Metjen: Causing His Name to Live

The blog post for this week is written by Judit Blair, who has a Masters in Ancient Near Eastern religions and a PhD in Hebrew and the Old Testament, both from the University of Edinburgh. Judit is a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Open Learning (COL) at Edinburgh University and a Tutor at Glasgow University where she teaches such courses as Ancient Egypt and the Bible, Aspects of Ancient Near Eastern Demonology, and Ancient Monsters. Judit is also a member of Egyptology Scotland and the EES.

 

The Egypt Centre’s new course Causing Their Names to Live looks at the lives of many ancient Egyptian men and women from the Old Kingdom through to the end of pharaonic history. Some of these individuals are well known (e.g. Imhotep, Amenhotep son of Hapu, etc.), while others are quite obscure with scant evidence. Their autobiographies inscribed in their tombs, although often exaggerated, allow us a glimpse into the lives and achievements of these individuals.

 

Arguably the first known (auto)biography comes from the decorated tomb-chapel of a man called Metjen, who lived most of his life during the reign of the Third Dynasty king Netjerikhet Djoser. According to his inscriptions, he also served under Huni, the last king of the Third Dynasty and in the court of Sneferu, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty (Logan 2000, 51 n. 22). He died sometime during the reign of the latter, in the twenty-sixth century BCE (Manley 2023, 68).

 

Metjen was buried in a mastaba close to the Step Pyramid of Djoser, some 400m north of the pyramid enclosure. The mastaba, built of solid stone and largely undecorated, was quite well preserved due to it having been buried under sand. It was discovered by Karl Richard Lepsius in 1843. The T-shaped tomb-chapel was decorated with high-quality limestone and inscribed with detailed hieroglyphs containing “a remarkable amount of inscription, as well as pictorial elements”. It is “the oldest decorated chapel that is almost completely preserved.” (Baines 1999, 29). Lepsius removed the reliefs of the tomb chapel and took them to Berlin (fig. 1) where they are now reconstructed in the Ägyptisches Museum (Manley 2023, 67).  

Fig.1: Offering chapel of Metjen (Limestone Giza Inv.-No. ÄM 1105)

 

The entrance to the tomb chapel leads to a narrow and high passageway (0.67m x 2.52m), which was decorated on both sides with Metjen’s biography (written in columns). The roof of the passageway consisted of limestone blocks, which were shaped to look like cedar logs and placed lengthways. The passageway opened into an offering chamber. On the north side, a window looked into a serdab, a stone box for Metjen’s statue (Manley 2023, 68; Romer 2013, 329). The statue, made of granite, measures 47cm in height, and shows Metjen seated, dressed in fine linen, wearing a curly wig, with his right hand in a fist, resting on his chest and his left hand on his left knee (fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Statue of Metjen (Berlin, ÄM 1106)

 

Three sides of the chair are inscribed with Metjen’s name and titles. As one is facing the statue, on the left side he is referred to as “mouth-opening priest who is before Min, priest of Horus, Metjen”, on the right side he is “servant of the estate of the serdab of the king’s mother, Metjen”, and in the middle, he is “greatest of the ten of Upper Egypt, king’s acquaintance, Metjen” (translation here and all others in italics are my own done in Bill Manley’s Reading Class, The University of Glasgow, 2021).

 

On the west wall of the offering chamber, there is a false door; this is the focus of the chapel and offerings. Its central area is quite wide, and it depicts a striding figure of Metjen with a smaller, seated representation of him above the door (Baines 1999, 30). The false door is decorated with “a prodigious statement of Metjen’s achievements and extensive endowments of land” (Manley 2023, 68). It is also here that his involvement in the upkeeping of the funerary cult of queen Nimaathap, wife of Khasekhemwy and mother of Djoser, is mentioned (Dodson & Hilton 2004, 48; Manley 2023, 68).

 

Metjen’s life is presented to us through his titles and a lengthy statement of 18 columns of text, which are carved on the far west wall of the tomb chapel. The biographical texts on the north and south walls of the entrance passageways give an explanation of his success (Manley 2023, 68). We can learn a significant amount of information about Metjen from these texts. He was not a member of the royal family but came presumably from Xois in the Delta. We know his father’s and mother’s names; his father was Inpu-em-ankh, who was a superintendent of writing, and his mother was Netnebes. Although he inherited his father’s property with royal approval (Romer 2013, 332), he tells us that it had come down to him “with neither wheat nor barley nor anything tangible for an estate but there were people and animals”, which presumably means that he only inherited “debts and responsibilities” from his father (Manley 2023, 70).   

 

However, as his father was an inspector of writing, it is likely that Metjen was taught to read and write, and so “he was put in charge of the writing of the office of provisioning as keeper of the belongings of the office of provisioning”. This is how his public career started, and then presumably he got himself noticed during one of the boat festivals, as in the following lines we read that “he was put as strong-oarsman and physician of the stroke-rowers so that the canal-cutter of Xois would be following the superintendent of the chiefs of stone-cutters of Xois”. This might mean that “Metjen’s prowess was such that even the local governor had to follow his lead” (Manley 2023, 70). 

 

From here, Metjen’s career took off. He was “put as keeper of all the king’s flax”, and became a “staff-bearer”, the governor of Buto, Xois, Dep, Sais, Mendes, and Letopolis (inscription on the North wall of the passageway). He had developed land at the western edge of the Delta, reclaimed desert for settlement, developed wetlands in the Fayum, etc. As Manley (2023, 69) puts it, “Metjen became the go-to man of his age for hydraulic engineering, especially adept at managing the marshes and lands along the fringes of the Nile Delta to ‘open it up’ for agriculture and safe settlement”.

 

At the end of the inscription of the north wall, we find out that a community called “Sheret-Metjen was founded in front of what his father, Inpu-em-ankh gave him.” From the text on the opposite (south) wall, we learn that more communities have been founded in his name, “there were founded for him 12 Sheret-Metjen in Sais, Xois and Letopolis”, and also that he was given “a serdab for his chapel”. He received large areas of land holdings as gifts; “200 arouras (c. 4.8 ha) of fields were brought to him for a reward from the numerous kings”. He was also given 50 arouras of fields for his mother (Manley 2023, 71).

 

Metjen founded a series of gardens; these were walled, with a lake and trees planted in them, e.g., date palms, and fig trees. Vines, salad, and other vegetables were also cultivated there; the grapes were pressed and wine was produced (Romer 2013, 333; Manley 2023, 71). Besides the already mentioned responsibilities, Metjen was also an “Administrator of the desert, Controller of hunters/hunting” as well as in charge of the royal linen production (Romer 2013, 332). There are scenes (the south thickness relief of the false door) showing small desert animals and others where the hunt is evoked through dogs attacking the hindquarters of other animals (Baines 1999, 31).

 

Apart from containing the first (lengthy) biographical texts, Metjen’s tomb-chapel has another significance: it is the earliest to have the ḥtp-dı͗-nsw (offering) formula inscribed (twice on the north side).

 

Metjen’s story is one of success; from humble origins, he rose to be a high official thanks to “the gift of literacy”. His biography is “the first, magnificent celebration of a transformative, new technology – writing.” (Manley 2022, Society of Authors). Interestingly, there are “no direct successors” to Metjen’s inscriptions until the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty (Baines 1999, 34).   

 

Bibliography

Baines, John 1999. Forerunners of narrative biographies. In Leahy, Anthony and John Tait (eds), Studies on ancient Egypt in honour of H. S. Smith, 23–37. London: Egypt Exploration Society.

Dodson, Aidan and Dyan Hilton 2004. The complete royal families of ancient Egypt. London; New York: Thames & Hudson.

Logan, Tom 2000. The jmyt-pr document: form, function and significance. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 37, 49–73.

Manley, Bill 2022. Metjen, the earliest known writer, Society of Authors. Available at: https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2022/08/04/metjen-the-earliest-known-writer/

Manley, Bill 2023. The oldest book in the world: philosophy in the age of the pyramids. London: Thames & Hudson.

Romer, John 2012. A history of ancient Egypt: from the first farmers to the Great Pyramid. London: Allen Lane.

Presents for the King

This blog post has been written by Jaap Jan Hemmes, who lives in a small village in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. For a long time, he has had a great interest in ancient Egypt has had the privilege to visit Egypt annually. Among the rich heritage ancient Egypt offers, he is particularly interested in the Theban area with its impressive temples and tombs of the elite as well as of royals. Besides that, he can lose himself in Egypt’s remains from the Old and Middle Kingdom. Indispensable during his visits is a camera, with which he has built up an extensive collection of images that, on request, are used for publication.

Opposite the modern city of Aswan, the Nile Valley shows one of its most dramatic landscapes. The strip of the fertile, cultivated land is reduced to a minimum and the desert almost touches the longest river on earth. Before the huge dams were built at the end of the nineteenth century and the second one in the middle of the twentieth century, the landscape must have looked similar to today (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Aswan, Qubbet el-Hawa with tombs of the nomarchs of Elephantine

 

In ancient Egypt, the country was divided into nomes (administrative districts). The very south area of Syene (Aswan) formed the first of over forty nomes, each with a ruler, or Nomarch, appointed by the King and or Vizier. Ta-seti, the southernmost part of Egypt, the country’s first nome of Upper Egypt (fig. 2) was an ideal starting point for travelling southward in order to control and protect trading routes and collect much appreciated precious African commodities such as incense, ivory, gold, panther and leopard skins, and ostrich feathers.

Fig. 2: Ta seti, ‘Land of the Bow’, the 1st nome of Upper Egypt. 
White Chapel of Senwesret I, 12th dyn.; Karnak, Open Air Museum

One of these nomarchs who chose to be buried near his hometown was Harkhuf. He was the nomarch of Elephantine and lived in the Old Kingdom during the Sixth Dynasty (under the rulers Merenre I and Pepi II). Harkhuf carried a great number of impressive titles: Count, Governor of Upper Egypt, Royal Seal Bearer, Sole Companion, Favourite of his Lord (the king), Lector Priest, Chief of Scouts, Chamberlain, Warden of Nekhen, and Mayor of Nekheb. On request of his sovereign, he undertook several journeys to the area of Yam, which was located in the south of Sudan or in the Libyan Desert. 

After a dutiful life—as he states—Harkhuf, as so many others, wished to be remembered for his great achievements. Ideally, the preferred place for a burial was on the West Bank of the Nile, the side where the sun sets. Qubbet el-Hawa (“dome of the wind”, see fig. 1) opposite Aswan offered a very suitable burial place for its governors, from the Old Kingdom onwards. On the façade of his tomb, facing east in the direction of the rising sun, records of his expeditions were carved, and it is notably his fourth expedition that mentions a very special service for his king, Pepi II. 

When Merenre I died, he was succeeded by Pepi II (throne name Neferkara; c. 2278–2184 BC), who was about six years old (fig. 3) when he ascended the throne. His regnal duties were attended by officials and probably his mother Ankhesenmerire II (also known as Ankhesenpepi II). It is said that Pepi reigned for 94 years!

Fig. 3: Pair statue of queen Ankhnesmeryre II and her son Pepi II on her lap
© Brooklyn Museum of Art, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund 39.119           

 

With the royal court at Memphis, some 900km from Aswan, the kings of the Old Kingdom onwards granted estates to great nobles in order to ‘buy’ their loyalty. Unfortunately, for many kings, this loyalty was not guaranteed as nomarchs sometimes operated as rulers in their own right. Harkhuf seems to have remained most loyal to his kings. 

On the right side of the entrance of Harkhuf’s tomb, he is depicted in a traditional way (fig. 4). Standing, facing the entrance, he holds a sekhem-sceptre in his left hand (“having power, control”) and a long stick in his right, both symbols of dignity. He wears an elaborate wig and a rich collar.

Fig. 4: Harkhuf

 

Above and in front of him, as well as on the left side of the tomb entrance, are the accounts of his first three expeditions (under Merenre I) to Nubia. The main purpose of the first, apparently under the direction of his father Iri, was the exploration of the way (“open the way”) to Yam that hadn’t previously been visited. This expedition lasted seven months. “I brought back all sorts of tribute, beautiful and rare and I was praised for it very highly). The second expedition lasted eight months. “I returned carrying tribute of this land in very great numbers, of a kind which nobody had ever brought to Egypt before”. During his third journey, Harkhuf probably faced political issues with the ruler of Yam, but negotiations resulted in mutual satisfaction and Harkhuf could return home without problems.

Harkhuf let the boy-king Pepi II know that he was returning with “all kinds of great and beautiful gifts”, including a pygmy from “the lands of the horizon-dwellers”, (i.e., “from the ends of the earth”). Harkhuf compared his prize to the pygmy brought from Punt in the reign of the Fifth Dynasty ruler Isesi, and noted that never before had a pygmy been brought to Egypt from Yam. In “regnal year 2, month 3 of (the inundation season) Akhet, day 15”, Pepi II wrote Harkhuf the following letter, the text of it was copied and carved on the extreme right part of the façade (fig. 5). I omitted parts of the translation (in italics between brackets):

Fig. 5: The king’s letter to Harkhuf

 

“(…) Come back, at once, to the north, to the residence (Memphis). Leave (everything) and bring with you the pygmy which you have brought from the land of the inhabitants of the horizon, alive, in good health and strong so that he may dance for the God (the king) and make him gladden and delight the heart of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Neferkara (Pepi II), may he live eternally!
If you come with him in the ship, set worthy men around him on both sides of the boat and take care that he does not fall in the water. If he lies down to sleep during the night, have worthy men to lie beside him in his tent; go and check ten times in the night. My Majesty wishes to see this pygmy more than all the tribute of mine-land (Sinai) and of Punt. If you reach the residence and the pygmy is with you, alive, in good health and strong, My Majesty will do great things for you,  more than was done for the god’s seal-bearer/treasurer, Bawerded, in the time of king Isesi (…). (fig. 6)

Fig. 6: Some words from the letter of Pepi II

This text is the only complete royal letter dating from the Old Kingdom, more than 4000 years ago. Imagine the excited reaction of the child-king Pepi II when Harkhuf arrived with the pygmy at the residence!

Visiting the rock-cut tombs of Qubbet el-Hawa nowadays is a bit of an exhausting climb, but one is more than rewarded with a fantastic panorama and, of course, with most interesting tombs including Harkhuf’s. By pronouncing his name again and again, there or at home, one helps realising Harkhuf’s wish to live and be remembered for eternity!

 

Literature:

Anonymous (ed.) 1999. Egyptian art in the age of the pyramids. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Harry N. Abrams.

Clayton, Peter A. 1994. Chronicle of the pharaohs: the reign-by-reign record of the rulers and dynasties of ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson.

Goedicke, Hans 1981. Harkhuf’s travels. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40 (1), 1–20.

Hannig, Rainer 2015. Großes Handwörterbuch Ägyptisch - Deutsch (2800–950 v. Chr.): Marburger Edition, 6th ed. Hannig-Lexica 1. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.

Lichtheim, Miriam 2006. Ancient Egyptian literature. A book of readings, volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley, CA; London: University of California Press.

Rice, Michael 1999. Who’s who in ancient Egypt. Who’s Who series. London; New York: Routledge.

Wilkinson, Toby 2019. Lives of the ancient Egyptians. London: Thames & Hudson.

New Egypt Centre Course – Causing Their Names to Live

2023 was a particularly busy year for the Egypt Centre as we marked our twenty-fifth anniversary. One of the highlights was the loan of 813 objects from Harrogate Museums, with the entire collection now available online to researchers. In connection with this, we launched the first temporary exhibition on the Harrogate material in October, which is called Causing Their Names to Live. This title takes inspiration from a common vivification formula found on statues, stelae, and other objects (Nelson-Hurst 2010; 2011). For the ancient Egyptians, one of the most important things was that their name would be remembered. In the autobiography of Montuhotep, the official says that “anyone who shall remember my good name, I will be his protector in the presence of the great god” (Landgráfová 2011, 179). Another official, Intef, even goes as far as to hire a Lector Priest “so that my name would be good, and so that the memory of me would last (until) today” (Landgráfová 2011, 38).

I am pleased to announce that the next Egypt Centre course will be called Causing Their Names to Live: The Lives of the Ancient Egyptians. This five-week course will examine the lives of some of the most famous—or infamous— individuals from ancient Egypt. This will include men such as the Vizier and Architect Imhotep, the Nomarch Khnumhotep II, and the revered Amenhotep son of Hapu. Women such as the God’s Wife Ahmose-Nefertari, the lady Naunakht, and the Chief Follower of the God’s Priestess Mutirdis will also be featured. Some of the individuals being discussed are even known from objects in the Egypt Centre collection. Chief among them is the infamous Paneb, whose offering stand is on display in the House of Life gallery. There is also the Servant in the Place of Truth, Khabekhnet, whose painted relief is on display in the House of Death gallery (fig. 1). By discussing these individuals, we will be fulfilling the wish of the ancient Egyptians by causing their names to live!

Fig. 1: Relief of Khabekhnet

In order to be as accessible as possible, this course will be run twice a week: Sunday evenings 6–8pm (UK time); Wednesday mornings 10am–12noon (UK time). Additionally, one of the sessions will be recorded and made available for a limited time to registered participants.

Week 1 (Sunday 21 and Wednesday 24 January)

Week 2 (Sunday 28 and Wednesday 31 January)

Week 3 (Sunday 04 and Wednesday 07 February)

Week 4 (Sunday 11 and Wednesday 14 February)

Week 5 (Sunday 18 and Wednesday 21 February)

 

Tickets for the course can be purchased here.

 

Fees for this course go directly to supporting the Egypt Centre. If you would like to support the Egypt Centre with an additional donation, you can do so here: https://www.egypt.swan.ac.uk/donate-to-the-egypt-centre/

Once registered, you will receive an email from Eventbrite with the Zoom link. Please remember to double-check check your email address is correct before booking and check your junk folder for any emails. If you have any queries, please contact Ken Griffin at k.griffin@swansea.ac.uk

 

Bibliography:

Landgráfová, Renata 2011. It is my good name that you should remember: Egyptian biographical texts on Middle Kingdom stelae. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Czech Institute of Egyptology. 

Nelson-Hurst, Melinda G. 2011. The increasing emphasis on collateral and female kin in the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period: the vivification formula as a case study. In Horn, Maarten, Joost Kramer, Daniel Soliman, Nico Staring, Carina van den Hoven, and Lara Weiss (eds), Current research in Egyptology 2010: proceedings of the eleventh annual symposium, which took place at Leiden University, the Netherlands, January 2010, 116–123. Oxford; Oakville, CT: Oxbow.

Nelson-Hurst, M. G. 2010. “…who causes his name to live”: the vivification formula through the Second Intermediate Period. In Hawass, Zahi and Jennifer Houser Wegner (eds), Millions of jubilees: studies in honor of David P. Silverman 2, 13–31. Cairo: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités.

Alexander the Great at Karnak

The blog post for this week is written by Linda Kimmel, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. When she retired from full-time work as a data research manager in late 2020, she began studying the ancient world and serving as a docent at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Linda had never heard of the Egypt Centre before the pandemic but has taken every course offered since she first noticed a tweet about the museum in the fall of 2020 and has been taking online courses there ever since. She hopes to visit the Egypt Centre in 2024, provided the trains are running!

 

The latest Egypt Centre course with Ken Griffin—Karnak: The Most Select of Places—finished with a final session on Graeco-Roman Karnak. This was the session I most looked forward to when Ken first gave us the outline for the course. In addition to being fascinated with ancient Egypt, I am also interested in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and in particular the Hellenistic period.

 

Most of the expansion at Karnak occurred during the New Kingdom. However, while few monuments were built during the Graeco-Roman Period, many older monuments were restored and redecorated. In our last session, Ken covered a host of Macedonian, Ptolemaic, and Roman rulers and the changes made at Karnak during their reigns. While far more work was done at Karnak under various Ptolemaic rulers, notably Ptolemy III, I decided to focus on the work done under the rule of Alexander III of Macedon, more frequently known as Alexander the Great (fig. 1). Nearly one year ago I took a course on Alexander the Great. I was fascinated not so much by his military conquests, but by how he interacted with the lands he invaded.

Fig. 1: Alexander the Great at Karnak

When I think of Alexander the Great and Egypt, two sites come to mind: Alexandria and Siwa. Alexandria is easy. It is one of the many cities called Alexandria founded by Alexander throughout his empire. Siwa, comes to mind as it is there that Alexander visited the oracle and after said he was the son of Zeus Amun (Bosch-Puche, 2014; Carney 2006) and not Philip (fig. 2). But Karnak? Until this last class I had never linked Alexander to Karnak.

Fig. 2: Siwa oracle temple

Alexander entered Egypt in late 332 BCE, but while he ruled Egypt for approximately ten years, he was only in the country for a brief period, with no evidence he went as far south as Karnak. How then did he become associated with Karnak? Ken said it is most likely that the work at Karnak during Alexander’s reign was done by order of the priests, using Alexander’s name as a sponsor. Given Alexander’s associations with Zeus Amun, it is appropriate that he would appear in some form at Karnak, with its main complex devoted to the god Amun-Ra. 

 

As with most of the Graeco-Roman Period, the work done in Alexander’s name focused on the renewal and redecoration of existing monuments. His different pharaonic names are attested in numerous locations at Karnak (Bosch-Puche, 2013). Under Alexander, the gateway of the Fourth Pylon was renewed, with his cartouche added (fig. 3). Alexander’s name was also added to the entrance gateway to the Khonsu Temple. But for me, the most interesting work is that done to the Akhmenu, over 1,000 years after its original construction.

Fig. 3: Cartouches of Alexander the Great on the Fourth Pylon (CNRS-CFEETK 202558)

The Akhmenu, or “Festival Hall,” was first constructed during the reign of Thutmosis III. It is both an imposing and puzzling structure, as there is no clear consensus amongst Egyptologists as to what its original function and use was during the reign of Thutmosis III (Blyth, 2006). The work in the Akhmenu is the most well-known of the work at Karnak done under Alexander, with a room at the back of the building now termed the “Sanctuary of Alexander” (fig. 4). Originally built under the reign of Thutmosis III, the Macedonian inscription indicates the renovation was done under the name of Alexander the Great. Why is this important? Ken noted that many would say Thutmosis III was Egypt’s greatest military ruler, so was it a deliberate choice, most likely of the priests, to link Alexander, the great Macedonian military ruler, with Thutmosis III?

Fig. 4: Plan of the Akhmenu

Alexander is typically depicted in classical Greek style with a handsome, youthful, idealized face and long hair (fig. 5). It is suggested that Alexander understood the propaganda power of portraiture and allowed only one sculptor to carve his portrait (Getty). In contrast to this classical portrait, among the work done to the Akhmenu is a relief showing Alexander between the gods Sokar and Amun, with him making offerings to these gods (fig. 6). In this relief, Alexander is clearly depicted as an Egyptian, rather than as a Macedonian. In addition to making offerings to an Egyptian god, he is wearing a kilt and a broad collar, carrying an ankh, and on his normally clean-shaven face is a false beard. Moreover, Bosch-Puche (2014) notes numerous linkages to the god Amun in Alexander’s royal titulary. Clearly, he is being portrayed as an Egyptian. But to what purpose?

Fig. 5: Classical head of Alexander from the Getty Museum

 

Bosch-Puche (2014) suggests that Alexander’s royal names were selected deliberately by the priests, both to establish Alexander as the legitimate ruler of Egypt and to indicate that the Macedonians were accommodating themselves to Egyptian traditions. Given Alexander’s brief stay in Egypt, it is unclear if he was even aware of the images carved of him and the inscriptions attributed to him that were placed at Karnak. Nevertheless, I find the Egyptianized portraits of Alexander, along with the linkages in his royal titulary to Amun, consistent with the stories we hear of Alexander’s practices in Persia.

Fig. 6: Alexander the Great between Amun and Sokar

Numerous ancient writers recount episodes in which Alexander took steps to adapt to local practices, seemingly to unite the residents of his newly conquered lands with the Macedonians. At Susa, he held a mass wedding in which he, and many of his officers, married the daughters of the local aristocracy. Arrian reports that the wedding was held in “Persian style.” (Romm, 2012). We are also told that in addition to wearing Persian clothes, Alexander began to require that visitors prostrate themselves upon entering his tent, the Persian practice of proskynesis. While these practices may have had practical purposes, they seem to have caused dissension in his troops. I am left wondering what his troops—and fellow officers—would have thought about the images of Alexander at Karnak. Clearly, the succeeding Ptolemaic rulers endorsed these practices, as they too depicted themselves as Egyptians. Perhaps it was a practice that worked better over time.

 

The next Egypt Centre course—Causing Their Names to Live: The Lives of the Ancient Egyptians—begins on January 21. That gives me a month to review some of the many articles Ken has sent us about Karnak, to delve more into Alexander and the Ptolemies in Egypt, as well as to do some initial readings on who some of the famous or infamous characters we will encounter in our next class might be.

 

References

Blyth, Elizabeth 2006. Karnak: evolution of a temple. London: Routledge.

Bosch-Puche, Francisco 2013. The Egyptian royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, Two Ladies, Golden Horus, and Throne names. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 99, 131–154.

Bosch-Puche, Francisco 2014. The Egyptian royal titulary of Alexander the Great, II: Personal name, empty cartouches, final remarks, and appendix. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 100, 89–109.

Carney, Elizabeth 2006. Olympias: mother of Alexander the Great. New York: Routledge.

Getty 2023. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103SXY [accessed December 20, 2023]

Romm, James 2012. The landmark Arrian: the campaigns of Alexander. New York: Anchor Books.

The Seven Hathors of Karnak

This blog post has been written by Sandra Ottens, who has been working as a secretary at the municipality of Amsterdam for thirty years. Sandra studied Egyptology at Leiden University (BA and MA) from 2006 to 2012. She started blogging about her Egyptological adventures when her class attended a two-month study semester in Cairo, visiting a large number of excavation sites (https://egyptoblogie.wordpress.com). Sandra joined the excavations in Amheida (Dakhla Oasis) as an assistant epigrapher to Professor Olaf Kaper for one season in 2012. She wrote her MA thesis on the Seven Hathors, a group of seven goddesses who predicted the fate of newborn children. This blog post is about the Seven Hathors at Karnak, which is written here to coincide with the Egypt Centre’s short course on Karnak currently taking place.

 

Let me present to you what remains of the Seven Hathors in Karnak. This group is not depicted in the main temple of Karnak, but in the very small chapel J in the northeast corner of the complex. The chapel is usually referred to as the chapel of Osiris wp išd (fig. 1), because of a text that was discovered inside it. Redford (1986) has identified this chapel as the “temple of Isis of the Great Mound”, which was built by Hory, who was a priest of Amun around the time of Osorkon II (Twenty-second Dynasty) and Takelot II and Pedubast I (early Twenty-third Dynasty). Of this chapel only a few rows of blocks remain, and only a few pieces of relief, which are not in the best condition. But the very interesting thing is that one of these reliefs depicts the seven Hathors.

Fig. 1: The Osiris chapel

The Hathors were said to appear at the birth of a child in order to foretell its fate. In fairy tales, this fate could be either good or bad. In a temple context, the Hathors come to foretell the fate of a god or a king. In such cases, their predictions are always positive, because that fits into the ideology of the temple. They are accompanied by music, singing, and dancing.

The first Hathor is shown playing two sistra, and the ladies behind her, as far as they are still visible, are playing tambourines (fig. 2). There are a few captions left, which identify them as Hathors from different sanctuaries. The second lady is called Hathor, lady of Heracleopolis Magna, the fourth is called Hathor, lady of the Southern Sycomore, the fifth is called Hathor, lady of the Red Lake, and the sixth is called Hathor, lady of Es-Siririya. The names of the other ladies are lost.

Fig. 2: Detail of the first three Hathors

Before the Hathors stands a priest wearing a leopard skin and carrying a Horus falcon on a standard (fig. 3). Opposite this group is a baboon, of which only the lower half is visible, and behind the baboon, there is a male figure that is too damaged to be identified. This is where the piece of incised stone ends, but there seems to be enough space on the wall for there to have been another figure behind him. It is likely that the Hathors are playing their music for a god. Since the relief is in Karnak and the Hathors are usually associated with childbirth, a likely candidate would be Khonsu, the child of the Theban gods Amun and his wife Mut. Khonsu can sometimes be depicted as a baboon.

Fig. 3: Detail of the priest(s) before the first Hathor

According to Redford, this is the “temple of Isis of the Great Mound”, which was associated with the burial place of Osiris. In a text describing that building, it is called the msḫn.t (birthplace?) of Atum and the island of Re at the beginning, where Amun passes by (in procession) in his feast of the first of šmw, which appears to have had solar and Osirian connections. That may suggest a variety of other child gods. 

This little chapel, consisting of only two rooms, was excavated and restored in 1950. The 1951 publications by Chevrier and Leclant show photos of a reasonably well-preserved relief. Philippe Gossaert went to Karnak in 2012 and published some new photos on the web forum Per Kemet (which no longer exists). These show that one of the top blocks, showing the upper halves of the second, third, and fourth Hathor, is now missing. I went to Karnak in 2015 and the block was still missing (fig. 4). I took a walk around the chapel and had a good look at the blocks in the vicinity, but I couldn’t find anything like the block in the photos. Is it still somewhere in the Karnak precinct? If so, who moved it, and why?

Fig. 4: Annotated photo of the wall with the missing block in blue

Furthermore, at first glance, it seemed that the block to the right of it, with the remaining tops of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Hathor was now also missing. Then, to my relief, I noticed that this block was lying on the floor in front of the wall, upside down, and propped up on a couple of pieces of concrete (fig. 5). So it’s not exactly where it’s supposed to be, but at least it still exists. And who knows, at some point someone may take the trouble of restoring it to its place on the wall …

Fig. 5: The loose block with final Hathors

Bibliography:

Chevrier, Henri 1951. Rapport sur les travaux de Karnak 1950–1951. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 51, 549–572. [p. 554, pl. II.1]

Guglielmi, W. 1991. Die Göttin Mr.t: Entstehung und Verehrung einer Personifikation. Probleme der Ägyptologie 7. Leiden: Brill. [p. 95, n. 218]

Leclant, Jean 1951. Fouilles et travaux en Égypte, 1950–1951. I. Orientalia 20 (4), 453–475. [p. 463, pl. 53 (15)].

Porter, Bertha and Rosalind L. B. Moss 1972. Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs and paintings II: Theban temples, 2nd, augmented and revised ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Griffith Institute. [p. 204 (7). The depiction of the seven Hathors is not on wall 7 but on wall 6 of the plan in Porter & Moss]

Redford, Donald B. 1986. New light on Temple J at Karnak. Orientalia 55 (1), 1–15.

Rochholz, Matthias 2002. Schöpfung, Feindvernichtung, Regeneration: Untersuchung zum Symbolgehalt der machtgeladenen Zahl 7 im alten Ägypten. Ägypten und Altes Testament 56. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. [p. 72 (doc. 39)]

The Swansea University Pottery Project: Part 1

This is the first of a two-part blog series on the Swansea University Pottery Project (SUPP) that describes its background, aims, methods, and future direction of the project. The second part will highlight some of the project’s research results to date. This post has been written by Christian Knoblauch, with input from Ken Griffin and Meg Gundlach.

 

Background
One strength of the Egypt Centre is its collection of ancient pottery, with over 1000 accessioned objects representing approximately 1/5 of the entire collection. The material spans the full extent of Egyptian history from prehistory to modern times, as well as important collections of Greek, Roman, and Sudanese material. Most of it has neither been studied nor adequately recorded. Due to limitations on space in the museum, only a small percentage is on display, meaning the public and researchers have never seen much of it (fig. 1). This is in fact a typical situation at many of the UK museums with extensive collections of Egyptian pottery. This material is often less well-studied than other types of artefacts, both due to the sheer quantity of the material and because the training and interests of many Egyptologists (or curators responsible for local collections) lie elsewhere. Most of this material entered private and public collections during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when British organisations such as the Egypt Exploration Fund/Society, the Egypt Research Account, and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt funded their excavations using subscriptions, for which the funders received objects from the excavation. As such, the objects are not only important in their own right but can often be linked to archaeological excavations and ancient contexts and are therefore indispensable data for studying the ancient past.

Fig. 1: The Pottery Case

Project aims

The aims of SUPP are to provide a complete, up-to-date record of each piece of pottery in the online collection catalogue so that this important material is fully accessible to all for free. At the same time, we want to promote student involvement in research, engage students in roles that enhance employability, and improve our learning community (fig. 2). The project is a collaboration between staff and students from the department of Heritage, History and Classics, the Egypt Centre, and the research group for Object and Landscape Approaches to the Past (OLCAP). The project is directed by Dr. Christian Knoblauch (specialist in Egyptian pottery and Lecturer in Egyptian Material Culture, Swansea University), Dr. Meg Gundlach (Collections Access Manager, The Egypt Centre), and Dr. Ken Griffin (Curator, The Egypt Centre).

Fig. 2: Members of the 2023 SUPP project

While staff direct the project, the actual task of getting these objects online is largely the work of a twelve student team selected through a competitive application process and who donate two hours each week to the project during semester time. Students receive full training in handling, recording, and describing museum objects. The students use these skills to record the objects, moving towards independent work as the semester progresses (fig. 3). Students who wish to remain with the project in the following semester can apply to do so and contribute towards training new volunteers; essentially, this is learning by doing and learning by teaching others. In total, we have provided over 100 hours of free (over 1000 accumulative student hours), extra-curricular professional-level skills training, which is roughly equivalent to an entire semester’s contact hours for a 1^st/2^nd Year Undergraduate student.

Fig. 3: Checking the fabric

Anyone familiar with online catalogues knows these are usually put together over a longer period by different people, resulting in inconsistency in language, descriptors, order, and numeric data. The aim of SUPP is to provide an accurate, internally consistent, and systematic record of the entire collection of pottery in the Egypt Centre. In each session, students work in pairs to record the objects, pooling knowledge and checking each other’s work as they go to ensure accuracy. SUPP employs strict guidelines for what measurements are recorded and how to take them, as well as standardised criteria for describing the shape, technology, surface treatment, decoration, and colour of the vessels (fig. 4). The use of drop-down menus for searchable fields such as object type, culture, date, material, provenance, and fabric further ensures consistency across the catalogue. The terminology and criteria used for SUPP are all based on systems employed by specialists in the field meaning the data can be seamlessly incorporated into our users’ own research. Of course, we pay great attention to any labels left on the pots by excavators, previous owners, and auction houses—one of the highlights of any session is reconnecting a pot with its original archaeological context. This information is also added to the pot’s record, meaning scholars can easily get an overview of what sites (and even what tombs) are represented in the collection (this will be discussed in more detail in Part 2 of this blog).

Fig. 4: Guidelines for SUPP

The student interns enter data and descriptions directly into the online collection catalogue (Abaset) and these are edited by a member of staff before saving (fig. 5). Once the students click “save”, their records become publicly available online. This is an exciting moment as there is no time lag between recording of the data and its availability for researchers worldwide and students rightly feel that they are contributing to global research. In an ideal world, each entry would be perfect before going online. However, perfection is the enemy of completion, so if the basic information (measurements/fabrics/date) is correct, we prefer to publish first and make amendments when we have time or the need arises. Abaset has a built-in function whereby researchers or the public working with the online catalogue can submit extra information or corrections for consideration by the editorial team. We hope our colleagues from across the world engage with this function (particularly with dates!) and build on the fantastic platform that the students of SUPP have laid down.

Fig. 5: SUPP students entering data in the online catalogue

The project has also benefited hugely from the completion of a totally new photographic record for each pot to accompany the entry in Abaset. The photography by Ken Griffin is done using strict guidelines, including neutral backgrounds and visible and consistent scales (fig. 6). Each vessel has images from different perspectives with close-up images of important features. Some of the more complex vessels also have 3D scans, although this can often be challenging to capture the interior of the vessels.

Fig. 6: Photography of HARGM3895

The student volunteers are the main asset of SUPP. They come from different degree schemes and range from second-year undergraduates in Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology, to Public History and Heritage MAs and PhD students. The students have formed a unique, supportive, and positive learning community, making a huge contribution to knowledge about our collection and providing access to it for the public and researchers (while having a good time and a good chat). Most of them have no prior knowledge of pottery, Egyptian pottery (or even Egyptology in some cases), but it is inspiring to see how motivated and invested in the project they become. Participation in the project also has a direct impact on our student’s approach to their studies: one of our students, Katie Morton, recently completed an excellent BA Honours thesis on the wonderful Blue Painted Pottery from Amarna in the collection (fig. 7) whereas current SUPPian Jess Evans is writing her undergraduate thesis on pottery “imitations” of vessels in more expensive materials during the New Kingdom, inspired by some vessels she studied for SUPP.

Fig. 7: All hands on deck!

SUPP now and in the future

We have been running the project for two academic years and recently completed Phase I, which involved making the records of all complete vessels in the Egypt Centre (c. 400 vessels) as well as the Harrogate loan (80 vessels) available online. We are now entering Phase II, a detailed recording of the extensive collection of sherd material from the Egypt Exploration Society’s Armant 1936–37 excavations, including Badarian, A-Group, and Pan-Grave pottery. This requires training in new skills as we have so far only been working with complete vessels. Phase III of SUPP (2024–2026) is to complete technical drawings of each vessel and make these available online along with the photography (fig. 8). Once completed, Swansea’s collection will be the most comprehensively recorded and published Egyptian pottery collection in the UK.

Fig. 8: Learning new skills

Taking a broader perspective, it is hard to exaggerate the huge quantities and importance of Egyptian pottery in UK regional museums. A direct result of the modern history of the UK and the history of archaeology in Egypt, it is our responsibility not only to look after this incredibly important material but to make it accessible so it can be made use of. Once the Egypt Centre material has been finished, SUPP would welcome the opportunity to work with external partners to make other collections freely available, perhaps as SUPP Phase IV (fig. 9)?

Fig. 9: SUPP poster

Reactions from the current SUPP students

Jess Evans, 3rd Year Swansea University Student:
“Being part of the SUPP team is so much fun and I have learned a lot from encountering so many different types of pottery. One of the vessels we catalogued even inspired my dissertation!”

Rebecca Toghill, 3rd Year Swansea University Student:

“I have loved having the chance to experience history through material culture as this was the first time I have had the opportunity to do so. I think what has worked so well for me with this project is seeing the real-time impact our research and cataloguing have had for the Egypt Centre’s database as we are continuously adding to this vessel’s history. It has been fantastic learning new terminologies, skills, and being able to now have another perspective on what comprises history and how we can consume that for understanding.”

Molly Stanley, 3^rd Year Swansea University Student:

“It’s my third year doing the project now but one of my favourite things about the sessions is that I’m always learning new things. There are so many different types of objects and it’s so fun and informative to not just learn about their origins and how they might have been used but to also get the opportunity to handle them and contribute to research on the object that may have never been done before.”