 (p. 220) The collections of the British Museum’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities contain more than 70,000 items, of which it is possible to exhibit at any one time only a relatively small proportion. Objects of both artistic and academic interest are to be found in the Museum’s rich reserves, of all dates and almost every class. The pieces briefly described below are very much a personal selection, but serve to illustrate the potential of these holdings.
An Obsidian Mähnensphinx
The Museum acquired the miniature, couchant Mähnensphinx EA 65506 (Fig. 1) from P. J. Tano (1), then living in Cyprus, in 1951; its original findspot is not recorded. The piece is fragmentary, comprising the head, much of the body and a portion of the flattened base; it measures a mere 5.1 cm long, 2.8 cm wide at the shoulders, and 4.4 cm high overall. The material is an opaque black obsidian (2), with semi-matte finish on the worked surfaces and a toffee-like gloss at the breaks. The underside of the object is drilled with two overlapping holes, some 1.4 cm deep, positioned slightly to the right of the long axis, executed by means of a tubular drill approx. 0.5 cm in diameter. A similar hole, 0.5 cm deep, is drilled horizontally below the chin of the figure. The authenticity of the piece has in the past been questioned, though in the writer’s opinion such scepticism is exaggerated. What minor peculiarities the sculpture does exhibit - the summary working of the face, the apparent lack of a beard, the impressionistic treatment of the mane and a rather clumsy delineation of the `curls` upon the creature’s shoulders - are more likely to reflect the small scale of the work and the hardness of the material employed than to identify the unpractised hand of the modern forger. Such anomalies are offset by what is, overall, a convincing subtlety in the modelling, and in particular by the slight upwards tilt of the head revealed by a correct positioning of the figure on the remains of its base. But, since no detailed scientific examination of the piece has yet been undertaken, this judgement ought strictly to be regarded as provisional.
The earliest-known Mähnensphinx, albeit on a very much larger scale, is represented by a fragment in Berlin (22580), dated by the uraeus and the form of the eyebrow and cosmetic line to the reign of Sesostris ll (3). The classic form of the type is that presented by the black granite sculptures recovered in the last century by Auguste Mariette from the ruins of Tanis, the Delta residence of the later Ramessid rulers (4). After the reign of Ammenemes III, the Mähnensphinx appears only intermittently: under Ammenemes IV (5), Hatshepsut (6) and Taharqa (7). For EA 65506, both the material and style are consistent with a Middle Kingdom dating; and indeed, the close similarity between it and the Tanis sphinxes would suggest a common attribution to the reign of Ammenemes III.
The purpose for which the British Museum’s Mähnensphinx was originally made remains uncertain, though the tomb of Tutankhamun furnishes an interesting, if somewhat smaller, parallel (perhaps a bracelet inlay) (8), described in Carter’s object index (9) as follows:
44hh. Lapis lazuli sphinx
L 3.3 [cm]; W at base 1.1 [cm]; H at head 1.7 [cm]
Sphinx with king’s head in lapis lazuli.
This sat on top of some object with a curved top. Base was cut away [0].2 [cm] from edge all round, and [0].1 [cm] deep, in order to inlay it. In addition there was a round peg hole in the centre, another running up from bottom into chest, and a lateral peg hole running in from tail a distance of 1.3 [cm] (10).
A Calcite Jar Fragment of Ahmose-Nofretiri
The calcite jar fragment EA 59258 illustrated in Fig. 2, with extant height of 8.7 cm, width of 6 cm and maximum thickness of 1.7 cm, was acquired by the British Museum from the executors of the Luxor dealer Mohammed Mohassib (11) in 1929. Lightly incised upon its outer surface are two vertical columns of text, arranged beneath the usual pt-hieroglyph, which record the titulary of Ahmose-Nofretiri: `King’s daughter, king’s sister, wife of the god, great royal wife, mother of the king, Ahmose-Nofretiri, living forever`.
Although the original provenance of the piece is not recorded, its inscription is closely similar in technique, content and style to those of a series of vessel fragments recovered by Howard Carter during his clearance on behalf of the fifth Earl of Carnarvon in 1914 of tomb AN B at Dra Abu’l Naga, the likely burial-place of Amenophis I and Ahmose-Nofretiri (12). As his notes indicate (13), Carter became alerted to the existence of this tomb through the appearance on the Luxor antiquities market of material of this very sort, much of which he was able to secure. It seems likely that EA 59258 represents one piece from the tomb which escaped Carter’s net (14).
A Group of Inscribed Jar Fragments from the Tomb of Hatshepsut
During his clearance for Theodore M. Davis of the tomb of Hatshepsut in the Valley of the Kings (KV 20), Howard Carter brought to light a number of inscribed jar fragments. Three joining pieces illustrated in Davis’s publication of the tomb (15) were acquired by the British Museum in 1959 together with other material from the collection of J. J. Acworth (16). The three Carter pieces now carry the number EA 65899.
A fourth portion of this same vessel, unknown to Carter, had been in the British Museum for more than fifty years. This additional fragment, EA 43401, arrived in 1907, having been sold with a group of other inscribed pieces at the first Rustafjaell sale in London the year before (17).
A photograph of the rejoined elements EA 43401+65899 is reproduced in fig. 3. Although less than a quarter of the jar is preserved, measuring some 17 cm in height, 15.8 cm wide and 2 cm maximum thickness, it is clear that the complete vessel was originally drop-shaped and with a diameter of approximately 20 cm (18). The extant fragments preserve the greater part of an incised text panel. This panel contains three vertical columns arranged from right to left (1-3), and a single opposing column reading from left to right (4). The inscription runs as follows: (1) `The god’s wife, the beloved [of the god], daughter of the king, his beloved, Hatshepsut, may she live; (2) it was f[or] h[er] fa[ther], king of Up[per and Lower Egypt], Aakheperkare, true of voice, (3) [... son of Re], Tuthmosis, true of voice, that s[he] ma[de this]. (4) Beloved of Osiris, lord of Abydos`.
The discovery that EA 43401 originates from the tomb of Hatshepsut presumably indicates that the associated pieces in the Rustafjaell lot, now EA 43402-5 (Figs 4-6), shared the same provenance (19); indeed, the fire-blackened surface of EA 43401 is identical to that of the calcite fragments EA 43402-4 (EA 43405 is from a vessel of hard, black stone). These pieces illustrate for the first time the part played by Tuthmosis I`s queen, Ahmose, in dedicating a proportion of the funerary equipment for her husband’s buria (20).
The Ashburnham Ring
The Ashburnham ring, EA 71492 (Fig. 6), one of the Egyptian Department’s most recent acquisitions, is an object of first-rate importance with an interesting and well-documented history which, if implausible in places, nevertheless bears recounting. Acquired by the Earl of Ashburnham (then Viscount St Asaph) (22) in Cairo in 1825, the ring is believed to represent a stray from work carried out by Bernardino Drovetti (23) at Saqqara in 1824. Shortly after its acquisition by Ashburnham, the piece is said to have been looted by pirates during shipment from Alexandria to Smyrna, to be sold with other booty on the island of `Syra` (24). The ring eventually found its way via a Greek merchant to Istanbul. From Istanbul it passed into the hands of Giovanni d’Athanasi (25), an agent of Henry Salt (26), and was later offered to the British Museum. The Museum’s Egyptologist, Samuel Birch (27), doubting the authenticity of the ring, declined the purchase. Acquired by Joseph Bonomi (28), the ring was subsequently purchased - for a second time - by Lord Ashburnham. It then passed to a family retainer, from a descendant of whom it was acquired for the national collection in 1989.
Both the rectangular swivel bezel of the ring, which measures 2.1 cm long, 1.6 cm wide and 0.4 cm in thickness, and the round-section shank, 0.45 cm maximum diameter, to which the bezel is wired in the usual fashion, are fashioned from massive yellow gold (29). The weight of the whole is 35.8 gm. Both faces of the bezel are deeply chased with portions of the royal titulary: (1) ‘He of the Two Ladies, great of terror in all lands’; (2) ‘Menkheperre, beloved of Ptah-radiant-of-face’ (30).
About its origins, Bonomi (31) writes as follows:
"In the winter of 1824 a discovery was made in Sakkara, of a tomb enclosing a mummy entirely cased in solid gold, (each limb, each finger of which, had its particular envelope inscribed with hieroglyphics,) a scarabus attached to a gold chain, a gold ring, and a pair of bracelets of gold, with other valuable relics.
This account was wrested from the excavators `à coups de baton administered by Mohammed Defterdar Bey; by which means were recovered to Sigr. Drovetti, (at whose charge the excavation was made,) the scarabaeus and gold chain, a fragment of the gold envelope, and the bracelets, now in the Leyden Museum, which bear the same name as this ring.
From the circumstances of the bracelets bearing the same name as this ring, and from the word Pthah, the name of the tutelar divinity of Memphis, (of which city Sakkara was the necropolis,) being also inscribed upon it, there is little doubt it was found in that place, and, from the confession of the Arabs, a great probability that it came out of the same excavation."
The scarab and one of the bracelets referred to in this passage are evidently Leiden AO 1a and AO 2b respectively (32). The former carries on the base the usual extract from spell 30 of the Book of the Dead with, on the back, the name of the owner: the overseer of northern foreign lands, Djehuty.
Christine Lilyquist, in her recent study of the gold bowl of Djehuty in the Louvre, has gathered together the evidence relating to the man, and concludes that it is likely he was buried, not at Thebes as is usually stated, but at Saqqara (33). Bonomi’s article on the Ashburnham ring not only lends support to this conclusion, but would suggest that the Ashburnham ring represents a part of the man’s burial furniture (34). If so, it represents a particularly appropriate addition to a collectionj which boasts the only known copy of "The Capture of Joppa" (35), in which the general Djehuty played such a prominent part, as well as the only extant (albeit headless) statue of the man to have come down to us (36).
A Fragment from the Canopic Jar of an Amarna Queen
The fragment EA 955537 (Fig. 7) consists of part of the body and rim from a thick-walled (4.3 cm max.) vessel, in its present state measuring 17 cm high and 12.8 cm across; the complete object had a maximum diameter of some 14.5 cm.38 The curve of the shoulder carries a brown, ferruginous stain, while over much of the surface is a thin, rather rough layer which has been identified either as redeposited calcite or as a lime-wash. Evidently the rim section of a canopic jar (39), the fragment arrived at the British Museum with the first collection of Henry Salt (40), purchased in 1823; as with so many objects from this source, its original provenance remains unknown.
The interest of the piece lies in the surviving signs of what was originally a multi-columned retrograde text contained within a panel surmounted by the usual pt-hieroglyph. The extant traces of this text are reproduced in facsimile in Fig. 7. While the text frame and the hieroglyphs in the lower section of the inscription have lost whatever embellishment they might once have boasted, the hieroglyphs in the upper section of the inscription still preserve their original glass inlays (41). These inlays had evidently been retained by virtue of their having been inserted into a layer of applied gypsum while this matrix was still soft, rather than into an appropriately carved, gypsum-lined hollow in the jar proper. The area covered by this gypsum and the explanation for its presence are indicated by the radiograph reproduced in Fig. 7. A rectangular section of the jar`s original surface was excised in antiquity, and the mixture of calcite and gypsum into which new inlays were inserted represents a secondary adaptation.
The meaning of the text as preserved is far from clear. The top sign, outlined in a clear, colourless glass with remains of red backing material (42), off-set slightly to the right, appears from its colour to have been intended as a mouth rather than as an eye, for which blue would have been a more appropriate tint. The top of this sign appears to follow the curve of the sign it replaced, which was perhaps an eye. Below this sign, partially covered (and once fully covered) with gypsum plaster, stands a second inlaid sign, in blue glass - from the x-ray, a large, flattened t. Below this, still within the calcite and gypsum rectangle, stands the group jtn, with reed-leaf, t and n-sign of blue glass and solar disc of colourless glass (43). Carved into the original surface of the jar below the rectangle is the group Hmt nsw, `king’s wife` - though whether `king’s wife` alone, or `great king’s wife`, cannot now be established, since the text breaks off at this point. As preserved, the text appears to read ...]rt (?) jtn Hmt nsw ..., `... ] Aten, the [...?] king’s wife [ ...`.
The most likely explanation for the alteration is that the original version of this text contained a textual reference to which exception was taken at or before the time of its employment. Since the nature of the inlays and the content of the text in its final form sugest that this adaptation occurred during the Amarna period, it is reasonable to assume that the offending element in the original text was none other than the epithet `the Osiris`.
if this is so, the alteration would imply that the text had been written for a woman whose status before the Amarna period - `king’s wife` - continued into the reign of Akhenaten (44). Uncertainty as to the precise form of the title she bore - whether Hmt nsw wrt or merely Hmt nsw -, would seem to preclude a more precise attribution unless and until further fragments from the jar are eventually brought to light.
A Fragment from an Embalming table of Horemheb
Among a group of material acquired from Mohammed Mohassib (45) in 1919 was an irregularly shaped fragment of calcite measuring 9.0 cm in height, 9.7 cm wide and 6.0 cm deep (Fig. 8). This piece, which now carries the number BA 54374, is decorated on its more intact face with a conventionalized lion’s-mane pattern. Down the centre of this same face is incised a vertical column of hieroglyphs, bordered by single vertical lines, the cutting still preserving much of its original fill of blue-green frit. What remains of this text reads as follows: `King Djeserkheprure-setepenre, [beloved of] Anubis [...`.
That the fragment once formed part of an item of funerary furniture is suggested both by Horemheb’s title - nsw (46) and by the association of the king’s name with Anubis. In fact, as reference to Davis’s report shows, EA 54374 joins and completes the right-hand side of the `alabaster altar` Cairo JdE 46867 recovered from Horemheb’s tomb (KV 57 in the Valley of the Kings) in the spring of 19O8. Cf. Fig. 8.
Other `altars` or tables of this general sort have been found elsewhere in Egypt; the best known is a series of large-scale examples from the so-called Apis House at Memphis (48). Fragments of what may be one or more smaller and unfinished table(s) in limestone are recorded by Martin from the royal wadi at el-Amarna (49) and a further, intact, specimen of uncertain (though probably late) date has been found within the enclosure wall of the Step-Pyramid complex at Saqqara (50). Although the precise manner in which such tables were actually employed is still debatable (51), that they were associated with the embalming ritual is clear enough. The fact that Horemheb’s tomb furnished portions of at least four of the smaller tables, including one with a text associating the dead king with Imseti (52), would lead one to suppose (for these objects at least) some connection with the embalming of the king’s viscera.
A Sketch on Limestone of a Royal Inner Coffin
The figured ostracon EA 50741, reproduced in Fig. 10, was purchased from the Luxor dealer Mohammed Mohassib (53) in 1912; its original provenance, though not recorded, was presumably the Valley of the Kings (54). One side of the piece, a limestone flake measuring 11.4 cm across, 7.5 cm in height and some 1.7 cm maximum thickness, carries the full-faced representation of a king wearing the nemes-headcloth, sketched in red and now considerably faded (Fig. 10); the arrangement of the lines to either side of this head is far from clear. The reverse of the flake is undecorated.
A close parallel to this sketch exists on an ostracon recovered by Carter during his clearance of the tomb of Merenptah (55). This latter composition Carter identified as a working drawing of the king`s sarcophagus. This the Carter sketch plainly is not, but rather an innermost (56) royal coffin, presumably that employed for Merenptah himself and intended to fit within the calcite anthropoid sarcophagus of which a fragment is in the British Museum (57). It would appear that the sketch EA 50741 represents part of a similar composition. It presumably originates from work undertaken by Theodore Davis in the Valley of the Kings in the years immediately preceding the date of acquisition (58).
A Miniature Royal Sarcophagus
The small summarily worked steatite fragment illustrated in Fig. 11 was acquired by the Museum from the collection of the artist Robert Hay (59) in 1868; its current British Museum running-number is EA 36279 (formerly EA 8520a). The piece measures 5.4 cm long, 0.6 cm extant width and 2.8 cm maximum height. The original find-spot is unrecorded, though (as will become apparent) it was probably Thebes and most likely the Valley of the Kings.
The top surface of the piece is carved in relief with the recumbent figure of the king as Osiris, his feet resting upon an elliptical base, the plain lappet wig with uraeus surmounted by the horns, disc and double plumes. The body itself is shown swathed in a one-piece shroud, through which the form of the body and the knees may be discerned. To the left of the figure stands the goddess Nephthys (presumably balanced, when the object was complete, by a figure of the goddess Isis), arms inclined towards the king, wearing the distinctive head ornament made up from the hieroglyphs of her name. Between king and goddess, standing upon its tail, is a crocodile. As already noted, the piece is incomplete: approximately one-third of the object has split away at its right-hand edge, this damage having perhaps occurred at the time holes were being drilled (for some as yet undetermined purpose) into the lower surface and head- and foot-ends of the piece (cf. Fig. 11).
That EA 36279 reproduces in miniature a royal sarcophagus of the Ramessid period, with the box and lid carved as one from a single piece of stone, is clear. In its major features (atef-crown, position of Nephthys, presence of crocodile) the piece resembles most closely the sarcophagi of Siptah (60) and Sethnakhte (61), though without reproducing precisely the detail of either. If, therefore, the piece cannot be attributed more closely, its dating, in the late 19th dynasty, nevertheless appears reasonably secure.
If the approximate date of this model sarcophagus is clear, its intended function is less so. That the piece was intended to serve merely as an amulet would seem less than inevitable - not least for the total lack of parallels. A rather different possibility might therefore be considered.
`Architectural` models are well known from ancient Egyptian texts and from representations in temple wall reliefs; actual examples of such models, however, are rare. The finest and most famous is that of a temple gateway of Sethos I preserved in The Brooklyn Museum (49.183) (62). In an article on this piece published in 1973, Ahmed Badawy convincingly demonstrated that such models were connected with the rite of `presenting the house to its lord`, a part of the foundation ceremony known from scenes in the temples of Esna and Dendera (63).
Although foundation rituals are usually thought of in the context of temple consecration, it is abundantly clear from the archaeological record that tombs also - generally (though not always) royal tombs - could be consecrated in a similar manner. This should occasion no surprise: the tomb, like the temple, was the dwelling of a god, a Hwt nTr, a similarity of concept reflected in the parallels to be observed between the ritual material recovered from certain New-Kingdom temple sites and that found in royal tombs of the period (64).
A number of funerary parallels for the Brooklyn temple model may be proposed: the first, a solid limestone object which Petrie, who acquired the piece at Memphis, believed to be a representation of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara (65); the second, a solid limestone model of the pyramid of Ammenemes III at Hawara (66); the third, brought to light in 1976 in the valley temple of Ammenemes Ill at Dahshur by Dieter Arnold (67), is an elaborately carved representation of the inner chambers of the king’s pyramid. A fourth parallel for the Brooklyn model would be the miniature sarcophagus EA 36279.
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If EA 36279 and its extant parallels are indeed to be associated with the ceremony of `presenting the house to its lord`, the possibility suggests itself that a similar role might be proposed for the famous ground-plan of the tomb of Ramesses IV preserved on a papyrus in Turin (68). Although this papyrus is frequently described as containing a `working drawing` of the tomb, it is clear and indeed significant that what is depicted is the finished rather than the intended plan of KV 2 (69). That the ritual of `presenting the house to its lord` might have been accomplished with a two- as well as a three-dimensional representation of the tomb (or temple) (70) is not surprising, and indeed the likelihood probably is that the majority of religious structures were founded by means of a drafted plan rather than a true model. The fact that so little of Egypt`s manuscript wealth has been preserved to us perhaps explains why physical evidence for the rite is encountered so infrequently today.
Department of Egyptian Antiquities
The British Museum
Notes
For their comments, offered at various stages in the preparation of this paper, the writer`s thanks are due to Carol Andrews, Mavis Bimson, Edwin C. Brock, Prof. J. R. Harris, Dr Stephen Quirke and Dr John Taylor - none of whom is responsible for any errors the text might contain.
(1) Presumably Phocion Jean Tano, the nephew and joint-successor of Nicolas Tano (died 1924), the Cairo antiquities dealer with premises at 51 Sharia Ibrahim Pasha, opposite the old Shepheards Hotel (for whom see W. R. Dawson and E. P. Uphill, Who Was Who in Egyptology (2nd edn., London, 1972), p. 284).
(2) A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries (4th edition, revised and enlarged by J. R. Harris, London, 1962), pp. 415-6; J. R. Cann and C. Renfrew, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ns 30 (1964), pp. 111-31. Very few sculptures of obsidian are known: cf. Lucas, op. cit., p. 416 (the ear of the life-sized statue represented by the fragments Cairo CC 42101-2, it may be noted, is in Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MFA 04.1941), to which may be added Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich, Entdeckungen Ägyptische Kunst in Suddeutschland (Mainz, 1985), p. 50, no. 36, and Janine Bourriau, Pharaohs and Mortals. Egyptian Art in the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge, 1988), p. 26, no. 15 (Fitzwilliam E 63 1926). A small royal head wearing the white crown was briefly seen on the London antiquities market in 1991.
(3) H.-C. Evers, Staat aus dem Stein, I (Munich, 1929), P1. 71; II, p. 108, § 690. The material is a `green schist`.
(4) For the early bibliography of these pieces, usurped in turn by Ramesses II, Merenptah and Psusennes I, cf. J. Capart, Recherches d’art égyptien, I. Les monuments dits Hycsos (Brussels, 1914), p. 6, nn. 1-2. Other Mähnensphingen were subsequently discovered at Elkab (cf. G. Daressy, ASAE 17 [1917], esp. pp. 171-2 [limestone]) and Tell Basta (Labib Habachi, SAK 6 [19781, pp. 79-92, pls. XXIII- XXVI [`black granite`]). A miniature example in steatite, of unrecorded provenance (unattributed, but usurped by Merenptah), is published as Entdeckungen, pp. 43-4, no. 30. For a discussion of the type, and its dating, see J. Vandier, Manuel d ‘archéologie égyptienne, III. Les grandes époques. La statuaire (Paris, 1958), esp. pp. 204-8, pls. LXVII-LXIX, and the references there cited; cf. J. R. Harris, JEA 41 (1955), p. 123; Habachi, op. cit.
(5) British Museum, EA 58892 (diorite, the head reworked, probably during the Ptolemaic period): Vandier, Manuel, III, pp. 214-5, pl. LXXI, 6.
(6) Cairo, JE 53113 (limestone): R. Tefnin, La statuaire d`Hatshepsout (Brussels, 1979), pp. 129-33, pls. XXXI-XXXII; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, MMA 31.3.94 (limestone): ibid.; Vandier, Manuel, III, p. 300, p1. XCVIII, 4.
(7) British Museum, EA 1770 (granite or granitic gneiss): T. G. H. James and W. V. Davies, Egyptian Sculpture (London, 1983), p. 46, fig. 53.
(8) Cf., for example, the gold sphinxes which adorn the wristguard-bracelet of King Ahmose (Cairo CC 52642), for which see most recently H. W. Müler, Der "Armreif" des Königs Ahmose und des Handgelenkschutz des Bogenschützen im alten Ägypten und Vorderasien (Mainz, 1989), pl. I.
(9) In the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
(10) The piece, noted in H. Murray and M. Nuttall, A Handlist to Howard Carter’s Catalogue of Objects in Tut`ankhamun’s Tomb (Oxford, 1963), p. 3, was in Carters personal possession at the time of his death: cf. a Valuation for probate of his effects carried out by Spink and Son Limited, dated 1 June 1939 (copy in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, The British Museum), p. [4], which mentions a `Small lapis-lazuli Sphinx (one foreleg missing) 11/C long’ (there valued at £8.0.0 together with three other pieces). The sphinx is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (MMA 47.584).
(11) Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who, p. 204.
(12) H. Carter, JEA 3 (1916), pp. 147-54. Cf. C. N. Reeves, Valley of the Kings. The decline of a royal necropolis (London, 1990), pp. 3-9.
(13) Carter, MSS, Notebook 16, pp. 195 ff. (Griffith Institute, Oxford).
(14) One group of fragments from AN B, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (cf. W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, II [New York, 19591, p. 45), originates from what must have been a vessel of similar shape inscribed with an identical text: cf. Carter, JEA 3 (1916), pl. XXI, 6.
(15) Cf. Th. M. Davis, E. Naville and H. Carter, The Tomb of Hâtshopsîtû (London, 1906), p. 109, fig. 6.
(16) Cf. Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who, p. 2; A. Dodson and Reeves, JEA 74 (1988), p. 224. That Carter purchased extensively in Egypt on Acworth`s behalf is evident from Carter’s `rough diary` for 1922, preserved in the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
(17) Cf. Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, Catalogue of the Collection of Egyptian Antiquities formed in Egypt, by R. de Rustafjaell, Esq. [of) Queen’s Gate, SW. (London, 19-21 December 1906), p. 15, lot 202 (five pieces in this lot, rather than four as stated in the catalogue). Hand-copies of the fragments which were to enter the national collection as EA 434014 were made by Heinrich Schäfer at the sale:
ci. K. Sethe, Das Hatschepsut-Problem noch einmal untersucht (Berlin, 1932), p. 95, figs 25-8; no copy of the fragment EA 43405 was published.
(18) The dimensions of the remaining fragments are as follows. EA 43402: 19.1 cm high, 9 cm wide, 2.5 cm max. thickness; EA 43403: 10cm high, 12.2 cm wide, 3.2 cm max. thickness; EA 43404: 9.6 cm high, 5.4 cm wide, 1.9 cm max. thickness; EA 43405: 9.4 cm high, 6 cm wide, 2.3 cm max. thickness.
(19) Reeves, Valley of the Kings, p. 27, n. 8.
(20) Cf. also (doubtless from the same ultimate source) Boston MFA 04.1893 (unpublished) and the fragment published by G. D. Scott, Ancient Egyptian Art at Yale (New Haven, 1986), p. 189, no. 119 (YAG 1937.183) and by C. C. van Siclen, GM 97 (1987), p. 24. A further vessel fragment in the British Museum collection, EA 54830 (Fig. 6), 7.7 cm wide, 7.8 cm high, 1.1 cm max. thickness, formerly in the collection of W. L. Nash (for whom see Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who, p. 213) and published by him in PSBA 29 (1907), p. 175 and pl. II, may also have been prepared for the burial of Tuthmosis I. The original two columns of this inscription, incised beneath a pt-hieroglyph, read (1) "The good god [Aakheperka]re [...] (2) son of Re Tuthmosis, tr[ue of voice]"; to the left of the second column (as one looks at the piece) have been added a further two columns, which read (1) "The good god Aakheperenre, who gives life; (2) [it is for his father that] he made [this] as a comm[emoration]". The pt-hieroglyph has been extended and supplied with an additional cross-stroke at its left-hand corner. For similar adaptations for dedicational purposes, cf. J. E. Quibell, The Ramesseum (London, 1898), p1. XVIII,
middle left; G. Daressy, Fouilles de Ia Vallée des Rois (Cairo, 1902), p. 300, CG 24976; and EA 43403 above (cf. Figs 4-5).
(21) For the piece, cf. B. E. Pote, Inquiry into the Phonetic Reading of the Ashburnham Signet, in Reference to the Patriarch Joseph, with Doubts as to the Value of Egyptian Authorities (London, 1841) (not seen); J. Bonomi, Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature (second series) 1 (1843), pp. 108-12; MS entitled "Copy [by J. R. Bickersteth] of a note made by Bertram 4th Earl of Ashburnham, March 15th 1856" (photocopy preserved in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, The British Museum); W. M. F. Petrie, A History of Egypt during the XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties (London, 1896), p. 99; P. E. Newberry, Egyptian Antiquities. Scarabs. An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian Seals and Signet Rings (London, 1906), p. 94, fig. 110; B. Jaeger, Essai de classification et datation des scarabées Menkhéperrê (Göttingen, 1982), p. 108, fig. 250 (from Newberry); British Museum Society Bulletin 62 (winter 1989), p. 47 (ill.).
(22) Born Bertram Ashburnham, 23 November 1797; Viscount St Asaph 7 June 1813; 4th Earl of Ashburnham 27 October 1830; died 7 June 1878. See C. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct or dormant (new edition, revised and enlarged by the Hon. Vicary Gibbs, London, 1910), p. 274.
(23) Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who, p. 90.
(24) Presumably the Creek island of Siros.
(25) Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who, p. 13.
(26) Ibid., p. 258.
(27) Ibid., pp. 27-8.
(28) Ibid., p. 33.
(29) BM Research Laboratory report no. 5639 (14 December 1987). Optical microscopy shows the surface of the bezel to have over 16 silvery coloured metallic inclusions, mainly towards one corner, while the shank itself has several inclusions along its length. Analysis by means of scanning electron microscope shows these inclusions to be of similar osmium/iridium/ruthenium ternary alloy composition. Such "platinum group metal" inclusions are associated with ancient gold placer deposits and pass unmelted through to cast objects made from unrefined gold. Although the bezel and the two wires are of the same composition, that of the shank is a little, but significantly, different: 94.5% Au for the latter as compared with 95.6% Au for the former. There is no indication, however, that the shank and bezel are not contemporary, or that they were not assembled in antiquity.
(30) For similar rings of gold and silver, inscribed for Amenophis II, see Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim, Ägyptens Aufstieg zur Weltmacht (Mainz, 1987), p. 236, no. 167 (Louvre AF 2276 [gold]); p. 237, no. 169 (Boston MFA 1985.433 [silver]).
(31) See n. 21 above.
(32) For the bibliography, cf. Christine Lilyquist, Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 23 (1988), pp. 59 04), 60 (II).
(33) C. Lilyquist, Metropolitan Museum Journal 23 (1988), pp. 5-68.
(34) A suggestion independently made, I understand from W. V. Davies, by Beatrix Gessler.
(35) EA 10060: cf. W. K. Simpson, R. O. Faulkner and E. F. Wente, The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven and London, 1972), pp. 81-4, with refs.
(36) EA 69863. For the piece, see Lilyquist, Metropolitan Museum Journal 23 (1988), pp. 15-6, 59.
(37) The fragment was signalled by Reeves, Antiquaries Journal 66 (1986), p. 388 (with n. 119); cf. also M. Bimson and I. C. Freestone, Journal of Glass Studies 30 (1988), pp. 11-15. The piece will be included in the catalogue of canopic jars in the
British Museum currently being prepared by Dr M. L. Bierbrier.
(38) This compares with a maximum diameter of 155 cm for the slightly later calcite canopic jars originally prepared for Kiya (cf. R. Krauss, MDAIK 42 [1986], pp. 67- 80) from Tomb 55 in the Valley of the Kings: Theodore M. Davis, The Tomb of Queen Tîyi (London,1910),p.24.
(39) Cf. British Museum Research Laboratory Report no. 5218 (10 December 1987): "On the inner surface a small area [c. 5 mm] square] of dark-brown material had survived [which] was shown by infra-red analysis to contain an organic component which was possibly a resin[,] indicating that the jar had probably been used for its intended purpose".
(40) See above, n. 25.
(41) An analysis of the glass has appeared in Journal of Glass Studies 30 (1988), p. 15.
(42) According to the BM Research Laboratory report on this piece (n. 39), "The embedding material below the transparent glass inlays contains arsenic (probably as an arsenic sulphide [for which cf. J. R. Harris, Lexicographical Studies in Ancient Egyptian Minerals (Berlin, 1961), pp. 142, 233]) apparently with the intention of making the hieroglyphs appear coloured. Their colour is now a yellow with some orange or red particles; as the colour of red arsenic sulphide is unstable it is not possible to be certain if red or yellow was the original colour".
(43) See previous note.
(44)‘ Though the possibility cannot be ignored that the jar, abandoned by its original owner, had been usurped and reinscribed for a quite different individual.
(45) See above, n. 11.
(46) For the status of "enduring reality" implied by the term, cf. J. R. Harris, SAK 2 (1975), p. 100, n. 18.
(47) Theodore M. Davis, The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatânkhamanou (London, 1912), pp. 100 f., with a photograph of the piece in its heavily restored state reproduced as pl. LXXVIII. As Daressy there notes, the table had originally been fitted with two lion heads "separately sculptured and fixed by a resinous cement" into the drilled hollows in the top. Traces of this resin fixative, not yet analysed, remain in the hollowed portion of EA 54374.
(48) P-M III (2nd edn.)/ii, p. 841; cf. M. Jones and A. Milward Jones, JARCE 19 (1982), pp. 51-8.
(49) G. T. Martin, The Royal Tomb at El-`Amarna, I (London, 1974), p. 94, nos. 399-400, pls. 54 f.
(50) P-M III (2nd edn.)/ii, p. 407; M. Saleh and H. Sourouzian, Die Hauptwerke im Ägyptischen Museum, Kairo (Mainz, 1986), no. 18.
(51) Cf. Jones and Milward Jones, JARCE 19 (1982), pp. 534.
(52) Davis, Harmhabi, p. 101.
(53) See above, n. 11.
(54) The piece will be included in the catalogue of hieratic ostraca in the British Museum currently being prepared by Dr Robert Demarée. Briefly mentioned already in Reeves, Valley of the Kings, p. 101, n. 58.
(55) Carter, ASAE 6(1905), p. 118, pl. III.
(56) The dimensions specified on the Merenptah ostracon are as follows: length 3 [cubi]ts, 5 palms, 3 digits = 2.076 m; width I cubit 1/2 digit = 0.5325 m; height 6 palms, 3 digits = 0.5515 m. They compare closely with those of the inner wooden coffin employed for (and doubtless originally prepared for, despite reservations expressed by some) the mummy of Ramesses II (CG 61020: Daressy, Cercueils des cachettes royales [Cairo, 1909], pp. 32-34, pls. XX-XXIII): length 2.05 m; width 0.42 m; height (at chest and feet) 0.69-0.71 m.
(57) EA 49739. Cf. A. W. Shorter and I. E. S. Edwards, A Handbook to the Egyptian Mummies and Coffins Exhibited in the British Museum (London, 1938), p. 35; E. Thomas, The Royal Necropoleis of Thebes (Princeton, 1966), pp. 109 and 123, n. 78.
(58) Cf. Reeves, Valley of the Kings, appendix B.
(59) Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who, p. 135.
(60) H. Burton, BMMA 11(1916), pp. 14-17.
(61) Samivel and M. Audrain, The Glory of Egypt (London, 1955), p. 148, p1. 56.
(62) A. Badawy, Miscellanea Wilbouriana I (1972), pp. 1-23.
(63) For the rite, cf. J. M. Weinstein, Foundation Deposits in Ancient Egypt (Ann Arbor, 1973), pp. 16,425.
(64) Cf. with the royal funerary material, for example, the fragmentary faience throwsticks and other material recovered from Dendera (W. M. F. Petrie, Dendereh 1898 (London, 1900), pl. XXIII, Serabit el-Khadim (Petrie, Researches in Sinai [London, 1906], pl. 150, and elsewhere.
(65) Cf. I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt (Harmondsworth, 1985), p. 277, pl. 60 (Petrie Museum, University College London, UC 16519).
(66) Ibid., pl. 61 (Petrie Museum, University College London, UC 14793). Both this and the preceding, Edwards suggests, "may perhaps be placed in the category of architectural and planning aids" (op. cit., p. 277), though, as he points out, "There is no certainty that these models were not made after their respective pyramids had been built" (ibid.).
(67) D. Arnold, Der Pyramidenbezirk des Königs Amenemhet III. in Dahschur, I. Die Pyramide (Mainz, 1987), pp. 86-8, pls. 35, 66-8.
(68) H. Carter and A. H. Gardiner, JEA 4 (1917), pp. 130-58, p1. XXIX; B. Scamuzzi, Museo Egizio di Torino (Turin, 1965), pl. LXXVII.
(69) Reeves, CdE 61/121 (1986), p.47, n. 5.
(70) Cf. the Marquis of Northampton, Wilhem Spiegelberg and Percy B. Newberry, Report on Some Excavations in the Theban Necropolis during the Winter of 1898-9 (London, 1908), p. 37, n. 1, who note "an inscription published by Dümichen, Baugeschichte des Denderatempels, pl. 1, where it is mentioned that the old plan of Dendera, written upon a leather roll, had been found in the interior of a brick wall".
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