2013

brief communications 295

the letter affirms that Bay had not only administrative power, but also controlled troops too.38
If the first new title of Bay, ‘fan-bearer on the right of the king’, is an honorary title only,
the second one, ‘a king’s messenger to Khor and Kush’, clarifies why Bay could directly
correspond with the king of Ugarit. Most probably, he controlled Egyptian foreign affairs
under the underage Siptah and could correspond directly with independent Near Eastern
rulers.
Alexander Safronov

The Oracular Amuletic Decrees: A question of length

The Third Intermediate Period Oracular Amuletic Decrees, divine decrees worn as amulets that promise
protection, are written on strips of papyrus of widely varying lengths that often bear no clear relationship to the
amount of text on the papyrus. On the basis of the documents themselves and a possible ethnographic parallel, it
is suggested that the lengths of the strips of papyrus on which these texts were written reflect the heights of the
persons for whom they were written.

The hieratic papyri known as the ‘Oracular Amuletic Decrees’ (hereinafter OAD), consisting
of divine oracles promising specific protections to named individuals and worn as amulets
in the Third Intermediate Period, are unusual in Egyptian history. With their exhaustive
enumeration of dangers from which their issuing gods will protect the owners, the OAD
provide an overview of the fears of Egyptians of a certain class (apparently lower-level
priestly) in a certain place (most likely Thebes) and time (tenth–ninth centuries bc).1 The
decrees are unique not only because of their detailed contents,2 but also for their unusual
format, which has distinctive features as well and is, I will argue, tied to their contents.
 The OAD are known from 22 published examples, 21 edited as a corpus by I. E. S. Edwards
in 1960, and a further text from the Cleveland Museum of Art published by Briant Bohleke
in 1997.3 None have been found in a controlled archaeological context, but internal evidence
suggests a Theban origin for most if not all of the OAD. They are protective decrees issued by
gods on behalf of named individuals, nearly two-thirds of them for women. The beneficiaries
appear to be of mostly priestly class, although not of the highest ranks; one decree (Edwards’
38
 A. V. Safronov, ‘A Nameless Official of the End of the XIX Dynasty and New Titles of Great Chancellor
Bay’, Vestnik Drevnej Istorii 3 (2008), 119–21 (in Russian); Bierbrier, in Collier and Snape (eds), Ramesside
Studies, 20. Note that the bodyguard of the Pharaoh and of Syro-Palestinian rulers was composed of foreign
mercenaries in sizeable part. The famous Sherden were part of a guard of the royal palace in Ugarit: O. Loretz,
‘Les Šerdanū et la fin d’Ougarit’, in M. Yon, M. Sznycer, and P. Bordreuil (eds.), Le pays d’Ougarit autour de
1200 av. J.-C: Histoire et archéologie (Ras Shamra-Ougarit 14; Paris, 1995), 130–1; D. Manfried and O. Loretz,
‘Die Seevölkergruppe der Trtnm„Šardana/Šerdena“ in Ugarit: Bemerkungen zum Brief KTU 2.61 und zur Liste
KTU3 4.497+...’, UF 42 (2010), 119–21. They are mentioned as elite troops under Ramses II and under Rib-
Addi of Byblos: R. Stadelmann, ‘Seevölker’, LÄ V, 815. It is tempting to speculate that a possible foreign origin
of Bay could be connected with his service as a head of the bodyguard of the Pharaoh.
1
 The author of the present article is working on a monographic study of the Oracular Amuletic Decrees and
how they reflect the anxieties of their time. Thanks to John Baines, Janet Richards, Ray Silverman, and the two
anonymous referees for their useful comments and references.
2
 The Demotic ‘self-dedications’ of the Ptolemaic Period share some contents with the OAD—they guarantee
specific protections from demons and sprits—but are neither oracular nor amuletic in nature; see M. Depauw, A
Companion to Demotic Studies (PB 28; Brussels, 1997), 136–7.
3
  I. E. S. Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees of the Late New Kingdom (HPBM 4; London, 1960); B. Bohleke,
‘An Oracular Amuletic Decree of Khonsu in the Cleveland Museum of Art’, JEA 83 (1997), 155–67. At least one
unpublished example is known from a published description: P. Hannover 1976.60c, for which see G. Burkard
and H.-W. Fischer-Elfert, Ägyptische Handschriften, IV (VOHD 19.4; Stuttgart, 1994), 212 (Nr. 314). P. Berlin
P.3.059 may be another example, for which see U. Kaplony-Heckel, Ägyptische Handschriften, III (VOHD 19.3;
Stuttgart, 1986) 32 (Nr. 44). Other unrecognised decrees belonging to this genre almost certainly exist. Note
also a fragment of P.Cairo CG 58042 (old P. Bulaq 4), which is not an oracular amuletic decree in format, but
may be a collection of texts from which a decree could be compiled: see J. F. Quack, Die Lehren des Ani: Ein
neuägyptischer Weisheitstext in seinem kulturellen Umfeld (OBO 141; Freiburg and Göttingen, 1994), 7–8, with
provisional translation. For recent work on the OAD, see R. Lucarelli, ‘Popular Belief in Demons in the Libyan
Period: The Evidence of the Oracular Amuletic Decrees’, in G. R. F Broekman, R. J. Demarée, and O. E. Kaper
(eds), The Libyan Period in Egypt (EU 23; Leuven, 2009) 231–9.
296 brief communications JEA 99

L7) was issued on behalf of a son of one of the Osorkons, probably Osorkon  I.4 Textual
clues and palaeography place the corpus in the Twenty-second–Twenty-third Dynasties:
the OAD are inscribed in highly cursive hieratic that is closer to documentary than literary
hands. All of the OAD share a highly distinctive format: written on long, thin strips of
papyrus, vertically oriented and inscribed in short, horizontal lines.5 They present a very
consistent physical appearance, but vary considerably in size: although the width of these
texts is similar, between 4.3 and 8.2 cm, the lengths of the decrees in the main corpus range
from 32 to 147 cm. One might expect that the varying lengths of the physical papyri would
have been determined by the lengths of the individual texts, but this is not the case. In the
main corpus, just over a third of the papyri, including some of the shorter examples, are
inscribed on one side only, while nearly two thirds of the papyri have text on both sides.6 The
papyri inscribed on both sides have varying degrees of coverage: some have only a few lines
or an address on the verso, some have substantial amounts of text but some blank space on the
verso, while some are nearly covered on both sides. Some of the longer papyri, of course, do
have more text, especially when inscribed on both sides, but this is not always true. Indeed,
the longest of the papyri (L7, at 147 cm) contains a relatively small amount of text on one
side only, simply written larger as if to fill up the space of the recto and even then including
substantial blank space. Alternately, some of the longer papyri (e.g. T1, T2, NY, and Ch)
repeat text, possibly in an effort to fill space in a set length of papyrus. Thus it is clear that
the length of the text alone does not dictate the length of the papyrus in the OAD.
  Given the rich contents, complex concepts, and unfamiliar vocabulary that these texts
present, the matter of their varying lengths might seem to be an insignificant issue. I would
suggest, however, that the lengths of the papyri do have significance for the texts and the
intentions behind them, and I propose a simple explanation for the varying lengths of the
papyri based on an ethnographic analogy. There exists a genre of text from Ethiopia, known
generically as ‘Ethiopian magic scrolls’.7 The earliest known examples of these scrolls seem
to date to the sixteenth century ad,8 but the majority that have been published or described
date to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.9 The scrolls are inscribed in Ethiopic script
in black and/or red ink on strips of vellum and are, in format, strikingly similar to the much
earlier Egyptian OAD: long, narrow vertical strips of relatively consistent width but widely
varying lengths, inscribed in short horizontal columns. The Ethiopian magic scrolls were
rolled up and worn as amulets much as the OAD were.10 Unlike the OAD, the Ethiopian

4
 R. K. Ritner, The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period (Atlanta, 2009), 74.
5
 Once inscribed, these strips of papyrus were rolled and worn in amulet cases; only one example has been
preserved in its original case (text P4, case illustrated in Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees, I, xix), but several
cases clearly intended for such papyri are known. See, for example, the cases in Cambridge and Paris published
J. D. Bourriau and J. D. Ray, ‘Two Further Decree-Cases of ^Aq ’, JEA 61 (1975), 257–8, along with the cases
mentioned in Bohleke, JEA 83, 156, 165–6.
6
 The terms ‘recto’ and ‘verso’ are used here, as in Edwards, to indicate ‘front’ and ‘back’ respectively; in
fact, the great majority of the OAD papyri are inscribed first on the side with vertical fibers, which would be
the ‘verso’ in the standard practice of Ancient Egyptian scribes of beginning a text on the side with horizontal
fibers. Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees, I, xii, notes the parallel between the OAD and the majority of late
Ramesside private letters, which also begin on the side with vertical fibers.
7
  See e.g. J. Mercier, Ethiopian Magic Scrolls (New York, 1979); F. E. Dobberahn, Fünf äthiopische Zauberrollen:
Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar (Beiträge zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte des Orients 25; Walldorf-Hessen,
1976); B. Burtea, Zwei äthiopische Zauberrollen (Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinensia 1; Aachen, 2001). Note
that these texts are sometimes erroneously referred to as ‘Coptic’ magic scrolls.
8
  See J. Mercier, Art that Heals: The Image as Medicine in Ethiopia (New York, 1997), 49 and fig. 41, described
as the only known sixteenth century example.
9
  Note, for example, the distribution of dates in the 134 examples of these scrolls catalogued in G. Haile, Catalogue
of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project, I: Codices 1–105, Magic Scrolls 1–134 (Ethiopic Manuscripts, Texts
and Studies Series 1; Eugene, 2009): seventeenth century (1), eighteenth century (10), eighteenth–nineteenth
century (5), nineteenth century (47), nineteenth–twentieth century (3), twentieth century (64), with a few more
of uncertain date.
10
  Indeed the cylindrical cases in which the Ethiopian magical scrolls were typically placed and worn resemble
those connected to the Oracular Amuletic Decrees: see the examples published in Musée National des Arts
2013 brief communications 297
scrolls are often illustrated: images of saints, angels, and protective motifs often separate
sections of texts, while decorative borders or text dividers appear in many examples. The
Ethiopian texts are at least nominally Christian, with frequent invocation of angels and
biblical figures, as well as named demons, and frequent use of magical words. The contents
of the Ethiopian magic scrolls are roughly analogous to those of the OAD: the Ethiopic
texts (mostly in the classical Ge’ez dialect) consist of prayers for good health and protection
against disease and demons, often specified, and were made for named individuals.11
 The Ethiopian magic scrolls, like the OAD, vary widely in length, with sizes mostly ranging
between 50 cm and 2 m. The majority of published or described examples fall within the
range of 160–200 cm, but there is considerable variation within the corpus (there also seems
to be a problematic tendency in the literature to publish only the larger and more lavishly
decorated examples or to publish illustrations only without measurements of the complete
scroll).12 Unlike the OAD, however, the reason for the variation in sizes of the Ethiopian
magical scrolls is known: the scrolls were made-to-measure for their intended beneficiaries
according to their height.13 The Ethiopian scrolls were typically produced for adults who
were sick; the parchment would be measured against the sick person and then inscribed with
suitable magical spells for that person, placed in an amulet case and worn. Thus the scrolls
were physically personalised for their beneficiaries according to their height and directly
connected to the individual for whom they were made. Magical scrolls made to the height
of a beneficiary were sometimes known by the name ‘full-size’.14 These scrolls often tend
to be somewhat longer than the precise height of the beneficiary since the parchment was
measured from foot to head and then pulled over the head,15 which may help account for a
few exceptionally long examples, such as the 242 cm scroll published by Dobberahn.16 The
majority of Ethiopian magic scrolls therefore reflect, or at least reference, the heights of
their beneficiaries.
 There is, of course, no direct connection between the Oracular Amuletic Decrees and the
Ethiopian magical scrolls, separated as they are geographically and chronologically by at
least 2,500 years with no known links.17 The basic parallels in format and use—long strips of
writing material rolled up and worn—are not unique to amulets from Egypt or Ethiopia, and
do not imply any direct connection. Nor are the general similarities of contents necessarily
significant—most textual amulets are protective or health-oriented in some way.18 Even
the variable lengths of the physical scrolls (as opposed to the texts themselves) in the two
corpora do not constitute any sort of direct connection. But these general similarities of
format, contents, and purpose, taken together with the variable lengths of the scrolls, do
suggest that the Ethiopian magical scrolls can provide a useful analogy for understanding
the reason for the varying lengths of the OAD: the papyrus strips were cut according to
the height of their intended beneficiaries at the time when the oracle was issued. Thus the

d’Afrique et d’Oceanie, Le roi Salomon et les maîtres du regard: Art et médecine en Éthiopie (Paris, 1992), 101 and
fig. 68.
11
 Medieval European textual amulets often parallel the contents of both the OAD and Ethiopic scrolls, but
not, in general, the format; see C. D. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University
Park, 2006), especially 171–233, although note the long ‘amulet rolls’ for women from medieval France and
England, ibid., 251–67.
12
 The average of the sizes of the 134 scrolls in Haile, Catalogue, is 168.0 cm.
13
  See, e.g., Mercier, Art that Heals, 46, and E. Wagner, ‘Die Illustrationen der äthiopischen Zauberrollen der
Sammlung Littmann’, in W. Hoenerbach (ed.), Der Orient in der Forschung: Festschrift für Otto Spies (Wiesbaden,
1967), 704.
14
 Mercier, Ethiopian Magic Scrolls, 13.
15
 Mercier, Art that Heals, 46.
16
  Document V in Dobberahn, Fünf äthiopische Zauberrollen, 52–64.
17
 Even the third century ad Meroitic ‘oracular amuletic decrees’ on ostraka from Shokan, published in C. Rilly,
‘Deux exemples de décrets oraculaires amulétiques en méroïtique: Les ostraca REM 1317/1168 et REM 1319 de
Shokan’, Meroitic Newsletter 27 (2000), 99–118, cannot bridge this gap, although Rilly does make a case for
connections between the earlier hieratic and later Meroitic texts.
18
  See, for example, the medieval European examples cited in Skemer, Binding Words, especially 185–93, 235–
50.
298 brief communications JEA 99
OAD would have been personalised not only by inclusion of the name and other details of
the beneficiary in the text, but also linked to the beneficiary by the reflection of his or her
height in the physical papyrus.
 This explanation can account for the varying lengths of the OAD papyri in a way that is
both logical and plausible. But is it supported by the papyri themselves?
 Relatively little is known of the process behind the making of the OAD 19 and there is
no explicit reference in the texts of the OAD to the length of a papyrus being tied to the
beneficiary’s height. However, the texts may implicitly refer to such a practice. Many of the
OAD contain a section in which the issuing gods say they will protect the different parts of
the beneficiary’s body, listing the body parts and concluding with a statement that they will
protect the beneficiary’s body and its limbs ‘from her/his head to her/his footsoles’.20 The
names of body parts are enumerated in roughly head-to-toe order, a phrasing that appears
in magical texts protecting the body as well.21 It is clearly a standard formula, but, given the
context here in the specific cases of the OAD, it is also tempting to see this as an allusion to
the measuring of the decree against the height of the beneficiary.
 The actual lengths of the OAD papyri are themselves suggestive of a relationship to the
height of the beneficiary. Although some of the decrees are damaged and their precise length
is hard to determine, only one (the Philadelphia decree designated in Edwards as ‘Ph’) is so
fragmentary as to defy measurement altogether. For purposes of the present discussion, the
measurements in Edwards’ publication will suffice, with some minor adjustment.22 Excepting
the damaged Ph, the Edwards corpus texts range in length from 32 to 147 cm. In contrast,
recent estimates of heights of adult Egyptians from skeletal remains in earlier periods
(Badari through Middle Kingdom) show heights of between 154.9–159.6 cm for women and
162.9–169.6 cm for men.23 Although there may have been some variation in average height
in the Third Intermediate Period when the OAD were written, it is very unlikely that the
population as a whole would have become significantly shorter. Thus, if the OAD do in fact
reflect the heights of beneficiaries as I suggest, none would have been made for adults.
 Edwards addresses the issue of the age of the beneficiaries of the OAD at some length in
his editio princeps and concludes that the contents of the decrees suggest that many, if not all,
were drawn up for children of varying ages.24 Average heights of children in Ancient Egypt
are difficult to estimate, and there is no literature addressing the subject based either on
human remains or artefactual evidence. There is comparatively little work on the heights of
children in pre-modern cultures as a whole; no significant or extensive records of children’s
heights remain, even outside Egypt, and our ability to draw meaningful conclusions is
further compromised by the difficulties of estimating age along with height from children’s

19
  It is clear that the OAD papyri were drawn up in advance, with space left to supply the verb Dd ‘said’, to be
filled in once the god(s) affirmed the oracle (Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees, I, xx), but the specifics of the
preparation of the papyrus or the commissioning of the decree are uncertain.
20
 This phrase occurs in 16 of the 21 texts published by Edwards, and is even repeated in a few of the papyri:
T1 rto 16–17 and vso. 106; NY rto 20–1 and 68–9; Ch 17–18 and 92–3.
21
  Compare, e.g., the magical texts in J. F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts (Nisaba 9, Leiden, 1978),
58.
22
 Edwards did not give measurements for the Chicago decree (Ch), which he published from a photograph,
because the original could not be found at the time of his writing. It has since been located and is currently on
display at the Oriental Institute Museum; note the recent publication in E. Teeter and J. H. Johnson (eds), The
Life of Meresamun, A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt (Oriental Institute Museum Publications 29; Chicago,
2009), 80–1, where the measurements are given as 6.5 cm wide and 98.0 cm long (although a small portion in
the middle of the papyrus is missing, making this length somewhat approximate). This measurement adds to the
similarities between the Chicago and New York decrees already noted by Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees, I,
103–4, NY being 6.1 cm in width.
23
  S. R. Zakrezewski, ‘Variations in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions’, American Journal of
Physical Anthropology 121 (2003), 224 table 3. Note that these totals have a potential variation of ±4.3–5.5 cm, but
even assuming the greatest variation of -5.5 cm this will still not bring the OAD into the range of average adult
heights (the 147 cm L7 being written for a male). Note also the slight decrease in average height between the Early
Dynastic Period and Middle Kingdom discussed on p. 225.
24
 Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees, I, xv–xvi.
2013 brief communications 299
physical remains. Significant statistical data on child height is only really well attested for
modern populations in industrialised nations. Although one can argue that this data is
not representative of a modern African population, let alone that of Ancient Egypt, this
information can at least give some possibilities for consideration. Given our data for Ancient
Egyptian adults compared to those of modern populations, in the absence of evidence to
the contrary it is fair to conclude that it is unlikely that Egyptian children would have been
significantly taller than children in modern western cultures.
 The majority (12 papyri) of the OAD in Edwards’ corpus are 92 cm or larger: for US
children surveyed from 1963–2002 in six separate studies, the lengths of the larger group
of OAD (92–147 cm) correspond to the heights of male and female children between two
and eleven years of age.25 Granted that Ancient Egyptian children would have been at least
slightly or even significantly smaller, we can conclude that measurements of the majority of
the OAD would reflect children no longer infants but probably not yet pubescent.
 The remainder of the OAD papyri are significantly shorter and include decrees, in
descending order, of 65 cm. (L1), 50 cm (L5), 47 cm (C2), 46 cm (P2), 44 cm (P4), 41 cm
(L4), plus the two smallest being 35 cm (P4) and 31 cm (P1), although P4 has sustained some
loss and this measurement cannot be taken as absolutely certain. Measurements of average
height (or length, as it is more often referenced in the medical literature) of infants in pre-
modern societies are even harder to come by than measurements of children. The height of
infants is, itself, inherently more difficult to measure,26 and again we are left with recourse
to modern statistics. Average newborn lengths at present range from 46.0–53.6 cm for males
and 45.4–52.8 cm for females,27 but premature newborns can be as small as 30.5–46.8 cm
for males and 29.9–46.0 cm for females.28 Infant sizes in Ancient Egypt are likely to have
been even smaller, and the probability of the baby being fully extended (as is standard in the
modern measurements) for establishing the length of a papyrus for the preparation of a decree
is perhaps not so good. Using the data for modern infants alone, we might see L1 as having
been made for a girl of 3–5 months, L5 for a boy newborn–1 month, and the rest as made
for newborns, with the smallest very likely to have been for premature newborns. Edwards
himself noted the appropriateness of the contents of some of the decrees for newborns,
comparing the protection they offered to that of the magical texts in the Middle Kingdom
P. Berlin 3027,29 to which one might add the recently published Late Period amuletic texts
(but not oracular decrees) for newborns from Elephantine.30
 There remains one anomalous document in the group, the Cleveland Museum of Art
papyrus. Although not much narrower than the papyri in the main corpus (3 cm against
the 4.3–8.2 cm of the other papyri), the Cleveland decree is significantly shorter than the
rest: a mere 18.5 cm. This papyrus is obviously too short to represent the height of even an
extremely premature human infant, so poses a problem in concluding that the lengths of
all the OAD papyri represented the heights of their beneficiaries. Although the Cleveland
decree has parallels throughout its text in the decrees of Edwards’ corpus, it reads almost
25
  C. L. Ogden, C. D. Fryar, M. D. Carroll, and K. M. Flegal, Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass
Indexes, United States 1960–2002 (Advance Data from Vital Health and Statistics 347; Hyattville, 2004), available
online: < http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf  > accessed 01.11.2011, with summary chart at p.  6.
Children’s heights from 2–11 stay relatively consistent across the time period surveyed, with a roughly 1 cm
difference between male and female children. Only post-puberty heights show significant increases across time.
26
  Note World Health Organization, Physical Stature: The Use and Interpretation of Anthropometry (WHO
Technical Report Series 854; Geneva, 1995), 135.
27
  Statistics compiled from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Data Table for Boys Length-for-
age and Weight-for-age Charts and Data Table for Girls Length-for-age and Weight-for-age Charts (9 September
2010), available online: < http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/who/boys_length_weight.htm > and < http://www.
cdc.gov/growthcharts/who/girls_length_weight.htm >, accessed 01.11.2011.
28
 Most recently, I. E. Olson, S. A. Groveman, M. L . Lawson, R. H. Clark, and B. S. Zemel, ‘New Intrauterine
Growth Curves Based on United States Data’, Pediatrics 125 (2010), 214–24 with data compiled from tables on
217–18.
29
 Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees, I, xvi and n. 3.
30
  G. Burkard, ‘Drei Amulette für Neugeborene aus Elephantine’, in G. Moers, H. Behlmer, K. Demuß, and
K. Widmaier (eds), Jn.t Dr.w: Festschrift für Friedrich Junge (Göttingen, 2006), I, 109–24.
300 brief communications JEA 99
as a summary or abridgement of the other texts, with less comprehensive coverage than the
other decrees. Perhaps its atypical size is a function of its summary nature: the Cleveland
decree could have been a cheaper alternative to a full-sized OAD or perhaps a decree made
for a child in absentia. Another possible explanation might be to see the Cleveland decree as
a ‘supplementary’ decree, providing additional coverage to a decree made at full length. The
Cleveland decree includes protections that appear only once or a few times in papyri of the
main corpus,31 and could have been compiled to add these specific protections to an already-
existing decree. Again, the analogy of the Ethiopian magic scrolls might be appropriate here,
as individuals in Ethiopia sometimes did possess multiple magical scrolls, often worn on the
same necklace.32
  Barring the discovery of more explicit Egyptian evidence on the subject, in the end it may
ultimately be impossible to prove definitively that the lengths of the OAD were tied to the
heights of their beneficiaries. But, given the nature of the decrees, their likely beneficiaries
and their otherwise inexplicably varying lengths set alongside the parallel of the Ethiopian
magic scrolls, the connection of length of OAD papyri and the heights of their beneficiaries
is, at the very least, a useful working hypothesis in the study of these texts. The Oracular
Amuletic Decree papyri effectively blanketed their child beneficiaries in protection from
head to toe and, in doing so, attempted to counteract the anxieties of their parents and their
wider social and cultural milieu.
T. G. Wilfong

A neglected funerary text

Discussion of an otherwise unparalleled funerary text from the tomb of Neha at el-Qatta in the south-west Delta,
which shares some of the concerns of the shuabti spells in the Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead.

The tomb of the high official (HAtj-a, the only recorded title) Neha, at el-Qatta in the south-
western Delta, is one of the more interesting early Middle Kingdom sources of funerary
texts. It is also one of the more neglected. Apart from its initial excavation and publication,
it has received scant attention, and its texts are still available only in the normalised
hieroglyphs of the original publication.1 Its funerary texts, inscribed on three of the four
walls of the burial chamber, consist of Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts (PT 223, 204–5,
207, 209–12, 226–7, 229–40, on the east wall; PT 245–8, on the south wall, east end; PT
270–2, 302–4, 579, 358, and CT 63–5, on the south wall, west end, and west wall).2 In the
selection and arrangement of these texts, the tomb is comparable to those of Senwosret-
ankh and Imhotep, at Lisht, and Siese, at Dahshur, all dating to the early Middle Kingdom
(Senwosret I and Amenemhat II).
  Besides the texts listed above, the tomb also contains three apparently unparalleled spells
on the west wall, between PT 304 and PT 579 (W 12–25, 25–9, 29–36). The second of these
is the subject of a recent article by Barbara Russo, who has labelled it ‘a morning ritual’.3
Russo identifies the first text as a ‘texte autobiographique’ and a ‘formule moralisante’.4 In
character, however, it is religious, concerned with preparations for the afterlife and activities
after death, including some of the concerns addressed in the shuabti spells of the Coffin
Texts and Book of the Dead (CT 472, BD 6).

31
  In lines 14–17 and 30–1.
32
 As in the scrolls in their cases cited in n. 10 above.
1
 E. Chassinat, H. Gauthier, and H. Pieron, Fouilles de Qattah (MIFAO 14; Cairo, 1906), 33–70 and pls 4–8.
Pl. 6 no. 3 is a photograph of the north wall texts.
2
  L. H. Lesko, Index of the Spells on Egyptian Middle Kingdom Coffins and Related Documents (Berkeley, 1979),
76 (Q1Q).
3
  B. Russo, ‘Un rituel matinal dans la tombe du Moyen Empire de Neha’, RdE 55 (2004), 113–23.
4
 Russo, RdE 55 (2004), 121.
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Essex IG6 3HX

Editorial Team
Roland Enmarch, Editor-in-Chief
Violaine Chauvet, Editor
Mark Collier, Editor
Chris Eyre, Editor
Cary Martin, Editor
Ian Shaw, Editor
Glenn Godenho, Editorial Assistant
editorial email address: jea@ees.ac.uk