IFAO

Rediscovered by James Bruce at the end of the XVIIIth century, the tomb of Ramesses III (KV 11) is one of the most famous and important monuments in the Valley of the Kings. Well known for the design and decoration of the upper part, the tomb is less known for its lower part, which is in very bad condition today. This lower part was still preserved in the XIXth century, but among the travellers and scholars who visited the tomb at that time, very few made descriptions or drawings of the decorations in the lower part. Until now the only two sources of our knowledge were the Notices descriptives of J.-Fr. Champollion and the Notices des hypogées royaux of E. Lefébure; however the unpublished manuscripts of Robert Hay kept in the British Library provide a third source. These important manuscripts contain some folios devoted to the tomb of Ramesses III, which provide crucial information about the decoration now lost. The aim of this paper is to publish this material, which consists of eight pages of hand-written notes (including sketches) and two views of the sarcophagus chamber executed with the help of the camera lucida. After an introduction of Robert Hay and a discussion of his work in Egypt (Part 1), the author gives the transcription of the English text (Part 2) and try to reconstruct the lower part of the decorative programme of KV 11, from the descent to corridor S to the last room Z (Part 3). For the reconstruction, the author collects the information in all three sources (which complement each other well) and take into account, as much as possible, the traces of decoration which remain extant on the walls.

It is well known that the ancient Egyptian lexicon shows structural patterns very close to those of Semitic languages, at least as much as derivation processes (prefixation, suffixation, -reduplication) are concerned. A specific type of reduplication (ABCC) has been used in Egyptian to build a significant number of animal names, as pȝgg.t, frog, ḥfrr, tadpole, ḥdqq.w, rats, or ḫprr, beetle. Gathering about thirty attestations of this specific pattern, which conveys a diminutive / pejorative meaning, we can get arguments to rebuild the vocalic structure as AaBCáC-aw (masc.), AaBCáC.at (fem.). For this Egyptian pattern, the Accadian ’dmm, wasp, or kulbābu, ant, offer convincing Semitic counterparts.

The colophons in Egyptian literature are found from the XIIth dynasty to the Roman Period. Most of the time, we find them in literary texts, Books of the Dead, and late ritual texts. The use of colophons varies according to the period and the nature of the text. This article offers an explanation for the expression ỉw.f pw and its variants, which are found at the end of various manuscripts, and tracks the evolution of this expression.

The epigraphic survey carried out in April 2004 by the Ifao team in the Saite Chapel nū 1 (nomenclature of Fakhry) of ʿAyn al-Muftella in the Baḥariya Oasis allowed us to identify a large number of divine figures on the first register of the walls. This article proposes an initial interpretation of the links between the divine groups, which have been almost completely identified.

The magical papyrus Louvre E 32308 comes from Deir al-Medīna and belongs to a group of amulets which, once folded, were hung around the neck of the patient. It can be differentiated from others with texts of the same kind by the great number of drawings that surround the text. It also contains several sequences similar to those found in P. Turin 1996. These sequences are not true parallels, but variations that can only be explained as personal choices on the part of the scribe, choices that were sometimes based on graphic or phonetic variations.

The present article consists of the publication of a statuary group discovered by G. Legrain at Karnak in 1904. The monument, dating from the end of the IVth or the beginning of the IIId century BC, now preserved in the Cairo Museum (JE 36576), belongs to an Amun priest from XoĪs: -Pacheryentaisouy.

Two well known Shabtis in Marseille (Vieille-Charité n° 365 and n° 366), formerly attributed to an otherwise unknown queen Tenthapi, belong in fact to a royal acquaintance called Tenttepihu. This shadowy woman was probably a morganatic spouse of Thutmosis IV before his accession to the throne. The new reading of the name and titles allows to suggest that Tenttepihu was born in the vicinity of modern Atfih and that she was the mother of a prince called Pentepihu.

This research aims to identify in Deir al-Medina burial-chambers decorative and archaeological elements which mark coffin positions. In this paper, a little group of Deir al-Medina burial-chambers is examined, in which many iconographic and textual subjects imitate those present on sarcophagi. The location of these decorative themes studied in the sepulchres, as well as other archaeological data, enables us to suggest the orientation of the dead in burial chambers, which imitated the decoration of sarcophagi.

This article provides evidence for the veneration of Sesostris III in Nubia after his death. The documents gathered herein are classified in geographical order: South to North, from Gebel Docha to Amada. During the New Kingdom – especially the second half of the XVIIIth dynasty – Sesostris III was considered a true local Nubian God: chapels and temples were dedicated to him, he is shown giving life to New Kingdom Pharaohs, his speech is preceded by ḏd-mdw jn like other divinities, etc. While the veneration of Sesostris III is attested to by evidence found in thirteen Nubian sites, Semna, Kumma, and Ouronarti seem to be the most important centers for his cult in Nubia.

This article reconsiders previous interpretation of the Dialog of a man with his Ba according to which the Dispute between the man and his Ba takes place, as a literary fiction, in the presence of the divine tribunal. This thesis is supported by the comparison with spell 38 of the Coffin Texts. In this spell in which the confrontation, also in front of the divine tribunal, is between the dead and his heir, the son appears as the dead father’s Ba on earth.