Probabilidades de identidad teóricas y empíricas

t is with genuine respect and gratitude that I dedicate this short article to William Kelly Simpson, who not only has been very kind toward me for many years but also gave me an opportunity to study the stelae in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, many years ago.

Hence, I thought it appropriate to offer him a study of a new stela in a volume presented in his honor.

During a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, I was shown a stela belonging to a private collector. I wish to thank the owner of the stela, who wishes to remain anonymous, for permission to publish the piece, and Professor N.B. Millet, Curator of the Egyptian Department at the Royal Ontario Museum, for bringing the stela to my attention (see figs. 1–2).¹

Description

The rectangular limestone stela is generally in good condition; the surface was carefully prepared and is smooth and even. There is some chipping at the top left corner, and a break on the lower left, by the chair and the owner’s legs and feet, has been repaired. Parts of the stela have been resurfaced with plaster in modern times. The colors red, black, blue, green, and yellow are visible. The design and the hieroglyphs are done in sunk relief. The actual stone measures 57.2 cm by 41.5 cm, and is 4.4 cm thick. However, the measurements of the design itself are noteworthy. The whole of the representation, from the top of the kheker-frieze to the lower horizontal incised and painted frame below the figures measures 52 cm, which is one cubit,² while the distance below the kheker-frieze and the bottom of the lower frame is 44.7 cm,

1 Photograph by A. Hollet, Royal Ontario Museum; drawing by B.E. Ibronyi.

2 Not an unusual length for a stela; see the remarks by William Kelly Simpson, “The Stew-ard Iey’s Son Anhurhotpe in Vienna (Stela Inv. 90) and the Reisner Papyri,” SAK 11 (1984), p. 161. On the cubit and its divisions, see Susan K. Doll, Egypt’s Golden Age. The Art of Living in the New Kingdom, 1558–1085 B.C. (Boston, 1982), p. 59, and the references there.

I

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which is a short cubit (6 palms); the kheker-frieze itself is 7.4 cm, which is 1 palm; the first two registers of text measure 3.4 cm while the last two measure 3.5 cm, which are short spans of 2 fingers;³ and the lower scene with the figures measures 26.2 cm, which is close to half a cubit.

The kheker-frieze at the top, the round ties of which are painted red, is outlined in black. Below that, and framing the top and sides of the rep-resentation, is a border of colored rectangles painted red, save for the upper right corner rectangle, which is blue.⁴ The incised horizontal lines that frame this design show traces of blue paint in the cuts, while the short vertical incised lines that separate the red rectangles are black.

Below this are four horizontal registers of text. The background for this section shows traces of yellow color, while the individual signs are painted green,⁵ much of which is preserved. The incised cuts that divide the four registers of text are black.

The text, done in the customary rightward orientation, consists of two offering formulas and an additional caption. These read:

(1) An offering that the king gives (to) Osiris, lord of Ankh-tawy,⁶ that he may give invocation-offerings of [bread]⁷ and beer, oxen and fowl, alabaster (vessels) and cloth, (2) incense and oil, and everything good and pure on which a god lives, (3) for the spirit of the Soldier of the Town Regiment Ankh-ib⁸ born of Dedet-Nebu⁹ true-of-voice.

(4) An offering that the king gives (to) Osiris, lord <of Abydos?>, for the spirit of the Commander in Chief of the Local Regiment Sa-Montu¹⁰ repeating life, born of It-en-itef.¹¹

3 A finger is 3.8 cm. One can easily imagine a craftsman with a wooden cubit rod that has notched, or even painted, markers for the various measurements; quick markings on the stone on his part may produce short or long measurements, depending on the width of his cubit rod’s markers.

4 The upper left corner rectangle shows no trace of paint today.

5 The one exception is the last part of the name It-en-itef, where, because the background color was not prepared in yellow below the text register, the n-¡t≠f portion of the name appears in blue.

6 For the epithet, see especially Hartwig Altenmüller, LÄ I (Wiesbaden, 1973), cols. 266–

67; Joachim Spiegel, Die Götter von Abydos: Studien zum ägyptischen Synkretismus (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 16–23, and the convenient list of references given on p. 174.

7 The surface of the stone to the right of the prt-∞rwgroup, where the bread loaf hieroglyph might have been engraved, is chipped and has been repaired with plaster in modern times.

8 Ranke, PN I, 62:23.

9 Ranke, PN I, 403:14.

10 Ranke, PN I, 282:7.

11 Ranke, PN I, 50:21.

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And before the seated man:

The Soldier of the Town Regiment, Sa-Montu true-of-voice, (2) born of Ibi¹² true-of-voice.¹³

Below this is a scene where three people are shown. At the left is the seated figure of a man facing right. He wears a short bag wig that leaves his ears uncovered, the inside of which is outlined in blue. His face is outlined in red while his small beard, eyebrow, and the outline of the eye are black; there is also red paint in the corner and the inside lower edge of the eye. His collar is green and his skin is outlined in red. He wears a short kilt, which is also outlined in red. His right hand extends toward the offering table before him and his left holds a lotus flower up to his nose;¹⁴ the flower is outlined in blue and the stem is also blue. He is seated on a low-backed chair; its seat and cushion are outlined in red, while its animal’s legs, which are painted black, rest on truncated cone-shaped limestone supports outlined in red.¹⁵ Under the chair is a tall alabaster jar painted red with a black string seal at the top.

Before him is a table of offerings outlined in red and piled with, from bottom to top and left to right, a conical and a round loaf of bread, a calf’s head,¹⁶ a red leg of beef, ribs, leeks, and a blue-painted fig. Save for the fig and the leg of beef, all the offerings are outlined in red, with some black details. Under the table are two tall jars on stands, painted red except for the clay cone sealings on their tops, which show diagonal incised stripes painted black; the sealing on the left does not cover the rim of the jar.

On the right are two figures. At the top is a woman seated facing left, with one knee raised. Her left arm rests on her knee while her right holds a blue lotus flower to her nose. She wears a long black wig, through which the outline of her shoulder and arms can be seen,¹⁷ a green collar, and she is outlined in red.

12 Ranke, PN I, 20:7.

13 Note the two proper feminine forms of the adjective “true” for the women’s names.

14 On the motif of the lotus flower and its connotations of rebirth, see especially Philippe Derchain, “Le lotus, la mandragore et le perséa,” CdE 50 (1975), pp. 65–86; Michel Mal-aise, “La position de la femme sur les stèles du Moyen Empire,” SAK 5 (1977), pp. 189–91;

and Gay Robins, “Problems in Interpreting Egyptian Art,” DE 17 (1990), pp. 50–51.

15 On these, see Edward Brovarski, “A Stela of the First Intermediate Period from Naga-ed-Dêr,” Medelhavsmuseet Bulletin 18 (1983), p. 5.

16 Note the slit for the eye, as opposed to the more customary open-eyed design; cf. stelae CG 20054 and 20737, and MFA 72.768 (= Ronald J. Leprohon, CAA MFA Boston 2 Stelae 1 [Mainz, 1985], p. 2,8) for similar treatments of the calf’s eye.

17 Curiously, the outline of the woman’s raised leg can also be seen through her dress.

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On the lower right, a servant stands, facing left. His hair is short, his skin red, and he wears a stiff projecting kilt, which is outlined in red.

Both arms are raised toward the stela owner, and his right hand holds a tall alabaster jar painted red with black sealing string. A black base line under the servant figure and the offerings probably represents a mat. The entire scene is bordered at the bottom by a red band at the top and a yellow band at the bottom, the incised framing lines of which are black.

Commentary Dating

The design at the top of the stela helps in determining a date in the late Middle Kingdom for the piece, as the kheker-frieze is typical of late Twelfth or early Thirteenth Dynasty stelae.¹⁸ Some iconographic details also place the stela within the period of the late Middle Kingdom: the man’s bag wig, with exposed ears, occurs most frequently during the reigns of Amenemhat III and IV;¹⁹ the motif of a man smelling a lotus flower appears first during the reign of Amenemhat II but attains its greatest popularity during the reign of Amenemhat III;²⁰ and the woman shown squatting, with one knee drawn up, is mostly found in the reign of Amenemhat III.²¹

The terminology of the offering formula also points to the same date. The relevant features are the introductory phrase written in the standard Middle Kingdom, but pre-Dynasty Fourteen, fashion;²² the writing of the divine name Osiris without a determinative,²³ and with a stroke under the eye;²⁴ the epithet nb ™n∞ t£wy for Osiris;²⁵ the verb d¡≠f in the phrase d¡≠fprt-∞rw, “that he may give (invocation-offerings);”²⁶ the inverted hoe sign in the word mr¢t;²⁷ and the epithet w¢m-™n∞

applied to the deceased, a designation that is first met in the Sinai in-scriptions in the reign of Amenemhat III.²⁸ These criteria suggest a date

18 See William Kelly Simpson’s remarks in “Acquisitions in Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1970–71,” The Connoisseur 179:720 (1972), p. 116; cf. also stela Fitzwilliam E.207 (= Janine Bourriau, Pharaohs and Mortals.

Egyptian Art in the Middle Kingdom [Cambridge, 1988], cat. no. 39, p. 50), from the reign of Amenemhat III onward.

19 Rita E. Freed, “Representation and Style of Dated Private Stelae of Dynasty XII”

(Master’s thesis, New York University, 1976), p. 59.

20 Ibid., p. 47.

21 Ibid., p. 45.

22 Paul C. Smither, “The Writing of ¢tp-d¡-nsw in the Middle and New Kingdoms,” JEA 25 (1939), pp. 34–37; Gloria Rosati, “Note e proposte per la datazione delle stele del Medio Regno,” Or Ant 19 (1980), p. 271.

23 C.J.C. Bennett, “Growth of the ¢tp-d¡-nswFormula in the Middle Kingdom,” JEA 27 (1941), pp. 27–28.

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in the reign of Amenemhat III at the earliest, and perhaps as late as early Dynasty Thirteen.

Provenance

Given the use of the epithet Lord of Ankh-tawy for Osiris,²⁹ and that so many stelae from the late Middle Kingdom come from Abydos, it is most likely that our stela comes from that site.

Titles

The two titles ™n∞ n n¡wt, “Soldier of the Town Regiment,” and £†w ™£ (n) n¡wt, “Commander in Chief of the Local Regiment,” are well known military designations.³⁰ The ranking between the two titles is made clear by the full cursus honorum of the famous Khu-(wi)-Sobek of the

24 For the same writing, see, e.g., stelae Rio de Janeiro 2435 (= Kenneth A. Kitchen, Cata-logue of the Egyptian Collection in the National Museum, Rio de Janeiro [Warminster, 1988], cat. no. 1); Bologna KS 1904 (= Edda Bresciani, Le stele egiziane del Museo Civico Archaeologico di Bologna [Bologna, 1985], cat. no. 3); Stuttgart no. 11 (= W. Spiegelberg and B. Pörtner, Aegyptische Grabsteine und Denksteine aus süddeutschen Sammlungen 1 [Strassburg, 1902], pl. 7); and Vienna ÄS 111, 152, and 160 (= Irmgard Hein and Helmut Satzinger, CAA Wien 7. Stelen des Mittleren Reiches 2 [Mainz, 1993], pp. 7,49, 7,75, and 7,86 respectively), all from the time of Amenemhat III or later.

25 C.J.C. Bennett, op. cit., pp. 80–81; idem, “Motifs and phrases on funerary stelae of the later Middle Kingdom,” JEA 44 (1958), p. 121; Winfried Barta, Aufbau und Bedeutung der altägyptischen Opferformel (Glückstadt, 1968), p. 74; Joachim Spiegel, op. cit., pp. 17, 21;

Janine Bourriau, op. cit., p. 48. Cf. also stelae Vienna ÄS 97, 103, and 115 (= Irmgard Hein and Helmut Satzinger, CAA Wien 4. Stelen des Mittleren Reiches 1 [Mainz, 1989], pp. 4,8, 4,12, and 4,32 respectively), all from the late Twelfth, or early Thirteenth Dynasty.

26 C.J.C. Bennett, JEA 27 (1941), pp. 77–78, where the examples grow more numerous toward the end of the Twelfth Dynasty.

27 An epigraphic irregularity not uncommonly seen on stelae from the late Middle King-dom. See stelae BM 827 (= BM Stelae II:30) and UC 14416 (= H.M. Stewart, Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection. Part 2 [Warminster, 1979], pl. 26:4) for the same anomaly, and the remarks by Saphinaz-Amal Naguib in “A Middle Kingdom Stela in Oslo,” CdE 55 (1980), pp. 17–22, regarding stela Oslo EM 2383.

28 See the references given by Oleg D. Berlev, review of H.M. Stewart, Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection. Part 2, in Bi Or 38 (1981), p. 319, and Gloria Rosati, op. cit., p. 277, to which add stelae Vienna ÄS 133, 191 (= Hein and Satzinger, CAA Wien 4. Stelen des Mittleren Reiches 1, pp. 4,39, 4,145), ÄS 160 (= idem, CAA Wien 7. Stelen des Mittleren Reiches 2, p. 7,86), and BM 238 (= BM Stelae III:15), all from the late Twelfth or early Thirteenth Dynasty.

29 Joachim Spiegel, op. cit., p. 17; Janine Bourriau, op. cit., p. 48.

30 See Oleg D. Berlev, “Les prétendus “citadins” au Moyen Empire,” RdE 23 (1971), pp. 23–

48; Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, op. cit., p. 17, n. 3; William A. Ward, Index of Egyptian Administrative and Religious Titles in the Middle Kingdom (Beirut, 1982), no. 695, p. 84;

Detlef Franke, “Die Stele Inv. Nr. 4405 im Landesmuseum in Oldenburg. Zur Lebensmittelproduktion in der 13. Dynastie,” SAK 10 (1983), pp. 167–68; Stephen Quirke,

“The Regular Titles of the Late Middle Kingdom,” RdE 37 (1986), p. 122, no. 604; and Pierre-Marie Chevereau, “Contribution à la prosopographie des cadres militaires du Moyen Empire,” RdE 42 (1991), pp. 64–68.

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late Twelfth Dynasty, as detailed on his various inscriptions.³¹ These state that he was promoted from a simple ™¢£wty,“private,”³² to ßmsw n ¢q£, “Bodyguard of the Ruler,” and s¢∂ ßmsw,“Supervisor of the Body-guards;” then to £†w ™£ n n¡wt, “Commander in Chief of the Local Regi-ment,” which is the final title given on his Manchester stela and the only important one listed on stela BM 1213; to, finally, £†w n †t ¢q£,

“Commander of the Crew of the Ruler,” a title found only on his graffito from Semna,³³ when Khu-(wi)-Sobek must have been well advanced in age. From this list, and notwithstanding the fact that Khu-(wi)-Sobek does not seem to have ever been an ™n∞ n n¡wt,³⁴ it seems clear that an

£†w ™£ n n¡wt held the higher rank. Thus, the £†w ™£ (n) n¡wt Sa-montu of the present stela was superior in rank to the simple™n∞ n n¡wt Ankh-ib.

Personal Data

A search for the two men has proven inconclusive so far. One possible identification is another ™n∞ n n¡wt named Ankh-ib found on stela Geneva D 51.³⁵ Unfortunately, the Ankh-ib of the Geneva stela is given no filiation to support definite identification with our Ankh-ib, and his position on the Geneva piece, on the lower left, facing away from most of the figures on the stela, makes it difficult to establish his own rela-tionship with the group of people named on the stela. Another possible connection between our stela and Geneva D 51 is that the latter belongs to a man named Iri-nefer, who happens to be a priest of Montu. Since the priests of a given divinity were likely to beseech that particular deity for children, it is possible, though unprovable, that our £†w ™£ (n) n¡wt Sa-Montu might also belong to this extended family.³⁶

The ownership of the stela presents a few problems. The fact that a stela is dedicated to two individuals is not in itself rare.³⁷ What is note-worthy, however, is the order of the two men within the text. The first and more elaborate offering formula is dedicated to the ™n∞ n n¡wt Ankh-ib, but the second-named person, Sa-Montu, is then not only named

31 For full references, see Detlef Franke, Personendaten aus dem Mittleren Reich (Wiesbaden, 1984), dossier no. 455; Pierre-Marie Chevereau, op. cit., p. 66, no. 172.

32 A title lower in rank than an ™n∞ n n¡wt; see Stephen Quirke, The Administration of Egypt in the Late Middle Kingdom (New Malden, 1990), p. 192.

33 R.I.S. 1 (= Dows Dunham and Jozef M.A. Janssen, Semna Kumma. Second Cataract Forts 1 [Boston, 1960], p. 131).

34 Contra Svetlana I. Hodjash and Oleg D. Berlev, “Several Middle Kingdom Stelae of the Moscow Fine Arts Museum,” AoF 3 (1975), p. 10.

35 A. Wiedemann and B. Pörtner, Aegyptische Grabsteine und Denksteine aus verschiedenen Sammlungen (Strassburg, 1906), pl. 3.

36 Cf. the two people named Montu-hotpe and Sat-Montu on stela Geneva D 51.

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b

twice, once within the main body of the text and once in a caption, but is also given two titles, the second of which, as noted above, implies a promotion. Because of the position of the caption before the man’s face in the lower register, one can then presume that this is Sa-Montu, and that he is, in fact, the main owner of the stela.³⁸

Given the design of the stela, with its kheker-frieze representing the top of a building, it is possible that the piece formed part of the rear wall of a chapel that would have contained other stelae,³⁹ with a complete list of names belonging to the extended family and possibly a number of colleagues. If this was the case, the chapel and its group of stelae would have given full information on the relationships between the various individuals, and the peculiar arrangement seen here would then have been fully understood.

37 Cf., e.g., stelae CG 20057, 20087, 20088, 20122, 20242, 20275 (two women here), and 20284; Chicago Field Museum of Natural History no. 31672 (= Thomas G. Allen, Egyptian Stelae in the Field Museum of Natural History [Chicago, 1936], p. 20); and UC 14428, 14562, 14416, and 14360 (two women) (= H.M. Stewart, op.cit., pls. 25:1, 25:3, 26:4, and 34:2 respectively). I owe these references to Ms. Jennifer E. Hellum.

38 But note that in the caption identifying him, he is given his less significant title, perhaps out of deference to his colleague Ankh-ib.

39 See the remarks by William Kelly Simpson, op. cit., pp. 116–17. Cf. also stela Fitzwilliam E.207 (= Janine Bourriau, op. cit., cat. no. 39, pp. 50–51), which has a similar design at the top and is also part of a group chapel (= William Kelly Simpson, The Terrace of the Great God at Abydos [New Haven, 1974], ANOC 56, pl. 77; Detlef Franke, op. cit., dossier no. 83).

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