A Painter’s Version: Amenhotep, Son of Amunnakhte and Pictorial Tradition

Arguably one of the most remarkable painters/draughtsmen, not only in his direct surroundings of Deir el-Medina but in the history of New Kingdom painting altogether, the Chief Draughtsman Amenhotep, son of Amunnakhte has left us a substantial body of identifiable work. His artistic output includes royal and private tomb-chapels augmented by a corpus of figured ostraca numbering at 24 known pieces. It follows then that the many different types of artwork contained in his production provide an especially rich opportunity for exploring art historical themes of particular import and can inform our understanding of these in significant ways. Moving away from the habitually confronted modern reading of decorum as a manacle of artistic freedom, this contribution aims at drawing attention to how decorum seems to have been seen in essentially positive terms, an inference cognate with what transpires from the study of the works of Amenhotep.

The Shabtis of the God’s Father, Yuya

This paper re-publishes the shabtis of Yuya, father of Queen Tiye and father-in-law of King Amenhotep III, which are kept at the Egyptian Museum Cairo (CG 51024–34, 51036) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (MMA 30.8.56–30.8.58). The latter were excluded from the 1908 publication by J. E. Quibell which lacks adequate images, or even images altogether. 1 It also presents a ‘model’ of three shabtis to represent the entire set, 2 though it is challenging to find two identical shabti texts. 3 The aim of this paper is to study the state of preservation of these shabtis, as it has not been addressed since the discovery of the tomb (KV46) in 1905, 4 especially considering seven shabtis in the Egyptian Museum Cairo were looted on the ‘Friday of Anger’, on 28 January 2011. It presents a full transcription, translation and commentary on the entire set, highlighting the similarities and differentiation between the texts on the shabtis and whether they were made by a single artist or different sculptors. It also investigates the titles of the owner, his name and the facial features.

Third Report on the Publication and Conservation of the Tomb of Ramesses III in the Valley of the Kings (KV 11)

Since antiquity, the tomb of Ramesses III (KV 11) has been among the most frequently visited royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It was also one of the first to be described and documented in detail by European travellers in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. As large parts of the wall decoration of the tomb, especially in its rear, are now destroyed, the drawings, notes and squeezes of those early researchers who saw the site in its former splendour offer an invaluable resource for the reconstruction of the tomb’s unique decoration programme. The collection, revision, and publication of all relevant archive material concerning KV 11 is an important goal of The Ramesses III (KV 11) Publication and Conservation Project. The following article reports on first and preliminary results from the authors’ research in the archives of the British Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as well as the Bodleian Libraries and the Griffith Institute in Oxford, carried out in September 2019 and made possible through the Centenary Award 2019 of the Egypt Exploration Society.

A New Interpretation of the Grid System Reform in the Late Period

This paper offers a new art-historical interpretation of the grid reform of anthropomorphic representations in Egypt around the mid-seventh century BC. The objective of this paper is two-fold. First, it will demonstrate the problems with previous interpretations, which depended, on the one hand, upon the written record of Diodorus Siculus regarding the Egyptian method of statue production, and upon comparative analyses of the two-dimensional representation of human figures on the other. Secondly, this paper is devoted to providing a new understanding of the art-historical context of the grid reform. This reform – in which Late Period Egyptians abandoned the tradition that had been utilised for nearly 1,800 years and created a completely new system by uniting the Egyptian metrological system and the traditional method of grid projection – less reflects improvement in the appearance of the image, and rather demonstrates a metaphysical development that had never been seen or experienced before.

The Statue of a Sistrum-Player in Montrose and Her Position in an Early Ptolemaic Theban Priestly Family

This article is the publication of an indurated limestone standing statue, now in Montrose Museum (ANGUSalive M1980.4578), identified as a Sistrum-player. The statue was collected in 1834 by Dr James Burnes IV, a relative of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, during a journey from India to Scotland. Stylistic features of the statue and its inscription are discussed here for the first time. Her family tree is also reconstructed based on known objects in international collections, restoring her to an important Theban priestly family of the early Ptolemaic Period, which is the largest yet proposed family tree for this group. This is followed by a discussion of the attested individuals.

The Hatnub Quarries Industrial Landscape Survey 2017: Mobile-GIS Ground-truthing of the Satellite Remote-survey

This paper presents the results of the 2017 mobile-GIS survey of 1 km2 around the Hatnub Egyptian alabaster quarries and analysis of the accuracy of the remote-survey of the same area, which was completed in 2016 using satellite imagery. The analysis revealed that remote-survey was a very accurate method for recording archaeological features in clear and unobstructed parts of the desert, while targeted mobile-GIS survey of obscure areas and questionable features was an effective method for reducing inaccuracies in remote-survey data. The results will inform future phases of the Hatnub Industrial Landscape Project and the fieldwork also identified several avenues of future research into routes and roads across the desert.

The Palermo Stone and its Associated Fragments: New Discoveries on the Oldest Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt

Historical royal sources concerning Old Kingdom Egypt are rather scarce. One of the most important is a group of seven inscribed stone fragments also known as royal annals, the most famous of which is certainly the so-called Palermo Stone. These annals have been the subject of countless studies over more than a century since their initial discovery. However, the reading and interpretation of the hieroglyphic inscriptions engraved on them is still partial and often obscure. In recent years, however, the annals underwent a complete re-examination by means of the most up-to date technologies of 3D photographic documentation and reproduction – first of all, the so-called ‘Reflectance Transformation Imaging’ (RTI). In this article we will provide some insights on the new reading of selected parts of the fragments, especially the two major pieces: the Palermo Stone and the so-called ‘Cairo Fragment 1’.

A New Demotic Horoscope from Medinet Habu

The relatively small set of Demotic astrological texts from Medinet Habu may be increased by a newly identified horoscope recorded on an ostracon held at the Cairo Museum. Despite the lack of pertinent data in the official records, the origin of this sherd seems to be certain thanks to some telling palaeographical and textual indications. The date recorded on this potsherd indicates the late first century AD and refers explicitly to the Alexandrian calendar. With regard to the content, it preserves the general format and layout of the Demotic horoscopes on ostraca from Medinet Habu, albeit with some small differences in the type and arrangement of the data. This horoscope leaves out some astronomical data common to other Medinet Habu horoscopes which, along with some other Theban horoscopic ostraca, might confirm a trend among Theban astrologers going from more detailed and complicated compositions to less elaborate and more simplified ones.

New Insights into Papyrus Millingen and the Reception History of The Teaching of Amenemhat

This article examines Papyrus Millingen, an important but now-lost manuscript of The Teaching of Amenemhat. The papyrus survives today in a nineteenth century facsimile, which was last published in black and white photographs in 1963. This article presents new color photographs of the facsimile, along with hieroglyphic transcription and philological commentary, which discusses not only the text but also what the facsimile’s paratextual features suggest about the ancient and modern copying processes. P. Millingen’s version of Amenemhat is contextualized within the full corpus of surviving copies of the poem. The article proposes several possible social contexts for the manuscript’s production and usage and considers the impact of those contexts, along with broader cultural trends of the Eighteenth Dynasty, on the papyrus owner’s reception of Amenemhat.