Von tanzenden Dämonen und unerbittlich kämpfenden Göttern: Ein Einblick in die weite Welt der Bes-Terrakotten

Bes gehört zu den ägyptischen Gottheiten, die bei der breiten Bevölkerung des hellenistischen und römischen Ägypten besonders beliebt waren. Dies spiegelt sich in den zahlreichen Figuren aus Terrakotta wider, die ihn in seinen verschiedenen Zuständigkeiten zeigen und als „Massenware“ für Haushalte, für Kultstätten oder als Grabbeigaben produziert wurden. Mal tritt Bes als unheilabwehrenden Helfer in Kriegstracht auf, mal als ekstatischer Tänzer oder als Kultdiener und Träger von Kindgottfiguren. Der Vortrag gibt einen Überblick über die motivische Vielfalt der Bes-Terrakotten, Entwicklungen im Laufe ihrer etwa 600-jährigen Belegzeit und mögliche Interpretationen zu ausgewählten Darstellungen

Graphetic Compounding in the First Intermediate Period: The Micro-history of [hiero] ḥtr.wy “span” and the Process of Sign Decomposition

peer reviewedThis paper details the circumstances by which ‘composite hieroglyphs’ developed and the factors that may have influenced their subsequent evolution. It is organized into two complementary sections. In the first section, I offer a fine-grained contextual analysis of the sign ḥtr.wy “span (of one pair of oxen)” and its variants in the First Intermediate Period. This analysis suggests two possible scenarios for the development of this sign, an inductive local one (scenario a) and a deductive global one (scenario b). In the second section, I describe the process by which composite signs decomposed within the same period and propose distinguishing ‘compound splitting’ from ‘component merging.’ The results of this systemic approach are used to assess the probabilities of the two scenarios envisioned for the case-study and to plead in favour of the inductive local position

The Harbor and its Town: Defining the Semantic Shift of dmj from the Old to the New Kingdom

The noun dmj expresses a key concept of ancient Egyptian harbor terminology. In the scholarly literature, the term is variously translated as “quai”, “harbor”, “port” or more neutrally as “landing stage”. Moreover, it is well known that dmj underwent a process of semantic extension which apparently resulted in the colexification of the concepts [HARBOR] and [TOWN], and, subsequently, the gradual regression of [HARBOR] (CopticS Ϯⲙⲉ “town”). My contribution aims at providing an explanative model for the semantic shift [HARBOR] > [TOWN] which has not yet been explained satisfactorily and which is, in fact, highly unusual from the viewpoint of comparative linguistic typology. Based on a thorough survey of the textual sources from the 5th Dynasty to the end of the New Kingdom, I propose to describe the Egyptian dmj according to the following four parameters: location, components, responsible officials, and commodities. By elaborating separate semantic models for the evidence from the Middle Kingdom, the 18th Dynasty, and the Ramesside Period, it will be shown (1) that dmj initially referred to landing stages that involved specific infrastructure and were managed by different officials; (2) that it was its use in administrative terminology that progressively led to the semantic shift [LANDING STAGE] > [TOWN]Mid-18th Dynasty

SteinHart. Altägyptische Gefäße von ewiger Schönheit. Studioausstellung 11. November 2018 bis 10. Februar 2019

Die Sonderausstellung "SteinHart" in den Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim widmet sich der herausragenden Altägyptischen Gefäßkunst des 4. und 3. Jahrtausends v. Chr. und macht dabei zahlreiche Stücke erstmalig einem größeren Publikum zugänglich. Im Fokus steht die extrem hohe ästhetische Qualität der einzelnen Stücke, die bis heute durch ihre Schlichtheit und Modernität beeindrucken. Die Objekte bestechen dabei durch die Materialbeherrschung seitens der altägyptischen Handwerker, die einst diese hochwertigen und auch seltenen Steine unter großem Zeitaufwand formten. Die unterschiedlich gestalteten Gefäße sind im besten Sinne des Wortes Design-Objekte, die materialtechnische Kompetenz mit hohem künstlerischem Anspruch verbinden. In Ägypten gehören Steine der unterschiedlichsten Art zu einem festen Bestandteil der Lebenswelt. Bereits in vordynastischer Zeit, zu Beginn des 4. Jahrtausends v. Chr., übten diese widerstandsfähigen Materialien eine so große Anziehungskraft aus, dass man zahlreiche Artefakte aus ihnen herstellte

Encoding the Sacred: New Lights on Ramesside Enigmatic Writing

Enigmatic writing relies on highly creative processes, at the intersection between graphemics and visual semiotics (Werning 2020). When ‘alienating’ hieroglyphic spellings, Egyptian scribes indeed simultaneously considered possible sound values, the figurative dimension of the signs as well as associated mythological motives. This process was most probably supported by brouillons written in cursive scripts on portable media (Haring 2015) and might have been ‘deciphered’ using the same type of devices. The lack of such documents led recent studies to investigate the matter from a strictly theoretical point of view (Klotz & Stauder 2020; Roberson & Klotz 2020). Our paper aims at shedding new light on this transcoding process based on empirical evidence. A fresh analysis of O. Turin CGT 57440 (López 1982: 146–146a) reveals that the hieratic funerary composition on one side is the plain text version of the cryptographic hieroglyphic text on the other side. It is the first known case of transcoding of an enigmatic running text in cursive script on a single document. This ostracon does not only give us the opportunity to compare an enigmatic text with its hieratic equivalent: it also provides a unique glimpse into the New Kingdom scribal approaches to “visual poetry” (Morenz 2008). Furthermore, the text probably refers the actual context in which it was inscribed, namely the tomb of a scribe called Amennakhte. Finally, combining a philological commentary with an examination of the layout and writing practices, we try to answer the following crucial question: should we consider the ostracon as brouillon for a text to be monumentalized or as decoding exercise? In our view, the latter option is much more likely.Crossing Boundarie

A rediscovered wooden statue of the overseer of the two granaries Ihy – Cairo, Egyptian Museum, JE 100373: An archaeological and conservation study

This paper discusses the wooden statue JE 100373, which was recently re-discovered in the basement of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Based on the statue’s stylistic analysis and its identification in the unpublished excavation report MSS Gunn XXII, we re-identify it as part of the statue ensemble of the Overseer of the Two Granaries Ihy, found in a cache within a Ptolemaic tomb at Saqqara. As a result, the investigation proves the provenience of the statue from C. M. Firth’s excavations south of the Step Pyramid Complex in 1926. Combining conservation science and traditional Egyptological approaches, the paper finally provides evidence for the continuity of the manufacture of large-sized high-quality wooden statuary by residential workshops until the final years of Pepy II or slightly later

Quittung an die Dorfältesten über den Einsatz von Arbeitern

peer reviewedEdition of a receipt found during excavations in a house in the mountain settlement of Tuna el-Gebe

Analyse et restauration des superstructures du complexe funéraire attribué au Scribe de la Tombe Amennakhte (v) – Saison 2022

editorial reviewedRapport de la mission 2022 concernant le monument funéraire d'Amennakhte (v) dans le cadre des travaux archéologiques de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale à Deir el-Medina (dir. Cédric Larcher). L’objectif du projet, dirigé par Andreas Dorn (Uppsala) et Stéphane Polis (Liège) est de mieux comprendre le complexe funéraire situé dans le cimetière de l’Ouest de Deir el-Médina qui fut attribué au scribe Amennakhte (v) par Bernard Bruyère et de voir si, parmi les puits associés à cette structure, il est toujours possible d’identifier des fragments de papyrus ramessides permettant d’éclairer l’histoire des archives manuscrites de la famille de ce scribe de la XXe dynastie.Crossing Boundarie