Robert K. Ritner

The Ahmose ‘Tempest Stela’, Thera and Comparative Chronology

In 1994, the Aegeanist Karen Polinger Foster brought to my attention a presentation delivered by Ellen Davis five years previously. Within her lecture, Davis had introduced the evidence of a unique Egyptian stela into the complex discussions regarding the absolute date of the volcanic eruption at Thera (Santorini).1 Karen’s question to me was fairly simple: was there anything in the wording of the stela that could justify a link with the Thera event? After reviewing the Davis article and the edited text of the stela, I became convinced that the possibility existed, particularly since the text as translated intentionally suppressed its most striking phraseology. Previously published for an Egyptological audience by Claude Vandersleyen, the fragmentary stela recounts the devastations and reconstructions resulting from an extraordinary cataclysm in early Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt.2 While storms can be noted in

The Cardiovascular System in Ancient Egyptian Thought

Questions regarding the ancient Egyptian understanding of the vascular system have elicited much discussion in the fields of Egyptology and History of Medicine,1 but the primary texts relevant to these discussions have been available almost exclusively to Egyptological specialists. While certain ritual and magical texts allude to the vessels and their functions, Egyptology is fortunate to have four surviving excurses on the heart and its associated vascular system within the corpus of medical papyri: P. Edwin Smith, col. 1/ 3–9 (copied ca. 1550 b.c., composition perhaps Old Kingdom); P. Ebers, cols. 99–102 (same date and perhaps the same scribe as P. Smith); and parallel treatments in P. Ebers, col. 103/1–18, and P. Berlin 3038, cols. 15/1–16/5 (1300 b.c.). All of this material is available in hieroglyphic transcription with German translation, glossaries, and separate notations on text and translation within cross-referenced sections of the definitive ninevolume series Grundriss der Medizin der alten Agypter—provided one has the necessary linguistic skills and patience to collect the scattered material and commentary. Just how daunting the task may prove is aptly illustrated in the study of Egyptian medicine by J. Worth Estes, who dismisses the content of P. Berlin 3038 “because it is available only in German.”2 For the nonspecialist, the best general analysis of Egyptian conceptions remains Breasted’s 1930 synopsis within his publication of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, though this digression includes a full translation of only the relevant passage of the Smith treatise.3 Corresponding sections within the vast compilations of Papyrus Ebers are noted, but the generalist reader is left with only the antiquated, and often defective, English translations of Bryan and Ebbell.4

O. Gardiner 363: A Spell Against Night Terrors

The ostracon is drawn in full scale on Plate 109, and measures approximately 20 by 25 cm. This text, like most of the ostraca in the publication, probably derives from Deir el-Medineh, and would thus be of Ramesside date, a conclusion compatible with the paleography of the inscription.3 A representative sample of this hieratic inscription was reproduced separately only for line 6 of the recto, while the complete text of the recto was transcribed into hieroglyphs on the plate (see fig. 1). No reproduction of the verso was given, and no photograph of either face of the ostracon has been published. The piece is now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum

“The Breathing Permit of Hôr” Among The Joseph Smith Papyri*

A minor, if protracted, chapter in the history of American Egyptology concerns a Mormon scripture known as “The Book of Abraham,” which purports to be an authentic narrative history translated by Joseph Smith, Jr. from an Egyptian papyrus acquired by the Mormon prophet in 1835. 1 Now a canonical element of The Pearl of Great Price, Smith’s “translation” had been published in serialized excerpts during 1842, well before JeanFrançois Champollion’s correct decipherment was generally known in America. In what is often a pastiche of Genesis, “The Book of Abraham” details Abraham’s miraculous rescue from Chaldean priests in Ur who commit human sacrifice “unto the god of Pharaoh . . . after the manner of the Egyptians”(!) on a hill named after the Egyptian Potiphar (1:6–15 and 20). The anglicized Latin term “Egyptus” is said to be Chaldean for “that which is forbidden” in reference to the cursed race of Ham who are denied the “right of Priesthood” (1:23–27), a statement that served as the basis for Mormon racial discrimination until a “revelation” during the modern era of civil rights legislation reversed the policy (but not the “scripture”) in 1978. A famine takes Abraham to Egypt, where he is ultimately shown “sitting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the politeness of the king,” “reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy.” 2 Such “reasoning” included references to the outlandish “Jah-oh-eh,” said to be Egyptian for earth, “Oliblish,” mock Egyptian for a “star Kolob,” and “Enishgo-on-doosh,” supposedly the Egyptian name for the sun. 3 All of this nonsense is illustrated by three facsimile woodcuts, depicting: (1) the “sacrifice” (falsely restored from a scene of Anubis tending Osiris on the funerary bier), (2) an astronomical scene of planets

ORIENTAL INSTITUTE MUSEUM NOTES NO. 15 : A COPTIC LINTEL FROM QUSTUL

Le linteau presente dans cet article, decouvert lors des fouilles de sauvetages de l’Oriental Institute a Qustul, au Soudan, illustre un pan meconnu de l’archeologie nubienne : le materiel d’epoque copte. Il comporte en son centre une large rosette flanquee de monogrammes cruciformes. La partie superieure porte l’evocation d’une colonnade tandis que la partie intermediaire porte une inscription copte mentionnant les noms de Michel, Gabriel, Raphael, Jesus le Christ, Uriel, Yael et Aphiel, le nom de Michel etant repete dans la partie centrale du linteau, au dessus du monogramme de droite. Selon l’A. la conception decorative pourrait s’inspirer de celle du linteau de Qasr el-Wizz, date entre 550 et 750, ce qui induirait une datation analogue pour le linteau de Qustul. L’A. se penche ensuite sur l’inscription ou le nom de six archanges flanque celui du Christ. Le systeme de transcription de l’abreviation du nom du Christ indique que la langue utilisee est le grec, parfois adoptee chez les Coptes pour les nomina sacra. La mention des archanges est assez inhabituelle dans la tradition copte, elle releve d’avantage des textes « magiques ». l’A. souligne l’analogie de cette inscription avec celle d’un manuscrit copte desormais detruit de la bibliotheque de Turin (Rossi Tractate), qui presente les memes particularites orthographiques.

Magic in Ancient Egypt. Geraldine Pinch

COVER Detail of faience plaque showing the protective lion-demon, Bes, c. ist century AD. One of the giant baboon statues in the area of the ruined temple of Thoth at Hermopolis, I4th century BC. Hermopolis was famous as a centre of magical knowledge.

The Site of the Wild Bull-Hunt of Amenophis III

The toponym Štp, found on the wild bull-hunt scarabs, is identified with the well-attested name of the metropolis of the Wadi el-Natrun, Štp·t. Implications for the court residence are also discussed.