Egypt Exploration Society

A Shield Bearer and Warrior of Ramesside Times

Author(s): James K. Thomson
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 83 (1997), pp. 218-222
Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3822468 .
Accessed: 05/07/2013 08:23
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Egypt Exploration Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal
of Egyptian Archaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

218

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

JEA 83

better knownNn-t-w;-r.f. And indeed, the proof of this hypothesisis providedby anotherobject
attributedto him, a stelephorous statue now in Boston. It was published in the catalogueof a
. The
recent exhibition,7with a clear photographon which his name can indeed be read
orthographyof the name and the remainderof the text make it certainthat the Boston statue and
that discoverednear TT 52 in 1905/1906are one and the same. The provenanceof this piece is
thus well establishedand the name Nn-dw-r.f can be discardedas anotherghost-name.
MARK DEPAUW

A shield bearer and warrior of Ramesside times*

A Ramesside stela fragment featuring a shield bearer and a warrior prompts consideration of these positions in
military contexts of the period. It is suggested that at best the shield bearer played only a semi-military role, his
court duties being more in evidence, while 'warrior'(rhn),in spite of the implications of the title, remained a nonspecific term.

THE upper part of a round-toppedstela in limestone in the Glasgow Museums records two
'military'men of the RamessidePeriod. The stela (pl. XXIV, 1) is 11 cm high, 16.2cm wide and
3.7 cm deep and bears the registrationnumber 28au-13. It is unprovenancedbut was given to
Glasgowin 1913by the BritishSchool of Archaeologyin Egypt,throughMiss MayBuchanan,onetime Secretaryof the Glasgowsection of the Egypt Students ResearchAssociation.
On the survivingportionof the stela, two kneeling male figures are represented,one from the
waist up, the other almost complete. Both face left, each with upraisedhands. The man on the
left wears a long full wig descending to a point on his chest. On his upper body he has a shirt
with tight elbow-lengthsleeves. Whatappearsto be a flaredsleeve on his left arm as seen in plate
XXIV, 1 is due to a projectingpiece of flint on the surface of the stela and is omitted in figure
1. The right-handman has close-croppedhair(?)or a shavenhead andwears an ankle-lengthkilt.
Both the long wig and the kilts rising high at the back of the waist are typicalof the Ramesside
Period. The figures and accompanyingbrief text are rathersketchily incised on the stone to fill
the space available.
The text (fig. 1) is arrangedover and between the heads of the men, with three verticaldividing
lines. The inscriptionreads:qry Hri rh; r; S,1 'The shield bearer Hori (and) the great warrior
Si'. The writing of qry, 'shield bearer', (Wb. V 57, 18) is a variantof __
qrrw (Wb. V 59,
12);2others include < L , _ _o> ?The Nineteenth Dynastystela of Amenhotepcalled Huy (BM
EA 166),3providestwo examples of the title. In the third register,Mr(i)-Rc (Mer(i)-Re) has the
title, written 1I and in the fourth register a man P;.hw (Pa-hu) occurs as 'shield bearer (of his
majesty)', with the word rendered ' . The Egyptian verb qri, 'draw near', 'attend',4 underlies
the primary employment of a qrrw as someone who attends another person. When this involves
7Boston MFA 1986.747: E. Brovarski,in S. D'Auria, P. Lacovaraand C. H. Roehrig (eds), Mummiesand Magic.
The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt (exhibition catalogue; Boston, 1988), 148-9 (no. 89).
*My thanks are due to Dr M. L. Bierbrier who kindly read a draft of this article and made very helpful
suggestions. The comments of the JEA referees were also of considerable assistance.
H. Ranke,Die dgyptischenPersonennamen, I (Gluckstadt, 1935), 278.2. AJEA referee has suggested that the
second man could be 'the warrior 'Aa-S(u)' as rhl is not a formal title, s(w) can stand for sw in this period and
a feminine parallel r;-s(y) is found in Ranke,PN I, 58.9.
2W. Helck, 'Schildtrager', LA IV, 132. On the Glasgow stela the word appears as <
with the q-hieroglyph A resembling an arrowhead.
3T. G. H. James, Hieroglyphic Texts from Egyptian Stelae etc. The British Museum 9 (London, 1970), 27, pls.
xxii and xxiia.
4R. O. Faulkner,A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Oxford, 1962), 280.

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1997

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

219

royalty,it strengthens the notion of a court duty ratherthan a militaryone. The latter role could
operate in battle, highlighting the shield bearer's army connection. Commenting on chariot
equipment as used by the militaryestablishmentat Ugarit, Rainey5equates the word for 'shield',
in Akkadiankabdbu (a synonymfor arntuand takSu),in Ugariticqlc, with Egyptianqrrwwith its
determinativeof a shield.
Representationaland textual evidence for both shield bearers and warriorsin New Kingdom
contexts is limited, to the extent that one hesitates to place them as regular members of army
units.6Schulman7gives three types of personnelinvolvedin the chariotry:charioteer(kdn), shield
bearer (qrrw) and chariotwarrior(snni). He states further that there is never more than a twoman crew;the charioteerdrives and is sometimes depicted fightingor holding a shield to protect
the warrior.Both men can be shown in battle, with a shield slung on the back of one of them.
There would appearto be no place for the shield bearer (qrrw)as such in the chariot,given the

FIG.1. GlasgowMuseums, 28au-13.

5A. F. Rainey, 'The MilitaryPersonnel of Ugarit', JNES 24 (1965), 22.

6In his study of the Egyptian army, R. O. Faulkner, 'Egyptian Military Organization',JEA 39 (1953), 32-47,
does not mention the shield bearer in relation to the New Kingdom army. Concerning the warrior, he gives an
example from the Middle Kingdom stela of Khu-Sebek, who at one stage in his career was 'warrior of the
bodyguard' (lit. 'warriorfollowing after'); 'warrior',rh;wty, is Faulkner's 'professional soldier'. In the early New
Kingdom, Ahmose son of Ibanawas appointed a 'warriorof the ruler', for his services in Nubia under Amenhotep
I.
7A. R. Schulman, Military Rank, Title and Organisation in the Egyptian New Kingdom (MAS 6; Berlin,
1964), 67.

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

220

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

JEA 83

normalcomplement of two. The few occasionswhen shield bearersare depicted in relief scenes
show them in the presence of the king as part of his retinue ratherthan as members of a fighting
unit, althoughan exception to this is noted in a Nubian campaignof Ramesses III (see below).
This paucityof evidencefor their activitiesis noted by Schulman,8who cites only two occurrences
of protocols of shield bearers and deduces that the title did not denote a rank in the army.At
the battle of Qadesh, Ramesses II was accompaniedin his chariot by his shield bearer (qrrw)
named Menna, as commemorated in the Poem9 eulogizing the king's part in the action. In
paragraphs272-3 of the Poem?' the king states: (272) 'They were the ones whom I found in the
midst of the enemy together with my charioteer(273) Menna my shield bearer'.On this use of
two titles for Menna,Schulman"lcomments that Ramesses drovethe chariotand the second man
served as a subordinate'chariotwarrior'and 'shield bearer'and that the personwould have been
an officer, that is, a 'charioteer'.Certainly in this episode, in the heat of the engagement, the
shield bearerwould haveperformedmore than just a ceremonialor court role.
An example of shield bearers in action on the battlefieldoccurs in the relief scenes at the
mortuarytemple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. On the outer face of the west wall at the left
end of the lower register the king is depicted in battle with Nubians,'2and a section of chariotry
has the superscriptionkdnw n hnw qrrwn Pr-rc cnhwd; snb, 'charioteersof the Residence and
shield bearers of Pharaoh,life, prosperityand health'. The qrrw defend the charioteersin each
case with a raised shield which is circular in shape rather than the normal round-topped
rectangulartype.
The close association with the monarch, 'of Pharaoh'in the last case, is reinforced in two
furtherdepictions at Medinet Habu.A group of shield bearersattend Ramesses III as he mounts
his chariot to commence the first Libyan campaign.'3Here they serve as part of the king's
bodyguardas the inscriptionrelates:kdnw hryw mgkbwqrcwn p; htr rc n[ty] m smsw hm.f, 'the
charioteers, the chiefs of mgkbw'4and the shield bearers of the great span w[ho are] in the
bodyguard(lit. 'following')of his majesty'.'5In this instance the qrrw are on foot and stand in
files alongside the charioteers and chiefs of mgkbw. The equipment carried includes bows,
quivers, spears, sickle-swords and regulation shields, but there is no specific allocationwhich
would identifyan individualas a shield bearer.On the exteriorof the first pylon,on the west face
of the north tower, in the re-entrantangle between the tower and the north wall, Ramesses III
is in battle with Libyans.16Two bowing figures in the top right-handcorner of the lower scene
are described as kdnw [qr]rw n hmf nty m smsw n ntr nfr, 'charioteersand [shield] bearers of
his majesty who are in the following of the Good God'. Neither person displays any obvious
militaryaspect in costume or equipment,once more hinting at the court natureof their position
on this occasion.
In Ramesside times shield bearers generallyappearin the service of royalty,their titles being
qualifiedby such phrases as 'of his majesty'or 'of the Good God'. Occasionallythe title is found
alone; Mer(i)-Re of BM EA 166 (mentioned above) and Hori on the Glasgow stela are cases in
point. A letter written by a priest, Kharu of the House of Horus, to a royalscribe and steward

8MilitaryRank, 68 and 162 (refs. 477-8).

9Battle of Qadesh, Poem, 205 = KRI II, 66.1-6 (writing variants).
'?KRI II, 83.6-16.
" Military Rank, 67 and 114.
'2H. H. Nelson, Medinet Habu, I. Earlier Historical Records of Ramesses III (Epigraphic Survey, OIP 8;
Chicago, 1930), pl. 9 = KRI V, 8.12.
13
Nelson, Medinet Habu I, p1. 16 = KRIV, 12.12.
'4Schulman, Military Rank, 48 renders mgkbwas 'officers?'.
s'W. F. Edgerton and J. A. Wilson, Historical Records of Ramesses III. The Texts in Medinet Habu Volumes
I and II (SAOC 12; Chicago, 1936), 8 and n. 16b. In the footnote the distinction between kdn and qrrw is made
the
and attention drawn to the word for 'shield bearers' having been recut from ~ a 'lto
e
present .?i
16Nelson, Medinet Habu II, pls. 67(B) and 68 = Schulman, Military Rank, 121 (ref. 220).

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1997

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

221

Ptahemhab,17mentions a 'shield bearer of Inwau'.`8The text refers to the servantof the shield
bearerhavingbeen with Ptahemhabin Memphis and the 'greatone of the house', registeringthe
little brotherof the said servantto be a groom. The implicationis that the charioteerInwauhad
a shield bearer (unnamed) who was recognized as his companion,forming, in partnership,the
chariot unit. It also points to the shield bearer's social standing in his havinga servant.Another
letter19from a chief of record keepers of the granaryaddressedto the scribe of a priest contains
a list of people who are to be exempted from corveework and includes '... a shield bearerof his
majestyl.p.h. ... '
That persons of foreign extractionwere employedin the Egyptianarmyin the New Kingdom
is well established. At Thebes, Winlock found the coffin of It-Amun, a 'shield bearer of the
general', of the late Twentieth to early Twenty-firstDynasty.His full bushy beard suggests that
he is an Asiatic.20A damaged text on a stela of Ramesses III21in the sanctuaryof Ptah at the
Valleyof the Queens is concernedwith enemy captiveswho were recruitedinto the Egyptianarmy,
and we read: 'They are made shield bearers, charioteersand retainerswho bear the fan while
followingthe king'.Again ceremonialduties are stressed.
The other title on the Glasgow stela, namely 'warrior'(rh), occurs infrequentlyin the New
Kingdom, althoughused of the king in the heroic sense. For instance, rh; qnt appliedto Sety I22
at Karnak,where in an undated campaign against the Hittites, he returns in triumph with
prisoners. It does not normally appear as a title or rank in regular militaryformations.A hry
rh;wtyw, 'commanderof warriors',is attested on a papyrusin the British Museum, in the person
of a certain Wey.23The personnel, rhrw, in this case are serving on board a trt-boat. In the
Karnak record of the Libyan war in Merenptah's fifth year,24a tpy n rh; nb, 'chief of every
warrior', appears. From the same source rhj and phrr, 'warrior'and 'runner' (or 'chariot
escort'),25occur with the former apparentlyemployed as a generalized term. Ramesses III's
account of the first Libyancampaignof his fifth year refers to enemies of the Egyptiansas n;y.sn
ch/w, 'their warriors'.26These uses of the word 'warrior'underline the lack of a specific role for
the people thus designated.
In the post-Ramessideperiod a type of officer of shield bearers is encounteredwith the title
hry qrryw,'commanderof shield bearers'.A Twenty-firstDynastyletter from El Hibeh27written
by the god's father and temple scribe Hor-pen-ese to the F~:.i
Sha-puti concerns the
arrival
of
but
also
refers
to
'warriors'
who
had
been
horses,
expected
badly treated and the need
for vigilance on the ramparts.The same title is found on the Dakhleh stela28of the fifth year of
'7p. Bologna1094,rt. 9, 3-6, quotedby Schulman,MilitaryRank,105 (ref. 116).
18Inwauappearsin P. AnastasiIII, vs. 6/1-5/9 (The BorderJournal)underthe entry:'Year3, month9, day
25: Inwau,the charioteerof the great stable of Banire-Miamunof the Residencewent up'; cited by A. R.
Schulman,'The First DynastyEgyptianPresenceat rEn Besor in the Sinai',in D. P. Silverman(ed.), For His
Ka. Essays Offeredin Memoryof KlausBaer (SAOC55; Chicago,1994),243.
'9P. TurinA, vs. 4, 1-4, quotedby Schulman,MilitaryRank,110-11 (ref. 141).
2"H. E. Winlock,Excavationsat Deir el Bahri 1911-1931 (New York, 1942), 34, pl. 80, where the title
qrr(w) occurs in the central vertical column on the outer coffin lid: W. C. Hayes, The Scepter
II
of Egypt, (New York, 1959), 407, gives the name 1*t_ as 'Yoty-Amun'.
]o-*d

21LD III, 218c (plate)and III, 224 (text)= KRIV, 90-1.

22LD III, 130b= W.Wreszinski,
Atlaszur altaegyptischen
II (Leipzig,1923-35),pl. 47 = KRI
Kulturgeschichte,
I, 18.9.
23p. British Museum EA 10204 (unpublished).I owe this referenceto Dr M. L. Bierbrierand Dr R. B.
Parkinson;see S. Birch,'Varia',ZAS 7 (1869),27; Schulman,MilitaryRank,53 and 106 (ref. 119).
24KRI, IV, 4.2.
25KRI, IV, 3.15.

26Nelson,MedinetHabuI, pl. 28, 1.44= KRI IV,22.13.

33:W. Spiegelberg,'Briefeder 21. Dynastieaus El-Hibe',ZAS 53 (1917),7-9, pl. ii; P. Vernus,
27P. Strasbourg
in Tanis,L'ordespharaons(Paris,1987),106,whereP. Strasbourg33 is incorrectlyreferredto as P. Strasbourg
31 andhryqrrywrenderedas 'chef des conducteursde char'.
28A.H. Gardiner,'The DakhlehStela',JEA 19 (1933),27 andpl.vii. In his commentsGardinerdrawsattention
to the El Hibehletterandthe problemsof transcribingthe hieraticformof the title there.

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

222

YEA 83

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

Shoshenk I, concerning the settlement by oracle of a dispute over water rights at the oasis. One
P
Pedu...
of the witnesses before the god Setekh was the
lL.
,ec

On the stela in Glasgow,the presence of two persons on the same monument could point to
their sharingfamily ties or close companionshipdue to their officialpositions. Of these possibilities the former is the more likely, since 'warrior'as such is not normallyassociatedwith 'shield
bearer' in relief scenes. Withoutthe text which presumablyoccupied some or all of the missing
bottom section of the stela, it is not possible to elucidate the relationship,if any, between the
men.

JAMESK. THOMSON

A re-identified fragment from the tomb of Ibi (TT 36)*

Publicationof BritishMuseumEA445, a fragmentof limestonereliefidentifiedas comingfromthe tombof Ibi
(TT 36).

BRITISH
Museum EA 445 (pl. XXV)is a fragmentof a tomb relief in limestone.There is no record
of its provenancein the Department'sregisters,and it has remainedunpublished,althoughit was
for manyyears exhibited as no. 468 and dated to the Eleventh1or EighteenthDynasty.2
The relief is actuallypart of the Saite tomb of the Chief Stewardof the Divine AdoratriceIbi
at Thebes (TT 36), published by Klaus Kuhlmannand WolfgangSchenkel, and belongs to the
south wall of the southern pillaredhall.3The relief is shown still in place in a watercolourdone
by GardinerWilkinson,between 1821 and 1826,4and in a squeeze made in 1826, now also in the
British Museum.5There is no record of when the relief entered the Museum's collections, but
it was listed in the synopsis of the Museum's collections of 1847.6A brief account is offered
here.7
The piece measures 30.8 X 22 cm; it is now mounted in plaster on a panel of slate, the total
depth being 5.6 cm. The bottom and left edges are regularand smooth, but the top left corner
and the right edge are fragmented.8The scene is carved in shallow sunk relief. The shallow
vertical chisel marks which are a feature of backgroundtreatment elsewhere in the tomb are
present here. In the centre of the fragment,the surface of the stone was damagedand repaired
with plaster in ancient times. The squeeze revealsthat only a small patch of this plasterarea had
lost its top surface in 1826, but now it has decayedslightly to a rough granulartexture.The dark
patches visible on the photographare due to a substance, apparentlywax, which was applied at
some point in the piece's early history in the Museum to conserve these fragile areas of the
*I am most grateful to Lisa M. Leahy and Wolfgang Schenkel for comments on a draft, and to W. V. Davies
for permission to publish this piece.
'Old display label.
2E. A. W. Budge, A Guide to the Egyptian Galleries and Vestibule (London, 1909), 132 (mentioned but not
illustrated).
3PM I.1, 65 (8); K. Kuhlmann and W. Schenkel, Das Grab des Ibi: Theben Nr. 36 I Beschreibung der
unterirdischenKult- und Bestattungsanlage (AV 15; Mainz am Rhein, 1983), 89-106, pl. 30 (hereafter Das Grab
des Ibi I).
4WilkinsonManuscript III 24 (Griffith Institute, Oxford); published: Das Grab des Ibi I, 28, pl. 103. The copy
is generally accurate for the figures on EA 445, although the raised leg of the kneeling figure has been omitted..
5Wilkinsonsqueeze 2.121; a line drawing of the squeeze is incorporatedin Das Grab des Ibi I, pl. 30.
6Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (51st edition; London, 1847), 143-4. This is the earliest
reference that I have been able to trace; the piece does not feature in a manuscript list of objects obtained from
GardinerWilkinson in the Department's records.
7It is hoped that the piece will be republished showing its exact position in the wall in the planned Das Grab
des Ibi II.
8The piece is probably a 'Flickstein', rather than a fragment removed from the wall in modern times. Such
stone patches are frequent in the tomb; Das Grab des Ibi I, 21.

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

PLATE XXIV

1. Stela fragment, Glasgow Museums, 28au-13

(Courtesy of Glasgow Museums)
A SHIELD BEARER AND WARRIOR OF RAMESSIDE TIMES (pp. 218-22)

2. Inscription on the wrappings of the mummy of Heron

son of Ammonius (reproduced from Petrie, Roman Portraits and Memphis (IV), pl. x.3)
HERON 'BEARER OF PHILOSOPHIA' AND HERMIONE GRAMMATIKE (pp. 223-6)

This content downloaded from 163.200.81.46 on Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:23:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions