Middle Kingdom stelae

8/13/2019 Middle Kingdom stelae

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gypt xploration Society

Three Monuments from Memphis in the Fitzwilliam MuseumAuthor(s): Janine BourriauSource: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 68 (1982), pp. 51-59Published by: Egypt Exploration SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3821622.

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(5I)

THREE MONUMENTS FROM MEMPHISIN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

By JANINE BOURRIAUTHEEgypt Exploration Society is planning to begin work at Memphis in I98I, and itseems appropriatein this volume celebrating the Society's work to look forward tothat enterprise by publishing for the first time three objects from Memphis in theFitzwilliam Museum. I am most gratefulto the editor for allowingme the opportunityto do so.IThe objects are a stela (E. SS. 37) of a High Priest of Memphis, Senbuy, of the lateMiddle Kingdom, a statue of Amenophis III (E. 82. 1913), which almost certainlycame from Petrie's excavations at Memphis, and a stela (E. 195. I899) of the chiefgoldworker, Panehsy, of the reign of Merneptah. The Fitzwilliam has a considerablecollection of objects from Memphis and Saqqara,thanks largelyto its subscriptionstothe excavations of the British School of Archaeologyin Egypt and the Egypt Explora-tion Society. Most of them are listed in the TopographicalBibliography2 nd the listsof recent acquisitionspublished since I974 in this journal. Of the unpublished objectsfrom the site, these three are perhaps the most interesting, and will be discussed inchronologicalorder.

The Stela of SenbuyWe do not know when the stela of Senbuy came to the museum and for this reasonits number, E.SS. 37, incorporatesno year number. It was registered soon after theSecond World Warwhen the Fitzwilliam'spresent cataloguewas preparedby NormanRaynerwith help from F. W. Green, Honorary Keeper of EgyptianAntiquities. It hasnever been published. The stela (see fig. i and pl. III, i) is round-toppedand made oflimestone, and measures 34-0 cm long, I8-5 cm wide, and 4-0 cm thick. Filling thelunette is a design consisting of two wdat-eyesplaced either side of a sn sign; beloware six horizontal lines of text, and below these three figures of roughly equal size.In the centre stands the owner of the stela, Senbuy, with his wife, Nubemheb,behind him, her hand touching his shoulder; in front of them both, offering a lotusbouquet, we find a son, Re(-Seth. The stela is incised throughout, and there is almostno modelling of the surface except on the legs of the figures. The stone was alreadybruised when the inscription was cut, as the area around the knot in the son's kilt

I I have also benefited a great deal from discussions with Dr Jaromir Malek, Dr Geoffrey Martin, andMr Cyril Spaull. Mr Reginald Coleman most skilfully copied my facsimile drawings of the two stelae.2 Omitted from the Bibliography because they are uninscribedreu E. 53. g19, an ear-stela, E. I2-I3, twotrial pieces, and E. 14I. 19I3, a Ptolemaic shrine-stela, all from the British School of Archaeology in Egyptexcavations at Memphis. In addition there are two shabtis, E. 51. 1932, of the Osiris-Apis from the Serapeum,and E. I. I896, of Psammetichus, born of Sebarekhyt, from Saqqara.

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THREE MONUMENTS FROM MEMPHISshows. It was originally painted, but only a few traces of dark red remainon the legs ofthe central figure. Apart from chips missing from three of the corners the stela iscomplete.The faces of all three figures have been scarredwith a chisel, and there are similarmarks on the arms of Re


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1. 5. s ;w r it f m hwt-ntr rrprt Spdt,6 'one whose coming to the temple is awaited on the day of therising of Sothis'. Occurring as it does in the list of Senbuy's titles, this phrase describes one of hismost important duties, which was, to take the most obvious interpretation first, to lead the ritualcelebrations on the feast of the prt Spdt, the day when the star Sirius was visible again after itsconjunction with the sun had resulted in a seventy-day period of invisibility.7 Parker has demon-strated that the lunar calendarwas based on the heliacal rising of Sirius which had perhaps originallybeen observed to coincide with the beginning of the inundation. In the Middle Kingdom, the event,prt Spdt, appears for the first time in lists of festivals,8 in tombs,9 on stelae,I0 and on coffins."It was a feast of paramount importance, equivalent to the wp-rnpt, 'Opening of the Year', and itscelebration was perhaps a regular duty of the High Priest of Memphis. The inscriptions recordingthe High Priests of the Middle Kingdom12 contain no reference to any role in the prt Spdt, butGardinerI3mentions Old Kingdom occurrences of the title followed by the phrase n rr hb or n rrwhich he translates as 'belonging to (i.e. functioning on) the day of festival'. The phrase may haveonly a general meaning since the High Priest must have had a leading role in all Memphite festivals,but it is possible that a particular feast, viz. prt Spdt, was meant. Senbuy, after all, thought itimportant enough to single it out from the other feasts in which he officiated.Another possible interpretation of s (w r it'f m hwt-ntr rrprt Spdt is that Senbuy himself made,or was responsible for making, the observations of Sirius. In this case, only when he gave the wordby entering the temple (or climbing down from the roof?) that Sirius was visible again could thefestival and the new year begin. The text is not explicit, but at least it suggests that during the MiddleKingdom the temple of Ptah at Memphis was an observation-point, if not the observation-pointfor all Egypt as classical authors record.14Incidentally in the cutting of A slip of the chisel hasproduced a mark which might almost be taken for part of the sign.1. 6. wr hrp hmwtn nb r-dr,15 greatest of the directors of craftsmen of the Lord of All'. The title ofthe High Priest is followed by an epithet referring to Ptah: cf. Wb. III, 86, 4, which gives a wrhrp hmwtn Pth of the New Kingdom, and the wr hrphmwtn Rsy-inb-fof Gardiner's Onomastica,I,38*. The precise meaning of the title has been much discussed, most recently by De Meulenaerein Festschrift des Berliner Agyptischen Museums zum I50 jdhrigen Bestehen (Berlin, I974), 183-4,and Fischer, Varia. Egyptian Studies, I (New York, 1976), 63-7. As Fischer has noted, writingslike this one, where the title is followed by n plus the name or epithet of Ptah, cast doubt on DeMeulenaere's suggested new reading of wr hrp hmwt as hmww wr shm, translated as 'l'artisan duTres Puissant'. Dieter Wilding has provided in the Lexikon (ii, 1258-63) an extremely useful list ofHigh Priests of Memphis of the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period. Senbuy can now perhaps beadded after no. 24 Srgm(?) of the Thirteenth Dynasty.

6 For the construction see W. Spiegelberg, Z4AS64 (1930), 72-3; A. H. Gardiner, Notes on the Story ofSinuhe (Paris, 1916) 58; Faulkner, op. cit. 208; Wb. III, 419, 3. Commentators have agreed that the variantof the construction with r dates from the New Kingdom (Amenophis II). This stela takes it back a littlefurther, into the late Middle Kingdom.7 R. A. Parker, The Calendarsof Ancient Egypt (Chicago, I950), 7.8 Op. cit. 34, 173; Wb. iv, III, I4.9 P. H. Newberry, Beni Hasan, I (London, 1893), pl. 24.

IO CC 20338, H. 0. Lange and H. Schaifer,Grab- und Denksteine des Mittleren Reichs,I (Berlin, 1902), 349-50."I J. Garstang, Burial Customs of Ancient Egypt (London, 1907), pl. ix, 1. 9.12 D. Wildung in Lexikon der Agyptologie, ii, 1259 and bibliography there cited.I3 A. H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, I (Oxford, I947), 39*.14 Parker, op. cit. 39 n. II7.I5 One minor correction should be made to the facsimile drawing. In the writing of hmwt Gardiner U24 is

written .

JANINE BOURRIAU4



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THREE MONUMENTS FROM MEMPHISWith the exception of his high-ranking but honorific titles iry-prt h4ty-rI6 Senbuy's other officeswere priestly: hm-ntr r; n ntr'f, 'chief priest of his god'; hry-hbt, 'lector-priest'; s;w r it'f m hwt-ntrrrprt Spdt, whether this in fact represents a separate office or simply a function of the High Priest.There is no evidence here to suggest that the literal meaning of the title, 'greatest of the directorsof craftsmen', carried any force.I7

1. 6. Snbwy, cf. Ranke, Personennamen,I, 3I4, 3. A common late Middle Kingdom name.1. 7. Rr-Sth, cf. op. cit. 322, 4; Te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion, I36. Another example of a rarename compounded with the names of Re and Seth. The occurrence cited by Ranke, the brewer(rfty) Sth-Rr, appears on a Middle Kingdom stela from Abydos (Cairo 20345, Lange and Schafer,I, 356; iv, pi. 26). Simpson18 discusses a reference to a hwt rct Swth on a statue of the SecondIntermediate Period from Heliopolis, and, in this context, the probable Memphite provenance ofthe Fitzwilliam stela is noteworthy.1. 8. Nbw-m-hb, cf. Ranke, Personennamen, I, 191, 5. Her title, hkrt nswt, 'royal ornament', is acommon one for women in the Old and Middle Kingdoms.19

The stela is probably to be dated to the Thirteenth Dynasty or perhaps a little later.If we apply the criteria of Bennett,20 Smither,21 and Barta,22we find that the offeringformula shows characteristics first appearing in the late Twelfth Dynasty from thereign of Sesostris 1,23 but it does not show the writing nsw di htp for nsw htp di whichbecomes more common in horizontal inscriptions during the Second IntermediatePeriod.24 This negative argument cannot be pushed very far, but the personal namesand costume of Senbuy25 also suit a Thirteenth Dynasty rather than a Second Inter-mediate Period date. The style of the cutting suggests the late Mliddle Kingdom: cf.the occasional poor spacing such as the cramped writing of Snbwy in 1. 6, the irregu-larity of the hr sign in 11.3 and 4, and the disproportionately large and clumsy nb anddr signs.

A Statue of Amenophis IIIThe kneeling statue of Amenophis III is in brown quartzite, and was received andnumbered by the Museum in I913. The provenance is not absolutely certain, sincethere is no record of the piece in the Museum's remaining records of 1913 acquisitions(these are however a haphazard group of documents) or in the distribution lists of theBritish School held at University College.26

i6 See the titles with which they occur in G. T. Martin, Egyptian Administrative and Private Name Seals(Oxford, 1971), I77.17 Sandman Holmberg, op. cit. 56.I8 JEA 62 (1976), 4I-4.19 Martin, op. cit. I84.20 JEA 27 (I94I), 77-82, I57.21 JEA 25 (I939) 34-7.22 W. Barta, Aufbau und Bedeutungder altdgyptischenOpferformel, Gliickstadt, I968), 72-80.23 The writing of Osiris with the determinative of the carrying chair, Gardiner Q2 -4; of Ddw as 1~ i ;the phrase k; n N.24 The earliest dated example cited by Barta, op. cit. 73, is as early as the reign of Sobekhotpe IV.25 J. Vandier, Manuel d'archeologie,in (Paris, 1958), 249.26 I am very grateful to Mrs BarbaraAdams for checking them for me.

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JANINE BOURRIAUThe statue,E. 82. 1913 (seepl. III, 3-4), is brokenoff at the baseof the neck,above thefeet, and at the corners of the offeringtable. It measures45-0 cm in height and 35-7 cmin width. The neck-break is I4*8 cm wide by 23.0 cm long, and the lower break49'4cm wide by 22-7 cm long. The stone is coarse, veined with greyish-white streaks.The king is kneeling upright and holds an offering-tablein his arms. He wears abeard, a wig with long side lappets and pigtail, a broad bead collar with Horus-headterminals, and a short kilt. The pose occurs in statues of other Eighteenth Dynastykings, e.g. Tuthmosis III,27but it is rare, if not unique, for Amenophis III.28This isprobably an accident of survival due to the total destruction of the king's temple atMemphis and the almost complete loss of his mortuary temple at Thebes.The square-toppedback pillar and the support for the offering-tablecarryinscrip-tions, respectively ntr nfr nb t;wy Nb-Mcrt-Rc (mry) P(t)h, and s; Rr [cartouchehammered out] mr Shmt. The king's name has been deliberately removed from thecartouche visible from the front, and this incidentally may suggest that the statue

originallystood with its back againsta wall or similarobstruction. Little has been lostfromthe base since the front column is complete, leaving room for only a narrowsignsuch as mr to complete the inscription on the back. Shmt was the goddess usuallyassociated with Ptah at Memphis.29While nothing of it survives above ground, atemple to Ptah was built by Amenophis III at Memphis. A statue of the royal scribeAmenhotpe30 ound there carriesinscriptionsrecordingits construction.The Stela of Panehsy

Unlike E. SS. 37, the date when the stela of Panehsy came to the museum is known.It came in 1899 and was presented by ProfessorLewis of Trinity College to Dr M. R.James, Director of the Museum, in return for his subscrition to theofund for thepurchase of the Carne collection.3IThere is a reference to the stela in the Wilkinsonmanuscripts32n the Griffith Institute which includes drawings of the cartouche ofMerneptahand the figureof Ptah. Wilkinson made these sketches in 821 in Alexandriaand he describes the stela as 'a block of white stone in [the] possession of Mr Carn[sic] found by Lee at Akhmim(?)'. The Revd John Carne, educated at Queens' Col-lege, Cambridge,visited Egypt in i821,33 and the stela was apparentlyobtained fromPeter Lee34who was British Consul in Alexandriaand whose name crops up in manyletters and diaries of British travellers of the period.

The stela, E. 195. I899 (see fig. 2 and pi. III, 2), measures 54 cm long by 18-5 cmwide by 7i5 cm thick. It is rectangularand made of fine,white limestone and is complete27 Vandier, op. cit. p.i cl.28 Op. cit. 324, 630, both references to this statue.29 Sandman Holmberg, op. cit. 188-9.30 Gardiner in Tarkhan and Memphis v (London, 1913), 33-6.31 Information in a letter from Lewis to James dated 23 Jan. I899 in the archives of the Department ofAntiquities.32 Wilkinson MSS IV. 24. I owe this reference to Dr Jaromir Malek.33 W. R. Dawson and E. P. Uphill, Who was Who in Egyptology (London, I972), 53.34 Op. cit. 167.

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0 5 10cm. . I I cm.FIG. 2. Stela of Panetsy, Fitzwilliam Museum E. i95. 1899



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JANINE BOURRIAUexcept for two chips along the right side. Two signs have been lost with them but theycan be restored without difficulty. The stela begins with four vertical lines in sunkrelief containingnames and epithetsof the god Ptah. Belowthese in raised relief is Ptahhimselfholding aws-sceptre handhe anddd-signs,seated before a tableof offerings.Between Ptah and the table, also in raised relief, is a date and a cartouche,'Year4 ofBinere'-Meramun'(Merneptah).Below the scene follow six lines of text in sunk reliefnaming Panehsy and his parents, PrE(emheband Tamy(t). The Merneptah date is ofparticular interest since it allows another stela commemorating the same family in theBritish Museum35 to be closely dated.

Translation(I) An offeringwhich[theKing] gives (to) Ptah, Fair of Face, Osiris,First of the West-erners,Anubis, (2) RerIHarakhty, nd Thoth, that they may grant a going down andcoming orth withouthindrance hrough hegates of (3) the necropolisand a going downinto the sacredbarque ike the ollowersof thegod whenhe travelsto the (4) god, to thek3of the chief goldworkerof the House of Gold, who makes(statuesof) the gods, Panehsy,justified, son of the chief goldworkerPreremheb,ustified, (6) born of the Lady of theHouse, the chantressof Amun, Tamy(t), ustified.

CommentaryVerticalinscription upper): (i) Pth sps (2) styRrnfrhr(3) sdm nh (4) (w)t. The epithets of Ptah are thefamiliar ones.36The stela seems to belong by reason of its text and the relationship of text and imagewith the large group of votive stelae of the Nineteenth Dynasty found by Petrie at Memphis.37This is the strongest reason for supposing it to have come from Memphis rather than Akhmim,which Wilkinson himself had doubted.1. 3. No distinction is made between ,, the vulture (Gardiner Gi), and nh, the guinea fowl (GardinerG2I): see also 1. 5 in the horizontal text.38(Lower): rnpt (ht-sp) 4 n Ba-n-rr-Mr-n-'Imn.The presence of the king's name and date, which iswhat drew Wilkinson's attention to the stela, is an argument in favour of its being a votive ratherthan a funerary stela. It also provides a terminuspost quem for the stela BM I41, since the threepeople on the Fitzwilliam stela are named on it also with the epithet, m;r hrw.Horizontal inscription: hry nbw n hwt-nbwms ntrw, a title held by both Panehsy and his father, istranslated following Jamesas 'chief goldworkerof the House of Gold who makes (statues of) the gods.'Erika Schott has recently discussed the activities which took place in the House of Gold in a seriesof articles in GottingerMiszellen.39She confirms that during the Old Kingdom at least the Opening

35 B. M. 141, T. G. H. James, Hieroglyphic Texts from Egyptian Stelae etc., Part 9 (London, 1970), 23-4,pi. xix.36 Sandman Holmberg, op. cit. 70-4, 75-9, io8-II.

37 W. M. Flinders Petrie, Memphis, i (London, 1909), pls. xi, xiv, xv; H. M. Stewart, Egyptian Stelae,Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection(Warminster, 1976), pls. 28-9.38 Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar,469, and references cited.39 GMz 2 (1972), 37-41; 3 (I972), 3i-6; 4 (I973), 29-34; 5 (I973), 25-30; 9 (I974), 33-8.

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THREE MONUMENTS FROM MEMPHIS 59of the Mouth ritual could take place there and that it was a treasury, a 'Schatzhaus', in which finelinen and oil and the personal apparel of the king were kept. In this earlier context the mswt ntr mhwt nbw40meant the toilet of the King. There is no doubt, however, that the House of Gold in theNineteenth Dynasty was also a workshop in which statues were made.4111.6-7. For Pt-nhsy see Ranke, Personennamen,I, I3, I3. Panehsy was the son of Pre)emheb andTamy(t), and the only other object which can with certainty be attributed to the same family is theBM stela I4I. The latter is considerably larger than the Fitzwilliam stela and is cut entirely in sunkrelief. It records the names and titles of eighteen members of the family but without making therelationship between them clear. The Cambridge stela establishes that Panehsy and Precemheb,who are the principal dedicants of the BM stela, were father and son, and the suffix f in the case of'his mother T;-my(t)' refersto Panehsy. The other affiliations remain unknown since it seems extrava-gant to assume that *f, wherever it occurs on the BM stela, refers to Panehsy. The central figure inthe scene on the stela is the Osiris fetish, and this, together with the ranks of relations, suggests thatit was a funerary stela. The British Museum has no record of its provenance or when it was acquired.1. 7. o is used for t in T;-my(t).The contrast between the two stelae, E. SS. 37 and E. I95. I899, is very great. Thesigns on the latter are confidently cut with straight strokes of the chisel. The qualityof the cutting is much higher and the signs carefully spaced, with the elongatedcharactertypical of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

40 GM 4 (I973), 34.41 A. H. Gardiner in N. de Garis Davies, The Tombof Amenemht (London, 1915), 58 n. i; reference quotedby James, op. cit. 24, viz. B. Bruyere, Deir el Medineh (1930), 44, 68.



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PLATEII

i. Stela of Senbuy, Fitzwilliam MuseumE.SS.37

3. Statue of Amenophis III, FitzwilliamMuseum E.82. 1913, Front

2. Stela of Panehsy, Fitzwilliam MuseumE.I95. I899

4. Back view of samePhotographs courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum

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