the original text.

Until recently the verso (H/V) was stuck onto paper, butthanks to the technical skills and care of Bridget Leach, of theconservation department, it has proved possible to remove thepaper. The verso is of light brown colour and bears the faint tracesof six or seven almost completely washed off lines of writing. Toprecto = bottom verso.

In Bankes’ alphabetical numbering this document is labelled‘C’. It was part of the second group to be rediscovered in thelibrary at Kingston Lacy in the 1990s.

The papyrus was mounted onto paper by Bankes and belowthe document he scribbled a note:

This seems never to have been any larger. – It is chiefly curious asexhibiting a specimen of a former writing having been effaced tomake room for that which now appears. The same process wasobservable also at the back. – This gives reason to suspect that thePapyrus was either not very abundant or not very cheap.

Original text

Translation

Recto (Plates 27 and 28)1 The scribe […] in the West of Thebes greets …2 [… of] the Temple of Amun-Re, king of the gods. In life,

prosperity and health, and in the favour of Amun-3 [Re, king of the gods … To wit: I tell?] Amun4 to cause you to live, to cause you to be in health, and to cause

you to be rejuvenated […]5 and let me fill [my] embrace with you, every day, every day.

And further: [I] have noted your having written to look after6 my condition. It is Amun-Re, king of the gods, your lord, who

shall look after you and do good for you7 and give you favours before the General. Indeed I am alive

today; tomorrow8 is in God’s hands. May he cause that I conquer this illness in

me(?) […]9 [?…] Please tell


10 Amun-Re, king of the gods, to bring me back alive and let mereach Ne/Thebes my (home) town.

Verso (Plate 33)

Illegible

Notes

1. Nothing much seems to be missing at the top of the originaldocument. The introductory formula NN Hr nD-xrt NN indicatesthat sender and addressee of this letter were of equal rank; seethe Commentary to P. BM EA 75015 (above).

Although no longer recognizable, the name of the sender canbe safely restored as Dhutmose. In view of the available space hemust have used his full title, sS NN n pA xr aA Spsy n HH.w m rnp.wt nPr-aA a.w.s. Hr Imnt.t WAs.t, which is known from one other letteronly, P. Turin 54100 (LRL, 24,14), but was also used by hiscolleague Nesamenope (LRL, 55,3–4).

The name of the addressee is lost, but the remaining finalelements of what must have been his title indicate that he wasattached to the Temple of Amun-Re, king of the gods. Of thefunctionaries of this institution known from the correspondenceso far, the deputy Hori of Letter 12 (LRL, 23,4) and the scribe of thetreasury Paynefernefer of Letter 27 (LRL 42,11) seem to have beenhigher in rank than our scribe Dhutmose, while the scribe Hafy ofP. BM EA 10419 (LRLC, 17 and pls. 5–6) may have been his equal.

2–5. Due the lacunae, most of the text of the introductory phrasesis lost, but they clearly follow the general pattern so well-knownfrom many other letters.

5. For the phrase ‘I have noted your having written to look aftermy condition’, used by Dhutmose, see P. Bibl.Nat. 197, IV, rto 3–4(LRL, 13,5–6) and P. BM EA 10419, rto 6–7 (Janssen, LRLC, 17); cf.also Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 283, n. 81.

6–7. The nominal sentence pattern m + nominal subject + i.iri.fsDm is also used by Dhutmose in P. Bibl.Nat. 197, IV, rto 4–5 (LRL,13,6–7) and P. BM EA 10419, rto 6–7 (Janssen, LRLC, 17–18); cf.Cvv

erný-Groll, Grammar, 530 (57.12.17) and the remarks by Wente,LRL, 33 n. a.

7–8. For the almost proverbial phrase, ‘Indeed I am alive today;tomorrow is in God’s hands’, used by Dhutmose, see P. Leiden I369, rto 5–6 (LRL, 1,7–8) and P. BM EA 10419, rto 7–8 (Janssen,LRLC, 17). It is also used by Butehamun: see P. Geneva D 407, vso14 (LRL, 16,3), and, most probably, P. BM EA 10417, rto 11 (LRL,27,15–16). See also similar expressions in LRL, 15,1 and 34,1–2. Forthis topic, cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, ‘Wisdom about Tomorrow’, TheHarvard Theological Review 53 (1960), 219–221; J. Assmann,Ma’at. Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im Alten Ägypten(Münich, 1990), 255–256.

8. Dhutmose frequently refers to his ‘illness’ (mr) when he is onassignment in the ‘north’ (cf. P. Leiden I 369, vso 3 (LRL, 2,8); P.Leiden 370, vso 19 (LRL, 11,16)), and on expedition with Payankh(cf. P. BM EA 10326, rto 8 (LRL, 17,13) and rto 12 (LRL 18,4)).Elsewhere, in P. Geneva D 407, vso 18 (LRL 16,8), Butehamun askstwo men accompanying his father not to neglect Dhutmosebecause ‘we know that he is a sick man’.

9. In the Late Ramesside Letters the form ix stp=k, in ix Dd=k here,is used almost exclusively by Dhutmose, notably in requests forintercessory prayer, cf. Sweeney, ‘Idiolects’, 300 with n. 277, and301 with n. 296.

10. For the construction pH Niw.t pAy=i dmi, with the badal-apposition, cf. P. Berlin 10494, rto 5 (LRL, 23,9–10): pH=k r Niw.t pAdmi. In P. Turin 2026, rto 8–10 (LRL, 72,3–6) Dhutmose asks hiscorrespondents to pray to the gods ‘to bring me back prospering’and imi.tw pH=i r-Xry Km.t, ‘let me reach (home) down (to) Egypt’.

If this line was indeed the last on the recto, as the free space atthe bottom seems to indicate, the letter must have continued onthe verso, which would be in accordance with Bankes’ remarkconcerning effaced text also on that side of the document nowinvisible.

Later text

Transliteration (Plates 27 and 28)1 so· iory(?)· kst· rst· nst· 2 trf· tA· wr [??] r· tA· kt· ??y??· 3 iw( ?) pAy=w ??· wa nn sw r rA n nsk·

Commentary

We will probably never know why Dhutmose did not send theoriginal letter and then effaced the text and reused the papyrus towrite down what is apparently a magical spell. One can onlyspeculate that he was simply short of writing material. In thisrespect Bankes’ note, scribbled beneath the document, was akeen observation. In view of the absence of supply stores, theproblem of where and how to get hold of the material may havebeen a more important issue than just its price, for which seeJanssen, Commodity Prices, 447–448, and the comments by R.A.Caminos, in M.L. Bierbrier (ed.), Papyrus: Structure and Usage(Occasional Paper No. 60, British Museum, London, 1986), 47with n. 23.

The text that was probably written by Dhutmose after he hadeffaced the old letter is enigmatic. Its transcription is seriouslyhampered by the many lacunae in the papyrus and the verynature of the text itself. The syllabic writing and the use of the‘stick’ as a determinative for foreign words or concepts seem toindicate that the three lines represent a text written, at leastpartly, in a non-Egyptian language. The few known examples offoreign language texts that are written in Egyptian script allbelong to the world of the magico-medical practice. Well knownexamples are the conjuration spell in the Magical Harris Papyrus(P. BM EA 10042, vso III), and the incantations against skincomplaints in the London Medical Papyrus (P. BM EA 10059, VI,6– VII,7), both re-published by Christian Leitz, The Magical andMedical Papyri of the New Kingdom (Hieratic Papyri in the BritishMuseum VII; London, 1999), 49–50 and 61–63. The text on thispapyrus may well be another magical spell in a foreign speech,which I have not been able to identify. So far, no certainconnection with any Semitic language has been established,despite the efforts of several colleagues. The text offers no clearindication as to its original language, although possibly line 3states that it is written r rA n nsk, ‘in the speech of Nasek’, ‘Nasek’being a country, people or language. However, since the word nskis unknown to any of the current dictionaries, this provides noinformation.

The first word in line 1 – so – may be the same as the first word


Demarée

in one of the spells in the London Medical Papyrus (P. BM EA10059, VI,10), in a conjuration of a skin disease (cf. Leitz, Magicand Medical Papyri, 62). If this spell was also directed against thesame type of disease, this could clarify the nature of the medicalproblems that Dhutmose referred to in the original letter on thispapyrus as ‘his illness’. Since that letter was most probablywritten when he was on expedition in Nubia, it is quite possiblethat he ‘cleaned’ the papyrus to write down a spell in a locallanguage. The role of Nubia in Egyptian magical texts is welldocumented; see J.F. Borghouts, OMRO 51 (1970), 151, n. 2, and Y. Koenig, RdÉ 38 (1987), 105–110. In general, for the Egyptian fearof foreign magic and the use of foreign magic in the New Kingdomand after, see R.K. Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient EgyptianMagical Practice (SAOC 54, Chicago, 1993, 1995), 71, 140, 217 and246 (with n. 1130 on ‘Nubian spells’), and Jacco Dieleman, Priests,Tongues, and Rites. The London-Leiden Magical Manuscripts andTranslation (100–300 ce) (Religions in the Graeco-Roman Worldvol. 153, Leiden, 2005), 138–143.

BM EA 75039

Registration number 1996-2-17.25A fragment of poor quality papyrus, torn from a roll or sheet,measuring 21.5cm high and 12cm wide. The recto (H/V) is ofmedium brown colour and bears the remains of 10 lines ofwriting: 6 lines of an earlier, partly effaced, text and 4 lines of alater text written in the opposite direction. As indicated by theincompletely washed off lines, the papyrus is a palimpsest. Theverso is of orange brown colour, partly due to the effects of thegoldbeaters’ skin which was used to reinforce the papyrus. Itbears the remains of eight almost completely effaced lines ofwriting. The orientation of the original document was toprecto=top verso.

In Bankes’ alphabetical numbering this papyrus is labelled ‘E’.It was part of the first group to be rediscovered in the library atKingston Lacy in the 1960s and is most probably the documenttermed ‘a fragment inscribed with parts of six lines in hieratic’ byI.E.S. Edwards in JEA 68 (1982), 126, n. 1.

Earlier text

Translation

Recto (Plate 29)1 (traces only)2 (traces only)3 (traces only)4 […] aroura 75 (traces only)6 […] aroura 26, makes khar 130 [effaced]

Notes

Unfortunately only the ends of some lines have survived of whatwas clearly a tax assessment account. The calculation in line 6results in 5 khar per aroura, which would be in accordance with

the known yield for average arable land, so-called oAy.t-plots, cf.Gardiner, Wilbour II, 227ff., 178ff., and S.L.D. Katary, Land Tenurein the Ramesside Period (London, 1989), 21: ‘standard averagegrain harvest (yield) 5 sacks per aroura for kayt-land’.

Later text (Plate 30)1 Exacted/drawn from …? of Pharaoh […]2 Given by scribe Hori(?) […?]3 Exacted/drawn from the magazine […]4 Given to Ne/Thebes for Henuttawi […]

Notes

1. The few signs after the break in the first line are clear, but I donot understand their meaning.

2. For di n, ‘what had been given by’, cf. J.J. Janssen, JEA 77(1991), 86, n. q.

These brief lines are somewhat reminiscent of the paragraphsin the Turin Taxation Papyrus, cf. Gardiner, RAD, 35–44. Just likethe expressions diw n and rdy.t, the technical term Sd/Sdy.t,‘withdrawing/withdrawn’, is well-known from the terminologyin accounting texts, cf. Caminos, LEM, 6 and J. C

vv

erný, The Valleyof the Kings (BdE 61; Cairo, 1973), 46.

The name of the scribe Hori, if correctly read, is too commonduring the Ramesside Period to permit any specificidentification. If there is a connection between this text and theTurin Taxation Papyrus, the lady Henuttawi mentioned in thepresent text may well be the same as the wife of the scribeNesamunenope, both of whom figure in the Turin papyrusprominently and also in the Late Ramesside Letters.

3. For mXr , ‘magazine’, see now J. J. Janssen, Grain Transport inthe Ramesside Period (Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum VIII,London, 2004), 61, n. 3.

Verso

Of the originally eight lines on the verso only a few traces are stilllegible. Lines 6 and 7 begin with iw, ‘entered’, and line 8 startswith dmD, ‘total’. Between line 7 and 8 there is an illegible sign inred ink.

Commentary

According to Bankes’ information in his note accompanying EA75023 and EA 75024 (see above), this fragment was found in oneparcel together with documents clearly belonging to the ‘archive’of the necropolis scribe Dhutmose. The few lines of the later texton the recto not only share the same subject, but also show thesame small, cursive handwriting that occurs on the TurinTaxation Papyrus which almost certainly belongs to this scribe(cf. Gardiner, RAD, XX). Other parts of the accounts papyrus fromwhich this fragment was torn, may one day be identified inanother collection.


Goldbeaters’ skin has long been used as a repair material forparchment manuscripts and bindings (Reed 1972:131). HaroldPlenderleith, Keeper of the Research Laboratory at the BritishMuseum in 1956, states that narrow strips were used to repairfractures in papyrus documents (1956:44). Used in this way,strips of goldbeaters’ skin have also been observed on papyri inthe Louvre (Menei 1995:191). The material itself is a very thinand strong form of parchment made from cattle intestines. Thestrength of the product made it suitable for use as aninterleaving layer between which gold was beaten into finesheets. Small squares of approximately 10 x 10cm in size wereused for goldbeating. Such pieces were used to preserve theBankes papyri where the entire back of each papyrus was linedwith a patchwork of squares, or parts of squares. Some sectionsof the manuscripts are large, particularly the funerary papyri,needing up to 30 or 40 separate pieces to cover the whole (Pl. 2).It was evident that the skin itself had already been used forgoldbeating as the pieces were very dirty, especially in thecentre, where the hammer was used more repeatedly in theearly stages of beating. Also small pieces of gold leaf were stillattached, much of it reattaching itself to the papyri. Today, evenwhere the skin has been removed, small pieces of gold leaf arestill visible, embedded into the surface of the papyri. The greybox referred to above, containing loose papyrus fragments, alsocontained many squares of goldbeaters’ skin never used forrepair (Pl. 1).

It is unusual to find goldbeaters’ skin used so profusely onpapyri, and this the only example seen at the British Museum.Transparent papers such as ‘vegetable parchment’ (papiervégétal), commonly used to repair papyri in the 19th and 20thcenturies, were not commercially available until after the 1850s(Laroque 2004:21). This may indicate that the repairs to the

The Late Ramesside letters BM EA 75018 to 75022 wereconserved not long after their arrival at the British Museum in1994. The manuscripts were among a large group of papyri thatcame from Kingston Lacy after Ralph Bankes bequeathed thehouse and estate to the National Trust in 1981. The materialcame in a large portfolio, a small red leather box, a grey box fileand a box containing six frames of papyri.

The last of these items were a small group that had beenfound some 30 years earlier by Iorwerth Edwards (1982:126). Hehad brought them to the British Museum for study in the 1960s,and during their temporary stay he had them framed. The workwas undertaken by Stanley Baker, then Conservator of EgyptianAntiquities. At the time it was thought that these manuscriptsmade up the entire collection of papyri at Kingston Lacy. These‘Stan Baker’ frames (BM EA 75015-17, 75023-5 and 75039), as theycame to be called during conservation, contained papyri thathad either been attached to goldbeaters’ skin or pasted ontopaper in order to preserve them. When the remainder of thepapyri were found and examined at the Museum in 1994 itbecame clear that all the manuscripts from Kingston Lacy hadbeen treated in the same way, except for a number of small loosefragments contained in the grey box file (Pl. 1). It was onlyduring subsequent conservation treatment that the transparentmaterial used for repair was firmly identified as goldbeaters’skin. Thus, since the discovery of the group at Kingston Lacy thepapyri were treated in two stages: firstly, the documents framedby Stanley Baker in the 1960s, and secondly the much largergroup that came to the British Museum in 1994 and underwentextensive conservation. In addition, there is a much earliertreatment involving lining the manuscripts with goldbeaters’skin. This is not documented and the date that it was done is notknown.

Plate 1The grey box file as it arrived from Kingston Lacy in 1994, containingpapyrus fragments and squares of goldbeaters’ skin as yet unused for repair

Plate 2The back of a section of the Book of the Dead of Reri (BM EA 75044) as itarrived in 1994, showing the papyrus lined with numerous pieces of goldbeaters’skin

Conservation of the Late Ramesside Papyri Bridget Leach


Leach

Bankes papyri were applied at an early date, at a time whengoldbeaters’ skin was the most suitable material available.Qualities such as transparency and the skin’s affinity toparchment, made it a good repair material for parchmentdocuments, however, it is not so suitable for papyrus. Onereason is that it is sensitive to fluctuations in relative humidityand temperature. In these conditions dimensional changes,usually shrinkage, can result which in turn affect the papyrusand cause it to fracture. Another disadvantage is the very natureof the material itself. Being a proteinaceous animal product itdeteriorates readily and is highly susceptible to fungal attack. Inthe case of the Kingston Lacy papyri the skin had become weakand in some areas also extremely brittle. A further disadvantagewas the fact that the skin had already been used for the primarypurpose of goldbeating and most of the pieces used were verydirty and had lost most of their transparency. Those on the LateRamesside letters that came to the Museum inside the largeportfolio (BM EA 75018-75022) were so dark that the textunderneath was unreadable. Those used on the fragmentsinside the Stan Baker frames did not appear to be so degraded ordark and even where the text had been covered, it could still beseen reasonably clearly.

The conservation of the Late Ramesside letters, laterregistered as numbers BM EA 75018-22, was undertaken at theMuseum in 1995. The five documents and six fragments wereattached along one edge onto a large sheet of brown paper. Thesheet was among a number of such sheets containing papyri inthe large portfolio. The goldbeaters’ skin which lined thedocuments had caused them to curl unless weighted down, asthe skin had shrunk over time. In collaboration with curatorStephen Quirke, it was decided to start the conservation of theBankes papyri with the Late Ramesside letters as they formed anidentifiable group of significant interest. Several smallfragments from the top two layers of the portfolio, noted aspossibly belonging to the group, were also included. Duringconservation a further fragment was found wrapped in a pieceof white paper on another sheet of the portfolio, given theRoman numeral ‘X’, and which subsequently was joined to BMEA 75021.

Firstly the papyri were removed from the large sheet ofpaper so that the other side of the documents could beexamined. Four of the five, one being a funerary text from the21st dynasty (BM EA 75026), had writing on both sides. Thegoldbeaters’ skin was very dirty, making the text underneathvery difficult to read. It had also distorted the papyrus itself. Itwas therefore removed by softening small areas at a time andthen peeling it away from the papyrus surface with tweezers.Small amounts of water and alcohol (mixed 1:1) applied bybrush were used for the softening, after first testing on smallinked areas of the papyrus under magnification. When the skinwas finally removed a thick layer of adhesive could be seen onthe papyrus surface underneath. Much used in bookbinding andin conservation today, the adhesive could be readily identified asstarch paste. This was scraped away with a fine scalpel until onlya fine layer was left which was then removed around the inkedareas with damped cotton buds. The papyri were then repairedalong the fractures with small pieces of Japanese paper; suchpapers are widely used in conservation because of their quality

and strength. During repair, any necessary alignment of thedocuments, identified by the fibre structure over transmittedlight, was carried out. Among previously repaired papyrusdocuments, misplaced fragments are sometimes found and thiswas the case with BM EA 75020. The lower part of the documenthad at some time in the past become fragmented and beenrepaired but with each of the small pieces wrongly placed, thisarea could now be reconstructed in the correct alignment. Alsoat repair stage the separate documents and fragments can beexamined for joins, again many joins were found. Incollaboration with the curator, some reconstruction could bemade to all the Late Ramesside letters by matching the fibrepatterns. The small fragments that could not be definitely placedat this time were mounted in a small frame which wassubsequently numbered BM EA 75022.

The ‘Stan Baker’ frames, being in reasonable condition, werenot treated except for BM EA 75023 and 75024 which had beenattached to pieces of white paper and were contained in oneframe. Each papyrus needed a small amount of repair which wasdone before reframing.

In 1998, about a year after all the Bankes papyri had beenconserved and were back in the collection, Robert Demaréediscovered that BM EA 75019 and BM EA 10302, which had beenacquired by the museum in 1821 from Henry Salt, were twohalves of the same letter (see page 14). He also found placingsfor all the small fragments in BM EA 75022 with this letter or BMEA 75020. The papyri and the fragments were remounted intheir correct positions in the conservation studio. BM EA 10302had been conserved in 1984 and at this time it was noted that thepapyrus had been repaired using sealing wax. Small deposits ofthe red wax, probably applied in the 1800s, are still visible on thesurface. A further small amount of conservation work wasundertaken in 2004 when the paper on which papyrus BM EA75025 was attached was removed in order to see if thepalimpsest text, readable on the previously exposed side, couldalso be read on the other side where it was expected to continue.The paper had only been attached to the papyrus in one or twosmall areas and so it was readily removed with a little waterapplied locally. However the text underneath was very faint.This papyrus has also been reframed. During conservation it wasnoted that a small deposit of gold was embedded on thepapyrus. Although goldbeaters’ skin had not been used to repairthis particular document, small particles of gold leaf wereevidently floating in the atmosphere and around work surfacesduring early treatment.

In summary, after the entire collection of papyri was foundin 1994 at Kingston Lacy and brought to the British Museum, itcould be seen that the documents had been treated at a muchearlier date. The majority of the manuscripts had been repairedusing pieces of goldbeaters’ skin, possibly in the first half of the19th century, and were then attached to large sheets of card andplaced inside a folder. In many examples the goldbeaters’ skinhad deteriorated and shrunk: additionally, much of it was dirtyand obscured the text on the papyrus. During conservation in1995 most of the goldbeaters’ skin was removed and thedocuments were cleaned and repaired. The Bankes collection ofpapyri is now in good condition and mounted between glass,where the manuscripts may be accessed and studied safely.


Conservation of the Late Ramesside Letters

Bibliography Edwards, I.E.S.1982. The Bankes Papyri I and II’. Journal of Egyptian

Archaeology, 68, 126–133, pls.XII and XIII. London, Egypt ExplorationSociety.

Laroque, C, 2004. ‘History and analysis of transparent papers’ in TheJournal of the Institute of Paper Conservation, 28, 17–32.

Menei, E. 1995. ‘Elements pour une histoire de la conservation des papyri’.In Il rotolo librario: fabbricazzione, restauro, organizzazione interna,

(ed. M. Capasso). Lecce: Universita degli Studi di Lecce,Dipartimento di Filologica Classica e Mediaevale, Centro di StudiPapirologici, 187–221.

Plenderleith, H.J. 1956. The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art.London: Oxford University Press.

Reed, R. 1972. Ancient Skins Parchments and Leathers. London: SeminarPress.


Demarée

Index of personal names

Iw=f-n-Imn (sS) 75015, rto 13Iwhpy (aA n thr) 75015, rto 10Imn-Htp 75021, vso 7Imn-xaw (Swyty n pr Imn) 75015, rto 2, 11; vso 8Imtwy (wr) 75019+10302, vso 12Ix-tr-pAy (Hry-mrw) 75015, rto 8Ionr( ?) (Hry-pDt n nA pDt Pr-aA) 75023, 1ant-m-Hb (f.) 75018, vso 2–3Wnw-n-Imn (od/iod n pr Imn-Ra) 75015, rto 1 ; vso 8Bw-thA-Imn (sS n pA xr) 75017, rto 1; vso 1; 75020, rto 7;

75021, rto 1PA-imy-r-Snwty (wHa.w) 75015, rto 5–6PA-TAw-m-di-mHy.t-m-Hb 75018, rto 3–4PAy-anx (TAy xw Hr wnmy nsw.t

imy-r mSa.w)(?) 75019+10302, rto 1PAy-anx(?) 75021, rto 11PAy-pnw 75021, rto 2, 6PAy-nDm (Hm-nTr n pr 1r BHdty) 75023, 3–4Pn-pA-Ra 75019+10302 rto 11Pn-tA-Hw.t-nxt (sS mSa) 75021, vso 3Ptr(=i)-pAy=i-nb 75017, rto 1; 2 Nxt(?) 75016, rto 2Nxt-n-Imn (Hry-sDm.w) 75024, 2–30d-nxt (mDAy n pA xr) 75020, vso 8–9; 75021,

vso 4–51nw.t-nTr.w (f.; Smay.t n Imn-Ra) 75018, rto 11nw.t-tAwy (f.) 75039, (later text) 41ri (sS) 75039, (later text) 21ri (Sms.w) 75015, rto 61ri sA anx-mAa.t(?) 75020, rto 114mn-sxr.w 75018, vso 1–25d(.sw)-1r 75020, vso 4Ony-3nmw (sS) 75020, vso 4Od-1w.t-1r (f.) 75018, vso 3KAr(y) (sAw) 75020, rto 7Gm=i-Imn (Hm) 75015, rto 56A-n.t-w-n-9dw (f.; Hm.t) 75015, rto 46A-di-As.t (f.) 75018, rto 2; vso 107Aw-n-mHy.t-m-Hb 75021, rto 2, 5, 6; vso 57ry (sS n pA xr aA Spsy) 75017, vso 19Hwty-ms (sS n pA xr) [75020, rto 1]; [75021, rto 1]

IncompletePA-sbty-[…] 75018, vso 5–6Pn-tA-[…]? (sAw) 75020, vso 4

AnonymouspA imy-r mSa.w 75020, vso 6; 75021, rto 14

Index of words and expressions discussed

Aht, ‘field, plot, holding’ 75016 rto 2As, ‘quickly’ 75023, 11inn, ‘if’ 75016 vso 2; 75021, rto 8, 15inhrmA/inhmn, ‘pomegranate’ 75023, 8ispt (spyw), ‘quiver’ 75019+10302, vso 5aA (n MSwS), ‘great one’ 75019+10302, vso 12aA/aA.t, ‘donkey’ 75021, vso 7afdt, ‘box’ 75015 rto 3; 75021, vso 9aHa m aHa nb, ‘… linger at all’ 75019+10302 rto 7aDA, ‘false, it is not true’ 75015 rto 7; 75020, rto 8wbA, ‘forecourt, courtyard’ 75020, vso 1wnm m wnm wa, ‘eating together’ 75020, rto 10wr (n MSwS), ‘chief’ 75019+10302, vso 12bAk st-Hm.t, ‘female servants’ 75018 vso 4ba, ‘to reject, to show disrespect’ 75020, rto 9pyr/pry, ‘cloth strip, band, bandage’ 75019+10302, vso 3pr-pD.t, ‘bow-case’(?) 75019+10302, vso 2ptr (a), ‘to look after’ 75018, rto 10; 75019+10302,

vso 12mAmA, ‘dôm-palm’ 75019+10302, vso 2m pA HA.t, ‘before, previously’ 75019+10302, vso 3m rnp.t m rnp.t, ‘year by year’ 75016 rto 4mr, ‘illness’ 75025, (earlier text) 8mrkb.t, ‘chariot’ 75019+10302, rto 13; vso

12–13mXr, ‘magazine’ 75039, (later text) 3md.t, ‘law-suit, legal case’ 75016 vso 2–3nim, ‘which’ 75019+10302, vso 8nw, ‘to look after, to supervise’ 75019+10302, vso 16; 75021,

rto 10nwt, ‘yarn’ 75018 rto 10nbw nfr, ‘pure gold’ 75019+10302, rto 12nH/nHt, ‘to wish, to believe, to trust’ 75015, rto 12nxt, ‘stronghold, fortress’ 75019+10302, vso 15nD-xrt, ‘greeting’ 75015 rto 1; 75025, (earlier

text) 1r-or, ‘near, next, in the company of’ 75019+10302, vso 12ra nb, ‘every day, daily’ 75015, rto 3; 75018, rto 3;

75020, rto 6rwDw, ‘garment, shawl(?)’ 75024, 5rr, ‘bracelet’ 75019+10320 rto 8Hr Hr r, ‘to guard, to protect’ 75019+10302, vso 9–10Hry-pDt, ‘troop commander’ 75023, 1Hry-mrw, ‘master of serfs’ 75015 rto 8Hry-sDmw, ‘chief of servants’ 75024, 3Htr, ‘to levy, to assess’ 75021, rto 5Xr.t, ‘belongings, supply, rations’ 75016 rto 6saHa, ‘to reprove, to penalize, to accuse’ 75016 rto 7snH, ‘rope’ 75019+10302, vso 1sgnn nDm, ‘sweet oil’ 75019+10302, vso 10sty, ? 75019+10302, rto 12Swyty, ‘business agent’ 75015 rto 1–2Smw mH, ‘full summer’, ‘end of summer’ 75019+10302 rto 5Sms.w, ‘retainer, messenger’ 75015 rto 6; 75019+10302

rto 4; 75023, 9Snw, ‘wool’ 75018 vso 9Ssp n, ‘to receive from’ 75019+10320, vso 8od/iod, ‘builder’ 75015 rto 1kAmw, ‘garden, orchard’ 75023, 10–11km, ‘black’ 75021, vso 9twt, ‘to assemble(?)’ 75019+10302, rto 14thr/6whr, ‘Tuhir-troops’ 75015 rto 10Tbw, ‘vessel, cup’ 75–19+10302 rto 9Diw, ‘ration’ 75018 rto 7dHA, ‘straw’ 75021, vso 8dow, ‘date-flour’ 75024, 6dgs, ‘to trespass’ 75016 vso 1Dpr.t, ‘vessel’ 75019+10302, vso 10Ddt, ‘to stare, glance piercingly’ 75017 rto 3–4

josephinet

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Plates

Note:shaded areas in the transcription plates indicate passages in the papyri either lost or degraded beyond recognition.

34 |The Bankes Late Ramesside Papyri

Plates

Plate 1 BM EA 75015 rto


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Plate 3 BM EA 75015 vso


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Plate 13 BM EA 75019 +10302 rto


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Plate 14 BM EA 75019 +10302 rto


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Plate 15 BM EA 75019 +10302 vso


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Plate 16 BM EA 75019 +10302 vso


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Plate 25 BM EA 75023 + BM EA 75024


Plates

Plate 26 BM EA 75023 + BM EA 75024


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Plate 28 BM EA 75025 rto (earlier text)


josephinet

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is there some shading still missing just about here?


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