The Vizier Ankhu and the Dual Vizierate in the Late Middle Kingdom

The conjecture that the vizier Ankhu’s centre of life lay in Thebes has been expressed by previous scholars. This paper reviews the available evidence, complemented by a new reading of stela Cairo CG 20102 and the accounts of the smaller manuscript of pBoulaq 18. Taken together, the data suggests that Ankhu, his father, and his sons, all holding the office of the vizier, had their seat in Thebes. Given that at least one other vizier stands chronologically between Ankhu and his father, the association of Ankhu’s family with Thebes supports the hypothesis of a dual vizierate in the late Middle Kingdom; a theory long proposed but deemed unconfirmed.

Pauline Hopkins’ Literary Egyptology

Author Pauline Hopkins produced work in a variety of genres: short stories, novels, a musical, a primer of facts. Like other African Americans of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, she engaged with the history of the Nile Valley before the discipline of Egyptology was firmly established in the sphere of higher education in the US. Her serialized novel Of One Blood, published in 1902 and 1903, draws on a variety of sources, such as the English historian George Rawlinson, to tell a fictionalized story set in the contemporary present of the Upper Nile and to address issues related to the ancient past of that region. Her main character, Reuel, embodies links across time—ancient and contemporary—and space—the United States and the Nile River Valley. Through him, she shows the power and relevance of ancient history to contemporary life.

The Identities of the Second Intermediate Period Dynasties in Egypt

The composition of and the relationship between the Second Intermediate Period dynasties are still unclear. The present study proposes that Egypt is united during the first half of Dynasty 13 but divided following Merneferra Ay. The Middle Kingdom wꜥrwt system is applied to this division: late Dynasty 13 rules the District of the South (centered at Itjtawy), Dynasty 15 rules the District of the North (centered at Avaris), and Dynasty 16 the District of the Head of the South (centered at Thebes). Dynasty 14 consists of a conglomeration of kinglets in the Delta contemporary with Dynasty 15. Dynasty 17 evolves from the Thinite subdistrict and takes over half of the territory of Dynasty 16, at the end of the reign of Nebiryrau I. The number of kings for each dynasty can be reconstructed on the basis of a combination of the data in Manetho and in the Turin King List.

On the Question of the Continuity of Saite Traditions in Dynasty 30 (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum E.5.1909; Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum 56.152)

When W.M. Flinders Petrie excavated the Palace of Apries he uncovered a limestone block with inscriptions on both sides. This block was published in 1909 and is now kept in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Bernard Bothmer first compared the Cambridge block to another one kept in the Brooklyn Museum. He emphasized that they correspond closely and that the representations differ only minutely. After Bothmer’s publication, both artifacts were considered as originally parts of a single structure. In this contribution the function of the monument of which this block was originally a part will be investigated. The proposed interpretation gives rise to a new reading of religious representations of the ancient Egyptians. It is not about overcoming the barriers of the underworld, but about the practical use of spirits. The texts tell us about the Egyptian belief in affiliating oneself with the spirit of an important person for using it for personal purposes.

A New Family to the ANOC Groups: A Study of Stelae CG 20077 and CG 20098

The Middle Kingdom stelae found at Abydos are some of the most important sources of information to analyze and reconstruct Egyptian society. This article aims at providing a study and translation of two Middle Kingdom stelae that are preserved in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza and in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. They are stela CG 20077, which belongs to an individual called Nemtu, and stela CG 20098, which belongs to a man called Nemtyemmer. The family relations attested in both stelae suggest that they could be part of the same family group and consequently constitute a new Abydos North Offering Chapel (ANOC). This paper also offers an analysis of the ANOC and proposes that these stelae should be added to the ANOC groups. Lastly, we attempt to identify the social identities represented in both stelae and the possible social and geographical origin of this family.

From Wng to Καιέχως – a Possible Explanation for the Cartouche Name KꜢ-kꜢ.w?

So far, it has not been possible to equate the name KꜢ-kꜢ.w of the second king Horus Rꜥ-nb(=i) of the Second Dynasty, written in a cartouche during the Ramesside Period, with a name attested at the time of this dynasty. Taking into account the theory advanced by Jochem Kahl that Horus Rꜥ-nb(=i) is the same ruler as Wng, it is possible to develop a sequence in Hieratic script which leads from Wng to KꜢ-kꜢ.w and is based on a misreading of an Egyptian scribe.

The Riddle of the Tachat Family

At the end of the Eighteenth and beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, several attestations of women named Tachat with the title wr.t ḫnr n jmn are possible to observe. These women all had a family background associated with service in the temple, mainly with the cult of Amun. This article brings these women together, and shows that the line of holders of this post in the Amun temple could imply the continuation of possible family ties among these female temple personnel. The family tree covers a rather long period of time for the women in question, who held this post in the cult of Amun even during the Amarna Period, demonstrating that some officials in Thebes were able to worship Amun even during the Amarna Period.

Name Rings Associated with the “Royal Kiosk Icon” in the Theban Tombs during the Eighteenth Dynasty

The name rings depicted in the Theban tombs dating to the Eighteenth Dynasty are similar to those found on monumental topographical lists, though they seem to belong to a completely different motif: the Nine Bows. The Nine Bows are a list of nine lands considered to be the “enemies of Egypt,” a list that can be seen to fluctuate over time in parallel to the socio-political context. This article covers the phenomenon of name rings in the Theban tombs as a component of the “Royal Kiosk Icon,” examining their iconography and overall form to articulate typological differences for dating purposes, together with a brief discussion on their meaning and placement within the tombs themselves.

Civilizing the Past: Egyptian Irrigation in the Colonial Imagination

Reviews of the historiography of irrigation regularly single out Karl August Wittfogel’s “hydraulic hypothesis” as a uniquely deleterious contribution to the study of ancient water management. His errors notwithstanding, this article argues that the ideological misshaping of Western scholarship on irrigation instead emerged from Egypt’s long colonial experience. First articulated in the Napoleonic Description de l’Égypte, the theory of a centralized, ancient Egyptian “hydraulic state” was crafted to justify French attempts to reshape Egypt’s irrigated landscape. British hydraulic engineers later received and refined this narrative during the British colonial period. Their popularizing discourse retrojected the technocratic character of modern irrigation into antiquity, defining the Egyptian “irrigation system” as a static and unchanging fusion of hydraulic expertise and state power. Widely disseminated in specialist and popular fora, this tendentious argument had become received wisdom by the beginning of the twentieth century and subtly shaped early Egyptological descriptions of irrigation in antiquity.