IFAO

The stele Aberdeen 1619 (ABDUA 21697) is indeed the funeral stele of the mother of a bull Bouchis, but it is not in the name of Maximin DaĪa as has been suggested by J. Capart and H. Grégoire. It is the funeral stele of the mother of the dead Bouchis 8 Hathyr of the year 57 of Diocletian (November 4, 340) known as the stele Bucheum 20. These dates should be calculated from the actual taking of power of these emperors in Egypt; they correspond to the years 316/317 and 331/332. Besides the addition of two new names to the Book of Kings of late Roman Egypt, the significance of this stele lies also in the rare and invaluable testimony it brings regarding the survival of traditional cults well into the IV-th century.

The tomb of Mehu in Saqqara shows a further representation of the hunting of birds using clap nets. This representation confirms conclusions the author had reached in a previous article («Du disque de Hemaka au filet hexagonal du lac Manzala. Un exemple de pérennité des techniques de chasse antiques», BIFAO 101, 2001, p. 237-248) and shows, on the one hand, that there were nets of six perches, the majority possessing four, and, on the other hand, that these nets could be represented laterally.

This article briefly describes a group of thirteen hieratic papyri of the Egyptian Museum of Turin. These papyri have similar characteristics. In addition to the hieratic scripts, they all have an initial and single etiquette, which represents the deceased adoring a divinity, and which contains chapters of the Book of the Dead. The presentation of a list of the well-dated papyri of the Third Intermediate Period – which mostly come from the different cachettes of Deir el-Bahari – will help us in studying the paleography, the etiquette, the sequences of the chapters of the Book of the Dead during this period, in order to try to place them in a social and historical context.

The present P. Vindob. D 6850 (Papyrus Collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna) from the regnal year 1 of Caesar Augustus (30 / 29 B. C.) refers to a late demotic "receipt of payment" (ỉw) for the royal wȜty-tax, whose exact character is still rather unclear. The collectors of the tax are two "administrators of the King" (nȜ sḥn.w pr-ʿȜ) as well as the wʿb-priests of the island of the great god Soknopaio. The five persons taxed are "the administrators of the weavers (nȜ sḥn.w nȜ mḏḳn.w) of the island of the great god Soknopaio".

Republication of a papyrus fragment which was published without transliteration or translation as "Brief (Eingabe an Götter)". This article corrects misconceptions and produces a new understanding and interpretation, concluding that it is a hierodule document. The present papyrus fragment in the Cairo Museum is a further contribution to the study of hierodules, hitherto published only in a few pieces. It is one of the latest, if not the latest, in date; it is probably very late Ptolemaic, found in the Fayyum.

During a systematic inventory of headrests carried out for a PhD thesis, two atypical artefacts stood out from the whole corpus. Both contain an almost identical magic -inscription, mentioning protective deities.

Nbtyt rḫyt "queen of the rekhyt" is primarily a title of the goddess Isis. As nbtyt rḫyt, Isis possesses the royal function given to her by her father Geb at her birthday "the day of the night of the infant in his nest". The title emphasises her relation with Osiris and Harsiësis "the son she puts on the throne of his father". In this way, Isis becomes the link between the royalty of the father and that of the son. This title is most frequent in the temple of Dendera, birthplace of the goddess Isis, specifically, in the chapel "the place of birth" (st-msḫn) and on the eastern gate leading to the temple of Isis. The title is also taken over by Hathor in order to underline the close relation between Isis and Hathor. The title is frequently attested in Philae and Edfu but becomes scarce in other regions. Nevertheless, the title keeps always the same meaning.

The purpose of this article is to show that both small animals of the Turin stele no. 50056 – one cat and a swallow – are not "secondary divinities" or deified animals but simply an aspect of a more important divinity: the rising sun for the bird, before Re crossed the horizon, and Hathor-Nebet-Hetepet for the cat, responsible for calming down the sun after the hard battle he does with his opponents every morning.

Wadi Maghara (Sinai) is known largely for having been a mining place for turquoise under the pharaos of the Old Kingdom. This area has however experienced another period of intense exploitation during the Middle Kingdom, under the last two kings of the XIIth dynasty. Some newly discovered documents cast light on the conditions of the re‑opening of this site from the second regnal year of Amenemhat III. They show the important role played by two categories of officials in this specific context: the "Scorpion Removers" (šd wḥʿwt) and the "Petty Officials" (jry ʿt).

Publication of two statues representing Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra II, from the Amun temple at Karnak. Preliminary considerations of Ptolemaic royal statues in Egyptian temples allow us to clarify the role and the date of the setting up of these monumental statues at the entrance of Amun’s temple.