IFAO

The demotic title pȝ ʿnṱ had not been recognised hitherto, the scholars usually translate it as "the myrrh". Actually, the meaning of this expression was not the name of a kind of resin, but the designation of the "myrrh specialist" or the "perfumer". This interpretation enabled the author to suggest new tanslations of some well-known demotic texts, their former translations being unsatisfactory. The same title has been also found in some hieroglyphic and hieratic texts, from the Middle Kingdom onwards till the Ptolemaic period. As members of the temple staff, the "perfumers" regularly performed their professional activities inside the sacred precincts; some of them played an important role in the preparation of the ointments used for the human and animal mummification.