IFAO

The word ḥpt is most often translated by "oar" although the numerous entries in the Egyptian dictionaries show the embarrassment of the Egyptologists concerning its exact meaning. In the Old Kingdom ḥpt was only written with the phonogram , ḥp. It never referred to the part of a boat (oar, rudder...) nor to another object, and the nature of the object depicted by this sign still remains undetermined. Ḥpt is a verbal noun made from the verb root ḥp(ỉ), "to run, travel", and exclusively describes a travel, either fast or not, either by land or not. Consequently, depending on the context, ḥpt may be translated by "course, travel, journey". The related verbal expressions ỉṯỉ ḥpt and, later and more rarely, ỉrỉ and ỉnỉ ḥpt are to be understood in the same way: "to make a travel, to travel". However, in the later part of his reign, King Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh Dynasty introduced the oar-sign in place of the usual sign in the spelling of his throne name Nb-ḥpt-R.ʿ. Such a new spelling, based on ideological grounds, was certainly intended to emphasize the association of the king with the god Re aboard the solar bark in its daily course, in connexion with the ritual navigation for the god Amun-Re created in Thebes at that time. This writing of ḥpt with the oar-sign only became widespread from the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards. The oar-sign was then used either as determinative or as phonogram ḥp. This graphical change did not lead to semantic changes but aroused some ambiguity in the use of the word by the Egyptian themselves and in its understanding by modern scholars. Actually, the few examples in which ḥpt seems to mean "oar" (i.e. something like "the fast one") are rare and scattered through the Middle and New Kingdoms. Some of them, dating back to the Late New Kingdom, are of obscure meaning and their interpretation is still uncertain.

During the Ifao excavations on the site of Douch between 1976 and 1981, three glass fragments bearing a very original painted decoration were discovered. They are surely related to another fragment which was found by the naturalist Cailliaud in 1818 on the same site. If we put all together, they will offer us the possibility to reconstruct and identify the representation of the thirty six decans, in a ring of twelve panels of three alternating colours (dark blue, red and gold) with three decans by panels. The analysis of the different groups of Roman painted glass which are issued from Egyptian workshops leads to date this piece to the IIIrd – IVth century AD. Its best parallels are the tabula Bianchini kept in the Louvre Museum and the ivory tablets from Grand. They help us to identify the different decans and to assign them to their zodiacal signs. This curious object, cut in a cast colourless annular base plate, was probably kept in a wooden box which hid the traces of reuse and was employed to cast horoscopes.

The present late demotic document P. Vindob. D 6454, now in the Erzherzog Rainer Collection in Vienna and which was found at Soknopaiu Nesos (= Dime) or nearby goes back probably to the very early Roman period. The papyrus in discussion, hitherto published only in a few pieces under the late demotic documents, deals with a listed account for a temple or a state adminstration being concerned with financial dealings.

The present paper is devoted to the study of two late demotic papyrus documents from the Erzherzog Rainer Collection in Vienna. The documents belong to the same kind of texts of receipt of payment. The first papyrus (P. Vindob. D 6823) from regnal year 33 of Caesar Augustus (4 AD) and the other one (P. Windob. D 6824) from regnal year 19 of Caesar Tiberius (32 AD) are receipts for taxes, whose exact character are still rather unclear.

Setting up of the state’s structures was done, in Egypt of 4th millennium, at the end of a political centralization process which we try to render: confederation, than federation directed by only chief (dynasty 0), and finally absolute and sacred monarchy established by Narmer-Meny, last king of the dynasty 0 and first one of the Ist dynasty, the "Founder", epithet shared with his successor, Aha. From iconological analysis, this paper includes the description of three successive phases of the power’s centralization, followed by political history of the dynasty 0 and the demonstration according to which the important Narmer’s documents, especially his famous palette in Cairo Museum, register the encoding of the new institutional data as fundamental principles of the pharaonic’s ideology.

This ostracon belongs to the collection from Georges Castel’s excavations at Qurnet Mura‘i (1970-1973). Monasteries owned their camels. They hired camel driver, who looked after the animal and had it do working. An agreement was established between these two parties. We think two oathes were written: one of them belonged to the monastery, the other to the camel driver. Our ostracon concerns the driver: he is bound to honour this contract in front of witnesses, whose name are lost. He has to work with the camel, without neglect of it, to pay its fodder and its furniture out on their wages; to give half earnings to the monastery "the topos (in) the desert". Once a month he is drawing water and carrying it to two anchorites. The words belong to special legal terms. We prove this agreement was written by the same hand who drew a contract with a camel herd, on the ostracon 84 from the Monastery of Epiphanius. Mark, the priest of the topos of St Mark the Evangelist (we are nearly sure it was on the hill of Qurnet Mura‘i) wrote a contract between the topos of Apa John in the desert and a camel herd. And he wrote too the own camel driver’s contract from Qurnet Mura‘i between the driver and the topos (of Apa John) (in) the desert at the begining of VIIth century.

This article constitutes the two first notes of a series about history, geography and religion. The purpose of these two first is the publication of the two monuments belonging to Esnu(n) of Coptos: the well-known statue Cairo CG 70031 with an unpublished complementary fragment Cairo RT 31/4/64/1 on the one hand and the gnomon of Esnu(n) conserved in the Petrie Museum of London (UC 16376) on the other hand.

– Stele Allard Pierson Museum 10776: despite a vague notation of the titulary, it is possible to specify the datation of this stele (funerary stele of the cow, Buchis’ mother at the beginning of the Severian Period).

– Stele Bucheum 20 (Cairo JE 31901): reading again the first line reveals a quite unexpected titulary in which are associated Diocletian and Licinius whose name and account of regnal years are inscribed together (!) in the second cartouche.

First publication of O. Ifao 10044, a slab of limestone of 10 x 12 cm, found in 1930 south of the Great Pit of Deir el-Medina. The recto contains the proper names of six donkeys, all belonging to a Sennefer. The names of these donkeys, like human names, include a patronym (in one instance a matronym), one of these Ramesses. The verso only quotes a scribe Paykhery (?).

In 1911 Ernesto Schiaparelli found at Gebelein an Old Kingdom burial inside a shaft. The anonym burial Suppl. 14061 conserved in the Egyptian Museum in Turin was investigated by a multidisciplinary research team. The wooden coffin maintain part of its painted decoration and the mummy was led in a crouched position in a sort of linen bundle and apparently was not eviscerated. The 3D reconstruction was able to identify all details of the mummy and of the burial equipment. This was composed by a pair of sandals and a wooden headrest. Two small fragments of papyrus dating to the IVth dynasty were found at the bottom of the shaft near the coffin.