Egypt Exploration Society

S or rw? Author(s): Michael E. FitzPatrick Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 69 (1983), pp. 163-165 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3821450 . Accessed: 07/07/2013 12:45
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Postscript to 'Three Monuments from Memphis in the Fitzwilliam by Janine Bourriau in JEA 68 Museum',

I63

THE provenance of the statue of Amenophis III, Fitzwilliam Museum E.82.I9I3, can now be confirmed as Memphis. It occurs on a list of items received by the Museum in 1913 from the

excavations of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. The list is now kept in the archives of the Department of Antiquities. BOURRIAU JANINE

Shi or Hrw?' As (ern2 noted,2 the sign written A occurs in two groups, 1i and ! .3 He thought that the two forms of the same word indicated a semantic difference: ~S being used in indictments to detail charges, and ! being used in letters.4 At first he transliterated ! as smit;5 however, by the time he published the Leiden Tablet,6 he had altered his reading, in accordance with Gardiner and Peet,7 to sht, 'memorandum'. This reading is certainly correct for the first expression (shr r), as the heading on P. Turin 1887, rt. i, i8 shows, but is it necessarily the case for the second? To investigate this question, we begin by examining a common class of demotic letter which is labelled hrw, 'plea' [variation hrw (n) bik NN, 'plea (of) servant NN'],9 and shall then move backwards in time to see if this is the descendant of the letter type identified by j. Three examples of the demotic letter type identified by hrw are P. Berlin P. I3544, P. Berlin P. I3547, and P. Berlin P. 15527.10 The introductory formulae are P. Berlin P. I5527 (Ptolemaic), hrw (n) NN s; NN m-b.h nmwcb.w Hr-wr, 'Plea (of) NN son of NN before the priests of Horwer'; P. Berlin P. 13547 (Ptolemaic), hrw (n) NN m-b4h NN pi sh ir-t'w, 'Plea (of) NN before the audit scribe'; P. Berlin P. I 3544 (Ptolemaic), hrw (n) NN si NN m-b.h pry.f hry p! hm-ntr tpy, 'Plea (of) NN before his master the First Prophet.' The word hrw is clear and is written with the demotic equivalent of |. The use of m-b.h in the formulae would have been inconceivable before the Late Period, and shows that the person to whom the letter is addressed is of higher rank than the writer of the letter. Of particular interest is P. Berlin P. I3544 which, in addition to this opening formula, has several of the common introductory phrases known since the Ramesside Period. If we move backwards in time, the next example is P. Brooklyn 37.I799E (Late Saite, unpublished).", This papyrus is an example of a letter written in a mixture of abnormal hieratic and demotic. The opening formula of this letter is: hrw (n) bik NN s;'t n NN nty-iwf m-bh . . . (n)

I should like to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to Dr George R. Hughes for the many hours

which he spent readingabnormalhieraticand early demotic with me, and without whom this paper would never have been written. 2 StudiesPresented to F. LI. Griffith,49-50 n. i.
3 Recently this view has been challenged by M. Green in Orientalia 45 (1980), 24 n. 5id. However, as I think this article will show, there is a very real difference between the two expressions, and they are not simply

variationsof each other as Green suggests. 4 Later examplesare writtenwithout the n. 6 StudiesPresented to F. LI. Griffith,46 ff.
7 GTR (text vol.), i85. "

YEA 15, 248.

8

9 For this reading cf. Hughes, JNES I7 (i958), 6-7.

RAD 74.

10 All three are publishedby Zauzichin Papyrivon der Insel Elephantine. I wish to thankProfessorGeorgeR. Hughes and Dr Robert S. Bianchifor the photographfrom which

this hand-copy was made.

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pr-'Imn NNp;y-i hry, 'Plea (of) a servant (of) NN daughter of NN which is intended for (the) . . . of the estate of Amuin, my master'. The similarity between this late abnormal hieratic example and the demotic letters is strong, particularly P. Berlin P. I3544. All four use the word hrw (or in the case of P. Brooklyn 37.I799E, hrw (n) b;k), to characterize the letter-type, all make use of m-b;h before the addressee, and both P. Berlin P. I3544 and P. Brooklyn 37.I799E use the phrase m-b.h pry.f (pry.i) hry. All four of these represent a single type of letter, namely a 'plea' written from an inferior to his superior. P. Brooklyn 37.I799E is the oldest example known to me of a letter labelled hrw (n) b;k. The latest of the letters designated by ~ is the Leiden Tablet I 43 I (XXVth-XXVIth Dynasty). Here the opening formula is: pi i (n) NN nty-iw.f m-b.h it-ntr NN si NN pry.i hry, 'The i (of) NN which is intended for the god's father NN son of NN my chief'. The complete identity of the opening formula of P. Brooklyn 37.I799E and the Leiden Tablet (with the exception of the label designating the letter type) argues strongly that these are the same type of letter with a shift in P. Brooklyn 37.I799E from the abnormal (and, as it happens, normal) hieratic orthography to that of demotic. An important question is whether hrw, which is written earlier with a |, and later with the demotic equivalent of [, can ever be written with just ~. While there is no example known to me of hrw being abbreviated with only &, the abnormal hieratic P. Vienna 12.002 (XXVIth Dynasty), col. A, 4 (unpublished),' does have an example of hrw in the formula mrc-hrw which is written . This group-determinative is the abnormal hieratic counterpart of !a and it occurs in words like sdm, 'to hear', md, 'to speak', and hrw, 'voice', where earlier examples of these words have only !) as a determinative. This examples does at least show that hrw can be written without the I. The last example which is clearly parallel is P. Strassburg 39 (XXIst Dynasty),2 whose opening formula is very similar to that of both the Leiden Tablet and P. Brooklyn 37.I799E: pi A it-ntr 'n-hry sh NN nty-iwTf n it-ntr sh hw.t-ntr NN, 'The j of (the) god's father (of) Onuris, scribe NN, which is intended for (the) god's father (and) scribe (of) the temple NN'. The differences here are the use of n instead of m-b4h, and the omission of the phrase pry i after the name of the addressee. It is not at all surprising to find n instead of m-b;h, since at the time P. Strassburg 39 was written, m-b4h referred to no human being except the king. As for the phrase pryi hry, in the case of this text, it is impossible to determine the relative ranks of the writer and the addressee. The parallelisms between P. Strassburg 39, the Leiden Tablet, and P. Brooklyn 37.I977E on one hand, and P. Brooklyn 37.I799E and the three demotic examples on the other, are a strong argument for the basic unity of this type of letter, which should, on the basis of the evidence of the later texts, be read as hrw, 'plea', rather than as sh4, 'memorandum'. In addition to the above examples, there are three Ramesside examples of texts beginning with . These are 0. Cairo 25675,3 0. Berlin P. I2630,4 and 0. Leipzig 5.5 Of these, 0. Cairo 25675 is broken and beyond the opening formula ! NN n . . ., not enough remains to determine if the term 'plea' could be applied to it. 0. Leipzig 5 looks more like a practice letter than a genuine letter, and beyond the opening formula, k NN hr nd-hrt n sh NN, it consists of nothing beyond standard introductory letter formulae which are very similar to those of the Leiden Tablet and P. Berlin P. 13544. Since there is no body to this 'letter' it is impossible to determine if 'plea' could apply to it. The final example, 0. Berlin P. I2630, is a request for payment directed to a woman regarding a debt incurred by her husband. Although either 'memorandum' or 'plea' could be used to describe
I wish to thank Dr Richard A. Parker for the photograph from which this I This phrase is written: ~j hand-copy was made. 2 Published by Spiegelberg, ZAS 53 (19I7), 20 ff. (pl. i), and by Allam, Hieratische Ostraka und Papyri,
I (text vol.), 307-8,

3 Cerny, HieraticOstraca (CCG), 76. s Qernf and Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca, pl. xxxvi, 3.

ii (plate vol),

104-5.

4 Allam, op. cit. I, 35; II, I0-II.

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I65

this document, it seems more a request for payment than the reminder of a debt, and on the whole, I am inclined to include it, and, by extension, the other two Ramesside examples, under the heading hrw. I, therefore, propose to read the group written ! or later simply ! as hrw n and hrw (n), and to translate them as 'The Plea (of) . . .'. This certainly seems to be the case with the later examples (from P. Strassburg 39 on). I would also see this type of letter as representing a continuous tradition from the Ramesside Period through abnormal hieratic and on into demotic. Whether or not this type of letter originally had the purpose of being a letter directed to one's superior, in time it
came to be so regarded. MICHAELE. FITZPATRICK

Major Charles Kerr Macdonald 1806-67 IN an article entitled 'Major Macdonald, a Victorian Romantic', published in JEA 58 (1972), 280-5, by John D. Cooney, attention was first drawn in print to a man whose career, although hinted at by Egyptologists of the last century, has nevertheless escaped adequate recording and thus acknowledgement.' An attempt to do this must now be made and the following facts are extracted from a short unpublished biographical memoir. Charles Kerr Macdonald was born on i January i8o6,2 and was the second son of Lt.-Col. Robert Macdonald, CB, Royal Horse Artillery, and nephew of Major-General Sir Benjamin Bloomfield. The family home was the island of Inchkenneth with seat at the mouth of Loch-naKeal, Mull Island, Argyllshire. Macdonald became Ensign I5 May 1823 with the 42nd Regiment of Foot (The Royal Highlanders), an appointment without purchase (WO 25/67). On 26 November 1825 he was appointed Lieutenant in the same regiment by purchase. The following year, on 7 November 1826, his father failing to get him a full-pay company, he was promoted Captain to a half-pay one unattached by purchase, i.e. /I, Ioo. This then was the beginning of his military career which may be picked up again in the I84os. According to the census of 1841 he was residing in i6 Park Square, London, in the same house as Marianne Ashworth, aged 40, and her family of four children. Shortly after this his travels to the east seem to have commenced since on zi August 1843 a passport was issued to Lord Culloden (Prince George of Cambridge) and Capt. Macdonald (sic) travelling to Corfu (FO 610/3). This would agree with our information on his first visit to Egypt and Sinai, when it was claimed Lepsius ran across him. In I847 he is listed as Major (Brevet) ist Life Guards and in the same year retired from the army, writing to this effect two letters from Park Square dated ii and i5 May addressed to Lord Fitzroy Somerset. The sum received for the sale of his commission was oi,800. A medical certificate issued at this time, i9 May, refers to him as 'unattached' and without any physical disabilities. Macdonald was now free to embark on the career for which he achieved some fame later, viz. the Sinai episode and the Cairo phase of his life.3 He must have returned to England by the early i85os, as a passport, No. 31444, was issued to Charles K. Macdonald 'travelling to the Continent on 29 Oct. i855'. On this he was recommended by 'Cox' (FO 6io/io). Shortly after there appeared the article referred to by Cooney as being published in the Athenaeum (No. 1644) 30 April 1859, under the tantalizing section headed 'Our Weekly Gossip': 'A most important discovery of inscriptions has been made in the Holy Land-near Mount Sinai. The following account of the excavations which led to the discovery we owe to a friend. (Major Macdonald is not mentioned by name but there can be little doubt that it is he.)
2

Briefly and very inadequately mentioned in Gardiner-Peet-Cerny, Inscriptions of Sinai, 6 and 8. The year is assumed as he is stated to have been 17 on appointment in I823, and 41 on his retirement in For this see Who Was Who in Egyptology (2nd edn.), I88-9.

1847.
3

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