IFAO

The earliest-known version of Imy-Duat occurs on fragmentary inscribed limestone blocks now in the Cairo Museum. This documentation found in two separate tombs (KV 38 and KV 20) and customarily thought to form the decoration of the burial chamber raises many questions. The first part of the study is devoted to the discovery of the fragments and their subsequent registration in the Museum: unpublished information kept in the hand-written inventories confirm that the most important part of the objects – now exhibited in the Atrium – was found by Carter in KV 20. Among the few fragments recovered in KV 38 by Loret there are only two pieces which are exactly of the same kind, while the others belong to a second version of Imy-Duat written in larger scale on mud plaster. According to its size the Imy-Duat version reproduced on the limestone blocks looks like a copy on papyrus and seems hardly adaptable to an architectural context. Close examination of the inscribed blocks led us to question whether they were ever gathered together in order to line the walls or to be arranged in rectangular fashion around the royal sarcophagus. Some fragments give evidence of an ancient egyptian numbering system but these indications are very difficult to interpret because of the incomplete state of the documentation. The original location of the blocks and the subsequent attribution of the first version of Imy-Duat are discussed in the third part of the paper. Our final proposal takes into account the different observations mentioned above. We ascribe the limestone version to Hatshepsut in whose tomb the majority of the fragments were found and explain the situation as follows: uninscribed blocks intented to form the lining of the walls may be brought into the tomb (some of them were possibly numbered at the occasion), but the wall decoration was never carried out; some isolated blocks may therefore be reused as simple media in order to copy the funerary text on an indestructible material.

This two-part article deals with the Harem Conspiracy. In the first part an analysis of the Judicial Turin Papyrus shows that this document is not "judicial", but is in fact a protection text of the deceased King against the acts of the deceased Conspirators.

The second part is a study of an unpublished Rifaud Text. The main results of it are:

a. The Varzy Papyrus belongs to the dossier of the Harem Conspiracy;

b. A magical practice of bewitchment was directed against the King himself;

In October-November 2000, the archaeological mission of the Louvre museum at Saqqara brought to the fore new inhumations in the area of the mastaba of Akhethetep. Twenty five sarcophagi were thus excavated and studied. These are modest sepultures of late period (end of the dynastic period and beginning of the Ptolemaic). The burials remind of those already discovered on the Saqqara site around the pyramid of Teti and, more recently, of Anubieion.

The disc of Hemaka (Cairo Museum) is, to the best of my knowledge, the first representation of the hexagonal net. Inside the net two wading birds (storks, cranes or egrets) are depicted; in any case, they are waders.

My study on the present-day hunting techniques on the Manzala Lake showed that there are two types of hexagonal nets: one with a bottom and another without. The first is used in the hunting of waterbirds and divers (ducks, coots, etc.). The nets are stretched out in shallow water, and the bottom prevents the birds from escaping by diving under the net which, once closed, forms a prismatic bag.

In the case of crane and gull hunting, the nets could also be stretched out on the ground.

The second type of net, without bottom, is used for the hunting of waders walking in shallow water or on sludge, such as Ġamingos. It is conceived in such a way that the birds do not catch their feet in the stitches.

Contraception and abortion were practised in ancient Egypt. Contraception was essentially a feminine concern. The medical preparations used for this were usually given per vaginam. The possible reason for these practises was the wish to avoid the complications of risky pregnancies and childbirths.

Edition of the stela BM EA 616 dated to year 29 (256) of Ptolemy Philadelphus coming from Xois. The only part of the text which is preserved contains a royal eulogy, dwelling on the relationship between the king and the gods of the xoite area. The learned priest who drafted this text shows his high degree of knowledge in qualifying the king, using a lexicon of childhood and divine images, and striving to mention the gods by rare epithets.

The inventory number 2116 of the Berlin Museum, a sandstone piece dating from the reign of Ptolemy VIII and representing an offering scene in relief, has always been regarded, for lack of anything better, as a block coming from Qasr el-Agouz temple. This origin can be set aside. A distinctive iconographical detail permits us to restore this block to the Eastern Temple of Karnak, on the top of the northern jamb of a door decorated during the ptolemaic period. It was a part of the lintel cut in several pieces during the XIXth century. The scene depicting a shedeh offering was probably associated with an another symmetrical scene of wine offering, as a frequent scheme requires it on both sides of a gift of maat.

Publication of unedited school texts (papyri, ostraca and wooden tablets) belonging to various collections.

A graffito incised on a brick from the hypocaust at Didymoi, found in 2000, has turned out to be a very close parallel to I.Kanais 59bis. It has thus become possible to supplement the name of the soldier, Vettius Crispinus, who wrote both inscriptions and to be certain of the provenance. I.Kanais 59bis has successively been thought to come from Contrapollinopolis Magna and from Al-Kanayis. Now we know that it, too, came from Didymoi.

Publication of a statue from the Karnak Cache kept in the Cairo Museum (JE 37134). The owner named Wesirwer was a «servant of the Sanctuary of Shentayt», a title related to the making of the Osirid figurines during the festivities of KhoĪak. The monument dates to the XXXth dynasty or the early ptolemaic period. His possible link with another statue from Karnak (Cairo JE 37343), also published here, is examined.