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Egyptian Stories

A British Egyptological Tribute to Alan B. Lloyd on the Occasion of His Retirement.

Edited by
Thomas Schneider and Kasia Szpakowska

Alter Orient und Altes Testament
Veröffentlichungen zur Kultur und Geschichte des Alten Orients und des Alten Testaments

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[AOAT EDITORIAL DETAILS HERE]

Egyptian Stories

A British Egyptological Tribute to Alan B. Lloyd on the Occasion of His Retirement.

Edited by
Thomas Schneider and Kasia Szpakowska

[AOAT RIGHTS/ISBN INFO HERE]

Foreword

“But concerning Egypt, I am going to speak at length, because it has the most wonders, and everywhere presents works beyond description”

Egyptian Stories as the title for the Festschrift to honour Alan Lloyd’s achievements is particularly apt because it encapsulates the main strands of his interests and academic tenets, and is equally pertinent to the character of this gathering of papers. It is an obvious reference to the histories of Herodotus, and to Alan’s seminal commentary on the Greek historian’s Egyptian logos as a scholar dedicated to both the Classical Civilizations of the Mediterranean and Egypt. It also emphasizes Alan’s interest in the past, his insistence on scientific scrutiny (the basic meaning of history), and his profound love of (hi)stories, of literature. Following Herodotus’ motto, the present volume of Egyptian Stories wishes to speak at length about Egypt, and to present modern inquiries into its wonders and works beyond description. It explores Egypt from the Saqqara Necropolis to the Red Sea, from Sais in the Western Delta to festive Thebes, and reaches to the Greek Mainland and the Levant. It offers to the recipient water, honey, flint, amethyst and gold. It investigates the belief in Amun, in the jackal god, in the gods of the Western and Eastern deserts, and sacred animals. It unfolds stories about women, goddesses and queens, about priests and kings, and reflects about the acquisition of knowledge, the prediction of dreams, erotic gestures, and the purchase of arms. It also writes in new facets on the page of how Ancient Egypt was recreated in modern Britain.

Thus, it is fitting that this be a British tribute to Alan, as he has always been a champion of Egyptology in this country. For years he has dedicated himself as Chairman of the Egypt Exploration Society, engaged in expanding the scope of our knowledge of Ancient Egypt through the Society’s excavations and publications. He has made Ancient Egypt come alive for the British public as well, through the numerous lectures he generously gives for societies and universities throughout the UK. The University of Wales Swansea has particularly benefited from Alan’s expertise for over four decades. As Pro-ViceChancellor he helped shape the profile of the university as a whole, and as Head of Department of Classics and Ancient History for many years, Alan cultivated the Egyptological component by teaching undergraduate courses and supervising research students. As a teacher, Alan has always emphasised the importance of teaching and the transmission of knowledge, and this is

clearly recognised by his students who flock to his lectures. Building on the work of J. Gwyn Griffiths and Kate Bosse-Griffiths, he helped to establish a campus Museum of Egyptian Antiquities: The Egypt Centre. Finally, it was largely through the foresight and endeavours of Alan Lloyd that the field of Egyptology was established as an integral component of the department that now is formally called ‘Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology’. Through all his efforts, Wales is now home to a thriving Egyptological community that is composed of large numbers of local and international students, scholars and researchers. Alan’s devotion to British Egyptology is reflected by the willingness and alacrity with which his colleagues have contributed here.

This collection of articles would not have been possible without the most generous financial support of the Egypt Exploration Society (to whom we are also grateful for permission to use the photograph of Alan as our frontispiece), and a contribution by the School of Humanities of The University of Wales Swansea. We are grateful to the series editors of Alter Orient und Altes Testament for agreeing to publish the Festschrift, and to Steven Snape and Rutherford Press Limited for facilitating the production of the volume. A note concerning style: as Egyptologists approach their subject through a variety of sub-disciplines, in this volume each contributor’s individual and appropriate transliteration and citation style has been retained. The editors and the contributors hope that Alan accepts this tome as a sincere token of recognition and esteem for his achievements as a scholar and a promoter of British Egyptology.

Contents

Foreword … vii
C. A. R. Andrews, Eponymous Priests Old and New in Unpublished Frag- mentary Demotic British Museum Papyri (P. BM EA 76271, 76269A, 10992 and 10540) … 1
D. A. Aston, A Taste of Honey: mnt- and mdqt-Vessels in the Late Eighteenth Dynasty … 13
M. Collier, Facts, Situations and Knowledge Acquisition: gmi with iw and$r$r-ḍd in Late Egyptian … 33
A. M. Dodson, Legends of a Sarcophagus … 47
T. DuQuesne, Private Devotion and Public Practice: aspects of Egyptian art and religion as revealed by the Salakhana stelae … 55
R. Enmarch, What the Ancestors Foretold: Some References to Prediction in Middle Egyptian Texts … 75
D. W. J. Gill, Arsinoe in the Peloponnese: the Ptolemaic base on the Methana peninsula … 87
C. Graves-Brown, Flint and the Northern Sky … 111
K. Griffin, An sh ikr$n{R}^r$nRr Stela from the collection of the Egypt Centre, Swansea … 137
K. A. Kitchen, Festivity in Ramesside Thebes and Devotion to Amun and his City … 149
I. Mathieson, Recent Results of Geophysical Survey in the Saqqara Necropolis … 155
R. G. Morkot, War and the Economy: the International ‘arms trade’ in the Late Bronze Age and after … 169
E. F. Morris, Sacred and Obscene Laughter in The Contendings of Horus and Seth, in Egyptian Inversions of Everyday Life, and in the Context of Cul- tic Competition … 197

G. Mumford, Egypto-Levantine relations during the Iron Age to early Per- sian periods (Dynasties late 20 to 26) … 225
E. J. Owens, The Waters of Alexandria … 289
R. B. Parkinson, ‘Une cantilène de Pentaour’: Marguerite Yourcenar and Middle Kingdom Literature … 301
T. Schneider, Contextualising the Tale of the Herdsman … 309
I. Shaw, Late Roman Amethyst and Gold Mining at Wadi el-Hudi … 319
H. S. Smith and S. Davies, The Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara yet again! Some Late Period inscribed offering-tables from the site … 329
K. Spence, Topography, Architecture and Legitimacy: Hatshepsut’s founda- tion deposits at Deir el-Bahri … 353
N. Spencer, A Theban Statue Base from the reign of Nekhtnebef … 373
K. Szpakowska, Flesh for Fantasy: Reflections of Women in Two Ancient Egyptian Dream Manuals … 393
J. H. Taylor, The earliest Egyptian hippocampus … 405
A. P. Thomas, The Barefoot Aristocrats and the Making of an Egyptian Collection … 417
P. Wilson, A Cult of Amasis and ‘The Procession of Two Gods’ at Saïs … 437

Contextualising the Tale of the Herdsman${}^1$1

T. Schneider

The Tale of the Herdsman has been labelled the most tantalizing fragmentary tale of Egyptian Middle Kingdom literature,${}^2$2 or straightforward a text of unknown purpose-the frank but yet discomforting judgment in the most recent introduction to Egyptian literature.${}^3$3 It gives me great pleasure to offer to Alan B. Lloyd this reappraisal of the Herdsman in recognition of his life-long interest in Ancient Egyptian literature which would never leave him satisfied with such assertions. The Tale of the Herdsman, a story of just 25 columns (or 34 verses) probably from the early 12th dynasty${}^4$4 imposes a bulk of the most intricate problems onto its interpreters, with the effect that only the three basic stages of the tale will find common agreement: (1) a herdsman is deeply frightened by the appearance of a female, possibly a goddess, met in the marshes; (2) he informs his colleagues who are herding cattle whereupon actions of debated nature and purpose are taken; (3) the herdsman prepares to face the goddess again. Beyond this basic outline, there is not much that remained undisputed or uncontroversial since its single copy, papyrus Berlin 3024, became known to Egyptology in the mid-19th century.${}^5$5 The debate starts well below the level of the text itself with the state of preservation of the story as four columns preceding the first preserved column of the tale have been wiped off, and equally four columns after the last preserved column 25 . The sheet itself had been glued to a different papyrus roll which contains the main text of papyrus Berlin 3024,${}^6$6 the Dialogue of a man and his soul. According

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to Richard Parkinson, this would indicate that the papyrus sheet with the tale served to strengthen the end of the roll and has, therefore, been accidentally preserved; beginning and end of the story would probably be lost.${}^7$7 Although this seems reasonable from the outset, the counterposition was advocated by Ludwig Morenz who argued that it was not due to technical requirements but a coherence of contents that the Herdsman sheet was added to the role with the Dialogue-it would, then, have been intentionally preserved because of its thematic affinity to the Dialogue, and the story would be complete as it stands.${}^8$8 This divergence does not affect the fact that the original context of the tale prior to the sheet transfer is lost to modern scrutiny. Contrary views have also been pronounced on other general facets of the text. Common opinion ascribes the writing of the manuscript to a skilled scribe,${}^9$9 whereas Hans Goedicke${}^{10}$10 considered it written by an apprentice, not an experienced copyist, with the lines allegedly abounding in mistakes. Let alone these general assessments, the text contains a number of palaeographical, lexical, and grammatical problems that still defy a definite understanding of its plot and its purpose. The female character the herdsman meets and who frightens him is-depending upon the individual scholar’s conviction-either a beautiful, naked woman with depilated skin, or quite the contrary, a terrible female covered with thick hair. The central part of the tale has been read in conflicting ways as to who speaks (the herdsman? his colleagues?), who is addressed (the colleagues? the bulls?), and who acts (the herdsman? the colleagues? the bulls?). It has been considered anything but obvious how the so-called water spell in the middle of the tale suits the episode about the female, or whether this indicates a lack in coherence. Moreover, meaning and setting of the story are still taken for obscure-was it a kind of folkloristic or pastoral tale? Or a religious text? A reappraisal of the disputed palaeographical and lexical issues of the tale is therefore mandatory before we can hope for an appropriate understanding and contextualizing of the story.${}^{11}$11

Figure 1: Individual hieratic signs.

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Figure 2: Herdsman, columns 1-9.

Figure 3: Herdsman, columns 10-25.

Verses 1-6

The beginning of the tale (after the four erased lines) where the herdsman gives the place of his encounter is unambiguous: “Look, I had descended to (= I was down in) the marsh/swamp, which is close by this low-lying land/pasture.” mhr is one of the rare words attested in this text, meaning “low-lying land, pasture” (cf. pWestcar 12,24 [“ground”], pEbers 49,6 [“sediment”], and possibly mhr [same meaning; First Intermediate Period (Urk. I 77, 11) and later]). He then relates an incident: “And I saw a woman in it (the marsh)”, followed by a first astonished remark about her nature. The crucial word in his remark-written as in Figure 1.1 (followed by the ideographical stroke and the plural strokes)—has defied a definite reading. Earlier proposals suggested Figure 1.2$\mid hm$∣hm (allegedly "body"12), Figure 1.3$\mid$∣ wd “command”, or Figure 1.4

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${}^{7}sb$7sb “wish”, all of which pose palaeographical, lexical or semantic difficulties. My own suggestion is to read Figure 1.5 I$tw\mathrm{.}t$tw.t “appearance” and to translate “she was not of the appearances of human beings!” The text is very clear on the point that seeing the female was a terrifying experience to the herdsman: “My hair stood on end”. It then goes on with stating what in the female’s appearance caused the protagonist’s terror, again a crucial and much disputed wording. Some scholars propose a tentative translation as: “as I saw her bracelets (and?) because of the smoothness of her skin” (L. Morenz). They refer to the fact that Egyptian brides until today have there skin depilated before their wedding.${}^{13}$13 There is not only a lexical difficulty here-a word śrw “bracelet” does not seem to exist${}^{14}$14-and the strange grammar of the phrase, one wonders if the view of a naked woman would inspire the degree of fear that the herdsman says to have felt. The certain references of the word śrw denote the meaning of “bristle”, or the thick hair of animals.${}^{15}$15 This entails that the following assertion-the skin cannot be said to have been both hairy and smooth-is introduced by the negation ’$n$n ', not the preposition ’$n$n '.${}^{16}$16 Both signs differ by a mere dot in hieratic and can interchange in the texts. We thus reach the coherent description: “My hair stood on end as I saw her bristles; her appearance was not smooth”. The female appears to have made a startling proposal to the herdsman who shrank back from it; “Never will I do what she said, as dread of her is throughout my limbs!”

After this retrospective account given to his fellow-herdsmen, the herdsman seems to give advice what actions be taken (“I (want to) say to you.”). This central part has caused its translators numerous difficulties from the very outset. They took the particle$j$j h for an interjection “oh!” which, however, is not attested in Egyptian, or for the introductory particle “then, thus” with an exclamation “bulls” referring either to the real bulls in the herd or, as a metaphor,

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to the herdsmen. In either case, the exclamation separates the particle from the verb introduced by it. The herdsman would, then, address his cattle and give them advice, or else his fellow-herdsmen, but with a metaphor “bulls” not attested elsewhere. Both proposals do not inspire confidence. A possible solution turns up if we compare a roughly contemporary sentence from the First Intermediate Period (Siut I, 270f.) where the direct object is given a specific focus through extraposition-placing it after the concluding particle$jh$jh and before the verb that governs it, after which it is resumed by a pronoun:${}^{17}$17

“So every word concerning the things I gave them you let it hear (your son, your heir…)”
I would, then, suggest that we are dealing with a similar case of object anticipation in this instance. It is unfortunate that the verb$hz$hz ($hzj$hzj ?) occurring in the sentence introduced by$jh$jh is a technical term of navigation and as such not very well attested, although there is new evidence in a vocabulary of nautical terms in pCarlsberg 180 from Tebtunis, frag. J, 11,15 from the 2nd cent. AD${}^{18}$18. Nevertheless, the meaning the term conveys is fairly obvious that of deviating/going off course, or of making (a ship) deviate or go off course. An advice given in the Middle Kingdom literary text of the Eloquent Peasant (B1 158 = Parkinson 189) says “beware deviating ($hz\circ k$hz∘k ) while at the tiller”, and in a nautical scene in the tomb of Pepiankh called Heni at Meir (V, pl. 22) one reads the command: "Well to starboard! Do not deviate ($hz$hz ), steersmen!"The transitive meaning is suggested in vs. 14 of our text where$hz$hz is used with$kz\mathrm{.}w$kz.w as an object. We can therefore translate the verse in question and the next one as follows: “So the bulls let’s make go off course, then the calves will cross over.” How to understand this? The herdsmen who traverse a sheet of shallow water in a boat in front of the herd, alter their course, make the leaders of the herd go off the conventional route, and subsequently the rest of the herd follows them, so that, as the text continues, “the herd might spend the night in the area of the paddock/pasture”. An apt illustration to this driving of the herd and the subsequently alluded to threat by crocodiles is a relief in the mastaba of Ti :

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Figure 4: Driving the Cattle in the Tomb of Ti.
The advice given by the herdsman is to bring the herd to a safe place for the night instead of exposing them to danger. It is inferable from the beginning that this danger could have threatened the herd on the traditional route where the terrific female had startled the tale’s protagonist. A most welcome corroboration of the use of the word msh “paddock” as a safe haven for cattle comes from the Middle Kingdom tomb of Thothotep at el-Bershe, where a paddock is part of a description of the good life imported Asiatic cattle can expect in Egypt.${}^{19}$19
This aspect of safety is also predominant in the next three verses describing the drift. “The herdsmen are behind them, our skiff is for leading the bulls away, together with the guards (?) placed on its stern”. A sign of unclear interpretation occurs both here and in vs. 18 (Figure 1.6). It is generally understood as a notation of the bull&⩽ which is, however, written in a very different way in our text (Figure 1.7) and must be rejected here. Palaeographically, only the post of balance, Figure$1.8\mathrm{⟦}$1.8[[ wts, or the lashed pieces of wood, Figure$1.9\mathrm{⟦}$1.9[[ rsj, seem plausible. Hans Goedicke${}^{20}$20 wanted to read here wts “pole, support, the gear of a ship, mast-crutch” (for which an additional reference can be found in the contemporary list of ship’s parts in pReisner II, 38, 9 [B 16 and 17]) but this does not make any good sense here. My proposal is to read$rsj\mathrm{.}w$rsj.w “guards” in the context of the cattle’s protection against predatory animals that is obvious from the next passage.
Columns 19-22 (introduced by verses 16-18)—still part of the advice given by the herdsman-contain a water incantation ($hswmw$hswmw ) which has an interesting parallel in CT spell 836 (coffin CG 28027).${}^{21}$21 What has not been fully appreciated in many a study on the tale is that it is not directed against the water itself but the beasts, in particular crocodiles, that threaten the cattle driven

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through the water. An illustration of this is provided by depictions of the Old Kingdom such as one in the tomb of Ti where the herdsmen cast a water spell onto crocodiles hiding in the water and preparing to attack cattle driven past them. If the high water table is particularly emphasized in this tale (and the speaker’s firmness not to retreat), then because it was the inundation which exposed settlements and paddocks not under threat in normal circumstances to crocodile attacks.

The intention of verses$25-8$25−8 seems rather elusive. If we presume (as will be clearer from the following) that it is the protagonist’s goal to pacify the goddess and to secure her ongoing protection, the idea would be that the preliminary measures taken against the water beasts would be superseded by the goddess’s protection once the latter is made benevolent.

The final section is situated in the morning when the plot continues, describing the encounter of the tale’s protagonist with the female deity. A difficulty constitutes the wording$jw\times fdj\times f$jw×fdj×f h3.t$n$n š as the composite expression ®dj.t h3.t does not seem to be attested elsewhere. “While he had turned his face” would regularly demand the suffix pronoun after the lexeme denoting the body part. A possible solution is to assume that the protagonist embarked on his mission in his boat and that it is the boat’s bow which is directed towards the lake. After the appearance of the goddess-naked, her hair disordered-is described, the text breaks off without explicitly stating what happened next.

Attempts to embed this tale have been numerous. Some scholars like Hellmut Brunner and Laszlo Kakosy believed it to be a folkloristic story about a mermaid or water-nymph.${}^{22}$22 The majority of Egyptologists who have commented

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on the tale seem now to be of the view that the female protagonist is a Hathorlike deity, on account of both the erotic allusions of the text but also the fear inspired by her.${}^{23}$23 It seems clear that the text stresses the twofold nature of the female who can appear both as a woman-in the final passage, where she strips naked of her clothes and her hair is disordered-and a predatory animal-in the beginning, where her skin is said to have bristles and not to be smooth (t.i., a fur), and where seeing her terrifies the protagonist. This would suggest more precisely that we are dealing with a form of the ferocious or distant goddess who can appear both as a lioness and a woman, and whom the Egyptians labelled, due to a convergence of myths, Hathor, Sakhmet, Mut, or Tefnut.${}^{24}$24 Best known from Ptolemaic and Demotic sources that locate the myth’s event in Nubia and at Egypt’s Southern border, this belief in a raging goddess who has to be pacified and to be brought back to the North to Egypt has most often be viewed as a reflection of the seasonally shifting position of the sun.${}^{25}$25 It is essential to realize that an earlier version of this myth sets it on the Western frontier of Egypt, and that this variant shares remarkable features with the Herdsman Tale. This version was reconstructed by Ursula Verhoeven and Philippe Derchain in${1985}^{26}$198526 when they edited a text preserved in the Mut ritual of pBerlin 3053, dating to the 22nd dynasty, and on blocks from Elkab dating to the 26th dynasty. Supposed to antedate the New Kingdom, it displays the distant goddess not as residing in Nubia, but the Libyan desert, and accounts her reception in the Western delta. Allusions to this reception can equally be found in the Book of the Heavenly Sky from the aftermath of the Amarna period where reference is made to the reception of Sakhmet in Imaw at the edge of the Western Delta.${}^{27}$27 The text edited by Verhoeven/Derchain shares a number of features with the Herdsman tale which have not yet been pointed out.

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The Libyan goddess has a double appearance as either a woman or a lioness. The goddess is “ferocious, raging” ($n\breve{s}n\bar{j}$ns˘njˉ​ ). She is happy in her “thicket” (jhi) where she lives when she is not in the desert. She comes out of the “marshes”$(\check{s}s)$(sˇs), her believers wait for her on the “fields/meadows” (sh.wt) where they spend the night in order to see her in the morning. Her believers sail all over the Delta lakes to make her known to all towns of Lower Egypt and to secure for themselves her protection through offerings and dance. This dance is said to be performed by Libyans or “in the fashion of the Libyans”, and ostrich feathers play an important part in it. The goddess has to be pacified and should, at any rate, not come too close to their believers. She presents to the believers “a sea of milk”, an intriguing motif which has not been commented upon in the text edition but is obviously a gesture of loyalty and protection (see below).
This belief in a ferocious goddess of Egypt’s Western border has recently found astonishing archaeological support in a C-group votive offering of ostrich feathers dedicated to Hathor (one of the Egyptian names of the distant goddess) uncovered by Renée Friedman at Inselberg Hk64 at Hierakonpolis${}^{28}$28 and a graffito published by John Darnell from the Wadi el-Hol (depicting Libyans and a Hathor cow).${}^{29}$29

Common features of both narratives are the idea of a goddess who appears (unexpectedly) in the marshes whereas normally she lives in a more remote place, that her believers from the rural population cannot dare approach her too closely but that once she is pacified she extends her protection over them.

There is another, non-Egyptian narrative which might shed light on the two texts mentioned so far, the Tale of the Herdsman and the episode about the Libyan goddess from the Mut ritual. This narrative is attested from the entire Libyan-Berber realm, from Siwa in Egypt to the Atlantic coast. This distribution is conclusive evidence of an old narrative layer predating the Islamic conquest of North Africa that fragmented its linguistic and literary area. It has been suggested that the female of this Berber narrative, more than being just a folkloristic character, could be the relic of a pre-Islamic goddess reduced to the rank of a demon when the Islam suppressed pagan worship.${}^{30}$30 This narrative reminiscent of folk-tale motifs reflects the belief in a kind of ogress, a man and animal eating demon.${}^{31}$31 She is a big cat or lioness, but appears also as a woman who is thirsty of the blood of the traveller or herdsman. When represented as an old and malicious woman, she still retains her animal char-

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acteristics-her body is covered with a fur, she has a mane, her face is black, she has long teeth or tusks, and hands with claws. Her Berber designation has preserved both aspects. In the majority of Touareg dialects, tamza denotes “ogress, witch”, whereas in the dialect of Ghadames the same word means “big cat, lioness, hyena”. She is often blind or does not see very well. She has two heavy breasts that she bears on her shoulders: the left breast on the right shoulder, the right breast on her left one. She speaks gently to the people she meets and tries to catch them with craftiness. She for her part can be pacified by persuasion and magic. She is of startling wildness, eats human flesh and the animals of farmers and herdsmen. When she is asleep, the bellow of cattle she devoured can be heard in her belly. She lives in caves or the forest. Her enemies are barking dogs and running (not stagnant!) water. If the hero manages to suck milk from her breast she becomes his protector (idea of collactation).
Features this narrative shares with the aforementioned traditions are: the appearance as both a woman and a lion, the fact that her skin is covered with fur, her hunger for cattle (this seems to be behind the herdman’s securing of the cattle), her persuasion (the herdsman is scared to do what she told him), the fact that she appears in shallow and stagnant water (the marshes). The motif of collactation could give a clue to explaining the enigmatic “sea of milk” in the text of the Mut ritual (and is not completely absent from Egyptian beliefs: cf. the king suckling the Hathor cow, or the institution of the milk brother).${}^{32}$32

It is certainly tempting to read the Tale of the Herdsman against these two narratives, and to infer that the protagonist attempted and most likely succeeded to approach the Libyan goddess and to procure his fellow-herdsmen and their cattle her protection. The Tale of the Herdsman would then constitute a piece of frontier literature-about the challenge of living on the fringe of Egypt and the threat the ferocious goddess from the desert constituted to the existence of the border communities.${}^{33}$33

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