A Saite Book of the Dead Fragment in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (From: Papyrological Texts in Honor of Roger S. Bagnall, 2012)

57. A Saite Book of the Dead Fragment in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology! Terry G. Wilfong

It is a pleasure to present this small token to Roger Bagnall in honor of his many scholarly accomplish-ments, in appreciation for his great generosity of encouragement and effort on my behalf over the years, and in tribute to his intellectual openness to new sources in new languages. On the off-chance that this piece might tempt him down the paths of Middle Egyptian and hieratic, I would like to note that further fragments from the same papyrus reside in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, just around the corner from his office at ISAW. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology inv. 81.4.25 was donated to the museum in 1981 as part of the collection of Dr. Samuel A. Goudsmit, who had for many years been Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan before his death in 1978. Dr. Goudsmit acquired his collection of Egyptian artifacts mostly in his earlier years in Europe, and this particular papyrus fragment was purchased in Paris from the auction house Feuardent Frères in 1931.1 The piece featured in the 1982 Kelsey Museum exhibition “A Scientist Views the Past: The Samuel A. Goudsmit Collection of Egyptian Antiquities” and is currently on display in the museum’s permanent installation of Dynastic Egyptian material. The papyrus includes part of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, specifically a portion of the lengthy chapter 78, entitled “Taking on the Form of a Divine Falcon.” This chapter is part of a series of transfor-mational chapters, in which the deceased was given the power to transform into a variety of beings;2 the text of chapter 78 itself, though, is primarily a dialogue of the deceased with a group of gods. The Kelsey fragment includes portions of the tops of two columns of text in hieratic, inscribed on the recto only. The hieratic handwriting is a strong literary hand, consistent with a date to the Saite Period (664–525 BCE).3 The fragment preserves the top margin of the papyrus, with a single horizontal line marking the upper margin of a top register—blank in the present fragment, but typically used for chapter titles or illustrations. The upper margin of the lower register containing the hieratic text is marked by a double horizontal line, while the two columns are separated by a double vertical line. A similar format can be seen in, e.g., the Saite Period Book of the Dead papyri of Iahtesnakht and Nespasefy.4

! I owe thanks to Irmtraut Munro for first pointing out to me the connection between the Kelsey fragment and the other pieces of Khamhor’s Book of the Dead papyrus (to be published in full by Ursula Verhoeven) and to the anonymous referee of the present volume for suggestions and references. Thanks also to Janet Richards for letting me publish this piece from her Kelsey Museum installation and for her helpful comments, and to Andrew W. S. Ferrara for his editorial help. This papyrus is published courtesy of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan; I would like to thank Robin Meador-Woodruff and Sebastian Encina, former Kelsey Registrar and current Kelsey Coordinator of Museum Collections, respectively, for help with access and images. 1 M. C. Root, A Scientist Views the Past: The Samuel A. Goudsmit Collection of Egyptian Antiquities (Ann Arbor 1982) 16, with a brief description of the papyrus that is the basis for the entry for this papyrus in http://www.trismegistos.org, number 57072. 2 The literature on these chapters of transformation is extensive; note in particular the recent study F. Servajean, Les Formules des transformations du Livre des morts à la lumière d’une théorie de la performativité, XVIIIe–XXe dynasties, Bibliothèque d’étude 137 (Cairo 2003). 3 For a detailed examination of hieratic palaeography of this period, with specific reference to fragments relating to this papyrus, see U. Verhoeven, Untersuchungen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift, Orientalia Lovanensia Analecta 99 (Leuven 2001). 4 U. Verhoeven, Das saitische Totenbuch der Iahtesnacht: P.Colon. Aeg. 10207, Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 41 (Bonn 1993) and U. Verhoeven, Das Totenbuch des Monthpriester Nespasefy aus der Zeit Psammetichs I, Handschriften des Altägyptischen Totenbuches 5 (Wiesbaden 1999), respectively.

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KM inv 81.4.25 9.8 x 9.6 cm ca. 630 BCE Western Thebes

col. ii col. i

5

col. i col. ii ... Ws!r "#m]-$r m#%-&rw [š]t# sšm.kw r 'srw ![mn.w ... ... %(]#=sn m##n=! nt! !m=f !r 'd=! [ ... ... ] #&(.w) pw !nk $r !my #&w [ ... ... &t].w=! !& d!=k (r st=f !w $r (r nst=f !w [ ... nwn=] 5 ... %(#]=sn %rr ! (r %wy=fy <nwn> Nwt m#[#=s ... [.wt=sn ... ] ) ] )[ col. i 1 The restoration of the name of the owner as "#m]-$r is certain, as is his identification as Ws!r

“Osiris, the late”; this name is variously rendered Chaemhor, Khaemhor and, as in the present article, Khamhor.

2 Here and in line 5 are repeated the same phrase %(#=sn %rrwt=sn, literally “may they beware, their doors . . .”

3 #&.w (plural) in most manuscripts col. ii 1 The beginning of the first word is certain: št# “secret,” as is the end of the last word !mnw “hidden.” 2 In spite of the writing, m##n=! is the subjunctive s'm=f (more correctly written m##=! or m#n=!), not

the perfect s'm.n=f form.5

5 See J. F. Quack, Rev. of C. Leitz, Tagewählerei, in Lingua Aegyptia 5 (1997) 277–287 at 279 and n. 7.

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4 The slightly later (ca. 600 BCE) papyrus of Iahtesnakht gives (r st !t=f “on the seat of his father” (36.17), and this is found frequently in later manuscripts, but the slightly earlier (ca. 650 BCE) papyrus of Nespasefy (B13.2) parallels Khamhor's (r st=f “on his seat,” standard in earlier manuscripts.

5 Restore nwn]=!, but the verb nwn “be disheveled” should be repeated before Nut’s name as well (as it is in both Iahtesnakht and Nespasefy).

A reading of Nwt n m#[#=s ... also appears possible from the photograph, but examination of the original shows that the apparent separate horizontal stroke after Nwt is a particularly elongated flourish on the first stroke of the eye determinative for the verb m##.

A literal translation of the Kelsey Museum fragment will yield only disjointed words and phrases, so it may be more useful to see the fragment translated in its context of Book of the Dead chapter 78. Even with the wider context, these passages are often cryptic, but this chapter of transformation into the form of a divine falcon sees the deceased making requests of the gods, identifying with them, and making allusion to taking on the form of the falcon-god Horus. Using an eclectic mix of the two closest manuscripts, those of Nespasefy and Iahtesnakhte mentioned above, I have attempted a reconstruction of the relevant portions of the papyrus of Khamhor (favoring the earlier papyrus of Nespasefy as being closer to the Khamor text). Words preserved in the Kelsey Museum papyrus are underlined: col. i … the late Kham]hor, the justified [will inquire of Geb, and he will request of the Lord-of-All that

the gods of the Underworld fear him and] their [doors] be[ware of him, when they see what you have caught for him. I am one of these] effective spirit(s) [existing in sunlight. I have made my form as his form, so that] my [thing]s [speak to you]. So you should cause [fear of Osiris and create respect for him so that the gods of the Underworld fear him and] their doo[rs beware of him ….] ... […

col. ii ... I have seen the] secret [holy place]; I am led to the hi[dden] holy places [so that she may let me

see the birth of the great god. Horus has identified me with his ba] so that I can see what is in it. If I speak [in the presence of the great one of Shu, they will ward off the striking power. I am he, the one who will take the possessions of Horus to Osiris in the Underworld. I am he,] I am Horus, who is in sunlight. [I control the headband, I control the light, I come and go to the limits of the sky. Horus is] upon his seat, Horus is upon his throne. [My face is that of a divine falcon, my hindparts are those of a divine falcon. I am one whom his lord equips, so that I may come forth to Busiris. When I have seen Osiris, ] I [am disheveled] before him, as Nut <is disheveled>. [She] will see [ me as the gods have seen me …] … [ ...

As a fortuitous fragment, the Kelsey Museum papyrus provides little information beyond what is given above. But the papyrus is part of a larger “International Book of the Dead Puzzle,” as described by Ursula Verhoeven: a fragment of a Book of the Dead manuscript now divided among at least four collections in Europe and the US.6 Verhoeven reconstructed Khamhor’s papyrus from fragments in Providence, Florence and New York, and to this can now be added the fragment in Ann Arbor published above. Although the Kelsey Museum fragment does not directly join any of the other known portions of Khamhor’s papyrus, it does add a new chapter to his copy of the Book of the Dead and permits some discussion of the papyrus and its context. (A full edition of the known fragments of this papyrus is in

6 U. Verhoeven, “Internationales Totenbuch-Puzzle,” Revue d’Égyptologie 49 (1998) 221–237 at 223–224.

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preparation by Ursula Verhoeven, and what follows must be seen as provisional until the full edition is completed.) Three of the fragments of Khamhor’s papyrus were, like the Kelsey piece, obtained through the antiquities market in the twentieth century. Perhaps the earliest of these to come to light is the fragment in the John Hay Library of Brown University (John Hay Library no. A 18077), said to have been given “by an anonymous donor at an unrecorded date, possibly at the turn of the century” along with a group of other Book of the Dead fragments.7 The Kelsey Museum fragment was purchased in Paris in 1931, and two other fragments were acquired in 1956 for the Museo egizio in Florence from a dealer in Florence.8 The Ann Arbor and Florence pieces may well have been on the market for some years before their acqui-sition. If Khamhor’s papyrus were known only from the fragments obtained through purchase, one could posit a common story of the finding of a papyrus in the 19th century, its subsequent division into smaller pieces for sale and their gradual dispersal through the antiquities market. But the most substantial portion of the Khamhor papyrus, some four large fragments and many smaller pieces, was found by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian Expedition in their 1923–1924 season in Western Thebes, under the direction of H. E. Winlock, and accessioned (via the Rogers Fund) in 1925 under accession numbers 25.3.212a–f.9 The papyrus fragments were found in Deir el-Bahri tomb 57.10 The New York fragments preserve full sections of the papyrus roll, showing the original height of the papyrus to have been around 35 cm, and also show more of the overall format of the papyrus: some columns are like the Ann Arbor fragment, with a narrow upper register for chapter titles or illustrations above a larger lower register for columns of hieratic texts, but other columns also include a middle register for illustrations (with correspondingly less room for hieratic text below). The New York fragments reveal that Khamhor’s Book of the Dead papyrus was left unfinished; although the Florence fragments from earlier in the roll show illustrations in their upper registers, the upper registers of the New York fragments are left blank.11 The text of the New York fragments contains further identification of Khamhor that allows the owner of the papyrus to be identified with a known individual of the Saite Period.12 Khamhor, son of Ramaakheru and Kakaiu,13 was a member of a prominent, high elite Theban family in the period of the transition from the 25th dynasty and the end of the period of Nubian rule of Egypt to the 26th dynasty and the return of indigenous Egyptian rule in the Saite Period. Khamhor was closely related to the well-known Montuemhat, Fourth Prophet of Amun and Mayor of Thebes, who died around 650 BCE.14 Khamhor was, in his lifetime, Priest of Montu (the falcon-headed god associated with war and based at Thebes) and held a number of priestly titles and related offices. Khamhor’s father was

7 R. A. Caminos, “Fragments of the Book of the Dead on Linen and Papyrus,” JEA 56 (1970) 117–131 at 130. Mummy bandages in the John Hay Library have a more definite source (donated in 1903 by a known donor) and the Khamhor fragment may have been a part of this donation. 8 S. Bosticco, “Due frammenti di un papiro funerario nel Museo egizio di Firenze,” Aegyptus 37 (1957) 71–76. 9 Information from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online database, accessed 25 May 2011 at: http://www.metmuseum. org/works_of_art/collection_database/egyptian_art/listview.aspx?page=1&sort=6&sortdir=asc&keyword=kham-hor&fp=1 &dd1=10&dd2=0&vw=0, although the reference in the database to the findspot of the papyrus as “TT57” is clearly an error for tomb 57 of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s own excavations at Deir el-Bahri. 10 For the tomb and problems of the find, see J. Elias, Coffin Inscription in Egypt after the New Kingdom: A Study of Text Production and Use in Elite Mortuary Preparation (Ph.D. Diss. University of Chicago 1993) 251–255. 11 See the color illustration in W. Forman and S. Quirke, Hieroglyphs and the Afterlife (Norman 1996) 155, but incorrectly identified as being from the contemporary papyrus of Nespasefy. 12 Verhoeven, “Internationales Totenbuch-Puzzle,” 223–224. 13 Designated by modern scholars as “Khamhor C” to distinguish from other like-named relatives and contemporaries; see K. A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC), 3rd ed. (Warminster 1996) 230–231. 14 The Goudsmit collection also included a funerary cone from the Theban tomb of Montuemhat, KM inv. 81.4.19, published in J. E. Richards and T. G. Wilfong, Preserving Eternity: Modern Goals, Ancient Intentions. Egyptian Funerary Artifacts in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (Ann Arbor 1995) 48–49.

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at one point Mayor of Thebes, and Khamhor himself is given this title in at least one instance, although this may be in error.15 Khamhor is thought to have died around 630 BCE, hence the date for his papyrus.16 Khamhor was buried with other priestly relatives and associates in one of the mass burials of Montu priests at Deir el-Bahri excavated by Auguste Mariette in 1858.17 Mariette recovered at least Khamhor’s coffin lid (now Cairo Museum CG 41068),18 but there is considerable ambiguity as to precisely where this find was made at Deir el-Bahri. Tomb 57, in which fragments of Khamhor’s papyrus were found, would seem a logical location, but it is identified as the tomb of a 23rd Dynasty man named Harwa. The excavator H. E. Winlock was of the opinion that the papyrus fragments had blown there from a nearby tomb that had been looted, and he also noted another nearby tomb that contained inscribed mummy bandages relating to Khamhor’s family.19 Winlock’s excavations included a number of tombs that had previously been excavated by Mariette and often uncovered material that Mariette had overlooked or left behind. Whether fragments of Khamhor’s papyrus were dispersed into tomb 57 and elsewhere as a result of an ancient or modern looting, to be found and sold onto the antiquities market, or whether this happened as a direct or indirect result of Mariette’s 1858 excavation is not clear. The unfinished state of Khamhor’s papyrus may suggest a premature or unexpected death and a hasty burial, but may also be a result of its position at an interesting juncture in the history of the Book of the Dead.20 In the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period the Book of the Dead was a compilation of chapters chosen from a larger corpus, known as the “Theban Recension,” in which selection and ordering of chapters varied from manuscript to manuscript. There is a gap in the use of the Book of the Dead on papyrus (or indeed any funerary text on papyrus) from about 850–700 BCE, a period in which funerary papyri seem to disappear altogether.21 The Book of the Dead that emerges from this gap period is a substantially different document from its predecessor: the so-called “Saite Recension” of the Book of the Dead featured a standardized ordering of chapters (upon which the modern numbering system is based) and a more standardized and systematic inclusion of chapters from the corpus. Khamhor’s papyrus is part of the relatively small group of Saite Period Book of the Dead papyri of the seventh century BCE that are the earliest known instances of the new arrangement.22 As a relative novelty, Khamhor’s papyrus may have taken longer to copy and illustrate than anticipated, thus leading to its unfinished state at the time of Khamhor’s burial. Book of the Dead papyri remained relatively scarce in Khamhor’s time, and do not become common again until the fourth century BCE. The Book of the Dead as a standardized corpus flourished in the earlier Ptolemaic period, and there are many substantial papyri that rely on the Saite Recension text. Khamhor’s papyrus thus marks the beginning of a transition in Egyptian funerary literature that lasts into the Graeco-Roman period. Eventually, though, this Book of the Dead ultimately

15 Khamhor’s titles are summarized in Elias, 251, n. 52, and 540. 16 Verhoeven, “Internationales Totenbuch-Puzzle,” 223. 17 The tombs of the Montu priests at Deir el-Bahri are discussed in C. M. Sheikholeslami, “The Burials of Priests of Montu at Deir el-Bahari in the Theban Necropolis,” in N. Strudwick and J. H. Taylor (eds.), The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future (London 2003) 131–137 (but here the owner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art fragments is given as Khamhor A, 235). 18 Described, with references, in Elias, 537–538, 540–542. 19 H. E. Winlock, Excavations at Deir el Bahri 1911–1931 (New York 1942) 98; note the substantial discussion of Winlock’s statements and the possible location of Khamhor’s tomb in Elias, 251–255. 20 See Forman and Quirke, 154–155, and, more recently, J. F. Quack, “Redaktion und Kodifizierung im spätzeitlichen Ägypten: Der Fall des Totenbuches,” in J. Schaper (ed.), Die Textualisierung der Religion, Forschungen zum Alten Testa-ment 62 (Tübingen 2009) 11–34. 21 S. Quirke, Owners of Funerary Papyri in the British Museum, British Museum Occasional Papers 92 (London 1993) 19. 22 Quirke, 21, lists only six papyri from this transitional period, but a few more are known, e.g. the papyrus of Pefiuiu described in Verhoeven, “Internationales Totenbuch-Puzzle,” 222–223. Note also now the late 25th dynasty papyrus of Tashepenkhonsu, which appears to be the earliest papyrus of this group: Irmtraut Munro, Der Totenbuch-Papyrus der Ta-schep-en-Chonsu aus der späten 25. Dynastie, Handscriften des Altägyptischen Totenbuches 10 (Wiesbaden 2009).

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gave way to the complex variety of derivatives, related compositions and new works found in funerary papyri of the later Ptolemaic and Roman periods,23 before indigenous language funerary texts disappeared altogether from Egypt by ca. 200 CE. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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23 For which, see the recent survey M. Smith, Traversing Eternity: Texts for the Afterlife from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (Oxford 2009).

PAPYROLOGICAL TEXTS IN HONOR OF

ROGER S. BAGNALL

Edited by

Rodney Ast, Hélène Cuvigny,

Todd M. Hickey, and Julia Lougovaya

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PAPYROLOGISTS

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

Papyrological Texts in Honor of Roger S. Bagnall

Edited by Rodney Ast, Hélène Cuvigny,

Todd M. Hickey, and Julia Lougovaya

© 2012 The American Society of Papyrologists

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Papyrological texts in honor of Roger S. Bagnall / edited by Rodney Ast, Hélène Cuvigny, Todd M. Hickey, and Julia Lougovaya. pages cm. -- (American Studies in Papyrology ; volume 53) ISBN 978-0-9799758-6-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-9799758-6-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Manuscripts, Classical (Papyri) 2. Classical literature--Criticism, Textual. 3. Classical languages--Texts. I. Ast, Rodney. II. Cuvigny, Hélène. III. Hickey, Todd Michael. IV. Lougovaya, Julia. V. Bagnall, Roger S. PA3339.P37 2012 930--dc23 2012038169