Cannibal Hymn: A Cultural and Literary Study (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Music Symposium)

The Cannibal Hymn: A Cultural and Literary Study

Christopher Eyre

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Cannibal Hymn

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The Cannibal Hymn A Cultural and Literary Study

Christopher Eyre

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS

First published 2002 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © Christopher Eyre 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 0 85323 696 8 cased ISBN 0 85323 706 9 paperback

Typeset by Northern Phototypesetting Co. Ltd, Bolton, UK Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft, Bath

Contents

List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

page vii ix

Introduction Translation The Textual Transmission of the Cannibal Hymn The Reconstruction of a Ritual The Literary Format of Ritual Texts: Performative Literary Form The Pictorial Format of Ritual: Iconic Representation Text Corpus and Placing on Wall Occasion of Performance: The Mythologisation of Reality Butchery and Offering Ritual Literary Form: Ritual Context and the ‘Deritualisation’ of Texts The Text of the Cannibal Hymn Cataclysm, and the Introduction of the Bull The Power of the Bull over the Slaughter Throat Cutting and Decapitation Blood and Dismemberment Cooking and Feasting The Service of the Heavens Acceptance and Authority in the Heavens Transformation by Cannibalism of the Gods The Mythology of the Cannibal Hymn Cannibalism: Symbol and Reality The Economics of Rearing Meat Facilities for Slaughter Personal and Ritual Consumption

1 7 11 25 31 36 41 48 52 58 76 76 85 89 97 105 119 126 131 137 153 175 181 191

vi

Contents

17 Meat-Feasting Appendix: Hieroglyphic text Bibliography General Index Index of Passages

202 208 229 254 265

Illustrations

Figures 1 King roasting duck. Temple of Luxor. From Brunner, Südlichen Räume, Taf. 140 page 38 2 The flow of blood at slaughter. Tomb of Iti, Gebelein. Redrawn after Donadoni Roveri, La vita quotidiana, fig. 78 92 3 Butcher scene, showing removal of entrails and portioning of carcass. Tomb of Ankhmahor, Saqqara. From Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 49 98 4 Hieroglyphs illustrating offering tables: (a) brazier and (b) standard table. Tomb of Amenemope, Luxor. Redrawn from Assmann, Amenemope, Taf. 38 108 5 King fanning meat on brazier. Temple of Luxor. From Brunner, Südlichen Räume, Taf. 141 109 6 Cooking scenes. Tomb of Iymery, Giza. From Weeks, Mastabas of Cemetery G6000, pl. 35 112 7 Slaughter and cooking of game on the desert margins. Tomb of Two Brothers, Saqqara. From Moussa and Altenmüller, Grab des Nianchchnum and Chnumhotep, Abb. 8 116 8 Cooking of the dead in the underworld: (a) shadows and bas, and (b) heads and hearts. Book of Qererets, Osireion, Abydos. Redrawn after Frankfort, Cenotaph of Seti I, pl. 39, 37 120 9 Cooking scene. Tomb of Two Brothers, Saqqara. From Moussa and Altenmüller, Grab des Nianchchnum and Chnumhotep, Abb. 12 122 10 Heka-hieroglyph. Tomb of Neferseshemre, Saqqara. Redrawn from Kanawati and Abder-Raziq, Teti Cemetery III, pl. 63–64 165

viii

Illustrations

11 Butchery for the household. Tomb of Antef, Luxor. From Jaroš-Deckert, Grab des Jnj-jti.f, Taf. 18

182

Plates 1 Lassoing the bull. From the mastaba of Hetepherakhet, Saqqara. Photo courtesy of the Leiden Museum (F.1904/31) 87 2 Cooking in the slaughterhouse: rendering fats. Tomb of Meketre, Luxor. Photo Bill Barette, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA 20.3.10) 113

Abbreviations

ÄA ÄAT ACE ADAIK AEO ÄF An Äg Ani

An Or AoF AOS ARAW ÄS ASAÉ ASAW ASE AV BdÉ Bibl Aeg BIFAO Bi Or

Ägyptologische Abhandlungen Ägypten und Altes Testament Australian Centre for Egyptology Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo. Ägyptische Reihe Alan H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, 3 vols, Oxford, 1947 Ägyptologische Forschungen Analecta Äegyptiaca J. F. Quack, Die Lehren des Ani. Ein neuägyptischer Weisheitstext in seinem kulturellen Umfeld, OBO 141, Freiburg and Göttingen, 1994 Analecta Orientalia Altorientalische Forschungen American Oriental Series Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Ägyptische Sammlung Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte, Cairo Abhandlungen der Sächischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig Archaeological Survey of Egypt Archäologische Veröffentlichungen. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Abteilung Kairo Bibliothe`que d’étude Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca Bulletin de l’Institut Franc, ais d’Archéologie Orientale, Cairo Bibliotheca Orientalis, Leiden

x

Abbreviations

BoD BSAK BSÉG BSFÉ CdÉ CDME

Book of the Dead Studien zur Altägyptische Kultur Beihefte Bulletin de la Société d’Égyptologie Gene`ve, Geneva Bulletin de la Société franc, aise d’Égyptologie, Paris Chronique d’Égypte, Brussels R. O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford, 1962 CoA III J. D. S. Pendlebury, The City of Akhenaten. Part III: The central city and the official quarters. The excavations at Tell el-Amarna during the seasons 1926–1927 and 1931–1936, 2 vols, London, 1951 CRIPÉL Cahier de Recherches de l’Institut de Papyrologie et d’Égyptologie de Lille, Paris and Lille Crum W. E. Crum, Coptic Dictionary, Oxford, 1939 CT Coffin Text CT A. de Buck, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, 7 vols, Chicago, 1935–61 DAIK Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Abteilung Kairo Egyptian Egyptian Archaeology. The Bulletin of the Egypt Archaeology Exploration Society, London Enchoria Enchoria Zeitschrift für Demotistik und Koptologie, Wiesbaden ÉPHÉ École pratique des hautes études ERA Egyptian Research Account Essays Baer D. P. Silverman (ed.), For his Ka. Essays offered in Memory of Klaus Baer, SAOC 55, Chicago, 1994 Essays B. M. Bryan and D. Lorton (eds), Essays in Goedicke Egyptology in Honor of Hans Goedicke, San Antonio, 1994 Essays te Velde J. van Dijk (ed.), Essays on Ancient Egypt in Honour of Herman te Velde, Groningen, 1997 Études Lauer C. Berger and B. Mathieu (eds), Études sur l‘Ancien Empire et la nécropole de Saqqaˆ ra dédiées a` JeanPhilippe Lauer, 2 vols, Orientalia Monspeliensia IX, Montpellier, 1997 Fs von B. Schmitz and A Eggebrecht (eds), Festschrift Beckerath Jürgen von Beckerath zum 70. Geburtstag am 19. Februar 1990, HÄB 30, Hildesheim, 1990

Abbreviations

Fs Derchain

xi

U. Verhoeven and E. Graefe (eds), Religion und Philosophie im alten Ägypten. Festgabe für Philippe Derchain zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Juli 1991, OLA 39, Leuven, 1991 Fs Fecht J. Osing and G. Dreyer (eds), Form und Mass. Beiträge zur Literatur, Sprache und Kunst des alten Ägypten. Festschrift für Gerhard Fecht, zum 65. Geburtstag am 6. Februar 1987, ÄAT 12, Wiesbaden, 1987 Fs Stadelmann H. Guksch and D. Polz (eds), Stationen. Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Ägyptens Rainer Stadelmann gewidmet, Mainz am Rhein, 1998 GM Göttinger Miszellen, Göttingen GÖF Göttinger Orientforschungen HÄB Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge HO J. Černý and A. H. Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca, Oxford, 1957 Hommages C. Berger, G. Clerc and N. Grimal (eds), Hommages Leclant a` Jean Leclant, 4 vols, BdÉ 106, Cairo 1994 HPBM A. H. Gardiner, Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Third Series, Chester Beatty Gift, 2 vols, London, 1935 HTBM Hieroglyphic Texts from Egyptian Stelae, &c., in the British Museum, London, 1911– JBL Journal of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, London JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, New York JEOL Jaarbericht van het Voorderaziatisch-Egyptisch Gezelschap Ex Orient Lux, Leiden JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Leiden JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Chicago JSSEA Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, Toronto KMT KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. San Fransisco KRI K.A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions. Historical and Biographical, 8 vols, Oxford, 1969–90 LÄ W. Helck, E. Otto and W. Westendorf (eds), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, 7 vols, Wiesbaden, 1972–92

xii

Abbreviations

R. Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopen, 6 vols of plates, Berlin, 1849–58 LEM A. H. Gardiner, Late Egyptian Miscellanies, Bibl Aeg 7, Brussels, 1937 LES A. H. Gardiner, Late Egyptian Stories, Bibl Aeg 1, Brussels, 1932 Ling Aeg Lingua Aegyptia: Journal of Egyptian Language Studies, Göttingen LRL J. Černý, Late Ramesside Letters, Bibl Aeg 9, Brussels, 1939. Man, P. J. Ucko, R. Tringham and Settlement G. W. Dimbleby (eds), Man, Settlement and and Urbanism Urbanism, London, 1972 MÄS Münchner Ägyptologische Studien MASCA Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Medinet Medinet Habu III. The Calendar, the Habu III “Slaughterhouse,” and Minor Records of Ramses III, Chicago, 1934 Mélanges Mélanges Adolphe Gutbub, Montpellier, Gutbub 1984 Mélanges Mélanges Maspero I, Orient ancien, 4 fasc., Maspero I Cairo, 1934–61 Mélanges C. Obsomer and A.-L. Oosthoek (eds), Amosiade`s. Vandersleyen Mélanges offerts au Professeur Claude Vandersleyen par ses ancients étudiants, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1992 Mélanges F. Geus and F. Thill (eds), Mélanges offerts a` Jean Vercoutter Vercoutter, Paris, 1985 MDAIK Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo, Mainz MIFAO Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut Franc, ais d’Archéologie Orientale O Ostracon OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta OLP Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica OLZ Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, Leipzig and Berlin OMRO Oudheidkundige Mededelingen uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden, Leiden LD

Abbreviations

Or Or An Or Su P PBA PCPhS Peas

xiii

Orientalia, Rome Oriens Antiquus, Rome Orientalia Suecana, Uppsala Papyrus Proceedings of the British Academy Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society R. B. Parkinson, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, Oxford, 1991 PMMA Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition PTT Private Tombs at Thebes Pyr Pyramid Text Pyr K. Sethe, Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte, 3 vols, Leipzig, 1908–22; reprint Hildesheim 1960 RdÉ Revue d’Égyptologie, Paris Rec Trav Recueil de Travaux relatifs a` la philologie et a` l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes, Paris, 1870–1923 SAGA Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens SAK Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Hamburg SAOC Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization SEAP Studi di Egittologia e di Antichita` Puniche, Pisa SHAW Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften Sinuhe R. Koch, Die Erzählung des Sinuhe, Bib Aeg XVII, Brussels, 1990 Studi Studi in Memoria di Ippolito Rosellini, 2 vols, Pisa, Rosellini 1955 Studies Gwyn A. B. Lloyd (ed.), Studies in Pharaonic Religion and Griffiths Society in Honour of J. Gwyn Griffiths, London, 1992 Studies Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes, SAOC 39, Hughes Chicago, 1976 Studies U. Luft (ed.), The Intellectual Heritage of Egypt: Kákosy Studies presented to László Kákosy by friends and colleagues on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Studia Aegyptiaca 14, Budapest, 1992 Studies S. Israelit-Groll (ed.), Studies in Egyptology Presented Lichtheim to Miriam Lichtheim, 2 vols, Jerusalem, 1990

xiv

Abbreviations

Studien Otto

J. Assmann, E. Feucht and R. Grieshammer (eds), Fragen an die altägyptische Literatur. Studien zum Gedenken an Eberhard Otto, Wiesbaden, 1977 Studies W. Clarysse, A. Schoors and H. Willems (eds), Quaegebeur Egyptian Religion. The Last Thousand Years. Studies dedicated to the memory of Jan Quaegebeur, 2 vols, OLA 84 & 85, Leuven, 1998 Studies Shore C. Eyre, A. Leahy and L. M. Leahy (eds), The Unbroken Reed. Studies in the culture and heritage of ancient Egypt in honour of A. F. Shore, London, 1994 Studies P. D. Manuelian and R. Freed (eds), Studies in Honor Simpson of William Kelly Simpson, Boston, 1996 Studies G. E. Kadish and G. E. Freeman (eds), Studies in Williams Philology in Honor of Ronald James Williams. A festschrift, Toronto, 1982 Studies Wilson E. B. Hauser (ed.), Studies in Honor of John A. Wilson, Chicago, 1969 Top Bib B. Porter and R. Moss et al. (eds), A Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings, Oxford, 1934–– TT Theban Tomb TTS Theban Tomb Series UGAÄ Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskünde Ägyptens Urk I K. Sethe, Urkunden des Alten Reichs, Leipzig, 1903 Urk IV K. Sethe, Urkunden des Neuen Reichs, historischebiographische Urkunden, Heft 1–16, Leipzig, 1906–9, continued by W. Helck, Heft 17–22, Berlin, 1955–58 VA Varia Aegyptiaca, San Antonio Wb A. Erman and H. Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, 7 vols, Leipzig and Berlin, 1926–63 WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes YES Yale Egyptological Studies ZÄS Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, Berlin. ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Wiesbaden ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bonn

1

Introduction Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

This volume is not intended as a work of traditional philology. Philology alone is an insufficient tool for analysis of the poetic frame of Egyptian ritual literature, which is not to say that there is no room for improved philological understanding of the Cannibal Hymn. Nor is it intended to provide a systematic literary exegesis, either structural or aesthetic. It is not even intended to present a single coherent interpretation of the text. It is intended, rather, to use a variety of approaches, often rather unsystematically, in an attempt to address problems of the accessibility of Egyptian literature: to examine the interfaces between form, function and meaning in ritual and literature. My aim is an essay on literature as an artefact of cultural history, using this specific text as a case study. The inaccessibility of Egyptian literature is not simply a matter of incompetent translation, nor of gaps in our knowledge of the meaning of words, the tense of verb-forms or the semantics of different constructions. However literal and accurate a translation may be in principle, the meaning of the Egyptian text is usually far from transparent. The real barriers to understanding are largely cultural: partly ideological and partly connected with genre. A literalist approach to foreign literature, without cultural context, can only reinforce the impression of how strange, even illogical or incoherent the mind of the author or his audience might be. When applied to religious literature, the necessary result is an assessment of underlying theology and ritual as largely incoherent, self-contradictory mumbo-jumbo. I start from the opposite (if not necessarily demonstrable) premise, that Egyptian ritual has to make sense, and represent some pattern of coherence: that the structure of the text, and the imagery and narrative it contains, were meaningful and had direct cultural resonances for the contemporary Egyptian, which is to say that (at least a significant number of) Egyptians of the late Fifth Dynasty would recognise in the Cannibal Hymn a concrete frame of

2

The Cannibal Hymn

reference, that would relate their experience of this world to their vision and expectation of the other world. The first issue is the poetic frame of Egyptian literature. The difficult issue of metrical patterns – including patterns of stress and rhythm – and the comparatively straightforward division of text into couplets and stanzas, are technical problems that raise few specific issues of understanding in this context, and they are not addressed in detail here. Other poetic techniques are, however, equally important to the meaning, use and literary coherence of a text. Devices of sound – particularly alliteration and homophony – strongly influenced the choice of individual words, and so complicate the direct philological problem of the meaning of words. The roots of Egyptian literature as art lie in recitational-poetic forms, that I argue are to be classed as distinctively oral genres: structural patterns and literary devices in wording that are distinctly those of performance literature. This is not merely a matter of the recitation of a written work, but a distinct set of genres for literary-aesthetic creativity. This issue of genre points to series of research agenda – questions that may be posed of the data – rather than leading to clear generalisations or fully coherent hypotheses about the nature and history of Egyptian literature. Discussion of the form of the text poses direct questions about processes of authorship or composition, including the problem of formulaic phraseology. These then raise questions about the publication of a text – once composed – both as performance and in writing. While the question of target audience may seem peripheral to the analysis of a ritual text, it is closely connected with that of transmission: through both memory, perhaps specifically through performance, and in written form, whether as papyrus roll – archive or working service-book – or as inscription on a monument. Particularly important in this respect are the ways in which the text serves as a tool to reify the ritual and its purpose: in the case of the Cannibal Hymn this invokes the passage, resurrection and integration of its beneficiary into the divine. Oral performance to accompany action, or a formal recitation from a text transcribed on to a papyrus roll, or the act of monumental inscription are each different but parallel ways to re-enact and reify the text. In this sense a functional approach to genres of ritual and literary text poses questions about the occasion and manner in which a liturgy might be performed, and about ways in which the use of a particular unit of text might change over time, or – sensitive to context – a single unit of text might have

Introduction

3

different functions in different ritual environments, or differing functions when written, inscribed, or recited. The relationship between ritual (as action) and myth (as words) is important, but speculation about the origins of either ritual or myth is not informed in a useful or direct way by Egyptian data and is not addressed here in any detail. The greatest obstruction to understanding an Egyptian text is the lack of the primary cultural knowledge and cultural assumptions taken for granted by a contemporary audience: the contemporary socialisation that makes sense of the text. This can best be addressed by an anthropological approach, that discusses the choice and meanings of words, the cultural and mythological allusions, the symbolic forms of reference, and the overall ideological context as part of the enterprise of defining the socio-economic and intellectual contexts that were presupposed as points of reference by both author and contemporary audience. Such an approach is naturally limited by the conscious and unconscious bias of the surviving evidence: textual, pictorial and archaeological. Indeed, the text itself is the primary source for its own understanding, so that analysis tends to be circular and potentially self-fulfilling. It is, for instance, impossible to date Pyramid Texts, either as a corpus or as individual spells, on the basis of external or independent evidence. Older scholarship, rooted in romantic and evolutionary approaches to the history of religion and to the transmission of oral literature, preferred to find in these texts a core of already archaic language, belief and cultural practice, with later accretions during the Old Kingdom. More recently there has been considerable scepticism – the view taken here – about the extent to which the Pyramid Texts can be used as evidence for the theology or culture of periods earlier than the Fifth Dynasty, but this is a matter for critical judgement of probabilities, rooted in a particular theoretical approach, and not a conclusion that can be readily demonstrated from primary evidence. It is the case that ‘archaic’ ritual texts had a long life: individual spells from the Pyramid Texts continued to be used in a wide variety of ritual corpora, even appearing on the walls of GraecoRoman temples. Other ritual texts may only be attested at a very late date, but are clearly much earlier compositions. This is partly an issue of the limited survival of the textual record – especially ritual papyri – in earlier periods, and partly a question of changes in what was felt appropriate to inscribe or depict on temple walls. The Pyramid Texts themselves, however, stand at or very close to the earliest transcription

4

The Cannibal Hymn

of ritual and literary texts in any form of writing: close to their establishment as written and so quasi-canonical genres. They stand at the very beginning of their written transmission. Texts and pictures that record ritual activity, like those that record visions of the afterlife, are evidently rooted in ordinary contemporary behaviour, social norms, and understanding of the physical world. It is, however, easy to overestimate their ordinariness. For instance, the scenes of ‘everyday life’ in the tombs of the Old Kingdom provide metaphorical extensions in their depiction of the ordinary, and so bridge the gap to symbolic modes of reference and to metaphysical speculation on the nature of what cannot be seen or known in the afterlife. It is always difficult to assess the extent to which genuine reality is represented in images of the afterlife and the other world, or the degree to which an imaginative extension of reality is projected into visions of hell and paradise. My central concern here is to examine the words of the particular ritual of the Cannibal Hymn, in both performative and cultural context, using the background in observed and observable reality as a means of investigating social norms and their extension – often through a contemporary exercise of creative imagination – into visions of social aberration. Finally, an important feature of all Egyptian literature is its composite and episodic structure. Coherent and internally consistent narrative is not a primary genre in Egypt, in belles lettres any more than in religious or ritual corpora. Even ‘stories’ show a highly episodic and fragmentary structure. Egyptian literature is in no way unique in this respect: the absence of epic is a well-attested feature of the oral-performative literature of many cultures. To a certain extent it is a characteristic way in which oral genres in Africa differ from those of the Near East and Europe. An apparent lack of concern for narrative consistence, and the deliberate exploitation of discontinuity and internal contradictions as a particular style of metaphorical expression, are features that emphasise the gap of literary expectations when an oral-performative literature is compared with modern written literature. Whether the purpose of a text was entertainment, or ceremonial, or ritual, the characteristically episodic and formulaic structures allowed the individual version – the individual performance – to be extended or abbreviated quite readily. Equally important, however, is the way that discrete units of text seem relatively short, and so longer texts characteristically have the appearance of an anthology. Such patterns, in principle and practice, allow the productive

Introduction

5

transfer of discrete units of text from one sequence to another – whether individual lines or entire episodes – or allow individual sections to stand independently. Such problems of analysis are particularly acute for the Pyramid Texts. This very diverse body of texts clearly includes rituals for the funeral and mortuary cult of the kings of the Old Kingdom, but this explicit purpose merely provided the occasion for their inscription in the pyramids, and is not a global explanation for the corpus as a whole. The constituent spells comprise an anthology, and the content of the corpus varies considerably from one pyramid to another. Only a limited number of spells are likely to have been composed specifically as mortuary rituals. Many spells seem to belong to a sort of general ritual repertoire, and often they seem simply to provide variations on standard religious ritual. Many spells that are first attested in the Pyramid Texts reappear, sometimes recast, in later mortuary or temple texts, in the most diverse of contexts. Speculation about the ‘origin’ of the individual spell is largely fruitless, when it is frequently not even feasible to envisage how and when a particular section of these texts might actually have been used in ritual practice, much less reconstruct with confidence either the complete funeral of the king or the standard daily ritual of his pyramid temple. To a considerable extent this may be explained simply as a characteristic of any ritual service-book, since any long ritual is necessarily episodic in performance, and a servicebook may naturally include variant texts for different occasions, or variant orders of performance. In that respect the individual Pyramid corpus need be seen as no more of an anthology or collection of fragments than, say, a Christian service-book. Nevertheless, the detailed analysis of individual spells, for both mythological and practical context, has as its first result a focus on the complexity and diversity of the material rather than its unity. An inscriptional corpus such as that of the Pyramid Texts is then the sum of its individual parts, together with their unspoken context. In general terms the passage of the body to the grave, and so the passage of the king to heaven through a mythological landscape, give thematic unity; but a narrow focus on that continuity loses the diversity that is central to the literary form and mythological content of the texts, and so must also distort understanding of the ritual performance itself. No global explanation of the corpus seems able, on the basis of current understanding, to provide a satisfactory resolution for the individual episode. Indeed, the episodic nature of the parts means that a piecemeal

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The Cannibal Hymn

approach is the most productive basis for interpretation. Since the texts were not composed as a single continuous ritual – for the independent origin of individual spells or groups of text is quite clear – it does seem justifiable to treat the individual text in a degree of isolation, and not only defined by the inscriptional sequences in which it appears. The Cannibal Hymn in itself is a coherent text, although its division into two spells in the Teti pyramid is a complicating factor. Its substantive re-editing as a Coffin Text poses very complex questions about oral and written transmission, textual transmission in performance, and possible changes in the context of use that will hardly be touched on here. Moreover, the very complexity of the metaphors by which the wording of the text re-creates by allusion the ritual actions and myth, brought together in recitation, means that interpretation can be neither complete nor simple. My aim is, therefore, not to attempt a definitive reconstruction of a single ritual, or single performance of the hymn, but to explore in the widest sense the cultural resonances of that performance, using this specific text as a case study.

2

Translation Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

§393a: Sky darkens; stars go out; §393b: Vaults (of heaven) tremble; bones of earth shake. §393c: The decans are stilled against them. §394a: They have seen Unas, risen, empowered, §394b: As god living on his fathers, feeding on his mothers. §394c: It is Unas, Lord of Wisdom; his mother does not know his name. §395a: The splendour of Unas is in the sky; his power is in the horizon. §395b: Like his father Atum, who created him; he created him, (but) he is more powerful than he. §396a: The kas of Unas are behind him; his hemsut are under his feet. §396b: His gods are upon him; his Uraei are at his brow. §396c: The guiding-snake of Unas is at his forehead: the spier-out of ba(s), the fiery snake for burning. §396d: The powers of Unas are protecting him. or §396d: The neck of Unas is on his trunk. §397a: Bull of the Sky is Unas, aggressive in his nature, living on the manifestation of every god. §397b: Eating the innards(?) of them, who come, their bellies full of magic, §397c: From the Island of Fire.

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The Cannibal Hymn

§398a: He is Unas, equipped, assembler of his akhs. §398b: Unas is arisen as that Great One, Lord of helpers. §398c: He sits with his back to Geb. §399a: Unas it is who decides his business together with He-whosename-is-hidden, §399b: On that day of slaughtering the eldest. §399c: It is Unas who is the Lord of Offerings, who ties the rope, §399d: And provides his own offering meal himself. §400a: Unas it is who eats people, who lives on gods, §400b: Lord of income, who gives out tasks. §401a: It is Grasper of Brows, Imi-Kehau, who lassoes them for Unas. §401b: It is the Djeser-tep-snake who hobbles(?) them for him, who restrains them for him. §401c: It is He-who-is-over-the-red(?) who pulls them down(?) for him. §402a: It is Khonsu who gashes the Lords, as he cuts their throats (? or ‘decapitates them’), §402b: And he removes for him what is in their bodies. §402c: He is the envoy, whom he sends to punish. §403a: It is Shezemu who cuts them up for Unas, §403b: (And) cooks for him the things in them on his evening hearth stones. §403c: It is Unas who eats their magic, who swallows their souls. §404a: Their big ones are for his morning meal; §404b: Their middle-sized ones are for his evening meal; §404c: Their little ones are for his night meal; §404d: Their old-ones, male and female, are for his hearth(?). §405a: It is the Great Ones in the north of the sky who set the fire for him,

Translation

9

§405b: For the cauldrons containing them, (using) the legs of their eldest. §406a: Those who are in the sky go about for Unas, §406b: And the hearth is stirred for him with the feet of their women. §406c: He has gone round the Two Skies complete; he has circumambulated the Two Banks. or §406c: The complete Two Skies go round for him; the Two Banks go about for him. §407a: The Great Power, it is Unas; the powerful one of the powerful ones. §407b: The Sacred Image, it is Unas; the sacred image of the sacred images of the Great One. §407c: Whom he finds in his way, he eats him piecemeal(?). §407d: The place of Unas is at the head of all the nobles who are in the horizon. §408a: Unas is the God; older than the eldest. §408b: Thousands go round for him; hundreds offer to him. §408c: He has been given authorisation as a great power by Orion, father of the gods. §409a: Unas has risen again in the sky; he is crowned as Lord of the Horizon. §409b: He has broken the joins of the vertebrae. §409c: He has taken the hearts of the gods. §410a: He has eaten the Red; he has swallowed the Green. §410b: Unas feeds on the lungs of the wise. §410c: He is satisfied with living on hearts and their magic. §411a: Now Unas revolts at licking the sbšw which are in the Red. §411b: He is replete. Their magic is in his belly.

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§411c: The authority of Unas is not taken from him; §411d: Unas has swallowed the perception of every god. §412a: Eternity is the lifespan of Unas; the end of time is his end, §412b: In this his authority of: ‘He wants – he does; he does not want – he does not do,’ §412c: He who is at the ends of the horizon for ever and ever. §413a: Now their bas are in the belly of Unas; their akhs are in the possession of Unas, §413b: As his excess offering foods over and above the gods, and cooking(?) is done for him with their bones. §413c: Now their bas are in Unas’ possession: their shadows are (removed) from(?) their owners. §414a: Unas is that one who rises and rises, who endures and endures. §414b: The doers of deeds do not have the power to destroy. §414c: The st-jb of Unas is among the living in this land for ever and ever.

3

The Textual Transmission of the Cannibal Hymn Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The Cannibal Hymn is one of a group of related spells that appear only in the two earliest pyramids with texts, those of Unas and Teti.1 The spells then drop out of the regular corpus, to reappear in the Middle Kingdom, when the Cannibal Hymn is included among the Pyramid Texts of the Middle Kingdom tombs of Senwosretankh at Lisht and of Siese at Dahshur.2 A reworked version appears as Coffin Text Spell 573,3 while a variety of phrases and themes from the hymn also recur in other Coffin Texts.4 The corpus of Pyramid Texts found in the Middle Kingdom tombs is remarkably close to that of the Pyramid of Unas, both in content and layout, but the physical process of textual transmission is unclear.5 One possibility is that an independent and continuous manuscript tradition existed for the specific sequence 1 Pyr §§393–414, Spells 273–74; LÄ III, 313–14; Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 80–84; Faulkner, JEA 10 (1924), 97–103; Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature I, 36–38; Hornung, Gesänge vom Nil, 121–24, 194–95; Kitchen, Poetry, 19–30; Barta, ZÄS 106 (1979), 89–94. 2 Hayes, Se’n-wosret-aankh, 2; Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 142–44; Silverman, Religion and Philosophy, 32–33; Kahl, SAK 22 (1995), 195–209. Cf. also Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 28–29 for discussion of the comparative positioning of the text as indication of its purpose; Altenmüller, LÄ V, 20, s.v. ‘Pyramidentexte’ for the types of transmission and reuse. In general see Allen, Occurrences; Lesko, L’égyptologie en 1979 I, 39–43; Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 151–70. 3 CT VI, 177–83; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 19–39; Barta, ZÄS 118 (1991), 10–20. 4 E.g., Morenz, GM 143 (1994), 109–11 notes similarities between the first verse of the Cannibal Hymn and CT IV, 180o–81d, a text found only on an Eleventh Dynasty coffin from Gebelein, where any direct quotation of a single verse seems implausible. 5 Cf. also the similarity of sequences of offering spells in the Pyramid of Unas and on Middle Kingdom coffins, Barta, GM 120 (1991), 7–12. For the problems related to position and sequence of text on the wall see below, Ch. 7.

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The Cannibal Hymn

of spells containing the Cannibal Hymn, that was parallel to but unaffected by the inscription of texts on the pyramid walls, and so independent of the significant changes in the number and ordering of the text corpora found in the later pyramids of the Sixth Dynasty. Alternatively, the Pyramid of Unas may have been accessible in the early Middle Kingdom, and its texts copied directly for reuse in an archaising and antiquarian spirit.6 The sources of the texts found on individual pyramid walls – or indeed later on coffin sides – are poorly understood. The actual inscription of text on the walls of the Pyramid of Unas shows considerable redactional care, with a significant number of corrections, both to the original ink draft and to the carved signs, in ways that seem to imply copying and then collation from more cursive originals.7 There can indeed be no reasonable doubt that inscriptions themselves were copied immediately from papyrus texts.8 The alternative, that they 6 Bareš, Abusir IV, 26, 51–54, 59–60 notes in general the probable accessibility of Old Kingdom pyramids in the Saite Period. Hayes, Se’n-wosret-aankh, 10–11 argues that limited additions to the Unas corpus in the Middle Kingdom tombs are compelling evidence against direct copying from the Unas pyramid, and proof of a continuous manuscript tradition. Thompson, JEA 76 (1990), 17–25 likewise argues for (a series of variant, but) continuous manuscript traditions for the transmission of Pyramid Texts used on Middle Kingdom coffins. Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 235–37 points to the simple impracticability of copying monuments as a normal process of text transmission, and stresses the existence of a common, underlying, necessarily archival tradition; cf. also Schenkel, Studien Otto, esp. 417–421, 440–41. Kahl, SAK 22 (1995), 204–5 argues that minor differences in the texts are sufficient to exclude direct copying: that some minor errors in Unas are not transmitted to Senwosretankh, and that in some sections the Senwosretankh texts correspond to alterations made on the wall of the Unas pyramid, but in other cases to the primary text and not the final ‘corrected’ version; cf. also Kahl, Steh auf, 41, 69. He also argues that similarity of layout should derive from notes about positioning of text, made on the model text from which the walls were actually copied, SAK 22 (1995), 204; Steh auf, 72. 7 Mathieu, BIFAO 96 (1996), 289–311, although note his implausible suggestion (p. 292) that the original was in horizontal lines. Kahl, SAK 22 (1995), 195–209 argues that the alterations reflect the use of an independent variant manuscript for collation. He notes that the Senwosretankh text is essentially that of the corrected version of the Unas inscription: that would be to say the manuscript used for collation and not the original primary text. 8 See, e.g., Silverman, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 133 for an example of Coffin Texts laid out on a tomb wall at Kom el Hisn in the style of the papyrus original, without alteration to fit the actual medium. On the layout of Pyramid Texts related to the layout of texts on papyrus cf. Grimm, SAK 13 (1986), esp. 99–102.

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might sometimes have been drafted direct on to the wall from oral dictation or the memory of the copyist is not physically likely as a working procedure, and does not fit the internal evidence for copying and transmission. The nature of such papyrus originals is, however, genuinely problematic. In principle the specific manuscript used by a draughtsman might be a service book: the roll actually held in his hand by the ritualist as he performed a ceremony. It might be an archival text: a canonical composition, with authoritative text, that was preserved – perhaps over a very long time-span – with the deliberate intention that it would serve as the basis for a fixed literary tradition. Or the manuscript might be an ad hoc compilation: a working layout, written specifically to serve as pattern for the draftsman at the wall of an individual monument. Evidently these are not exclusive categories. A working layout may be used on more than one occasion; or any class of manuscript may be deposited in an archive, to be used later as a pattern-book, or to gain quasi-canonical status as a text corpus. Different sections of text on a monument may even derive from different categories of source, either directly or at one or more removes through a manuscript tradition. The potential diversity of sources and variety in copying practice should not be underestimated. A clear focus on the sort of problems that arise is demonstrated by a quite different group of Pyramid Texts reused on the Twelfth Dynasty coffin of a steward Nefri, from El Bersha.9 These spells form a ritual unit, described by Allen as ‘the text of a ritual for the presentation of various objects of personal attire’: spells which ‘appear to accompany the actual deposition of the objects around the sarcophagus.’10 The earliest known versions of this particular ritual unit appear in the pyramids of Pepi II and his queen Neith.11 The Middle Kingdom version is, however, a direct but very mechanical and careless copy of a text written for the obscure king Wahkare Akhtoy, with the lines of the texts copied in the wrong order from an original that was evidently

9 Allen, Studies Hughes, 1–29. See also the independent discussion of the same texts by Schenkel, GM 28 (1978), 35–44, with stress on the origin of the relevant inscriptions as Pyramid Texts. 10 Allen, Studies Hughes, 21. For the relationship between private and royal rituals for presenting objects in the tomb see Willems, Chests of Life, esp. 203, 205–06, 222–28 and Heqata, esp. 50–51 on the ‘frieze of objects’, and note also Gardiner, JEA 41 (1955), 9–17 on the procession that brought the tomb fittings. 11 Allen, Studies Hughes, 21–24.

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The Cannibal Hymn

written in retrograde.12 For the first third of this text the copyist mechanically transcribed even the royal name of his original on to the coffin, not bothering to replace it with the name of Nefri. Transcription errors are also numerous. A majority of these result from confusion between signs with similar hieroglyphic shapes, but a substantial number also are explicable as misreadings of hieratic forms.13 Nefri’s text, as so often with mortuary literature, is so badly and carelessly transmitted that it could not be ‘read’ as a ritual from his coffin. Equally, it is clear that this was a matter of sheer carelessness, and not simply ignorance on the part of the copyist. Most of the time he simply did not bother to correct his errors, but in a number of cases he made corrections which reveal that he could understand what he was writing,14 and the texts are chosen and placed appositely on the coffin. Nefri’s coffin provides a fairly typical example of the reification of the written ritual in Egypt. Its inscription symbolised the ritual, perhaps replaced it, but could not serve as an aid to performance, since the text is practically unreadable as written.15 The simplest explanation would be that the texts were copied from a hieroglyphic original on the wall of Akhtoy’s tomb, and that the resulting hieratic transcription on papyrus was then recopied on to the coffin. However, Allen stresses that Pyramid Texts ‘appear to have been transferred to the walls of the pyramids initially in a semi-cursive form to serve as a guide for the eventual incision of the hieroglyphs themselves’, and he strongly prefers to argue for the coffin’s text as a copy from the original master document from which Akhtoy’s texts were prepared. Preserved in the relevant archive, this document ‘must have been a blend of hieratic and hieroglyphs, the latter undoubtedly in cursive form’, so that its layout would bear close comparison with

12 Allen, JARCE 23 (1986), 1–2, 24 for similar problems in the Pyramid Texts of Oudjebten and Ibi; similarly Graefe, OMRO 73 (1993), esp. 27–28 for a Book of the Dead. 13 Cf. Hayes, Se’n-wosret-aankh, 8, 23–24. 14 Allen, Studies Hughes, 25. 15 For the offering list envisaged as a text of Thoth, to be performed by Thoth and other gods, see Schott, ZÄS 90 (1963), 103–10; Willems, Chests of Life, 197–99. This places the continuation of the ritual into the world of the gods, although note Willems’s argument that it also refers to the performance by priests taking the role of gods.

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that of the rather later Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus.16 Kahl17 argues that Akhtoy’s tomb is more likely to have been near the Teti pyramid than at Heracleopolis, and argues that the text-tradition represented by the coffin of Nefri should be connected ultimately to the Teti pyramid archives, although the text content is so different as to exclude any possibility of direct copying from the pyramid itself.18 Willems develops this argument further.19 He notes the innovative nature of Middle Kingdom coffins from the Teti pyramid cemetery, the close connection of those buried there with the cult of Teti,20 and the particularly close connection that texts inscribed on coffins from this area show to the Pyramid Texts, a feature typical of coffins from the region of Saqqara and Abusir.21 He is prepared to envisage a direct connection between the books used by the Teti priesthood in the continuing royal ritual and the texts those men put on their own coffins.22 The continuity between Pyramid and Coffin Texts is virtually seamless,23 the earliest examples of Coffin Texts dating to the late Sixth Dynasty,24 and overlapping with the inscription of texts in the royal pyramids. However, the dividing line is far from clear between Pyramid Texts which continued in later use on private coffins and distinctive 16 Allen, Studies Hughes, 27–29; cf. also Kahl, Steh auf, 11 n.1, 69–72 for the interrelation between hieratic and hieroglyphic forms in the texts, with examples of where interchange between the two may stand as evidence for the craft of creating monuments on the basis of manuscript text. Silverman, Religion and Philosophy, 32 makes the same assumption of independent dependence on an ‘original’ master for the Old and Middle Kingdom copies of the Cannibal Hymn, which is the underlying theme also of Kahl, SAK 22 (1995), 195–209. 17 Steh auf, 58, 61–65, 69. 18 Steh auf, 35. 19 Chests of Life, 226, 247–48. For a similar but more cautious view see Thompson, JEA 76 (1990), 25. 20 Cf. also Abdalla, JEA 78 (1992), 93–111. 21 Willems, Chests of Life; Lapp, SAK 16 (1989), 193–94, 17 (1990), 226–27. 22 Cf. Schenkel, GM 28 (1978), 43; Kahl, Steh auf, 35, 62–65. 23 Cf. Schenkel, in Westendorf (ed.), Beiträge zum 17. Kapitel, 31–32. Note also Willems, Chests of Life, 244–49, stressing the heterogeneous nature and origins of the Coffin Texts and the independent origins of spells/groups of spells, for which see also Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 131–44; Silverman, Religion and Philosophy, 29–53; Leclant, Textes et Langages II, 46–9. Buchberger, Transformation und Transformat, 47–80 provides a detailed analysis of the types of problem raised by the structure, textual interrelationships and genres of the Coffin Text corpus as a whole, and of the individual text corpora. 24 Valloggia, Balat I, 74–78, 168; Fischer, Dendera, 88, 182–83.

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The Cannibal Hymn

Coffin Text additions to the corpus. The evidence of the Twelfth Dynasty coffin of Nefri is ambiguous in this respect. The core texts naming Wahkare Akhtoy are known from Sixth Dynasty pyramids. Other texts on the coffin derive ultimately from a different source, which may well be later in date than Akhtoy, since there is no internal evidence to show that Nefri’s entire corpus derives from a single text tradition. For this reason, the coffin of Nefri does not show unequivocally that Coffin Texts proper – as opposed to parts of the Pyramid Text corpus – were in use at Heracleopolis in the Ninth Dynasty.25 The examples of Coffin Texts inscribed on the walls of tombs at Heracleopolis are also of uncertain date. They may well be early,26 but a dating before the Twelfth Dynasty cannot be established for certain.27 The coffin of Nefri itself comes from El Bersha. Lapp28 has argued strongly that the distinct Coffin Text corpus is a redaction first put into writing at El Bersha – that is, Hermopolis. He stresses innovation in the text corpora from Middle Egypt, and their differences in spell content and spell sequence compared to the coffins from Saqqara and Abusir, where continuity from the Pyramid Texts is more marked. A distinctly non-Memphite redaction of Coffin Texts is plausible, and a priori Hermopolis seems as likely a centre for such a redaction as Heracleopolis, although variant local traditions are also important. Lapp’s argument derives from his detailed division of texts into discrete thematic groupings, that do not overlap in written sequences. Traditional methods of textual criticism can be applied effectively to such coherent sequences of spells, where they can be traced as textual units over time and through a range of sources,29 although gaps in the record are huge, and the problems of dating coffins and of the interrelationships between sites are extraordinarily complex. Moreover, the continuous textual traditions for many spells and groups of spells still only provide a part of the picture. Variation from one pyramid to another, and the later occurrence of ‘Pyramid Texts’ not actually attested in the Old Kingdom, implies that the texts inscribed on the

25 Schenkel, GM 28 (1978), 36–37. 26 Roccati, Or An 13 (1974), 161–92; Vernus, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 144–45. 27 Willems, GM 150 (1996), 99–109 and note also Roccati, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 110–11. 28 BSAK 3 (1989), 269–79; SAK 16 (1989), 193–94, 198; SAK 17 (1990), 233–34. 29 Kahl, Steh auf; SAK 22 (1995), 195–209; and cf. SAK 20 (1993), 95–107.

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pyramid walls do not represent the totality of the contemporary corpus. More important, these sequences are the component units of the wider corpus of ritual texts, and the process of transmission should not be seen as purely literary and textual, but inextricably linked with traditions of ritual use.30 It is probable that already at the height of the Old Kingdom there was an overlap between the royal rituals of the Pyramid Texts and those used in private tombs, and later known as Coffin Texts.31 There does appear to have been a general revival of the cult in the Memphite pyramid temples in the early Middle Kingdom,32 if the cults had ever died completely,33 but a continuity of ritual knowledge and performance seems most likely, along with a continuous influence from royal rituals to those of private cults. Old Kingdom private rituals are poorly known, but the Coffin Texts are heterogeneous, with considerable overlaps that should reflect a continuum of both ‘royal’ and ‘private’ ritual back into the Old Kingdom. The Pyramid Texts belong to a period when extensive continuous texts first appear in writing. They precede – and the Coffin Texts are probably contemporary with – the earliest writing of more secular literature and the development of the idea of the written book.34 They stand at the beginning of Egyptian literature, when the writing of continuous text was a novelty, so that the procedures by which they were written down and later transmitted are central themes defining the foundations of cultural history. The assumption that Pyramid Texts simply represent a stable and ancient oral tradition, first written down in the later Old Kingdom, belongs to the romantic intellectual climate of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is rooted in universalist preconceptions of cultural evolution. In crude form such assumptions are neither substantiated nor substantiable on the basis 30 For the ritual significance of the grouping of spells see Willems, Heqata, 81–83. 31 Cf. Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 236–37; and note Altenmüller, JEA 57 (1971), 146–53 for an attempt to relate the offering ritual of the Unas pyramid to that illustrated in Old Kingdom private tombs. 32 E.g., for Unas see Altenmüller, SAK 1 (1974), 13 with stress on continuity from Old to Middle Kingdom; for the Abusir pyramids note Bareš, ZÄS 118 (1991), 96. 33 Note Schenkel, in Westendorf (ed.), Beiträge zum 17. Kapitel, 36 for priests who served the cult of both Teti and Merikare (see Firth and Gunn, Teti Pyramid Cemeteries I, 187f.; II, pl. 27B; Quibell, Excavations at Saqqara (1905–1906), pl. XIV; and cf. Málek, Hommages Leclant IV, 203–14. 34 Cf. Roccati, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, esp. 110–11; Blumenthal, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 130–35.

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of hard evidence.35 The widespread exploitation of formulaic phraseology is an important feature of these texts, but this is a characteristic of their performative role rather than an indication of ‘oral’ origins. The issue is not, however, simply the depth of time in which specific forms of text might have been used in ceremony without writing,36 nor the extent to which an earlier date might be argued for particular theological elements in the texts,37 nor their archaic-seeming language,38 nor claims that cultural survivals might be detected in an individual text. More important to both the purpose and the form of the texts are their contemporary relevance, at the date they appear in writing, and the way in which they were then used, both in performance and in transmission. Rituals are, of course, conservative of their nature. Forms of ritual behaviour, ritual actions, and their spoken accompaniment must be older, but it is futile to speculate about cultural survivals from some indeterminate and undocumented past. The Cannibal Hymn, with its evocation of the ritual of the butchered bull, should represent a contemporary mobilisation of the divine world, in the reigns of Unas and Teti, whether in performance or through inscription, and regardless of the fact that this was not the beginning of ritual butchery in Egypt, and that the themes of the text are unlikely to be new or original. The immediate issue is the relevance of the text and its imagery for the cult of the king in the late Old Kingdom, and the relationship of this imagery to later sacrificial rituals. There are no compelling reasons to date the written form of the Pyramid Texts significantly earlier than their first appearance in the

35 Cf. Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 30–41, 267–68. 36 Note Grimm’s superficial argument in SAK 13 (1986), 99 that the quantity and variety of Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty excludes a previous purely oral transmission. 37 Most recently, for instance, Edward’s suggestion in Hommages Leclant I, 159–67 that architectural features in the Great Pyramid might be related to theological developments traceable in Pyramid Texts. 38 While the grammar of the Pyramid Texts in general seems to be ‘earlier’ than that of the tomb autobiographies of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, this is at least partly explicable as a literary feature. The later pyramids in this respect show more ‘modern’ forms in a number of respects, perhaps reflecting contemporary additions to the corpus, although remaining more ‘archaic’ than contemporary tomb inscriptions: see Allen, Inflection of the Verb, 509–12. For the problems of dating language associated with the transmission of Coffin Texts cf. Roccati, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 110.

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Pyramid of Unas,39 which coincides with a significant increase in the use of writing in general in the later Fifth Dynasty. The earliest Pyramid Texts may be taken to stand as partial and incomplete evidence for the process by which an extensive corpus of ritual texts was put into writing in the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties.40 New, or newly written texts were added to the corpus throughout the Sixth Dynasty,41 and later sources preserve ‘Pyramid Texts’ that are not attested, perhaps merely by chance, in the Old Kingdom. This primary collection had a certain canonical value for later pharaonic Egypt, but in reality the corpus which survives on pyramid walls should be considered as representative of a general process of writing and so canonisation of ritual formulations, and not as a complete, exclusive, or indeed coherent body of texts. This corpus was greatly expanded and modified, explained or presented in different ways at later periods, but the core vision of Egyptian religion already existed by the late Old Kingdom, and the texts themselves were used, reused, mined and adapted throughout Egyptian history.42 My use here of texts from widely differing dates to 39 So Altenmüller, Begräbnisritual, 77, 279; LÄ V, 19–20, s.v. ‘Pyramidentexte’; Studien Otto, 38–39 using internal textual arguments. Cf. also Kees, in Altenmüller et al., Literatur, 58–60; Kahl, Steh auf, 25–26. 40 It is significant that the characteristic oral and poetic devices of word-play and allusion are paralleled in the Pyramid Texts by similar visual plays and allusions that depend on the choice of hieroglyphic signs and spellings. The conscious exploitation of visual form is a central feature of the literary consciousness of the Egyptian elite from the beginning, related to the pictorial form of the script and a scribal consciousness of pictorial usage. It was not merely an eccentricity of ‘cryptographic’ or ‘sportive’ writing, or of the ‘figurative’ writings of the GraecoRoman temples. By choice of sign, the sophisticated displayed a visual-literary understanding of their written medium. It shows a formal consciousness, within the scribal tradition, of written form and of its special character vis-a`-vis the oral medium: cf. Winter, in Helck (ed.), Tempel und Kult, 65–76 for a perceptive discussion of the scribe/artist’s choice of spellings and signs. 41 See Allen, Occurrences supplemented by Allen, Inflection of the Verb, xv–xvi, 659–98. 42 See Allen, Occurrences; Žabkar, JEA 66 (1980), 127–36 and Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 237; Willems, Essays te Velde, 344; Graefe, Fs Derchain, 129–48; Morenz, Ling Aeg 6 (1999), 105–09. The tomb of Senmut (TT353), who shows an unusual and personal ‘academic’ interest in the exploitation of writing conventions and in the use of old texts, provides an important example, of ‘liturgies’ used in apparently original ways, from the Book of the Dead and the corpus of Sun Hymns as well as from the Pyramid Texts: see Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 82–84; Eyre, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 418, and cf. Assmann, LÄ

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illustrate mythological content in the Cannibal Hymn is liable to create errors, but it is not unjustified, since it focuses on structure and the continuity of cultural patterns.43 It creates fewer errors, with Egyptian material, than an overly historical and quasi-evolutionary approach that overstates change, and assumes a progression from early simplicity to mature complexity. The use of a Pyramid Text in a Roman temple inscription is not a mere survival of the archaic and exotic, essentially without meaning. It is, rather, evidence of a cultural continuity and an enduring theological vision. Although lack of data typically makes speculation about the detail of textual transmission futile, it is important that from the Fifth Dynasty on, sets of phrases and specific themes are recycled in different hymns and spells, for different performative connects, from what appears to be a common formulaic canon of ritual phraseology. There has been very considerable academic interest in the application of text-critical techniques to examine the written transmission of certain key spells or groups of spells through the funerary literature – Pyramid Texts into Coffin Texts and then Book of the Dead – where a body of text is preserved on a sufficient number of individual monuments or manuscripts. This emphasises the importance of specifically written transmission, and the interrelation between monuments and the manuscripts from which their texts were copied; it emphasises copying technique, and the role of the written text as a physical object. It does not, however, provide a full picture of the processes of transmission, nor address the issue of textual development through use in performance.44 Particularly neglected, in this context, have been the thematic and textual interrelationships between distinct spells and groups of spells: the problem of horizontal rather than vertical transmission, in terms of the identity of theme or the formulaic use of lines of identical phrases or lines of text in different spells. No serious attempt has been made to VI, 998–1006, s.v. ‘Verklärung’: such texts as used in a variety of inscriptional contexts (tombs, stelae, statues, coffins) transmitted, he argues, via ‘Festrollen’: that is, service-books on papyrus. 43 Cf. the collection and comparative method of Allen, Genesis, and cf. Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 91 for stress on the complexity of content in early material. 44 The fact that stemma can be constructed for the manuscript tradition of these texts is a significant pointer to the written nature of their transmisson, to a process of objectification of the text, and to the authority of the written text as medium for recitation, but not an argument against their essential form or use as oral performance; see Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 54–86.

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assess the extent of formulaic patterns within the corpus of Pyramid and Coffin Texts, or to apply relevant quantitative techniques of analysis, although it is clear that formulaic repetitions are common. Since the texts are evidently based in ritual, they have stood outside the genres that have normally been considered appropriate for analysis as ‘oralformulaic’ poetry. It is, however, important that the use of formulaic patterns does not necessarily indicate purely oral roots for a text, even though the rather different formulaic patterns sometimes found in certain genres of written composition are somewhat neglected by mainstream theoretical approaches to literature. It is likely that formulaic usage in the Pyramid Texts should be taken as an indicator of complex and mixed processes of use and transmission that regularly characterise Egyptian ritual corpora as an intermediate category of written performance literature, and not as purely oral or purely written genres. The transmission of the Cannibal Hymn from Pyramid to Coffin Text is particularly instructive. Barta’s detailed comparative analysis of the wording45 stresses that relatively little of the Pyramid Text survives as exact word-for-word transmission into the Coffin Text: in detail there are many changes in both phraseology and grammatical construction. A significant number of sections drop out, and the Coffin Text changes the order of sections in a number of places, but makes few additions to the text: only two verses in the body of the text, and a set of eight new verses added to the end. Clearly the differences were not mediated by the types of error or change made in direct copying of a written text. They do, indeed, look more like the sort of changes made through and for use in performance, as a ritual text is exploited for recitation in changing context: patterns of change more appropriate to an oral transmission in performance, and not through copying or even deliberate editing of an authoritative written tradition.46

45 ZÄS 118 (1991), 18. 46 Cf. Assmann’s discussion, Fs Stadelmann, 235–45, of the invocation text used at the beginning of the offering ritual: a text with a long history, in variant forms and ritual contexts from the Coffin Texts until the Graeco-Roman temples, with stress on its litany-like recitational structure (p. 241) and that its transmission and variation depended on an unbroken liturgical use and not on archaising resurrection(s). Cf. also Assmann, Essays te Velde, 1–8 on CT Spell 22: a ritualist’s address to the offering recipient. In contrast, in discussion of the later reuse of Pyr. Spell 600 as the basis of the Ritual of Offering the Collar, Graefe, Fs Derchain, 129–48 stresses transmission as Archivüberlieferung (after Otto, Studi Rosellini II,

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A straightforward, classical pattern of text transmission is clearly relevant to the inscription of texts on coffins or in Books of the Dead, when the production of multiple copies was characterised by a degree of standardisation. At the height of the New Kingdom the writing of Books of the Dead seems almost to have resembled a production line. Yet in the Old Kingdom the text corpus for each pyramid was individually distinctive, and in the earlier Middle Kingdom individual coffins or groups of coffins show significant (often localised) variation in selection of spells. Variation in the wording of individual texts is paralleled by variation in the choice of spells for an individual corpus. From the perspective of classical textual criticism it is most natural to envisage the creation of each separate ‘edition’ for the individual monument as an exercise in critical editing.47 However, the textual relationships indicated by the synoptic text of a core ritual of cult or offering, assembled from a variety of sources, are extremely complex,48 and imply a process of adaptation that is not simply that of textual and written editing, but a mixed transmission influenced also by function in context. These technical questions of text transmission touch on a wide variety of cultural and historical problems. In the present context they are important as the basis for a discussion of how the Cannibal Hymn was used: whether the text had continuous (and continuously changing) usage as a ritual performance from the Fifth Dynasty into the Middle Kingdom, as the Coffin Texts might imply; or whether it was transmitted across the First Intermediate Period in purely written forms, reified as it were, as a physical symbol and as a magical thing in itself, no longer performed; or whether it might have dropped entirely from use, and been revived in an antiquarian spirit, copied from an old, redundant manuscript or monument, as the tomb of Senwosretankh might imply. The making of direct copies from monuments is attested in the New Kingdom49 and later,50 although in the vast majority of cases the

47 48 49 50

223–38) which he documents in terms of repetition of key words and formulae, which is to say not a canonical text but drawing on a textual koine. Cf. Vernus, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 162. See, for instance, Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 216–22 on the Offering Ritual and 223–40 on the Ritual for Purifying the Altar. E.g., Nims, Studies Hughes, 169–75. E.g., der Manuelian, SAK 10 (1983), 221–45; Eyre, Studies Lichtheim I, 144; 158–59 with references and discussion of the specific invitation to copy in the ‘address to the living’ from the tombs of Patjenefy and of Ibi, for which see

The Textual Transmission of the Cannibal Hymn

23

appearance of duplicate or closely related texts on different monuments evidently derives from a manuscript tradition. It must be assumed that the Pyramid Texts known from the Old Kingdom all belong to a single corpus, transmitted through a palace or a temple tradition, although for the Old Kingdom this is a distinction of no great practical significance.51 It is impossible to define the extent, format, and redactional practices of succeeding holders of that corpus, as they chose and prepared the selection for each individual pyramid. Nor is it possible to tell whether this corpus survived the First Intermediate Period as a whole. Despite the degree of canonical status, it is also possible that later scribes were reviving and reusing older textual material that had been preserved in diverse ways: individual papyri preserving individual rituals in constant use, and which overlapped in content with parts of the Pyramid corpus; parts of local rather than central archives; even inscriptions that were themselves accessible. If the Middle Kingdom use of the Cannibal Hymn attests to the creation of a new manuscript tradition, based on the text of an old manuscript or monument, then there is then no evidence for its continuous use in ritual practice. If the text genuinely dropped out of use, its original form and purpose in the Unas ritual is likely to have been forgotten, and when resurrected in antiquarian spirit it is likely to have been used with different emphases or in a different ritual context.52 Alternatively, the existence of a continuous manuscript tradition might imply that the rituals themselves continued to be performed. The related Coffin Texts would then be the result of a gradual and continuous process of productive reworking and reinterpretation in use, and not simply an archaising revival, reworked for a new theological emphasis. In fact, two parallel processes seem to be active. The primary transmission of the Cannibal Hymn from the Unas pyramid to that of Teti, and then to the tomb of Senwosretankh, seems to be essentially textual – on the basis of written copying and minor editing

Schenkel, MDAIK 31 (1975) 136–38 and Kuhlmann and Schenkel, Grab des Ibi I, 71–73 and pl. 23, lines 9–15; Baines, GM 4 (1973), 9–14. 51 Bickel, Cosmogonie, esp. 285–98 stresses the theological unity of the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, attributing this to the unity of a single coherent ‘Heliopolitan’ formulation. 52 Cf. Altenmüller, Studien Otto for just such a reinterpretation; cf. Barta, GM 120 (1991), 7–12, and Thompson, JEA 76 (1990), 17–25 on re-editing for use on Middle Kingdom coffins.

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The Cannibal Hymn

– while the transmission from the Pyramid to the Coffin Text seems more likely to involve a continuous development in performative use. The problem of the textual tradition is in this way important for understanding the relationship between the written text and the performance of the ritual, since in general the Pyramid Texts that appear in later contexts are not fossilised, nor simply archaic borrowings, but readaptations often for quite different purposes, as part of a living ritual tradition.53 They show a living and meaningful understanding of the contents of the texts,54 which is to say they typically reflect the use of an underlying common written tradition55 as a canonical sourcemine but not a canonical ‘book’. For rituals in regular use this was indeed capable of transformation through performance rather than literary editing.

53 Assmann, Studies Lichtheim I, 24. 54 Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 234. 55 Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 236; Assmann, Studies Lichtheim I, 8–13; Graefe, Fs Derchain, esp. 129–30, 148.

4

The Reconstruction of a Ritual Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

Ritual texts make up a remarkably large part of the surviving corpus of Egyptian writing. Their authors displayed both learning, and literary sophistication.1 The texts had the highest cultural prestige, and if not the first, they were among the first continuous texts written in the Egyptian script. Yet as texts they are largely inaccessible to a modern audience. There are a variety of reasons for this, and our limited knowledge of Egyptian theology, mythology and cult topography is the least important. The ritual text has a value far beyond the reconstruction of cosmology and mythological narrative. The crucial difficulty is their performative nature. The context of use – the performance – of a text is vital to its understanding: its wording and content alone are insufficient. The essence of the ritual lies in the integration of actions and words, performed together in a highly charged context. Words without actions, like actions without words, would fail to achieve an effective ritual unity. The one reflects, illustrates, and moves forward the other,2 but neither

1 Bickel, Cosmogonie, esp. 286–98 argues that an essential unity of theological vision runs through the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, representing a single milieu – the court and Heliopolis – of sophisticated and elite theological speculation separated from local and popular traditions. 2 Otto, Studi Rosellini II, esp. 225, 231; Egberts, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, esp. 357–60; Willems, Heqata, esp. 9–10 for a performative approach to ritual, following Tambiah, PBA 65 (1979), 112–69, and cf. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, esp. 40–43. Cf. also Assmann’s metaphorical categorisation of Egyptian theology by the functions of ‘heart’, ‘mouth’ and ‘hand’ in Hommages Leclant I, 56. Note also the use of a pun between md3t, ‘chisel’, or ‘book’, as a tool used in the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth: Willems, Heqata, 80–83, 392–93 with n.d for CT III, 299d = Spell 231, and Barthelmess, Übergang ins Jenseits, 110–11 for the equivalent New Kingdom tomb scene.

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has primacy,3 and neither can be decontextualised. However, the contemporary use of the Cannibal Hymn is far from self-evident from its form, or from its content, or from the physical context of its inscription. Characteristically, of course, any attempt to apply ‘anthropological’ criteria, or an ‘anthropological’ perspective to ritual data from Egypt is severely obstructed by the impossibility of direct observation, compounded by the absence of ancient descriptive narrative that might to some extent compensate, and defining performative context is surprisingly problematic. Ritual survives as a mixture of texts and pictures, that superficially appear to provide a full record of words and actions, and so facilitate a reconstruction. In practice, however, the very act of inscription – of writing or depicting, on papyrus and tomb or temple wall – is itself context-bound: the relation between inscribed text, vignette, and integrated ritual action is extremely complex, and the inscription is never intended to provide a direct narrative record. A classification by genre, according to formal literary criteria, does not really address the issue. The recitational style of ritual texts is generally explicit in their formulaic heading: dd mdw, ‘Saying of words’. Yet knowledge of the genre derives solely from the written text: the transcription of these spoken words as text on to papyrus or the wall of the tomb or temple in a format that is essentially equivalent to that of a service book – the words for recitation – with little (and never sufficient) narrative explanation for the occasion or manner of recitation. Ritual performances are indeed typically characterised as readings from a papyrus: ‘the ritualist (hrj-h.b) who will enact for me beneficial rituals … . according to that secret writing of the craft of the ritualist.’4

3 E.g., Guglielmi and Buroh, Essays te Velde, 104–06 on the standard daily ritual. Note, however, the essentially literary distinction drawn by Assmann, Studies Lichtheim I, esp. 21, between a ‘liturgy’ that is recitation, perhaps plus performance, and a ‘ritual’ which is performance plus recitation. For his categorisation of hymns according to format and function, as Verkünden – declaration – versus Verklären – mediation of process – see Assmann, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 313–34 and below. See also Assmann, in Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 68 (1994) Sonderheft, 107–23 for the relationship between ritual, recitation and a focus on theological thinking as defined by process. 4 E.g., Urk I, 186, 14–15; also Urk I, 187, 4–6, 13–17; 202, 15–17 = Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 1 and 34, p. 27; cf. Sainte Fare Garnot, L’appel aux vivants, 19–22 and Lapp, Opferformel, 151–52; Edel, MDAIK 13 (1944), 76.

The Reconstruction of a Ritual

27

Knowledge of that craft was defined by the possession of h.k3w ‘magic’: ‘I am an effective ritualist, who knows ritual (rh [h]t), and ˇ ˇnature, a never has any effective magic been hidden from me.’5 Of its service-book naturally tends to be something of an anthology: discrete units of ritual wording rather than coherent ritual narratives; variations, fragments, and material of a diverse nature, representative of a range of occasions and purposes, with alternative versions and variant services; distinct compositional units, that allow the ritual to be abbreviated, extended, or varied for the individual performance.6 In particular, it is implausible to look for a greater narrative continuity in the sequence of Pyramid Texts than is found later in the ritual or funerary texts of the New Kingdom or Late Period. Such texts are never intended as coherent narrative records of an individual performance, nor the script for an single specific performance,7 but typically contain a number of often apparently unrelated episodes. They survive from the tomb, where they symbolised the re-creation of a mixture of rituals, that might represent both the single and unique performance of a ritual for the tomb owner – such as mummification – and the continuing regular ritual for the benefit of individual deceased. The rarity of narrative ordering or explanation need be no surprise: by and large the ritualist may be assumed to have known the context for performance of his text and to need no rubric of instruction. However, the very fact of writing out the text is itself a contextualised act. Whether the text is in the format of a recitational tool – typically written on papyrus – or inscribed as a permanent reification of the words – typically as wall decoration – the writing itself oversteps the limits of the spoken word, in the way that it can eternalise the function as well as the performance of the ritual, and so potentially abstract itself from the spoken recitation.8 The fact that the text can now only be approached 5 Urk I, 202, 2 = Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 2 and 35, pp. 28–29 and cf. Sainte Fare Garnot, L’appel aux vivants, 28–29. 6 See Smith, Liturgy of Opening the Mouth, 6–18 for a recent balanced assessment of the issues, based on solid textual analysis. 7 See Lapp, Papyrus of Nu, 42–49 and Lüscher, Totenbuch Spruch 151, 12–17, 74–77 on the problems of reconstructing ritual sequences in the Book of the Dead, and Lüscher, Totenbuch Spruch, 51 on the problems even in a single ‘spell’; also Schott, MDAIK 14 (1956), 181–89 and Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 205 on the characteristic difficulty of defining coherence over the sections of a large ritual papyrus. 8 Cf. Assmann, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 29–30.

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through its written form severely complicates analysis of the relationship between words and actions within the ritual. The performance of a ritual does itself, however, also have a certain potential to transcend the boundary between speech and action. Speaking can itself be an action: speaking and naming are a central motif in the mythologised actions of the creator god, serving themselves as a mode of creation.9 The power of words may then seem to give them a privileged position and a certain priority over action10 in the performance of Egyptian ritual, although this is easily exaggerated from the characteristically literary nature of the record as text, and from the characteristically literary orientation of commentators. Nevertheless, the ability of words to substitute for and symbolise actions is clear: the assertion of the ritualist that something has happened may be sufficient to symbolise its performance, in the same way as depicting it on the wall. The underlying theme is illustrated most clearly in the Old Kingdom Address to the Living, where the visitor to the tomb is asked to perform an offering ceremony.11 In principle he should offer real food and drink12 and recite the appropriate ritual: ‘You give to me bread and beer from what is in your hand, [you] carry for me with your two hands, and you offer (wdn) with your mouth.’13 For the most part, however, the texts stress a sort of primacy for the oral part of the rite: ‘Hail, those living on earth, who shall pass by this tomb … being every

9 Cf. Bickel, Cosmogonie, 100–01, 106; Assmann, in Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 68 (1994) Sonderheft, esp. 110–12. 10 See, e.g., Assmann, Hommages Leclant I, 45–59; Smith, Cat. Dem. Pap. BM III, 20–22, 24, and see below. 11 For survey and assessment see LÄ I, 293–99, s.v. ‘Anruf an Lebende’; Lichtheim, Maat, 155–90. 12 E.g., Urk I, 75, 8–12 = Sainte Fare Garnot, Appel aux vivants, 24–26; Urk I, 76, 5–13 = Sainte Fare Garnot, Appel aux vivants, 43–44. 13 Urk I, 223, 17–224, 18 = Blackman, Meir IV, pl. IV = Sainte Fare Garnot, Appel aux vivants, 70–72. Cf. also, e.g., Urk I, 202, 15–203, 3 = Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 1 and 34, p. 27 = Sainte Fare Garnot, Appel aux vivants, 32–34: ‘the lector priest who will come into this tomb to do for me useful rites (ht ˇ 3ht) according to that secret writing of the craft of the lector-priest … recite for ˇ the s3hw apr … recite for me s3hw … . in the effective way (bw mnh) which me ˇ ˇ ˇ you know.’ Urk I, 223, 17 – 224, 18 = Blackman, Meir IV, pl. IV = Sainte Fare Garnot, Appel aux vivants, 70–72 is specific about both physical offerings and recitation.

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29

lector-priest, every man who shall give to me bread and beer [from] what is in your hand, (and) if you do not have in your hand, you shall say “A thousand of bread, a thousand of beer”.’14 The performance of the text provides an important abbreviation of the action – with stress on the fact that recitation is mere breath of the mouth, painless and without financial cost – while retaining the symbolism of a performed action, that in offering ceremonies may involve a reduction of the accompanying action to that of pouring water on the offering table.15 The degree of abbreviation of actions in performance is crucial to defining the use of a ritual text. For the Cannibal Hymn the underlying question is the extent to which the text was integrated with the performance of slaughter, and the consumption that it mythologises, or the degree to which a recitation was itself an iconic reduction or recreation of actions through words. The reduction of practice to a recitation accompanying limited symbolic action is characteristic of the way in which ritual is thoroughly integrated with magical performance.16 There is no distinction to be drawn between ‘religion’ and ‘magic’17 in formal cult and ritual in Egypt. The mixture of actions and words, the form, the content, and even the practitioners were the same.18 This theme is important in that the Cannibal Hymn is a ritual which asserts the absorption of the h.k3w ‘magic’ of gods through the action (or image) of eating. In wording, the Cannibal Hymn has a strong ‘magical’ style: its theme is to 14 Urk I, 197, 11–18, probably First Intermediate Period. Cf. also Drioton, ASAE 43 (1943), 503 = Lichtheim, Maat, 158–59, tomb of Khuy, Saqqara, Dyn. 6; Cairo 20003 = Daressy, Rec Trav 11 (1899), 83, Thebes, Dyn. 11; BM 128 [152] = HTBM II, pl. 34, Dyn. 12. 15 Cf. also Altenmüller, MDAIK 23 (1968), 8 for the suggestion that the smell of the anh-jmj-plant as offering might have served the same function of substitute. ˇ Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 11–19. 16 Cf. 17 For the issues in general see Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic. Gardiner, HPBM Third Series, I, 51 remarks that ‘Iamblichus notes as a peculiarity of the Egyptians that they had the habit of threatening their gods’, and see his wider discussion in the Hastings (ed.), Encyclopaedia, vol. 8, 262–69, s.v. ‘Magic (Egyptian)’. 18 Cf. Borghouts, LÄ III, 1137–51, s.v. ‘Magie’; Grapow, ZÄS 49 (1911), 48–54; Grapow and Westendorf, in Altenmüller et al., Literatur, 107–13; Baines, in Shafer (ed.), Religion, 164–72; Ritner, in Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 189–200; Ritner, Magical Practice, 1, 5–6, 244–47; Koenig, Magie et magiciens, esp. 307–10. For the cliché that liturgy is our ritual, and magic is theirs cf. also Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 6.

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compel and not to petition the god. This is more familiar, and perhaps seems more in keeping with the stock in trade of spells in magical and magico-medical works. However, the threat to destroy the god(’s offerings), or the cosmos as a whole, is widely used. Such an attempt to compel god is not outside the decorum of the Pyramid Texts, or of later mortuary literature.19

19 For explicit examples dealing with the sacrifice and offering of bulls see Pyr §§1025–28, 1322–26 and cf. Bickel, Cosmogonie, 230–31. For a negative assessment, see, e.g., the judgement of Caminos, in Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La Magia, 147, that Egyptian mortuary texts ‘consist for the most part of mere verbal sorcery.’

5

The Literary Format of Ritual Texts: Performative Literary Form Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’

A second issue is the poeticality of the texts. It is not simply that texts of any length are metrical. Our limited understanding of the principles of Egyptian metre1 does not seriously obstruct the division of texts into clauses and sentences, since these are themselves the principal metrical units. Problems of vocabulary are more difficult, since basic philology and lexicography are often insufficient to define meaning.2 However, the central feature of Egyptian literature was verbal art:3 features such as narrative coherence or characterisation are little developed, but a highly sophisticated integration of sound and meaning – a ‘poetic’ use of vocabulary – is the norm. The sound of the words was crucial to the performance of the ritual, to its imagery, and so to the definition of its meaning and purpose. In Derchain’s clear encapsulation, ‘Les figures les plus productives de théologie ont été la paranomase et l’allitération.’4 Every sort of play on sound and meaning is encountered again and again, not simply as occasional devices for effect, but as the core of

1 Fecht, LÄ IV, 1127–54, s.v. ‘Prosodie’ provides the most sophisticated statement of position; Burkard, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 447–63 for the most recent short explanation. 2 Cf. Tait, in Vleeming (ed.), Aspects of Demotic Lexicography, 95–108, on the limitations of lexicography for Egyptian in general, and cf. Borghouts, in Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La Magia, 29–30 and Willems, Heqata, 2 on its limitations in situational contexts of this sort. 3 Brunner, Grundzüge, 13; Eyre, Ling Aeg 8 (2000), 12–15, 25. For the background issues see Finnegan, Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts. 4 In Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 353–54 and cf. 360 for language games as a source of theology. The play on oral literary creation is itself a mode of understanding.

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Egyptian poetics.5 Alliteration and homophony, ambiguity and double meaning are crucial techniques in the play of echo and the contrast of meaning between juxtaposed phrases, characteristic of literary art that is focused on recitation. In a language where we cannot properly reconstruct the sound of a text, we can hardly hope to recognise more than a small proportion of the more obvious echoes created by deliberate oral and aural ambiguity. This poetic and allusive idiom permeates the whole meaning of Egyptian ritual texts in an inextricable mixture of the literal, the metaphorical and the symbolic.6 A hymn or ritual characteristically does not keep to a single narrative thread, or to a consistent mythological sequence, or to a single line of ideological or theological purpose, which is not to imply any lack in depth of thought or theological sophistication. One type of coherence derives from multi-layered processes of allusion and association,7 built around the actions and mythology that form the core of the ritual,8 and which may characteristically be triggered by a play on sound or meaning.9 Why a particular mythological allusion is made at a particular point in the text, why the text appears to go off at a particular tangent, is often unclear. It can sometimes seem, in reading a religious text, that it has been composed more as a mythological stream of consciousness than as a coherent expression of theological meaning,10 and this impression would probably be stronger if one could 5 Cf. Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 229–31; Guglielmi, LÄ VI, 22–41, s.v. ‘Stilmittel’; Guglielmi, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 465–97; Derchain, in ibid., esp. 354; Bell, in Shafer (ed.), Temples, 174; see also Eyre, Ling Aeg 8 (2000), 15–18. Specifically for the Pyramid Texts, see Firchow, Grundzüge der Stilistik, 215–36. 6 Assmann, Hommages Leclant I, 46 stresses the characteristic role of word play in the metonymic-metaphorical transfer of action to the different level of the divine world through ritual, quoting Altenmüller, Begräbnisritual, 66–68; and cf. Altenmüller, ZDMG Suppl. II, 11–12, 16; Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 189–93. 7 Cf. Roth, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 991–1003. 8 Cf. Willems, Heqata, esp. 10, 307, 324, and also 165–66 on the problems of mytho-theological reference in listing texts. 9 For specific examples see Willems, Chests of Life, 204–05; Guilhou, Études Lauer I, 221–31. 10 Bickel, Cosmogonie, 245–56 characterises the process as the exploitation of individual ‘mythemes’. A more subversive, but more positive view would be to regard this use of mythological ‘situation’ (the term is that used by Schott, Mythe und Mythenbildung: see Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 85) or ‘precedent’ (as used by Otto,

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re-create the sound of the words. Continuity in the recitation is at least as often provided by words and sounds than by a clear narrative sequence. Word-plays carry the recitation on, providing the connection from one stanza or couplet to the next just as effectively as a narrative connection. Ideas are developed by piling up similarly sounding words, at least as often as by following a logical narrative sequence. Indeed, the narrative can often be contradictory or repetitive and is characteristically episodic, in self-contained sections that may be as short as an individual line or couplet: it is then the short and aural memory span of the ear that provides the motive force by which the performance of the text is carried forward.11 In the same way, the actions of the ritual do not consist of the direct narrative performance of a myth.12 Rather they mobilise myth and a constellation of symbolic reference through performance, using the same processes of association and play on ideas that are characteristic of performative language. This includes actions and physical performance, even to the level of spectacle. The sequence of ideas develops by switching constantly between the action and the symbolic

Studi Rosellini II, 223–37) as motivated by much the same intellectual process and purpose as academic footnoting. It provides commentary, as well as performance, but in an ‘academically’ dissociated way, so that the same reference/text can be used in different ritual contexts, to the extent that ‘nicht in jedem Fall mit Sicherheit vom Text auf die zugehörige Ritualhandlung geschlossen werden kann’ (Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 234); cf. also Schott, Mythe und Mythenbildung, 50–54 specifically on ‘citations’. The habit of presenting such material as ‘glosses’ rather than interwoven in the text appears in Twelfth Dynasty Coffin Texts, cf. Schenkel, in Westendorf (ed.), Beiträge zum 17. Kapitel, 34–36; 69; Osing, LÄ II, 628–30, s.v. ‘Glosse’. For a useful structuralist approach to ‘citations’ and their relation to ‘narrative’ see Sternberg, Mythische Motive, esp. XV–XVII, 10–20, 211–12, and cf. also Zeidler, GM 132 (1993), 106. 11 Eyre, Ling Aeg 8 (2000), 19–25. 12 The argument that narrative myth was essentially a New Kingdom invention in Egypt (see, e.g., Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 290–92 and cf. 287) is fundamentally implausible, simply reflecting the preserved literary record of the New Kingdom, which contrasts to the non-narrative or purely embedded narrative use of myth in earlier ritual texts. See Bickel, Cosmogonie, 265–76 for a critical discussion of the issue of narrative in myth, with a rejection of the preconception that myth is naturally narrative: a preconception derived from the Classical tradition and reinforced by anthropological practice of recording myth as narrative. Note also Willems, Heqata, 13.

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association.13 The literal and the symbolic become thoroughly integrated in both the words and the actions of a ceremony such as a butchery ritual. Each successive action produces a new or different metaphor, but that metaphor can itself raise the idea of a literal and not purely metaphorical development. The metaphor can then be carried to a logical, literal end. This is not, however, an Egyptian peculiarity. Ritual texts, whether they are the accompaniment or the focus of a performance, are necessarily allusive and portmanteau.14 The core format of early Egyptian literature was encyclopaedic listing, and the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in Egypt was a process of codification through listing. This stands in contrast to narrative explanation or logical analysis, which it did not include: the list was itself sufficient.15 This characteristic of Egyptian science is central also to religious knowledge, especially as manifest in ritual texts. The parallel between scientific and ritual method – and incidentally magical practice – is important, since both worked through processes of observation, collection and association: the accumulation of experience, applied by analogy and association, and not the explicit definition of first principles or laws for the analysis of data. In a scientific or technical context, as in ritual, the highest appeal is to successful experience in practice: the medical prescription, the magical conjuration and the ritual performance are all ‘found a million times true’ or ‘efficacious’.16 The ritual text in general defines ‘god’ by naming him rather than narrating him. This is evident in the ‘nominal style’ characteristic of pre-New Kingdom praise texts, including divine and royal hymns:17 Egyptian hymns tend to appear as a sort of mythological naming and listing of the numerous manifestations of god, in all his cult places and

13 Cf. Willems, Heqata, 324: ‘Whereas attempts to understand the text as a coherent mythological discourse are bound to end in failure, each mythological statement can be understood as an allusion to a ritual act.’ 14 Cf. Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 100: ‘Egyptian religion centred neither on narratives nor on dogmas; it was diverse and perhaps centred on ritual and the cult of the gods’, and similarly Bickel, Cosmogonie, 257–58 on descriptive rather than narrative form. See also Baines, JNES 50, (1991), 89–90 for comparison to the use of ‘myth’ in Christian rituals, for which cf. also Allen, Genesis, x. 15 Cf. Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 100–4. 16 Note Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 53, 152–53 specifically on the Amduat. 17 Grapow, ZÄS 79 (1954), 17–27.

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all his forms,18 and the declarative function of such hymns is characteristic as a mode of disseminating knowledge about the god.19 There is continual and specific reference to mythological events, to cosmology20 and to the nature of the gods. The Cannibal Hymn provides a contrast, since it does not fit this common genre of aretalogy, characteristic of so many liturgical or ceremonial hymns, but takes its format from the process – almost narrative – of ritual action. This quasi-narrative structure may itself be taken as an indicator of the context for its recitation.

18 Schott, Deutung der Geheimnisse, esp. 155–57, 170; Assmann, Ägypten: Theologie und Frömmigkeit, 102–07; Assmann, LÄ III, 106, s.v. ‘Hymnen’; Hornung, Conceptions of God, 86–91. For extreme examples see, e.g., Faulkner, Ancient Egyptian Book of Hours; Piankoff, Litany of Re. 19 Assmann, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 313–34, esp. 318–20, 329–30. Cf. also Assmann, LÄ III, 1062–66, s.v. ‘Litanei’ and 425–34, s.v. ‘Aretalogie’. This does, however, also raise wider general issues of the oral-performative styles characteristic of Egypt, where narrative epic is not known, but more eulogistic literary genres are familiar; cf. Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 9–13, 70, 78–79, 126; also 115–16 specifically on allusion and the question of restricted (= initiate) audiences. 20 Sternberg, Mythische Motive, XVII, 12–13; Allen, Genesis, and Sauneron and Yoyotte, in La naissance du monde, 17–91 collect and list the data towards reconstruction of the underlying philosophy; cf. also Assmann, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 329–30 on creation as the central theme of Egyptian theology.

6

The Pictorial Format of Ritual: Iconic Representation Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The ritual environment was a thorough integration of recitation and action, that is then transmitted as a partial record in both words and pictures, which need to be approached as a unity: there is an underlying similarity in the way in which text and picture may symbolise the essence of an object1 or re-create the essence of actions. The texts and pictures which decorate the inner walls of Egyptian temples and tombs provide an extensive record of the rituals performed there,2 but despite this mass of evidence the record is never complete. It is always episodic, and the material is representative rather than narrative.3 The depiction is characteristically iconic, avoiding incidental detail that would allow it to be limited in time or place.4 The programme of decoration5 had

1 Cf. Bickel, Cosmogonie, 100–1. 2 Kees, in Altenmüller et al., Literatur, 105–6. 3 Derchain, RdÉ 15 (1963), 11–25, esp. 12, and 25 on the Sokar chapel at Dendera, stresses how the depictions ‘exprime synthétiquement le résultat auquel aboutissent les cérémonies exécutés’ by the liturgy referred to in the bandeau texts; similarly Derchain, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 96: that temple decoration is not so much the representation of rituals, but itself a ritual act. Cf. Baines, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 223 and Teeter, Presentation of Maat, 37–48 on the difficulty of placing even the commonest of ritual scenes in a context of performance. See also Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 103–4 on the non-narrative, performative and creative nature of temple relief; cf. also Otto, Verhältnis, 9–11, and Assmann, Funktionen on the claimed absence of myth from temple relief. 4 Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 124–26 for the specific issue of butchery scenes. 5 Winter, Untersuchungen 13, 16; Labrique, Stylistique et théologie, 1–8; Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 389–91, 412–18; Derchain, CdÉ 37/73 (1962), 31–44; Arnold, Wandrelief und Raumfunktion; Kurth, Dekoration des Säulen; Osing, GM 44 (1981), 39–47; Vassilika, Ptolemaic Philae, 1–5 with recent bibliography; Labrique, Stylistique et théologie, esp. 4–8, Gutbub, Mélanges Vercoutter, 123–36; Cauville, Essai sur la théologie.

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37

wider functions beyond the purely pictorial representation of the ritual, or its material re-creation. That is to say, its purpose was more than a direct and permanent ‘magical’ reification6 of the ritual, independent of actual human participation. To a certain extent the decoration is simply decorative, carried out with a certain exuberance because the wall was there, and it could be decorated for pleasure, display and simply aesthetic reasons. In a contradictory way, however, the wall serves also as a writing surface, on which scenes and texts are inscribed according to rules that may be better derived from a literary than a representational motivation: the wall as a book rather than a picture.7 In other respects the decoration was concerned with the temple or tomb as a living thing in itself:8 a representation of the cosmos,9 or part of the cosmos, in which its gods are immanent, and as such a living statement – made both to gods and men – of the patterns of order that related the king to the divine world, and god to the created world.

6 Note Yoyotte, BSFE 87–88 (1980), 46–75 on depictions relating to the ritual of pacifying Sakhmet, with the suggestion the huge series of Sakhmet statues of Amenophis III were a material representation of the basic liturgy of that ritual. Cf. also, in contrast, the comments of Eschweiler, Bildzauber, esp. 1, 5–6, 166–78, 185 on the iconisation of the picture/vignette acting to separate it from actual performance. 7 Graefe, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 143–56, and esp. 143–44, 153–54, stressing that scenes are not so much pictures ‘sondern wie großformatige Schriftzeichen’, where the dissociation of ritual scenes on the wall from the place of performance of the ritual is an indicator of the way in which such vignettes are to be ‘read’ like inscriptions and not pictures; similarly Derchain, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 359 on the ‘literary’ element of temple art; also Derchain-Urtel, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 99–105, and esp. 104, analysing the compositional integration between the illustration and the texts as literary compositions; and cf. Assmann, Interpretation in Religion, 87–109. The theme is much clearer on the walls of New Kingdom tombs, where some texts deliberately imitate the appearance of papyrus books. 8 Blackman and Fairman, JEA 32 (1946), esp. 84. 9 For the royal tomb, see Baines, in O’Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship, 139 and for the parallel of the palace O’Connor, ibid. 291–93. For the private tomb see Kamrin, Cosmos of Khnumhotep II.

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Figure 1 King roasting duck. Temple of Luxor

The ritual scenes and texts were then selected to fulfil a range of ideological purposes that can rarely be fully comprehended.10 Egyptian ritual itself operates at separate levels, which are themselves presented in different ways in what Assmann11 refers to as the ‘monumental discourse’: action, iconic representation, and recitation, which is to say the human level rooted in the performance of real actions, the representational level, and the linguistic level at which verbal 10 For instance, it is often unclear whether ideological or purely practical explanations underlie variation in the same sets of reliefs and texts; cf., e.g., Nims, Studies Hughes, 169–75, esp. 173–74 on the relationship between the Ramesseum and Medinet Habu. 11 Interpretation in Religion, 87–109; also in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, esp. 25–27, 30 on the interpretative problems.

The Pictorial Format of Ritual

39

communication with the deity is invoked through mythological identification. As a specific example Assmann invokes the motif of offering a duck or goose from the standard daily ritual of the New Kingdom.12 The real action consisted of the preparation and presentation by a priest of cooked portions of meat to a statue; the iconic representation of the temple relief shows the king manipulating the bird on a brazier in the presence of the god; the text identifies specific portions with the eye of Horus and the testicles of Seth, which the god is satisfied to receive. The ‘iconic’ level, in the sense of a picture, is missing from the Pyramid Texts as they are inscribed on the wall, and the relevant pictorial decoration of the pyramid temples is almost entirely lost.13 Nevertheless, the role and context of the Cannibal Hymn in ritual action and verbal performance cannot be understood without an explicit analysis of this representational role of the text as inscription – even as artefact – within the decorative corpus. The inscription itself partially fulfils the iconic role, by providing the first stage of abstraction from performance. It serves as the link between the text as a record of real ritual actions and its symbolic and iconic role as a literary-performative artefact in the mythological-theological mediation of the passage of the king from one life to another. The sequences of ritual texts and scenes inscribed on monuments were, therefore, never intended to be merely narrative.14 At best it is difficult to relate episodes to each other, and at worst it can be impossible to place them into a meaningful order of ceremony.15 Nevertheless, 12 Interpretation in Religion, 94–96. 13 Lapp, Opferformel, 185–89 assesses the relation of relevant text to surviving pictures for the offering ritual. Willems, Heqata, passim, discusses an unusual group of early Middle Kingdom coffins where the texts are accompanied by pictures of ritual, and focuses on the wider issue of the relationship between the Frieze of Objects and the rituals of the Coffin Texts; cf. also Willems, Essays te Velde, 343–72. 14 Cf. Nelson, JNES 8 (1949), 204 on the reliefs as representational summary of what existed on the papyrus roll. Note the comment of Labrique, Stylistique et théologie, 8 on the interrelationships of scenes, and series of scenes that are related in content and by position but which deal with different rituals, and how they should be read: ‘le sens est entre les lignes, entre les sce`nes, entre les séries’ (author’s italics). See also Baines, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 223. 15 For serious attempts that illustrate the difficulties see, e.g., Nelson, JNES 8 (1949), 201–32; 310–45 and David, Religious Ritual at Abydos for the daily ritual; Lapp, Opferformel, 153–92 for the offering ritual; for the ritual of opening the mouth see

40

The Cannibal Hymn

parallel data from a range of sources can help interpretation,16 and like ritual papyri the walls do provide the raw material for a service-book for the cult, even if is clear that the monuments do not provide the complete or direct recording of an individual service as performed.

Otto, Mundöffnungsritual, with commentary on its purpose by Roth, JEA 78 (1992), 113–47, and cf. Blackman and Fairman, JEA 32 (1946), 75–91 with Žabkar, Hymns to Isis, 85–89, 100–1 for use of essentially the same ritual for consecrating, or rather bringing to life, the temple. This particular series illustrates the problem of relation between the text held by the ritualist and the inclusion or addition of pictures, whether as relief or as vignette on a papyrus, since the Edfu text discussed by Blackman and Fairman claims to be ‘Excerpts from the Directory of a Master of Ceremonies (Edfou IV, 330, 15)’, but consists only of a list of rubrics or captions. For the ritual of the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus see Altenmüller, JEOL 19 (1967), 421–42 and LÄ I, 1132–40, s.v. ‘Dramatischer Ramesseumpapyrus’, with discussion by Barta, SAK 4 (1976), 31–43 and criticism by Wente, Studies Wilson, 83–91. For surveys of known rituals see Helck, LÄ V, 271–85, s.v. ‘Rituale’; Goyon, Rituels funéraires; Goyon, LÄ I, 1140–44, s.v. ‘Dramatische Texte’ for the re-creation of myth in such rituals. For a brief survey of studies of rituals in Graeco-Roman temples see Labrique, Stylistique et théologie, 1–2. 16 Specifically for the Unas offering ritual see Altenmüller, JEA 57 (1971), 146–53, with Kees, ZÄS 57 (1922), 92–120 for later versions of the text.

7

Text Corpus and Placing on Wall Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The main stumbling block in attempts to provide a global explanation to the Pyramid Texts, as for other Egyptian ritual texts, is the issue of narrative continuity. The Pyramid Texts themselves are not illustrated by vignettes or relief sculpture. Nor are they accompanied by the detailed ritual directions1 that sometimes appear, for instance, in the rubrics to spells in the Book of the Dead. With the exception of some of the offering rituals, where lists or details are given of the objects to be offered, the Pyramid Texts only preserve the ritual recitations:2 only the wording, without the accompanying actions or the context of performance that is provided to a limited extent by later temple reliefs or illustrated papyri. Nevertheless, it is inherently implausible to envisage the vast majority of Pyramid Texts as specifically symbolic compositions, created primarily for their use as inscriptions, and so dissociated from actual performance. Reconstruction of the liturgy as practised must necessarily be an imaginative exercise, requiring a connection to be made between the mythological and ritual context of the individual spell, its position in

1 For the importance of titles to the ritual context of Coffin Texts see Willems, World of the Coffin Texts, 197, 203–07; Heqata, 273–83. See, for instance, the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus, where each episode is represented by picture, description, mythological explanation and recitation for the action: Altenmüller, LÄ I, 1132–40, s.v. ‘Dramatischer Ramesseumspapyrus’. Cf., for example, Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 130–31, 157–58 for the type of directions for use/performance of specifically ‘hymnic’ texts. Note also Assmann, Interpretation in Religion, 100–2 on the relation action–picture–text. 2 The isolated example of a Pyramid Text with title is Spell 355 (§572a), only in the Pyramid of Teti, which is entitled ‘Opening the Doors of Heaven’. For an attempt to exploit the limited ritual instructions in the Pyramid Texts see Grimm, SAK 13 (1986), 99–106.

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sequence on the pyramid wall, and a vision of how, when, by whom and where the ritual might be performed. There is no compelling evidence to answer any of these questions in the texts themselves. The ordering of text in the pyramid of Unas has a limited primacy and canonical status for the sequence of spells in later copies. It is not clear, however, whether this reflects the historical integrity of a written transmission or the existence of a series of coherent liturgical unities that were independent of the written text. In practice the text corpus for each pyramid has a degree of individual unity and coherence, and the necessity to treat the text of each pyramid as a unity is clear.3 There is considerable variation in the selection and positioning of individual spells from pyramid to pyramid: a variation that is likely to be significant for the performance of the rituals, but that can rarely be explained in more than a general way.4 At a lower level, certain groups of spells are clearly identifiable as ritual sequences by their unity of content and their transmission as blocks of text from one monument or manuscript source to another. Variations in sequence are then central to both ritual reconstruction and the understanding of textual transmission itself. Textual integrity is clearest in the way in which groups of these spells form identifiable units in the later pyramids, and in Middle Kingdom tombs and coffins.5 There is, however, no clear internal evidence to show how the groups of spells form coherent passages: whether as episodes of one single ritual, or variants on a basic core liturgy that allowed for extended or abbreviated performances on different occasions. It is not clear whether the inscriptions comprised a total ritual book for the pyramid, made up of a variety of unconnected rituals, for all areas of the pyramid complex, whether they are an incomplete anthology, or whether they are incomplete liturgy, restricted to specific ritual themes or occasions of performance. It is plausible, in principle, to attempt a reconstruction of these texts as a single ritual sequence making up the burial ritual of the

3 Cf. Leclant, in Textes et langages II, 44–45, 49–50. 4 Altenmüller, ZDMG Suppl. II, 8–17. 5 E.g., Barta, GM 120 (1991), 7–12 on the offering ritual, esp. 7–8 stressing the primacy of the order of the Unas pyramid for continuing use on Middle Kingdom coffins. On reconstruction of the ceremony of the offering ritual see Lapp, Opferformel, 182–92; Willems, Heqata, 85–88; and note also Altenmüller, JEA 57 (1971), esp. 149. For the ritual significance of grouping of spells in general see Willems, Heqata, 81–83.

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Egyptian King.6 The problem then becomes one of order and place of performance for each ritual unit within the pyramid complex as a whole. Such a treatment is easy to criticise, in that it necessarily forces the interpretation of individual units of text into the procrustean bed of a continuous narrative, when the organisation of spells on the wall is a mixture of thematic, ritual and architectural sequences. Moreover, the logic of such a treatment is that a separate ritual should be constructed for each pyramid, as the order and content of spells in the royal burial ritual changed from reign to reign. In practice the primary organisation of text on the pyramid wall seems to derive from the relation – symbolic more than performative – between the content of the Spells and the architectural context of the pyramid substructure. This is seen in obvious ways in the Unas pyramid: for instance, the basic offering ritual is inscribed next to the sarcophagus on one side, and on the other side are Spells 213–15, which assert the resurrection of the king, and identify the parts of his body as individual deities that themselves make up the creator god.7 Apotropaic spells fill the gable above the sarcophagus.8 Spell 313, which deals with opening the doors of heaven, is placed at the pyramid entrance. This ‘narrative’ is architectural, and not that of performance order.9 This is

6 Schott, Pyramidenkult; Spiegel, Auferstehungsritual; Altenmüler, Begräbnisritual. Altenmüller, LÄ I, 745–65, s.v. ‘Bestattungsritual’ provides the basic survey, with critical summaries by Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 1–46, and see esp. 50–52, 64–65. Note also Piankoff, Pyramid of Unas, 9–11, on the problem of where such a narrative should begin on the wall. For the parallel issues of relating a continuous ritual to the architecture of the pyramid complex as a whole see Arnold, MDAIK 33 (1977), 1–14 and in Shafer (ed.), Temples, 51, 72 for a sceptical view, against the more optimistic approach of Stadelmann, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 8–15. For a more complex approach see also O’Connor, Fs Stadelmann, 135–44. Willems, Heqata, passim, but note esp. 363–66, provides a more successful analysis of the ritual ordering of spells on an early Middle Kingdom coffin through a more thorough integration of the semantic (that is symbolic and cosmological) relationship of texts with that of their sequence of ritual performance; cf. also Barguet, RdÉ 23 (1971), 15–22. 7 Cf. Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 141. 8 Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 132–34. 9 Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 7–9. Compare Willems, Heqata, esp. 2–6 for comparable analysis of the specific position of individual Coffin texts on different parts of the coffin. See also Willems, Essays te Velde, 343–72, with explicit reference to the complex, even contradictory themes underlying the position of individual discrete elements.

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clearest, for example, with Spell 532,10 a text that is found only in the Pyramid of Pepi I, where it is inscribed in the entrance passage just before the portcullis. In format the spell is a recitation in the first person, put in the mouth of Horus, to prevent the entry of evilintentioned gods, while allowing the king to pass freely to his afterlife in the sky; it ends with a short curse threatening judgement against anybody damaging the pyramid, mobilising a general theme familiar from contemporary private tombs. Osing11 argues that the spell is essentially an address to a door, perhaps the main door of the whole pyramid complex. As such it should be regarded as an external spell, and insofar as it represents a ritual recitation – perhaps more likely a dedication or endowment ritual than part of the burial or the continuing offering ritual – this should be an external ceremony that has been transferred symbolically to an appropriate section of the wall of the substructure, in a way that is characteristic of the productive reuse and transfer of performative text to the written medium of a monument. Exploitation of a narrative coherence in representation of the ritual falls far behind symbolic and spatial ordering as a principle of decoration: the ordering of the ritual material is to a considerable extent defined by general principles of a largely symbolic nature, modified by the ad hoc resolutions necessary to fill the space available.12 Allen’s analysis of the sequence of spells in the pyramid of Unas defines the architecture as a material representation of the passage of the king through death to resurrection, exploiting themes familiar in the Underworld Books of the New Kingdom.13 From the darkness of

10 Osing, Hommages Leclant I, 279–84. 11 Hommages Leclant I, 284. 12 Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 5–28 for the Unas pyramid, and with survey of earlier discussions of the underlying issues. Mathieu, Études Lauer II, 289–304 develops Allen’s argument in imaginative and original ways, but his associations and conclusions go far beyond what is justified by the sources. See also O’Connor, Fs Stadelmann, 135–44 for a more complex interpretation of the architectural ‘meaning’, developing through and beyond that of Allen. 13 Allen, Hommages Leclant I, esp. 24–28 and cf. Mathieu, Études Lauer II, 290–91. For the theme in general of the tomb as cosmos, and so material image of the process of the rite of passage see Lustig, Anthropology and Egyptology, 52–54 on the Middle Kingdom Tombs at Meir and Beni Hasan, and Doret, Essays Baer, 82–83 on the tomb of Ankhtifi, and for the coffin as cosmos see Willems, Chests of Life, 140–41, 156, 237. Compare also O’Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship, 289–91 on the royal emergence from the palace and royal

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the earth he passes to life in the light of the sky, progressing from the burial chamber as underworld (dw3t) through the antechamber as horizon (3ht) where he becomes 3h, through the doorway leading to ˇ – ascending by ladder ˇ– to heaven (pt), or passing like the the corridor setting sun from the west to his rising from the mouth of the horizon in the east, or exploiting the image of the king passing from his sarcophagus – the womb of Nut – through her vulva to birth at the door of the horizon. The Unas burial chamber itself contains rituals addressed to the king: the core offering rituals that accompany the presentation of offerings, inscribed on the north wall, and resurrection rituals inscribed on the south wall. Exceptional to this pyramid, however, the gables are inscribed with texts which Allen defines as ‘nonritual sequences meant originally for the personal use of the king, speaking in the first person’: protection spells on the west gable, and apparently a sort of response to the offering ritual, whereby the king establishes his independence of food supply on the east gable.14 The basic text of the offering ritual – the presentation of the offerings – occupies the north wall of the sarcophagus chamber in the Pyramid of Unas.15 The east wall of this chamber includes, on the gable, texts that give mythological context to the offering ritual. These appear to consist of a liturgy – recitation – that framed the performance of the offering itself.16 Along the south wall, and on the east wall proper, are a series of spells which assert the resurrection of the king: his continuing existence, his power, and his ascent to heaven.17 These spells are not evidently part of an offering ritual, and they do not greatly exploit the theme of the offering as an instrument of resurrection.18 They do, nevertheless, have a similar liturgical format. They are phrased as direct address, either to the king or to the gods who will receive him in the afterlife. The offering ritual is merely one episode, one metaphorical channel, in the liturgy for resurrection. The other

14 15 16 17 18

progression as image/metaphor of the sun’s daily progress, specifically at Amarna, and O’Connor, Fs Stadelmann, 135–44 on interpretation of the pyramid complex as a whole. Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 13–18. Spells 23–171. See Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 133, 136. Spells 204–12; cf. Kees, ZÄS 57 (1922), 92–120; Altenmüller, JEA 57 (1971), 149. Also Spells 223–24, which run down the north end of the east wall below. South wall, Spells 213–19; east wall, Spells 219–22. See Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 138–40. But note particularly §§188–92 at the end of Spell 219.

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texts are not so much accompaniments to the offering ritual as parallel approaches to the same end. The general theme of texts in the antechamber is also the resurrection of the king and his ascent to heaven. Differentiation from the texts of the sarcophagus chamber is limited, and on the face of it any difference lies more in the literary origin and textual transmission than in the liturgical content or context of the spells.19 The texts of the antechamber and its corridor Allen classes as primarily non-ritual: ‘for personal use of the king’s spirit as it makes its way to the next world’. Only isolated sections appear to be addressed to the king by an officiant, as the texts deal with the king’s emergence from Dw3t and his ascent to the sky. Allen notes that the sequence of spells on the east gable, which begins with the Cannibal Hymn, and the wall beneath (with its entrance to the uninscribed serdab) ‘on first reading … seems to lie outside the logical progression.’ He argues that in fact this apparently rather diverse group of spells – which indeed begins with the turmoil in the night (that is pre-creation) sky at the king’s appearance in the Cannibal Hymn – belongs thematically in this place, ‘detailing the king’s passage through the night sky to ultimate resurrection with the sun at dawn’.20 In this way Allen has greatly clarified the principles of ordering sets of spells on the pyramid walls, in sequences that give architectural priority to an orientation from inside to out, beginning in the west, and representing the direction travelled by the king from his sarcophagus to the sky. As far as possible in this general pattern, the sequence of column order is from right to left, corresponding to the characteristic order of columns on a papyrus roll.21 Allen’s analysis focuses on the principle whereby the position of discrete units of ritual text asserts a functional identity between the

19 Osing, MDAIK 42 (1986), 141 notes that texts of the sarcophagus chamber refer to Atum or Re-Atum, and those of the antechamber only to Re. For context he can only note that texts related to the physical body were placed close to the sarcophagus. See also below, pp. 73–75 on the issue of literary form and dramatic interchange. 20 Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 20–23. 21 Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 23–24. Mathieu’s discussion in BIFAO 96 (1996), 289–311 of the significance of the numerous textual corrections and alterations in inscription of the Pyramid of Unas is vitiated by his curious assumption (p. 292) that the columns of hieroglyphs were copied from hieratic originals written in horizontal lines.

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theology of the text and the architectural symbolism of the pyramid substructure, and so the reality of the king’s passage to resurrection. The underlying principles of organisation are therefore very similar to those seen later for texts on coffins. While such analysis throws considerable light on the theology of the pyramid, the royal cult and burial, it also emphasises that the texts do not provide a straightforward narrative sequence of ritual as performed. This should not, however, lead to an underestimation of the role of the individual text in or as performance.22 That is to say, Egyptian theology – at least as it is known to us – has an essentially performative frame, as opposed to a ratiocinative or philosophical one. This may be iconified physically in monumental form, including architecture or architectural decoration, or it may also be enacted in ritual actions or recitations, but it never becomes decontextualised into a separate genre of narrative or deductive logic.

22 From an extreme standpoint Piankoff, Pyramid of Unas, 9–11 visualises the texts as a mythological definition of the Underworld, and so avoids discussion of their performance in ritual; for criticism see Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 54–58.

8

Occasion of Performance: The Mythologisation of Reality Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

In principle it should be possible to relate the rituals of the Pyramid Texts to the archaeological and pictorial record of their period. In practice the place and timing for individual rituals is always difficult – even impossible – to fix. The limitations of the surviving archaeological remains and the problems of the textual format mean that any discussion of specific occasion(s) for recitation, or the composition of an audience, will be speculative.1 Indeed, Arnold2 has argued – if not to general acceptance – that the pyramid was not itself the site of the funeral, although he stresses its role as site of the continuing daily offering service. This raises some of the most difficult questions for a general understanding of the Pyramid Texts: To what extent are they purely and specifically a funerary anthology? To what extent do they include standard rituals from a wider context, adapted or absorbed into the ritual of the pyramid temple of the dead king? To what extent are they mere recitations? To what extent did they accompany series of ritual actions that make up the funerary ceremonies and mortuary cult?3 The difficulties in defining the relationship in ritual between the liturgical actions 1 Ritual texts may carry a note of when they should be performed (e.g. Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 63, 186, 250), although many, if not a majority of rituals were in practice independent units liable to be integrated into a variety of wider ritual complexes, performed on different occasions: see, e.g., Willems, Heqata, 221, 226–28, and cf. Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 383–85 for the diverse sequences of ritual units enacted in sequence to make up the Late Period Festival of the Beautiful Visit at Dendera. 2 Based on assessment of architectural practicalities, MDAIK 33 (1977), 1–14 and in Shafer (ed.), Temples, 51, 72. See, however, Stadelmann, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 8–15 for a different, more open and optimistic view, and cf. also O’Connor, Fs Stadelmann, 135. 3 Schott, Pyramidenkult, esp. 223–24; Bonnet, JNES 12 (1953), 268–69; Altenmüller, Begräbnisritual, 5, 208–09; ZDMG Suppl. II, 8–17; Studien Otto esp.

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and the texts used to accompany them4 are complicated by the way the texts themselves were reinterpreted in use, or exploited in different ritual contexts.5 It was normal, also to exploit varieties of symbolic meaning. Complexities of reference were of the essence. In the late Fifth Dynasty, the Cannibal Hymn should have had a ritual context in which an assertion and demonstration of power was made and mythologised as a rightful claim to inheritance and to the afterlife. This may have been part of a funerary ritual, or the accompaniment and ritualisation of an offering ceremony, or simply a selfstanding recitation. It seems reasonable to assume that the performance of pyramid rituals was not generally accessible to a general public, but withdrawn into the sacred environment of the pyramid complex: a characteristically separated – which is to say sacred – context for ritual. The temple sanctuary, the tomb offering-place, and the service-book of the professional expert do indeed provide the normal sacred and restricted contexts in which ritual is documented.6 The typical bias of data towards prestige and elite contexts means that there is little direct evidence for the private ritual behaviour of the Egyptian outside the sphere of magico-medical and funerary practices, where ritualised performance was clearly of the greatest importance. Yet this does not mean that ritual was dissociated from ordinary reality, nor does it justify a blanket assumption that the mass of the population was excluded from any knowledge, understanding or participation in ritual activity. In general the role of prayer and ritual is underestimated in descriptions of Egyptian life, as is the value of ritual data as a source for understanding social practice. So, for instance, Derchain7 stresses that butchery rituals have nothing to do with hunting practice, even though they may exploit the imagery of the hunt, but that their interest lies in ‘le moment ou` les actes purement pratiques et utilitaires ont été transformés en rites, c’est a` dire le moment ou` ils ont été accomplis dans les temples comme illustration d’une pensée sur la

4 5 6

7

35–36; LÄ V, 14–23, s.v. ‘Pyramidentexte’. See also Otto, JNES 9 (1950), 164–67. Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte provides a useful survey of opinions. Otto, JNES 9 (1950) 164; Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, passim. See, for instance, Schott, Deutung der Geheimnisse, esp. 167, 170–75. Note Schott, Deutung der Geheimnisse, passim, but esp. 155–57, 170, discussing the phrase wh.a sšt3 ‘explaining the secret’ as a term used to refer to festivals and their performance in a public and not merely secluded context. Sacrifice de l’oryx, 10.

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structure de la nature.’ Allusion to the familiar provides the comprehensible metaphor that underpins the process of mythologisation. In both form and content the ritual necessarily drew on the familiar. The best known Egyptian rituals tend to focus on – and imitate – the cycle of the sun, or the passage of the seasons.8 In a temple context, such rituals assert the continuing cosmic order.9 In a funerary context they assert resurrection, rebirth,10 and the continuation of life after death. In contrast, the daily temple ritual – like the funerary cult – took its format from the actions of daily personal service for the head of the house.11 Its symbolism exploited ordinary reality to approach the different realities of the other world. In this way, the details of ritual can always be taken to provide some reflection, however distorted, of the practice and imperatives of ordinary life.12 As the contemporary performance of ceremonies significant to the role of the Egyptian king, one may look for the Cannibal Hymn to mythologise the practical actions of butchery in a reasonably direct way. It is on the basis of such a hypothesis that I attempt here to comprehend the meaning of the text as a whole. This approach demands an explicit recognition that ‘mortuary’ hymns and rituals are not merely the mumbo-jumbo of a fevered imagination, created ex nihilo as a vision of the other world. For their form and content they draw on and reflect patterns of common behaviour, that may indeed be poorly documented in other types of source. They equally reflect the overlapping symbolism of an initiatory religion that characterises the format of the rites of passage at the core of Egyptian funerary ritual. As such they need to be placed into their material and physical context of performance, as well as the metaphorical context in which they take on reference and imagery from the observed and physical world. The most typical feature of Egyptian ritual is this mixture between the ordinary practical basis of the actions performed by the ritualist –

8 E.g., Goyon, Confirmation du pouvoir royal; Žabkar, Hymns to Isis, 121–23. 9 E.g., Faulkner, Papyrus Bremner-Rhind; Derchain, Papyrus Salt 825. 10 Cf. Roth, JEA 78 (1992), 113–47; 79 (1993), 57–79 on the Opening of the Mouth as birth imagery. 11 Cf. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 193–95 for comparisons between the organisation of palace and cult personnel. 12 See, for example, the netting and ferryman spells in the Coffin Texts, discussed by Bidoli, Die Sprüche der Fangnetze, 11–17, with additional comments by Willems, Heqata, 158.

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their everyday nature – and the symbolic significance that they are given by the ritualist in the words he recites.13 The ritual actions are modifications of familiar behaviour, given cosmic, eternal significance as they are mythologised,14 or rather, as mythology and action, illustrate and explain each other. The mythological assertions that make up the wording of the ritual, and make explicit the symbolic purpose of the actions, are set in the world of the gods. Nevertheless, they are themselves rooted structurally in comprehensible human behaviour. Here, then, the primary issue is to explore the relationship between the wording of the text as mythologisation of ritual action. In this respect the so-called Cannibal Hymn is a particularly promising text for investigation, owing to its focus on the reality of butchery and meat-feasting as symbolic context for a rite of passage and the assertion of a resurrection.15 The particular interest lies, not only in the individual details of the butchery, or the passage to the afterlife, which can be paralleled in other contexts, but in the idiosyncratic working out of the themes in the ritual context in which the ‘Hymn’ was performed.

13 Ritner, Magical Practice, 67–69 for stress on the ritual action, and not merely the words, as the essence of magical practice. See Guglielmi and Buroh, Essays te Velde, 101–66 for the early sections of the daily ritual. 14 Schott, in Altenmüller et al., Literatur, 90–91; Deutung der Geheimnisse, 170 arguing that the overlay of mythology on ritual is a technique to provide new explanations to older actions; cf. also Westendorf, LÄ VI, 122–28, s.v. ‘Symbol, Symbolik’. 15 For the underlying principles of such investigation cf. Goedicke, SAK 18 (1991), 215–32, esp. 217, 232, although most of the detail of his argument is an object lesson in the dangers of over-imaginative interpretation of such data.

9

Butchery and Offering Ritual Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

Interpretation tends, of necessity, to be reduced to a priori argument. It is difficult to envisage the Cannibal Hymn as a direct accompaniment to offering ceremonies: its sequence and format differ greatly from that of the basic offering ritual. For instance, the wording of Pyramid Spells 13–18 consists of short caption-like statements, which directly mythologise the offering gestures they accompany,1 to invoke the restoration of the body. They lead into the ritual of Opening the Mouth: I give you your head, I fasten your head to your bones for you. I give him his eyes, that he may be content (h.tp): a h.tp-offering Geb has given you your eyes, that you may be content […] […] the Eye of Horus: water, a nmst-jar. O Thoth, put for him his head on him: water, a ds-jar. He has brought it for him: water, a drinking cup.

Here, exceptionally, the individual mythologised assertion has a note to indicate what the ritualist held up.2 It is difficult to see how the Cannibal Hymn might co-ordinate in performance with such presentation of individual offerings. In private tombs of the period, the offering ritual is most clearly presented in the extensive and formulaic offering lists. These provide a focus to the decoration, leading in to the places where offerings were

1 See Lapp, Opferformel, 153–92 and Dominicus, Gesten und Gebärden, 80–91 for a survey of the gestures and accompanying texts. 2 §§9b–10c. These actual spells, quoted from the Pyramid of Pepi II, do not occur in the Unas corpus, but the motif is standard, and the Pepi II ritual is merely a longer version of that preserved in the Pyramid of Unas: see Pyr. Spells 14–20, 23, 25, 32, 34–196. On such mythological citations see Schott, in Altenmüller et al., Literatur, 90–91. For the recitation of the punning offering list as a menu see also Nelson, JNES 8 (1949), 327–29.

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given and received: primarily the false door in the offering chapel, but also in the burial chamber. These formulaic lists, like the standard depictions of offering tables, present a very limited range of prestige and symbolic joints of meat,3 which do not correlate in detail with the references made in the Cannibal Hymn. However, it is also characteristic that butchery scenes form part of the decoration of the offering room, where they stand as a sort of culmination to extended processions of offering bearers and to the ‘scenes of everyday life’: scenes of agricultural and craft production, found in the outer rooms of the tomb superstructure, which reify the ideal provision for the burial, offering ritual and afterlife. The butchery scenes are not wholly integrated with the offering lists, and their actual position on the wall may vary to fit available space. However, their association with the offering place and offering list is very close, and provides a symbolic reference that must then be seen as vital to the offering process, if not fully integrated in the core ritual, which was the recitation and presentation of the offering list, in full or abbreviated form. Butchery was a key preparatory stage, with core symbolic meanings, but actual butchery was not necessarily performed as part of the ritual of the offering room. The sacrifice of the bull has a particular status in any investigation of funerary and offering ritual, since there can be no doubt that beefanimals were regularly sacrificed: that an animal was slaughtered as part of the funeral of any person for whom it could be afforded. Meat is also presented to the general offering table, and consumed by the participants in the funeral.4 Certain joints – the foreleg, and the head and the heart – are presented as part of the ritual of rebirth and revivification that is at the core of the funerary ritual, and encapsulated in

3 Junker, Giza II; Barta, LÄ IV, 586–89; Lapp, Opferformel, 132–50. See also AEO II, 237*–56*, in the context of the lexicography of the parts of the animal. On the portioning and distribution of the sacrificial animal see below, ch. 16, esp. pp. 193–201. However, on the type of text, beyond the basic list, that might accompany the ritual of the offering table see Altenmüller, MDAIK 22 (1967), esp. 16. 4 The Ramesseum Papyrus E, with processional funerary text (Gardiner, JEA 41 (1955), 9–17) seems to include two episodes: the slaughter of a single bull near the beginning (col. 6), and a mass slaughter of 40 bulls and their offering near the end (col. 49–51). Cf. Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 9–10 and passim for actual finds of remains of animals – beef and goat – some clearly cooked, from Old Kingdom mastabas.

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the ritual of Opening the Mouth.5 This meat is more than just food for the afterlife, but endowed with a range of symbolic reference. The foreleg is also a tool, in the image of an adze, for opening the mouth to function.6 Metaphorical images, or puns, define the foreleg as adze by play on the adze as stp hieroglyph used to write stpw, ‘joints of meat’, but also exploit the physical image of the stp as a lever, with superficial visual resemblance to the leg, which itself was separated from the carcass by a mixture of levering and cutting. Butchery and feasting will have been incorporated as a standard element in the burial ceremonies, and similarly in the regular continuing cult. The actual butchery described in the Cannibal Hymn – the full processes of slaughter, processing and cooking – can hardly have taken place in the burial complex itself, and probably not in the offering complex; which is not absolutely to exclude the possibility that animals might be slaughtered in these cult complexes. The essential issue for the Cannibal Spell is to define its primary format as a performance and to identify the context of that performance: whether it is self-standing as a hymn, or whether it is the wording to accompany ritual actions, in a ritualisation of butchery for the cult. Edel was able to focus on the close connection between the Old Kingdom function of ‘butcher of the Acacia-house’,7 the organisation of butchery for mortuary cult, and the role of the women associated with the Acacia-house in the funeral dance that is depicted as part of the burial ritual.8 In particular he compares the promise of proper burial made in the later Story of Sinuhe. Here the procession to the tomb prepared for Sinuhe is described:9 placed in a sledge-shrine, oxen dragging you, singers (šmaw) in front of you, the dance (hbb) of the Weary-ones will be made at the mouth of your tomb, ˇ

5 Otto, Mundöffnungsritual, scenes 23–25, 43–45. For the close connection between the Opening of the Mouth and the food-offering ritual cf. Willems, Chests of Life, 230–32. 6 As Pyr. Spells 20–21, §§11–14. For the problems associated with the early form of this ritual, complicated as so often by an over-simplistic hunt for concrete origins, see Roth, JEA 78 (1992), 117–22; 79 (1993), 70–71. 7 sšmtj šndt and variants: Akazienhaus, 28–32; Van Lepp, BSAK 3 (1989), 385–94 provides an over-speculative account of the context and meaning of funerary dance scenes. 8 Edel, Akazienhaus, 10–11. 9 Sinuhe B 193–96.

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the offering ceremony (dbh.t-h.tp) will be invoked (njs) for you, slaughter will be performed (sft.tw) at the mouth of your offering-place.10

An intriguing scene from the Fourth Dynasty tomb of Debehni at Giza depicts this ritual at the end of the funerary procession, carried out on the roof and on a ramp leading up to it: a full range of offerings is made to the statue, with s3hw recitation and with performances by the singers and dancers of theˇ Acacia-house.11 These ceremonies seem to be associated with the funerary meal.12 Tomb relief and papyrus text of all periods place a characteristic emphasis on the role of the ritualist – hrj-h.b – as the performer of the central ritual, both actions and recitations. In contrast, the role of ritual ‘music’, sung or chanted by a choir,13 and particularly by women,14 is underplayed in both ancient sources and modern interpretation.15 The actions of slaughter and offering have specific words of ritual accompaniment that describe and reify them as actions, but they also have wider contexts of performance, and specifically here singing and dancing, which provide one context for potential recitation of texts such as the Cannibal Hymn in genuinely hymnic form. The Cannibal Hymn appears, then, to accompany or re-create a ceremony of sacrifice and the meat feast which follows. The specific context is that of the sacrifice and the offering meal associated with the burial and mortuary cult, but sacrifice is central to all major Egyptian rituals, and the Cannibal Hymn provides direct textual access to wider issues of ritual slaughter and of the mobilisation of sacrifice for symbolic ends. At its most direct, the Hymn apparently served either as the running commentary to ritual sacrifice, or as its verbal recreation. As a ritual accompaniment – the script to a dramatisation of the butchery ritual – it would assert the symbolic meaning of the actions of the 10 ab3w, ‘stelae’. Possibly one should envisage a reference to the false door(s) as stelae, noting the characteristic association of butchery scenes next to or opposite the stela where offering is made. 11 Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 6–7. 12 Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 9, 14–15. 13 See Assmann, LÄ III, 852–55, s.v. ‘Kultlied’. Also, e.g., Goyon, RdÉ 20 (1968), 63–96 for the specific text of a cult song to accompany the appearance of Sokaris. 14 Note, for instance, Kurth, Essays Goedicke, 135–46 on CT Spell 162, and cf. the rubrics and format of the Songs of Isis and Nephthys of P. Bremner-Rhind 1, 1–17, 10 = Faulkner, JEA 22 (1936), 121–40. 15 Note Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 87 n.30, 130, 182, 236 (= P. BremnerRhind 21, 5) for specific examples; cf. also Naguib, Clergé féminin, esp. 60–62.

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butcher as the victim was slaughtered and dismembered. As a continuous formal recitation, which might appropriately be performed as a preliminary or as the conclusion to an offering ceremony, it would serve as an narrative re-creation of the butchery and meat feast, mythologising the sequence of meat-offerings through a symbolic recreation of the butchery procedure, and so give symbolic meaning to an offering ceremony in which the king ‘ate’ various portions of meat brought in and ritually presented to him. Possibly it served both functions in separate ritual environments. The wording of a ritual did not require a coherent mythological or narrative continuity, but certain types of continuity are important.16 Within the Cannibal Hymn these are established by the order of the butchery, and this continuity is evident as the ‘cannibalism’ gives clear symbolic explanation to the receipt by the god of the various parts of an animal. The text does not provide a full narrative or summary of the actions of the butcher, but it contains all the major episodes, from the entry of the bull through its complete consumption. This practical metaphor provides the peg for the multiple imagery that asserts the transfer of power to the king, which is the purpose of the ritual, and which provides thematic coherence to the mythological reference. The cannibalism gives symbolic explanation to the receipt by the god of the various powers as the various parts of an animal Different butchery spells mobilise different imagery to similar ritual ends. For instance, Pyramid Spell 580 – a text known only from the pyramid of Pepi I – treats the sacrifice as the murder of Osiris, who is slaughtered, portioned, and evidently eaten by the celebrants: Pyr §1550a: We eat, we eat the red ox (jh.) for the passage of the lake, Pyr §1550b: Which Horus made for his father Osiris this Pepi.

The wording defines the sacrifice as victory over Seth, and the context is that of a passage across water for the dead, echoing themes and scenes at a crucial stage in the Middle and New Kingdom funeral rites,17 where the justified and equipped dead takes his passage. Here,

16 Altenmüller, JEOL 19 (1967), 421–42 treating this issue for the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus. The difficulties here provide the focus for discussion by Otto, Verhältnis. However, the perspective within which he was working, as a search for priority in his attempt to separate the pratical from the mythological, in ritual seems in the end no more useful than seeking priority between the chicken and the egg. 17 Settgast, Bestattungsdarstellungen, 64–85; Willems, Chests of Life, 149–50.

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if the text has a performative context that goes with specific actions, they are essentially the actions depicted in the scenes of New Kingdom tombs, with the deceased ritually sailing on a lake or canal. In terms of practical content, Spell 580 might be thought to replace the Cannibal Hymn in the ritual, although it gives a quite different mythological context to the passage of the deceased from one state to another. It is not necessary to visualise the Pyramid Text as a verbatim copy of the ritualist’s service-book, held in his hand for his regular performance of the ritual, to visualise its essence as that of the accompaniment or symbolic re-creation of butchery. In either case the text, as a ritual, is potentially as meaningful to the continuing cult of the dead king as to his original burial – and one may stress that there is nothing in the text that necessarily relates it to a purely funerary context, but everything to assert the king’s role as heritor of divine power. Butchery rituals clearly continued after death as one focus in the royal cult, at all periods, although the text of the Cannibal Hymn was omitted from the later pyramids. There is, however, no need to enquire too closely into the decorum of this omission, for its performance and associated ritual may simply have been sufficiently far from the core purpose of the Pyramid Text compilation.

10

Literary Form: Ritual Context and the ‘Deritualisation’ of Texts Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’

Egyptian ritual texts are most often preserved in the ‘captions’ that accompany single ritual actions in the extensive sequences shown in tomb or temple relief. These are readily envisaged as series of brief, formal and self-contained assertions that accompany and provide commentary to the individual, and largely self-contained ritual acts from which larger ritual sequences were built. This is likely to be a reasonably accurate understanding of the episodic structure of Egyptian rituals, since a similarly fragmented or episodic literary pattern is found in the texts of magico-ritual papyri and service-books. Despite the fact that the Cannibal Hymn is written as a continuous text, it is possible to envisage the individual lines or sections as discrete units, to be recited as the accompaniment to a sequence of ritualised actions. The text provides a potential narrative accompaniment to all the stages, from the entrance of the bull/ox accompanied by the description of cosmic cataclysm, to the final assertion of the king’s possession of divine powers as the last bones of the carcass were removed for the soup. Alternatively, the text may represent a secondary literary form, in which perhaps the words of a ritual of sacrifice had been recast as a hymn for continuous recitation. In literary terms, however, the explanation as a self-standing hymn is satisfying, since the text has an obvious ‘poeticality’ and rhythm, and translators always present their version in poetic format on the page.1 The term ‘hymn’ is used rather loosely as a general category subsuming a wide variety of ritual texts found in Egypt.2 The natural

1 On the context and its implications see Eyre, Ling Aeg 1 (1991), 109. 2 Assmann, Hymnen und Gebete; Barucq and Daumas, Hymnes et prie`res; Assmann, LÄ III, 103–10, s.v. ‘Hymnen’, 852–53, s.v. ‘Kultlied’, 1062–66, s.v. ‘Litanei’.

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implication of the English is of a self-contained, coherent ritual unit, recited or sung in continuous, and so relatively short performance. However the understanding of these hymns is extremely limited, largely because it is not possible to envisage fully the way in which they were performed, or the occasions on which they were used.3 Egyptian hymns are often formulaic, and the ‘hymn’ was characteristically the most important format in which the wording of ancient ritual texts was productively recycled at later periods. Individual formulae and units of text were continuously recomposed and remained in use so long as hieroglyphs were inscribed and ritual performed in the Egyptian temples.4 Some hymns were evidently used as preface to formal ceremonial acts, or as self-contained interludes in a ritual.5 Other hymns may simply be a more extensive type of ritual accompaniment and commentary: in effect, extended ‘captions’ cast into continuous literary form. Some hymns were evidently addressed to an audience as a form of public presentation, propaganda, or religious explanation.6 Other hymns appear to constitute self-sufficient acts of worship: often the dividing line between a hymn and a prayer can be impossible to define. Finally a hymn may sometimes represent a sort of abbreviation, that invoked or narrated a ritual without performing it in full:7 a sort of verbal or textual equivalent to the pictorial recreation of ritual that is familiar in the scenes of temple and tomb walls. That is to say, either as inscription or as oral performance it may have been self-standing: a ‘fictional’ or iconic re-creation of a larger ritual whole. Egyptian rituals characteristically extended over very considerable periods of time: not merely in the general sense that ‘festivals’ might extend over a number of days, or that the rituals of mummification should in principle cover a full 70 days,8 but rather that a coherent

3 See Assmann, Hymnen und Gebete, esp. 3–14, 33–42, 76–83, 87–91. 4 E.g., Kees, ZÄS 57 (1922), 92–120, esp. 120. 5 Cf., for instance, the morning hymn at Edfu: Blackman and Fairman, Miscellanea Gregoriana, 397–428; Kurth, Treffpunkt der Götter, 80–88; or Dendera: Colin, Mélanges Gutbub, 27–39, who (n.2) specifically compares Pyr. Spells 539 and 573. In general see Blackman and Fairman, JEA 28 (1942), 32–34. 6 E.g., Schott, Deutung der Geheimnisse, esp. 157. 7 Altenmüller, ZDMG Suppl. II, esp. 9–12, 17. 8 See, e.g., Vos, Apis Embalming Ritual, 30–42; Shore, Studies Gwn Griffiths, 226–35.

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ritual complex was not necessarily a single continuous recital, but characteristically made up of a series of discrete ritual units – recitals and/or performances – that might themselves be performed in sequence over a considerably extended period. Contemporary sources do not normally provide explicit evidence for timing, but it seems clear from internal textual evidence that the core funerary liturgies leading up to the burial should have extended over two nights and an intervening day, with periods of vigil around the mummy between individual ritual acts.9 The continuous inscription of ritual text, whether on papyrus or wall surface, cannot therefore be taken as conclusive evidence of literary form or continuous rapid recitation. The individual performance of a hymn may represent a hiatus in ritual actions, when a recitation invokes the god: a simple adoration, a call on the god to awake, or to inhabit a particular statue or image and receive the offerings presented.10 For instance, the moment before the central cultic action of opening a shrine seems to have been characterised, already from the Pyramid Texts, by a pause for recitation. Typically at this point a hymn greets or announces the appearance of the god, as the doors of the shrine – the Gates of Heaven – are opened.11 Thematically the Cannibal Hymn begins with a greeting to the appearance of the king, manifest as the Bull of the Sky in a moment of cosmic disruption. It salutes the immanence of the risen king, so that performance as a hymn might indeed be envisaged as just such a ritual invocation.

9 Assmann, Studies Lichtheim I, 1–45, esp. 7–8. Willems, Heqata, passim, but see esp. 382–83, bases his interpretation of the coherence of the spells on that early Middle Kingdom coffin around his reconstruction of their roles in such an extended ritual complex: especially ‘Stundenwachen’. See also Vos, Apis Embalming Ritual, 36–41. 10 Guglielmi and Buroh, Essays te Velde, 101–5 for a collection of explicit sources; also Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 250–52, a hymn to Osiris. 11 Cf. Assmann, LÄ III, 852–55, s.v. ‘Kultlied’. Note especially Pyr §§525–29 and 1132–37, where the use of a refrain declaring that the doors of the sky are open at dawn implies use as such a song. For a specific late example at the end of the ceremony for the Coming Out of Sokaris, cf. Goyon, RdÉ 20 (1968), 63–96, line 94: ‘Recitation 16 times, (while) the choir perform the hn, the Gates of Heaven are open, the god comes out.’ Note especially Pyr §§1026, 1726 for association of slaughter/sacrifice with opening the Gates of Heaven.

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There are, however, uncertainties about the position of the Cannibal Hymn – spells 273–74 – in the ‘canonical’ sequence followed in modern editions of the Pyramid Texts.12 In the Middle Kingdom burial chamber of Senwosretankh – where the text tradition is close to that of Unas – it stands in its ‘canonical’ place in the continuous sequence of spells inscribed on the east wall. In the Unas pyramid the Cannibal Hymn stands in a relatively self-sufficient position, as first text on the gable above the east wall of the antechamber. It is worth noting, then, that the preceding spells 270–72 end a sequence of texts in Middle Kingdom tombs at Lisht and Qatta.13 In contrast, in the Middle Kingdom tomb of Siese, Spell 274 seems to finish a sequence. In the Teti pyramid the Cannibal Hymn stands on the east wall of the antechamber, in much the same architectural context as the Unas pyramid,14 but here it stands between Spells 399 and 400 in a different sequence of texts, unique to the Teti pyramid. The spell does, therefore, seem to have a certain independence as a unit, raising the possibility that it did not have a fully integrated position in a continuous ritual. Schott15 stressed the position of the Cannibal Hymn in the sequence of Spells 269–75 – the ‘canonical’ order – and argued forcibly for its connection with butchery ritual in the pyramid temple. He envisaged performance in the altar court, which he assumed on no strong grounds was a suitable place for butchery rituals symbolising the destruction of enemies.16 He associates it with passage through gateways, both in ritual progression through the temple and spiritual passage to the afterlife. Spiegel claimed that these texts were intended to give magical power to the ba statue.17 More specifically, Altenmüller defines this sequence, in the Unas ritual, as the conclusion of a series of texts dealing with rites for the royal statue:18 by implication, a closing

12 See Allen, Hommages Leclant I, esp. 8, 11–12, 19–22. 13 Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 11, n.13. 14 Here the tympanum or gable does not form a separate field for text; the text – lines 319–31 – begins with the central column above the door, continuing to the right above the door, and then in columns that continue beside the door to the full height of the wall; see Sethe, Pyramidentexte III, 123, 168. 15 Pyramidenkult, 197–200. 16 Pyramidenkult, esp. 194–98; see Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 44. 17 Auferstehungsritual, 96–99, 260–74; see Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 45. 18 Studien Otto, 28–29; Begräbnisritual, 208–9. For the whole series of Spells 260–76 see Begräbnisritual, 193–216 and cf. Spiegel, Auferstehungsritual, 96–100, 260–74.

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celebration of the transfigured god, rather than an introductory invocation. He envisages the possibility that the spell was used as the accompaniment to ritual actions. Altenmüller then argues that the change in sequence of text seen in the Teti pyramid implies a change of purpose. He identifies the sequence of the Teti pyramid, in contrast, as one of ‘magical’ and ‘spiritualising’ (s3hw) spells, and argues that the hymn was here no longer ˇ a ritual accompaniment but a self-contained spell.19 The hymn is there followed by the jnjt rd spell: the ‘bringing of the foot’ that regularly ends rituals of manipulating and offering to the statue.20 On this basis, its position could suggest a recitation, as conclusion to the offering ceremonies, to assert or mediate the transformation of the king from human form into that of the sun-god. The Cannibal Hymn then underwent a thorough reinterpretation for use as a Coffin Text. Altenmüller argues that in the Middle Kingdom ritual it functioned wholly as a Verklärungsspruch: a ‘transfiguration-spell’, used as a decontextualised recitation that transformed the deceased.21 The implication of this argument is that the Cannibal Hymn represents a self-contained ritual unit, optional to the royal ritual of the Old Kingdom, perhaps redundant to the main Pyramid corpus after the reign of Teti, but remaining part of a canon of ritual units accessible for productive recombination. Underlying this argument is an implicit premise that the authorship, or rather the transcription of mortuary texts involved a significant decontextualisation of oral-ritual sources. That is to say, the performative spoken ‘captions’ – the formulae and individual lines of text that accompanied specific ritual actions – might provide the raw material of a hymn, which would constitute a secondary literary form, cast as a continuous recitation that took a more narrative and less performative structure. This would be appropriate for – perhaps influenced by – use in writing, and in particular as the iconic reification that constituted a monumental

Cf. also Begräbnisritual, 196–212, 275 and Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 45–46, comparing similar material in New Kingdom private tombs. 19 Cf. also Assmann, LÄ VI, 998–1006, s.v. ‘Verklärung’; Hymnen und Gebete, 33; Studies Lichtheim I, 1–45. 20 For which see Altenmüller, JEA 57 (1971), 146–53; Lapp, Opferformel, 176–79. 21 Begräbnisritual, 209; Studien Otto 28–29, 35–36. His argument is also based on the positioning of the text on Coffins. Cf. Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 11, 19, 41–42 for a similar argument on the use of New Kingdom Underworld Books.

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inscription or tomb text.22 This would imply that the wording of the Cannibal Hymn could be derived from ritual formulae, comparable to the words accompanying the episodes of the daily ritual23 or the sections of the ‘Embalming Ritual’ that accompanied different episodes on the long mummification ceremonies.24 In that sense, it might be possible to regard the text simply as the unformatted, continuous transcription of the sequence of ‘captions’ from a ritual, comparable to the sections of text making up the episodes illustrated in the Middle Kingdom Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus.25 Although the Cannibal Hymn is not presented in the episodic format of the comparable butchery ritual of the Dramatic Papyrus, the style of mythologisation is comparable.26 In practice the categories of ritual accompaniment and ‘spiritualising’ recitation are not exclusive. The main difficulty lies in recognition of the context and role of the individual recitation in a larger ritual continuum. The apparent contradictions, even absurdities, of attempting a single and global narrative explanation for the Pyramid Text corpus can not be resolved by a denial of the ritual nature of the texts as a whole, nor by their dissociation from the burial ritual, as in effect Barta has attempted to do.27 Such a counsel of interpretative despair itself derives from insistence on a single global interpretation for a particular corpus. The iconic use of texts for inscription does not itself make them primarily iconic, nor essentially written literature. In reality, each corpus of ritual spells exploits a variety of genre, that may appear as a hotch-potch, and which cannot be made to conform to a direct and continuous 22 E.g., Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 69. 23 Cf. Schott, Pyramidenkult, 154, 197–98; Guglielmi and Buroh, Essays te Velde, esp. 104–6. 24 Sauneron, Le Ritual de l’embaumement, esp. xiv–xviii; Goyon, Rituels funéraires, 22–24. 25 See above, Allen, Studies Hughes, 28–29; note also Assmann, Interpretation in Religion, 100–2. 26 Cf. Otto, JNES 9 (1950), 169. 27 Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 50–52, 64–65, overstating his case for polemical reasons. He stresses the magical daily re-creation of the spells implicit in their inscription on the walls, classing the whole corpus as Verklärungsspruche, and the permanent possession and knowledge of the dead king (esp. pp. 62, 66–68, 72–76, 108–9). See also Arnold, MDAIK 33 (1977), 1–14 and in Shafer (ed.), Temples, 51, 72 for an architecturally based argument, dissociating the site of the funeral ritual from the pyramid and temples complex, an argument criticised as too extreme by Stadelmann, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 8.

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narrative of ceremony, any more that its contents can be made to conform to an internally coherent vision of narrative myth, because these were not the motivating purpose in writing out the texts. Interpretation requires a sensitivity to the potential variety of use – a sensitivity to both context, communicative purpose in reproduction, and performability – and indeed an awareness that the actual use of the texts involved a deliberate exploitation of the apparent contradictions in the use and performance of ritual text. In short, the key interpretative difficulty for mortuary texts lies in assessing the extent to which they were performed as they were written, or rather written as they were performed, against the extent that they represent deliberately literary creations. Literary composition would mean exploiting ritual formulations, in combination perhaps with non-ritual text, so that the text would be at least partly ‘deritualised’ for use in the different type of symbolic context of an inscription. The crucial native categorisation of mortuary texts is that of s3hw. The Egyptian term is straightforward as a definition of purpose:ˇ to make 3h. It is a recitation that accompanies, facilitates, symbolises, ˇ and asserts the resurrection of the dead and his transformation mediates into his new, spiritual form.28 As such it is the standard and normal term for any category of recitation, which through the performative ritual of speech mediates the passage of the dead: the term provides a definition of function, not genre. Assmann defines the s3hw as a Verklärung, a ‘transfiguration’: ‘the ˇ (an oral rite), which does not accompany Verklärung is a spoken ritual cultic actions, but itself constitutes a cultic action, and is achieved by means of the recitation’.29 That is to say, a liturgy insofar as it was recited, but a liturgy dissociated from ritual action through focus on its quasimagical role as the self-standing oral performance of a rite of passage. Assmann further draws a contrast between hymns or recitations that

28 Assmann, LÄ VI, 998–1006, s.v. ‘Verklärung’, and similarly in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 313–34. 29 LÄ VI, 1002 (my translation); cf. Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 6–7. Schott, Deutung der Geheimnisse, esp. 171–75 argues for the separation of the Verklärung from a primary dramatic performance of ritual. Cf. also Otto, Verhältnis, arguing that the overlay of myth on ritual involves a transfer to the god’s world, and invokes a separation from primary ritual action. In contrast Smith, Cat. Dem. Pap. BM III, 19–28 notes the importance of the ritual occasion as well as performative power of the recitation.

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declare static, timeless theological reality (Verkünden) and those which are associated with dynamic process and transfiguration (Verklären), and as such are naturally characteristic of mortuary ritual texts since their context is one of rites of passage.30 Following this hypothesis, Buchberger has argued for an overlap in the mortuary literature between the important functional category of ‘transformation’ spells – spells that have the explicit purpose of enabling their subject to take different forms (hprw) – and Verklärungsspruche as a category of rebirth rituals leading ˇ a socialisation into the world of the gods.31 to Assmann stresses the characteristically nominal style of declarative hymns against the characteristically verbal style of hymns associated with dynamic process and transformation. This is, however, a literaryfunctionalist contrast, which does not fully address the native use of the term, which focuses on context rather than form, nor the performative role of the text in recitation. The Pyramid Texts evidently include recitations belonging to both the burial and the cult of the king,32 which integrate and sequence words and actions in performance, as well as preserving texts that seem appropriate to a more ‘literary’ analysis. The difficulty therefore lies in the extent to which the s3hw may or must be limited to purely oral rites essentially dissociatedˇ from action. In principle any type of recitation that promoted the eternal life of the dead was s3h w. So, for instance, the lector priest presenting ˇ be described as performing s3h w,33 apparently the offering list may including or defining the words of the offering ritualˇ itself. Similarly the performance of continuing rituals for the dead, accompanying the processions and rituals for the statue on appropriate festivals, focused on the s3h-ing of the dead by the priest.34 In one sense, then, the oral recitationˇ had the character of a formal spoken invocation: an address

30 In Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, esp. 329–30, and more extensively in Studies Lichtheim I, 1–45. 31 Transformation und Transformat, 177–79 and see also 124–25, 127–29, 162. 32 Assmann, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 324. 33 E.g., Davies et al., Saqqara Tombs I, 18 and pl. 12; Simpson, Sekhem-ankh-ptah, 5, pl. 3, A. Cf. Barta, Opferformel, Bitte 26, esp. 235, 305–06, and note also 34, 137, 192. Lapp, Opferformel, 159–61, 175, 184–92 gives specific attention also to the accompanying gestures. 34 E.g., the contracts of Hapdjefay with ritualists; Sethe, Aegyptische Lesestücke, 93, 4–6; 94, 18–19; 95, 5, 13–15.

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or summons to the dead,35 that introduces him to the god or serves as public announcement of his new role. In this context the importance of grammatical form – first-person declaration, second-person address, or third-person narrative – should not be over-emphasised as a criterion of function rather than style of performance. By the New Kingdom the typical format was that of a hymn or adoration:36 genres that had parallel functions as introduction and public announcement of the role of the living.37 Only in this limited sense is the s3hw a literˇ ary genre, defined by its performative use.38 The proper definition of s3hw remains one of ritual context and not one of literary form. ˇ The written form in which such texts survive from the tomb, either on papyrus or as inscription, symbolised the ‘magical’ continuation of the resurrection:39 a function of the written text that in extreme application envisages the writing of the ritual as a passport to eternity. It is explicit in a number of examples40 that knowledge of texts and rituals from the mortuary literature was of equal value to the living as to the dead.41 For instance, in the New Kingdom the title to the full book of Amduat – a text with specifically royal orientation – stresses that the purpose of the book is to know the other world.42 In contrast, the 35 Assmann, JEA 65 (1979), esp. 57 n.15, 59–61; Liturgische Lieder, 359–63, 366–67; Smith, Cat. Dem. Pap. BM, III 20 n.32. 36 Assmann, LÄ III, 103–10, s.v. ‘Hymnus’ takes this format in a very restricted sense as the definition of a hymn, classing the Pyramid Texts as s3h w. Similarly ˇ also LÄ III, 852–55, s.v. ‘Kultlied’ and 1062–66, s.v. ‘Litanei’. 37 Eyre, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 415–33; cf. Assmann, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 19–21 for such use of hymns. 38 Assmann, JEA 65 (1979), 57–58 n.a. 39 Assmann, Grab der Mutirdis, 101–02. 40 Pyr §§855–56, of ‘he who knows these spells (r) of Re, he will do them, these spells (h.k3w) of the horizon (3ht)’, first appearing in the pyramid of Pepi I. Cf. ˇ Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 242–243. For Old Kingdom examples from private monuments see Silverman, in O’Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship, 81–82. 41 For a general survey see Wente, JNES 41 (1982), 161–79, with critical assessment by Willems, Heqata, 281–83. Most extensively in the introduction to BoD 163, a comparatively late text; cf. Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 106, 110–13, and note especially his reference to Hornung, Anbetung des Re I, 264: the book is to be read by one in a pure state, at midnight. For the value to the king of knowing/using the rituals during life, parallel to that of Book of the Dead spells to the living private person cf. Barta, Jenseitsbücher, es. 135, and note also 11, 19, 44–45, 53, 133. 42 Hornung, Texte zum Amduat I, 101–9 = Wente, JNES 41 (1982), 164–67 = Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 43–46. Cf. also Roulin, Livre de la nuit, I, XIII–XIV, 29–30.

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introduction to the shorter version states clearly:43 ‘As for he who knows these situations(?),44 (he is) the likeness of the Great God himself. (It) is useful (3h) to him on earth, thoroughly; (it) is useful to him in the great Duat.’ ˇAdmittedly the rationale of the Amduat is that the king is not dead, but travels with (or indeed as) the sun-god, in Duat at night but on earth during the day.45 The role of the New Kingdom Underworld Books in the ritual and cult of the mortuary temples, or as liturgies for performance, and the extent to which they overlap with non-funerary ritual, remains insufficiently investigated.46 The same theme appears, however, in the Late Period Papyrus Bremner Rhind, in the detailed rubric describing the performance of a protective ritual for putting Apophis on the fire: It is beneficial (3h) to him who does it on earth. It is beneficial to him in the ˇ necropolis. Strength (ph.ty) is given to the man, in respect of the office of his superior (j3t n h.ry=f). It is his salvation from every bad and evil thing, genuinely. I have seen it happen through myself.47

The issue is the same for the corpus of ‘funerary’ texts of all periods: the extent to which they are (or contain) simple transcriptions of the words of rituals, or liturgical sections – hymns, prayers, aretalogies for performance – abstracted from a ritual context and reworked into a written literary form. The characteristically literary approach to s3hw as a genre is closely ˇ tied to their importance as documents of theology and mythology, 48 to the neglect of their performative role. Some such texts may indeed be classed as purely literary creations: the hymn as adoration need have no specific reference in its wording to a manual rite, as in a funerary 43 Hornung, Texte zum Amduat I, 6–7 and see also the similar wording of the titles to the Litany of Re (Hornung, Anbetung des Re I, 2–3) and the notes at the end of the Book of the Heavenly Cow concerning performance and knowledge of the text (Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 48–49 = verses 312–25 and Additional Text verses 1–20). For other similar statements annotating sections of the Amduat cf. Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 53. 44 sSmw: in the sense of the images of the book, or the nature of things they represent, or the conduct they record, or the route they follow? 45 Cf. Hornung, Studies Simpson I, 413–14. 46 See Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 139, and cf. 11, 19, 133, 135. 47 P. Bremner-Rhind 23, 15–16 = Faulkner, JEA 23 (1937), 168–69. Cf. 26, 7 = ibid. 171 and 28, 19–20 = ibid. 175 for abbreviated versions. 48 For a critical survey and discussion see Willems, World of the Coffin Texts, esp. 197–98 and Heqata, 80 n.191, 279–84.

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context the theme of announcement, for instance of the dead man to god, may be stressed. However, the origins and use of the genre lie in ritual performance on a specific occasion, and the limited rubrics – where they survive in the Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead – point clearly to their recitation during specific ceremonies of initiation, burial or cult.49 The recitation is in principle contextualised in a situation: part of a liturgical sequence in performance. If not itself in an accompaniment to specific ritual actions, it is still not wholly dissociated from them. In the Egyptian ritual corpus – and this is particularly the case for the Cannibal Hymn – a significant group of texts must, if unaccompanied, be classed as a verbalised or abbreviated rite. In practice such an individual recitation should be thought of as providing an oral, and so fictional re-creation of ritual actions, in the way that the offering ceremony, re-created in the normal ‘address to the living’, ceased in general to demand real offerings at an early date, and by the Middle Kingdom stresses that only the painless expenditure of breath of the mouth is invoked. In some cases it is possible that the ritual background to such texts is as fictional as the mythological content: actions not actually performed, but merely envisaged or created orally by the recitation without performance. Nevertheless, the various rubrics of the Book of the Dead, which record specific symbolic actions or contexts which are to be accompanied by the recitation of individual spells,50 and the sequence of physical actions that accompany normal prayer, indicate that it is questionable to assume that any ritual that survives in purely textual form was not accompaniment to, or accompanied by ritual actions, if only in the form of standard ritual gestures. The situation is complicated by our extremely limited understanding of the relationship between text genre – particularly ‘literary’ genre – and use in performance, or the extent to which performative context should itself serve as a criterion of genre.51 Egyptian ritual is naturally 49 Willems, World of the Coffin Texts, esp. 198, 203–07; cf. also Assmann, in ibid., 18–19, 28–30 for discussion of the context of recitation in cult for a particular category of hymns in the formal liturgy, from the Pyramid Texts to New Kingdom sun hymns, and for the problem of what hymns accompany cf. Derchain-Urtel, GM 156 (1997), 47–54 (on Esna hymns and rituals). 50 E.g., BoD 151 in connection with magical bricks: see Silverman, Studies Simpson II, 725–41; Lüscher, Totenbuch Spruch 151, 54–57. 51 Cf. Eyre, Ling Aeg 1 (1991), 106–10; in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 415–33; Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 3–57. Specifically for the Pyramid Texts see also Roeder, Ling Aeg 3 (1993), 81–83.

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performative and discursive, not narrative.52 It belongs in a oral domain, and its non-narrative format of mythological allusion displays an inherent complexity and multiple layers of reference.53 In cult, the performance bears more comparison with dramatic recital than with narrative: the limited identification of participants with gods, discourse, and the re-creation of mythological events.54 There are few surviving texts that can be classed as mythological ‘narratives’, although fragments of narrative style occur embedded in ritual already from the Pyramid and Coffin Texts,55 and there is no reason why a narrative recital as such should not be integrated into a wider ritual context. The New Kingdom Story of Horus and Seth – a mythological narrative – has a purely literary format: an episodic narrative recital, structured for entertainment, with its more serious themes presented through a series of elaborate jokes. On strong grounds, Verhoeven has argued for a specifically public-ritual occasion for both the composition and performance of the text: recital as part of an annual festival to celebrate the triumph of Horus and the legitimacy of the king.56 The Book of the Heavenly Cow is at core a mythological narrative, although its text is only preserved in funerary contexts. Its rubric specifies recitation by a priest on the first and fifteenth of the month.57 The Amduat – difficult to categorise in genre – and the apparently liturgical Litany of Re were explicitly glossed for recitation in the middle of the night.58 More problematic is the text published by Verhoeven and Derchain as the Voyage of the Libyan Goddess: a text that survives in a temple inscription of the Saite Period, but is also included in the 22nd

52 Cf. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 112. 53 Cf. Bickel, Cosmogonie, esp. 271–73, and Willems, Heqata, esp. 10, 13, stressing the role of the individual ‘mytheme’ against the holistic narrative myth. 54 For recent discussion see Willems, Chests of Life, esp. 154–55. 55 Bickel, Cosmogonie, 260–61, 265–67. 56 Verhoeven, Fs Gundlach, 347–63. See also Junge, Fs Westendorf, 83–101. Note, however, Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 241 on the use of the same epic/narrative work both for a specific ceremonial occasion and for pure entertainment on other occasions. 57 Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 48 verse 313; 78. For a variety of such annotations in the Late Period ritual collection P BM 10081 see Schott, MDAIK 14 (1956), 182–86. 58 Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 384 n.p suggests identifying the final liturgy of the Festival of the Beautiful Visit at Ptolemaic Dendera as the Litany of Re. The presence of that text in a chapel at Karnak (Parker et al., Edifice of Taharqa, 31–35) emphasises its role in a wider ritual milieu.

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Dynasty papyrus from Karnak which contains the text of the Mut Ritual: a version of the standard temple ritual.59 Its particular use or relevance within the daily ritual is far from clear. Although again at core it provides a mythological narrative, it is characteristically not itself in a single coherent style. There is considerable variation between thirdperson narrative and direct address, both to god and to an audience: passages which are phrased either as first-person speech or secondperson address.60 The text is not so much a narration, nor a hymn,61 as a profession of faith62 in the style of an aretalogy. Such declarations of the nature and functions of a god, characteristically including a limited narrative of his origins or actions, are an important genre already in the Pyramid Texts.63 Their original context is presumably not purely literary-theological, but liturgical: recitational performances where variation of genre from section to section is not disruptive to any potential category of audience. The transcription of the Mut text within the standard daily ritual for the goddess presumably implies its liturgical use, and perhaps even its performance to an audience as extension of the normal cult of the statue. A substantial body of mortuary texts are clearly worded in the format of an initiation, in which the deceased claims right of passage through knowledge or through purity, moral or ritual.64 Direct

Verhoeven and Derchain, Voyage de la Déesse Libique. Ibid. 56–57. Ibid. 9, 69. Ibid. 72. For the particular relationship to Mut cf. Maged Negm, Tomb of Simut, 37–42. Cf. also Schott, Deutung der Geheimnisse, esp. 155–57. 63 Assmann, LÄ I, 425–34, s.v. ‘Aretalogie’; Bickel, Cosmogonie, 14–15, 58, 137, 146, 152, 258–59, 262 dealing with examples from the Coffin Texts. See also Assmann, in Allen et al., Religion and Philosophy, 135–59; Assmann, in Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, 313–34, and cf. Willems, World of the Coffin Texts, 198. 64 Willems, Heqata, 279–84 argues polemically against the attempts by Federn, JNES 19 (1960), 241–57, Wente, JNES 41 (1982), 161–79 and Barguet, RdÉ 21 (1969) 14–17 (see following note), RdÉ 24 (1972), 7–11 to relate elements of the mortuary literature to wider contexts of individual religious belief and practice. However, his attack on ‘mystical’ over-interpretation of the data goes too far in denying the roots of ‘gnostic’ approaches and the underlying approaches of Late Period ‘mystery’ cults in the earlier mortuary literature, for instance by an insistence that the characteristic stress on the value of knowledge of the texts in this life can be limited to the very narrow context of ability to perform a funerary ritual; cf. also Willems, Essays te Velde, 348. 59 60 61 62

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evidence for the role of initiation ceremonies outside mortuary contexts is very limited, in view of the general lack of non-mortuary religious and ritual texts for early periods. The clearest parallel lies between elements of the Judgement of the Dead, Book of the Dead Spell 125, which initiates the dead into the underworld, and Late Period texts for the initiation of priests into the temple.65 Such texts are characterised by dramatic format. This may be seen in wording – such as the exchange of questions and answers, or types of self-justification, or narrative presented in the first person – or it may be seen in dramatic location, as in dramatic scenes such as the Hall of Judgement. The extent to which such drama was played out in specific burial ceremonies lies at the core of the problem. It is, however, inherently unlikely that the dramatic format is a literary fiction, wholly dissociated from performance, or that the theme of initiation was a purely fictional construct within a mytho-theological vision of passage for the dead to an afterlife. The practice of initiation must be envisaged within a much wider context of individual participation in religion, associated with assertions of proper ritual-magical knowledge which need not be restricted only to a professional priesthood. In practice, it is only with the New Kingdom that clear evidence appears either for a thorough professionalisation of the priesthood or for the existence of cult associations within which a restricted ‘private’ – and presumably in some sense initiated – membership celebrated the cult of a patron deity.66 However, the characteristic and

65 Merkelbach, ZPE 2 (1968), 7–30; Unschulderklärungen, passim; ZÄS 120 (1993), 71–84; Grieshammer, ZDMG Suppl. II, 19–25; Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 115–17. The comparison between the initiation of the priest and the passage to the afterlife is that specifically drawn by Barguet, RdÉ 21 (1969), 14–17. The objections of Lichtheim, Maat, 127 that the context is one of autobiography is largely invalidated when proper emphasis is given to the use of autobiography itself in a ritual context of performance: see Smith, Cat. Dem. Pap. BM III, 23–24; Eyre, Sesto Congrsso Internazionale di Egittologia. Atti II, 116. Griffiths, Divine Verdict, 218–24 stresses the specific vision of a moral judgement after death against the more mundane argument of priestly initiation. 66 For the Ramesside Period see most recently Helck, SAK 18 (1991), 233–40. For the context see Bomann, Private Chapel, passim. For a general, if overly pessimistic assessment of the relationship with Late Period ‘cult guilds’ see Junge, in Westendorf (ed.), Aspekte der spätägyptischen Religion, 109–14. For the difficulties of assessing private ritual practice, and piety in general, see Baines, in Shafer (ed.), Religion, esp. 144, 150, 173–86, 195–97.

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explicit stress from the earliest periods – for instance in the ‘Address to the Living’ – on the requirement for both knowledge and purity from the ritualist,67 implies that a greater or lesser degree of initiation was itself characteristic of all levels of participation in cult. Initiation is, by definition, an assertion of right to entry, and in that sense initiatory elements of the mortuary literature can be explained as both assertions of the right of access of both ritualist and deceased to the mortuary rituals, and of the deceased to pass through those rituals to another life.68 Willems develops this theme by identifying the owner of the coffin – the owner of the Coffin Texts – as both the dead recipient of ritual and resurrected officiant, in the form of his son, who performs his own ritual after undergoing a parallel purification and initiation.69 The promise of divine assistance, resurrection, and safe passage to the afterlife is not, however, a concern purely of funerary ritual, and the markedly initiatory form of parts of the mortuary literature must be taken as a pointer to contemporary ‘this-life’ ritual that is otherwise lost from the archaeological record. In a contextual study it is important to put aside a priori distinctions between funerary and nonfunerary or royal and private, for which the crucial argument is often an argument ex silentio, since the similarities and cross-fertilisation are more important than the differences when studying themes and performative context. The relationship between the royal funerary rituals and the later ‘private’ rituals is complex, as is the relationship between private cult rituals, royal rituals and rituals of the gods,70 but their

67 Even the ‘casual’ visitor to the tomb is required to be in a state of ‘purity’. 68 Willems, Heqata, esp. 158–61, 173–77, 197–99, 381–84 argues in particular for a relationship between certain Coffin Texts of this type and access to the Place of Embalming and participation in the night vigil – Stundenwache – as a central theme of the funeral ceremony, very largely following the argument of Assmann, Studies Lichtheim I, 1–45. 69 Essays te Velde, esp. 366–68. 70 See also Žabkar, Hymns to Isis, 123–26 on the relationship between private/ individual and temple/royal initiation or admission to cult and the performance of ritual. For discussion of the significance of this stratification in relation to the presentation of evidence for practice cf. Fitzenreiter, GM 143 (1994), esp. 53–54. Hornung, Studies Simpson I, 409–14 addresses the issue of distinction between royal and human afterlife in the New Kingdom.

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overlap in content, function, and indeed performance71 is central to any attempt at understanding or reconstruction. To assess the importance of dramatic interchange in performance, and so to define the dramatic context of ritual is perhaps the most difficult issue. A hymn – as recitation or song – may serve as an oral/ musical accompaniment to actions, which may themselves be more or less closely connected – thematically or symbolically – with the words of the hymn.72 One criterion of apparent importance lies in the speaker(s) presented as reciter(s) of the text: whether the text is put in the mouth of the deceased, as a self-presentation, or in the mouth of a ritualist, or in the mouth of a god speaking to or about the deceased; and whether the text is in the form of a dialogue, typically in which the deceased is interrogated or negotiates with a supernatural power, but sometimes as an interchange between gods or ritualists.73 The text may be phrased grammatically in the first, second or third person, and so apparently put into the mouth of the deceased himself, of a ritualist, or of a deity. These criteria are essentially literary. Indeed, the identification of the reciter itself includes an element of fictionality, which is itself a marker of literary form,74 and as such introduces an element of ambiguity to the performative context of an individual text. The fact that a Pyramid Text is inscribed in the first person, as a selfpresentation by the king, has often been taken to indicate that it was non-liturgical: for instance, Allen refers to ‘non-ritual sequences meant originally for the personal use of the king, speaking in the first person’.75 Yet these literary criteria are insufficient to separate texts performed as part of a ritual from those envisaged as purely funerary: that is to say, fictionalised as performances by the dead in the afterlife.

71 Ritner, Magical Practice, 2, 183–90, 204–06, 222–32 focuses on the single identity of practitioners, whether of official ritual or private magic; cf. also Willems, Heqata, 127, 144. 72 Note the reservations of Kurth, Essays Goedicke, 135–46 (discussing CT Spell 162), about interpretation trivialising such performance into a sort of pantomime. 73 For a brief categorisation of genres see Willems, Heqata, 374–84. See also Bickel, Cosmogonie, 246 for the issue in relation to the Coffin Texts, and 265–67 for the intermixture of narrative and discourse in such contexts. See also Assmann, Studies Lichtheim I, 31–45 for a listing of liturgies by context and form. 74 Cf. Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature, esp 43–49, 517–22; Assmann, in ibid. 64; Eyre, in ibid. 415–16; Eyre, Ling Aeg 8 (2000), 25. 75 Hommages Leclant I, 16–17. Similarly Willems, Heqata 377, classifying such spells as not themselves liturgical, but evoking funerary rituals.

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The wording of all Egyptian ritual texts is pervaded by precisely this fiction: that the gods speak from the temple walls, in response to the ritualist, who in temple ritual is the king and only the king, while the dead address the living, in speech, from the walls of the tomb, and the ritualist in the tomb is the beloved eldest son.76 The speech of gods is necessarily a sort of fiction, performed by a ritualist, whether it is presented in the form of reported speech – a distinction that is not drawn with full grammatical or narrative clarity in classical Egyptian – or to some degree as direct speech in a dramatic role.77 In that context, variation in the phrasing of individual Pyramid or Coffin Texts between a first-person self-presentation or a third-person narration about the king is often more an issue of copying and textual transmission than direct evidence for the original purpose or change in use of a text.78 The version of the Cannibal Hymn inscribed as a Pyramid Text is phrased in the third person as a narrative, although Sethe consistently argued that variation between the texts of the Unas and Teti pyramids indicated that they were derived from an original manuscript or ritual phrased as a first-person declaration.79 The Coffin Text is indeed phrased that way as a first-person assertion made by and not about the deceased.80 The significance of this redactional change is unclear. Such variation may simply reflect a variation in the quasi-dramatic context of performative recitation, that itself reflects the role-playing of the ritualists,81 rather than a real change in meaning. The argument that any element of the Pyramid or Coffin Texts was in origin a written composition, imitating performative style but not actually performed, is a form of special pleading based only on the fact of its transmission in writing. There must, therefore, be an a priori preference for the assumption that an individual text had an oral context of performance, to whatever 76 For the fictionality of temple relief and inscription – parallel in this way to literary fictionality – cf. Baines, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 223, 232–33. 77 Cf. Willems, Essays te Velde, 348, 358, 366–68 and cf. Assmann, Essays te Velde, esp. 4–7. 78 Cf. Willems, Heqata, 284–85, and also 279. 79 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 147, on §§394c–95b; 153 on §399a; 155 on §§399d and 400a/b; 159 on §403c. The Unas text makes widespread use of the third-person pronoun, which is often replaced by the name of Teti in the later pyramid. 80 Cf. Barta, ZÄS 118 (1991), 18. 81 Cf., e.g., Bickel, Cosmogonie, 258; Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 118–25, 224–25, 238–39.

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extent that may be regarded as genuinely dramatic or ‘merely’ liturgical. The evidently dramatic elements of festivals such as the Middle Kingdom Osiris ‘mysteries’ at Abydos should not be over-generalised for other ritual, but the greatest caution should be exercised in attributing to early texts the fiction characteristic of a purely written literature. It would hardly be justified on that basis to argue that a Pyramid Text corpus was a purely written ‘passport to eternity’ for the sole and post-mortem use of a dead king, never actually to be recited in a real ritual context.

11

The Text of the Cannibal Hymn Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The following discussion is not intended as a straightforward philological commentary on the Cannibal Hymn, but as an exploration of its content. The aim is to investigate the interface between myth and reality through what is essentially a form of literary criticism: an attempt to explore the resonances that the individual line of text might be expected to carry for a contemporary audience, and so to examine the meaning that the author and performer of the text was intending to communicate. Such a commentary cannot approach completeness; our knowledge of form, content and context are insufficient. In particular, it was good Egyptian style to mix a metaphor, as one of the poetic devices exploited along with pun, alliteration and verbal echo in the search for multiple meaning in the single line. The approach here necessarily leads to digression, sometimes of questionable relevance, and an emphasis on the fragmentation of the text against its narrative continuity. For that reason a continuous translation of the text is provided above as preface.

CATACLYSM, AND THE INTRODUCTION OF THE BULL The Cannibal Hymn begins with cataclysm, as the cosmos is overwhelmed by the appearance of the king.1 The change of ruler is a cataclysmic event, as the old order breaks down, to be replaced by a new: on earth for the king,2 and in the sky for the living god. Cataclysm, 1 Cf. Pyr §§924–25, 956, 1110, 1120, 1150–1151, 1771. 2 On reign change as cataclysmic, and a re-creation of the world, see Otto, Welt des Orients 3 (1964–66), 164–66; Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 91–94; Assmann, Ma’at, 200–01; cf. also Hornung, Conceptions of God, 172–85 on the boundaries of existence.

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marked by thunder, earth- and sky-quake, is a standard motif, that greets the appearance of god3 and defines the king’s progression to heaven4 as a cataclysmic return to the pre-created state.5 Thematically this is a variation on the commoner motif of the opening of the Gates of Heaven, as, for instance, in the sequence of Spells 313–17. These are found on the west wall of the entrance passage in the Unas Pyramid. They begin with opening the doors of heaven for the king to enter, and include in Spell 314 an address to the bull for slaughter. These early verses of the Cannibal Hymn should, then, salute the appearance of the sacrificial bull, which should be a bull of huge size and power, and which is initially identified as the king himself:6 §393a: Sky darkens; stars go out;7 §393b: Vaults (of heaven) tremble; bones of earth shake. §393c: The decans8 are stilled against them. 3 Hornung, Conceptions of God, 131–32. E.g., Pyr. Spell 215, §143 and see note 6 below. 4 E.g. Pyr. Spells 472, 503, 509, 511. 5 Cf. also the theme of the apparently initiatory Chapter 175 of the Book of the Dead, the chapter that describes the Destruction of Mankind, for which see Assmann, in Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism; Bickel, Cosmogonie, 229; Schott, MDAIK 14 (1956), 181–89. 6 Cf. in particular Pyr. Spell 254, where many of these themes of cataclysm, sacrifice and cannibalism are repeated, with the king as Bull of the Sky: see esp. §§276, 280, 286, 292–93; also Spells 255–60, 627. 7 Borghouts, in Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La Magia, 33, n.16 attempts to connect the verb with h.wj, ‘drive’. Note that in CT VI 177b the ‘fire’ and not the ‘thunder’ determinative is used. For the opening see also §§956a–b: ad pt nwr t3 jj H.r haj ˇ Dh.wty ts=sn Wsjr h.r gs=f, ‘Sky trembles, Earth quakes, Horus arrives, Thoth appears, They raise Osiris on his side’. For the vocabulary and independent use of the theme Morenz, GM 143 (1994), 109–11 draws a parallel with CT IV 180o–81d. See also Willems, Heqata, 184, 328–37 with discussion of the possible liturgical use within the so-called Stundenwachen ceremonies of the funeral ritual. 8 Cf. the parallel CT VI, 177d, where gnmy is replaced by stnmw: for tnm as wandering stars or planets see Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 157. For no apparent good reason Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 83 rejects the identification gnmy with Coptic Cinmout ‘Pleiades’ (Crum, 821a; Westendorf, Koptisches Handwörterbuch 459 = hieroglyphic knm, knmwt, (Wb. V, 132–33). The knm/knmwt stars are the constellation that comprises the leading decans in astronomical texts: Neugebauer and Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts III, 157–60, no. 1–4, and cf. also Leitz, Tagwählerei, 167, 241, 457, 183–86. Here I translate the leading section as pars pro toto. Bidoli, Die Spaüche der Fangnetze, 77–78 and Simonet, CdÉ 62 (1987), 70–71 compare gnmy, ‘wave’, as the name of one of the agents who process fish in the fisherman spell CT VI, 8a = Spell 473: there he is the one who also collects the fish, to be handed to Sˇsmw (see below) for gutting and then cooking in the pot.

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The use of star-clocks on coffin-lids of the early Middle Kingdom, tabulating the progress of the decans, emphasises their importance to the imagery, and perhaps the liturgy, of rituals of transition. §394a: They have seen Unas, risen (haj), empowered (b3), ˇ

The juxtaposition of haj and b3 is formulaic for the divine manifestaˇ tion of the king appearing in the sky,9 exploited, for instance, in the Fifth Dynasty pyramid name Khai-ba-Sahure.10 The image is that of the birth of the sun from the horizon. §394b: As god living on11 his fathers, feeding on his mothers.

The issue is his power: §394c: It is Unas, Lord of Wisdom; his mother does not know his name.12 §395a: The splendour (sˇpss) of Unas is in the sky; his power (wsr) is in the horizon.

The vision is that of the sun-god, and the themes are formulaic, as in the Old Kingdom royal names, Shepses-ka-f, Shepses-ka-re, Userka-f and User-ka-re. 9 xaj b3: Sethe, Übersetzung II, 145 notes also §§1209a, 2120–24b. Cf. Schunck, Untersuchungen zum Wortstamm xa, 40; Žabkar, BA Concept, 70, and cf. his comment p. 57 on the association between receiving royal insignia and becoming b3. 10 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 145, comparing also the Third Dynasty royal name Khaba; also Pyr §1209a and Spell 691 = §§2120–25 (both concerned with a place in the solar bark). See Žabkar, BA Concept, 61 for the use of b3 in pyramid and sun temple names, and 58–60 for private names of the period. See Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 38–39 and Begräbnisritual, 76–78, 279 for the speculation on significance of the reign of Sahure for the composition of the text. Cf. also below §414c. 11 anh m: note the variant CT VI, 177f anh m h.tpt, and below §§397a, 400a. Cf. also ˇ ‘live on’ their victims in the afterlife. The ˇ Zandee, Death, 158–59, of demons who image does immediately appear to be that of cannibalism, and not merely taking life as a resurrection of the father or through suckling the mother. Sethe, Übersetzung II, 146 notes that the image of the earth/Geb swallowing the ancestors would be appropriate; cf. below on §398c. 12 On knowing names, and their importance, see LÄ IV, 320–26, s.v. ‘Name’; Assmann, Ägypten: Theologie und Frömmigkeit, 102–7, 113–17; Moses, 194–98, 204–05; on the theological significance of naming cf. also Bickel, Cosmogonie, 101, 106; Traunecker, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 171–76. For the theological context and detailed discussion see below on §§399a and 414a. Cf. specifically the story of Isis and Re (Borghouts, Magical Texts, no 84 = P. Turin 1993 and parallels), where the primaeval god states: ‘My father and my mother told me my name. I have concealed it in my belly from my children, in order to prevent the use of a male of female magician’s (h.k3w) force (ph.ty) against me.’ (Translation after Borghouts.)

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§395b: Like his father Atum, who created13 him; he created him, (but) he is more powerful than he.14

The couplet exemplifies the use of homophony and repetition to provide focus to the meaning, and presumably also stress or accent in the recitation: jw špsw Wnjs m pt jw wsr=f m 3ht mj Jtm jt=f msj sw jw msj.n=f swˇ wsr sw r=f

There is emphasis on sibilants in general, but in particular sw in špsw and the repeated pronoun sw.15 A description is given of the king with his symbols and manifestations of power: §396a: The kas of Unas are behind him; his hemsut are under his feet.

The image is that found from the New Kingdom onwards in temple scenes depicting the divine birth of the king.16 As personal genii, the kas and hemsut protect the young king, assuring his succession and success. He is cocooned in the powers that protect a king: §396b: His gods are upon him (tp=f); his Uraei (jart) are at his brow (wpt). §396c: The guiding-snake (sšmt) of Unas is at his forehead (m-h.3t=f): the spierout of ba(s), the fiery snake (3ht)17 for burning (n tbs). ˇ

The complexity of the poetic imagery makes translation difficult: jw ntrw=f tp=f jarwt=f m wpt=f jw sšmwt Wnjs m-h.3t=f ptrt b3 3ht n tbs ˇ

13 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 147–48 notes the deliberate use here of msj, rather than wtt ‘beget’. Although msj is not exclusively used for the mother’s role, its use here is more suitable in reference to the primaeval creation by the sole creator god – Atum as father and mother – so placing the king in the original creation. For an extensive collection of references to the role of the creator god as both msj and wtt of the world, see Zandee, Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 169–85. 14 The Unas text here exploits the grammatical patterns elegantly. In jw msj.n=f sw wsr sw r=f, the pronoun sw in both cases refers to the king, and the suffix pronoun f in both cases to the god, although sw is once object and once subject, and f once subject and once dependent on the preposition r. 15 Less strong in the Teti text, where the royal name twice replaces sw. The play is lost completely in the Coffin Text version. 16 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 148. See above. 17 3h in the Unas text would naturally be taken as a participle/adjective ‘effective’, ˇ the inclusion of the uraeus-determinative in the Teti text implies the reading but as a noun.

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His gods are tp=f, ‘upon him’, tpt being one of the ‘names’ of the Uraeus. The Uraei (jart) on the king’s brow (m wpt=f) are potentially a play with ‘on his errand’ and contrast with the following play on h.3t. The ‘guiding snake’ (sšmt) is on the king’s brow (m h.3t=f) or ‘leading him’ (m-h.3t=f) as it seeks out the potential enemy, and its poison burns.18 At the same time, the enemy here is a b3-power, contrasted to the 3h -power implicit in the word 3h t used for the Uraeus, which ˇ sun or to the flame. The folitself ˇmay allude to the fiery eye of the lowing term tbs is itself something of a crux, although the general meaning is defined by its flame-determinative that appears in the Teti pyramid.19 The culmination here is both a summary of the ‘powers’ listed in the preceding lines and a punning assertion of the king’s eternal state, both physical and transcendental: §396d: jw wsrw Wnjs h.r mkt=f The powers of Unas are protecting him. or The neck20 of Unas is on his trunk.

The association between the Uraeus and the neck vertebrae is a theme found elsewhere in the mortuary rituals, on the basis of a pun between the Nehebkau snake, nh.bwt, ‘neck’, and for this context also k3(w), ‘bull(s)’.21 This is directly relevant to what follows: the power attributed to Unas, and the force assembled at his brow, his ability to trample, and the impossibility of resisting him, is all that of the wild bull, but also of the bull that is led in for sacrifice. The specific line occurs also in the related Spell 254, in the context of restoring the head of the Apis bull in resurrection.22 In both cases the theme of cosmic power is explicit; the dead king is manifest as the Bull of the Sky, who has overcome the powers that killed him:

18 For Egyptian descriptions of the symptom of snake-bite see Sauneron, Ophiologie, 173–79. 19 See Sethe, Übersetzung II, 149. For the specific phrase cf. CT VI, 270d–e. For the 3ht snake as specifically fiery cf., e.g., Schott, Kanais, 155–56 = KRI I, 69; Horˇ nung, Höllenvorstellungen, 21–29; Assmann, Sonnenhymnen, 375. 20 Note the Teti variant wsrwt for wsrw. 21 Doret, Essays Baer, 82, n.E and note especially Pyr. Spell 318, §§511a–12d, where the puns are fully exploited. Cf. also below on §409b. 22 §286d. See below, in discussion of the head and decapitation.

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§397a: Bull of the Sky is Unas, aggressive23 in his nature (jb),24 living on the manifestation (hpr) of every god.25 ˇ innards(?)26 of them, who come, their bellies full of magic, §397b: Eating the §397c: From the Island of Fire.27

The Island of Fire28 is envisaged in the mortuary literature as a place of passage at the edge of the cosmos, where the vision of fire is both dangerous but also positive.29 It is a seat of primordial creation, where the sun-god emerged from the waters of chaos.30 As such it is a gateway to the other world, where the successful dead31 will have come into the inheritance of the primaeval god, taking the place of his father.32 So, for

23 Assuming a form nhd, based on the root hd, ‘attack’ (Wb II, 504–5), but with play on the root nhd, ‘throb’, ‘palpitate’ (Wb II, 288). 24 Cf. §293b–c. For the motif of fighting bulls see Galán, JEA 80 (1994), 81–93; Victory and Border, 13–18, 26–27, 42–44: he interprets such scenes as including symbolic reference to the dead as a k3 bull maintaining his leadership against challenge in the afterlife as in this. 25 anh m, cf. above §394b and below §400a. There would seem to be potential here forˇ a wordplay on living ‘as’ or ‘in’ the manifestations of the gods, as an image of syncretism, but it does not seem to be marked. For the natural meaning cf. Zandee, Death, 159–60. On the sense of hprw here see Buchberger, Transformaˇ tion und Transformat, 261–62 n.405. 26 The vocabulary here causes difficulty. Read, probably, wnmw zmw (or zmw(y)) rather than wnm wzmw, as Wb I, 357, 15 quoting only this passage. The determinative in the Teti text makes clear that a part of the body is intended. A writing of zm3w, ‘lungs’ is unlikely, since the normal spelling is found below §410b. zm3/sm3, ‘scalp’ (Wb III, 445–46), ‘part of the head’ (Wb III, 451; IV, 122), would make sense, particularly since there is the possibility here of a pun with sm3, ‘wild bull’, ‘sacrificial victim’ (Wb IV, 123–24), but one might best expect a word for an internal organ to carry the image of the king’s ‘heart’ (jb) in contrast to and conquering the insides and the belly of his victim. 27 Both the Unas and Teti texts have jw nsjsj with ‘fire’ and ‘town’ determinative. CT has the more normal jw ns(r)sr. 28 Kees, ZÄS 78 (1942), 41–53; LÄ II, 258–59, s.v. ‘Flammeninsel’. 29 Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 31–32; Englund, Akh, 98–99; LÄ I, 49–52, s.v. ‘Ach’. Cf. Hornung, Buch von den Pforten, II, 208–13, ninth hour, upper register, scenes 55–56. 30 Cf. Pyr §264–65, discussed by Assmann, GM 140 (1994), 98; Lichtheim, Maat, 17, and note explicitly KRI VI, 23, 9–10. 31 The danger of passage through the Island of Fire is expressed in the vision of a place of judgement and potential condemnation, Grieshammer, Jenseitsgericht, 101–3; cf. Assmann, Ma’at, 216–17. 32 CT Spells 38–40, esp. CT I, 160i–62c; Faulkner, JEA 48 (1962), 36–44; Grieshammer, OLP 6/7 (1975–76), 231–35. Willems, Heqata, 311–12 stresses that the reference in

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instance, in Book of the Dead Spell 175: ‘Your seat now belongs to your son Horus – so says Atum – and he will dispatch the Elders; he will rule from your seat; he will inherit the throne which is in the Island of Fire.’33 Filled with the necessary powers, he takes precedence over the powers already there. For instance, in Coffin Text Spell 37: See, Your Person has come, you have acquired all power (3h) and nothing has ˇ your body with been left behind you in the Island of Fire. You have filled magic; you have quenched your thirst with it. Those who watch for you tremble like a bird; you have mastered the land with what you know like those to whom you have gone down.34

The association of ideas between the Island of Fire and the release of h.k3w, ‘magic’, as food is a repeated theme,35 but at the core of this vision is the cataclysm necessary to pass from one state to the other. The place of creation is distinct both from this life and the next, and there is a need to leave the created in order to be reborn.36 The vision of the king as both triumphant and sacrificial bull is not aberrant in any way. Spell 412, specifically §§721–22, envisages the king as sacrificial bull, but its wording is a sort of reverse-butchery spell, following the theme of the god not decaying, but reassembling his members to ascend to the sky.37 There is a direct comparison here with the island in the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor: a place which stands at the edge of the cosmos; where the god survives after cataclysmic fire from the sky; where food and spirit (k3) are found to perfection; where the sailor burns his offerings, and is threatened with destruction by fire; but where he receives assurance of post-cataclysmic order, and a renewal of his life, restoration to the created world following his

33 34

35

36 37

CT Spell 75 to the ba of the deceased procreating with ‘people who are in the Island of Fire’ (CT I, 364/5c–66/7a) defines the continuity between the deceased and his posterity on earth. Cf. Schott, MDAIK 14 (1956), 181–89; Otto, CdÉ 37 (1962), 249–56 for ritual uses and mythological contexts for this text. CT I, 148b–50b; cf. CT I, 117b–19b. Note that in CT I, 123 Shesmu the butcher is among a list of dangerous gods over whom the deceased gains control. Cf. also CT I, 157–76. For the association see Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 22, n.30; Willems, Heqata, 242 on CT III, 321d: ‘I have come from the Island of Fire, having filled my belly with magic and having quenched my thirst with it.’ Cf. Hornung, Conceptions of God, esp. 161–62. Cf. also Spells 447, 480.

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passage through this place of danger.38 In that story the exploitation of central mythological themes to illuminate an apparently trivial moral has the characteristic literary format of an elaborate joke, which in itself provides the most elaborate discourse on the meaning of the myth. The Cannibal Hymn exploits the same literary themes in an opposite ‘everyday’ way, through reference to butchery and cooking as the metaphor for the mythological transformation.39 The Island of Fire is a vision, par excellence, of the process of passage, from the one state to the other, where both creation and destruction can take place.40 It is a place of bright light, where the king need fear no darkness. The king himself is not burnt, but burning, with the aid of his Uraei. He is not devoured, but with the aid of the flames – that cook as well as burn – he is a devourer.41 He overcomes the dangers of the place of passage. §398a: He is Unas, equipped, assembler of his akhs.

The term 3hw provides connection between the preceding and folˇ There is also echo of 3ht ,‘the (fiery) horizon’ ,where the lowing lines. ˇ on the cliché of the 3h (jqr) apr, sun is born (see below). There is play ˇ ‘the (effective) equipped soul’, that is the normal manifestation of the dead. The homophony with ayin and b/p is marked between apr, ‘equip’ and jab, ‘assemble’, while jab, ‘collect’, itself potentially echoes the cannibal theme by reference to the root ab, ‘meal’, that is probably the same as abw, ‘offerings’, and abw, ‘victims’. These themes are more fully exploited in Coffin Text Spell 574, which there follows the Cannibal Hymn.42 In a ritual of passage, the deceased declares: I have hacked (ad) the sky; I have opened the horizon (3ht); I have travelled the ˇ sunshine (j3hw); I have travelled its movements; I have seized the spirits (3hw) ˇ ˇ older than I (var. ‘the Old Ones’); because of the fact that I am an akh equipped

38 Cf. Baines, JEA 76 (1990), 62–64. 39 At the end, the Shipwrecked Sailor’s chief expects to be the sacrificial duck, whose neck is wrung. 40 Schott, ZÄS 74 (1938), 92 questions whether the image is that of the place of creation or of punishment and destruction. Similarly Bickel, Cosmogonie, 69–70 stresses its role as place of crisis and transition for the dead, and not of creation per se. Cf CT VI, 270v–x. 41 See below on §398c. 42 CT VI, 183j–84f. The rubrics refer to giving power in the legs for free movement. For this ‘equipping’ of the 3h as an ability to pass cf. CT VII, 470b–71g = CT VII, 262b–i. ˇ

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The Cannibal Hymn (with) his million (var. ‘in magic’); I eat with my mouth; I defecate with my buttocks.

Kings/gods do not normally have plural akhs in the way they have plural kas and bas, so these should be other akhs:43 either a reference to the ‘helpers’ of the following lines, or the use of 3h w as a term essenˇ tially synonymous with h.k3w, in the sense of ‘magical power’, ‘divine 44 power’. §398b: Unas is arisen as that Great One, Lord of helpers. §398c: He sits with his back to Geb.

The primary image is that typical in statuary and relief, with the seated king as ruler protected by the god behind.45 The underlying theme is repetitive. The deceased king is described as the most powerful, the controller of supernatural powers, and the heir to eternal kingship. Here he sits with his court, to exercise the royal authority. The throne of Egypt is by definition the heritage of Geb, and the king is heir and replacement of Geb. Necessarily, therefore, the attitude to Geb is ambivalent in the Pyramid Texts. In a further spell which again asserts that the deceased is a spirit who burns, and who is not burnt by the gods, Geb himself appears in the role of the Bull of the Sky.46 As such, he assures Horus of the rightful succession to his father Osiris, to the thrones of Geb, and to the role of Atum. In contrast, however, the corpse of the dead king is also buried in Geb as the earth. The superiority of the king over Geb, and his refusal to enter into Geb,47 serve as an assertion of his resurrection and succession to celestial authority. Therefore there is a possible secondary image in the text here, of the royal corpse laid out in extended position, lying with its back to the earth.48

43 Cf. Žabkar, BA Concept, 56–57, 74. 44 Cf. LÄ III, 1139, s.v. ‘Magie’; Sethe, Übersetzung II 152 compares Dram. Texte 196, 83d for 3h apr jab. See also below on §403c. 45 Cf. Silverman,ˇ in Shafer (ed.), Religion, 68–70 on the mixture of themes in such iconography, of both protection and identification. 46 Pyr. Spell 260 = CT Spell 575. See also Sethe, Übersetzung I, 392–94. Note the motif of the k3 psy, ‘burning bull’: a red bull that is both the sacrifice and not for sacrifice, identified more particularly with the moon than the sun, but especially in the imagery of resurrection: cf. Vos, Studies Quaegebeur I, 712–15. 47 E.g., Pyr §308; 312. 48 Cf. Willems, Chests of Life, 169 for Geb as supporter of the corpse. Note also Derchain, RdÉ 48 (1997), 73 discussing play on the phrase h.r s3 Gb, ‘on the back of Geb’, in late texts.

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THE POWER OF THE BULL OVER THE SLAUGHTER The Hymn then develops the theme of power and authority in the ‘cannibal’ section. This uses the motif of the slaughter, processing and consumption of the butchered animal as a metaphor for the transfer of the various powers from other gods to Unas. The ‘magic’ of the gods, and their manifestations of power such as their ba and akh, are transferred to the person, and into the belly of Unas. The power of the Bull of the Sky, whose head is not separated from its trunk, is asserted by the mythologisation of the episodes of the slaughter and consumption of the offerings from the sacrificial bull: §399a: Unas it is who decides (wda) his business49 together with He-whosename-is-hidden,50 §399b: On that day of slaughtering the eldest. §399c: It is Unas who is the Lord of Offerings, who ties the rope,51 §399d: And provides his own offering meal himself.52

Unas is here put in the role of heir and successor, taking power from the eldest, the primaeval gods. He is attributed the self-sufficiency of the creator, acting out the ritual: wda, with root meaning ‘divide’ is introduced in a context where its meaning is marked as ‘decide’, ‘act authoritatively’, but then the text moves on to actions which echo its alternative meaning of ‘cut off’, as in ‘decapitate’. As the cosmic power

49 If wda mdw=f is taken as a compound verb, the future tense is in principle marked: ‘Unas it is who will decide’ (but see below on §403a). If mdw is simply the direct object of wda, neutral tense is more likely. The Egyptian seems ambiguous also about the role of ‘He-whose-name-is-hidden’, the primaeval god. He is potentially here both the condemned victim and the associate of the king in the judgement of rivals to the king’s accession to power. 50 Repeating the theme of §394c, and see below on §414a for the theological context. The metaphor for what is beyond the invisible ‘other’ world: an ‘other’ ‘other’ world. Cf. CT Spell 1130 for jmn-rn=f as creator god, whose name is known to, and who is in the belly of, the initiate/deceased, enabling him to pass through the gates: CT VII, 470d = VII, 262b–c. Specifically as the first god at the entrance to the other world, Roulin, Livre de la nuit, 63–64. 51 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 154–55 argues that this is a metaphor for independence of action, quoting parallels in reference to tying the rope of a boat. The echo of the idiom possibly adds to the different image of tying the sacrifice. 52 3wt, ‘offering (of food)’, from a root 3wj, ‘be long’, ‘extend’, provides a semantic contrast to the preceding ‘tying of the rope’. Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 198 notes the passage in discussing the magical use and significance of knots and knotting.

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he is initially self-reliant, but then authoritative and so then requires others to serve and provide for him. §400a: Unas it is who eats people, who lives on gods, §400b: Lord of income (jnw), who gives out (h3a) tasks (wpwt). ˇ

The created world provides sustenance and service for the creator. §401a: It is Grasper of Brows, Imi-Kehau,53 who lassoes them for Unas.

The hair of men is held by the king ritually killing his enemies,54 as the bull is overcome by the grasp on his horns, for other ropes to be slipped on to his legs. Again there is a deliberate contrast between the basic roots jnj, ‘bring’, and h3a, ‘throw (away)’ – to bring and to send ˇ – while jnw, ‘tribute’, and wpwt, ‘mission’, are the core terms for royal service. Possibly here the jnw is active, ‘the bringers’ rather than ‘the brought’,55 or possibly the Egyptian was itself ambiguous. The wpwt ‘mission’, which is h3a, ‘sent’, is then picked up immediately in the following line by the ˇwpwt, ‘brows’ that are hma ‘grasped’. ˇ 56 §401b: It is the Dsr-tp snake who hobbles (? s33) them for him, who restrains them for him.

To hobble (s3) the bull is the task of the Uraeus which protects (s3) the king, the hieroglyphic sign for the cattle hobble conventionally being that used for s3, ‘protection’, the conventional and formulaic gift of

53 CT VI, 179c has ahm wpwt h.ry-jb Kh.3sn with divine determinative following kh.3sn, as in the Tetiˇ version the determinative follows kh.3w. Sethe argues that the obscure kh.3w should be an attribute, and not a place name: not ‘He-who-is-inKh.3w’. 54 On the image here see Gardiner, JEA 37 (1951), 30–31. 55 See Sethe, Übersetzung II, 155–56. 56 Hoffmeier, Sacred in the Vocabulary of Ancient Egypt, 42–44, 55–56 argues that there is no justification for the standard translation ‘raised-of-head’ (a reference to its posture, which is based essentially on Pyr §438b, a reference to Mafdet catching the snake by the neck), and he argues for a colourless ‘holy-of-head’. Whatever the correct literal translation, the uraeus is envisaged, which sits at the king’s brow (tp), and acts to clear (dsr) the king’s way of all opposition. For the core sense of dsr see ibid., 57–8. See also Vandier, Papyrus Jumilhac I, x + 4–6; XX, 4–6 and see pp. 103, 144 n.11, where Djesertep appears as a guard of Osiris, who is evaded by Demib. This ally of Seth then reaches the place of embalmment, knife in hand, to attack Osiris, but there has his head removed and his blood flows out. For dsr-tp as a uraeus and associated with Nehebkau see Shorter, JEA 21 (1935), 48.

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Plate 1 Lassoing the bull. From the mastaba of Hetepherakhet. Saqqara

gods to the king. So also the basic usage of hsf is in the sense of ‘ward ˇ off’, ‘drive back’ enemies or dangers. Here presumably it refers specifically to control of the animal. §401c: It is He-who-is-over-the-red(?) (h.ry-trwt)57 who pulls them down (? q3s) for him.

One possible image here is that of the red morning light, which is visualised, for example in Pyr §1082, as the blood of birth.58 A similar image and wordplay occurs in the Story of Horus and Seth, where the eyeballs of Horus, red and bloody as they are torn from their sockets,

57 Cf. Sethe, Übersetzung II, 157 with comparison to §150b. ‘He-who-is-over-thewillow’, after Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature I, 37 seems less plausible, although trwt, ‘he-of-the-willow’, as a deity of the fish-trap appears in CT VI, 29c and cf. 25d, 25s, 33m, and a debatable play between tr for ‘red’ (= blood), for ‘delight(?)’ and for ‘willow’ is exploited in Pyr §451c + §453b. 58 The metaphor with wine is exloited: cf. Pyr §820 and see Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 165–66, 170–73. Probably also Pyr §854a, and cf. CT VI, 270 = Spell 648. For the image cf. Allen et al., Religion and Philosophy, 20–4, and Genesis, 3 with its development in the texts of the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos; also Beaux, Hommages Leclant I, 61–72; Roulin, Livre de la nuit, 34–35. On the image of the morning sun as a child still in its birth canal see Meeks, Studies Kákosy, 423–24 (on Pyr §1186a, 428, 431–32).

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are buried in the mountain, to burst forth as the morning sun.59 The ideal association of sacrifice and offerings with dawn ceremonial is strong, at least in later periods.60 The vocabulary of this section presents a number of difficulties, but it is appropriate to compare it with the names and actions that add up to a description of the initial stages of butchery. The scene is common in tomb decoration, well exemplified by an Old Kingdom block, now in Leiden, from the tomb of an Hetepherakhet.61 One man has a rope round the bull’s horns to force down the head, and a second is slipping a noose over its free front leg.62 This rope leads round the far side of the body and over the top of its back, enabling them to help trip and pull the animal down. In the tomb of Akhethotep at Saqqara63 the term q3s labels a man tugging on a lasso around the rear leg of the bull. Also a block in Cairo shows a man with a lasso round the horns of a standing animal, with the label q3s rn n jw3.64 The word is perhaps better taken to refer to the specific process of tripping with the rope than merely binding the legs of the animal once it has been felled, although in the tomb of Qar at Giza q3s labels two calves, lying on their sides with legs bound, the first apparently still trying to rise.65 The technique for felling the animal, to immobilise it for slaughter, is both straightforward and unchanging. The animal was not stunned, but simply forced down on to its back. Nooses round a front and a rear leg, on the same side of the animal, when pulled under the belly and again over its back, provided sufficient leverage to trip the beast 59 LES 50, 11; tjms, Coptic twms, ‘bury’, plays on tms, ‘red’; for the range of wordplay and imagery involving the symbolism of ‘red’ here see Gardiner, ZÄS 60 (1925), 74; Zandee, Death, 292–93; Ritner, Magical Practice, 170 n.787. 60 Fairman, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 37/1 (1954), 178–80. In general see also Shafer (ed.), Temples, 5 and n.38; Finnestad, ibid. 210–13, 216, 221; Roulin, Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 1005–13. 61 Top Bib III2, 2, 593–95; Mohr, Mastaba of Hetep-her-akhti, 47, fig. 15 = Klebs, Reliefs des Alten Reiches, 123. Cf. also Mohr, Mastaba of Hetep-her-akhti, 39, fig. 4. For a range of scenes see Vandier, Manuel V, 140–53; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 5–30; Darby et al., Food, 102–5. Note also Moussa and Altenmüller, Grab des Nianchchnum und Chnumhotep, pl. 16–17. 62 The lasso is not specifically for capturing a wild animal, but used to capture and tether the domesticated animal, for branding and for other work, not just for slaughter, for which context cf. Kees, Tieropfer, 77, 81. 63 Davies, Ptahhetep and Akhethetep II, pl. XXII. 64 Cairo CG1559. 65 Simpson, Qar and Idu, fig. 24.

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and force it on to its side. Additional pressure on the horns (and if necessary to the muzzle) forced the animal’s head down. Possibly in places used for regular and multiple slaughter a fixed tethering stone may have assisted in control of the animal’s head.66 The lasso-ropes remain attached to the legs of the animal, providing easy control. The rear leg is pulled tightly backwards, and the foreleg across the body, twisting the beast into immobility. A third man holding the other foreleg is then sufficient to prevent the animal from scrambling and kicking in an attempt to stand. Except with the biggest beasts, the butcher alone can manipulate the head to open the windpipe for slaughter. This is shown in the model of Meketre, where each of the butchers holds the muzzle of his beast to stretch out its neck for the knives.67 Alternatively, where a number of animals were to be slaughtered, it seems to have been the habit to immobilise the animals by lashing their legs together, leaving a number helpless and motionless in the position for slaughter.68 Whatever the precise translation should be here, the text includes one assistant to restrain and pull down the horns of the bull; an assistant who slips the noose over one leg; and a third who tugs on the lasso attached to another leg. They make up the minimum crew of three necessary to immobilise a bull for slaughter: one man to control the head, and two to control the legs.

THROAT CUTTING AND DECAPITATION §402a: It is Khonsu69 who gashes (mds) the Lords, as he cuts their throats (? d3d: or ‘decapitates them’),

66 E.g. Naville, Détails relevés dans les ruines de quelques temples, pl. II–III, illustrating the butchers’ court of Sety I at Abydos; Verner, MDAIK 42 (1986), 187. 67 Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 23–25, pl. 18, 19, 21, 24, 60, 61; cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 44. 68 Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 22–25. 69 For this role of Khonsu see Kees, ZÄS 60 (1925), 3; Sethe, Übersetzung II, 158, quoting Tb 83, 6: jnk Hnsw dndn nbw, ‘I am Khonsu who cuts the throats of the ˇ a violent god who asserts power in the next world cf. Lords’. For Khonsu as Žabkar, Mélanges Vercoutter, 379–80. Within a much wider mythological discussion, Kees put forward the imaginative but unsubstantiable suggestion that the moon-god is visualised as slaughterer holding the sickle-shaped crescent moon. On the astronomical context cf. Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 282.

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These two episodes are regularly labelled and shown in depictions of butchery. The slaughter of the animal is by ‘cutting’, normally sft, where a man with a flint knife is shown at the throat of the animal. mds, ‘sharp’, is a derivative in m from the root ds, ‘flint’.71 It looks, and probably sounded like the phrase m ds, ‘with flint’. In CT IV, 315e, a gloss to Spell 335b, mds appears in one group of coffins as the name of a dog-faced demon who slaughters and devours, acting as assistant to a god of judgement frequently identified as Shezemu.72 More directly related, in Pyr §§962a–63b the moon god is called on in his other manifestation as Thoth: dm73 ds=k Dh.wty nšm mds dr tpw h.sq h.3ty jdr=f tpw h.sq=f h.3tyw nw d3tj=sn sn m Ppj pn sd3j=f hr=k Wsjr ˇ nw hsftj=sn sn m Ppj pn ˇ sd3j=f hr=k Wsjr ˇ anh w3s dj=k n=f ˇ knife, Thoth, keen and cutting, Sharpen your felling heads and cutting hearts. He fells the heads and cuts the hearts of those who will oppose themselves against this Pepi, when he goes before you Osiris; of those who will set themselves against this Pepi, when he goes before you Osiris and you give him life and power.

The play between ds and mds is exploited in the same context of cutting the throat and removing the heart of the beast, here explicitly to 70 For the theme of the wpwty cf. above §400b, and Valloggia, Recherche sur les “messagers”, 52. The sense of hsf, ‘punish’, fits the normal theme of slaughter by ˇ sacrifice as the destruction of enemies. Here also wpwty and hsf echo the wording ˇ that describes the way the bull is overwhelmed in §§400b–1b. 71 Kees, ZÄS 60 (1925), 2–5. Cf. Pyr §§1906d, 1927d, and cf. also the seventh hour of the Amduat, Hornung, Texte zum Amduat II, 535. Goebs, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 451–52 stresses the explicit imagery of the blade as crescent moon. 72 For mds cf. Zandee, Death, 158, 215–16, 245–46. 73 The verb is spelt d + m + dmd sign. The whole line seems to be based on a strong alliteration of dental and sibilant consonants.

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destroy those who would stand between the king and his afterlife with Osiris. This is reinforced by parallel couplets that vary only in the use of d3j and hsf: both with the root sense of ‘cross’, ‘travel’ (on water), ˇ and both apparently used in their extended sense of ‘oppose’, but probably also with wider resonances. The decapitation is explicitly followed, here as in the tomb scenes, by ‘removing the heart’ (šdj h.3ty): a man plunges his arm deep into the slit cut in the animal.74 This is associated with the cutting off of the foreleg, the commonest of butchery scenes, since this is the crucial element of the offering ceremony, and the scene of itself suffices conventionally to represent the portioning of the animal: §403a: It is Shezemu who cuts75 them up for Unas,

Shezemu is the butcher, portioning the animal for further processing.76 74 Vandier, Manuel V, 167–68; pl. X, fig. 86, 3; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 79–87; Fischer, Or 29 (1960), pl. XLVII, from the tomb of Metjen, shows the manipulation of the forelegs as the butcher plunges his hand into the carcass. 75 The use of the form rhs=f in the Unas version is surprising, since the repeated patˇ jn + participle, and the following geminating participle fss tern here is consistently (§403b) implies that the appropriate translation here is also a characterising present tense. 76 For Shezemu see Altenmüller, Synkretismus, 217–18; Ciccarello, Studies Hughes, 43–54; Zandee, Death, 145–46, 157–58, 215–16; Peterson, Or Su 12 (1963), 83–88; van der Plas, L’hymne a` la crue du Nil, I, 121–24; Leitz, Tagwählerei, 304, n.8; Mu-Chou Poo, Wine, 151–53; Willems, Heqata, 437–38, n.av; LÄ V, 590–91, s.v. ‘Schesemu’. The beneficial god of the wine and oil press, whose name is written with a winepress hieroglyph, but also a butcher god, who traps and kills the dead in the underworld. Cf. especially CT Spells 473–81, the netting spell, where he plays his part in the capture, gutting and cooking of the dead as fish. Also BoD 17, 62–63 = Tb pl. XXV with gloss: Shezemu lassoes and cuts up evildoers and souls. Also Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 18, of the ritual killing of the hippopotamus: ‘He will fall by the rope of Shesmu, as the spoils of Our Lady of the Chase.’ He is also a god who presents meat offerings: cf. CT I, 171a (poultry); similarly Dendera East Staircase, Mariette, Dendérah IV, pl. VII; pl. XIV = Ciccarello, Studies Hughes, 51, associating him as Lord of the Slaughterhouse with the portioning of wild animals. Possibly there is some connection of ideas between pressing the juice from the grapes and extracting the blood from the body (cf. Schott, ZÄS 74 (1938), 88–93; Altenmüller, Synkretismus, 217). Note Pyr §1552a: ‘Shesmu comes to you carrying grape-juice (hr mw jrpw).’ That Spell (581) is an identification with Osiris, and apparently with the inundation, but the preceding Spell 580 deals with the sacrifice of the bull as Seth, and reference to this also seems to be made in §§1555–56. For the connection with oils see Schoske, Schönheit, 42.

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Figure 2 The flow of blood at slaughter. Tomb of Iti, Gebelein

Details of this portioning are poorly represented in pictorial sources, and even the most detailed sequences require a mixture of common sense and guesses at the technical probabilities to fill in the genuine gaps in our knowledge.77 The animal was not stunned, but merely immobilised. Then the slaughterer cut the arteries of the neck by a deep cut across the throat, through the windpipe, severing the head as far as the bone.78 Relatively few scenes provide a clear illustration of the cutting of the throat and the flow of the blood:79 as an example the tomb of Amenemhet at Beni Hasan shows nice coloured detail, with one man holding the head of the animal still with his foot, 77 Mundt, SVZ Schlachten und Vermarkten 75 (1975) part 10, 358–61; 11, 394–95; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 53–110; Vandier, Manuel V, 167–72; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 113–44 (= Chapter VI. Jointing). 78 Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 34–46; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 44–46. The types of knife available (Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 63–70) were appropriate only for a slitting or cutting action, and not for the use of a point to penetrate directly to the artery with a stabbing action. 79 E.g., Vandier, Manuel V, 137–38, 155, 241, 286, pl. XI, XII.

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as its throat is cut and blood drips from the wound.80 The actual removal of the head is even more rarely shown.81 An exceptional Old Kingdom scene from Medum shows the decapitation of a standing oryx.82 This motif, with the animal upright and its raised head held for cutting is typical for depictions of the sacrifice of the oryx in later temples,83 but is hardly practicable for a large animal. The head itself is typically shown on the offering table, along with the foreleg. The hieroglyph for the head of the animal is the usual writing in offering lists, where it stands for the whole animal.84 Although it is commonly shown in the heap on the offering table, the actual offering of a head is exceptional in tomb and temple depictions. It is not a joint that forms part of the standard offering list,85 and classical authors record that the head of the sacrificial bull was not eaten, but discarded by the Egyptians.86 The bull’s head from sacrifice may, therefore have 80 Shedid, Felsgräber von Beni Hassan, 50, Abb. 86. 81 Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 48–49. E.g., Vandier, Manuel V, 290, fig. 133; 260, fig. 115, 3 = Davies, Scenes from Some Theban Tombs, pl. I (Dyn. 18, Djeserkaresonb); cf. Davies, Five Theban Tombs, pl. VIII (TT20, Montuherkhopeshef, Dynasty 18). They seem to belong to the New Kingdom repertoire rather than that of the Old Kingdom. Cf. also Sethe, Dram. Texte, pl. 15, scenes 7–8 for removal of bull and duck/goose heads and their offering; Blackman and Fairman, JEA 32 (1946), 83 nn.44, 46, 88 for their role in the ‘Temple Consecration’ ritual; similarly the offering of decapitated animals in the butchery section of the Opening of the Mouth, §23IIb, see Otto, Mundöffnungsritual I, 45. 82 Vandier, Manuel V, 133, fig. 72 = Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, pl. I = Petrie, Medum, pl. XXII; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 52–53. 83 Derchain, Sacrifice de l’oryx, 7–9. 84 For writings and meaning see Lapp, Opferformel 131–32 and passim. 85 Cf. the remarks of Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 118–21 on the head as a joint, and 249, 262, 284, 290–92, 294 on how unusual the head is in actual finds of meat in the tombs. 86 Herodotus II, 39, see Lloyd, Herodotus II, 176–77; Aelian, De Natura Animalium, X, 21 as food for crocodiles at Ombos; Plutarch, De Iside 31, see Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch’s de Iside et Osiride, 164–67, 415–17. In Late Period geographical lists, the head of the animal is listed as bwt, ‘taboo’, for 6 nomes (Montet, Keˆ mi 11 (1950), 85–116), but the significance of this is unclear. Note also Derchain, Sacrifice de l’oryx, 11, 17, where the decapitated head of the oryx is specifically for the bark of Sokar; cf. Graindorge-Héreil, Le dieu Sokar, 18–19. Nabil Sobhi Hanna, Ghagar of Sett Guiranha, 70–73 recounts how the modern ‘gypsy’ community will use the head of a slaughtered animals in displays of conspicuous consumption, throwing the head into the yard of a rival, or into a public ring, in the context of a public contest that sublimates physical violence and revenge killing.

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been used in more symbolic ways, rather than eaten. For instance, an ox-head appears with the foreleg in funerary deposits, it may be assumed from slaughter at the door of the tomb during the funeral,87 and the find of a head is characteristic of foundation deposits.88 Conversely the head is included as the commonest item among the joints of meat, wine and loaves dealt with by temple merchants in the lists of P. Boulaq 11, and at apparently high prices, which probably implies that they were consumed.89 Despite this discrepancy, the severing of the head, partial or complete, was the normal method of killing the animal, and so symbolised death.90 One may contrast the oath of the priest in the Late Period not to have cut off the head of any living thing,91 with the threat of the magician to behead (sacred) animals in the court of the temples.92 To sever a head was to kill utterly. The criminal – particularly the desecrator of the tomb – was threatened with decapitation, or wringing of the neck like the sacrificial bull or duck,93 just as the restoration of a severed head was the archetypal restoration of life,94 while the mortuary literature is 87 E.g., Lehner, Pyramid Tomb of Hetep-heres, 3, 22, 33–35, 37; Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 14 suggests that finds of heads with other non-prime parts at the bottom of tomb shafts might also represent the remains of funeral meals. Cf. Valloggia, Balat I, 208. 88 LÄ II, 908. For a recent survey see Guidotti, Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 489–95. For a specific example of a head buried immediately after slaughter, with skin preserved, see Burleigh and Clutton-Brock, JEA 66 (1980), 151–53. 89 Peet, Mélanges Maspero I, 188–91 and see below, pp. 194–95. 90 E.g. Pyr §227a, description of the Great Black Bull. Cf. Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 47–52. 91 Merkelbach, ZPE 2 (1968), 7–30. 92 Koenig, Magie et magiciens, 71 = P. Ch. B. V, rt. 4, 10–6, 4. 93 Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 34–36; Morschauser, Threat-formulae, 103–4, 108–9 and cf. 140–1; Habachi, Sanctuary of Hekaib, 36–37 stela 9 = Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 172 nn.25–26. 94 For gods, cf. Altenmüller, JEOL 19 (1967), 433 = Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus lines 42–43, 47, 99, on removing and returning heads to Seth and his followers; Derchain, RdÉ 41 (1990), 13–17 = P. Jumilhac 10, 20–11, 15; 11, 19–22 for restoration of the head of Osiris; CT spell 390 = CT V, 60–64: ‘Not taking a man’s head from him’, var. ‘Giving a man’s head to him’. Similarly BoD 43, cf. Zandee, Death, 65. See Willems, Heqata 93–94, 98–99, 403–07, on CT Spell 229 and the focus of spells on the headboard of the coffin for restoration of the head and bodily integrity in the Place of Embalming and for the Opening of the Mouth, noting specifically that the goddess addressed is explicitly mourner of the Bull of the

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greatly concerned with maintaining or restoring the head to the body.95 Decapitation is primarily a symbol of the destruction of enemies who threaten the deceased,96 while the restoration of the head marks resurrection. This is symbolised by the raising,97 and so perhaps the offering, of the head.98 These themes seem, for instance, to underlie the introduction to Coffin Texts Spell 660: ‘This N cuts off your heads, (you) who cross his path. Your heads are raised on his arms (tn(j) tp=tn tp awy=f); his birth is the birth of a god.’ The theme is more elaborated where there is a reversal of butchery – reassembly of the dead body – as resurrection. This motif is repeated in the related butchery text of Pyramid Spell 254:99

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West (CT III, 294f) and that she is asked (CT III, 295h–96d): ‘May you save me from the catchers of Osiris who cut off heads, who sever necks and take bas and akhs to the slaughterhouse of the eater of the fresh’ (nh.m=t w(j) m-a wh.aw Wsjr h.sqw d3d3w snnw wsrw jtyw 3hw r nmt nt wnm w3d) meat. Also Willems, Heqata 451 = CT Spell 240 = CTˇ III, 323a–24f, and cf. Roulin, Livre de la nuit, 71, 85–86, for association with bodily integrity and receipt of offerings. See also Erman, Hymnen an das Diadem, 47–49, hymn g, lines 15, 2; 16, 3–4 for enemies – followers of Seth – presenting their heads to the knife of the decapitator; and for Horus’ decapitation of Isis see the Story of Horus and Seth, LES 49, 12–50, 5 = Leitz, Tagwählerei, 54–58 = Plutarch, De Iside, 19–20 = Vandier, P. Jumilhac, 63–65, and cf. Aufre`re, L’univers minéral, 122–23. For humans, cf. P. Westcar 7, 4; 8, 11–9, 1; where the magician is a restorer of severed heads, and Peas B320, where tsw d3d3 h.sq ‘joiners of the severed head’ serves as metaphorical classification of the ideal official, as reliever of the suffering and the oppressed. Note above, §396d, and cf., for instance, Pyr §9–10; BoD Spells 43, 151, 166. Cf. Pyr §721c: ts tp=f jn Ra – the ‘raising’ of the head of the resurrected Osiris, felled at Nedyt, punning between ‘raise’ and ‘join’. For magical protection of the neck against severance see Raven, Essays te Velde, 280–81. For restoration of the head as a part and symbol of the reintegration of the body of the resurrected dead, CT Spell 80 = CT I, 37a–d, 38g, 41h = Bickel, Hommages Leclant I, 85–86, 92. As protection from monsters in the Underworld see e.g., Zandee, Death 147–57; Hornung, Höllenvorstellungen, 16–20; Malek, The Cat, 78; 81–87. In curses, Bakir, ASAÉ 43 (1943), 75–79 = Cairo JE 85647; Kitchen, JARCE 8 (1969–70), 59 = Brooklyn 67118; Morschauser, Threat-formulae, 103–4, 108–9. Cf. Leclant, MDAIK 14 (1956), 140–41; e.g., also Pyr §§962–63, 1211–12; CT I, 72. Cf. Andrews, Amulets, 94–95 on BoD Spell 166 (to prevent the head being removed from the deceased) and its relation to the headrest amulet. Note CT VI, 280n–q. For illustration, a butchery and offering scene on coffin side, see Hayes, Scepter II, 31. §§286b–e.

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The text as a whole asserts the preservation of the king’s food, and his slaughter of his enemies, ending with his identification as the victorious Bull of the Sky.101 The role and function of the Old Kingdom ‘reserve heads’ remains unclarified, but the symbolic significance of the head is clear:102 whether they represent a restoration or removal of the head, to resurrect or restrict the actions of the dead. There does, however, appear to be some focus in their decoration on deliberate injury and bleeding from the head. That motif is otherwise typical of the hieroglyph used to determine words for ‘enemy’,103 where the depiction is of a wholly unrealistic spurt of blood from the head, comparable to that from the neck of a sacrificial animal. As with the bulls’ heads that are sometimes found in similar archaeological context to the reserve heads – at the bottom of the tomb shaft – more than one symbolic meaning may be mobilised. In general, the head of the sacrifice is shown still attached to the carcass, even at a quite late state of dismemberment,104 yet the practicality of working with the carcass would lead one to expect that it was normally removed early in the process.105 New Kingdom scenes are 100 Cf. above, §396d. 101 §293b. Note also §481a–d and especially Pyr. Spell 251 where the king is transformed from bull as victim to bull who slaughters (discussed by Galán, Victory and Border, 16, and with wholly different interpretation by Goedicke, VA 8 (1992), 7–16). 102 Tefnin, Art et Magie, 48–49, 78–80; BSFÉ 120 (1991), 25–37, esp. 30–32; and cf. Schmidt, SAK 18 (1991), 331–48, esp. 332. Assmann, Studies Simpson I, 56–65 presents a wholly different approach. Cf. also Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 16–18. 103 Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, sign list A14. 104 E.g., Martin, Hetepka, pl. 15, scene [16]. 105 As shown in a number of New Kingdom scenes, e.g., Vandier, Manuel V, 290, fig. 133. The exceptional cooking of a whole carcass, with legs and head removed, is shown in Blackman, Meir III, pl. XXIII = Klebs, Reliefs des Mittleren Reiches, 104, Abb. 73 = Vandier, Manuel IV, 269, fig. 121.

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more likely to imply that the head was removed first,106 while Old Kingdom scenes characteristically show the head at least partially attached to the carcass. Probably the symbolic importance of the head led to its depiction in what are essentially offering scenes, at a stage when in fact it would have already been removed.

BLOOD AND DISMEMBERMENT The flowing blood from the sacrifice was caught in a large bowl – often a spouted jar – which is sometimes shown in the hands of a figure kneeling at the neck of the animal as its throat is cut. More often the bowl is seen on the shoulder of a standing figure as he carries it away.107 Detailed depictions that show the flow of the blood are not common.108 Unmistakable examples are found in an early Middle Kingdom tomb from Gebelein, where the spout of blood to the bowl is clearly marked,109 and the Tomb of Ti, where the two men with knives, standing over the slit in the bull’s throat, are labelled sft, ‘cutting’. Here also the term sbšt seems to be used to refer to the bleeding, while other men behind hold jars labelled for the blood.110 The typical depiction here of a man pulling back a foreleg may indicate that he was

106 E.g., Assmann, Grab des Amenemope, Tafel 46, and XXXIXa, shows an animal on its back, all four legs tied but its head gone: the published pictures are not completely clear (the drawing non-committal, and the photo too small), but the man seems to be standing astride where the head would have been, probably meant to be pulling apart the opened flanks, or possibly extracting the innards. 107 E.g., Kanawati and Abder-Raziq, Teti Cemetery V, 40, pl. 35, 61: a man bringing a jar specifically labelled for the blood. 108 Vandier, Manuel V, 134–37, 173–74; pl. X–XII; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 39–46, criticised by Mundt, SVZ Schlachten und Vermarkten 75 (1975) part 8, 285–86; Fischer, Or 29 (1960), 182 and pl. XLVII; Jaroš-Deckert, Grab des JnjJtj.f, 50–51 and n.329 with the suggestion that the motif is characteristic of the First Intermediate Period. Cf. Derchain, Sacrifice de l’oryx, 8, 17 for the blood of the sacrifice flowing to the earth. 109 Fig. 2 above p. 92 = Vandier, Manuel V, pl. XI = Donadoni Roveri, La vita quotidiana, 68, fig. 78 = Robins, Beyond the Pyramids, 18, fig. 2.1; cf. also Shedid, Felsgräber von Beni Hassan, 50, Abb. 86 and above p. 92 nn. 79–80. 110 Steindorff, Grab des Ti, pl. 72–73; Säve-Söderbergh, Hamra Dom, 49. For the term sbš see Wb IV, 93, 6–7. It is notably used of the violent vomiting following a snake-bite or the use of an emetic, see Sauneron, Ophiologie, 181, 186. See also below on §411a.

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Figure 3 Butchery scene, showing removal of entrails and portioning of carcass. Tomb of Ankhmahor, Saqqara

giving the butcher access to the throat, but it is better interpreted as manipulation of the leg after the throat has been cut to promote the flow of blood.111 For instance, in the tomb of Khentika,112 two men are shown cutting and pulling a foreleg. The accompanying text refers to causing the blood to flow effectively, for a third man stands behind, with a jar and a cloth. New Kingdom scenes more typically show a priest pouring water over the bull’s neck in the same flowing arc, rather than catching the blood as it spouts.113 This will represent both 111 Cf. Vialles, Animal to Edible, 75; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 46–48 and in Nicholson and Shaw, Ancient Egyptian Materials, 657. 112 James, Khentika, pl. XXII. 113 E.g., Vandier, Manuel V, 286; 293; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 53–55.

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ritual and practical cleansing of the neck, either before the blow114 or when the bleeding has ceased. Nevertheless the motifs evidently parallel each other, with the flow of blood itself purifying the meat.115 There is no clear evidence for the use of bull’s blood in food manufacture.116 If used, such blood would have to be processed and probably eaten immediately.117 Further detail in tomb scenes shows the inspection 114 Cf. Goody, Death, 406: ‘the assistant pours a gourd of water on its neck and slits its gullet, catching the blood as it gushes into a bowl.’ 115 Vialles, Animal to Edible, 79–81 stresses the very limited use of water for washing the animal in traditional butchery: the skill lay in bleeding cleanly into the bowl or drain, and using cloths to mop up blood on the carcass. She remarks (pp. 57–58) on the French ideal of ‘doing an animal in shining shoes’. 116 Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 48, 180–82. An isolated passage in the medical P. Ebers 39, 17–19 = 198c (quoted Brewer et al., Domestic Plants and Animals, 89, 260) describes something spewed or defecated as ‘like the blood of a pig after d3ff’, that is, burning or cooking(?). Otherwise the blood of a variety of animals and birds – notably the fried blood of a black calf or blood of the horn of a black bull – is used in ointments to deal with greying hair (P. Ebers 65, 8–20) or ingrowing(?) eyelids (P. Ebers 63, 12–18). References to the consumption of black pudding made from pig’s blood, like the consumption of pork in general, would not normally appear in the textual record, although for instance in Western Europe it is normal to use pig’s blood but dispose of cow’s or sheep’s blood unused. 117 Cf. Goody, Death, 407: describing West African practice (see below, ch. 17), where some of the blood was poured over ancestor figures, and the rest boiled in a pot, together with part of the guts, and eaten on the spot. Such a pudding, which is the filling of blood sausages, is normal in a culture where the blood is regarded as edible. See Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 23–25, where the model of Meketre shows catching blood from the wound associated with cooking in cauldrons. He interprets this as cooking the blood, as does Gilbert, JEA 74 (1988), 79–80. Perhaps, however, the alternative that the cooking represents fat processing (see below pl. 2 p. 113) is more likely; cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 179; Fischer, Varia, 98–99, n.14. Sauneron, Ophiologie, 122–23, discussing the instruction that the blood of a red ox should be swallowed by a man bitten by a snake as an emergency measure in the absence of proper expertise for treatment, notes that normally such blood ¨ counted as a dangerous poison (quoting only Rabbinowicz (ed.), Maimonide, Traité des poisons [sic], 55). The implication of a ‘red’ bull is Sethian = sacrificial, cf. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, 164–67; Aufre`re, L’univers mineral, 556–57; Vos, Studies Quaegebeur I, 712–13. Elsewhere in the snake-bite treatise, the blood of various animals is used as an application (5, 25–26 = §90c = p. 122, and see pp. 190–91), presumably as a ‘sympathetic’ procedure, since viper bites sometimes cause severe (including internal) bleeding, cf. p. 24, n.7; p. 87, n.1. According to Late Period cult-topographies (Montet, Keˆ mi 11 (1950), 85–116) the head and the blood of the sacrifice were taboo (bwt) in the Oryx nome (XVIth

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of blood by a priest as a criterion of the purity of the beast.118 The symbolism of blood is that of the life-force that flows away,119 and explicit references to drinking blood,120 as by the goddess Sakhmet in the story of the Destruction of Mankind or by monsters in the Underworld,121 symbolise evil, savage, aberrant behaviour and not a culinary norm.122 Its potential symbolism for the offering ritual is little exploited:123 the

U.E.). However, in other nomes even the leg (4 nomes) and the entire beef animal (4 nomes) were ‘taboo’, while according to P. Jumilhac 20, 20 one local ‘taboo’ was ‘eating the meat of any sacrifice’. The status of such a ‘taboo’ is extremely obscure (Frandsen, BSAK 3 (1988), 151–58; Studies Quaegebeur II, esp. 975–86, 997–99) and the apparent banning of blood in one nome cannot be taken as a safe indication that it was permitted in the others. 118 Leibovitch, JNES 12 (1953), 59–60; Erman, Reden, Rufe und Lieder, 13; Kees, Kulturgeschichte, 70, 308; Fischer, Varia, 98–99, n.14; Vandier, Manuel V 134–35 (= Paget and Pirie, Tomb of Ptah-hetep, pl. XXXVI) and 288–89. Perhaps also Hassan, Giza III, 173, fig. 144; BM 1270a + 865 = HTBM I2, XXIII. Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 14, 49 and p. 44 perhaps shows inspection of blood, but by an ordinary butcher. 119 Westendorf, LÄ I, 840–42, s.v. ‘Blut’; Tefnin, Art et magie, 81–82. 120 Cf. also Derchain, Sacrifice de l’oryx, 41, 53, 54 for the sun’s eye drinking the blood of rebels it has killed, for which cf. BoD 134; Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 2–36, esp. 17 n.d, for texts from Edfu, where the assistants of Horus in the slaughter of the hippopotamus, often themselves ‘bulls’, typically devour the beast, drinking its blood or swallowing its ‘gore’ (sam t(w)r). According to the Chester Beatty Dreambook (P. Ch. B. III, 9, 18), for a man to see himself in a dream drinking blood is bad: ‘a fight awaits him’. For magical uses note Westendorf, LÄ I, 840–42, and Betz, Greek Magical Papyri, 37 = PGM IV, 26–51, a magical initiation ritual, where the practitioner decapitates a white cockerel, disposing of the head in the river – ‘drink up the blood, draining it off into your right hand’ – and burning the remains. The whole is related to Herodotus’ description of ritual sacrifice (II, 39–40). 121 Zandee, Death, 151–52, 160. Note especially among the 42 assessors in BoD 125 the ‘Eater of Blood (wnm snf) who comes out from the slaughterhouse (nmt)’. The preamble to this spell also refers to those who swallow blood on the day of judgement. 122 Cf. Vialles, Animal to Edible, 5, 41, 72–74, 82 on the symbolism in bleeding, and cultural attitudes to the blood in modern Western Europe, where only pig’s blood is normally used for food. 123 An exception is BoD 144, a spell for passing the seven gates and their keepers, which requires in each case a recitation and offering list that begins with ‘foreleg, head, heart and side of a red bull, and four bowls of blood’. Later the list also includes ‘4 bowls filled with the milk of a white cow’.

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identification of the wine offering as the blood of sacrifice is unusual,124 possibly a reflection of the fact that beer, not wine, is the primary drink of the offering formula, as of Egypt in general. The specific metaphor of identifying wine with blood is not a common or standard Egyptian theme.125 More likely the blood was simply poured away on to the ground. That is probably the implication of Pyr §292a-b: ‘Their hearts fall to his fingers: their innards (bsq) are for those who belong to the sky; their blood126 is for those who belong to the earth.’ The passage is assumed to refer to scavenging birds and animals. Similarly, flowing blood referred to as a medium of creation127 is blood which falls to earth – as red minerals in P. Jumilhac,128 and of the vine according to Plutarch.129 Or, in the New Kingdom story of the Two Brothers, two drops of blood from the neck of the slaughtered bull (a manifestation of the younger brother Bata) regrow overnight into his new form as a pair of persea trees.130 It is perhaps simpler to note that a press is used in the same way for processing the meat and fat, and Shezemu’s role here reflects him as processor of the bits and pieces. The fact that the Cannibal Hymn does not include drinking131 or cooking the blood of the victim may suggest that it was not normally processed for food. It 124 Westendorf, LÄ I, 840–42, s.v. ‘Blut’ quotes Bonnet, Reallexikon, 863, and ibid. 121–22, s.v. ‘Blut’; Mu-Chou Poo, Wine, ch. 6; Dils, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 119–21; Griffith and Thompson, Demotic Magical Papyrus, 105–9 (in a love spell); Cherpion, Deux tombes, 95–97 in connection with tomb decoration. Cf. also Aufre`re, L’univers minéral, 654, 758 (with reference to hematite colouring of beer and wine); Gutbub, Keˆ mi 16 (1962), 70–71, in connection with the ritual to pacify Sekhmet; also Plutarch, De Iside, 6. 125 Lloyd, Herodotus, 175 quotes Plutarch, De Iside 6; Naville, Mythe d’Horus, pl. 13, 19–21. 126 Literally ‘their red’ (dsr), determined with a triple sign of flowing liquid. 127 Westendorf, LÄ I, 840–42, s.v. ‘Blut’. 128 2, 19; 3, 11; 22, 11; 23, 16; cf. Aufre`re, L’univers minéral, 653, and in general for the symbolism of red minerals and their relationship to blood see also pp. 551–60, 574–75, 653–56; see also Beaux, Hommages Leclant I, 66–68 on Pyr §1082 for the wine colour of the morning sky, at the rebirth of the god; and cf. Pyr §820, 1464. See also above on §401c. 129 De Iside, 6 = Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, 124–27, 274–77. 130 P. D’Orbiney 16, 6–17, 1 = LES 26, 7–15. 131 In Pyr §1286c baba=k m snf=sn, baba is unlikely to mean ‘drink’ as Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 203; CDME 81, but ‘flow’, ‘be awash with’, see Faulkner, Coffin Texts I, 1 n.6 and similarly Pyr §2127c–d = Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 301–2. For the theme of a flow of blood from overthrown enemies cf. Grimal, Termes de la propagande royale, 655.

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is quite possible that as in Islamic and Jewish butchery practice, so in Pharaonic, the blood was regarded as ‘impure’ food, and was drained away for disposal.132 In that case the use of bowls to catch the blood is a measure of hygiene and maintenance of a work area.133 The motif of manipulating the leg to help bleed the carcass merges with that of holding and manipulating the leg that is the first part removed in the dismemberment of the carcass. The foreleg itself (cf. below, §405b) is itself the primary joint of the offering, symbolising with the head the whole process of sacrifice and offering. A number of depictions in New Kingdom funeral scenes show the removal of this foreleg from a standing calf, which is accompanied by its protesting mother.134 The depiction here of an untrussed calf has sometimes been taken to imply that the leg was at least sometimes cut from a live animal before slaughter,135 a claim reinforced by the standard depiction of the butcher manipulating a single foreleg on an otherwise fully trussed animal, and the stress in butchery scenes on the rapid removal of that limb for presentation by the priest in the ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth. The scenes with the standing calf are, however, better explained as a conflation, in picture, of the presence of the animal in both funerary procession and sacrifice.136 The practicalities of removal of the leg of a living – and in the case of the calf, a standing – animal

132 Cf. Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 41–42, 54–57, 71–73, with sceptical remarks by Säve-Söderbergh, Hamra Dom, 49. The strong tendency of biblical scholars to stress the unique nature of the Hebrew taboo on blood depends largely on a priori arguments about cultural diffusion and the absence of explicit evidence from other Bronze Age cultures in the Levant, and its validity is highly questionable: see, e.g., Vervenne, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 451–70 and esp. 456; McCarthy, JBL 88 (1969), 166–76; 92 (1973), 205–10. Cf. also Green, Antiquaries Journal 78 (1998), 66–68 on Greek and Celtic practice. 133 Málek, Studies Edwards, 32 notes that drainage facilities in the Old Kingdom pyramid temples are for rainwater run-off, and should not be interpreted as slaughterhouse facilities. 134 The relevant scenes are collected in Guilhou, BIFAO 93 (1993), 276–97; Barthelmess, Übergang ins Jenseits, 87–92; Feucht, Grab des Nefersecheru, 47–49 and cf. Assmann, Grab des Amenemope, 163, pl. 40 and XLIII, XLV. For the argument for Old Kingdom scenes see Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, 44–45. 135 Most recently Gordon and Schwabe, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 461–69. 136 Cf. above at §403a on the depiction of a standing oryx, and for the similar interaction of different contexts in a single scene see Barthelmess, Übergang ins Jenseits, 99, discussing the depiction of the wife as both mourner and recipient of cult.

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would be considerable,137 and there is no real justification to argue more than that the foreleg was removed as rapidly as possible once the flow of blood at the throat had ceased.138 The fact that a calf was actually included in the ceremonies is, however, seen in finds of calf bones in Old Kingdom burials.139 It is probable, in the butchery scenes, that the man shown at the throat of the bull should often be understood as slitting open the carcass rather than performing the initial cut to kill the animal. The initial removal of the foreleg gave easier access to the main carcass.140 Then the body cavity was slit from neck to groin141 for the removal of the internal organs. The carcass could not be hung from its rear legs, as was done for smaller animals. For instance, goats and deer are shown hung from a trellis or tree, and slit down from groin to throat to eviscerate them: an action labelled as sft.142 Without a pulley, for which there is no evidence at this date, the carcass of a bull is simply too heavy to hang before dismemberment.143 In practice a nearly similar effect could be

137 Guilhou, BIFAO 93 (1993), 276–97 contrasts the apparent realism intended in the most circumstantial depictions of the calf’s leg with their evidently mythological and symbolic importance in the sequence of the funeral scenes, and poses the central question of the extent to which the ritually symbolic may have been literally and physically enacted. In particular she argues that the scene does not, in fact, belong to the offering of the hpš-foreleg at the Opening of the Mouth, since characˇ leg below the joint, and not the full foreleg which is teristically it is only the lower removed: she concludes that a separate, if associated, ritual context is shown. 138 Cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 50–51, 116. So, for instance, Altenmüller, Mehu, 196–97, scene 47.12, pl. 74 stresses urgency in removal of the leg, and asserts that the blood has been ‘taken’ (jtj) as the ritualist has begun the ritual (hrj-h.b h.r jrjt ht). 139 Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 13–14. Cf. also reference at the end of BoD 28 to ˇthe use of a wrapped calf’s leg. 140 Illustrations Vandier, Manuel V, 158–60; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 49–53. On the offering of the foreleg cf. te Velde, Seth, 86–89; see below on §405b. 141 E.g., Fischer, Or 29 (1960), 183–84, fig. 6 = Jéquier, Mon. fun. Pepi II II, pl. 98; Martin, Hetepka, pl. 13 scene [14]; pl. 15 scene [16]. 142 E.g., Davies, Deir el Gebraˆ wi I, pl. IX; XII = Vandier, Manuel IV, fig. 116; Moussa and Altenmüller, Grab des Nianchchnum und Chnumhotep, pl. 76, 78; p. 155; cf. also pl. 20, fig. 8, p. 73; Moussa and Altenmüller, Nefer and Ka-Hay, pl. 4; Varille, Ni-ankh-Pepi, p. 15, fig. 5; pl. XVI = Vandier, Manuel V, 88–90; Petrie, Medum, pl. XVIII = Vandier, Manuel V, 132–33; Selim Hassan, Excavations at Saqqara I, 29, fig. 13; Selima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 52, fig. 5. 143 Even in the manner of a rural street butcher hanging his wares under a tripod-like frame, from which the meat is cut to the request of his customer.

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obtained by the assistant holding up and manipulating the rear legs as the butcher worked round the carcass, stripping out the innards, and dismembering the animal from head to tail.144 Further details of stripping the innards are rarely shown. An exception is the handling of the intestines in the tomb of Ankhmahor.145 More frequently the scenes detail the removal of individual muscles and joints, the taking of the ‘front-meat’,146 or the removal of the sheets of ribs.147 The physical removal of the symbolically important liver is not shown, but the butcher or ritualist is sometimes found standing by the carcass, holding the liver in his hand.148 Similarly the process of skinning is not clearly depicted, and the procedure for skinning cattle is unclear.149 With the animal lying on the ground, the butchery process began by emptying the carcass from the inside,150 and this may have preceded stripping the skin.151 Consequently few scenes provide any-

144 E.g., Vandier, Manuel V, 158 (tomb of Ikhekhi); 189 (tomb of Ankhtify). The suggestion by Gilbert, JEA 74 (1988), 80 that an animal worked flat will not bleed properly is simply incorrect: cf. Vialles, Animal to Edible, 74–75. 145 Fig. 3; Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 14–15, 49; Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 113–15. For less detailed Eighteenth Dynasty examples see Davies, Five Theban Tombs, pl. X (TT20 Montuherkhopeshef) and pl. XLIII (TT29 Amenemope). 146 Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 14–15, 49; Altenmüller, Mehu, 198, scene 47.3.3, pl. 74; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 87–93. 147 Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 107–10; Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 14–15, 49; Martin, Hetepka, pl. 13, scene [14]; pl. 15 scene [16]. 148 AEO II, 249*; cf. Vandier, Manuel V, 169, 183; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 95. 149 Cf. Vandier, Manuel V, 170; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 73–78; James, Khentika, pl. XXII, XXXII; Lloyd, Herodotus, 176 (on Herodotus II, 39), although the illustrations he quotes are neither clear nor distinctive. For the skin in the New Kingdom funeral rites see Davies, Five Theban Tombs, pl. X, XLIII and p. 18. 150 Cf. Vialles, Animal to Edible, 37–38; Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 30 n.15 quote Edfou I, 381, 15–16; IV, 111, 3 and 351, 6; VII, 149, 3–4 for references to cutting up the flesh of the hippopotamus on its own hide; similarly Labrique, Studies Quaegebeur II, 887–89 for the slaughter of the oryx. Depictions of slaughterhouses in the temples of the Aten at Amarna typically show the headless carcass, head, plate or tray of joints and the skin as the contents of the building: see Davies, Amarna I, pl. XI, XXXIII (Meryre); II, pl. XVIII (Panehsy). 151 So van Driel-Murray, in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials, 300–31, focusing on the practical difficulties of recovering the skin for tanning. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 48–51 argues, on the basis of modern comparisons, that the animal was flayed before the carcass was opened, but the comparison is complicated by the modern suspension of animals for dismemberment and portioning (ibid. 16, 52, 117), and is anyway not universally valid. The depictions

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thing like a full sequence to illustrate the portioning of the animal, and it is often difficult to interpret precisely which joints or cuts are shown.152 Especially rare are clear and detailed depictions of the internal organs other than the heart.

COOKING AND FEASTING Once dismembered, much of the animal was immediately for the pot: §403b: (And) cooks (fss) for him the things in them153 on his evening hearthstones.154

Although depictions of cooking are relatively common – at least in private tombs – the motif is not standard in the butchery sequences shown on tomb or temple walls.155 Butchery scenes were concerned with the procedures of sacrifice and offering, and typically the meat portions are shown carried off from the slaughter, raw and unprocessed, for the

seem to show animals still in their skins throughout the process of emptying the innards and the basic portioning, but this equally need not be a reliable representation of normal practice. The stage in the butchery sequence at which the sheet of ribs and rear leg are removed may represent the time at which they are separated from the skin, but even in the clearest scenes the degree of detail is not conclusive: e.g., Martin, Hetepka, pl. 15 [16], bottom right, labelled sft, as is the preceding episode showing the opening of the abdominal cavity to remove the heart. In this context sft and rhs appear to be effectively synonymous (cf. Verner, ˇ pl. 12; 38–39, pl. 18). Ptahshepses I/1. Reliefs, 29 n.7, 152 The best series is perhaps that of Martin, Hetepka, pl. 12, scene [11]. See also the model of Meketre, Winlock, Models of Daily Life, pl. 18; 19; 21; 24; 60; 61 and comparable scenes, discussed below. Cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 113–44 (= Chapter VI. Jointing), and 231–96 for the range of joints actually found in burials. In this respect the standard offering-list is not greatly helpful. 153 The phrase jht jm=sn could also be translated ‘the offering/meal from them’. If it is ˇ valid to see here some play on words, the innards of the gods are defined as offerings, and the ordinary offerings identified as the power-giving innards of the gods. 154 The translation ‘hearthstone’ for ktjt is based on the determinative in the text of Unas. The determinatives in the Coffin Text version imply that a cooking pot was understood, as do the writings in BoD 17 (see Urk V 61, 4 and 12, replacing wh.awt, ‘cauldrons’, in the CT version of that text, Urk V, 60, 8 and 14). See also below §406b. The determination in both Unas and Teti implies that mšrw here refers to ‘evening’ rather than the ‘evening meal’: Sethe, Übersetzung II, 159. 155 For a survey see Vandier, Manuel IV, 256–71; Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, passim.

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offerings. The pictures do not provide a complete narrative sequence, and the details of the meat processing had limited value in this context. Only occasionally do cooking scenes provide the narrative connection between butchery and consumption, as the tomb owner sits at his offering table, or in the context of a feasting scene.156 Such a sequence is exemplified by a wall of the mid-Fifth Dynasty tomb of Iymery at Giza.157 From east to west the wall shows cattle rearing, including in the top register scenes of herdsmen cooking and eating bread and poultry in the marshes, and leading bulls to the slaughter. Butchery scenes fill two upper registers in the centre of the wall, above scenes of cooking poultry and joints of meat (boiling and grilling). Above these a ceremonial offering(?) dance is shown: jtjt jb3 ht nbt nfrt n … jj-mry m h.b ˇ nb dt, ‘performing the dance of all good things for … Iymery in every festival for ever’. At the bottom a small group of men, at small tables, are eating poultry, meat, bread and fruit and drinking (beer). The sequence continues to the west section of the wall with the tomb owner seated in a booth, in front of a full range of foods, including both cooked and uncooked meat, presented by his smsw-pr and his kapriests. In a register underneath singing and dancing are shown.158 The 156 For a fragmentary example of grilling meat and poultry shown in close context, see Martin, Hetepka, pl. 12, scene [13]; similarly Varille, Ni-ankh-Pepi, pl. XIV; cf. also Wreszinski, Atlas I, 213, 220 for a series of scenes of butchery, hanging meat, cooking meat in a cauldron and grilling poultry (TT 60, Senet, temp. Sesostris I); ibid. 253, for butchery, trimming and hanging meat, and cooking in a cauldron on a fixed stove (TT 79, Menkheper, early Dyn. 18), closely associated with feasting; Tylor, Tomb of Renni, pl. XII, for butchery, with cooking oven for joints of meat, and jars (for potting?) in the context of funerary scenes; Strudwick and Strudwick, Tombs of Amenhotep, Khnummose and Amenmose, pl. XXXI, colour plate 7, p. 84 for processing of meat for banquet; similarly for the Old Kingdom see El-Khouli and Kanawati, El-Hammamiya, pl. 47–48 and pp. 43–44; Petrie, Deshasheh, pl. XXVII = Tooley, Egyptian Models, fig. 1. Tylor and Griffith, Tomb of Paheri, pl. III shows cooking fires next to carcasses in the context of an inspection of the cattle herds. Simpson, Qar and Idu, pl. XXV–XXVI = fig 38, tomb of Idu, shows meat cooking for a feast; pl. XII = fig. 29, tomb of Qar, shows cooking associated with butchery, between the slaughter and the offerings. 157 Below fig. 6 p. 112; G6020: Weeks, Mastabas of Cemetery G6000, 41–45, fig. 34–37, second chamber, south wall. 158 Selim Hassan, Excavations at Saqqara I, 17 (tomb of Neb-kaw-her) shows portioning and cooking of meat and poultry in a sequence of offering bearers headed shpjt h.3t fsjt jht, ‘bringing the prime of cooked things and food-offerings’, under ˇ seated tomb ˇ owner entertained by musicians and dancers. the

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accumulation of scenes shows how butchery and cooking are followed by feasting with entertainment, for the tomb owner in his booth, and for his associates, who are singing, dancing and eating in his presence. This is projected as the repetition of regular cult-festivals. The funerary feast includes the cooking and processing of the sacrifice, presumably on the spot. There is, additionally, an important symbolic connection between burning and cooking (see below, §405b). This link is illustrated, for instance, in the Middle Kingdom tombs of Amenemhet (no. 2)159 and Khnumhotep (no. 3)160 at Beni Hasan, where series of butchery scenes are concluded by the presentation of a tray of joints of meat at a pair of braziers. In the later case the text refers specifically to ‘incense on the flame’. The theme seems to be related directly to the Pyramid Text Spells 254–55, which begin:161 ‘The great one (wrt) is censed for the Bull of Nekhen.162 The fiery blast is against you who are at (h.3w) the shrine. O great god whose name is not known, a meal is in place for the Sole Lord.’ This particular spell is closely connected to the Cannibal Hymn, both in its wording and in the theme of relating cosmic cataclysm to explicit images of butchery. In a further variation, in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Montuherkhopeshef (TT 20), one of the fiery pits associated with funeral sacrifice is labelled with the word fst, ‘cook’.163 The presentation of incense carries the image both of purification and of the presence of the divine essence,164 and is closely associated also with the theme of the burnt offering.165 In both cases – the burning of incense and the

159 Newberry, Beni Hasan I, pl. XVII; XVIII. 160 Newberry, Beni Hasan I, pl. XXXV. 161 Pyr §276a–c = CT Spells 619 and 621–22. 162 Note the variation CT Spell 622 = CT VI, 236a the Bull of the Island of Fire. 163 Davies, Five Theban Tombs, pl. X. 164 In general see LÄ V, 83–86, s.v. ‘Räucherung’; VI, 1167–69, s.v. ‘Weihrauch’. Cf. recently Žabkar, Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 236–45 on the use of incense. 165 Junker, Miscellanea Gregoriana, 109–17 discusses an unusual inscription from the Giza tomb of the dwarf Seneb, that lists ‘the necessities for setting the brazier’ (dbh. n w3h. ah), a list that includes food and drink along with the physical equipˇ Early in the list comes a smn-goose, a knife and a kid (jb), and later ment and fuel. another knife followed by a series of the standard joints of the offering list. It is not clear whether the joints of the kid are intended, but the image of an offering following the slaughter of poultry and an animal is evident. Morenz, Ling Aeg 6 (1999), 107–8 on the limited evidence of burnt offering in the Old Kingdom.

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Figure 4 Hieroglyphs illustrating offering tables: (a) brazier and (b) standard table. Tomb of Amenemope, Luxor

burning of the offering – the image inherent in the ritual is also potentially a symbolic representation of the cooking of the meat. The mixture of themes is brought out, from the New Kingdom onwards, in the relatively frequent depiction of the offering of braziers with meat,166 or in formulaic references to the receipt of offerings by the tomb owner from the offering table of the gods, where the hieroglyphic sign represents a brazier rather than a heaped table.167 For instance, in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Djeserkaresonb (TT 38), the tomb owner is shown offering ducks on such braziers,168 labelled as ‘making wdn-offering169 and presenting a3bt-offering – body pure and fingers clean – geese (srw) on the brazier (ah) and cattle on the ˇ offering table, wine and cakes to [Amon] in all his places.’ More elaborate details in the Saite tombs of Ibi (TT 36) and Montuhotep (TT 34)170

In general see LÄ I, 848–50, s.v. ‘Brandopfer’; Bonnet, Reallexikon, 123–25, s.v. ‘Brandopfer’; Schott, Das schöne Fest vom Wüstentale, 12–31; Junker, ZÄS 48 (1910), 69–77; Ghoneim, Ökonomische Bedeutung des Rindes, 211–16; Traunecker et al., Chapelle d’Achôris II, 125–30; Vandier, Manuel IV, 102–6, and note, e.g., KRI I, 194, 12, from the annex to the butchers’ court of Sethi I at Abydos, the offering list includes ‘fatted geese, (necks) wrung on your altars, birds as burnt offerings, incense on the flame’. See below at §405b on the theme of burning. 166 Schott, Das schöne Fest vom Wüstentale, 16 notes that the scenes are characteristic of Dyn. 18, when they first appear in this form, but relatively rare later. For the shape of ceramic trays for holding the charcoal for grilling see Junker, Miscellanea Gregoriana, 111–12. 167 Assmann, Grab des Amenemope, I, 54 = text 45; p. 81, text 94, 6; pp. 85–86, text 102. 168 Davies, Scenes from Some Theban Tombs, pl. IV and cf. pl. I–III. Cf. also Guksch, Grab des Benja, 16–17 and pl. 6. 169 Schott, Das schöne Fest vom Wüstentale, 23–24 notes that wdn is the typical verb used for burnt offerings. 170 Kuhlmann and Schenkel, Grab des Ibi I, 52–53 and pl. 19, 89, 163.

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Figure 5 King fanning meat on brazier. Temple of Luxor

show the tomb owner offering to Amon: ‘Making offering (wdn). Putting meat joints (stp)171 and poultry on the brazier (ah). Presenting all good and pure things.’ He is depicted with a brazierˇin each hand, the flames overlapping a bird, meat joint, egg(?) and loaf(?). In front of him are heaps of offerings, on the bottom register of which is a row of standing braziers, with poultry, meat portions, egg(?), breads(?) and fruit/vegetables(?).172 The material of the burnt offering is 171 stp determined with three forelegs. 172 Note also the scenes of ‘making a light’ (jrjt tk3) shown in a number of Nineteenth Dynasty tombs: Davies, JEA 10 (1924), 9–14; Feucht, Grab des Nefersecheru, 69–70, in which lamps or candles are presented by or around the offering. In the most complex examples this is in a brick structure with a form that can be interpreted as similar either to a stove or the brick structures used for protecting trees.

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primarily meat, then bread, and the inclusion of other foods seems incidental.173 These scenes form part of the offering ceremony within the daily ritual, best known from the so-called Ritual of Amenophis. After a broken beginning, the first eight episodes presented in the Turin manuscript of this ritual concern the setting up of the brazier, putting incense and fat on the fire, and roasting meat on a spit for the god.174 The following spells concern the offerings of bread, cake, beer and wine. The twenty-fifth episode – the dbh.t-h.tp – invokes the god to inhabit his statue, summoning him to his meal: ‘to your warm things (ht=k srf), to this your warm beer, to this your warm roast, being the ˇ hearts of the rebellious (m h.3tyw sntyw).’175 So, for instance, in the sanctuary of the temple of Amenophis III at Luxor, two scenes in the ritual sequence show the king cooking the offerings, in the first using a stick to turn a goose on the brazier in front of the god, and in the other fanning portions of meat as they grill on the brazier.176 The offerings are presented in natural form – the live animal, slaughtered on the spot. In the end, however, the offering meal, including the meat, is presented to the statue cooked, not raw, and a cooking process stands between the slaughter and the presentation of the food.177 Finds of cattle bones showing evidence of burning in and around the offering areas of Old Kingdom tombs are most naturally interpreted in this way, as the remains of the funerary meal for both the dead and his surviving family.178

173 Schott, Das schöne Fest vom Wüstentale, 25; note also 18, 28, 30–31 for the close association with butchery. 174 Nelson, JNES 8 (1949), 206–11. 175 Nelson, JNES 8 (1949), 224–26 and fig. 20, quoting here from the Medinet Habu text. Cf. P. Ch. B. IX, rt. 2, 13–3, 7 = Gardiner, HPBM 3rd Series, I, 85 where the episode follows that of burning myrrh to bring the god to his offering, and is closely associated with the Htp-dj-nsw, episode 21 in Nelson’s numbering. 176 Above figs 1 and 5; Brunner, Südlichen Räume, pl. 140–41, scenes XIX/132–33, pp. 58–59. See Schott, Das schöne Fest vom Wüstentale, 19, 28 on the balance between temple and private cult for ‘burnt offerings’. 177 Cf. CT VI, 283–85, a question-and-answer text of the ‘initiation’ type, focused on preparation and cooking the offering bread: the inclusion of 3šr, ‘grilled-bread’, should be noted as a standard part of the offering list. Similarly CT VI, 40 for cooking fish. Morenz, Ling Aeg 6 (1999), 105–9 notes the reference to warm offerings sfrt-h.tpt in Pyr §517a, comparing the wording to a line in the Litany of Re. 178 Cf. Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, esp. 9, 14–16.

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In reality the extensive and immediate processing in situ of the products of the carcass of a butchered animal was necessary if these were not to be wasted. A certain quantity of the meat could be distributed fresh: typically the larger joints shown in the offering scenes. Such a distribution is described as a ritual in Pyr. Spell 580 (§§1543–50), where the killer of Osiris is slaughtered as a bull: ‘I have cut off its head; I have cut off its tail; I have cut off its arms [sic]; I have cut off its legs.’179 Each of the parts is assigned to one or other of the major gods, down to the end: ‘What of it the gods have left over belongs to the Souls of Nekhen and the Souls of Pe. May we eat, may we eat the red ox for the passage of the lake which Horus made for his father Osiris this King.’ Some portions of the butchered animal might be dried, or cured as cuts for storage. It is relatively common for portions of the butchered animal to be shown hung from roofing poles or the ropes of a booth associated with the place of slaughter.180 From the parallelism with fish preservation, this is normally said to represent drying the meat for preservation. To some extent, however, it must also represent the ordinary butchery practice of hanging the portions to one side as the butcher works his way through the carcass. In many cases the portions shown are too large for practical sun-drying, which needs relatively thin strips of meat. The same is true for scenes showing the processing of poultry, where often whole, large birds are shown hanging. More often they will be cooling, while waiting for further processing by cooking181 or potting. The ‘pressed(?) 179 The passage is discussed below on the aetiology of cannibalism p. 171 n. 98, and see also below on meat distribution p. 200 n. 53. 180 Winlock, Models of Daily Life, pl. 18, 19, 60, 61 = Gilbert, JEA 74 (1988), 80–82 and pl. XII; Moussa and Altenmüller, Nefer and Ka-Hay, pl. 11a; 14 for portions of meat hanging in a storeroom with jars; Davies, Met. Mus. Studies I/2 (1929), fig. IB = Doyen, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 351–53 for the house of Djehutinefer (TT 104). Cf. also Klebs, Reliefs des Mittleren Reiches, 103–5; Klebs, Reliefs des Neuen Reiches, 89–91 for meat and fat processing. Vandier, Manuel IV, 234, fig. 101 = Davies, Menkheperasonb, pl. XXVII shows dismemberment, trimming and hanging of joints; Strudwick and Strudwick, Tombs of Amenhotep, Khnummose and Amenmose, pl. XXXI, colour plate 7, p. 84 for trimming and hanging meat (TT 254 Amenmose). Also Darby et al., Food I, 152–54; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 147–54; in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials, 661–63. See also Verner, MDAIK 42 (1986), 181–89 on the slaughterhouse at Abusir, discussed below in Ch. 15. 181 E.g., Klebs, Reliefs des Mittleren Reiches 105, fig. 75 = Newberry, Beni Hasan I, pl. XII: cooking in a cauldron of meat joints, supervised by the mr st Khnumnakhte, presumably the same man shown removing a foreleg, ibid. pl. XVII, bottom register, third scene from the left.

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Figure 6 Cooking scenes. Tomb of Iymery, Giza

meat’ (jwf dr) referred to occasionally on jar dockets is probably best visualised as some sort of salt beef.182 The processing of the rest of the carcass, the internal organs, the scraps, fat and bones, would involve immediate cooking or processing at the carcass. This is what is referred to at this part of the Cannibal Hymn. The term fss seems to refer to boiling in a cauldron.183 The image of the cauldron, filled with meat, and balanced on a stone hearth, is common to cooking scenes.184 182 Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 146, 153–54, 168, 169, 186–87; cf. Hayes, JNES 10 (1951), 91–92; CoA III, 169–70; Koenig, Étiquettes de jarres I, nos 6162–65; Valbelle, «Les Ouvriers de la Tombe», 276–79; Helck, Materialien V, 836–43. For processes of meat preservation see Salima Ikram, in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials, 659–69. 183 Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 97–8, 102–5. She interprets the cooking process here as a metaphor for the distillation of the divine force: not the direct cannibalism of the gods, but the transfer of their distilled power. On boiling vs. roasting see Brewer et al., Domestic Plants and Animals, 89; Darby et al., Food I, 150–56. 184 Illustrations much more frequently show fish or poultry in the pot, but for an illustration of the cauldron on the stones cf. Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 112; 116; 130; 151; Vandier, Manuel IV, 262–63, 147; 149 for cauldron types.

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Plate 2 Cooking in the slaughterhouse: rendering fats. Tomb of Meketre, Luxor

The model of a slaughterhouse from the tomb of Meketre provides a realistic picture. Here two stoves (of different designs) have large bowls on top, attended by men stirring. The portioned joints are hung on a balcony at the back.185 This will have been the norm. The fresh fat needs to be rendered down by cooking, the fat being as important a 185 Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 23–5; pl. 18, 19, 60, 61; Gilbert, JEA 74 (1988), 78–82, pl. 12; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 87–88. Other models of this period are less useful, since they typically associate the butchery with brewing and baking in a single model, making the isolation of specifically meat-processing facilities impossible; cf. e.g., Firth and Gunn, Teti Pyramid Cemeteries II, pl. 31; Leipzig Inv.-Nr. 2562 = Krauspe, Ägyptische Museum der Universität Leipzig, Abb. 35 for part of a set; Liverpool Museum 55.82.7 = Tooley, Egyptian Models, cover; Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek AEIN 1631 = Tooley, Egyptian Models, fig. 28. The association is essentially thematic – a convenience for the model making – although in a private domestic context, as the funerary sacrifice, one cannot doubt that the same cooking facilities would be used for bread, beer and meat.

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product as the meat itself. It has a long shelf-life, and provides a basic cooking medium,186 if not eaten for itself with bread.187 The Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Antefoker188 provides a similar record in pictures comparable to the model of Meketre. The butchery scene is accompanied by depictions of the hanging meat, beating (=tenderising?) the meat, boiling joints, and grilling duck. Organs such as the liver, kidneys and brain are, in a pre-modern and peasant economy, delicacies that must be eaten fresh.189 They will not keep, and are only available when there is a killing. Fresh meat for immediate consumption was frequently grilled,190 but meat products which were not for immediate consumption had to be dried or processed. Bones, scraps and offal will boil down into soup, stock or stew. These are the normal focus of the meat feast that follows slaughter of an animal. These procedures are not normally depicted in the scenes of sacrifice and butchery. Exceptionally a scene in the tomb of Ramesses III191 shows the slaughter of an ox and bleeding into the bowl. The accompanying details include dismembered parts of the animal, trimming and hanging the meat, mixing or pounding something in a large container,192

186 Cf. Davies, Rekh-mi-rēa II, pl. 49 = Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 123, Dok. 20 = Vandier, Manuel IV, 307–9, showing an oven with pan on top, one man stirring, and a second ‘adding fat: cooking (psjt) a šat-pastry’. 187 On fats see Helck, LÄ II, 204–5, s.v. ‘Fett’; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 175–80; Serpico and White, in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials, 407–9; Franke, SAK 10 (1983), 164–65, 174–76. For slaughterhouse and fat dockets, Hayes, JNES 10 (1951), 91, 50–52, esp. no. 158–60; CoA III, 174–75; Koenig, Étiquettes de jarres I, 6125–42; Helck, Materialien, 714–16; Zur Verwaltung, 258; Fischer, Or 29 (1960), 178–79. 188 Davies and Gardiner, Antefoker pl. VIII–IX; Vandier, Manuel IV, 300–5 and figs 142–43; Salima Ikram, in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials, 661. 189 Vialles, Animal to Edible, 127–28 distinguishes between a ‘zoophagian’ logic, meaning the acknowledgement of the living animal, which rates offal highly as organs in which the virtues of the animal lie, versus a ‘sarcophagean’ logic, meaning the tendency to ‘deanimalise’ or ‘vegetalise’ the meat as an abstract substance, and to shun offal. Cf. also pp. 79, 95 n.1 on the distinction between red and white offal, the fresh versus the necessarily processed: stomach, feet, head, which are all scalded, and so ivory coloured before use. 190 Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 16–49; Vandier, Manuel IV, 265–66. 191 Wreszinksi, Atlas I, pl. 93; Vandier, Manuel IV Plates, fig. 123. 192 This detail, in the bottom left corner of the scene, might represent leather working or processing the fat of the animal.

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and cooking in a cauldron over a hearth. The meagre remains of painted scenes in the main storeroom off the butchers’ court of Sety I at Abydos are also exceptional, including an illustration of the fat processing. This is cooked down in a large cauldron over a stove, that appears to be a permanent fixture,193 presumably brick-built. The hot cauldron is lifted off, and then a finishing process is shown, using a press indistinguishable from that seen in wine making. The bull sacrificed, on this occasion for the Opet Festival, is labelled as producing 1065 deben 4 qedet = 96.95 kg of fat.194 The scenario appears to be the same as that of the model of Meketre, but on a larger scale. On a much smaller scale, the Giza tomb of Iymery shows cauldrons with joints of meat, but also of fat(?) over such a stove, next to the cooking of poultry in a cauldron on hearthstones.195 The variation between cauldrons placed on hearthstones and cauldrons on the top of pottery or brick stoves,196 may simply relate to the extent that the artist wished to depict the cooking-place as a regular installation or a temporary set-up. A wider range of detail is shown in the incidental depiction of activities of herdsmen, fishermen and fowlers in the marshes and wild country: the different context allows a wider thematic range. The country scenes partly allow for the limited inclusion of genre content. Partly, also, they depict the basic production cycle at an earlier stage than the butchery scenes, which focus so closely on the sacrifice. Partly, also, the processing is a more central feature of fishing and fowling, since this is a necessary part of the harvesting process. Fish and poultry killed in the marshes, or indeed slaughtered game, could

193 Cf. also Wreszinski, Atlas I, pl. 253 (quoted a few notes above), and pl. 302 = Davies, Qen-Amūn, pl. LIX. The depiction appears to show a brick or pottery stove, with stoking hole at the bottom, on top of which the cauldron fits above the fire. 194 Naville, Détails relevés dans les ruines de quelques temples, pl. IV; KRI I, 193–95; cf. also Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 98–102. For the huge size claimed for the fattened animals sacrificed at the Opet festival see Cabrol, CRIPÉL 20 (1999), 15–27. Note also Vachala, ZÄS 114 (1987), 91–95 and Krauss, VA 3 (1987), 259–62 for evaluations of sacrifical animals by quantity of fat. See also below, pp. 193–195. 195 Fig. 6; Weeks, Mastabas of Cemetery G6000, fig. 35–36; Klebs, Reliefs des Alten Reiches, 78 = LD II, 52; cf. Klebs, Reliefs des Mittleren Reiches, 105; Klebs, Reliefs des Neuen Reiches, 89–91. 196 E.g., Vandier, Manuel IV, 110–13; Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 10–13, 123, 132, 149, 151; Strudwick and Strudwick, Tombs of Amenhotep, Khnummose and Amenmose, pl. XXXI, colour plate 7, p. 84.

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Figure 7 Slaughterhouse and cooking of game on the desert margins. Tomb of Two Brothers, Saqqara

only reach the domestic economy in processed form, whereas fresh meat would come from the slaughtered bull. For instance, the joint tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep at Saqqara shows a scene from the low desert margin, where a slaughtered deer was cooked in ad hoc fashion by men out herding and felling trees.197 The animal is hung by its rear legs from a tree for gutting. Then portions of the butchered deer are cooked in a cauldron over a brazier(?).198 The processing of fish is shown frequently. Again, the tomb of

197 Also Varille, Ni-ankh-Pepi, 15, fig. 5; pl. XVI = Vandier, Manuel V, 88; 90 = LD II, 108; 111. Cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 16, 49–50, 52 for such suspension of a small animal. 198 Moussa and Altenmüller, Grab des Niankhkhnum und Chnumhotep, pl. XX, fig. 8, p. 73–74; cf. also Davies, Deir el Gebraˆ wi I, pl. IX and XII (Ibi); Vandier, Manuel V, 90, fig. 61 = Varille, Ni-ankh-Pepi; Edel and Wenig, Jahreszeitenreliefs, pl. 14, 37 for remains of a scene of cooking in a cauldron associated with slaughter; cf. also Tylor and Griffith, Tomb of Paheri, pl. III for grilling(?) beef in the open(?) on the occasion of a cattle count. Cf. Vandier, Manuel IV, 217, fig. 87 for scenes of feasting in the countryside.

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Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep illustrates boiling down fish (soup?) in a cauldron balanced on hearthstones, probably using the scraps and poor quality fish left over from the gutting and laying out clean fillets to dry.199 Very similar scenes also show the cooking down of poultry in cauldrons over the fire, and in particular the potting of the birds.200 The context of such scenes is that of an expedition into the wild lands, of swamp or forest margins.201 So, in the Tomb of Ti an extensive series of scenes with work caging, killing, plucking, potting and drying fish and birds fills one register, between scenes in separate registers that depict the fishing and the bird-catching. The hunting, herding or work party lived as far as possible off the land, by feasting on parts of the catch.202 They also had to process or dry the rest of the kill on the spot if it was not to spoil. This is in reality the normal context for slaughter of any animal for domestic consumption. There is a feast of fresh meat for all those involved, that focuses on the cooking and eating of the unpreservable parts. This scenario of meat processing is described in the following section of the Cannibal Hymn, although this was normally below the level of decorum for pictorial depiction. Tomb and temple decoration focuses on the offering process. However, the king in the Cannibal Hymn is presiding over a butchery feast, not simply acting as the offering recipient of the choice portions. Although grammatically and thematically there is no obvious break here, the Teti text clearly divides what follows as a new ‘Spell’.203

199 Fig. 9; Moussa and Altenmüller, Grab des Nianchchnum und Chnumhotep, pl. 31, 37b; fig. 12, p. 100; cf. also Vandier, Keˆ mi 17 (1964), 26–34 = Manuel V, 641–43, fig. 262 and pl. XXI, fig. 160, with 635–58 for the processing and preservation of fish in general. 200 Klebs, Reliefs des Alten Reiches, 77–79; Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 150–54. Cf. Vandier, Manuel V, 333, fig. 149 = Meir V, fig. XIII; 339, fig. 155 = Meir IV, pl. VIII; Weeks, Mastabas of Cemetery G6000, 41–42 and fig. 34. For potting birds see Vandier, Manuel V, 439–46; Tylor and Griffith, Tomb of Paheri, pl. IV. 201 Cf. Eyre, JEA 80 (1994), esp. 60–63; Vernus, RdÉ 29 (1977), 179–93; Roquet, Mélanges Vercoutter, esp. 295–96, 301. See also below, pp. 194 n. 24, 206–07. 202 As described in some detail in the literary ‘Pleasures of Fishing and Fowling’; see Caminos, Literary Fragments, esp. 8–10; cf. Klebs, Reliefs des Alten Reiches, 67. 203 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 140–41, 159 assumes that the text originally consisted of two distinct but thematically connected spells, themselves made up of a series of shorter, originally independent units.

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The Cannibal Hymn §403c: It is Unas who eats their magic (h.k3w), who swallows their souls (3h)204 ˇ

The term 3hw here seems to be used as a near synonym to h.k3w:205 not ˇ so much specifically their ‘souls’ but their divine force or ‘magical’ power: a concept that is explicit in all the various terms conventionally translated as a ‘soul’ of a god. §404a: Their big ones are for his morning meal (jšt=f dw3t) §404b: Their middle-sized ones are for his evening meal (mšrwt) §404c: Their little ones are for his night meal (jšt=f h3w) ˇ

The sizing here represents offering practice; and indeed the presentation of three meals seems to relate offering practice to a vision of the divine world, against the standard of two main meals for this world. For instance, the dead king has the best of both worlds in Pyramid Spell 409: ‘Bull of the Ennead is Teti; Lord of 5 meals (jšt); 3 meals to the sky; 2 meals to the earth’.206 So, for instance, in the Coffin Text Spell 469 the meat of the daily sacrifice is merely divided in two parts, one for food offerings (šbw) and other for the night ritual (jšt h w).207 The ˇ major temple ritual took place in the morning, while afternoon and 208 night-time ceremonies are more restricted. In ordinary life breakfast was a limited meal, and mšrw, ‘dinner’, the main meal, came after the working day, when the woman of the house had time to prepare it.209 This is, indeed, implied a few verses earlier (§403b) by Unas’ receipt of

204 For the variation between wnm and ‘m see Bonheˆme, Hommages Leclant II, 48; for that between h.k3w and 3hw cf. above §398a and below §413a–c. For 3hw in ˇ specifically pp. 121–26. ˇ general see Englund, Akh, and 205 On 3hw as ‘spells’, ‘magic’, see Borghouts, in Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La magia, ˇ LÄ III, 1139, s.v. ‘Magie’; Ritner, Magical Practice, 30–35; Bickel, Cos29–46; mogonie, 88–91, with specific discussion of CT VI, 177k–78a, variant to §396a above. Cf. Urk I, 143, 1–3: ‘I am an 3h jqr apr. I know all secret h.k3w of the ˇ Residence … in the necropolis’; the ‘effective, equipped akh’ is defined by his knowledge/possession of magic. For eating magic see below §411b. 206 Pyr §717a–b. Cf. Pyr §121c–d; CT VI, 282p–r. Cf. also, for instance, CT III, 161c–d, 167d–e, for three meals (jh t) to the sky before Re and two to the earth ˇ before Geb. 207 Similarly, e.g., CT III, 158c–59d (jaw and msyt), and CT III, 383a, describing precreation as a time ‘before the two meals (jšt snt) had come into being in this land’. 208 Fairman, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 37/1 (1954), 178–81; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 36–38 notes that the morning animals are sometimes shown bigger or more numerous than the evening/night sacrifice. 209 Cf. Lebensmüder 80–81. Also CT VI, 283j for the contrast jaw and msyt.

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meat cooked on ‘the evening hearthstones’.210 The contrast is pointed by the echo of jšt and mšrw(t).211 §404d: Their old-ones, male and female, are for his hearth(? k3pt)

The word k3pt here is unclear. A translation ‘incense-burning’212 or ‘fumigation’ would imply the preliminary censing with the offering ritual. Probably it is better to envisage the line as looking forward to the actual cooking described in the following section. The determinative in the Unas text appears to show a cooking fire, resembling the characteristic depictions of a fire heaped up with what are probably ‘bread moulds’: the pottery jars typically used for bread cooking in the Old and Middle Kingdom.213 The basic meaning of the root k3p is to ‘cover’, so perhaps here a fire built over with stones as a sort of primitive cooking-stove. However, regardless of whether the reference is to the use of the oldest as fuel or the equivalent of incense, the idea seems to be the disposal of the inedible in a useful fashion, while the theme of the fire, and its use to destroy (potential) enemies echoes the role of the Uraeus (§396c) and the Island of Fire (§397).214

THE SERVICE OF THE HEAVENS Then follows the cooking description: §405a: It is the Great Ones in the north of the sky215 who set the fire (sdt) for him §405b: For the cauldrons (wh.3wt) containing them, (using) the legs (hpšw) of ˇ their eldest 210 Alternatively, there might be reference to evening preparation of the morning offerings. mšrw refers to the late afternoon, before sunset: the time after the completion of the day’s work. 211 As typically, the ambiguity of jšt, between material ‘things’ and as the general term of reference to ‘ritual’ is exploited. 212 As Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 81; and cf. CDME 284; Sethe, Übersetzung II, 161–62 envisages the theme of fuel rather than aromatic; see also above on §403b. 213 For illustrations see Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 166–68; 200–2. Note also Junker, Miscellanea Gregoriana, 111–12 for the ceramic fire-tray for grilling under charcoals. 214 For the relatively common theme of burning the damned see below, pp. 171–74. 215 Cf. §818c, 1220b, 1080a–b: – the jhmw-sk – the fixed stars of the northern sky that are visible all year, as opposed toˇthose further south which disappear for part of the year; cf. Barta, ZÄS 107 (1980), 4; Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, ch. IV, esp.

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Figure 8 Cooking of the dead in the underworld: (top) shadows and bas, and (bottom) heads and hearts. Book of Qererets, Osireion, Abydos

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The hpšw are the characteristic offering limb,216 but also the image of ^ the constellation of the Great Bear: the northern constellation which is also represented as the tool for the Opening of the Mouth.217 The bones are used to build the fire.218 That theme reappears in the New Kingdom, in the fifth section of the underworld Book of Qererets,219 where the depiction shows a stylised stove, with a cauldron full of souls: bas and shadows. The caption defines this as ‘cooking the bas, corpses and shadows of my enemies’. The recitations address: ‘O you two goddesses, great of fire (a3t sdt), powerful to burn, who heat your cauldrons (?ktwt) with the bones of the enemies.’ Specific mythological identification of these ‘eldest’ gods does not seem possible,220 and is probably not important, since the whole theme is integration, and inheritance of the totality of primaeval gods by the risen Unas. §406a: Those who are in the sky go about (phr) for Unas, §406b: And the hearth is stirred for him with the feet of their women.

§50 and pp. 277–78, 280–82; Roulin, Livre de la nuit, 88–89: stars which the dead king travels to join in the sky. 216 Cf. te Velde, Seth, 86–89. 217 Roth, JEA 79 (1993), 62, 70–71; cf. Le Boeuffle, Les noms latins d’astres, 87–89; Callatay¨, Mélanges Vandersleyen, 77–80. On the role of the Great Bear see Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 89–99. See also Hannah, GM 160 (1997), 33–41 on its image as the foreleg of Seth tethered in the sky, for which cf. Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 235 on Seth as ng3 a3 h.rj-jb pt mh.yt, ‘great ng3-bull in the northern sky’, CT V, 214c, 255n. 218 Cf. also below §413c. Kees, Tieropfer, 83–86 discusses similar references from Edfu, and the context of burnt offerings; see also Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 14 on Edfou VI, 75, 7 and I, 313, 8.; cf. above at §403b and below, pp. 171–74 on burnt offerings. 219 Piankoff, BIFAO 42 (1944), 75; Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 148–49; Hornung, Unterweltsbücher, 384; Zandee, Death, 145–46. Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 195 argues that the legs are not here fuel, but used to build the hearth and the structure to support the cauldron. However, the use of a tripod to support the cauldron is not depicted. Conversely, bone does not burn easily, although it does burn slowly and with great heat(?), and it does not seem an obvious fuel for a cooking fire. The question is whether the vision here is that of practical building or purposeful and complete disposal of rubbish: cf. Bergquist, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 17 on Greek sacrifice, where the god’s portion – the portion actually burnt – consisted of ‘the inedible bones wrapped in fat’. 220 Cf. Willems, Heqata, 338–39.

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Figure 9 Cooking scene. Tomb of Two Brothers, Saqqara

The term ‘hearth’ – ktjt in the Unas version; ktwt in the Teti version – seems clearly from the determinative of the Unas text to refer to the structure that supports the cauldron over the fire. However, in the Middle Kingdom parallel, ktjt is replaced by wh.3t, ‘cauldron’.221 Possibly in the Middle and New Kingdom ktj/wt, as in the Book of Qererets, is the term for the pottery or brick stove that replaces the open hearth in cooking depictions: the cauldron support, and not the cauldron itself.222 Already in the Old Kingdom a number of depictions show the cooking cauldron on what appears to be a large open pottery vessel, rather than an open hearth. The surface meaning here of šsr is wholly obscure, although the root means something like ‘strike’. Sethe223 guesses ‘assembled’. Faulkner224 rejects this and guesses ‘wiped over’, clearly assuming identity with shr in the usage ‘sweep’, ‘overlay’. The feet of the women here echo the ‘legs of the eldest’ in §405b. wart is, however, also the name of a decan and its star,225 so that the cosmic imagery is probably continued through further references to a constellation. In

221 Cf. also Urk V, 60–61: BoD Spell 17 uses ktjt with cauldron determinative, where the Middle Kingdom version uses wh.3t (see above on §403b). 222 Pace Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 103, 106–07; Bidoli, Die Sprüche der Fangnetze, 79–80. See also Zandee, Death, 145–46. 223 Übersetzung II, 163. Developed by Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 195. Sethe notes the use of shr for ‘to milk’ (= Wb IV, 270 + 295, 1–5) and for striking down the offering animal (‘Schächten’, without reference). 224 Pyramid Texts, 83, n.17. 225 Wb I, 288, 8; Neugebauer and Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts III, 155–66, no. 62, 65–66, 99–100, and cf. Leitz, Tagwählerei, 186, 366–67.

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both cases, however, the reference to feet also leads to the image of movement in the following lines. The term šsr appears again in the butchery text Pyr. Spell 580 (§1545), this time referring to an action in the slaughter of the bull. Just possibly there might be an echo between šsr, with its root meaning ‘arrow’, and wdj, used here for ‘set’ (the fire) in §403b, a root that is also used for ‘shoot’ (an arrow). The use of šsr is likely to be metaphorical, extended from its root meaning, rather than a separate meaning otherwise unattested. Hesitantly I would suggest the image is more likely to be that often depicted, of the cook stirring up the fire with a stick, and causing the flames to shoot out. §406c: He has gone round (dbn) the Two Skies226 complete; he has circumambulated (phr) the Two Banks. or §406c: The complete Two Skies go round for him; the Two Banks go about for him.

The circling of the sky by the stars is ‘mythologised’ as their service for the king,227 or the power of the king is symbolised by his circling of all he controls.228 The claim of the king to individual power over the gods by transfer of their ‘magic’ from their bellies to his,229 and absorption of their power to act (3h) into his person, is now defined as cosˇ mic power, for which the world/sky goes round. In contrast to the cataclysmic beginning of the hymn, the king is now controller of the functioning cosmos, heaven and earth. The stars, that falling produce fiery catastrophe, are so tamed as to go round as lights to light his fire, and serve him food, and they perform the domestic duty of tending the hearth. One may compare Pyr §123a-c: The King has copulated with Mowet; the King has kissed Shuset; the King has joined with Nekhbet; the King has copulated with Nofret; for he dreads (nrw=f) the lack of food (tbtb) and drink (šsšs). Assuredly it is Nofret who

226 On the duality of the sky see Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 61 275–77. 227 Cf. Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 133–37, 142 for phr referring to stars surrounding/serving Re at dawn. 228 Ritner, Magical Practice, 57–63, especially nn.285, 287 for the reference in this passage to participation in the cosmic cycle. For play between dbn, ‘circulate’, and dbn, ‘chest’, ‘box’, see Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 83–84 on §1094c. 229 Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 19–39 for the focus of the Coffin Text version.

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The Cannibal Hymn cares (nrw) for the King; she gives bread to Unas; she does for him what is good (nfrt) on this day.230

The text is then concerned with the king’s divine form and role: §407a: The Great Power, it is Unas; the powerful one of the powerful ones. §407b: The Sacred Image, it is Unas; the sacred image of the sacred images of the Great One.

Here the term ašm (ahm), typically used for a statue,231 carries the idea of the image as a manifestation inhabited by the divine force, so that Unas claims to be the archetype, model, most accurate or typical manifestation of this power. §407c: Whom he finds in his way, he eats him piecemeal(?) (m wmw).232

Whenever the precise sense here of wmw, there is evidently a play on the homophony of wnm, ‘eat’, Coptic ouwm.233 §407d: The place of Unas is at the head of all the nobles (sah.) who are in the horizon.234

230 Note also Pyr §551d-e, at the beginning of a string of food spells, giving, serving and cooking: ‘Teti does not hunger, through that qmh.-bread of Horus which he has eaten, which Setefweret (or ‘his great woman’) has made for him, and he is sated with (it).’ Cf. also CT VI, 8d–9a, where in the food-processing section of the fisherman spell the cauldron of Shezemu is personified as female, but the brazier as male. There is a cross-cultural theme, that women boil but men roast, see Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, 70–71, 101. Cf. also Vialles, Animal to Edible, 103–8 on the role of women in meat preparation. 231 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 165 notes also of divine animals – a physical divine manifestation might be closest. Foster, JSSEA 9 (1978–79), 55 notes a possible play on ahm (Wb I, 226) as a class of voracious/dangerous divine being (with crocodile determinative) in the sky/afterlife. 232 Cf. also Pyr. Spell 254, §278a; Spell 299, §444c; CT VII, 190h. For a different wordplay in the version of CT VI, 180, see Cannuyer, GM 112 (1989), 8–9. Note also the word wnmyt, ‘devouring flame’, that destroys enemies (Morschauser, Threat-Formulae, 97; Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 234, n.601). Throughout the preceding section the vision of the burning and the eating overlap as forms of destruction. 233 Crum, 478a. It is not necessary to assume the loss of N from wnm at this date: a vocalisation with a long or accented main vowel would make the word-play exact through elision of the n and m: wnm=f = *OYvNMAF against wnmw = *OYvMOY. 234 sah. is always a difficult term to understand fully: cf. also below §§411c, 412b. Primarily here it should refer to a group of divine powers, although it is natural also to take it as a reference to the powerful dead, and a variant understanding to a

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§408a: Unas is the God; older than the eldest.235 §408b: Thousands go round for him; hundreds offer236 to him.

The verbs wdn, dbn and phr in the preceding lines, typically use as determinative the folded-over sign that represents the intestines of a bull. While these roots do not provide a direct word-play on terms for the intestines of the animal, this is the point in the imagery of the text for reference to the guts spilling out as the bull is slit. The wordplay requires a visualisation of the hieroglyphic spelling of the words.237 phr itself has layers of meaning. The primary vision is that of the stars circling the sky, but the term is also used of servants fetching and carrying.238 The following wdn, ‘offer’ then brings to the fore the sense of phr, ‘offering bread’, ‘offering meal’.239 The action of ‘going round’ is itself an important feature of the burial240 and pyramid ritual,241 which is also echoed here. The term phr is used widely for ritual processions, notably in this context of coronation, jubilee and

claim to cosmic power would be a claim to the role of ntr a3 = the ruler of the dead = Osiris. 235 Cf. Berlandini, Hommages Leclant I, 397–400, a promise by Nut (temp. Amenhotep III) that Kheruef will join the stars on her belly, and cross the sky with Re: 3h=f m pt m sah. ntry 3bh=f smsw(?) ‘he will be 3h in the sky as a divine sah., and ˇ join the eldest(?)’. ˇ ˇ will 236 Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Sign List F46–49. There is clear verbal contrast here between sah.w nb jmyw 3ht, ‘all sah.w who are in 3ht’ and §409a sbn m nb 3ht ˇ ˇ ˇ ‘crowned as lord of 3ht’. ˇ 237 It is probably too imaginative to see in §406c an image of the two sides of the split animal, with the innards between, in the reference to the ‘two skies’ and ‘two banks’ as the place of service. 238 E.g., Urk IV, 1656, 6–7: dj=j phr n=k wrw Kš hsjt hr jnw=sn, ‘I cause the chiefs of vile Kush to go round for you under their tribute on their backs.’ Cf. also Pyr §1204b: sšm (P) pšrw R‘ ‘P guides the phrw of Re’ (for phrw as ‘servants’ or ‘following’ see Sethe, Übersetzung III, 356 on §732a), but the context is that of the celestial cycle: the circuit of Re through the sky. 239 Wb I, 548, 11–12; Lapp, Opferformel, 145–49. For the specific play see Pyr. Spell 441, and esp. §818a: phr tw m3=k phr pn, ‘Go round, yourself, and you shall see this offering meal.’ 240 Gardiner, JEA 41 (1955), 9–17; Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 9. 241 Posener-Kriéger, Archives, 22–24, 34, 109–17, and Posener-Kriéger, in Quirke (ed.), Temple, 21.

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foundation ceremonies, the action symbolising protection through completeness, and power over what is encircled.242

ACCEPTANCE AND AUTHORITY IN THE HEAVENS §408c: He has been given authorisation (a ) as a great power by Orion, father of the gods.243

The term a , literally ‘arm’, ‘piece’, is written in the Unas text with a bookroll determinative, and seems intentionally to refer to a document or charter of authorisation.244 However, the graphic variation between ‘document’ and ‘arm’ is relatively common in similar contexts. For instance, in Spell 253 the king is identified with Re, bathing in the Field of Reeds: ‘The hand of Unas (var. “document of this Teti”) is in the hand of Re. Nut, receive (šsp) his hand! (var. “Nut, receive the document of this Teti!”)’.245 In Coffin Texts Spell 550 – a spell ‘to knot a ladder to the sky in the necropolis’ – the address is made: ‘O Swš who went out from the Nut, give your a to N, for N has gone up from the Kenemet’.246 Here, despite variant writings with the bookroll determinative, the sense ‘arm’ seems clear, since in Pyr. Spell 478,247 an invocation to the Ladder of the Sky, gods are addressed,

242 Johnson and Ritner, Studies Lichtheim I, 498–506; Ritner, Magical Practice, 57–67: the action is so typical of magical practice that phr comes to be used in Demotic with the straightforward sense ‘enchant’; ibid. 61–63. For royal rituals see also Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 192–94, 198, 371 n.342, and 378. 243 For the unexpected epithet see Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 148, §64. A strong correlation is noticeable between the recognition of the deceased by Orion-s3h. and his receipt of sah.-powers (see the following pages), a correlation that presumably invokes or is invoked by the similarity of sound. 244 In the Ferryman Spell CT V, 152a–c = Spell 398 the ‘document’ seems to provide right of passage: see Willems, Heqata 419 and 422 n.n. There is explicit play here between the a-document (152a) and the deceased being in the a-hand of god (152c). 245 Cf. Pyr §275e. In §286a the Teti text has the bookroll and Unas the stroke as determinative in dj=f n=k a=f ‘He gives you his a ’. For šsp a here cf. §473c and §1327a: ‘Any god who shall receive (šsp) the hand of this (M) into the sky’ in an ascension text. There seems a clear vision of the god pulling the king up by the hand. 246 CT VI, 148; cf. CT I, 270. 247 §978–80; cf. also §1496a–98c, and for an image of the posture cf. Pyr §1763b–c (= Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 146–48).

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‘who shall stretch out the arm against’ = ‘oppose’,248 or ‘whose arm shall be for’ = ‘help’249 the king in the ascent. Similarly in Pyr §§478b–79a the gods raise up (wts) the king ‘on their arms’, which form a ladder for him.250 The basic idiom is one of providing assistance, as in Pyr §§1627: ‘Arise! You have given your hand (a ) to Horus, that he may cause you to rise’.251 Possibly the idiom may carry a wider sense of ‘welcome’, or even of formal induction into office, as in Pyr. Spell 456. The king, who knows the spells of Re and the magic of Horakhty: ‘He will be one known by (rh jn) Re. He will be a courtier ˇ (smr) of Horakhty. His arm shall be grasped (jndr a) in the sky among 252 the attendants (šmsw) of Re’. Here as a variant the verb used is ndr, ‘grasp’, rather than rdj.253 The underlying theme of assistance in resurrection and ascent is clearest in Pyr. Spell 442, describing the resurrection of Osiris as Orion, where the verb šsp ‘receive’ is used: This great one has fallen on his side; felled (ndj) is the one who is in Nedit. Your a is received by Re; your head is raised (ts tp=k) by the two enneads. See, he is come as Orion; see, Osiris is come as Orion, Lord of Wine in the Wag festival.254

The usage at least carries a double meaning that is widely exploited, even if it does not indicate the etymology of a, ‘charter’. Phrases such as ‘the West gives its arms to him’, or ‘he is given arm(s) in the Neshmet bark by the Great God’ are part of the stock formulae of wishes included in the offering text.255 They appear particularly in close context with the formulae referring to free travel on the roads of the West,256 while the formula ‘his arm is accepted (šsp) by the Great God’ refers to

248 d3ty.fy a=f m. 249 wnty.fy a=f n. 250 h.r awy=sn. Cf. Willems, Heqata 290, 467–68 for the same theme in CT Spell 78 at CT II, 21c–d. 251 The initial line of Spell 593, used as title to his study of the spell sequence by Kahl, Stehe auf, reading jmj n=k a=k rather than dj.n=k a=k, as here. 252 Pyr §856c–e. 253 Cf. Pyr §997a; §990b–c use once ndr and once rdj. Cf. also §390b, and §§724d + 728a, and note esp. §655c: ndr=f a=k used of receiving the king in the sky, where in the Teti text the determinative of ndr is a pair of clasped hands, see Pierre, Études Lauer II, 358 and fig. 34. 254 Pyr §819a–20a. See Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 165–66. 255 Lapp, Opferformel, 59–60; 73–74. Cf. also Willems, Chests of Life, 133–34; Heqata, 198. 256 Davies et al., Saqqara Tombs I, 9 and n.2.; Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery I, 20.

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acceptance of the deceased into the afterlife.257 Clearly these phrases derive from an idiom ‘to give a hand’ in the sense of ‘assist’.258 Possibly, however, there is also an allusion to the gestures of recitation and offering, in which the celebrant stretches out his hand to the deceased.259 That gesture has quite the opposite significance in the butchery ritual itself, as it then points out and marks the beast for slaughter. So, for instance, in the Ritual for Opening the Mouth, the slaughter and offering scenes begin with the setem priest ‘giving the hand’ (dj a) to the beast, from which the butcher removes the foreleg and heart.260 The problem of how extensively the idea of the ‘hand’ as a image of a ‘document’ might be in the mind of the ritualist is unclear, although the ideas behind such an image would fit with later relatively clear images of the written mortuary text – Coffin Text or Book of the Dead – as a sort of passport to the afterlife. A particularly interesting example comes in the architrave of Herimeru, a priest of the Pyramid of Unas of the late Old Kingdom, with unusual variations on standard formulae,261 and specifically the expectations:

257 Lapp, Opferformel, 76–77. Cf. also the ascension spell Pyr §1327a: ‘as for any god who shall take the hand of this (M) into the sky’. 258 For the Late Egyptian variant rdj drt n, ‘give a hand to’, ‘help’, cf. LRL 64, 8; KRI I, 388, 1. For the laying on or giving of a hand as a magical instrument or gesture, cf. Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 70–71. 259 Lapp, Opferformel, 153–92 for a study of the gestures of the offering ritual, and cf. Dominicus, Gesten und Gebärden, 91–93. A particularly apt example is seen in the Abydos stela of Ahmose for Tetisheri, Cairo CG 34002: the text says that the king stretches out his arm and bends his hand (d3j=f a=f qjh.=f drt=f), while the scene shows him twice in front of an offering table, once with bent and once with extended arm to perform the offering. Cf. also statue Cairo CG 42236 = Leclant, Montouemhat, 6, Doc. 1, B, 6: wab nb jmj n=j a=k m qbh.w sntr hft m33 twt(=j), ‘Every ˇ priest, give me your hand with libation and incense when seeing my statue.’ Also in the funeral procession, Barthelmess, Übergang ins Jenseits, 43: s3 n s3=k h.r djt n=k drt, ‘the son of your son gives a hand to you’. See also Egberts, In Quest of Meaning 74–75, 175 for the idiom rdjt a r, ‘give the hand towards’, as a consecration gesture for offerings. Cf. also Saleh, Totenbuch, 56, Abb. 66 (stela of Ahmose from El Kab) of the deceased rdjt a r k3=f, ‘giving the hand towards his ka’, which is depicted as a symbol on a standard between him and his offering table and its offrant. 260 Otto, Mundöffnungsritual I, texts 23 I a–b; 43 a–b; II, p. 24, n.2. For butcheryrelated gestures cf. Dominicus, Gesten und Gebärden, 89–91. 261 Hassan, Excavations at Saqqara III, 76–78, fig. 39; Altenmüller, SAK 20 (1993), 1–15, esp. 4, 8–9. In abbreviated form also on the false door architrave, Hassan, Excavations at Saqqara III, 73, fig. 37b. See Edel, MDAIK 13 (1944), 45 §41 for the formula.

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The West shall gives its hands to him as one who has done what satisfies, and has reached the state of jm3h.262 He shall reach land. He shall cross the firmament (sm3=f t3 d3=f bj3). Heˇ shall ascend to the great god. His ka shall be foremost before the king. His ba shall endure (dd) before the god. His document263 shall be received (šsp) by god into the pure places (r swt wabt), as one beloved of his father and favoured of his mother.

It is as if god taking his hand included the receipt of written certification of his social propriety. A variation on the theme is seen on the false door of the neighbouring tomb of the vizier Mereri, where there is reference to the deceased: ‘crossing the firmament in great peace; going out to the hill-top of the necropolis; grasping his arm/document(?) by (his) fathers, by his kas’.264 Coffin Texts Spell 482265 provides a direct parallel to the Cannibal Hymn here: I have removed (wda ) the fire which was around the entourage of Re by my 3hw-powers, by my sah.w-authority, by my atef-crown/powers,266 the great ˇ ones which are on me, and my sah.-authority of a god. It is Orion267 who has given me his a. It is the Great Bear which has made a way for me to the Western Horizon. It is Sothis who greets me as the birth of a god. “The god whom the Red Crown bore is coming,” so say those who are in the following about me.

By the late Fifth Dynasty, the use of a royal document, the a n nsw, as a written ‘permission’, witnessing to rights and authority, seems well established.268 Yet the intrusion of documentary procedures into the world of the gods is surprising. Possibly it might be related to the need in this world for royal authorisation for the succession to a function of power.269 Furthermore, at the height of the Old Kingdom, both 262 dj jmntt awy=s r=f m jrj h.tpt sbj jm3h. ˇ 263 a with bookroll determinative. 264 Hassan, Excavations at Saqqara III, 30–32, fig. 17b, right outer jamb: d3t bj3 m h.tpt nfrt prt r tp dw n hrt-ntr ndr nt(sic) a=f jn jtw(=f) jn k3w=f. Here a is written with the bookroll determinative. A reading nt-a ‘usage’, ‘ritual’, seems unlikely: probably correct the n to r and read as a passive form ndr.t(j) a=f. 265 CT VI, 50–52. For contrast between a god taking a, ‘hand’, to assist, and a, ‘document’ of the god giving authority see CT II, 393b–94a (spell 162), discussed by Vernus, in Willems (ed.), World of the Coffin Texts, 154–55. 266 3hw, sah.w, and 3tfw are all written as plurals. ˇ the specific role of Orion here cf. also CT V, 398–400. 267 For 268 Eyre, in Powell (ed.), Labor, 6 for references. For the function sš n ‘ nsw see Strudwick, Administration, 199–216. 269 There can hardly here be an echo of the a in a n anh, ‘means of life’, ‘provision’, ‘subsistence’, seen already in Dynasty 6 a=f m sanhˇ=s, Baer, ZÄS 93 (1966), 6–7; ˇ used by the late New Kingand in the Middle Kingdom, Peas. R18, 1–5; the term dom for marriage-subsistence documents.

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‘assistance’ and ‘(written) permission’ from the king seem to have been characteristic for the building of a private tomb, and for the endowment that ensured its continuing offerings. Here the same vision seems to be used at a higher level for the king’s own mortuary establishment. The same concepts of ‘assistance’ and ‘(written) permission’ are linked inextricably, in the same way, in the Ferryman Spells of the Coffin Texts. So in CT V, 159c–d, the deceased asks, ‘O Hathor, may your hand be given to me, and may I be taken to the sky’, whereas, in the difficult (and corrupt text of) CT V 173, the deceased declares himself to be the twilight (jhhw), who goes around (dbn), and receives the ˇ ˇ empowered to cross over (d3j), and by the a of the Bull-snake,270 is stairway to reach the Field of Reeds. The thematically related Coffin Text Spell 469271 develops the theme differently. The rubric defines the text as ‘equipping the soul’ (apr 3h) by a god called ‘He of the Dawn’ ˇ (h.d-t3), who is between the two great gods of the East and West of the sky, and who themselves ‘live on all the 3hw of this land’ (anh m 3hw ˇ nb n t3 pn). This god is himself associatedˇ with the sacrificialˇ slaughter, which provides the context for equipping the 3h in the Western ˇ sky.272 Here the deceased meets and receives a dam-sceptre from the hand (a) of Orion, whereby he is transformed into a god with his sah.powers, who swallows (am) the sj3 of every god, eats (wnm) the magic of the 3hw, and the red crown is in his belly.273 Theˇ motif of the written document, presumably a secondary motif,274 places the king in a subordinate function, seen elsewhere in the Pyramid Texts when he claims the position of secretary to the

270

GLYPH . In two of three examples a is determinedwith the bookroll hieroglyph. 271 CT V, 387–98; cf. Spell 470 = CT V, 398–400. Cf. Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 288. 272 CT V, 387. The writings of 3h are consistently determined with the bookroll; the ˇ play between ‘soul’ and ‘good-things’ as food, as between the slaughter and the equipping of the dead is central to the verbal construction of the passage. 273 CT V, 390b–91l. 274 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 166. Such an interpretation is necessary if the underlying text is assumed to go back earlier than the mid-Fifth Dynasty, before which the developed theme of the document would seem out of place. For the contrary and perverse view that a, ‘arm’ would be the mythologisation of a, ‘document’ see Lapp, Opferformel, 81–82 after Goedicke, Die privaten Rechtsinschriften,12.

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sun-god.275 However the reference here also stresses his heirship, assisted by the god, over and above his claim by might to the primaeval godship. Another short spell from the Unas pyramid stress the importance of writing:276 ‘Akh to the sky; corpse to the earth. What men receive when they are buried: its 1,000 bread, its 1,000 beer, on the altar of the Foremost of Westerners. Poor is the heir (w3s jwaw) who has no writing (sš): Unas writes with the big finger; he does not write with the little finger.’ Here the reference is more likely to the offering list277 and tomb inscriptions than to a legal document or ‘permission’, although it is important to note that legal texts form an important group of Fifth Dynasty tomb inscriptions. The crucial theme is that of assistance given by the god, his ‘hand’, to enable the dead to make the journey, the transition from life to afterlife, visualised in different ways in the different texts quoted here. In all these passages, the stress is very clearly on assistance in that passage.

TRANSFORMATION BY CANNIBALISM OF THE GODS Unas is next defined as successful in his transformation as the sun god: §409a: Unas has risen again in the sky; he is crowned as Lord of the Horizon.

The unusual term sbn, ‘be crowned’ at least puns with swbn, ‘cause to shine’.278 There seems to be a deliberate echo from the first half of the line, between haj m pt, ‘rise in the sky’, to s(w)bn m 3ht, ‘be caused to ˇ the horizon’. The Unas text also, aptly, ˇ uses the comshine as lord of mon visual pun of spelling the pronominal jw=f, ‘he (is)’ as the word jwf, ‘meat’.279 It marks a return in the text to a description of the use of the innards, the parts of the animal that would be cooked immediately after butchery, broken up and boiled into soup: 275 Spell 309, §§490–91. Cf. also Spell 250, §§267–68, for the identification of Unas as sj3 hrj md3t-ntr wnmy Ra, ‘Sia, who is under the god’s-book, on the right of Re.’ 276 Spell 305, §§474–75. 277 Cf. Schott, ZÄS 90 (1963), 103–11: ‘Die Opferliste als Schrift des Thoth’, on the importance of the written form of the offering list/ritual. 278 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 167 suggests swbn as the etymology. The Coffin Text variant CT VI, 181a has an equally different spelling of sbn with ‘bad bird’ determinative. 279 Cf. Foster, JSSEA 9 (1978–79), 57, with preference for reading jwf, ‘flesh’, over jw=f, ‘he is’. Note also Pyr §1141a for the pun jw=f, ‘he comes’ with jwf, ‘meat’, and cf. below on §411b.

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The Cannibal Hymn §409b: He has broken the joins of the vertebrae.280

The antithesis is marked here, between the root h.sb, ‘break’ and ts, ‘join’. §409c: He has taken the hearts of the gods. §410a: He has eaten the Red; he has swallowed the Green.

The assumption of the crowns,281 as symbols of power, is directly identified with the meat offerings through a play on words. The names of the crowns make allusion to the redness and the freshness of the meat.282 The pun is then developed in the opposite direction. §410b: Unas feeds (wšb) on the lungs of the wise.

The ‘lungs’ sm3 allude to the ‘unification’ sm3 that is one of the central roles of kingship.283 This same unification of the crowns is made explicit in the Story of Sinuhe, with the same reference to the ‘Green’. The princesses address their father the King in a hymn of adoration:284 hd šma=s hntj mh.=s sm3 twt m r n h.m=k dj.tw w3d m wpt=k, ˇThe Upper ˇ Egyptian (crown) goes north, and the Lower Egyptian (crown) goes south; the united-one is joined in the speech of Your Person, and the Green (crown) is put to your brow.

280 tsw bqsw. For tst, ‘vertebrae’, see AEO II, 241*–42*; for the theme of the vertebrae cf. above at §396d. 281 Bonheˆ me, Hommages Leclant II, 48–49, and on the crowns see LÄ III, 812; Goebs, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 447–60; Vassilika, Ptolemaic Philae, 85–86, and for their offering to deities, 109 and 371, database categories HED12–14. 282 For jwf w3d, ‘raw meat’, see AEO II, 255*; Lefebvre, JEA 35 (1949), 73, and cf. Foster, JSSEA 9 (1978–79), 56. The unusual term w3dt for the crown is associated with the Red rather than the White Crown, e.g., Pyr §1459a; Erman, Hymnen an das Diadem 6, 2; 6, 5, 12, 4. LÄ III, 812 suggests the usage is emphatic. Cf. Baines, American Anthropologist 87 (1985), 284; Schenkel, ZÄS 88 (1963), 146–47; Aufre`re, L’univers minéral, 545, 556, 634 on the symbolic antithesis green : red. See Rudnitzky, Aussage über ‘Das Auge des Horus’, 29–34; Dorman, Tombs of Senenmut, 229 on the same play between red and green of the eye(s) of Horus. See also Quack, GM 165 (1998), 7–8 on w3d used to refer to red ink, and in general Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 114, 251–53 on the symbolism of ‘green’ and writing in ‘green’. Potentially there may also be an echo of the goddess W3dt as the uraeus. Cf. also Pyr §243: the white crown swallows (am) wrt. 283 Cf. Pyr §§1459–60. A play between ‘join’ and the sm3 bull, which is both the power and the sacrificial victim, is explicit in Pyr §§388b–§§389a, and see below. 284 Sinuhe B 271–72.

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The lungs of the bull are removed by the butcher together with the heart to which they are attached, so that progression to the heart, the repository of wisdom and the organ of the intellect is natural in the recitation: §410c: He is satisfied (h.tp) with living on hearts and their magic. §411a: Now Unas revolts285 at licking the sbšw which are in the Red.

It is natural to assume that sbšw might be a term, or echo a term, for some structural part of the red crown: its characteristic ‘coil’, as referred to in Pyr §§1459a–60c286 as šbt: Pepi is the one who seizes the White Crown, foremost (tpy) of the coil (šbt). Pepi is the Uraeus (jart), emerged from Seth, who takes and brings.287 Pepi is the eye of Horus, which is (var. ‘is not’) chewed (wgj), but is spat out (bšš). He is (var. ‘is not’) chewed; he is spat out.

More directly its etymology here as a causative from bš defines ‘what causes to spit out’ or simply ‘emetic’.288 The term occurs once in a butchery context289 in reference to the flow of the blood, where there is the same image of an unstoppable surge of liquid. In a butchered animal there is little that is truly inedible. However, the butcher must discard the gall-bladder immediately, and with the greatest care, since if it is accidentally burst the gall will spoil the meat it contaminates.290 This is the image of the utterly revolting piece among the red internal organs. In contrast: §411b: He is replete (w3h).291 Their magic is in his belly.292 ˇ

285 fjw is evidently an onomatopoeic word expressing the noise of revulsion, reinforced by the continuing hissing alliteration of the following nsb=f sbšw. 286 For the passage see Goebs, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 452. 287 Capture, but idiomatically also the swaying of the coil/snake. 288 Ritner, Magical Practice, 96–97. Elsewhere in the Pyramid Texts sbš is a quality of the sky (determined §1948e with a star sign, Neit/Pepi II). Wb IV, 93, 10 treats it as a separate word with the sense ‘be clear’. Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 91–93 argues for an underlying meaning ‘make empty’ for all uses of the root. 289 Wb IV, 93, 8 = Steindorff, Ti, pl. 92; Säve-Söderbergh, Hamra Dom, 49. 290 Wb I, 394, 2–5 lists wdd and IV, 228, 9–11 lists sh as terms for ‘gall’ from medical texts, but no term for the actual gall-bladder. ˇ 291 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 169–70 notes the potntial play between w3dt and w3h as ˇ terms for plants. 292 Cf. Pyr §1318c for magic in the belly; Spell 678 = §§2029–§§30 for possession of magic identified as possession of a meal; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 19–39 for the Coffin Text version.

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The use again here, in the Unas text, of the visual pun jwf ‘meat’ for jw=f ‘he is’ points the physical image of the feeling of the belly and the whole body that follows the overeating of the meat-feast. The pun is exploited in a similarly apposite way in the inscription of Harkhuf:293 ‘I shall wring his neck like a bird; he is for judgement or meat for portioning by the great god.’ This standard curse against the one who defiles the tomb through sacrifice and consumption gives rise to a punning reference to the offerings necessary for eternal life.294 In the Cannibal Hymn Unas has achieved eternal power by absorbing piecemeal all the divine qualities, powers, and manifestations of the gods. §411c: The authority (sah.w) of Unas is not taken from him. §411d: Unas has swallowed the perception295 of every god. §412a: Eternity is the lifespan of Unas; the end of time is his end, §412b: In this his authority (sah.) of: ‘He wants – he does; he does not want – he does not do’.296 §412c: He who is at the ends of the horizon (jmj drw) for ever and ever.

Unas is identified as the creator god, by the stress on eternity,297 with play on repeating dt and nh.h.. The animal has been eviscerated, and the repetition of the root dr, ‘end’ from §412a, and especially jmj-drw in §412c, literally ‘who-is-in-the-limits’, echoes this situation, as the butcher reaches for the end of his work, between the ‘flanks’ (drww)298

293 Urk I, 122, 15–16: [jw=j r tsjt]=f mj 3pd jw=f/jwf r wda h.r=s jn ntr a3. Cf. also above on §409a. 294 For the image of human as sacrifice see below pp. 163–64. Cf. also the writing of the personal name Jwf-n-mwt=f var. Jw=f-n-mwt=f ‘Flesh-of-’ var. ‘He-is-of-hismother’, PN I, 14, 15 (and cf. also 12). 295 sj3, with the divine determinative in the Teti text. Cf. CT VI, 268o, for H . w on the mouth and Sj3 in the belly. On swallowing, see pp. 164–66. 296 On the structure of the phrase see Gardiner, JEA 33 (1947), 99; Allen, Inflection of the Verb, §§262, 437; Junge, “Emphasis” and Sentential Meaning, 88–94; Borghouts, Ling Aeg 4 (1994), 17–18. On the force of the phrase cf. CT Spell 261 = CT III, 386b, where it is associated, as an epithet of the father of the gods, with the deceased as heir of Atum, in the presence of the Bulls of the Sky: – as a ‘magician’ taking possession of the powers of the gods, or perhaps rather through identifying him as the deity Heka, see Bickel, Cosmogonie, 153–54. Also CT III, 119a; VI, 268l. Similarly in the Litany of Re, of the dead achieving ‘this his sah. of one secret of forms’: Hornung, Anbetung des Re, 251–52 and n.570 = Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 31 and 192. 297 Cf. Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 148–49. 298 AEO II, 254*–55*.

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of the slaughtered beast, an image that perhaps also carries the image of the horizon dw . §413a: Now their ba’s are in the belly of Unas; their akh’s are in the possession of Unas, §413b: As his excess offering foods299 over and above the gods, and cooking (? qrr) is done for him with their bones.

The stress is laid again on the manifestations of divine power300 as the context of Unas’s eating. He absorbs them completely. The final scraps of the carcass, down to the bones, would naturally be boiled down to a soup, and the consumption of this soup seems the most likely image.301 However, the term qrr may mean something like ‘stoke up’ rather than ‘cook’.302 It is possible that again the image is that of bones for the fire and not for the pot: a repeated image of the cauldron with souls and shadows, stoked with their own bones (see above §406 with illustration). Whether the bones are burnt or boiled, nothing remains unused and unaccounted for. §413c: Now their ba’s are in Unas’ possession: their shadows are (removed) from (? m-a) their owners. §414a: Unas is that one who rises and rises, who endures and endures.

The verbs are ha j, referring to the sun rising, and jmn, apparently a parˇ the verb mn, ‘endure’, stressing again the eternity of ticipial form of the king.303 However, this latter plays also on the root jmn, ‘hidden’: the contrast between the ba that rises and the shadow that remains hidden, but also between the visible and the immanent. The sun, with whom the king is identified, is visible by day and hidden by night. In later texts this theme is developed in the contrast between the visible

299 Unas: h.3w-ht=f. Teti: h.3w=f jht. ˇ 300 Cf. Žabkar,ˇ BA Concept, 70–71. 301 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 172–73, stressing the use of h.3w-ht not just as ‘additional’ ˇ offerings, but specifically in reference to liquids. 302 Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 190–204, argues strongly that there is no reference here to soup. For the problem of etymology and the meaning of the root see Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 342–47. There seems little doubt that in the Late Period qrr/krr refers specifically to burnt offerings, for which the specification here of bones would be appropriate and characteristic. See above on §405b. 303 Sethe, Übersetzung II, 174; cf. Allen, Inflection of the Verb, 16, §28.

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sun, Re, and the entirely hidden divine power, an attribute of the invisible Osiris, or the Theban Amon.304 §414b: The doers of deeds305 do not have the power to destroy. §414c: The st-jb of Unas is among the living in this land for ever and ever.

st-jb ra is the name of the sun temple of Neferirkare. As with the formulation above of lines that echo Pyramid306 and royal307 names of the period, this echo will be deliberate.308 The king is identified as the sungod, and the text asserts his immanence as such, just as the royal, pyramid and sun-temple names declare the association between the king and Re. The context is the assertion that the king is, or has become, the primaeval sun god.

304 See Allen, Genesis, 48–49, 62–63; Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion, esp. 70–72, 136–39; Assmann, Moses, 194–98, 204–05; Zandee, Amunhymnus Leiden I 344 I, 120–34. The sun visible by day and hidden by night: see above §§394c, 399a, for the primaeval god as ‘Hidden-is-his-name’. 305 For the phrase, with its negative connotations, cf. Pyr §§298a–b, where the threat is a punning one, that the king will send his eye (jrjt=f) of fire against them. 306 §394a. 307 §395a. 308 Cf. Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 38–39; Begräbnisritual, 77, 279, suggesting this echo as a possible criterion for dating the composition of the text. Cf. also above, §394a.

12

The Mythology of the Cannibal Hymn Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The origins of a specific myth or ritual are not a major issue for understanding. Myth does not require a datable historical origin to be comprehensible. Rather its existence reflects a frame of reference that is self-evident to its user. For instance, the mythological vision of the cosmos reifies or personifies it as a manifestation of the divine. It envisages the sky – the goddess Nut – separated from the earth – the god Geb – by their son (and daughter) – the god(s) Shu (and Tefnut). In extension, mortuary texts exploit the theme of naming the parts of the other world, such as the gates through which the dead must pass, or the judges before whom he must justify himself, and so reify the passage of the dead from one state to another. The mythological world of Egyptian ritual is, then, one of themes and reference: iconic at least as much as explicatory.1 It is not sufficient to categorise the wording of rituals simply as the mythologisation of actions, since the action can as well be categorised as making myth concrete. Both are mobilised in unison and mutual cross-reference, in the symbolic performance that is ritual. It is, then, always too narrow to define a ritual – or a ritual text – by a single specific purpose, such as ‘apotropaic’ or ‘passage’. It is equally wrong to define a ritual as part of a single specific mythology or theology – such as a ‘solar theology’ – although one particular constellation of ideas, mythic or symbolic, may provide its central frame

1 Assmann, Funktionen, 38–42. Cf. Zeidler, GM 132 (1993), esp. 89, 104–8. The crucial issue is one of definition: the extent to which myth depicts a completely separate world of the gods through narrative, or the extent to which it integrates the visible world with the world of the gods through metaphorical and iconic reference.

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of reference. Egyptian religion has a set of core themes, that are so interrelated they can never be properly separated from each other. These are specifically: the themes of the creation of the basic world order – m3at – by the primaeval god – typically visualised as god manifest in the sun; the maintenance of that order against the manifold threats to it; the repetition of the creative act in the cycle of night and day; and the patterns of death and resurrection, which are threatened by ‘enemies’, named and nameless. These provide the constant focus of allusion in any ritual text.2 The core of Egyptian religion is relatively coherent: no less coherent than that of other religious systems. Yet the literary form in which the core themes are elaborated is highly contextualised: specific to the particular use in context, to the almost absolute disregard of continuous narrative. As a result, there is a superficial appearance of confusion, contradiction and the absence of a narrative vision. This is erroneous, or rather it is too narrow a view of the nature of myth as a necessarily narrative form.3 Such a view conflates questions of form, manifest in literary genre, with those of content and meaning. In the most direct sense, narrative is merely one form of communication, and is not itself the most naturally performative genre. The metaphorical vision of the cosmos, and statement of how it is manifest as ‘god(s)’, can just as well be communicated by a referential mode in poetry: a format which exploits an implicit narrative through the assumption that ‘the story’ is common knowledge. This is characteristic of Egyptian myth, where an 2 Sternberg, Mythische Motive, 10–20; Schott, Mythe und Mythenbildung and ZÄS 78 (1942), 1–27 indeed used the fallacious argument that this relatively limited number of motifs to which the mythological elements of ritual texts can be reduced was a strong indication that a substantial and coherent body of myths did not exist; see the critical assessment of Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 83. The core of Schott’s argument is the fallacious assumption that a study of the origins and development of myth assumes the existence of pre-mythological elements, or a pre-mythological period of time open to historical reconstruction, as in Otto’s argument, Verhältnis, 9, 11–12, 15–16, 20–24, that ritual was primary, and the mythological overlay entirely secondary. 3 See especially Baines’s criticism, JNES 50 (1991), esp. 85–92 of Assmann’s negative view in GM 25 (1977), 7–43, Funktionen, 13–61; Sternberg, Mythische Motive, 10–12, 15. Despite her structuralist approach, Sternberg accepts with Assmann the definition of myth by its narrative text structure; Zeidler, GM 132 (1993), 85–109 provides a functionalist criticism of Assmann’s articles, stressing that narrative coherence is only one of many criteria, and that the issue of priority cannot be resolved by Assmann’s historical approach.

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explicatory narrative genre is not part of the core ritual, and the explicit fleshing-out of myth in narrative seems characteristically to be done for aetiological reasons, or to exploit myth as entertainment.4 The absence of continuous narrative from the textual record does not prove that it did not exist, particularly for early periods, when there is no significant written narrative of any kind. Epic does indeed seem to be strikingly absent from the genres of both ritual and entertainment in Egypt, but this fact says more about the fallacy of assuming that epic is a necessary stage of early literary development than it does about the existence or nature of Egyptian myth.5 In general, therefore, the recitation of a story does not seem to have provided a central focus to Egyptian cult, although a ritual such as the Osiris festival or the festival of Horus at Edfu may dramatically re-create episodes of a mythological narrative. It is important that a high proportion of Egyptian ‘rituals’ are actually fragments – self-contained episodes – rather than complete and coherent performances as a whole.6 Major rituals are markedly episodic. They frequently exploit what are essentially the same units of text and the same actions to apparently different ends. There is a constant cross-reference – or ‘borrowing’ – of text across ritual contexts, while the specific use of a text as a self-standing ritual may be limited or non-existent.7 This is clearly the case for execration and destruction rituals, which fit into a variety of public and private ceremonies with little or no variation.8 It is equally true of butchery rituals: they form an independent episode in (almost?) all significant rituals, without themselves being a self-standing ritual. The hunt for the origins of myth is therefore not useful or helpful in dealing with the text of a ritual such as the Cannibal Hymn.9 4 Cf. Luft, Beiträge zur Historisierung der Götterwelt. 5 Cf. Finnegan, Oral Poetry, esp. 30–31, 36, 267–268 for rejection of such an approach. See above, pp. 69–70 on the whole issue of narrative, and specifically of the use of literary narrative in ritual. 6 E.g., Burkard, Überlegungen, 28–42 for the composite nature of literary works; Willems, Chests of Life, 244–49 on the heterogeneous nature of the Coffin Texts. 7 E.g., Fairman, in Hooke (ed.), Myth, Ritual, and Kingship, 86–89 on the visit of Hathor to Edfu, a festival that seems to have included a wide variety of standard rituals, apparently of diverse ‘origin’ and ‘purpose’. 8 Koenig, Magie et magiciens, ch. 4 provides a general survey. 9 See, for instance, Altenmüller, JEOL 19 (1967), 431–32; Willems, World of the Coffin Texts, esp. 197–99, 206–7; Willems, Heqata, 10–14, 81; Egberts, In Quest

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Schott10 and Otto11 put forward a vision of original ‘myth-free’ but intrinsically potent rituals that were ‘resacralised’ by the addition of stories of the gods. They imagined a period when myths were created in Egypt, at a time characterised by the anthropomorphisation of the divine world: a simplistic and formalistic vision both of prehistory and of the nature of myth. Otto,12 following Kees,13 asserted on what are no more than a priori grounds that the core butchery ritual in Egypt, depicted so widely and preserved to a more limited extent in texts,14 derived from an ‘old hunting tradition’. He argued that hunting practice served as the basis for a primary, ‘pre-mythologised’ form of ritual: ‘our scene is a pre-mythical hunting scene’. This, he asserted, was then given a secondary mythologisation in the historically attested rituals.15 As an approach, this assertion arose from the common if simplistic assumption that it might be possible to detect ‘original’ elements by an historical approach to the analysis of myth, and to the relationship between myth and ritual. By a necessarily circular argument, evidence is found for the hypothetical earlier society and practice: in this case the hypothesis that the ideals of a hunting/ pastoralist elite lie at the origin of Egyptian kingship rituals.16 Otto’s definition of the Cannibal Hymn as an ancient hunting ritual17 is,

10

11 12 13 14 15 16

17

of Meaning, 369–74, 388. Willems provides a brief critique of arguments for the priority of ritual over myth. Although Egberts admits in principle the existence of an ‘original meaning’ of a ritual, while stressing that the key elements involve ‘reinterpretation’, this is hesitant, and inconsistent with his basic preference (like that of Willems) for a structural approach to the theology of the myth: see esp. Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 357, 363–69 and pp. 64–68 on s3hw. Mythe und Mythenbildung, with brief summary and discussionˇ by Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 83. Cf. also Helck, LÄ V, 271–72, s.v. ‘Rituale’ for a concise statement of this historicising position. Verhältnis, passim. JNES 9 (1950), 164–77, esp. 169; cf. also Blackman and Fairman, JEA 32 (1946), 88–89 on the ritual. Tieropfer. Otto’s focus is on the butchery episode of the Opening of the Mouth, together with the related text/ritual in the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus. After Schott, Mythe und Mythenbildung, noting esp. 114. So Helck, Geschichte, 12–20. In contrast see Derchain, Sacrifice de l’oryx, 10 (quoted above, at p. 49 n.7), stressing that the theme has nothing to do with hunting, but everything to do with the moment of performance in the temple, and see also pp. 31, 36. JNES 9 (1950), 164–70. For ritual hunting see Altenmüller, LÄ III, 231–33, s.v. ‘Jagdritual’. Cf. Baines, in O’Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian

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however, simply too narrow in its assumption that the ritual represents a fossilised cultural ‘survival’. The imagery of the hunt was itself at least as much a contemporary Egyptian mythologisation of an imagined past – a symbolic vision of the cosmos – as a ‘survival’ of a real past. This historicising, pre-structuralist approach to mythology – cultural Darwinism – is largely a fiction, and provides no satisfactory explanation for the butchery ritual.18 Nor can the Cannibal Hymn, and butchery rituals as such, be maintained as support for the working-out of such a hypothesis. Practical butchery divides into two distinct parts: first, to overpower and slaughter the beast; second, to process the meat as food. The first motif finds its most direct symbolic formulation in the destruction of enemies. The second motif is most directly elaborated as inheritance and the transfer of power through food. The slaughter, particularly of a large animal, is no trivial act: life is taken, blood flows, there is a transformation of the living flesh into food, and at a certain level the dying beast is physically dangerous to the butcher. Through the imagery of the hunt, the domestic animal is rendered wild: the tame, the nurtured animal is depersonalised – defined emotionally and symbolically as the wild and dangerous animal that is properly and necessarily killed.19 The butcher is defined symbolically as hunter and destroyer of danger, not as murderer. The theme of cannibalism is unavoidable where the offering of food serves as metaphor, to symbolise and enact the transfer of power. The distinct theme of a rite of passage is worked out in the mythological conversion of the king into the primaeval god. In this way the ritual does not fossilise ‘survivals’, but enacts the rite of passage – for the animal and for the god or dead man to whose benefit it is sacrificed – by placing its significance at a cosmic level.20 The Cannibal Kingship, 111 stressing the iconographic role of hunting depictions, from the earliest periods, in symbolising the containment of disorder. 18 Cf. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 54 discussing Hebrew rules for livestock and purity, where the practice stresses a dichotomy between the pastoralist and hunter, and a disapproval of wild game and hunting by the pastoralist, and ibid., 13–14 on cultural Darwinism. 19 Vialles, Animal to Edible, 113–21: the converse to the animal rights movement, that emotionally defines animals as pets, symbolically personalised as tame and so not properly subject to slaughter. 20 Cf. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 114–15 stressing the social context for the symbolism of both the human body and that of the sacrificial animal: ‘the body is a model which can stand for any bounded system’; ‘a sacrificial ox is being used as a diagram of a social situation’.

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Hymn directly associates this passage with the passage undergone by the bull, through the butchery that forms a necessary part of the Egyptian funerary ceremonies. This is not to say that the butchery ritual must necessarily be exclusive to the royal burial, or to funerary ceremonies in general, but that its focus is a re-creation of the passage associated with death. The change of status undergone by both the dead and by his surviving heirs are enacted through the metaphor of cataclysmic change in the cosmos. Under discussion here21 is a ritual in which the human and divine worlds are brought together by words and actions that deliberately and specifically make the connection,22 and draw out a structurally valid symbolism from the actions. Ritual is explicitly symbolic, of its nature. This claim is not theoretically ‘structuralist’, since the issue is not one of implicit or unconscious structuralism, but the conscious use of symbolic expression to explain and exploit structure, perceived and purposely calculated by the contemporary writer. To claim that butchery, performed in a ritual context, derives from an old hunting ritual, is to say no more than that butchery of domesticated animals derives from slaughter in the hunt, before animals were domesticated, which is to say nothing. Butchery is a concrete action, and in a butchery ritual there may seem to be a primacy of action over recitation. The general purpose of the Cannibal Hymn, in its mythology, is therefore relatively straightforward. It sets out to assert that the king is the heir to or replacement of the primaeval god(s), whose varied roles and powers in the ‘other world’ he takes over, legitimately23 or by force. He succeeds to, or he usurps the functions of his predecessors, the old gods who created the world. In the normal mythological cycle, the aged creator god has largely withdrawn or retired from the created 21 This does not include the sort of festival that contains a ‘passion play’ such as the Osiris festival at Abydos, in which the performance, as it is historically known, is of itself a sort of mythological narrative. Note, however, Willems, Chests of Life, 141–50, 156–59, 239–42 for the extreme but persuasive view that the Coffin Texts consist of (or at least include) an account of ceremonies on the day of burial, envisaging texts performed as a sort of passion play by priests acting the role of the gods. 22 Cf. Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 89–90: by the mobilisation of myths in crucial rituals ‘its mythical status and religious centrality will be strengthened’. 23 As §408c, through an a, ‘deed’ or ‘permission’ of Orion: and cf. §395a, stressing ‘Like Atum, his father, who created him. He created him, (but) he is more powerful than he.’

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world,24 leaving the living king/Horus as legitimate heir to the visible world and the dead king/Osiris to rule the ‘other’ world. However, an apparently jarring note is struck in this text. There is a continuous assertion of the king’s claim to the heritage on the basis of might, and stress on his seizure of power by force. In particular, it asserts in detail that he is the most powerful or the archetypal manifestation of various categories of divine power, and that these are the forms of divine power which manifest themselves in order to control or to intervene physically in the cosmos as a whole, including the visible world. It is a more familiar focus in Egyptian mythology, that the superior claim to this heritage is one of right, rather than one of might. That is explicit in the Myth of Horus and Seth. In the New Kingdom literary version of the story, Shu asserts that the heritage belongs to Horus, not to Seth, in the words: ‘Right is Lord of Might’ (m3a.t nb wsr).25 Yet, despite the fears of his supporters for his safety, Horus does consistently defeat Seth. In practice, a resolution is possible in the myth because Right is also the possessor of Might: for instance, in CT Spell 31326 the dead, transformed into Horus as a falcon, takes his place after overwhelming the gods in what is presented in effect as a fist-fight or wrestling match. Both royal and divine ideology attribute the necessary ‘might’ to the holder of this heritage, to complement his ‘right’. The god destroys the powers of chaos, and protects the cosmos.27 This mirrors 24 Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 76–79, 94–95 for the aetiological context. Cf., e.g., the mythology of the snake in the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, Derchain-Urtel, SAK 1 (1974), esp. 96, 101–4; Baines, JEA 76 (1990), 62–3. 25 P. Ch.B. I, 1, 4 = LES 37, 6. The relevance of this comparison is pointed by the way that the gods, as a body, are unable to reach any resolution to the argument. They do a sort of tour of creator gods – gods to whom the function of demiurge is attributed in significant bodies of myth – to ask for their rulings, which in each case is that Horus is in the right. For a brief introduction to the ‘legal’ potential of this text see Allam, Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 137–45. See also Willems, Chests of Life, 148–50, who argues, on an interpretation of relevant Coffin Texts, that the funeral itself included an enactment of the trial between Horus and Seth, in the context of the Voyage to Sais, and that this culminated in the sacrifice of Seth as a Bull; similarly Merkelbach, ZÄS 120 (1993), 71–84. 26 CT IV, 92–93. 27 The might to maintain order (m3at) and dispel chaos (jsft) is a necessary attribute that is ideologically necessary in the context of Egyptian insecurity about the continuing existence of the created world and the social order; cf. Baines, in Shafer (ed.), Religion, 127–31, 162–64; Assmann, GM 140 (1994), 93–100.

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the necessary contradiction in the very nature of political authority and social hierarchy, since it is impossible to rule without might, but might untempered by right leads to social collapse. This theme is an ideological commonplace in statements of the role of the Egyptian ruling class,28 and lies behind the typical offering of maat to the gods by the king.29 Structurally it is necessary to assert that right and might always coincide. The mythological resolution of this irresolvable contradiction is typically worked out in the ritual of destruction of enemies and of sacrifice. The unusual feature of the Cannibal Hymn lies in its explicit detail. The episodes of the slaughter and dismemberment of the sacrificial bull serve as the symbolic context for asserting the legitimacy of the succession, and the accompanying transfer of authority.30 This is a recurrent theme in the symbolism of sacrifice, made explicit, for instance, in the scene from the Corridor of the Bull in the Temple of Sety I at Abydos. Here the Crown Prince lassoes the bull in the presence of his father the king.31 Equally the use of the hpš leg of the bull as the standard offering32 ˇ associates the themes of legitimacy and power with that of provision for the ancestor. In detail many of the themes, and indeed some of the phraseology of the Cannibal Hymn, are repeated in the related series of Pyramid Text Spells 254–57,33 which likewise identify the king as the Bull of the Sky, taking power over the cosmos. In both cases there is a

28 E.g., Urk I, 50, 1–9. The Story of the Eloquent Peasant as a whole provides the most complex literary elaboration. 29 Assmann, Maaat, 184–95; Teeter, Presentation of Maat. 30 I am not aware of any exploitation in the Pyramid corpus of the apparently obvious play between jwaw, ‘heir’ and jwaw, ‘thigh’, ‘leg of beef’. 31 Mariette, Abydos I, 53 = Capart, Temple de Séti Ier, pl. 48: as carved, the scene shows Amonhirkhopshef with Ramesses II, but the underlying painting was presumably Ramesses with Seti I. For the context cf. Kees, Tieropfer, 77–78, 81. 32 Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 30–31. 33 Situated on the west wall of the antechamber in the Pyramid of Unas, the opposite side of the room to the Cannibal Hymn. The introduction to this sequence of spells connects them clearly to the ritual action of censing; cf. also CT Spells 619, 621, 622 for significantly reworked versions of the text. Altenmüller, Begräbnisritual, 182–89 reconstructs an extremely complex ritual play as the mise en sce`ne of this text, a reconstruction that goes far beyond the internal evidence: cf. Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 44–46. Altenmüller also suggests an association with Spells 306–7, which identify the resurrected king with a bull, but do not exploit the imagery of butchery and reconstitution, nor explicitly refer to censing.

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genuine ambivalence between the symbolism of the king as a bull, insuperable master of the cosmos, whose passage to the sky is irresistible, and the bull as victim, through eating which the king receives both sustenance and the transfer of cosmic power.34 The bull is slaughtered and the king eats. A similar end is achieved in a different way by the recitation of Spell 539, a hymn from the pyramid of Pepi I (§§1303–27). Here the individual parts of the king’s body are each identified as a god, and with each identification the ascent of the king is justified.35 The gods are powerless to stop him: he threatens gods who oppose his ascent with cutting off their offerings, and promises offerings to those who assist him. The disintegration of death, and the reintegration that symbolises resurrection, both find parallel and opposite metaphors. The extensive use of the imagery of the bull is particularly characteristic of the Egyptian play on contradictory emphases and contrasting motifs in structuring a symbolic resolution through myth. The bull is in fact contradictory: powerful, dominant, virile, uncontrollable, but also tamed, bound, slaughtered, eaten. Characteristically, and from the earliest periods, it serves icongraphically as a primary royal symbol – an image of the king – but also of the natural chaos that is hunted and then subdued by the king.36 The bull personifies a variety of heavenly bodies as deities;37 for instance, exploiting the image of the crescent moon as the metaphor of the bull’s horns.38 The bull may

34 It is typical of the ‘poetic’ processes of association that the image of the ‘bull’ associates the irresistible creative power with the practical imagery of ‘butchery’ spells or butchery images: see Pyr. Spells 246, 251, 254, and cf. also Spells 306 (§481), 307 (§486), 318–20, 336–37, 488 (§998), 508 (§§1110–13), 580, 670 (§§1976–78). 35 Cf. Spell 213 §§134–35, in the Pyramid of Unas: the king is asserted to have passed on – as Osiris – not dead but alive, with parts individually identified as Atum, although there is the possibility of a pun with tm ‘complete’. For the passage see Guilhou, Études Lauer I, 222; Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 128–29. For the identification of limbs with gods in general cf. Ranke, OLZ 27 (1924), 558–64; also Altenmüller, Synkretismus, 250–56 for an index of identifications of bodily parts with gods; and specifically for BoD 151 see Lüscher, Totenbuch Spruch 151, 245; or in magic, see Kákosy, Studies Quaegebeur I, 131. 36 See, e.g., Baines, in O’Connor and Silverman (eds), Ancient Egyptian Kingship, 111–14; Robins, JEA 85 (1999), 102–03. 37 Cf. Altenmüller, Synkretismus, 221–25. 38 E.g., Koenig, Magie et magiciens, 207; for the late image of the moon as k3 psy ‘burning bull’, see Derchain, RdÉ 15 (1963), 21–22; Leitz, Tagwählerei, 268–69; Aufre`re, L’univers minéral, 221–22; Vos, Studies Quaegebeur I, 712–13, and above on §398c.

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be envisaged as a manifestation of the sun,39 typically as a resurrected form of Osiris manifest as Re,40 although also, in a hymn to the setting sun from the tomb of Senmut, Re is addressed as one ‘whom the sky conceives and whom Nut bears, who comes forth renewed every day, the red bull on whose nature the gods live’,41 which is perhaps an echo of the image of the sun’s eye as food.42 Frequently the form taken by the bull in the sky is that of the Bull of the Ennead.43 Most typically in the New Kingdom the bull is depicted as consort to the seven cows of the sky.44 The sexual motif is characteristically strong: the triumphant bull, who copulates and reproduces, victorious in the afterlife.45 This contrasts to the bull – characteristically the red bull – as victim and personification of Seth. The inherent contradiction of death and resurrection is resolved in the contradictory images of the bull, its death, dismemberment, passage, and appearance in the sky. The Cannibal Hymn thus mobilises the world of the gods in complex but comprehensible ways. Through mythologisation it makes explicit the symbolic power of butchery and meat division. It asserts that Unas has assumed the powers and assimilated the person of the primaeval god, and indeed the totality of godhead in its various manifestations. As a rite of passage for the king, it endows him with the forms in which divine power manifests itself and acts in the world: ‘magic’, ba, and akh. This transfer of power asserts his identity with and succession to the creator god. The themes of power and of identification with the sun-god are fully explicit in Coffin Text Spell 573, the Middle Kingdom version of

39 E.g., Feucht, Grab des Nefersecheru, 18–20 in a sun hymn. Note also the Bull of Light (j3hw) with which the king identifies himself, associated with the sun in his ˇ §§ 513a, 889d) and as guide on entry to the afterlife (Roulin, Livre de bark (Pyr. la nuit, 54, 82, 86–87) paralleled by the Bull of the Two Lands (ibid. 103, 107–8) and the king himself as guide (ibid. 120, 122). 40 E.g., Žabkar, JEA 69 (1983), 118–25 exploiting material from the Middle Kingdom to the Late Period. 41 Dorman, Tombs of Senenmut, 134–35; Assmann, Sonnenhymnen, 338–39. 42 Cf. Dorman, Tombs of Senenmut, 137–38. See also below, pp. 169–70, esp. n.88. 43 E.g., Pyr §511a and cf. §513a–c; Troy, in Englund (ed.), Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, 62–63 argues in this context for the bull as male principle, joined with the Ennead as a personification of the feminine, equivalent to Nut. 44 E.g., Dorman, Tombs of Senenmut, 54–55. 45 Cf. Galán, JEA 80 (1994), 91–96.

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the Cannibal Hymn.46 Although based closely on the wording of the Pyramid Text, this later version was significantly remodelled, probably to give it a more narrow focus, and probably also for a different context of recitation. The Coffin Text is defined by its final rubric: ‘To eat the magicians, all of them.’47 As a spell its purpose was explicitly to ensure the possession of ‘magic’ for the dead, which involves possession of his bodily power and functions in the afterlife. In addition the Coffin Text Spells 131–46 also show a direct textual relationship to the Cannibal Hymn. They do not explicitly develop the theme of cannibalism, but they employ many of the same motifs and phraseology:48 lassoing and butchery (CT II 153, 162); identification as a celestial bull (II, 156); killing the ‘great ones’ (II, 163); the distinction of gods into big, middle-sized and little (II, 157); sitting with the back to Geb (II, 154, 162); concealment of name (II, 162); the Island of Fire as place of origin or passage (II, 159); going round (II 153, 161), but especially the granting of authority through a document and decree of the primaeval god (passim, but esp. II, 157, 159, 172, 176, 201). The theme of the document seems strange in the context of the Cannibal Hymn. Probably it was a novelty in the Fifth Dynasty, when it would reflect the burgeoning use and status of the royal document as a symbol of power.49 By the Middle Kingdom the reference is to a familiar use of documents in administration and law. The rubric at the head of Coffin Text Spell 13150 defines the purpose of the group as a whole: ‘The sealing of a decree concerning the family; the giving a man’s family [to him] in the realm of the dead.’ He maintains his earthly authority in the afterlife, as the head of his family. The theme is that of coming into the cosmic inheritance. Initially the dead is mythologised as Horus, receiving the headship of his family from his ancestor Geb, but the texts also develop an identification of the dead with Atum, the creator. Egyptian society was gerontocratic. Power and authority could not be inherited until the previous holder of that power was dead: the (eldest) son and heir inherited the role from the father. In such a social 46 CT VI, 177–83; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 19–39; Barta, ZÄS 118 (1991), 10–20. 47 CT VI, 183e; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 26; 29 translates ‘magic’ rather than ‘magicians’. 48 Spells 131–46 = CT II, 151–205; cf. Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 33. 49 See above on §408c, and cf. Eyre, Studies Shore, 107–8. 50 CT II, 151a.

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context there is a genuine structural problem if the old live too long, become feeble, and need to retire. In life such problems were resolved by devices such as the recognition of the son as ‘staff of old age’ for his father,51 or for kings by the device of coregency.52 Mythologically the question of transfer of power and authority is resolved by the death of the god and the succession of his son, as Osiris and Horus, or by syncretistic or multiple forms of gods, that in the case of the sun-god tends to focus on different forms for different stages of his cycle of passage, such as the triple form of Atum, Re and Khepri for the sungod,53 or the 74 ‘forms’ of the god in the Litany of Re,54 or identification with forms of Atum as the creator and the eldest.55 The structural conflict between the ageing ruler/father and the impatient successor/son, and the direct parallelism with the theme of decay into death and rebirth form the central themes in the Myth of the Destruction of Mankind.56 Men and gods originally live together, but when the sungod ages, and his power wanes, men rebel. First thinking to destroy his creation, the god then decides to withdraw from earth to heaven, leaving his successors to rule, and himself entering the daily cycle of the sun: birth, youth, age and death. Here in the afterworld men and god come together again. The old god retires from regular and active interference in the cosmos, but sets a pattern of transformation that all have to follow through death. The mythological resolution found in the Cannibal Hymn seems unusual in an Egyptian context, but it is comprehensible as a logical consequence of butchery performed as ritual. Sacrifice itself normally symbolises the defeat and destruction of enemies, but in a wider sense it symbolises the possession and exercise of power over rivals or dangerous forces, potential or real. The process of receiving and eating offerings represents, among other things, the receipt and absorption of power. The Cannibal Spell provides a logical continuum from the sacrifice, through the activities of the butcher in the slaughterhouse, to the fulfilment of the offering ritual. This detailed reference to the

Brunner, LÄ V, 1224; Blumenthal, Fs Fecht, 84–97. Murnane, Coregencies, esp. 239–43, 253–57; LÄ IV, 155–61, s.v. ‘Mitregentschaft’. Hornung, Conceptions of God, 91–99, 126–28. Piankoff, Litany of Re, esp. 10–17; Hornung, Anbetung des Re, esp. II, 30–32; Derchain-Urtel, SAK 1 (1974), 84, 93–95. 55 Hornung, Conceptions of God, 92, 97–98. 56 Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 76–79, 90–95.

51 52 53 54

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process of butchery and its presentation of the mythological frame in a superficially literal way, tend by their very specificity to create a false impression, and lead to an oversimplification in defining the context and origin of the text. The elaboration of themes in the apparently disjointed symbolic reference of ritual underlies the extraordinary complexity of religious texts: a complexity that is increased by the fact that a high proportion of the texts belong to rituals of passage. Often this is passage from one state to another, such as from the living to the dead. Often also it is focused on the safe passage of order through chaos, as in the royal jubilee and coronation rituals, or the Underworld Books describing the passage of the sun through the night: the assertion of order appears in an apparently chaotic format of reference. It is this theme of passage that seems to provide the unifying thread of coherence through the Cannibal Hymn: the king appears as Bull of the Sky, which is portioned as the sacrificial bull, cooked, and its power absorbed in the (re)birth of the new god. Passage, both physical and spiritual, is necessarily a central theme in the imagery of death, described and re-enacted in mythological images and ritual actions. The ritual and liturgy of the funeral itself focuses on this passage, in all its variety, enacting the ordeals and journeys of the dead in the liturgy and drama of the rituals.57 This theme is directly exploited in the ordering of spells on the walls of Middle Kingdom coffins:58 through the siting of spells at the head which relate to the physical reintegration and resuscitation of the dead,59 and at the feet which focus on the restoration of movement for passage.60 The front, essentially symbolising the East, is decorated with spells focused on the transitions of the funeral ritual and offering ceremonies,61 which is to say contact with the living world, while the spells of the back of the coffin, symbolising the West, show a focus on passage in the life beyond the tomb.62 57 See, e.g., Willems, Chests of Life, 154–59; Heqata, 133–34. For the specifically ‘dramatic’ context of the Ferryman Spells see Willems, Heqata, 157–77, 186, and relating drama as a rite of passage connected to entry to the Place of Embalming, ibid. 197–99, 262–70, 279–86, 380–81. 58 Barguet, RdÉ 23 (1971), 15–22; Willems, Heqata, 363–66 for summary. 59 Willems, Heqata, esp. 91–92, 101–2. 60 Willems, Heqata, esp. 109, 132–38. 61 Willems, Heqata, esp. 208, 239–41, 324–27. 62 Willems, Heqata, esp. 192–95, 196–99.

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As a whole these rituals may focus on the decay and reintegration of the body for a physical rebirth, as for instance in the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth,63 and offering rituals. This contrasts with the elaboration of a celestial geography, in which the dead typically travels (or is ferried) over the routes and especially watercourses of the sky.64 A constellation of such metaphors focuses on another existence that is encapsulated in the image of an unperishing star: shining, distant, free-moving, powerful, untouchable. It is central, however, to the mobilisation of these ideas that they are never exclusive, but overlap at all levels of exploitation. In the Cannibal Hymn, the image of the king as Bull of the Sky clearly exploits such a mixture of images: the butchery and consumption of the animal as a mode of passage, together with the image of the triumphant bull as a constellation or celestial body. This mixing of metaphors is highly characteristic of the Egyptian technique of mythological elaboration. The personification of the sacrificial bull at the funeral as the Bull of the West65 – as Osiris – as the deceased himself – who enters to be butchered but also avoids the slaughter-block in the afterlife – is a conventional theme, in which the mediation of sacrifice and eating is used to deny death and redefine it as passage.66 The sequence of Coffin Text Spells 640–45 illustrates the theme, beginning with a rubric ‘Spell for not entering the abattoir of the realm of the dead’.67 It progresses through reference to protection from decapitation,68 to blood,69 to the hpš,70 the introduction of the Bull of the West; through ˇ earthquake allowing emergence from the underworld, revivification by Nut, funeral meal, and denial of death through embalming, to a final rubric ‘To open the door for [a man] in the land of the Netherworld.’71

63 Roth, JEA 78 (1992), 113–47 and 79 (1993), 57–79. 64 E.g., Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, passim, and also Willems, Chests of Life, 234–37 and Heqata, 370–73 for the use of maps and star-clocks to represent this cosmic geography. 65 Cf. Willems, Heqata, 195 on CT VI, 263f. 66 See also below, p. 167 on Pyr. Spell 254, and above on §403a. 67 CT VI, 261a. 68 CT VI, 261d–k by allusion, 264g. 69 CT VI, 262f: trwty. 70 CT VI, 261i. 71 CT VI, 265n. Cf. Pyr. Spell 412 (§§721–33): felled as a bull, the king/Osiris does not rot, but is resurrected to pass the gates of the sky and is suckled by his mother, the great wild cow (sm3t wrt) who is in Nekheb, on his way to power in heaven.

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The Cannibal Hymn does not itself express the commonest image for passage: that is, the opening of doors to allow the reintegrated king to pass to the sky72 as the morning sun,73 either as he passes through the individual sections of the night, or passes from the other side of the tomb into the sky.74 It does, however, seem to stand in the sequence which runs from Pyramid Spell 270 – demanding passage from the ferryman – to Spell 271 – ascending by ladder from the flood to join his mother the Great Wild Cow – to Spell 272 – demanding the opening of the Gateway of the Flood (arryt nt Nw(n)), and then to be followed by Spell 275, again referring to passage to the limits of the horizon.75 Reference to passage as a journey is only incidental in the Cannibal Hymn: reference to the cataclysm that leads to the king’s ascension,76 to the Island of Fire,77 and to encircling the sky and earth.78 The metaphor is focused rather on physical transformation through the absorption of power. In this sense the mythology seems to focus on the ritual performance of the sacrifice and offering meal rather than the transcendent passage of the king emerged from the far side of the tomb. The ritual association of butchery with this initial stage of the passage of the dead is marked, in the rituals for funerals and rituals for the continuation of existence, both for the physical treatment of the

72 E.g., Pyr §502a–b (Unas), §727a (Teti and Pepi II), §572c–d (Teti and later), and probably also §1025a–d, all in general contexts referring to offering meals and/or butchery. In general see Brovarski, Or 46 (1977), 107–15. 73 E.g., Pyr. Spell 325. 74 E.g., Pyr §§796–99, §873c, §876c, §§756c, 747a; cf. Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte, 257–58. For the image in architecture of the tomb cf. Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 23, 28; Assmann, Fs Stadelmann, 243–45; and for the parallel image in temple architecture of passage to rebirth at the door/pylon see Finnestad, in Shafer (ed.), Temples, 210–13, 216, 221 with 244 n.38. 75 In fact there are certain reservations about the sequence, since the order is clearest in the tomb of Senwosretankh. In the Pyramid of Unas the wider sequence is split into smaller groups, and Spell 273, the beginning of the Cannibal Hymn, stands at the start of its section of wall. In contrast Spell 274 ends such a subsequence in the Middle Kingdom tomb of Siese. For the difficulties see Allen, Hommages Leclant I, 8–12. For the attempt to relate these passages to specific gates in the pyramid temple see Schott, Pyramidenkult, 196–200. 76 §395a + §§407a, 398b, 414a. 77 §397b. 78 §406c.

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corpse and the presentation of the funeral meal.79 To that extent the thematic association between the dead taking the form of a bull in the sky and his possession of offering meals in the sky and on earth is something of a commonplace in the funerary literature: it appears repeatedly, for instance, in the long series of Coffin Text spells with rubrics against eating faeces and drinking urine in the afterlife.80

79 Cf. Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 99 discussing the abattoir of the Gate of the Horizon (nmt n Sbht 3ht) in the late Rituel pour repousser ˇ ˇ to the place of embalming. l’Agressif 10, 2 = Urk VI, 62, arguing a relation 80 Specifically CT Spells 166, 170, 172, 175, 181, 185, 191, 199, 201, 203–04, 207–8, 211–12, 218.

13

Cannibalism: Symbol and Reality Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The general tenor of the Cannibal Hymn has always seemed aberrant in an Egyptian context. Various forms of syncretism, grouping, and direct identification of gods are the typical Egyptian ways of asserting the identity or possession of one divine power with or by another.1 The cannibalism of one god by another – his physical absorption by eating – is not a central theme of mythical narrative. Moreover, the negative, primitive associations of cannibalism do not fit well with the romanticised vision of Egypt as a civilised ‘High Culture’. Such assessment, however, reflects more of the preconceptions of traditional Western scholarship than the reality of ancient ideals or behaviour. That particular vision of a primitive cannibal past is a Western myth,2 that serves to classify other societies as primitive through association with a particular form of chaotic, uncivilised behaviour, which lies beyond the pale.3 This touches on a crucial methodological 1 LÄ II, s.v. ‘Götterverschmelzung’, and cf. Altenmüller, Synkretismus, esp. 6–11 for a brief survey; note ibid. 250–56 for an index of identifications of bodily parts with gods. See also Junge, in Wiessner (ed.), Synkretismusforschung, 87–108 for an attempt to reconcile the approaches of Hornung and of Assmann to explaining and ordering the multiplicity of Egyptian gods. 2 Cf. Baines, JNES 50 (1991), 92: ‘In a sense, the view of early times as a period when divine and human were in close contact is an Egyptological “myth” with some of the aetiologic function of many ancient myths.’ His specific comparison is the ancient vision of an early creation, before men and gods lived separate from each other, and the cosmos became more complex: see Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 76–79. 3 Arens, Man-eating Myth: deliberately iconoclastic, sometimes perverse, and much criticised, this book provides the necessarily sceptical approach to the often credulous and rarely properly documented accounts of cannibalism. Sanday, Divine Hunger is less sceptical about the reality of cannibalism, and provides a more theoretical approach to its explanation. Both, however, stress that practical

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issue: that any attempt to understand the foreign has to be placed in a conceptual framework based on the familiar, and that any description of the exotic has to use the familiar as its point of reference. A culture cannot easily be defined in its own terms,4 but an account of its striking differences – its deviations from the observer’s norm – is a deceptively straightforward undertaking. The exotic is too easily defined in terms of the fears or idealisations of the observer’s own culture. This produces a simplistic and romanticised vision, which too easily reinforces the myth of the foreign as different by the imposition of an inappropriate structural frame on its description.5 This central difficulty of anthropological observation begins for Egyptology with Herodotus, for whom Egypt was explicitly idealised as ‘other’. For the most part his vision was positive, but his account is explicitly rooted in direct comparison with contemporary Greek culture, and a characteristic search for priority and universal origins in the more ancient society. At a rather later date, Diodorus exploited this vision of the exotic to his universalising historiography, presenting a utopian account of Egypt that severely distorted the reality of Egyptian social structure. From these beginnings Egyptology has tended to idealise pharaonic Egypt as honorary ‘us’ rather than negative ‘them’.6 From classical Greece onwards Egypt has been claimed as part of the heritage of the West. Only more recently has pharaonic Egypt seriously been claimed for the cultural heritage of modern Egypt, or seriously incorporated into the vision of a common African heritage. Scholarship that sees Egypt as High Culture has no room for the wild and primitive, so that the theme of cannibalism is shocking to its cultural assumptions. Cannibalism has, then, characteristically been rejected as the hangover from a wild and primitive African cannibalism can hardly be studied for lack of evidence, although there is plenty of evidence for attitudes and beliefs about the consumption of human flesh. Cf. also Fiddes, Meat, 121–31 for a symbolic analysis supporting Arens’s argument, and for wider perspectives see Brown and Tuzin (eds), Ethnography of Cannibalism. 4 Cf. Borghouts, in Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La Magia, 29–30; Ritner, Magical Practice, 1–2, 9–13 on the attempt to study Egyptian magic in these terms. 5 See, e.g., Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, 26–33, discussing a context specifically relevant to the purpose of the Cannibal Hymn: the interpretation of foodofferings. 6 Cf. Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 36, on human sacrifice: ‘les égyptologues répugnent a` l’idée que les bons Égyptiens aient pus tuer religieusement leurs semblables’.

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substratum: the subject matter of anthropology, itself beyond the pale of academic Egyptology. Such an approach is not helpful. The origins of the Cannibal Hymn do not lie in an ancient African practice of ritual king-murder.7 It is not plausible to assume that the Cannibal Hymn is a genuine relic from some mythical-prehistoric past when cannibalism was rife in Egypt, or when some form of human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism played a central part in royal (mortuary) ceremonial.8 The obvious symbolism in eating, and the ritual nature of cannibalism that it implies – to absorb the powers of the rival or gain power over the (defeated) enemy – can give such an explanation a certain superficial attraction, but this confuses the metaphor with literal reality. Such an approach owes more to the preconceptions of the commentator in attempting to interpret undocumented prehistory than to the reality of historical Egyptian data. Such explanations are fictional constructs.9 Cannibalism is a special context. As with incest,10 the suggestion of cannibalism defines a foreign group as ‘them’: savage, primitive, subhuman, without culture. This theme is made explicit in the Greek aretalogy of Isis from Kyme, a text that claims to have been copied from a stela set up at Memphis, in front of the Temple of Hephaistos, and probably dates to the mid- or early Ptolemaic Period. Isis is credited with the establishment of culture in the sense of social behaviour. The text includes the claim: ‘I, with my brother Osiris, put an end to

7 Cf. Störk, GM 5 (1973), 31–32. 8 Pace, for instance, Baillet, BIFAO 30 (1930), 65–72; Spiegel, Auferstehungsritual, 434; Barta, ZÄS 106 (1979), 89–94; Faulkner, JEA 10 (1924), 102–3; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 35–9; Burton, Diodorus Siculus Book I, 73–74; Darby et al., Food I, 86–90; Bonheˆme, Hommages Leclant II, 50; Foster, JSSEA 9 (1978–79), 51. In contrast Rössler-Köhler, LÄ III, 314–15, s.v. ‘Kannibalismus’ stresses that there are no traces of cannibalism as an institutional practice in Egypt: only the use of cannibalism as an image or symbol. 9 Compare Wainwright, Sky-Religion in Ancient Egypt with Golding, Scorpion God. 10 For the issue of brother–sister marriage, and the argument that it may have been relatively common in Egypt see Goody, The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive, 319–25; 332–39, based on evidence for the Roman period assembled by Hopkins, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980), 303–54, with critical assessment by Shaw, Man 27 (1992), 267–99 and assessment of the rather special, and probably non-native context by Bagnall and Frier, Demography of Roman Egypt, 127–34. For wife–son incest as a monstrosity in Egyptian ideology see Morschauser, Threat-Formulae, 124–25.

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cannibalism.’11 This is placed in the context of the invention of farming – the identical context given by Diodorus: ‘All men were glad to change their food, both because of the pleasing nature of the newly discovered grains, and because it seemed to their advantage to refrain from their butchery of one another.’12 The story is an application of logic to aetiology. If it is asserted, as already in pharaonic sources,13 that Osiris (and Isis) invented grain, then what must savage men have eaten before? No answer to this aetiological question has any value as evidence of behaviour.14 Despite the powerful feelings raised by the subject, few (if any) historical accounts of institutionalised cannibalism in any society can be regarded as reliable.15 That is to say, the primitive, happy cannibal does not, and never did exist: he is a myth. Recorded accounts of cannibalism are typically second-hand. They refer characteristically to what was claimed to have happened in the past.16 They appear particularly in myths that deal with creation or the establishment of culture and order in society, where they define primitive origins that a society 11 Verse 21, and cf. the Ios Aretalogy, verse 18. Grandjean, Une nouvelle arétalogie d’Isis, 8–15 provides a bibliography, and 122–24 the text of the Kyme hymn. See Žabkar, Hymns to Isis, 135–60, with a recent survey of the argument about how much is Greek and how much Egyptian in these texts. Žabkar (esp. 151–53) stresses the theme of creating culture, and (156) asserts that this particular line is obviously a non-Egyptian theme, following Mueller, OLZ 67 (1972), 127. In contrast Bergman, Ich bin Isis, 152, 212–13 makes a forced and somewhat irrelevant attempt to relate this line to the Egyptian imagery of the eating of the dead found in Book of the Dead chapter 125, and in an ancient ritual of human sacrifice. Both Mueller and Bergman stress that the ideology of Maat, and its creation, are central to the Isis aretalogy, which logically demands a vision of not-maat or before-maat that would be abolished or averted. In reality cannibalism was definitively notmaat, to both Egyptian and Greek, and the ‘origin’ of the line cannot be defined by this culture-specific argument. 12 I, 14, trans. Oldfather. See Burton, Diodorus Siculus Book I, 204–5, 258. Cf. Diodorus’ report, I, 88, that the Egyptians alleged earlier sacrifice of red men, not red bulls, at the tomb of Osiris. 13 P. Ch. B. I, 14, 11–15, 3 = LES 57, 6–14. 14 In the Story of Horus and Seth, where Osiris makes the claim, it is simply denied by his opponents: there is no aetiology because emmer and barley would have existed anyway. The argument of Lichtheim, Maat, 47 that CT II, 42 (Spell 80) defines man as a bread-eater depends on a questionable translation of an apparently corrupt text. 15 Arens, Man-eating Myth, 9–10, 21. 16 Arens, Man-eating Myth, 35–6, 146.

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has outgrown. They are also characteristic of hostile accounts of the savage behaviour of another, less civilised social or cultural group.17 So, for instance, the contemporary bedouin of the Egyptian Eastern Desert are reported to envisage the Sudan – from where the English had traditionally recruited desert police – as the home of black, halfhuman cannibals.18 Following that theme, a number of hostile classical authors used the topos of cannibalism as exemplification of the savage ‘otherness’ of Egypt.19 Juvenal20 described how the populace of Ombos, in village conflict with the people of Dendera, chopped up and in a frenzy ate a straggler uncooked. Isocrates21 takes the trouble specifically to deny Greek legends that the king Busiris sacrificed and ate foreign visitors. Dio Cassius22 reports that in the time of Marcus Aurelius there was an Egyptian rebellion led by one Isidorus, during which Bucoli, ‘herdsmen’ – a symbolically marginal and savage group of Egyptians – tricked a Roman centurion, and disguised as women ransoming their husbands, they murdered him: ‘They also sacrificed (katathusantes) his companion, and after swearing an oath over his entrails (epi ton splanchnon) they devoured them.’ Cannibalism is a cultural nightmare. The cannibal is a monster, an extra-social individual, who belongs in a similar category to the vampire and the werewolf: a monstrous figure of supernatural, inhuman terror. At the level of the group it dehumanises the unfamiliar, or the enemy, since in any symbolic system cannibalism is by definition a pattern of disordered ‘chaotic’ unhuman behaviour. It is not some regular stage in the progression or

17 Arens, Man-eating Myth, 139, 145. In extreme form, where men and women form socially separated groups, this can take the form of men claiming that women are secretly prone to cannibalism. 18 Hobbs, Bedouin Life, 26–27, 73–74, 80. 19 Cf. the references collected by Darby et al., Food I, 87–89. On the topos of eating people in classical literature and philosophy, cf. Rankin, Hermes 97 (1969), 381–85. 20 Satire 15, 72–92. 21 Busiris, 5–7, 38–39. Cf. also Herodotus II, 45. 22 72, 4, 1–2 = Cary, Dio’s Roman History IX, 16–19; cf. Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 33–34; Rathbone, PCPhS 216 (1990), 118, suggesting that the victim was a tax-collector. Cf. also Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, 106–7 for similar stories from China; Amin Maalouf, Crusades, 29, 38–40 on accounts of cannibalism by the crusaders, both to terrify and through famine. Such a list could be extended indefinitely.

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evolution of human society. There is no progression from the real to the symbolic in cannibalism,23 but rather the reverse. Cannibalism is of its essence symbolic, not a natural behaviour given symbolic meaning. It is a metaphor – even if it is a metaphor that sometimes might be acted out for real – which asserts control over the power of chaos and disorder. Attempts to define the cultural significance of cannibalism involve all the contradictions inherent in any mythological or symbolic system.24 A structural analysis will characteristically distinguish between exocannibalism (eating captured enemies) and endocannibalism (eating your own). One additional theme is that of mortuary cannibalism, or ‘patrophagy’: eating (some of) the flesh of ancestors who die. An alternative theme is that of the ritual cannibalism of human sacrifices, and particularly slaughtered or murdered enemies. Ritual cannibalism is itself a different theme to that of famine cannibalism: the isolated reaction to an extreme crisis. The extent to which a focus on cannibalism may be central or wholly peripheral to a society’s belief system can no doubt be related to a limited degree to the ecological situation of a society. Persistent reports of cannibal behaviour, or the central role of a cannibal myth, might in a number of cases be related to a basic societal insecurity, either ecological (in relation to food supply) or political (in terms of endemic conflict with neighbours). One may doubt, however, that cannibalism has ever been practised systematically, in any society, to provide a meat supply, and claims that it may have been a recurring pattern of behaviour in certain societies – such as pre-conquest Central America – under chronic food stress are unconvincing. In contrast, the fear of cannibalism is universal, and cannibalism is well attested as an isolated and extreme response to the direst famine, in which case it clearly marks and defines a breakdown of order. This theme appears occasionally in Egyptian texts, where it is to be

23 Cf. Arens, Man-eating Myth, 16. So, for instance, the many apposite remarks in Barta’s treatment of the Cannibal Hymn, ZÄS 106 (1979), 89–94, are seriously devalued by just such a cultural-evolutionary approach. He swallows whole the vision of cannibalism as a practice of Egyptian prehistory, derived from an African cultural substratum that preceded Egyptian ‘High Culture’, thereby swallowing whole the myth of ‘primitive’, chaotic, dark Africa versus romanticised, ‘civilised’ Egypt. 24 Sanday, Divine Hunger, provides a theoretical treatment, and cross-cultural survey.

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understood as a nightmare more than a reality.25 In a poor year, a letter of the farmer Hekanakhte counters the complaints of his family about short rations:26 ‘To be half alive is better than death straight off. Look, only (real) hunger should be called hunger! Look, they have started eating people here! Look, they haven’t been given such rations anywhere!’ Even here the suggestion of cannibalism is not real. Except as a wild social aberration, criminal or in desperation, the reference to cannibalism is symbolic. The motif of institutionalised cannibalism is always to be understood as ritual and symbolic. More important, it is rare in the extreme to find convincing evidence in any society for ritual cannibalism in which people are actually eaten, although cannibalism as a metaphor in ritual is extremely common. Clearly the use of this metaphor does not necessarily imply the watering-down of a previous reality. The power of the metaphor is itself sufficient. At a very simple level, there is a common identification between ‘food’ and ‘spirit’.27 This is familiar in Egyptian contexts through the punning identification of the k3w, the ‘spirit(s)’ of the dead person, to which his cult is directed, and the k3w, ‘food’ that is placed on the offering table.28 In Egypt this pun can then be extended to the bull itself. For instance, Book of the Dead Spell 105 – ‘Spell for offering to/contenting (sh.tp) the ka of a man’ – is accompanied by a vignette which shows the man seated at an offering table, specifically associated with the k3 sign, either embracing the offering heap or standing beside it as a separate symbol. The text asserts that the man and his ka are pure, and will succeed in the judgement, and ends with the declaration ‘I am not a bull for the slaughter’ (n jnk js k3 n hryt), and so not the source of offerings for others.29 ˇ 25 Vandier, La famine, xiii–xiv, 8–9, 105 = Ankhtifi, pillar 4 = Vandier, Moa alla, IV, 15–17 = Schenkel, Memphis. Herakleopolis. Theben, 54; cf. also Juvenal, Satire 15, 99–106. The theme is repetitive in many cultures, the interest lying in the abhorrence and guilt of perpetrators rather than the mere fact: cf. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, 82–5; 107. 26 James, H . ek. anakhte Papers, pl. 5, lines 27–28; pp. 32, 35; Vandier, Famine, 12–15. 27 Cf. Arens, Man-eating Myth, 39. 28 Greven, Der Ka, 38; Schweitzer, Das Wesen des Ka, 68–71; Kaplony, LÄ III, 275–82, s.v. ‘Ka’; Feucht, Grab des Nefersecheru, 73–74. Cf. also Otto, Studi Rosellini II, 223–37, esp. 233, 235, and Derchain-Urtel, SAK 1 (1974), 101 on the exploitation of this motif. 29 Saleh, Totenbuch, 55–56 and Faulkner, Book of the Dead, 102 provide convenient illustrations. For the full range of the pun, including reference to the k3 bull, see Robins, JEA 85 (1999), 103–4, 110.

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The general theme is merely a symbolic assertion that we are what we eat, and so a symbolic incorporation of the divine and the other world. Where Aztecs ate their gods, and humans, in the form of loaves,30 and just perhaps also the flesh of their victims of human sacrifice,31 Christians merely eat the flesh and drink the blood of God in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.32 It need be taken no more literally where god is eaten in Egyptian ritual.33 The symbolism is more important than what is actually eaten.34 Indeed, if man is actually eaten, one might suggest that the power of the symbolism in a highly charged situation has led to the enactment of a metaphor,35 rather than that the symbolism derives from the practice of cannibalism as a norm.36 The symbolic reference of cannibalism is to moments of stress and social breakdown. There is a focus on death and rebirth, the succession to office, the destruction of evil, and a re-creation of the world order.37 In Egyptian myth this is evident, for instance, in the image of the sun, swallowed at night by the sky goddess Nut, to be reborn from

Arens, Man-eating Myth, 67–70. Sanday, Divine Hunger, 172–73. Cf. Arens, Man-eating Myth, 160–61. Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, 102–05. Sanday, Divine Hunger, 8–9, 22. Cf. above on Dio Cassius. Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 102 concludes his extensive survey of the evidence for human sacrifice in Egypt with the judgement that it was not normal practice, but only a short-lived revival of an archaic custom during the Third Intermediate Period, as ritualisation for the punishment of political rebels, but also as the enactment of a sacrificial ritual using victims who bore the mark of Seth/Apopis. The detail of his evidence supports none of his conclusions beyond the ritualisation of capital punishment, and even in his most optimistic view of the evidence he can only visualise such sacrifice as a short-lived and aberrant enactment of the symbolism of the ritual. Probably Yoyotte is wrong in deciding against an aetiologic explanation: that stories of human sacrifice explained the use of (wax) figures in temple ritual: see ibid. 36–37, 40–41, 54–58, 94–95, 100. 36 Cf. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, 77, on ‘limited’ cannibalism in West Africa: the requirement in certain very special circumstances to eat human flesh: homicides; war-leaders; the Yoruba king ‘who had to consume the heart of his predecessor’. He concludes that ‘it constituted a rejection rather than an acceptance of cannibalism’; cf. also Goody, Death, esp. 111–12. 37 Sanday, Divine Hunger, esp. 86–7, 155–62; 214–15. 30 31 32 33 34 35

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her each dawn.38 There is no justification for believing that this might reflect cannibalism as a ritual practice in Egypt. Indeed, the themes of the Cannibal Hymn range wide across theoretical classifications for cannibalism: eating the ancestors, eating enemies, and eating to survive. At one very simple level, the Egyptian dead wished to eat and not be eaten in the afterlife.39 So in the Pyramid Text Spell 665 the resurrected king is addressed as ‘unique star who eats his enemy’ (§1899e), who is ‘saved from Kherty; he lives on the hearts of men’ (§1905a–b). Then, enthroned before the spirits (3hw), he is told ‘their couriers (sjn) ˇ (§1907b). bring for you; you live on their hearts’ The same general theme is developed, for instance, in the ‘fisherman’ spells of the Coffin Texts.40 These texts, which have some echoes of the Cannibal Hymn in both phraseology and theme, have an initiatory form. The core assertion is:41 ‘[O you] who fish, who equip (grg) those who fish, the fish-trap of those who are all over the land, you do not catch me in this net of yours.’ The fish are processed on the river bank:42 This plain on which you (= the net) are drawn tight, it is this plain at which the gods moor. Such is the man who receives the fish from you; he is the Fiery One (3sb), the butler of the gods. Such is the knife (ds) with which he slaughters (sft) it; it is the sharp knife (mds) which is in the hand of Shezemu.

38 Kurth, LÄ IV, 535–41, s.v. ‘Nut’; Allen, Genesis, 1–7 with pl. 1; Hornung, Unterweltsbücher, 485–86; Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 173, 176, 188; see also above on §401c. For the rarer parallel of the sun swallowed at night by a crocodile, to be regurgitated each morning, cf. Eyre, JEA 78 (1992), 281 (with references). For similar swallowing of the moon as representation of its different phases cf. Leitz, Tagwählerei, 270 (with references). 39 Zandee, Death, 158–60. Note particularly BoD Spell 17 (Urk V, 1–99), an initiation spell par excellence, where similar themes to the Cannibal Hymn are used of the threat to the dead: lassoes, butchery by gods (including Shezemu), decapitation, fire and the cauldron, swallowing. In general see Westendorf, Beiträge zum 17. Kapitel; Rössler-Köhler, Kapitel 17. Note similarly that the names of several of the assessors of the dead in the Book of the Dead Spell 125 have names which imply their voracity. 40 Spells 473–81; CT VI, 3–47; Faulkner, Coffin Texts II, 107–27; Bidoli, Die Sprüche der Fangnetze; equivalent to BoD Spell 153, see Zandee, Death, 226–34 for the general themes. 41 CT VI, 29d–e. 42 CT VI, 32a–j.

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The Cannibal Hymn Such is the cauldron (wh.3t)43 in which he cooks it; it is the kettle (ktwt) which is in the hand of Shezemu. Such is the table (h.tp) on which he eats it; it is the table which makes the Two Lands content (h.tp pw sh.tp t3wy).

The initiated escapes from the meal:44 ‘O Great One, I have not been carried off. I have not been eaten. I am not for eating […] yesterday or for the catch of today. You do not catch me.’ Fear of being eaten by the gods is only one manifestation of fear of the hostile supernatural. Major Egyptian gods were not normally bloodthirsty, and did not demand human sacrifice.45 Even in the Myth of the ‘Destruction of Mankind’, the bloodthirsty goddess is appeased with red-coloured beer.46 However, series of well-attested rituals of sacrifice – symbolic

43 In homophony with the root wh.3, used here repeatedly in the sense ‘fish’, ‘catch’. 44 CT VI, 33c–e. 45 Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 35–36, argues that the text of the Cannibal Hymn refers to an early practice of human sacrifice to the sun-god rather than early cannibalism. He claims that in this text the role of the king as sun-god is asserted in receipt of such sacrifice; cf. also Bonnet, Reallexikon, 452, 455. It is difficult to see anything other than a priori assumptions to support such an argument. On human sacrifice see Griffiths, LÄ IV, 64–65, s.v. ‘Menschenopfer’; Griffiths, ASAÉ 48 (1948), 409–23; Burton, Diodorus Siculus Book I, 204–05; Lloyd, Herodotus, 212–14 on Herodotus II, 45; Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 29–102; Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 43, 49–51; Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 265–67. It is noteworthy that Willems’s discussion focuses on the ritualisation of punishment, not the use of criminals to provide for a ritual, for which cf. Doret, Essays Baer, 79–80; Posener, Papyrus Vandier, 33; Ritner, Magical Practice, 170–71; Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 102; Caminos, Chronicle of Prince Osorkon, §65. 46 Cf. above, pp. 100–01, and see Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 39, and also 90–95 for survey of the theme of destruction. For the regular and important ritual for pacifying Sakhmet/the sun’s eye, see Yoyotte, BSFÉ 87–88 (1980), 46–75; Germond, Sekhmet, with esp. 143–46 and 258–60 for the sun’s eye as devourer of blood. The image of the goddess wading in blood might potentially be an image of wading in the inundation water; silt-bearing water – the good floodwater – was in modern times ‘red’ as opposed to ‘white’ water from artificial irrigation. I know of no evidence that this usage goes back to the pharaonic period, but cf. Dils, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 120, and note Naguib, Le clergé feminin, 43–47 for the specific association between wine, drunkenness and resurrection in the New Year celebrations of the High Nile and the Festival of the Valley. For the particular construction of the ritual of appeasing Sakhmet and the beginning of the inundation at the beginning of the New Year see Germond, Sekhmet, 224–33, 258–59; Daumas, LÄ I, 724–27, s.v. ‘Besänftigung’.

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and real – animal47 and human,48 lie at the core of one set of symbolic meanings given to offering rituals. The formulaic depiction of the king slaughtering enemies, which is closely connected to a series of rituals that include the so-called execration49 texts, draws its motif from the reality of warfare. Egyptian warfare was typically and ideologically punitive: to protect the borders from incursion, and to slaughter all rebels, which in practical terms meant all who were not usefully incorporated as prisoners. Standard iconography shows the king slaughtering the helpless enemy, often bound as a captive. There is then a direct thematic connection between the normal butchery of enemies in the aftermath of victory, indeed as the purpose of campaigning,50 a focus on such slaughter as public propaganda, and its enactment in a great many rituals.51 It is not unlikely that actual ritual occasionally – exceptionally

47 48

49

50 51

See P. Jumilhac 2, 18–20; 3, 11–12; 22, 11; 23, 16 for red minerals symbolising the blood and fire of the sacrifice, with discussion Aufre`re, L’univers minéral II, 556–57. Kees, Tieropfer, 71–88; Junker, in Firchow (ed.), Ägyptologische Studien, 162–175; Junker, ZÄS 48 (1910), 69–77; Leclant, MDAIK 14 (1956), 128–45. Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 46–51, but note the reservations of Assmann, JEA 78 (1992), 149–62; Möller-Wollermann, GM 105 (1988), 69–76; Doret, Essays Baer, 79–86; Defossez, GM 85 (1985), 28–30. Specifically the passage in Aswan Stela 1373, lines x + 20–25 = Habachi, Sanctuary of Heqaib, pl. 24 and Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 156–57 and 172 n.25 points strongly to the symbolic and not real nature of the punishment threatened in these texts. For the most recent treatments see Posener, LÄ I, 67–69, s.v. ‘Ächtungstexte’; Wildung, LÄ II, 14–17, s.v. ‘Erschlagen der Feinde’; Schoske, LÄ VI, 1009–12, s.v. ‘Vernichtungsrituale’; van Dijk, LÄ VI, 1389–96, s.v. ‘Zerbrechen der roten Töpfe’; Koenig, in Rocatti and Siliotti (eds), La Magia, 301–12; Koenig, Magie et magiciens, ch. IV; Posener, Cinq Figurines d’Envou ˆ tement; Ritner, Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 194–95; Ritner, Magical Practice; Schulman, Ceremonial Execution; Hall, Pharaoh Smites his Enemies; the preceding two works discussed critically by Möller-Wollermann, GM 105 (1988), 69–79; Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 29–102; Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 46–51; Assmann, Hommages Leclant I, 45–59; Morschauser, Threat-Formulae, 102–09, 141–45, 229–30 for such material in curse formulae. LÄ III, 786–88, s.v. ‘Kriegesgefangene’; Vachala, in Endesfelder (ed.), Probleme der frühen Gesellschaftsentwicklung, 93; and cf. Gelb, JNES 32 (1973), 70–98. See esp. Ritner, Magical Practice, 168–71 for the interdependence of ritual and reality in this context; Schoske, LÄ VI, 1009–12 stresses the motif as an episode and not as a self-standing ritual; Graefe, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 153–54 on the difficulty of reconciling the symbolic depiction of temple relief with the ritual as really performed.

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– included the slaughter of a real prisoner, beyond the normal enactment of ritual over a statue or model of a captive,52 but this is crucially a context of destruction, and not of feeding. The gods did not demand human flesh from the living. However, after death, the danger of being eaten by the supernatural was central to visions of Hell. The Egyptian feared that, if condemned in the afterlife, he would be eaten body and soul by the ‘eater-of-the-dead’, just as he feared the destruction of his body in the tomb, whether by fire,53 corruption,54 or eaten by wild animals.55 Throughout Egyptian mortuary literature, the real threats to the material body merge inextricably with metaphors for the destruction of the soul. The king slaughtered enemies by striking them on the head, with mace or, later, sword, in a context that is significantly different from slaughter on the butcher’s block with a knife, where the motif is fear that the dead – and notably the criminal or the unworthy dead – will be dismembered and eaten.56 This is developed as a theme, for instance, in the Coffin Text Spell 335. Khepri is asked to:57 save me from those who are in charge of examination, to whom the Lord of All gave power (3h) to stand guard over (r jrjt s3wt) his enemies, who put slaughter (šat) insideˇ the slaughterhouse (j3tw), who do not go away from their guarding (s3wt). I shall not fall to your knives (ds), I shall not sit inside your cauldrons (tnmw). I shall not enter your slaughterhouses (j3tw). I will not go down into your fish-traps.

In life physical power and strength come from food, and in death the offering food serves as a primary metaphor for the receipt of eternal strength and power. The purpose of the Cannibal Spell is defined in the Coffin Text by its rubric: ‘To eat the Magicians, all of them’.58 The image of eating h.k3w, ‘magic’, is already explicit in the Pyramid Text,

52 Specifically the find of a beheaded human corpse with the execration-ritual texts and pottery at Mirgissa; Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 39; Ritner, Magical Practice 153–63, 171; Koenig, Magie et magiciens, 137–41. 53 Leahy, JESHO 27 (1984), 199–206. 54 Zandee, Death, 10–11, 56–65. 55 Eyre, SAK 4 (1976), 103–14; JEA 78 (1992), 280–81; Zandee, Death, 158–60 collects references to various underworld powers ‘living on’, ‘swallowing’ or ‘eating’ the dead. 56 Note Amenemope XXI, 20 and Zandee, Death, 166–67, and cf. ibid. 147–58 for chopping up the body like meat. 57 CT IV, 321e–23d; the early version of BoD Spell 17. 58 CT VI, 183e; Altenmüller, Studien Otto, esp. 29–32.

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Figure 10 Heka-hieroglyph. Tomb of Neferseshemre, Saqqara

but it is developed into the central theme of the Coffin Text.59 h.k3w is in essence a power of control, bringing order for its possessor to the threateningly uncontrollable cosmos;60 one of the set of powers necessary to survive and function in this life as well as the next. The belly is, in Egyptian imagery, the organ of the emotions, where qualities of power were situated,61 as opposed to the heart as the organ of rationality. A person’s h.k3w is always to be found in his belly.62 To obtain extra h.k3w the obvious metaphor was that of swallowing.63 Indeed, to

59 Similar themes are developed in Spell 469 = CT V, 387–98, in apparent connection with food offerings to the deceased successfully installed by Orion in the sky. For the theme in general cf. Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 233–37. 60 LÄ II, 1108–10, s.v. ‘Heka’; Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La Magia; Ritner, Magical Practice, esp. 15–28; Koenig, Magie et magiciens, esp. ch. VIII; te Velde, JEOL 21 (1970), 175–86; Hornung, Conceptions of God, 207–11. For aetiologic explanation and justification see Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, esp. 79. 61 Miosi, Studies Williams, 79–81; cf. Koenig, Magie et magiciens, 156–61 for the Story of Re and Isis, where the belly is the place where Re hides his name, in the place of his most secret power and essence; cf. also Maxims of Ani, P. Boulaq 4, 7, 9–11 = B20, 9–11, Quack, Lehre des Ani, 174 and especially I Setna 4, 3–4 for the magical practice of ‘drinking the word’ – dissolved writing – to achieve knowledge, for which see Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 101–02, 110, 251–71 for a collection of cross-cultural comparisons. 62 For the belly as the place for h.k3w compare §§397b and 411b above with Pyr §1318c; similarly CT III, 304g–5a; CT VI, 278 [Spell 657]; CT V, 322e, i–j [Spell 453]; CT V, 324b, 325c–d [Spell 454] for references to sealing the mouth of the dead over the magic in his belly. See also Borghouts, LÄ III, 1140 and 1147, nn.26–27, s.v. ‘Magie’; Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 234; Ritner, Magical Practice, 20, n.80 for driving out magic from the belly of the ill. 63 Note, e.g., Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, verses 215–25; Ritner, Magical Practice, 23, 104, 202–3. For the role and significance of swallowing h.k3 here see also Ritner, Religion and Philosophy, 107–9; and Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 192–94; Koenig, Magie et magiciens, 113–114; Barta, Jenseitsbücher, 170–71.

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‘swallow’ (am) is to ‘know’ in Egyptian, in more than just a metaphorical sense. The root am replaced rh as the ordinary word for ‘know’ by ˇ 64 the beginning of the New Kingdom. Swallowing was a normal magical practice, that ‘entails the absorption of an object and the acquisition of its benefits or traits’.65 However, there is an additional punning relationship between h.k3w, ‘magic’ and the terms k3, ‘spirit’ and k3w, ‘food’, if not, indeed, some etymological relationship between h.k3, ‘magic’ and k3, ‘spirit’.66 This is at least exploited, for instance, as a visual play in the spelling of h.k3 as a k3 sign on the divine standard with the h. sign between the arms in titles h.m-ntr h.k3 and h.ry-sšt3 h.k3 in the roughly contemporary tomb of Sankhwiptah in the Teti pyramid cemetery.67 The Coffin Text provides an interesting textual variation here. The Pyramid Text (§396a) declares that ‘the kas of Unas are behind him; his hemsut are under his feet’. The Coffin Text (CT VI, 178a) changes this to ‘my magic is behind me; my mistresses (sic: h.nwt) are under my feet’.68 It was, in fact, something of a commonplace to exploit the theme that the offering provides food (k3w) for the spirit (k3), thereby providing power (k3w) and magic (h.k3w) for the deceased.69 The overall theme is most strikingly brought out in the annual coronation ritual, performed for the king at the New Year.70 As risen Horus the king has the j3wt symbol drawn on his hand, and is then presented with a j3wt symbol as a loaf to eat – it is not to be given to a human (rmt) – and the accompanying formula declares: ‘The j3wt of Horus is for him! (4 times) His rule (h.q3t)71 is for him (and so on). He

64 Ritner, Magical Practice, 105–7, and cf. above specifically §411c: ‘He has am–ed the perception (sj3) of every god.’ 65 Ritner, Magical Practice, 103. 66 Kaplony, LÄ III, 276, s.v. ‘Ka’; LÄ II, 1108, s.v. ‘Heka’; Borghouts, in Roccati and Siliotti (eds), La Magia, 33; Ritner, Magical Practice, 24–25, 247–49; Bickel, Cosmogonie, 154, 156. Cf. also Burkard, Spätzeitliche Osiris-Liturgien, 57. 67 Kanawati and Abder-Raziq, Teti Cemetery III, pl. 23 = pl. 63, 64a, 65b. 68 The latter has partial parallels in texts describing the king’s ascent in Pyr §477a–b b3w=f tp=f šat=f r gswy=f h.k3w tp rwdwy=f and its variant Pyr §992a–c b3=f tp=f h.k3w=f jr gswy=f šat=f jr rdwy=f. Note also the depiction in the Temple of Edfu of Heka (instead of Ka) accompanied by Hemsut: Ritner, Magical Practice, 35–37. 69 Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 30–32. 70 Goyon, Confirmation du pouvoir royal, 72; Bonheˆ me, Hommages Leclant II, 45–53. 71 It is not impossible that a play on words against h.q3t as a measure/portion of grain might be mobilised here.

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is fixed in it when he eats it.’ The underlying motif of cannibalism as a metaphor for the transmission of power through eating is not aberrant even in the Egyptian context. On the west and south walls of the antechamber of the Pyramid of Unas, within the sequence preceding the Cannibal Hymn, Spell 25472 exploits many of the same themes, and indeed some identical phraseology. Here also the advent of the king as Bull of the Sky – the great god whose name is not known, for whom the (offering) meal is set – is marked by the threat of cataclysm. ‘Whom Unas finds in his way, he eats him piecemeal(?).’73 Despite the dangers of decapitation, ‘the neck of Unas is on his trunk.’s74 His head, like that of Apis, is protected on the day of lassoing the ng3-bull. His food, drink and breath are protected, and the enemies who would take them are destroyed:75 Unas is stronger than them, risen (haj) on his shore. ˇ The hearts fall to his fingers. Their innards (bsq) are for those who belong to the sky; their blood (dšr) for those who belong to the earth. Their joints to the poor, or Their heirs are for poverty,76 Their houses to conflagration77 and their courts (arrwt) for the High Nile.

This vision of the king as Bull of the Sky, who is not himself butchered, but butchers those who threaten him,78 is a relatively direct symbolic play on the theme of butchery: death, portioning, consumption, absorption, reassembly, resurrection. Other metaphors are used to the same end. So, for instance, in Spell 21579 the king rises as a star, and each of his members is identified as a deity, so that the emphasis is placed on assimilation rather than consumption, integration rather than absorption.

72 73 74 75 76 77

Re-edited also as Coffin Text Spells 619 and 622. §278a = §407c. §286d = §396d – or ‘the power of Unas is protecting him’. §§291d–92d. jwa(w)=sn n sw3t. The Teti text has snsnt, which by reference to §1876d should refer to flames. The Unas text writes sn + triple cake sign + t, apparently continuing the play on words for consumption. 78 Cf. also Spell 251, §270. 79 Cf. Guilhou, Études Lauer I, 227.

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Cannibalism is in fact a relatively common motif in the isolated allusions that characterise magico-ritual texts, no doubt related to the power invoked by images of the aberrant. For instance, in the magicomedical context of a New Kingdom spell against migraine, the ritualist threatens that he will eat the body and burn the ba of the supernatural agent which is the cause, and he further threatens that he will behead various (sacred) animals in the courtyard of the temple of their gods.80 Or, in a Ramesside magical spell to ‘strike a man’ (h.wjt s), the victim is identified as a young bull (mnh.t nk3), and the conjuror claims:81 ‘I am Montu, star of the gods. I will cut your bones, and I will eat your flesh (jwf). I will seize your power (hpš = ‘foreleg’), put ˇ of a god are not in fact it my hand.’ References to the swallowing 82 uncommon in the mortuary literature. So in Pyramid Spell 477 the king serves Osiris, after Thoth has cut off the heads and cut out the hearts of those who would drive him away:83 Neferkare has come to you, Lord; Neferkare has come to you, Osiris Neferkare. [sic] He wipes your face. He clothes you in the clothing of a god. He has become pure (wab.n=f) for you in Idi(?) (or ‘by means of an jdj’). I [sic] eat for you a limb (‘t) from your enemy. I carve it (h.nt=j s(y)) for Osiris. He puts (dj=f <sw>) in front of the carvers (m-hnt-n hnttyw). ˇ ˇ

Other examples are not uncommon. In the mythological narrative of Papyrus Jumilhac, Baba accuses Thoth of eating Re.84 In a magical stela, Seth is threatened with burning and mutilation by Sakhmet and

80 P. Ch. B. V, vs. 4, 10–6, 4 = Koenig, Magie et magiciens, 71. On the difficult issue of whether ‘sacred’ animals were deliberately slaughtered see Charron, RdÉ 41 (1990), 209–13. 81 O. Armitage 1–6 = Shorter, JEA 22 (1936), 165–68; Borghouts, Magical Texts, no. 2. 82 Ritner, Magical Practice 104–05, nn.504–10 collects examples in the Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead; Dorman, Tombs of Senenmut, 118–19 with n.r, notes the appearance of a group of four gods ‘who eat him’ in the vignette to the Field of Reeds (BoD 110), as textual corruption from ‘who row him’ in the parallel Coffin text. 83 Pyr §§966a–e, Neferkare text. There are considerable textual difficulties, but the image of god then priest eating meat of the sacrificial victim as an enemy seems clear. 84 16, 12–13 = Vandier, Papyrus Jumilhac, 128, reading after Ritner, Magical Practice, 97, n.479.

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by the eye of Horus, and it is then threatened that he will eat the enemy of the eye of Horus – that is to say, himself as an oryx.85 In one context cannibalism is a marker of disorder and the danger of chaos. In another it is a symbol of bodily transfer, that is particularly exploited in the offering ritual.86 In ordinary offering rituals the items of food held up as offerings may be identified as parts of the god,87 and in particular as the eye(s) of Horus.88 The theme is extensively developed, for instance, in the basic offering ritual of the Pyramid Texts. For instance, in Spell 106 the ritualist declares:89 O this King, I am your son, I am Horus; I have come that I may bring you the eyes of Horus himself. Seize them! Join them to yourself!

The potential for a punning echo in this phrase – jwn n=k sn : j.wnm=k sn – is limited, since this particular spell seems from its continuation to refer to the presentation of sandals for the king’s feet.90 However, the following sequence of Spells 107–204 consists of short offering spells in which the eye(s) of Horus are presented to the King, to make up the contents of a full offering list. A short section exemplifies the procedure:91

85 E.g., Kestner Museum 1935.200.445 = Derchain, RdÉ 16 (1964), 19–23 = Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 89–90. 86 Junker, in Firchow (ed.), Ägyptologische Studien, esp. 171–74. 87 E.g. Pyr §§31–38; note also in contrast §§1450–51 where the king denies eating Horus and Osiris. In Pyr §1279c there is the curious condemnation of an offender: n3šw pw wnm dt=f pw, ‘he is one proscribed(?), he is one who eats himself(?)’, or perhaps better ‘one whose person(?) is eaten’ (cf. Osing, Hommages Leclant I, 279–84): the context is the social obliteration of an offender after judgement. 88 Schott, Mythe und Mythenbildung, esp. 71–73; Rudnitzky, Die Aussage über ‘Das Auge des Horus’; Otto, LÄ I, 562–67, s.v. ‘Augensagen’; Westendorf, LÄ III, 48–51, s.v. ‘Horusauge’; te Velde, Seth, 46–53; Frandsen, in Englund (ed.), Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, 98–99; Ritner, Magical Practice, 103; Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 230–31 n.d, 232–34; Willems, Heqata, 83–84. The offering of the Horus-eye, potentially and in practice, is used to symbolise any and every sort of offering: see e.g., Žabkar, Studies Gwyn Griffiths, 236–45, esp. nn.9, 14, a hymn for offering incense, at the end of which the king ‘completes/fills (mh.) the Eye of Horus with its wine’. For a recent survey see Roeder, GM 138 (1994), 37–69. 89 §69a–c. 90 The preceding spells of the offering ritual identify a very wide range of offerings and ritual objects, not just food, with the eye of Horus. 91 §§78a–79d.

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The offering ritual is a continuation from the ritual of sacrifice, and in this respect the symbolism of the one continues into the other, as the offering typically endows the dead with the power of the god. Pyramid Text Spell 219 identifies the king with Osiris in all the forms in which he is recipient of offerings. The text is based on a refrain:92 Your hand is around (h.3) the offering (jh t), your daughter; provide yourself ˇ with it. He lives; this Unas lives; he does not die; this Unas does not die.

The offering is then identified with the eye of Horus:93 What you have eaten is an eye, and your belly is rounded out with it; your son Horus has released it, so that you may live by it. He lives, and this Unas lives; does not die and this Unas does not die.

The king is then identified bodily as Osiris:94 Your body (dt) is the body of this Unas; your flesh (jwf) the flesh of this Unas, Your bones the bones of this Unas.

The explicit primary focus of the sacrifice is apotropaic,95 and the victim frequently represents an enemy, real or potential, human or divine. If taken literally, sacrifice then by definition implies a symbolic cannibalism in the receipt of the offering.96 The motif is particularly apposite, but not exclusive to meat offerings. This provides, for instance, the context to Pyramid Spell 477 quoted above, where in Thoth’s protection of Osiris there is apparently allusion to the symbolic role of the butcher and the priest in taking reversion of the offering. The sacrificial animal was most frequently identified with Seth, the god of Chaos,97 and the sacrifice symbolised victory over the 92 93 94 95 96

§188b–c, repeated §§189b–c, 190b–c, 191b–c. §192b–c. §193a–b. On the passage see Guilhou, Études Lauer I, 228. Derchain, Sacrifice de l’oryx, 35–38. For specific examples of ‘cannibal’ phrasing see, e.g., Pyr §§290–93, 511–12, 516, 1286, 1899e, 1907. 97 Te Velde, Seth, esp. 94–98; Kees, Tieropfer, esp. 72–73, 78, 82–83.

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power of chaos. The logical consequence is that to eat the sacrifice is to eat Seth.98 So, for instance, in Ptolemaic Period texts from Edfu, the god is addressed after the sacrifice:99 ‘You eat their flesh; you drink their blood; it is the symbol (tjt)100 of your enemy.’ The theme is developed at Edfu in the ritual/myth of killing Seth as a hippopotamus, where the allies of Horus in his boat are consistently bloodthirsty in portioning up the beast, which is marked as ordinary sacrificial animal by its frequent identification as Bull of Lower Egypt (k3 mh.y).101 One of the passages labelling these assistants is sufficient to exemplify the themes:102 Utterance by Offerer-who-apportions-his-offering: I am with you in the melée, that I may punish the transgressions of your enemies. I break his bones. I smash his vertebrae. I crunch103 his flesh. I swallow his gore (sam t(w)r).

The contrast to this is the denial in a Pyramid Text that the king has eaten the eye of Horus or the (dismembered) limbs of Osiris,104 which would in this context be destructive of order, although in other contexts it reflects the transfer of power and heritage. The further consequence of this is an overlap between the theme of cooking and that of the burnt offering.105 The theme of the burnt offering – the complete destruction by fire of the sacrifice or offering – is not normally considered central to Egyptian ritual.106 Where it is developed, 98 E.g. Pyr. Spell 580, §§1543–50, the slaughter and distribution of the joints of Seth as a red ox/bull; Leclant, MDAIK 14 (1956), 141–43 suggests this particular spell might have been recited during sacrifice; cf. Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 30–31, 46–49, and see below. 99 Junker, ZÄS 48 (1910), 73–74 quoting Edfou I 565, 5–6. Cf. Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 2–36, esp. 11; Bonheˆ me, Hommages Leclant II, 51. 100 For victim as tjt of the enemy see Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 48. On tjt see Ockinga, Gottebenbildlichkeit, ch. 7. 101 Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 2–36. 102 Edfou VI, 65, 12–66, 2, after Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), 7. 103 dbdb, punning on db, ‘hippopotamus’. 104 Pyr §1450. 105 See above on §§403–5. 106 Eggebrecht, LÄ I, 848–50, s.v. ‘Brandopfer’; Lloyd, Herodotus, 174–75. Note especially also P Ch. B. VIII, rt. 9, 10–11, 5 = Eschweiler, Bildzauber, 71, ‘The Book for Propitiating (sh.tp) All Gods’: an offering ritual addressing a series of gods, to expiate the subject from his sins through an extensive burnt offering. Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 329–53 tentatively concludes that a new altar type and the extension of limited burning/cooking to fuller burnt sacrifice, which is characteristic of the Ptolemaic Period, is more likely to be influenced by

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it carries the theme of sacrifice of the enemy through to its logical end of total destruction.107 Destruction of the ‘rebel’ by fire is a commonplace that is inextricably linked with fear of destruction in the afterlife.108 Slaughtering and burning enemies is then metaphorically performed in the butchering and cooking of the bull. Equally in visions of hell, to be butchered and cooked/burnt is to be destroyed as a rebel against god. The partial burning of offerings, or the burning of small parts of the sacrifice, may have been common. The occasional depiction of a small brazier in the context of offering scenes is attested at least from the Middle Kingdom,109 and fits well, for instance, with Herodotus’ assertions that a fire was kindled as preliminary to Egyptian sacrifice, and that part of the sacrifice was burnt, while the rest was set out as a meal.110 This appears to be illustrated, for instance, as part of the funeral rite in the Eighteenth Dynasty Theban tombs of Montuherkhopeshef (TT20) and Amenemope (TT29), where the bull – more specifically its entrails (mht) – were put like incense into a pit of fire to burn or cook.111 The depiction of offerings in flames is characteristic of New Kingdom depictions of the Theban Festival of the Valley, essentially focused on the cult of the dead: butchery scenes are here typically associated with the depiction of whole offering heaps on charcoal fires, on altars, or on

Palestinian and Syrian practice than a direct development of native practice. Bergquist, in ibid. 11–43 argues that the holocaust, and even the partial burnt offering, are a relatively late and peculiarly Hebrew practice, to be distinguished from a widespread – virtually universal – practice in the Bronze Age Levant of ritual slaughter followed by cooking and communal meat feast. In both cases the argument is perhaps rather one of emphasis than substance. 107 As in the ritual for repelling Apopis, P. Bremner-Rhind 26, 11–21 and its parallels used as magical spells, see Borghouts, Magical Texts, no. 144, and note also Schott, MDAIK 14 (1956), 187–89. 108 Junker, ZÄS 48 (1910), 69–77; Zandee, Death, 14–16, 133–42; Hornung, Höllenvorstellungen, 21–29; Vernus, Athribis, 242g; Caminos, Chronicle of Prince Osorkon, §§249, 65; Leahy, JESHO 27 (1984), 199–206, esp. nn.32–37; Leahy, RdÉ 34 (1982–83), 84; Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 38, 41–44, 90–99, 101; Posener, Papyrus Vandier, 32–33; Morschauser, Threat-Formulae, 96–102; Edel, Inschriften Siut, 122–26; Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 34, 36–37, 41–43. Hornung, Mythos von der Himmelskuh, 93–94 stresses that fire, not flood, is the central destructive vision in Egypt. 109 See above, pp. 107–10, 119. 110 II, 39–40; Lloyd, Herodotus, 173–75, 179–80, with references. 111 Davies, Five Theban Tombs, pl. IX–X, XLIII, pp. 16–19.

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offering braziers, in scenes that perhaps imply burning of portions rather than, or as well as cooking.112 Even where the imagery is that of complete burning, the beast is ‘eaten’ by the god:113 ‘The enemies are slaughtered, in order to satisfy the Flame-goddess with their food.’ The divine, protective, fiery snake – which can specifically be called the wnmyt, ‘devouring’, flame – eats them. Here there is an obvious overlap in imagery with that of the Uraeus at the brow of the king, which spits fire and destroys all who resist him. The poison of the snake is a devouring fire to the person bitten.114 The late material collected by Junker brings out clearly the portioning of the animal for the flame: a portioning that is typically the same as that for distributing and cooking the meat.115 In the same way the wax figures used in destruction rituals were ‘butchered’ before placing them on the flames.116 In vocabulary also, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between words for ‘cook’ and for ‘burn’:117 they are both variations on the theme of destruction. In the burnt offering, the focus is on the logical conclusion to the metaphor of destruction, opposed to the practical focus of the cooking. There is also focus on the smell reaching heaven,118 as if on the spirit of the food which is all that the god takes from the real offering. The incense on the fire is sometimes, therefore, referred to as the food offering to the god.119 Clearly the concept of the burnt offering was sometimes, if not 112 The scenes appear from the time of Tuthmosis III; see Brack and Brack, Tjanuni, 28–30, pl. 2, 20a, 21b, 23c–d, and also p. 34, pl. 3. 113 Junker, ZÄS 48 (1910), 72–75, quoting Mariette, Dendérah I, 59a. 114 E.g., Sauneron, Ophiologie, 132, §99b; Borghouts, Magical Texts, nos. 84, 85, 90, 107, 118, 121; Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 234 n.601 on the uses of the pun wnm, ‘eat’ and wnmyt, ‘devouring flame’. 115 Cf. Kees, Tieropfer, 78–81; Zandee, Death, 133. 116 Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 46–7; Raven, OMRO 64 (1983), 10–11, 17, 25–26, 29. 117 Verhoeven, Grillen, Kochen, Backen, esp. 105–9; Zandee, Death, 142–46; Yoyotte, Annuaire ÉPHE (Ve Section) 89 (1980–81), 90–94; Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 342–45; Bergquist, ibid. 12–13. 118 Cf. Verhoeven and Derchain, Voyage de la Déesse Libique, 51 n. ck; 20–21; 45–46 nn. bn bp. 119 E.g., Pyr §§ 276, 295–99; Ani 7, 16–17; cf. Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 337–40; Bergquist, ibid. 17; Labrique, Stylistique et théologie, 69, n.346; Fairman, in Hooke (ed.), Myth, Ritual, and Kingship, 80–81 on the coronation ritual for the sacred hawk at Edfu. More often incense is a medium of purification: the bath rather than the meal of the god in the sequence of the ritual.

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regularly, a metaphor for the reality of cooking the sacrificial animal.120 Junker indeed argued that the burnt offering was typically performed in the context of popular festivals:121 he is probably wrong, then, to assume the total destruction of the animal, since a popular festival is precisely the occasion on which one would expect a public celebratory distribution of cooked meat. In summary, the theme of cannibalism is treated in a brief or allusive way in other Egyptian rituals, compared to its explicit and lengthy development in the Pyramid Text. It is indeed noticeable that the explicitly ‘cannibal’ element is toned down in the Middle Kingdom version of the Hymn. For instance, the Pyramid Text introduces the king ‘as god living on his fathers, feeding on his mothers’. In the Coffin Text he is ‘that god, Lord of Millions, living on offerings (h.tpt), whom Osiris has equipped (apr)’.122 It is possible that the themes of the Cannibal Hymn were felt to be in some way too explicit, and for that reason the text was dropped from the corpus used in the later Sixth Dynasty, although in simple form this is not a wholly satisfactory explanation. It seems important to stress, however, that the metaphors used in the text are familiar, if characteristically implicit themes in the symbolic context of sacrifice and the offering meal at all periods in Egypt.

120 Kees, Tieropfer, 83–86, and cf. Labrique, Stylistique et théologie, 42–44; but note the reservations of Lloyd, Herodotus, 175. 121 ZÄS 48 (1910), 76–77. 122 Pyr §394c = CT VI, 177, f–g; see Altenmüller, Studien Otto, 23, 27.

14

The Economics of Rearing Meat Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

Patterns of animal husbandry in the Egyptian countryside varied according to scale. Surviving evidence, with its characteristic bias towards the wealthiest official class and the temple economy, points to relatively large-scale herding as the norm, not only for cattle1 but for all domesticated animals. Old Kingdom tombs depict cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, even pigs managed in herds.2 This is intended to stress wealth – the numbers of animals owned – rather than illustrate farming practice. Nevertheless, the characteristic scenes of cattle fording water, their association with the marginal landscape in the wall composition, and their management by specialist herdsmen, who are themselves pictorially associated with the marshes and wilder marginal countryside, imply that cattle at least were normally managed by professionals, in herds, and on marginal land. At the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Kamose stela refers to Theban cattle pastured in the Delta,3 and throughout the New Kingdom the Temple of Amon had major herds pastured in the north of the country.4 The practicalities of such long-distance management of herds, and in particular the extent to which animals or animal products might be moved long distances for consumption, are not well

1 LÄ V, 1036–38, s.v. ‘Viehwirtschaft’; Wafik Ghoneim, Ökonomische Bedeutung des Rindes, 241–49; Helck, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 209–12; Brewer et al., Domestic Plants and Animals, 77–79, 85–87; Haring, Divine Households, 253–54; Eichler, Verwaltung des ‘Hauses des Amun’, 49, 58, 73–96. 2 Vandier, Manuel V, ch. I–II. 3 Gardiner, JEA 3 (1916), 103. 4 On pastoral specialisation in parts of the Delta see Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization, 93–96.

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understood.5 The natural ecology of the Nile Valley means that animal herding would have required considerable local mobility from season to season, without necessarily requiring long-distance movement of herds. The basic parameters of animal management were to protect cultivated fields during the growing season, and to move cattle to different pastures as the height of the Nile changed; profitably to exploit areas of scrub and uncultivated water-meadow at the margins, while retaining necessary animals close to home – if necessary stalled6 – for labour, milk production and finishing for meat.7 Pasturage is therefore characteristic of the desert margins, and the scrub lands unsuited to regular arable farming (whether too wet or insufficiently flooded), and to the shortlived temporary islands in the Nile itself.8 Animal husbandry seems to have been an economic specialisation in districts where such lands were particularly extensive, notably parts of the Delta and parts of Middle Egypt where the valley was rather wider,9 but marginal lands suitable for pasturage were to be found throughout the country. In contrast, small-scale animal husbandry, when individual animals were taken out to the field each day, is below the level of economic activity depicted in the tombs, and to a large extent below the level of activity documented in texts. In practice, however, the possession of small, locally managed herds of cattle was typical of the

5 The difficulties inherent in all ‘taxation’ documents are illustrated, for instance by P. BM 10401 = Janssen, JEA 77 (1991), 79–94, a document that appears to record exactions from a number of Upper Egyptian temples destined for Karnak. The commodities collected from a number of sources include small quantities of gold or copper, cloth, and in six cases cattle – once specifically a ‘festival’ animal(?) – as well as a variety of commodities collected in isolated cases. Note also isolated deliveries of individual animals recorded in P. Leiden I, 350, vs. II, 5, III, 23, IV, 20–21 = Janssen, Ships’ Logs. 6 E.g. Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 22–23 and pl. 17. 7 Cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 107–08. On fodder crops see Vleeming, Papyrus Reinhardt, 68; Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization, 90. 8 Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization, 85–86; Eyre, JEA 80 (1994), 58–59; Vernus, RdÉ 29 (1977), 179–93; Roquet, Mélanges Vercoutter, 291–311. For the general and comparative context see Hesse, in Sasson et al. (eds), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, I, 209–12. 9 O’Connor, in Man, Settlement and Urbanism, 693–95; also Lustig, Anthropology and Egyptology, 58–59 stressing the importance of cattle depictions in Middle Kingdom tombs in Middle Egypt, not only for the funerary context; see also Patch, Reflections of Greatness, 22–23 for an early Middle Kingdom cattle administration family, and cf. also Fischer, Tomb of Ip, 22–23, 26.

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more substantial farmer. Plough animals were a major item of agricultural capital, without which fields could not be exploited effectively for arable crops,10 and milk production is necessarily local. The letters of the Middle Kingdom farmer Hekanakhte refer to the management of plough animals and also reveal the family ownership of a small herd.11 The New Kingdom story of the Two Brothers shows a farming family in which the younger brother normally took the cattle herd out to the countryside (sh t) every morning, returning to the house each ˇ evening carrying the day’s milk, and a supply of green plants (sm) and 12 (fire)wood. A royal butler Neferronpet records his endowment of the mortuary temple of Tuthmosis III with six cows and a bronze bucket – the cows under the charge of his brother, and his son to carry the bucket – with royal command declaring this a perpetual endowment to his benefit and that of his heirs, free from the authority of the Overseer of Cattle. The endowment appears to be a family herd, that would provide milk offerings for the temple and secure employment for the family.13 On an even smaller scale, at Deir el Medina in the Nineteenth Dynasty, the foreman Paneb was accused of corruption for detaching a man from the work to feed his animal.14 Individual cattle represented a substantial investment, even for the moderately well-off,15 so records of the sale of a cow or ox form a small but substantial corpus in the commercial-legal documents of the New Kingdom which survive from Deir el Medina, or later among Demotic

10 Eyre, JESHO 40 (1997), 381, and in Bowman and Rogan (eds), Agriculture, 49–51. 11 James, H . ek.anakhte Papers, pl. 10, account V. 12 LES 10, 12–16. The size of the herd is not clear: specifically two beasts are mentioned in LES 15, 1–5, but at this point he is returning from ploughing (LES 11, 1–5; 13, 1–9), so that it may simply be that the pair of plough animals was in the author’s mind at this point. 13 Urk IV, 1020, 6–1021, 10, statue from the Karnak cachette; see Kruchten, Décret d’Horemheb, 92; Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 191. 14 Černý, JEA 15 (1929), 257; Janssen, SAK 8 (1980), 144. 15 McDowell, JEA 78 (1992), 197–99 argues that the individual ownership of small numbers of bovines at Deir el Medina represents (profitable) investment in draught animals, rather than local milk or meat production. If her assessment of the limited datais correct, it may still be distorted to a degree by a greater tendency to document the sale and hire of draught animals than the ownership of beasts for milk and meat.

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contracts.16 One such early Demotic text17 consists of the declaration made by a herdsman that, consequent to his slaughter of a cow entrusted to him, he will replace it or pay its value. The scenario is precisely that of the New Kingdom story of the Blinding of Truth, where the hero entrusts a peculiarly fine animal to a professional herdsman for a fee. However, the villain of that story – the master of the herdsman – selects this particular animal for butchery, with the instruction to replace it with another beast. The resolution of the plot then hinges on the excessive claims made over the size and value of the animal for the purposes of restitution.18 Such evidence is isolated, but private contracts with professional herdsmen are likely to have been relatively common at all periods:19 a New Kingdom Satire on the Trades stresses how time consuming it could be for the farmer to find the herdsman to collect the animals needed for ploughing,20 and the New Kingdom story of Horus and Seth refers to pasturing a family herd on ‘the island in the middle’, where the herdsman needed to have food delivered to him.21 Although the herdsmen are a marginal class of society, depicted in Old Kingdom tombs as unkempt, and often physically imperfect, they do still belong to society proper. In Egypt there is not the clear social dichotomy but structural symbiosis found in much of the rest of the ancient Near East between the settled population – urban and peasant – and the non-settled, tribal pastoralist. To the Egyptian, the true bedouin was an inhabitant of the high deserts, beyond the pale, whereas the ordinary pastoralist was integrated in the socio-economic structure.22 A national – notionally biennial – assessment of the herds of the country provided the ideological focus of state power through

16 Cruz-Uribe, Saite and Persian Demotic Cattle Documents, passim and see the review article by Vleeming, Bi Or 42 (1985), 508–25. 17 P. Berlin 3110 = Cruz-Uribe, Saite and Persian Demotic Cattle Documents, 25–30, 96–77. 18 P. Ch. B. II, 7, 1–10, 2 = LES 33, 14–35, 11; Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature II, 212–13. 19 For later periods see Rowlandson, Landowners and Tenants, 22–23, 136, and for commercial sheep herding and production of pigs cf. Rathbone, Economic Rationalism, 201–11. 20 P. Lansing 6, 3–6, 4 = LEM 104, 16–105, 2; Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature II, 170. 21 P. Ch. B. I, 5, 8–10 = LES 43, 10–13; Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature II, 217. 22 But note Kemp, in Trigger et al., Ancient Egypt, 117–19; O’Connor, in ibid. 273.

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taxation in early periods, in the sequence of ‘cattle counts’ on which Old Kingdom dating formulae were based. The possession of herds was clearly a marker of elite status, and the inspection of herds is one of the key markers of wealth illustrated in the tombs of the Old and Middle Kingdom: so, for instance, in the tomb model showing the parade of cattle in front of a pavilion, where Meketre sits with his son and scribes receiving the report of the herdsmen.23 An interesting contrast is provided by another model in Munich: a group where two men supervise a dozen cows, half of which are themselves lying sheltered under a light booth.24 The context of this evidence, from Old Kingdom tomb scenes to New Kingdom textual data, is that of substantial ownership, where widely dispersed holdings of cattle could be exploited as a capital resource, but also to provide a regular supply of meat animals. The background themes of cattle holding as wealth are recognisable across cultures. The butchery of cattle and other domestic animals is not an ordinary, everyday occurrence, although the ad hoc slaughter and consumption of small animals, of poultry and of fish, forms part of the repertoire of genre scenes in the tombs. This small slaughter took place in the brush and scrub land that bordered the cultivated fields, and the motif was marginal. Symbolically as well as geographically it belonged to the edges of the ordered world. The scenes are marginal in two crucial senses for the tomb decoration. They are marginal to the content, since they are portrayed at the tops or edges of the wall, or near the entrance of the tomb, and are not shown adjacent to the offering place. They are also marginal to the purpose of the decoration, since they do not provide resources directly targeted to the offerings. The slaughter of pigs is not shown at all in the tomb scenes, although the pig was probably the normal source of domestically reared meat, filling much of the role taken by the goat in more modern village Egypt: ecologically the pig, that consumes village rubbish, is a better domestic animal than the goat, so widespread through the modern Middle East, and so fiercely destructive of the vegetation, especially trees and bushes.25

23 Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 19–22, pl. 6, 13–16. 24 ÄS 7144; see Schoske (ed.), Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptische Kunst München, 49. 25 LÄ V, 762–64, s.v. ‘Schwein’; Lobban, in Nelson (ed.), Ancestors for the Pigs, 137–48; Lloyd, Herodotus, 216–19; Kemp, Amarna Reports I, 40–59, 154–64; III, 34–59; IV, 47–69; Ancient Egypt, 256; Miller, JEA 76 (1990), 125–40; Boessneck and von den Driesch, in van den Brink (ed.), Nile Delta in Transition, 103–8 and cf. 481; Redding, in Crabtree and Ryan (eds), Animal Use and Culture;

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Only rarely is the ritual of slaughtering the pig shown in temple relief, as Horus in triumph over Seth, and the theme is not followed through its butchery to consumption. Likewise the slaughter of sheep and goats is only depicted in very limited ritual contexts:26 domestic slaughter is marginal to ritual, part of the environmental context from which the offerings come, and not the offerings themselves.

Nachtergael, Studies Quaegebeur I, 164–66; Warmenbol, ibid. 282; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 29–33, 210–11, 212–16 for the contrast with beef consumption. Note also Hesse, in Sasson et al. (eds), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East I, 212–16; Brewer et al., Domestic Plants and Animals, 93–97; Osborn and Osbornová, Mammals of Ancient Egypt, 142–44. For the sacrifice of pigs cf. Kees, Tieropfer, 72, 75, 84, 87–8; Lloyd, Herodotus, 216–19 on Herodotus II, 45–48; CT II, 362c, a rubric (in one text only) to Spell 158, specifically forbidding recitation when eating pig: n dd h.r wmn š3. 26 Otto, Mundöffnungsritual, scenes 23–25 = scenes 42–46. Note the specific reference to Old Kingdom tomb sacrifice of goat Urk I, 151, 1–3 (quoted below, p. 197), and finds of goat bones (Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 9–10) in contrast to BoD 151, rubric to the spell for the northern magic brick (Lapp, Papyrus of Nu, pl. 78, 151, lines 14–15; cf. also P. Ch. B. VIII, vs. 10, 10ff), where the purity of the ritualist is defined by not having eaten sheep/goat (awt) or mh.yt-fish, and not having approached (tkn m) women.

15

Facilities for Slaughter Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

Frequent butchery of cattle, associated with the possession of large herds, is only clearly attested in ritual contexts: the provision of offerings for major temples.1 Private secular butchery is difficult to trace in the Egyptian record. The butchery shown in private tombs belongs to the context of the funeral and an idealised provision for the afterlife through the mortuary cult. In tomb reliefs, the themes of mortuary provision and the funerary feast are to the fore, and the butchery scene is typically shown in the context of a feast.2 Likewise Middle Kingdom models characteristically associate the depiction of butchery with brewing and baking. It is difficult, therefore, to assess the extent to which such depictions reflect normal economic activity in a household of the Egyptian upper class.3 Insofar as the large estates and households of the highest officials were economically self-sufficient – images of the state in microcosm – with their own herds, there is every reason to assume that they possessed their own butchery facilities. The models of Meketre, showing both the counting of cattle and the slaughterhouse for their butchery, seem to represent such an economic pattern. Exceptionally in the Theban Tomb of the General Antef (TT 386), an earlier contemporary of Meketre, the scenes of one of his pillars clearly intend to locate activities in his house. A top register shows scenes of herding and fighting bulls. The middle register shows butchery in front of a large storage heap, and the

1 Note Posener-Kriéger, Archives, pl. 82, col. a and frag. 62, 11, pp. 109–10, 385, 601 for the function of ‘scribe of sacrificial animals’ (sš hrwt). ˇ 2 Cf. Vandier, Manuel IV, 232–39. 3 Vandier, Manuel IV, 216–32. For the difficulties of analysis see Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 204–09, 213–21.

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Figure 11 Butchery for the household. Tomb of Antef, Luxor

tomb-owner eating at a table, but all located inside a columned building, with men carrying meat-portions(?) out of a door at the right end. The lowest register likewise shows household facilities, apparently with men entering the house to deposit produce in the storage areas and granaries.4 The immediate impression is one of butchery in the centre of the house, which is implausible. More likely the different elements of a large house compound have been conflated into a single picture, and the house of Antef was probably comparable to the later villas at Amarna, with separate facilities within the compound for storage of grain and for holding animals. With the exception of the model from the tomb of Meketre,5 evidence for the layout of a formal slaughterhouse and for professional

4 Jaroš-Deckert, Grab des Inj-jtj.f, 46–52 and pl. 18; omitted from Galán’s survey of such scenes in JEA 80 (1994), 81–96. 5 See above, pp. 113–14 and see also pp. 99 n.117, 105 n.152, 111 n.180 for discussions of specific details and general layout of the model.

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butchers comes from the context of temples.6 The best preserved from the Old Kingdom is the slaughterhouse attached to the pyramid temple of Raneferef.7 This well-preserved complex was the site for regular and extensive butchery in the cult of a Fifth Dynasty king. Overall this complex is reported to cover an area of 15 m  27 m, on a north–south axis, with an entrance in the north wall. The main door, 1.5 m wide, opens on to an open vestibule, to the right (west) of which was the slaughter chamber: approximately 5.5 m  6.5 m, open to the sky, and containing at least three fixed tethering stones. On the opposite side of the vestibule lay a separate group of three rooms, off a corridor, where the meat was processed. In the first a solid brick, altar-like table is preserved – the chopping block – although its wooden surface is lost. Clear evidence of cooking is found in these rooms: hearths, soot patches and burnt walls. To the south of the vestibule a central corridor is flanked by six pairs of long, narrow rooms, probably all roofed with mud-brick vaults. In some of these rooms the preservation of staircases suggests the existence of light wooden platforms at half the height of the room, comparable to the arrangements for hanging meat seen in both the model of Meketre and in tomb scenes. Remains of mud-brick benches in some rooms are more likely to represent storage than working fixtures, although deposits of ashes and some traces of hearths in these storerooms might imply some cooking (or drying or even smoking of meat). Between the slaughter-chamber and the western row of storerooms, a staircase led to the roof, perhaps implying that sun-drying of meat took place there. A noticeable feature of the entire complex is the rough nature of the clay floors, and the absence of any copious water supply. The process of slaughter and butchery clearly relied on clean processing, and avoidance of the spillage of blood or waste products, and not the washing down of the complex. The slaughter chamber and processing rooms appear to have the capacity to process three beasts at

6 Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche, 124–37; Wafik Ghoneim, Ökonomische Bedeutung des Rindes, 166–77; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 81–108; Fischer, Or 29 (1960), 168–90; LÄ V, 640–41, s.v. ‘Schlachthof’; Haring, Divine Households, 119–27. 7 Verner, MDAIK 42 (1986), 181–89; for brief comments in context see also Vachala and Svoboda, Archeologické Rozhledy 41 (1989), 361–67, esp. pl. I = ZÄS 116 (1989), 175–76 with pl. 1; Verner et al., Unearthing Ancient Egypt, 37 and pl. 37; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 91–93.

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a time. Verner notes that maximum slaughter for the temple seems to be represented by a reference in a(n unpublished) papyrus to festival slaughter of 13 beasts a day over 10 consecutive days, and suggests that this might represent also the maximum capacity of the slaughterhouse. The slaughterhouse of Raneferef was a separate building, aside from the temple proper. The arrangement was similar for the temples of the Aten at Amarna.8 Representations of the Great Temple, in the tombs of Meryre,9 Panehsy10 and Ahmes11 show a small building within a temenos wall, to the left (north) of the entrance to the main sanctuary. No internal divisions are shown, so the building may simply be an open court. In each case the building contains three tethering stones, one or more headless carcasses, one or more heads, a skin, and a tray of joints of meat. The tomb of Meryre also shows12 a similar building in the courtyard around the sanctuary of the small Aten Temple: a small, undivided building, containing five tethering stones, two headless carcasses and separate heads, a skin, and a tray of processed ducks. The archaeological record for the great Aten Temple shows remains of this ‘Butchers’ Yard’, an apparently open enclosure, identifiable by the survival of two tethering stones,13 but also to the south-west, just outside the temple compound, is a building described by the excavators as the ‘official residence’ of Panehsy – the ‘First Servant’ and ‘Superintendent of the Cattle of the Aten’. The unusual layout of this compound, with extensive cooking facilities, and the finds of extensive remains of butchered cattle, implies that at least meat processing took place here.14 A large neighbouring building separated into four sections, each with an open area leading to a long pillared and roofed storage(?) area, is suggested by Kemp to be a cattle-holding facility, but the presence of a number of ovens and fireplaces associated with ox-bones, and of facilities that look like elaborate bathrooms, may suggest that it was a meat-processing facility, if not a large and elaborate slaughterhouse.15 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 102–6. Davies, El Amarna I, pl. XI. Davies, El Amarna II, pl. XVIII. Davies, El Amarna III, pl. XXX. Davies, El Amarna I, pl. XXXIII. CoA III, 10. Frankfort, JEA 13 (1927), 211–13; CoA III, 26–27; Kemp and Garfi, Survey, 50–52. CoA III, 28–29; Kemp and Garfi, Survey, 50–52. On temples as meat production centres at Amarna see also CoA III, 169–75, and see below on the 3hyt. ˇ

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In the temple of Seti I at Abydos, the butchers’ court is a half-porticoed area in the southern annexe of the temple,16 with a corridor giving direct access to the sanctuary area. The bulls were evidently killed here in the open air, on a stone-floored area that would be easy to keep clean. A large room to the west of the court was decorated with scenes and texts that make clear it was intended for processing the carcass.17 In contrast, at Medinet Habu, a small slaughterhouse is found within the temple area.18 The rooms are to the north of the pillared antechamber, just outside the sanctuary proper. The first (Room 5) is approximately 6 m  5 m, with an entrance 1.2 m wide, and a single column in the centre: originally it was half porticoed. On the east wall, a bottom register shows fat bulls led in. Above this are conventional scenes of slaughter and portioning of the carcass. A third register shows the meat carried out, past a priest at the entrance, who is described as ‘censing the first of the divine offerings by the ritualist of Usermaatre [Mery]a[mun]’.19 The processing room (Room 6) leading off this ‘court’ is, however, little more than a corridor, measuring approximately 6 m  1.5 m. The excavator, noting the lack of water supply and drainage, the restricted space, and the lack of light in the inner room, doubted that this complex could have been used for actual slaughter, and concluded, ‘presumably, therefore the joints of meat were only prepared (possibly roasted) in the so-called “slaughterhouse”’. In practice the facility would have been ample for the slaughter and processing of the sacrifice of a single beast for the altar. The limitation is rather one of working and storage space. It has to be assumed that another slaughter facility existed elsewhere in the temple compound, if the numbers of animals recorded in the offering lists were ever genuinely processed. The situation was probably similar in the temple of Amenophis I at Karnak. Graindorge and Martinez envisage, in their preliminary

16 Calverly et al., Temple of King Sethos I, I, pl. 1A; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 98–102. 17 Naville, Détails relevés dans les ruines de quelques temples, pl. II–III; Calverly et al., Temple of King Sethos I, I, pl. 1A, no. 17. 18 Medinet Habu III, ix–x; pl. 170–80; Hölscher, Excavation of Medinet Habu III, 14; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 96–99. 19 pl. 173. Note that censing follows the ritual slaughter in sequence in the ritual of opening the mouth: Otto, Mundöffnungsritual, scenes 43–47; Willems, Chests of Life, 206 n.126.

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reconstruction,20 that the abattoir was a small open room, with access from outside for the live animal, then giving access to a corridor with small chapels to contain statues of the king for the cult of the royal ancestors, and then access to the temple area proper. A roughly similar problem arises for the pyramid temple of Neferirkare at Abusir. The temple proper includes a ‘slaughterhouse’21 which Posener-Kriéger identifies as a long narrow ‘court’, roughly 20 m by 4 m, half-roofed over six pillars, and situated outside the north wall of the main sanctuary. There is no separate room here for processing work, and there are no dedicated storage facilities: the temple’s internal magazines and granaries are at the end of a short corridor, along the south of the sanctuary. It is difficult to estimate the level of activity from the architecture. Fragments of service lists22 record the slaughterhouse staffed on one occasion with a cook, a ‘courtyard man’23 and two hntj-š; on another occasion with two hntj-š and a ‘who-is-in-the courtˇyard man’. Considerable quantities ˇof meat were brought in to the pyramid complex from the sun-temple of Neferirkare,24 and as with the slaughterhouse at Medinet Habu, the butchery on site may have been limited to that necessary as part of the immediate ritual.25 The architecture of contemporary private tombs provides a very limited basis for comparison. In the mastaba of Mereruka, the presence of a tethering stone in the middle of the large central room of the tomb, in front of the false door and its statue,26 implies that actual sacrifice took place here, at the main offering place, however inconvenient it might have been to negotiate the narrow doors and corridors necessary to reach this part of the tomb. Architecturally and functionally this room of Mereruka served some of the purposes of the open court of large Fifth Dynasty tombs: a place of access, offering and the performance of ritual,27 and so possibly sacrifice. A typical example is that of 20 BSFÉ 115 (1989), 45–47 and plan p. 37. 21 Posener-Kriéger, Fs Siegfried Schott, esp. 116; for the measurements see Ricke, Beiträge 5, 77; Posener-Kriéger, Archives, 438, 507–08 and 495, fig. 32; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 91. 22 Posener-Kriéger, Archives 43 = Table IV 1 and IV 3 = pl. LXXXVII and pl. VII. 23 wsht; cf. pl. LXXA and p. 372–3 for a list of vessels issued to a cook and wsht-man. ˇ variation is jmj-wsht. ˇ The ˇ 631–34. 24 Posener-Kriéger, Archives 25 Posener-Kriéger, Archives 43, 438. 26 Duell et al., Mereruka, pl. 124, 126; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 100. 27 Cf. Munro, Nebet und Khenut, 118–23.

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the complex of Seshemnefer and Tjeti at Giza,28 where this interior court contains the offering area, a false door associated with the entrance to the burial chamber, and a basin 2 m  1.20 m sunk into the floor.29 Yet the find of a tethering stone in the separate forecourt, outside the tomb complex, perhaps implies that sacrifice took place immediately in front of the tomb entrance.30 Although the data is insufficient in a variety of ways, a number of architectural themes emerge. The first is the reliability of the Meketre models as a source for the architecture of a slaughterhouse.31 The slaughter takes place in the open air. The space required is surprisingly restricted. The slaughter-yard itself is typically small, and only halfroofed: in the most formal of temple buildings it is a porticoed yard. Where tomb scenes show funerary butchery on site, a temporary booth in the form of a trellis structure can be associated.32 Facilities to hang the meat are necessary. The formal slaughterhouse contains a gallery for this purpose. There are no significant facilities for water supply. Butchery was evidently performed without spillage of blood, and the place of sacrifice was not constrained by a need for drainage to wash down floors.33 Second, it seems characteristic that a place of slaughter is situated very close to the place of offerings, and forms a part of the ritual complex. In a private funeral, a sacrifice seems to have taken place at the entrance to the tomb or in front of the false door/stela,34 and cult at the

28 Junker, Giza XI, esp. 108. 29 Cf. Verner, Ptahshepses I/1. Reliefs, 116–19 for the comparable court in the tomb of Ptahshepses. For the comparable arrangement of the open court of Theban Tombs of the Late Period see Kuhlmann and Schenkel, Grab des Ibi I, 129–30. 30 Cf. the inscription of Kaemsenu, Urk I, 175, 12 = Firth and Gunn, Teti Pyramid Cemeteries II, pl. 62, in a list of official institutions as source of offerings, giving jwf r r(w)t jst (with a doorway of niche determinative for r(w)t) as the source of the meat supplies. 31 Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 87. 32 E.g., Martin, Horemheb I, pl. 118–24. 33 Von Bissing, Re-Heiligtum des Königs Ne-Woser-Re I, 15, 46–47, 51 and cf. Blatt 1 and 2, identifies two areas of courtyard as slaughter areas on the basis of extensive drainage systems. In practice the drainage channels were for rainwater, cf. Málek, Studies Edwards, 32–33, and are not found in slaughterhouse facilities; cf. also Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 90. Verner, MDAIK 42 (1986), 187–88 notes both the rough nature of the clay floors in the Raneferef slaughterhouse, but also (undefined) evidence for the washing of floors.

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tomb envisages sacrifice at the point of offering. In the temple it appears that sacrifice for the king or god should ideologically have taken place at or near the entrance to the sanctuary.35 The butcher36 himself is a person of status. For instance, in the butchery model from the tomb of Meketre37 the butchers are shown with markedly lighter skin, like the supervisors. In contrast, in the same butchers’ shop, the man plucking poultry has the markedly darker skin of the working class. The butcher is himself a minor ritualist:38 part of the skilled craft or middle class who, in Old Kingdom royal service at least, aspired to limited titles and occasionally to the possession of their own monuments. The role of the ritualist (hrj-h.b) in the performance of the butchery is not easy to define, perhaps partly because the majority of butchery scenes are preserved in private tombs, where the presiding figure is the regular ka-priest (h.m-k3).39 In the butchery ritual of the Opening of the Mouth, however, the ritualist is a regular participant,40 and it is possible that he served as a sort of master of ceremonies. However, the comment of one of the butchers in the tomb of Ptahshepses is revealing.41 Apparently to urge his companion on, he says ‘Behold, the ritualist is doing things’ – jw hrj-h.b h.r

34 E.g., Sinuhe B195–96. 35 Architecturally compare also, perhaps, the open Court of Offerings at Edfu, to the right (east) of the entrance to the sanctuary: Cauville, Edfou, 46–48 and plan p. 25, with similar ground plan at Dendera, Cauville, Dendera, 44–45. 36 Eggebrecht, LÄ V, 641–42, s.v. ‘Schlächter’. 37 Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 23–25. 38 E.g., Fischer, Or 29 (1960), 168–90; and cf. Fischer, ZÄS 105 (1978), 56–57 with additional comments by Morenz, JEA 84 (1998), 195–96; Junker, Giza X, 124–25; Edel, Akazienhaus, 28–32; Wafik Ghoneim, Ökonomische Bedeutung des Rindes, 171–73. Note also Moussa and Junge, Two Tombs of Craftsmen, 29–46; de Rachewiltz, Irw-k3-Pth., passim: the stress in these cases is on the provision of meat and meat products for the king. 39 For persons with ritual role present at the butchery scenes cf. Wafik Ghoneim, Ökonomische Bedeutung des Rindes, 188–95; von Känel, Les preˆ tres-oua ˆ b, 4–11, 255–75, with further development of the argument on the relation between ritual and hygiene by Engelmann and Hallof, SAK 23 (1996), esp. 113, 122–28, 134. 40 Otto, JNES 9 (1950), 164–66; Mundöffnungsritual I, 44–52, 96–102; II, 73–80, 102–6; scenes 23–25, 43–45; Settgast, Bestattungsdarstellungen, 62–63. 41 Verner, Ptahshepses I/1. Reliefs, 30 and pl. 12. There is a direct parallel in James, Khentika, 55 [132]; pl. XXII. Verner quotes also Blackman, Meir IV, pl. 9, Pepiankh; Duell et al., Mereruka, pl. 109; Kanawati and Hassan, Teti Cemetery II, pl. 14–15, 49, pp. 44, 46, tomb of Ankhmahor for the phrase in butchery contexts.

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jrjt jht – a phrase that should refer to his performance of the accompaˇ ritual,42 for which the appropriate joints from the butchered aninying mal were required. The role of the lector priest implies that slaughter was ritualised through recitation. It is not clear to what extent such recitation accompanied the actual slaughter, as might be suggested by a scene in the Giza tomb of Niwinetjer,43 where a man standing in a posture of recitation over the portioning of animals is labelled s3ht nm, ˇ pro‘ritualising the blade(?)’. More clearly, the ritualist uses the meat duced as a central part of the cult. The characteristic positioning of butchery scenes in the offering chapels of Old Kingdom tombs, closely associated with the offering ritual, and their prime importance among the most necessary of scene types in the tombs both reinforce their ritual importance. In practice there was clearly a distinction between the place of ritual slaughter, or perhaps better the ritual place of slaughter within the temple or tomb-complex, and the facilities for regular, semi-industrial slaughter: the contrast between facilities inside the temple proper, and a semi-industrial, purpose-built, and potentially more impersonal slaughterhouse and meat-processing facility such as that of Raneferef. The slaughterhouse within the slightly earlier pyramid temple of Neferirkare can only have served the purely ritual function. The documents from that temple show that the majority of the meat – as of other foodstuffs consumed there – came from the associated sun-temple of Neferirkare, where a semi-industrial slaughterhouse presumably stood.44 The ‘House of the Knife’ is defined as the source of meat offerings, as in Pyramid Text §214b–c: O Unas, arise and sit down to a thousand of bread, a thousand of beer, Roast meat (3šrt) of your ribs (šbtyw) from the House of the Knife, bread from the Broad Hall (wsht).45 ˇ

42 For similar Old Kingdom texts, and the gestures of the ritualist see Dominicus, Gesten und Gebärden, 89–91. For 18th Dyn. scenes with the hrj-h.b overseeing the butchery in the funeral see Davies, Five Theban Tombs, pl. X and pp. 17–19, TT20 Montuherkhopeshef, and pl. XLIII, TT29 Amenemope. 43 Junker, Giza X, Abb. 44 = Abb. 46 and p. 127. 44 Posener-Kriéger, Archives, 519; Verner, MDAIK 42 (1986), 189. Posener-Kriéger, Archives, 634 notes a minimum of daily slaughter of a beef and 22 birds. 45 Cf. Pyr §2194b–c, and note also CT II, 174i–n, a threat not to allow cattle to enter the slaughterhouse if the deceased is thwarted.

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The meat was then further distributed, not only to the staff of the temple, but to private tombs for their mortuary cults,46 an extension into the afterlife of palace provision of food for the royal retinue.47

46 Posener-Kriéger, Archives, 310–23, 530, 634–35; cf. the inscription of Kaemsenu Urk I, 175 (quoted just above), and the formula that ends the individual stories of P. Westcar, 1, 12–17; 4, 12–17; 6, 17–22: each king is there offered an entire animal, and his magician a portion of meat, presumably as the reversion to his own cult. 47 Posener-Kriéger, Archives, 637–38.

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Personal and Ritual Consumption Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

The overwhelming mass of pictorial, textual, and even archaeological evidence for butchery is connected with ritual contexts, even the limited evidence for a market in meat. This necessarily distorts the picture. The butchery of cattle is a normal element of the decoration of both tombs and temples. Its role is central, as the first element in the primary ritual sequence, leading to the offering meal. The butchery of cattle does not appear in the marginal contexts typical for the slaughter and consumption of small animals, but at the core of the ritual: both the funerary ritual and the continuing cult for the dead. In New Kingdom tomb scenes, where the funerary ceremonies are depicted in some detail, the slaughter of cattle forms a central part of the ceremony of Opening the Mouth,1 the crucial rite of passage. Likewise butchery forms a key part of the depiction of the funerary feast in New Kingdom tombs, particularly associated with the series of funerary booths with food, prepared and attended by the mourners, and associated with the ceremony of breaking the red pots.2 Likewise, butchery also forms a crucial part of the royal ritual of coronation and

1 Otto, Mundöffnungsritual II, 73–80, scenes 23–25; 102–6, scenes 43–45; Roth, JEA 78 (1992), 113–47 and 79 (1993), 57–79 with stress on the daily performance as a ritual that mimics birth-childhood-weaning. 2 E.g., Martin, Horemheb, pl. 118–24, scenes 83, 86, pp. 100–03. For the ceremony of breaking the red pots, and specifically their connection to butchery, see LÄ VI, 1392–96, s.v. ‘Zerbrechen des Rotes Topfes’; Altenmüller, Begräbnisritual, 98–99; 214–15; Barta, Bedeutung der Pyramidentexte, 42–46; Ritner, Magical Practice, 146–47; Assmann, Hommages Leclant I, 50–55. For the Old Kingdom archaeological record see Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, 3–22.

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rejuvenation through jubilee, as seen in the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus.3 It is central to any ritual of inheritance and succession.4 The symbolism of the ritual demands that the sacrifice is a large bull, and it is depicted in this way, but that does not necessarily imply that the animal always was a bull.5 Typically it is likely to have been a fattened ox,6 sometimes even a worn-out cow,7 or in special circumstances a calf.8 In this sense the symbolism of the hunt becomes important. The ritual of sacrifice itself brings order to events that are out of control. The wild is tamed. The animal is ideally a wild fighting bull. The wild bull (sm3) is the sacrificial victim (sm3), which is slaughtered (sm3) in the sacrifice.9 However, the actual terms used for the animal relate more to the demands of the recitation than to practicality. So, for instance, the butchery spell Pyr. 580, addressed to ‘My father Osiris, this Pepi’, begins:10

3 Sethe, Dram. Texte, II; Altenmüller, JEOL 19 (1967), 421–42; Assmann, LÄ I, 1136–38, s.v. ‘Dramatischer Ramesseumspapyrus’. 4 Cf. Goyon, Confirmation du pouvoir royal, 72–73 = XVI, 8 and 12 for the significance of the bull to this theme, although sacrifice is not explicitly mentioned there. 5 Kees, Tieropfer, 77. Cf. Otto, Mundöffnungsritual I, scenes 23 Ia and 43a for clear definition of the sacrifice as ‘male’. See also Galán, JEA 80 (1994), 81–96 and Victory and Border, 13–18 on the motif of the victorious k3 bull in bullfighting scenes, and above, pp. 182–83 above, pp. 102–03 on the mutilation of the calf. For evidence on castration and discussion of age and maturation rates see Gilbert, JEA 74 (1988), 75–78, and Brewer et al., Domestic Plants and Animals, 87, n.258. Vialles, Animal to Edible, 130 stresses in a modern context the symbolism of castration as a dissociation of the meat animal from the real sexual animal, and ibid. 113–21 discussing the dichotomy between the domestic and the wild, and the way in which symbolic behaviour renders the animal as wild for the sacrifice/slaughter. Cf. also Douglas, Purity and Danger, 54–55 on the attitude of the pastoralist to the real wild animal. 6 Cf. Cabrol, CRIPÉL 20 (1999), 15–27 for stress on the huge size, related to fattening of stalled animals. 7 Cf. Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 10–12. For specific reference to the sacrifice of cows rather than bulls see Willems, Heqata, 459–60. For the assertion by Herodotus II 41 and other classical authors that cows were not sacrificed see Lloyd, Herodotus, 183–84. 8 See above, pp. 102–03. 9 Cf. Junker, ZÄS 48 (1910), 70–72. For play between sm3 as the animal (here the sky-mother goddess), the k3-mwt=f theme, and uniting the lands, see Pyr §§388– 89. 10 Pyr §1544a-d. For the wordplays see Egberts, In Quest of Meaning, 370.

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h.wj.n=j n=k h.wj tw m jh. I have struck for you the one who struck you as an jh.-ox,11 sm3.n=j n=k sm3 tw m sm3 I have slaughtered for you the one who slaughtered you as a sm3-bull, ng3.n=j n=k ng3 tw m ng3 I have broken open for you the one who broke you open as a ng3-bull,12 wn=k Hr-s3=f m h.r-s3, Him on whose back you are as a carrying-ox(?).13

Each of the four terms for the bull is defined by the punning verb. In this way the hunt is rendered down to a metaphor for ritual activity. Indeed, in historical Egypt royal hunting practice was itself effectively rendered into a ritual act. So, for instance, the ‘cattle hunt’ scarab of Amenophis III records the careful round-up of the ‘wild cattle’ (sm3w) into a corral, to be slaughtered by the king.14 On this basis it can therefore seem, superficially, that temple and palace butchery filled a role which in other societies would be that of a commercial market, although the picture is incomplete and so almost certainly distorting as the basis for economic assessment. On jar dockets from Amarna15 meat is sourced from a building called the 3hyt. The term evidently refers to a meat-processing facility, since the ˇdockets naturally refer to potted – in some sense preserved – meat (dr),16 or meat products, particularly fat17 rather than fresh joints. The main source is Pr-Jtn, and the produce was doubtless normally the result of the slaughter at the Great Temple of the Aten, although dockets from an 3hyt of Pharaoh, of the Queen, and of a building referred to as K3ˇ -Ra are prominent. There is also association with the term šnaw: n-anh ˇ

11 For the play on h.wj and sm3 cf. Guilhou, BIFAO 93 (1993), 291–93. 12 For the same play on ng3 see Otto, Mundöffnungsritual I, text 23 Ia + 23 IIIa. 13 Determined with a bull’s head. For the parallel with jh. and ng3 see Wb. III, 135, 7. The implication here is presumably the practical one of the slaughter of the animals used to pull the sarcophagus, as well as the mythological vision of Osiris or Horus on the back of Seth or Bata as a bull. 14 Blankenberg-van Delden, Large Commemorative Scarabs. 15 CoA III, 169–75; cf. Hayes, JNES 10 (1951), 50–52 (= figs 10–12), 91–93 for Malkata. 16 Helck, Materialien V, 836–44: literally probably ‘pressed’, but whether such meat was dried, or preserved in brine, or treated in some other way is wholly obscure. 17 Helck, Materialien IV, 714–16. Note also Vachala, ZÄS 114 (1987), 91–95 and Krauss, VA 3 (1987), 259–62 for evaluations of sacrifical animals by quantity of fat, whether as price or product. See above, pp. 113–15 on fat production.

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a food-production facility, or rather a facility for processing agricultural products in general.18 Temple slaughterhouses also provided a source for the wider distribution of meat, and it is not feasible to separate the temple sacrifice from the economic provision of meat. The same may be the case for the Middle Kingdom, where a middle class of administrators of fats, meats and milk were wealthy enough to own private stelae.19 The two functions overlap, even perhaps to the limited semi-commercial disposal of offering-meat. Kahun letters of the later Middle Kingdom, dealing with the affairs of the Pyramid of Sesostris II, give orders about the delivery of a bull for sacrifice,20 and the issue of meat from the offering bull,21 as well as the supply of animal skins for leatherwork.22 Two small fragments of papyrus of the Twentieth Dynasty refer to the disposal of joints of meat by temple ‘traders’ (šwty).23 In contrast, butchery and meat sale is not a characteristic feature of the occasional market scenes that appear in Egyptian tombs,24 although

18 Cf. Eyre, in Powell (ed.), Labor 29–30, 196; Franke, SAK 10 (1983), 169–70, 174–76; Polz, ZÄS 117 (1990), 43–60; Andrássy, SAK 20 (1993), 17–35; Haring, Divine Households, 242–43; Eichler, Verwaltung des ‘Hauses des Amun’, 97–113. 19 Franke, SAK 10 (1983), 157–78, esp. 174–76. 20 P. Berlin 10016 = Wente, Letters, 75–76, for the wag-festival. 21 P. Berlin 10017 = Wente, Letters, 78. 22 P. Berlin 10050 and 10014 = Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 97, 4–14 = Wente, Letters, 73–74. See also Luft, in Quirke (ed.), Lahun Studies, 21–23 on the supply to the temple for offerings, and cf. the late Ramesside accounts Papyrus BM 9999, columns 4 and 6 = KRI VII, 389–94, presumably from the temple of Medinet Habu, with lists of cattle and accounts of animal skins and leather. 23 Peet, Mélanges Maspero I, 185–99; Megally, BIFAO 74 (1974), 161–69; 75 (1975), 165–81; cf. also Reineke, AoF 6 (1979), 5–14; Römer, SAK 19 (1992), 273–74. The ‘ships’ logs’ (see Janssen, Ships’ Logs) listing transactions of boats travelling the country make isolated references to small quantities of meat, perhaps as likely to be provisions for the crews as trade-goods: P. Leiden I, 350 vs., I, x+16, x+20, II, 15, 25; SAK 3 (1975), 162. 24 See Eyre, in Grimal and Menu (eds), Le commerce, esp. 175 n.11 and 177 n.24. Exceptionally the tomb of Ptahshepses at Abusir contains a pair of apparent ‘market’ scenes that include meat: Verner, Ptahshepses I/1. Reliefs, pl. 29–30, photo 44, pp. 62–63; Bárta, SAK 26 (1998), 30, 34. It is interesting that Janssen, Commodity Prices, does not record meat prices from Deir el Medina, but only prices for animals and processed fats. Note above, pp. 115–17 n.45ff and below, pp. 206–07 on herdsmen killing in the margins: the implication would be that such killing was only for immediate

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fish and vegetable sale is typical. A wide distribution of meat and animal fats as wages is to be assumed.25 In the workmen’s community at Deir el Medina, fresh fat and meat, both fresh and processed, appear infrequently among the commodities received by the workmen,26 and they are not quantified in any clear way as an expected part of the wages in kind expected by the workmen. Exceptionally, a daybook ostracon from that site27 refers to the delivery of cattle to share among the workmen. In year 2 of Ramesses IV, III akhet 18, nine cattle were delivered and shared out; then on day 28 another five cattle. On the latter date an official delegation doubled the number of people employed on the work, so a special gift is clearly at issue, perhaps more likely in the form of a locally butchered meat-feast than a supply of milk animals with a view to the long term. References to local butchery are equally rare. One very fragmentary letter28 seems to refer to somebody slaughtering a male calf ‘on his festival’, and a register of absences29 notes on three occasions that different men were absent to slaughter a bovine: one killing his own animal, and in the other cases killing for different named individuals. The implication is that certain individuals had locally recognised skills as occasional butchers.30 The extensive documentation from Deir el Medina does not include meat among the commodities that made up the regular

25

26

27

28 29 30

consumption, without bringing dried ‘bush meat’ to the market in the way the similarly marginal fishermen brought dried fish. See Kemp and Garfi, Survey, 67–69, 64 on the extensive ‘provisioning compounds’ in the city of Amarna, with proper caution against assuming on this basis a state monopoly on food and small industrial production. Adams, in Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress, 27, notes the limited range of animal parts in the domestic record of the Old Kingdom settlement at Abydos, and argues for a central processing of meat; cf. also Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 208, 212–16; Cabrol, CRIPÉL 20 (1999), 24–25. Helck, Materialien IV, 715; V, 839–40; Valbelle, <>, 154, 276–278; Haring, Divine Households, 256–58; O. Berlin 12337 = Wente, Letters, 30–31 purports to list annual payments including 33 cattle and substantial quantities of fresh and processed meat. O DM 46, 15 and vs. 9–11; cf. Janssen, Commodity Prices, 491–92. Janssen, in Lipinski (ed.), State and Temple Economy II, 514–15 stresses the likely connection of these animals to temple offerings. LRL 63, 13–15. HO XXVI, 3, vs. 4–11. This theme of occasional skills as providers of local services in the village is highly characteristic of the community at Deir el Medina.

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provision for the workmen, or refer to a source for such payments. Isolated dockets associate the provision of mrh.t-oil and ad-fat with the ‘state stockyard’ or temples, often specifically in connection with specific festivals and particular temples.31 The most likely source of meat products are the local office of ‘the Chief of Royal Provisions of Pharaoh in Town’32 and ‘the Temples of the West of Thebes’, which are both recorded as sources of a small but steady stream of bread and beer for Deir el Medina, evidently as reversions from the offerings, but in neither case is meat listed among their supplies.33 If indeed it is correct that animal husbandry was characterised on the one hand by institutional patterns of rearing herds – that is, temple herds that ideologically were raised for sacrifice – and on the other hand by purely domestic rearing for occasional animals for field labour and home consumption, then it may well be that meat characteristically circulated through gift rather than sale:34 for the dependants of a great man – the high officials who held extensive lands and herds – occasional gifts of meat to their subordinates as a mark of patronage, and for lesser men the gift of joints to friends and associates on the occasion of a killing, as a mark of social ties in an extended family or circle of friends.35 Such patterns are better attested than commercial transactions, but they are of their nature transactions of higher prestige, and so would more naturally referred to in the record.

31 3h yt pr–a3 (DM 6104, 6106), or the pr of a dead king (DM 6105, 6110, 6111) as ˇ source of mrh.t-oil; similarly ‘d-fats, from the 3hyt (DM 6127, 6129(?), 6131, 6132, 6142), from the pr of a king (DM 6130), the prˇ of a god (DM 6137), ‘the herd of Djeserkheperure-setepenre’ (DM 6141), the sed-festival of Ramesses II (DM 6125, 6126, 6134(?), 6135(?), 6139(?)), specifically of the cattle of the Opet festival (DM 6127, 6128, 6129(?), 6131(?), 6132, 6136), and for the festival of the ‘Birthday of Aten’ (DM 6142). Also for ‘pressed meat’ (jwf dr) (DM 6162, 6164), referring to the Opet festival, for the temple (pr) of Amenhotep, and the ‘Birthday of the Aten’. 32 p3 a3 n anh-nsw n pr-a3 m njwt; Janssen, Commodity Prices, 458; Valbelle, Ouvriers ˇ de la Tombe, 144, 155. 33 The most extensive record, the Papyrus Greg (KRI V, 437–48; see Janssen, Village Varia, 111–29 and cf. 2–4), shows regular and substantial deliveries of bread, dates and beer from the royal provisions centre, and of beer from the temples, but makes no mention of meat. 34 Cf. Janssen, SAK 3 (1975), 165, 167, 183–85. 35 Cf. Janssen, JEA 68 (1982), 253–58.

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Relevant references to ‘private’ sources of meat provision are exceptional. A stela of the end of the Old Kingdom or First Intermediate Period36 provides an unusual variation on the formulae defining tomb provision: ‘The jm3h Ihy says, “I have come from my house; I ˇ I have lived on (anh.n=j m) my property; have descended in my tomb; ˇ I have done by my I have slaughtered from my goat(s) (waty), as what own arm (hpš).”’ The play here on hpš as both the prime offering joint ˇ of the owner’s self-reliance ˇ and the force and wealth, in the context of the personal funding of his tomb provision, fits well with social themes of the end of the Old Kingdom. It is unusual for an individual to claim status as a distributor of meat, but the New York autobiographical stela of the Steward Montuwoser provides a clear example. He claimed extensive authority over rural production:37 ‘I acted as overseer of the granary in accounting barley. I acted as overseer of people, more than thousands. I acted as overseer of cattle, overseer of goats, overseer of donkeys, overseer of sheep, overseer of pigs.’ He then later stressed his generosity: I am one generous (h.d, literally ‘shining’) over food and edibles. There is no shortage for the one to whom I give. I share (pš) big (pieces) of meat (or ‘joints’: wr n jwf) to the one who sits beside me. I am one loved of his family (h3w), close to his kin (3bt). I have not covered my face against one who is in the work (b3kw; = ‘(my) service’?).

The recipient of the meat distribution – h.msj r-gs=j – may be understood as the person sharing a communal meal, ‘the one who sits beside me’, or less likely in a more general way as neighbour and associate, ‘the one who lives next to me’.

36 Cairo 1596 = Urk I, 150, 13–151, 3. 37 Metropolitan Museum 12.184, 5–11 = Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 79, 7–14. See Lichtheim, Autobiographies, 104–5; Hayes, Scepter I, 299 with photograph. Dated to year 17 of Sesostris I. His mother has the curious name abw(?) or abk3w(?) (cf. Ranke, Personennamen I, 59:22–26), written as if spelling a word for cattle, which if related to sab, ‘castrate’, would play on the word ‘bullocks’ (cf. above on §398a). Attestations of the name are almost entirely limited to the Middle Kingdom, when it is used for both men and women, and is perhaps characteristic of cattle-managing families: cf. also Patch, Reflections of Greatness, 22–23.

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The exercise of royal favour through the gift of meat38 is described in detail in the contemporary autobiography of Sarenput:39 His Majesty proceeded to Kush, to fell vile Kush. His Majesty caused meat to be brought to me as raw (w3d). As for all that was done in Elephantine, His Majesty caused beef (jw3) to be brought to me, either flank or rump, and a bowl full with all good things, five geese in it, as raw (w3d). It was four men who brought it to me.40

Another contemporary, the Overseer of Priests Wepwawetaa, describes how he visited the palace:41 I have acted as one who enters unannounced. An ox (jw3) was slaughtered for my provision (s3b); legs run about for me, and I come out favoured in the palace (ah.), one beloved in the palace (stp-s3) ... . His Majesty caused that I slaughter oxen (jw3w) in the Temple of Osiris Khentiamentiu, in Abydos, the Thinite nome, and (profit) came to me over the hides .... My statues were placed in the temple, in the following of the Great God; meat-portions (wabyt) were fixed for them, and their offering loaves established in writing.

The slightly later texts of the Controller of the Phyle Amenysonb emphasise the same royal rewards for work:42 Then he praised god for (= ‘thanked’) me very much, saying: ‘How fortunate is the one who has done this for his god!’ Then he gave to me 10 heaps of offerings,43 provided with sweets (or ‘dates’), and a side (lit. ‘half’) of veal.

Additionally, a decree for him in the name of King Khendjer is explicit:44 ‘Look, the work you have done has been noted (lit. ‘seen’). The king favours you. His ka favours you ... . Then (it) was decreed that I be given a rump of veal (ph.wy n rny).’ Characteristically, reference to

38 Menu, Mélanges Vercoutter, 261, noting meat as a special favour by royal grace, speculates on an association in the use of the joint-of-meat sign in the word jsw and its root meanings of ‘pension’, ‘wage’, ‘payment’. 39 Urk VII, 5, 17–21; Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 204. 40 The passage initially describes a single event. Thereafter the tenses are not sufficiently clear, as so often in such contexts, to be certain whether a single gift or a repeated pattern of royal favour is described. 41 Munich Gl.WAF 35 = Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 74, 14–15, 19, 21–23; see Lichtheim, Autobiographies, 79. Dated to the reign of Amenemhet II. 42 Louvre C12 = Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 76, 13–14; see Lichtheim, Autobiographies, 81–82. 43 Lichtheim reads ‘the sum of 10 deben’. 44 Louvre C11 = Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 76, 19–20; see Lichtheim, Autobiographies, 82.

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the division of meat is associated with offerings, whether in temple or mortuary cult. The gift from the king is illustrated in the repeated formula at the end of each episode in the Westcar Papyrus, where the offering ordered by Cheops includes an entire ox (jw3) for each of his predecessors, and a ‘portion of meat’ (jwf wrj) for the magician who had served him.45 In contrast, in that story, the living magician was said daily to consume the impossible quantities of 500 loaves and ‘a side of beef as (his) meat (rmn n jw3 m jwf)’.46 Such division is illustrated, for instance, in the endowment of Sarenput for the sanctuary of Heqaib:47 ‘As for any bull, any gazelle, any bird which shall pass (hpj) into this ˇ out for the chapel, its rump (msdt) will be for its statue, and it will go ka-priest.’ The issue of meat as a regular perquisite of the offerings to the beneficiaries of the endowment is characteristic,48 the details of the offering assignments being made most explicit in the contracts of Hapdjefay. These detail both requirements he imposed on priests as beneficiaries of his endowments, and proportional shares of the income to be received by individual functionaries:49 See, as for a day of the temple (h.wt-ntr), it is 1⁄365 out of the year. You therefore divide everything which comes in to the temple, bread, beer and meat, for the day share (n hrt hrw): it is what becomes the 1⁄365 of bread, of beer and of everything which comes in to the temple on one of these temple days.

The detailed focus in these texts is on the shares of the staple bread and beer, but a specific portioning of the sacrificed animal is important.50 So, in his contract with the Overseer of the Necropolis and the necropolis guards (? tpyw-dw) over the New Year rituals at the tomb, his endowment includes:51 ‘giving to them the shin (jnst) of every leg (mnt) of every bull slaughtered on this desert, in all its chapels’. A group of participants, of relatively low status but necessary to the

45 P. Westcar, 1, 12–16; 4, 12–16; 6, 18–21. 46 P. Westcar, 7, 2–3. 47 Aswan Museum 1373, 20–21 = Stela no. 9 = Franke, Heiligtum des Heqaib, 156–57 and 171 n.24. 48 E.g., Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 98, 13 and 23 (Coptos Decree of Nubkheperre Antef, see Martin-Pardey, Fs von Beckerath, 185–97) provides the most straightforward statement of such rights. 49 Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 93, 22–94, 7 = Griffith, Siut, pl. 7, 285–87. 50 Cf., for example, Blackman and Fairman, JEA 29 (1943), esp. 29–30 on the portioning of the slaughtered hippopotamus in the Ptolemaic ritual of Horus at Edfu. 51 Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke, 95, 17–19 = Griffith, Siut, pl. 8, 314.

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secure and continuing function of his cult, are assigned a specific if not very high-value cut from a regular sacrifice. This ritual focus may in the end not be unrealistic: it cannot be assumed that the butchery of cattle was ever fully dissociated from ritual purpose. The primary issues to be faced are the questions of who ate whose meat, when, and what the animals were. For an individual, the slaughter of a beast so large, so economically valuable, and so potentially useful for work or for milk, is a major event. The resulting meat-feast will necessarily provide the sort of social focus that cannot be dissociated from the key religious or social occasions of that individual’s life. Valuations of cattle vary considerably. At Deir el Medina in the Twentieth Dynasty cattle are sometimes valued at 100 or more deben of copper, although these high prices might reflect local factors or temporary conditions. Other texts value cattle at between 20 and 50 deben. Comparative data is rare, but a valuation of about 50 deben for a healthy, fully grown animal may be the norm. This should be compared to the monthly grain rations of 512 khar (equivalent to 11 deben of copper) for the relatively well-off population of Deir el Medina, and the monthly subsistence ration of 112 khar (= 3 deben) for an ordinary labourer and his family.52 Assumptions about the distribution and consumption of a bovine are best modelled on practice with the animal sacrificed at the funeral or within the mortuary cult, for it is likely that continued mortuary and ancestor cult provided the typical framework within which ‘private’ meat consumption took place. Offering lists in the tombs provide vital evidence, lexicographic and pictorial, for the joints of meat, while the clearly defined rights in their distribution from the ‘endowed’ sacrifice among the participants, priests and family, indicate the expected patterns of distribution and exchange among the heirs and relatives as an extended family, although it is not possible to identify specific rights to specific parts of the animal.53 It is not unlikely, however, that in pharaonic Egypt, the slaughter of a beef animal was in a real sense naturally and normally a ritual act. That is to say, bulls were ‘sacrificed’, not merely ‘butchered’. For instance, when

52 Janssen, Commodity Prices, 172–77; Eyre, in Powell (ed.), Labor, 178–79; 201–2. 53 Pyr §§1543–50 provide a long distribution list of the specific parts of the slaughtered animal to specific gods, but I do not see any way of applying this list to a normal social circle.

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Bata, the hero of the New Kingdom story of the Two Brothers, takes the form of a bull,54 his treacherous former wife asks the king to let her eat his liver: ‘At dawn a great offering meal (a3bt a3t) was invoked, being the offering (wdn) of the bull.’ A royal butler was sent to slaughter it. ‘And after it was put to the slaughter, and it was on the shoulders of the men, then it shook its neck, and it had two drops of blood fall beside the doorposts of His Majesty.’ The implication is that the slaughter was performed as an offering ceremony, outside the gate, and that the portioned animal was then brought into the palace for cooking and consumption. The killing was fraught with symbolic meaning, not simply ritual in the sense that it was performed by an expert, according to ‘ritual’ requirements similar to those of Jewish or Islamic butchery, but in a wider context that involved the symbolism of order, and included a god or the dead as primary recipient of meat that was processed and distributed within a particular social circle. That is to say, eating beef would be associated with special occasions that were relevant to the cycles of cosmic or human time.55

54 LES 24, 3–26, 15; identified as the Bull of the Ennead, LES 19, 3. 55 Cf. Cabrol, CRIPÉL 20 (1999), 26–27, comparing post-mediaeval French carnivals, with the marching of a fat bull to slaughter and public meat distribution. Cf. also Goody, Death, 389–90.

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Meat-feasting Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

There is a hierarchy of food, in which meat takes a prime position. In an essentially ‘peasant’ economy the quality of the individual joint is not generally a matter of great stress: cooking technique of a rather basic type and limited range tends naturally to minimise such distinctions.1 Prestige comes from the type of animal, and from quantity rather than quality of cut. The mark of the elite is quantity and frequency – more of the same – rather than complexity of preparation, and this seems to characterise meat consumption in Egypt. The Cannibal Hymn narrates the butchery and processing of the animal with a detail that goes beyond what is normally shown in butchery scenes.2 The pictorial record focuses on the overthrow of the animal, its slaughter, and the limited dismemberment for prestige offerings, especially the removal of the foreleg and the head.3 The removal and presentation of these parts carries symbolic rather than practical significance, since neither is the choicest of cuts for eating. In

1 So still for the rural purchaser in Egypt, who typically stews or barbecues pieces of meat, the specific cut has relatively limited importance. 2 LÄ V, 638–39, s.v. ‘Schlachten’; Montet, BIFAO 7 (1912), 41–65; Sce`nes de la vie privée, ch. 5; Klebs, Reliefs des Alten Reiches, 121–28; Vandier, Manuel V, 128–85, 234–50, 283–96; Eggebrecht, Schlachtungsbräuche; Mundt, in SVZ Schlachten und Vermarkten 75 (1975), part 7, 246–49; part 8, 284–87; part 9, 324–26; part 10, 358–61; part 11, 394–96; Wafik Ghoneim, Ökonomische Bedeutung des Rindes, 177–87; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts, 41–56, 297–303; Säve-Söderbergh, Hamra Dom, 48–51; Winlock, Models of Daily Life, 23–25; pl. 18, 19, 21, 24, 60, 61, for which see also Gilbert, JEA 74 (1988), 69–89. 3 On the hpš see Willems, JEA 76 (1990), 30–31; on decapitation see above on ˇ especially the regular use of the head as hieroglyph in offering lists to §403a. Note represent the whole, and cf. Alexanian, Fs Stadelmann, esp. 12–14 for the characteristic deposits of head and leg bones at the tomb entrance.

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contrast the Cannibal Hymn deals with the processing of the entire animal and its consumption. It focuses on those parts of the animal that were actually eaten with greatest relish. The context is that of a meat-feast, reflecting the killing and total use of a domestic animal, which was the pig for the ordinary Egyptian,4 but for the elite of society it was the bigger and more prestigious bull. Either animal is beyond the immediate eating capacity of a nuclear family. Some parts may be preserved, but many parts, and all the internal organs, must be eaten immediately or distributed to neighbours or the wider family. On such an occasion, meat, that is normally eaten in very small quantities, may be eaten to and beyond satiation. A festival – feast – is characteristically such an occasion,5 and for most people the biggest such occasion is a funeral. The quantity and the specific cuts eaten by each individual at a meat-feast reflect his social status and his power. Indeed, in a peasant society, eating capacity is typically seen as a reflection of virility and prowess: of real physical power, but also symbolically as a reflection of political or social status. The underlying issues, social and economic as well as symbolic, are in no way special to Egypt. For instance, in a general comparative survey of (largely archaeological) evidence in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, Bergquist argues that the cooking and consumption of a communal meal following ritual sacrifice was normal to cult practice throughout the region.6 She notes in particular that in the classical Greek city-state, the ritual sacrifice of animals – which varied in frequency with the seasonal availability of animals – provided the normal source of meat.7 The god’s portion – ‘the inedible bones wrapped in fat’ – would be burnt, and the rest of the meat portioned and distributed in particular order to participants for roasting or boiling, and then consumption at the sanctuary as a sacral meal.8 She stresses also the characteristic evidence of food and cooking debris around Bronze Age cult places throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, a feature that

4 See above, pp. 179–80. 5 Cf. Smith, Cat. Dem. Pap. BM III, 22–23. Haring, Divine Households, 122 stresses that the Medinet Habu calendar shows only poultry as part of the ordinary daily offerings, with beef and game restricted to festival offerings. 6 In Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 11–43. 7 Cf. Detienne and Vernant, Cuisine du sacrifice, 20–22. 8 Bergquist, in Quaegebeur (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice, 13–17.

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may also be noted in New Kingdom Egypt associated with the socalled private chapels at Amarna.9 The best comparative description of such practice is provided by Goody’s analysis10 of the butchery and meat distribution associated with the formal ceremonies of the LoDagaa of Northern Ghana. His concern is to focus on the social integration of the ritual of sacrifice as a ceremony, centred on formal killing and division of the animal; to examine the context – both symbolic and socio-economic – of bloodsacrifice and slaughter, and to point to common (if not universal) cross-cultural themes. He stresses that ‘funeral ceremonies are the most elaborate of the ceremonial occasions of the LoDagaa.’11 He notes that it was in practice compulsory for the heir to sacrifice one of the beasts he inherited from his father as a funerary ceremony,12 but also, if rich enough, to sacrifice to his father on other special or regular occasions, as a return of the wealth received and in expectation of receipt himself after death from his heirs.13 Goody stresses that ‘a domestic animal is normally killed only in sacrifice, an act that counters the mystical dangers involved.’14 However, the hunting shrine, where skulls and horns of ritually dangerous animals are kept, acts as a focus for the clan, and the horns are brought out at the funeral of every adult male.15 The sacrificed animal is killed to the name of the deceased or the ancestor, and then the meat distributed in his name, to be consumed by the ‘orphans’ among whom his property and the role of father is redistributed. The theme of cannibalism is developed only in a limited way, for instance in the deliberate double entendre of the phrase ‘It’s

9 Bomann, Private Chapel, ch. 5. 10 Death, with clarification of his theoretical standpoint in Syste`mes de pensée, 9–22, and Cooking, Cuisine and Class, chapter 3 for the wider context. See also Sanday, Divine Hunger, 29, 72–77 on the Melpa and Gimi of New Guinea. The Melpa, she says, ‘substitute pig flesh for human flesh in rituals that are structurally analogous to rituals of cannibalism’, without being cannibal, whereas she takes literally parallel accounts and statements concerning similar behaviour among the Gimi. She assumes that the Melpa never, but their close neighbours the Gimi sometimes did eat human flesh. 11 Goody, Death, 11. 12 Ibid. 165–67. 13 Ibid. 399–403. 14 Ibid. 109. 15 Ibid. 110–11.

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your father’s flesh you are eating.’16 However, the distribution of the meat serves as metaphor for distribution of the roles of the deceased ancestor. Specific parts of the carcass, slaughtered at the funeral, are distributed to specific recipients: for instance, the fillet to the widow; specific legs to specific clan relatives; head, entrails and halves of the internal organs to ‘the orphans’ meal’ – the soup cooked for the children of the deceased for the day after the burial – and other internal organs to the owner of the xylophones used in the ceremony.17 The head and liver have special symbolic importance. The liver is roasted on the spot, and shared by the senior participants.18 The blood of the sacrifice is partly poured over ancestor figures, and partly added to the soup of innards for consumption on the spot. The rest of the meat is taken home, fresh, by the recipients. Comparisons rather closer to home can be made with accounts of the conduct of marginal communities in recent Egypt. Nabil Sobhi Hanna provides a sociological-anthropological account of a ghagar – ‘gypsy’ – community in Egypt,19 stressing their essentially ritual and symbolic attitude to the slaughter of animals. The ghagar are said to take a pride in not killing men in dispute – unlike other Egyptians – but killing an animal instead, the animal’s blood substituting for man’s blood. The head of the animal will then be thrown privately into the yard of the enemy, or publicly in front of him in a display and contest of public and conspicuous waste.20 Also after a death an animal is said to be sacrificed, and the body of the dead ghagar passed over the victim.21 In both cases the meat is said not to be eaten – forbidden – to the ghagar, and so distributed to non-ghagar. Joseph Hobbs provides an account of bedouin herdsmen in the Eastern Desert22 which provides a limited basis for comparison with the pre-modern Egyptian meat economy and indeed cooking practice. He stresses that the men herd the large animals – camels – while

16 Ibid. 198; 200–2; and cf. also 111–12 for the use (and explicitly limited) consumption of human liver and bones in rituals of expiation for homicides. 17 Ibid. 172–82; cf. 406–7. 18 Ibid. 114, 407. 19 Hanna, Ghagar of Sett Guiranha. 20 Ibid. 70–73. 21 Ibid. 102 22 Hobbs, Bedouin Life.

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the women look after the sheep and goats.23 Although these bedouin are stock raisers, meat is an infrequent part of their diet. An animal from the herd will only be killed on a special, typically ritual occasion: weddings, circumcisions, funerals,24 or for a very special guest, and Hobbs stresses that the animal will then be killed and dressed in church-like silence and eaten in a spirit of communion.25 However the bedouin are said to crave meat, and look for every opportunity to take game, hunting down the ibex and gazelles of the desert with essentially ‘Neolithic’ methods: traps, running the animals down with dogs, and crippling them with stones before proper ritual cutting of the throat. A meat-feast follows, in a pattern that is highly reminiscent of Old Kingdom tomb scenes showing herdsmen slaughtering and eating game in the countryside. The bedouin skin the animal, and roast the edible entrails. The liver is salted, and given to an honoured guest or divided among those present, and then the serious eating follows. The meat is mostly boiled and divided on the spot, but none of the animal is wasted. Fat and suet, which will keep, are saved to supplement the medium-term diet. Bones are broken for access to the marrow. The animal is eaten whole, apart from the stomach contents, the bones, the hide which is used for bags, and the horns which are used for knife handles.26 Hobbs also provides a description of the traditional stone cooking hearths used for baking bread, but which are also readily usable for baking strips of meat. One bedouin tribe would build a circle of small stones about eight inches across, burning the fire on top to coals before scraping the embers away to place the bread dough on top, and then re-covering it with the embers to bake. Meat ovens were simply modifications of this basic type, using larger rocks. A different group would place one large stone on three small support stones, setting the fire underneath. The large stone

23 Ibid. 33. 24 See ibid. 65–66 on continuing visiting and feasting at the grave, including the standard slaughter of an animal 40 days after burial, and leaving water and food at the grave. 25 Ibid. 34. 26 Hobbs, Bedouin Life, 41–45, 89–91.

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would then be turned and bread dough spread on the heated surface, which could then be turned back to face the coals, or buried in sand for the time needed to cook.27

27 The absence of direct charcoal-grilling of meat may at least partly be accounted for by the shortage of suitable fuel, the Eastern Desert environment having been devastated in this respect by the involvement of the bedouin themselves in commercial charcoal-burning of the native scrub woodland in the first half of this century, see Hobbs, Bedouin Life, esp. 97–102.

1

Appendix: Hieroglyphic Text Childhood, Children’s Rights and ‘Children’s Voice’ Michael Lavalette

PYRAMID TEXTS W T S Si

Pyramid of Unas, Saqqara Pyramid of Teti, Saqqara Tomb of Senwosretankh, Lisht Tomb of Siese, Dahshur

COFFIN TEXTS S1C S2C B4C G2T

Inner coffin of Meshet, Cairo 28118, Siut Outer coffin of Meshet, Cairo 28119, Siut Outer coffin of Sathedjhetep, Cairo 28086, El-Bersha Outer coffin of Iker, Turin archives (original perished), Gebelein

AUTHOR’S NOTE I present here a parallel text, to include both the Middle Kingdom copies of the Pyramid Texts not found in Sethe’s standard edition, and the Coffin Text manuscripts after de Buck, although these are only used incidentally in my discussion above. For convenience of reading, as in Sethe’s edition, these are standardised as parallel hieroglyphic texts reading from left to right, although the primary layout of the monuments is in columns reading from right to left. The text is therefore an artificial construct. I do not attempt to provide a critical apparatus, and neither individual sign form nor sign layout should be regarded as wholly reliable. Again, for convenience, I follow Sethe’s convention of giving the royal name in abbreviated form for the Pyramid Texts,

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extending this to the name of Senwosretankh when it is written fully in that form with cartouche, but transcribing it in hieroglyphs when it is written only as Senwosret without cartouche. This treats the text of the Cannibal Hymn as a literary artefact. It allows reasonably effective comparison of content, but not of form. A detailed study of the processes of textual transmission, and the relationship between the different inscriptions would require detailed collation, to present parallel copies accurate in both sign form and sign layout in the columns in which the texts are inscribed. In practice only the Pyramid of Unas is published in photographic edition, and only that of Senwosretankh in semi-facsimile. The other texts are published as standardised hand-copies, or in the case of Siese standard printed hieroglyphs. The interest of such study would be considerable, and the practical difficulties of collating the texts would not be insuperable, but they go beyond the aims and purposes of this study.

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W T S Si S1C S2C B4C

W T S Si S1C S2C B4C

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Appendix

W T S Si S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

211

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

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Appendix

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W T S S1C

W T S S1C

W T S S1C

213

214

W T S S1C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

215

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

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W T S

W T S

W T S S1C S2C

W T S

217

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

W T S

W T S

219

220

W T S

W T S

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

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Appendix

S1C S2C

S1C S2C

S1C S2C

S1C S2C

W T S

W T S

W T S S1C S2C S2C

221

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W T S S1C S2C

W T S

W T S S1C S2C

W T S

W T S S1C S2C

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W T S

W T S

W T S S1C S2C

S1C S2C

W T S S1C S2C

Baboon?

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224

W T S

W T S S1C S2C

W T S

W T S

W T S S1C S2C G2T

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Appendix

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W T S S1C S2C G2T

W T S

W T S S1C S2C G2T

W T S

225

226

W T S

W T S

W T S S1C S2C G2T

W T S

W T S S1C S2C G2T

Appendix

Appendix

S1C S2C G2T

W T S

W T S

W T S

S1C S2C G2T

S1C S2C G2T

227

228

S1C S2C G2T

S1C S2C G2T

S1C S2C G2T

S2C

S1C S2C G2T

Appendix

1

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1

General Index

Note: ‘n.’ following a page reference indicates the number of a note on the page in question. absorption 167 physical 153 of power 148–50, 155 see also magic, transfer of power Acacia-house 54, 55 actions, symbolic meaning of 55 Address to the Living 28–29, 68, 72 aetiology 156, 165n.60 Ahmes, tomb of 184 akh (3h) 64, 80, 84, 118, 123, 130, ˇ 146 make akh (s3hw) 55, 62, 64–66, ˇ 139n.9 see also ‘Verklärung’, ‘Verklärungsspruche’ equipped akh (3h jqr apr) 83, ˇ 130 Akhethotep, tomb of 88 alliteration 2, 31–32, 76, 133n.285 allusion 3, 6, 19n.40, 34n.13, 50, 69, 132, 168, 170, 174 see also wordplay

Amarna, 195n.25 private chapels at 204 temples at 184 villas at 182 Amduat 66, 67, 69, 90 Amenemhat, tomb of 92, 107 Amenemope, tomb of 172 Amenysonb 198 animal husbandry, patterns of 175–78 Ankhtifi, tomb of 44n.13, 104n.144 Antef, Coptos decree of Nubkheperre 199n.48 Antef, tomb of the General 181–82 Antefoker, tomb of 114 anthology 5, 42, 48 anthropological approach 3, 26 anthropomorphisation of divine 140 Apophis, putting on fire of 67 appearance of the king 60 aretalogy 35, 70, 155–56 ascent 45–46, 127 Aten, temple of 184, 193

General Index

ba 61, 78, 80, 82n.32, 84, 120, 121, 135, 146, 168 beheading see decapitation belly 165 see also magic blood, 99n.116, 101, 150 of birth 87 bowl for 97 catching of 97, 102 cooking, 99 drinking of 100–1, 160, 162n.46 drops of 201 extracting from the body 91n.76 flow of 86n.56, 92–93, 97–100, 102, 133, 141 in food 99, 101–02 as poison 99n.117 spillage of 183, 187 symbolism of 100, 103n.138 wading in 162n.46 boiling 112, 124n.230 Book of the Dead 19n.42 Book of the Heavenly Cow 67n.43, 69 Book of Qererets 121, 122 bones 112, 168, 184, 203, 206 burnt 121, 135 finds of, deposits of 103, 180n.26, 202n.3 for soup 58, 114 brain 114 brazier 39, 107–10, 116, 124n.230, 172, 173 bull burning 145 celestial 147 Corridor of the 144

255

of the Ennead 146, 201n.54 Great Black 94n.90 of the Island of Fire 107n.162 ka 80, 81n.24, 159n.29, of Light 146n39 of Lower Egypt 171 red 84n.46, 99n.117, 146, 156n.12, 171n.98 as Seth 91n.76, 143n.25, 146 of the Sky 60, 80, 84, 85, 96, 134n.296, 144, 150, 167 triumphant 146, 150 of the Two Lands 146n.39 of the West 94n.94, 150 fighting 81n.24, 181, 192 bull–snake 130 burning 110 of the ba 168 bull 145 of the damned 119n.214 symbolism of 107–8 burnt offerings 107–10, 121n.218, 135n.302, 171–74, 203 butcher, status of 188 calf, calves 88, 99n.116, 102, 103, 192, 195 leg of 102–3 cannibalism, credibility of accounts of 153n3, 156 canonical, canonisation 4, 13, 19, 20n.46, 23–24, 42, 61 see also standardisation, codification through listing captions 58, 59, 62, 63 carcass cooking of a whole 96n.105 dismemberment of 96, 104–5, 111, 144

256

General Index

emptying of 104–5 castrate, castration 192n.5, 197n.37 cataclysm 58, 76–77, 82, 107, 123, 142, 151, 167 ‘cattle counts’ 178–79 cattle, counting of 181 valued at 200 cauldron 111n.181, 112, 115, 116n.198, 117, 121, 122, 124n.230, 135, 161n.39, 164 celestial geography 150 censing 185 chaos 149, 158, 169–71 charter of authorisation 126–31, 142n.23, 147 chopping block 183 circling 123, 125–26 see also encircling, going round cleansing the meat 99–100 codification through listing 34 coherence in narrative 2, 138–39 see also narrative continuity complexity 149 continuity between Pyramid and Coffin Texts 15–17 of ritual knowledge 17 contradiction 138, 145 copying from monuments 22–23, 74 coregency 148 corrections 12, 14 see also errors Cow, Great Wild 151 cows, sacrifice of 192 cows of the sky, seven 146 creator, creation 79n.13, 81, 83, 134, 146, 148, 156

crowns 130, 132, 132n.282 cult associations 71 cult in the Memphite pyramid temples 17 cult song 55n.13 curse 44, 134 Darwinism, cultural 141 dating 3, 18–19 Debehni, tomb of 55 decans 78, 122 decapitation 80n.22, 93–95, 161n.39, 168, 202n.3 deer 103, 116 Deir el Medina 195–96, 200 destruction of body, soul 164 see also enemy Destruction of Mankind, myth of 148, 162 Diodorus 154, 156 distribution of meat 173–74, 190, 194, 195, 197, 205 see also gift divine birth 79 Djeserkaresonb, tomb of 93n.81, 108 dockets 114n.30, 196n.31 document 147 see also charter of authorisation door, doorway 45, 151, 187n.30 address to 44 opening of 151 of the tomb 94 see also gateways, initiation, passage double meaning 127 see also wordplay drainage facilities 102n.133, 185, 187

General Index

dramatic format 71 draught animals 177n.15 ‘drinking the word’ 165n.61 drunkenness 162n.46 duck 39, 83n.39, 93n.81, 108, 114, 184 eater-of-the-dead 164 embalming, place of 72n.68, 94n.94, 149 Embalming Ritual 63 encircling 151 see also circling, going round enemies 138, 205 destruction of 61, 95, 124n.232, 139, 141, 144, 148, 163, 167, 172 as sacrificial victim 169n.83, 170, 171n.100 entrails 172, 205, 206 epic 139 episodic structure 4–5, 58, 139 errors 12n.6, 14, 21 see also corrections Eucharist 160 eviscerate 103–4 execration texts 163 see also enemies, destruction of eye of Horus 169–71 sun’s 146, 162n.46 false door 53 family, headship of 147 fat, fats 101, 112–15, 155n.194, 121n.219, 193–96, 200, 203, 206 ferryman 151 Ferryman Spells 50n.12, 130, 149n57

257

Festivals festivals 59–60, 65, 69, 107 of the Beautiful Visit 48n.1, 69n.58, 139n.7 of the Birthday of the Aten 196n.31 of Horus at Edfu 139 New Year 162n.46, 166 of Osiris 139, 142n.21 of Opet 115, 197n.31 of the Valley 162n.46, 172 Visit of Hathor to Edfu 139n.7 popular 174 fiction, fictionality 59, 68, 71 as literary criterion 73–74 Field of Reeds 168n.82 fire 81, 82, 119, 123, 135, 136n.305, 161n.39, 164, 171, 172 see also cataclysm first-person speech 66, 70, 71, 73, 74 see also second-person address, third-person narrative fish 91n.76, 110n.177, 111, 115–17, 161–62, 179, 180n.26 sale of 195 fish-traps 161, 164 fisherman spells 77n.8, 161 flint 90 food, spirit (ka) of 82, 159, 166–67, 173 foreleg 53–54, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 97, 98, 168 offering of 103n.140 removing of 102–3, 111n.181, 128, 202

258

General Index

see also legs formulae, formulaic 2, 18, 20–1, 59, 63 frieze of objects 39n.13 funerary booths 191 funerary feast 181 funeral meal 152 gall-bladder 133 gate, 137, 201 of Heaven 60 of the Horizon 152 in pyramid temples 151n.75 gateway 81 passing through 61, 85n.50, 100n.123, 137 see also door, initiation, passage Gateway of the Flood 151 gazelles 206 gift of meat 196, 198–99 glosses 33n.10 goat 53n.4, 103, 175, 179–80 going round 125 see also encircling goose 39, 93n.81, 110 grammar of the Pyramid Texts 18n.38 green 132 grilling 106n.156, 108n.166, 110, 114, 207n.27 hand, reaching out of 128–29 see also charter of authorisation hanging, of live animals 116 of meat 103, 106n.156, 111–12, 114, 183, 187 hangovers see survivals

Hapdjefay 65n.34, 199 ‘He of the Dawn’ 130 ‘He-whose-name-is-hidden’ 85n.49, 136n.304 head 53, 86n.56, 92–95, 97, 102, 184, 202n.3, 203, 205 bull’s 96, 193n.13 forcing down of 88–89 in funerary deposits 94 as joint 93n85–86, 104n.150 removed 86n.56 ‘reserve heads’ 96 severing the 92–93 see also decapitation, restoration of the head heart 53, 81n.26, 105, 165, 168 removing of 90, 91, 128, 133 hearth, hearthstones 115, 117, 122, 123, 206 heir, heirship, heritage 131, 141–44, 147, 171 of Geb 84 Hekaib, sanctuary of 199 Hekanakhte 159, 177 Hell, visions of 164 herds, herding 106n.156, 175–77, 196 herdsmen 178–79, 194n.24 Herimeru, architrave of 128–29 Herodotus 154 Hetepherakhet, tomb of 88 High Culture, Egypt as a 153–54, 158n.23 hippopotamus, ritual killing of 91n.76, 100n.120, 104n.150, 171 hobble 86 homophony 2, 32, 79, 83, 124, 162 see also wordplay

General Index

horns 86, 88, 89, 99n.116, 145, 206 House of the Knife 189 human sacrifice 134n.294, 154, 160n.35, 162–63 hunt, hunting 49, 140–42, 145, 192–93, 206 hygiene, 188n.39 hymn, morning at Edfu 59n.5 see also cult song hymns, style of 65 ibex 206 Ibi, tomb of 108 iconic 36–39, 59, 62, 63, 137 identification of limbs with gods 145n.35, 153n.1 Idu, tomb of 106n.156 Ikhekhi, tomb of 104n.144 incense 107, 119, 173 incest 155 inheritance, ritual of 192 see also heir initiate, initiation 68, 70–72, 110n.177, 161n.39, 162 see also door, gateway, passage initiatory religion 50 innards 97n.106, 103–5, 105n.153, 112, 125n.237, 131 see also intestines integration of actions and words 25–30 passim internal organs 203, 205 intestines 104, 125 see also innards inundation 162n.46 investment in cattle 177 invocation 60, 62, 65, 110, 126 Island of Fire 81–83, 119, 147, 151

259

see also Bull of the Iymery, tomb of 106, 115 Judgement of the Dead see BoD Spell 125 ka 79, 82, 84, 159, 167 ka-priest 188 Kaemsenu, inscription of, 190n.46 Kahun letters 194 Kamose stela 175 Karnak, temple of Amenophis I, 185 Khendjer, decree of King 198 Khentika, tomb of 98 Kheruef, inscription of 125n.235 Khuy, tomb of 29n.14 kidneys 114 king-murder, ritual 155 knots 85n.52 know, knowledge 27, 66–67, 71–72, 78n.12, 118n.205, 166 ladder 151 Ladder of the Sky 126–27 lasso, lassoing 88, 89, 144, 147, 161n.39, 167 layout 11–14, 209 lector priest see ritualist legs 205 see also foreleg Litany of Re 67n.43, 69, 110n.177, 134n.296, 148 literary form 138–39 liver 104, 114, 201, 205, 206 local traditions 16, 25n.1 lungs 132, 133 Luxor, temple of Amenophis III at 110

260

General Index

maat 138, 143n.27, 156n.11 magic 29–30, 34, 66, 84, 85, 118, 127, 130, 145n.35, 146–47, absorption through eating 29–30, 123, 134, 164–65 in belly 130, 133n.292 eating 164–66 as food 82, possession of 27 magical spells 168 magician 134n.286, 147, 199 manuscript tradition 11–13, 20n.44, 23–24 marginal class, herdsmen as 178 communities 205 land 175 scenes as 178 slaughter as 179 market 191, 193 scenes 194 marshes, activities in 115–17, 175 meals 118, 151–52 meaning, double 127 multiple 76 see also pun, wordplay meat, sun-drying of 183 jwf dr 112, 193 see also hanging, preservation Medinet Habu 185 calendar 203n.5 Meketre, models of 89, 105n.152, 113–14, 115, 181–83, 187, 188 Menkheper, tomb of 106n.152 Mereri, tomb of 129 Merire, tomb of 184 Mereruka, mastaba of 186 metaphor 34, 45, 50, 56, 76, 83, 85, 101, 112n.183, 123, 137, 138, 141, 145, 155, 173–74

cannibalism as 158–60 mixing of 150 Metjen, tomb of 91n.74 might, heritage on basis of 143 and right 143–44 milk 194, 195, 200 production 176–77 Montuherkhopeshef, tomb of 93n.81, 107, 172 Montuhotep, tomb of 108–09 Montuwoser, Steward 197 myth, as entertainment 139 narrative and 33–34, 64, 69–70, 83, 142n.21, 153 origins of 137–41 relationship between ritual and 3, 34n.14, 69, 142n.21 mythological citations 33n.10, 52n.2 mythologisation of actions and natural phenomena 50, 51, 85, 123, 137, 141 name, naming 34, 78n.12, 137, 147 narrative continuity 4–5, 27, 32, 41–42, 43, 47, 56, 76, 138–39 see also coherence in narrative, sequences of spells, textual units Neb-kaw-her, tomb of 106n.158 Neferirkare, pyramid temple of 186 sun temple of 136, 186, 189 Neferronpet 177 Nefri 13, 14, 15, 16 Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, tomb of 116, 117 Niwinwtjer, tomb of 189

General Index

offal 114, 114n.189 offering lists 52, 53, 93, 107n.165, 110n.177 Opening of the Mouth 25n.2, 39n.15, 52, 54, 93n.81, 94n.94, 102, 103n.137, 121, 128, 140n.14, 150, 188, 191 oral dictation 13 genres 4 medium 19n.40 performance 59, 68, 73–74 tradition 17–18, 21 ordering of spells on Middle Kingdom coffins 149 oryx 102n.136, 104n.150, 169 decapitation of 93 Osiris ‘mysteries’ 75 ovens 106n.156, 184, 206 Paneb 177 Panehsy, tomb of 184 P. Berlin 3110 178n.17 P. Boulaq 11 94. P. Bremner-Rhind 67 P. BM 10401 176n.5 P. Greg 196n.33 passage 2, 5, 46, 57, 61, 70–72, 83, 126n.244, 137, 145–51 rites of, rituals of 44n.13, 50, 64–65, 141, 142, 146, 149, 191 see also door, initiation, gateways pig 99n.116, 100n.122, 175, 179–80, 197, 203, 204n.10 plough animals 177 poetic, poeticality 1, 2, 31–35, 59, 76, 79, 145n.34

261

poetry, referential mode in 138 poultry cooking of 117 slaughter of 107n.165, 115, 179 as daily offering 203n.5 see also duck, goose prayer 49, 59, 67, 68 preservation, processing of fish 111, 161 of meat 111–14, 193, 195n.25 protection spells 45 Ptahshepses, tomb of 187n.29, 188, 194n.24 pun, punning 52n.2, 54, 76, 80, 81n.26, 131, 132, 134, 136n.305, 159, 166, 169, 171n.103, 173n.114, 193 see also wordplay punishment, ritualisation of 162 purity, purification 72, 100, 107, 173n.119, 180n.26 see also hygiene quality of the individual joint 202 quantity of consumption 202, 203 Qar, tomb of 88 Ramesses III, tomb of 114 Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus 15, 39n.15, 41n.1, 56n.16, 63, 140n.14, 192 Ramesseum Papyrus E 53n.4 Raneferef, pyramid temple of 183 rear leg 88, 89, 103, 104 rebirth 148–51, 160 red 88, 101, 132n.282 beer 162

262

Index

men 156n.12 pots, ceremony of breaking the 191 see also bull, red reification 2, 14, 22, 27, 37, 62, 137 reintegration of the dead 149–50 reinterpretation 23–24, 49, 62 reserve heads 96 restoration of the body 52 of the head 80, 94–96 see also head resurrection 2, 43, 44–46, 47, 50–51, 64, 66, 72, 78, 80, 84, 95, 127, 138, 145–46, 162n.46, 167 see also rebirth, passage reversal of butchery 95 ritual of Amenophis 110 continuity 60–61, 63 coronation 125, 149, 166, 173n.119, 191 daily ritual 70 Mut 70 pacify Sekhmet 101n.124, 162n.46 of passage see passage private 49, 71, 72 for the statue 65 ‘Temple Consecration’ 93n.81 unit/sequence 13–14, 42–43, 58, 59, 62 ritualist (Xrj-Hb) 55, 65, 188–89 roasting 124n.230 Sankhwiptah, tomb of 166 Sarenput, autobiography of 198 Satire on the Trades 178 second-person address 66, 70, 73

see also first-person speech, third-person narrative secular butchery 181 Seneb, tomb of 107n.165 Senet, tomb of 106n.156 Senmut 19n.42, tomb of 146 sequences of spells 44–47 passim, 61–62, 77 see also narrative continuity, textual units Seshemnefer, tomb of 187 Sesostris II, pyramid of 194 Seth, mark of 160n.35 as sacrificial animal 170–71 Sety I, Abydos temple of 87n.58 butchers’ court at 89n.66, 107n.165, 115 Corridor of the Bull at Abydos 144 shadows 120, 121 sheep 175, 179n.19, 180, 197, 206 Shesmu the butcher 77n.8, 82n.34, 90, 91, 214n.230 singing and dancing 55, 106–7 skin, skinning 104, 184, 194, 206 Snakebite 97n.110, 99n.117 Sokar Chapel at Dendera 38n.3 soup 58, 114, 131, 135, 205 staff of old age 148 standardisation 22 see also canonical, canonisation star 122–23, 150 fixed 119n.215 king as 167 statue, rites for 61–62, 65, 110 stockyard (ahyt) 193, 196n.31 ˇ Story of Blinding of Truth 178

Index

of the Eloquent Peasant 144n.28 of Horus and Seth 69, 87, 95n.94, 156n.14, 178 of Isis and Re 78n.12 of the Shipwrecked Sailor 82, 83n.39, 143n.24 of Sinuhe 54–55 of the Two Brothers 177, 201 stove 113–14, 115, 115n.193, 119, 122 structuralism, structuralist approach 138n.2, 142 succession 192 see also heir sun as a child 87n.58 cycle of 50 hymns for 19n.42, 68n.49, 146 passage of 149 survivals 141, 154 swallow 160–61, 165, 166 syncretism 153 taboo 93, 99n.117 tethering stones 183, 184, 186, 187 textual units 16–17, 46 see also narrative continuity, sequences of spells textual criticism 16, 20, 22, 76 thematic groupings see textual units third-person narrative 66, 73, 74 see also first-person speech, second-person address Ti, tomb of 97, 117

263

Tjeti, tomb of 187 traders 194 transfer of authority see heirship transfer of power 56, 85, 112n.183, 123, 141, 145–48, 171 see also absorption of magic through eating transformation, transfiguration 62, 64–65, 83, 130, 131–36, 141, 143, 148 transmission of power 167 trial between Horus and Seth 143n.25 Uraeus, Uraei 80, 83, 86, 119, 173 ‘Verklärung’ 19n.42, 62n.19, 64–65, ‘Verklärungsspruche’ 62, 65 see also akh vomiting 97n.110 Voyage of the Libyan Goddess 69–70 Voyage to Sais 143n.25 Wahkare Akhtoy 13, 14, 15, 16 water 183, 184, 187 wax figures 160n.35, 173 Wepwawetaa 198 West of Thebes, temples of 196 windpipe 92 wine 101, 160, 162n.46, 169n.88 metaphor with 87n.58 winepress 91n.76 women, role in meat preparation 124n.231

264

Index

look after sheep and goats 206 wordplay 19n.40, 31–33, 81n.25, 83, 87, 88n.59, 90, 105n.153, 123–26, 130n.272, 132, 135, 144n.30, 145, 167n.77,

192n.10, 197 see also alliteration, homophony, pun, meaning world-order, creation of 138, 160

1

Index of Passages

Note: all page references in this index appear in bold type. EGYPTIAN TEXTS Ägyptische Lesestücke 74, 14–23 198n.41 Ägyptische Lesestücke 76, 13–14 198n.42 Ägyptische Lesestücke 76, 19–20 198n.44 Ägyptische Lesestücke 79, 7–14 197n.37 Ägyptische Lesestücke 93, 4–6 65n.34 Ägyptische Lesestücke 93, 22–94, 7 199n.49 Ägyptische Lesestücke 94, 18–19 65n.34 Ägyptische Lesestücke 95, 5, 13–15 65n.34 Ägyptische Lesestücke 97, 4–14 194n.22 Ägyptische Lesestücke 98, 13 & 23 199n.48 Ahmose Stela (El Kab) 128n.259 Amenemope XXI, 20 164n.56 Ani 7, 9–11 165n.61 7, 16–17 173n.119

Aswan Museum Stela 1373 163n.48, 199n.47 ASAE 43 (1943) 503 29n14 BoD 17 105n.154, 122n.221, 164n.57 BoD 17, 62–63 91n.76, 161n.39 BoD 28 103n.138 BoD 43 95n.95 BoD 83, 6 89n.69 BoD 105 159 BoD 110 168n.82 BoD 125 71, 100n.121, 161n.39 BoD 134 100n.120 BoD 144 100n.123 BoD 151 68n.50, 95n.95, 145n.35, 180n.26 BoD 153 161n.40 BoD 163 66n.41 BoD 166 95n.95, 95n.97 BoD 175 77n.5, 82 BM 128 [152] 29n.14 Cairo CG 20003 29n.14 Cairo CG 34002 128n.259 Cairo CG 42236 128n.259 Cairo JE 85647 95n.95

266

Index of Passages

Coffin Texts Spell 22 21n.46 Spell 37 82 Spells 38–40 81n.32 Spell 74 81n.32 Spell 78 127n.250 Spell 80 95n.95, 156n.14 Spells 131–46 147 Spell 158 180n.25 Spell 162 55n.14, 73n.72 Spell 229 94n.94 Spell 231 25n.2 Spell 240 94.94 Spell 261 134n.296 Spell 313 143 Spell 335 164 Spell 335b 90 Spell 390 94n.94 Spell 398 126n.244 Spells 453–54 165n.62 Spell 469 118, 130, 165n.59 Spell 470 130n.271 Spell 473 77n.8 Spells 473–81 91n.76, 161n.40 Spell 482 129 Spell 550 126 Spell 574 83–84 Spell 575 84n.46 Spell 619 107n.162, 144n.33, 167n.72 Spells 621–22 107n.161, 144n.33 Spell 622 107n.162, 167n.72 Spells 640–45 150 Spell 648 87n.58 Spell 657 165n.62 Spell 660 95 Spell 1130 85n.50

CT I 37a–d 95n.95 38g 95n.95 41h 94n.94 72 95n.96 123 82n.34 148b–50b 82n.34 157–76 82n.34 160i–62c 81n.32 171a 91n.76 364/5c–66/7a 81n.32 CT II 21c–d 127n.250 42 156n.14 151–205 147 174i–n 189n.45 362c 180n.25 393b–94a 129n.265 CT III 119a 134n.296 158c–59d 118n.207 161c–d 118n.206 167d–e 118n.206 294f 94n.94 295h–96d 94n.94 299d 25n.2 304g–305a 165n.62 321d 82n.35 323a–24f 94n.94 383a 118n.207 386b 134n.296 CT IV 180o–81d 11n.4 315e 90 321e–23d 164n.57 CT V 15–17 130n.271 60–64 94n.94 152a–c 126n.243 159c–d 130

Index of Passages

214c 121n.217 255n 121n.217 322e 165n.62 322i–j 165n.62 324b 165n.62 325c–d 165n.62 387–98 130n.272, 165n.59 390b–91l 130n.273 398–400 129n.267, 130n.271 CT VI 3–47 161n.40 8a 77n.8 8d–9a 124n.230 25d 87n.57 25s 87n.57 29c 87n.57 29d–e 161n.41 32a–j 161n.42 33c–e 162n.44 33m 87n.57 40 110n.177 50–52 129n.265 180 124n.232 181a 131n.278 183e 164n.58 183j–84f 83n.42 261–265 150n.67–71 268l 134n.296 268o 134n.295 270 87n.58 270d–e 80n.19 270v–x 83n.40 278 165n.62 280n–q 95n.98 282p–r 118n.206 283j 118n.209 283–85 110n.177 CT VII 190h 124n.232 262b–c 85n.50

267

262b–i 83n.42 470b–71g 83n.42 470d 85n.50 Dram Texte 196, 83d 84n.44 HO XXVI, 3, vs. 4–11 195n.29 H . ek.anakhte Papers, pl. 5, 27–28 159n.26 pl.10 177n.11 Hymnen an das Diadem hymn g, 15, 2 94n.94 16, 34 94n.94 Kestner Museum 1935.200.445 KRI I, 69 80n.19 388, 1 128n.258 KRI V, 437–48 196n.33 KRI VI, 23, 9–10 81n.30 KRI VII, 389–94 194n.23 Lebensmuder 80–81 118n.209 LEM 104, 16–105, 2 178n.20 LES 10, 12–16 177n.12 11, 1–5 177n.12 13, 1–9 177n.12 15, 1–5 177n.12 19, 3 201n.54 24, 3–26, 15 201n.54 26, 7–15 101n.130 33, 14–35, 11 178n.18 37, 6 143 43, 10–13 178n.21 49, 12–50, 5 94n.94 50, 11 88n.59 57, 6–14 156n.13 LRL 63, 13–15 195n.28 64, 8 128n.258

268

Index of Passages

Moaalla, IV, 15–17 159n.25 Mundöffnungsritual I texts 23 I a–b 128n.260 43 a–b 128n.260 O. Armitage 1–6 168n.81 O. Berlin 12337 195n.26 O. DM 46, 15, vs. 9–11 195n.27 P. Berlin 10014 194n.22 P. Berlin10016 194n.20 P. Berlin 10017 194n.21 P. Berlin 10050 194n.22 P. Bremner-Rhind 23, 15–16 67n.47 26, 11–21 172n.107 P. Brooklyn 47.218+85, 5 & 25–26 99n.117 P. Brooklyn 67118 95n.95 P. Ch. B. II, 7, 1–10, 178n.18 P. Ch. B. III, 9, 18 100n.120 P. Ch. B. V, rt.4, 10–6, 4 94n.92 P. Ch. B. V, vs.4, 10–6, 4 168n.80 P. Ch. B. VIII, rt.9, 10–11, 5 171n.106 P. Ch. B. VIII, vs.10, 10 180n.26 P. Ch. B. IX, rt.2, 13–3, 7 110n.175 P. Ebers 39, 17–19 99n.116 P. Jumilhac 2, 18–20 163n.46 2, 19 101n.128 3, 11 101n.128, 163n46 10, 20–11, 15 94n.94 11, 19–22 94n.94 16, 12–13 168n.84 20, 20 99n.117 22, 11 101n.128, 163n.46

23, 16 101n.128, 163n.46 P. Lansing 6, 3–4 178n.20 P. Leiden I, 350, vs. I, x&16, 20 194n.23 vs. II, 5 176n.5 vs. II, 15, 25 194n.23 vs. III, 23 176n.5 vs. II, 5 176n.5 vs. IV, 20–21 176n.5 P. Westcar 1, 12–17 190n.46, 199n.45 4, 12–17 190n.46, 199n.45 6, 17–22 190n.46, 199n.45 7, 2–3 199n.46 7, 4 94n.94 8, 11–9, 1 94n.94 Peas B320 94n.94 R18, 1–5 129n.269 Pyramid Texts Spells 13–18 52 Spells 14–20 52n.2 Spell 23 52n.2 Spell 25 52n.2 Spell 32 52n.2 Spells 23–171 45n.15 Spells 34–196 52n.2 Spell 106 169 Spells 107–204 169 Spells 166 152n.80 Spell 170 152n.80 Spell 172 152n.80 Spell 175 152n.80 Spell 181 152n.80 Spell 185 152n.80 Spell 191 152n.80 Spell 191 152n.80 Spell 199 152n.80 Spell 201 152n.80 Spells 203–4 152n.80

Index of Passages

Spells 207–8 152n.80 Spells 211–12 152n.80 Spell 218 152n.80 Spell 219 170 Spells 204–12 45n.16 Spells 223–24 45n.16 Spell 213 145n.35 Spells 213–15 43 Spells 213–19 45n.17 Spell 215 167 Spells 219–22 45n.17, 45.18 Spell 246 145n.34 Spell 251 96n.101, 145n.34 Spell 253 126 Spell 254 77n.6, 80, 95–96, 214n.232, 145n.34, 150n.66, 167 Spells 254–57 144 Spells 255–60 77n.6 Spell 260 84n.46 Spells 260–76 61n.18 Spells 269–75 61 Spell 270 167n.78 Spells 270–72 61 Spell 299 124n.232 Spells 306–07 144n.33, 145n.34 Spell 313 43 Spell 314 77 Spells 313–17 77 Spell 318 80n.21 Spells 318–20 145n.34 Spell 325 151n.73 Spells 336–37 145n.34 Spell 355 41n.1 Spells 399–40 61 Spell 409 118 Spell 412 82, 150n.71 Spell 441 125n.239 Spell 442 127

269

Spell 447 82n.37 Spell 456 127 Spell 472 77n.4 Spell 477 168, 170 Spell 478 126–27 Spell 480 82n.37 Spell 488 145n.34 Spell 503 77n.4 Spell 508 145n.34 Spell 509 77n.4 Spell 511 77n.4 Spell 532 44 Spell 539 59n.5 Spell 573 59n.5 Spell 580 56–57, 91n.76, 111, 123, 145n.34, 171n.98 Spell 581 91n.76 Spell 593 127n.251 Spell 600 21n.44 Spell 627 77n.6 Spell 665 161 Spell 670 145n.34 Spell 678 133n.292 Spell 691 78n.9 Pyr §9b–10c 52n.2, 94n.94 Pyr §§31–38 169n.87 Pyr §69a–c 169n.89 Pyr §78a–79d 169n.91 Pyr §121c–d 118n.206 Pyr §123a–c 123–24 Pyr §§134–35 145n.35 Pyr §150b 87n.57 Pyr §§188–92 45n.18, Pyr §188b–c 170n.92 Pyr §189b–c 170n.92 Pyr §190b–c 170n.92 Pyr §191b–c 170n.92 Pyr §192b–c 170n.93 Pyr §193a–c 170n.94 Pyr §214b–c 189

270

Index of Passages

Pyr §227a 94n.90 Pyr §243 132n.282 Pyr §§264–65 81n.30 Pyr §§267–68 131n.275 Pyr §270 167n.78 Pyr §275e 126n.245 Pyr §276 77n.6, 107n.161, 173n.119 Pyr §278a 124n.232, 167n.73 Pyr §280 77n.6 Pyr §286 77n.6, 80n.22, 95n.99, 126n.245 Pyr §286d 167n.74 Pyr §§290–93 170n.96 Pyr §291d–92d 167n.75 Pyr §292–93 77n.6, 81n.24, 101 Pyr §293b 96n.101 Pyr §§295–99 173n.119 Pyr §308 84n.47 Pyr §312 84n.47 Pyr §390b 127n.253 Pyr §396d 167n.74 Pyr §407c 167n.73 Pyr §438b 86n.56 Pyr §444c 1124n.232 Pyr §451c 87n.57 Pyr §453b 87n.57 Pyr §473c 126n.245 Pyr §§474–75 131n.276 Pyr §477a–b 166n.68 Pyr §§478b–79a 127 Pyr §481 96n.101, 145n.34 Pyr §486 145n.34 Pyr §§490–91 131n.275 Pyr §502a–b 151n.72 Pyr §511a 146n.43 Pyr §511a–12d 80n.21, 170n.96 Pyr §513a 146n.39, Pyr §513a–c 146n.41,

Pyr §516 170n.96 Pyr §§525–29 60n.11 Pyr §551d–e 124n.230 Pyr §572a 41n.2 Pyr §572c–d 151n.72 Pyr §655c 127n.253 Pyr §717a–b 118n.206 Pyr §721c 95n.95 Pyr §§721–22 82 Pyr §§721–33 150n71 Pyr §724d 127n.253 Pyr §727a 151n.72 Pyr §728a 127n.253 Pyr §732a 125n.238 Pyr §747a 151n.74 Pyr §756c 151n.74 Pyr §§796–99 151n.74 Pyr §818a 125n.238 Pyr §818c 119n.215 Pyr §819a–20a 127n.254 Pyr §820 87n.58, 101n.128 Pyr §854a 87n.58 Pyr §856c–e 127n.252 Pyr §§855–56 66n.40 Pyr §873c 151n.74 Pyr §876c 151n.74 Pyr §889d 146n.39 Pyr §962a–63b 90, 95n.96 Pyr §966a–e 168n.83 Pyr §990b–c 127n.253 Pyr §997a 127n.253 Pyr §998 145n.34 Pyr §§978–80 126n.247 Pyr §992a–c 166n.68 Pyr §1025a–d 151n.72 Pyr §§1025–28 30n.19 Pyr §1026 60n.11, 94n.94 Pyr 1080a–b 119n.215 Pyr §1082 87, 101n.128 Pyr §§1110–13 145n.34

Index of Passages

Pyr §§1132–37 60n.11 Pyr §1141a 131n.279 Pyr §1204b 125n.238 Pyr §1209a 78n.10 Pyr §§ 1211–12 94n.94 Pyr §1220b 119n.215 Pyr §1279c 169n.87 Pyr §1286 170n.96 Pyr §1286c 101n.131 Pyr §1318c 133n.292 Pyr §§1322–26 30n.19 Pyr §1327a 126n.245, 128n.257 Pyr §1450 171n.104 Pyr §§1450–51 169n.87 Pyr §§ 1459–60 132n.282, 132n.283, 133 Pyr §1464 101n.128 Pyr §§1496a–98c 126n.247 Pyr §§1543–50 111, 171n.98, 200n.53 Pyr §1545 123 Pyr §1550a–b 56 Pyr §1552a 91n.76 Pyr §1627 127 Pyr §1726 60n.11 Pyr §1763b–c 126n.247 Pyr §1876d 167n.77 Pyr §1899e 161, 170n.96 Pyr §1905a–b 161 Pyr §1906d 90n.71 Pyr §1907 170n.96 Pyr §1907b 161 Pyr §1927d 90n.71 Pyr §§1976–78 145n.34 Pyr §§2120–25 78n.9 Pyr §2127c–d 101n.131 Pyr §2194b–c 189n.45 Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus 42–43 94n.94

47 99

271

94n.94 94n.94

I Setna 4, 3–4 165n.61 Sinuhe B 193–96 54–55 B 195–96 189n.34 B 271–72 132 Urk I 50, 1–9 144n.28 75, 8–12 28n.12 76, 5–13 28n.12 122, 15–16 134 143, 1–3 118n.205 150, 13–151, 3 197n.36 151, 1–3 180n.26 175, 12 187n.30, 190n.46 186, 14–15 26n.4 187, 4–6, 13–17 26n.4 197, 11–18 29n.14 202, 2 27n.5 15–17 26n.4 15–203, 3 28n.13 223, 17–224, 189 28n.13 Urk IV 1020, 6–1021, 10 177n.13 1656, 6–7 125n.238 Urk V 1–99 161n.39 60, 8 & 14 105n.154 61, 4 & 12 105n.154 60–61 122n.221 Urk VI 62 152n.79 Urk VII 5, 17–21 199n.39 LATIN AND GREEK TEXTS Dio Cassius 72, 4, 1–5 157n.22 Diodorus I, 88 156n.12

272

Index of Passages

Herodotus II, 45 157n.21 45–48 180n.25 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis VI, 5–7 29n.17 Isocrates, Busiris 5–7 157n.21

38–39 157n.21 Juvenal, Satire 15, 72–92 157n.20 99–106 159n.25 PGM IV, 26–51 100n.120