The UCL Lahun Papyri: Letters 9781841714622, 9781407324753

Citation preview

e bl da oa nl ix w nd do pe ith ap W

BAR  S1083  2002   COLLIER & QUIRKE (Eds)   THE UCL LAHUN PAPYRI: LETTERS

The UCL Lahun Papyri: Letters Edited by

Mark Collier Stephen Quirke

BAR International Series 1083 9 781841 714622

B A R

2002

The UCL Lahun Papyri: Letters Edited by

Mark Collier Stephen Quirke

.....,.._

...........

F(.,

C

t~

~•k

ft •

JJ:Jf lf~:Ht~~fl ~-"'-~-

BAR International Series 1083 2002

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 1083 The UCL Lahun Papyri: Letters

© The editors and contributors severally and the Publisher 2002 COVER IMAGE Detail from plan ifLahun town-site, with part if UC 32131 (Lot IIS), a letterfrom Wah,faund at the wall end if'Rank C'.

The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781841714622 paperback ISBN 9781407324753 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841714622 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd/ Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2002. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

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CONTENTS Contents

Preface

iii-iv

The Lahun Papyri: Introduction

v-xiii

1889-1898 - from discovery to the first publication

v-ix

History of the publication

ix

UCL Lahun Papyri - list by lot numbers

x-xiii

UCL Lahun Papyri: Letters First Group of Previously Unpublished Letters:

UC 32191B - UC 32156B

Letters Previously Published by Griffith:

UC 32197 - UC 32216

87-155

Second Group of Previously Unpublished Letters:

UC 32271 - UC 32364

157-178

1-85

Indices Index of Letters (by page numbers and CD files) Concordance of Griffith Publication of Letters and Lot Numbers and UC numbers Index of Egyptian Words

179-183 184 185-203

Vocabulary (including Formulae Key Words)

185-198

Personal Names

198-200

Titles and Occupations

200-201

Kings

201

Deities

201-202

Place Names

202-203

Dates

203

Please note that the CD referred to on pp. iii–iv has now been replaced with a download available at www.barpublishing.com/additional-downloads.html

ii

PREFACE In this volume, our primary objective is to communicate the content of the surviving letters and letter fragments from the Petrie excavations at Lahun in an accessible and affordable format. The letters and letter fragments contained in this volume are from original letters - model letters, letter copies and reports are reserved for future publication . The volume is intended to be of use not only to Egyptological researchers, but also to learners in higher and further education. The sheer quantity of material presented here has necessitated economies in this the first comprehensive publication of this corpus. It has not proven practicable to attempt publication with detailed commentary for each item, a palaeography or a full set of photographic plates . Our aim, instead, has been to provide the corpus of original letters from Petri es' s excavations at Lahun in one single volume. The opportunity has arisen, therefore , to investigate new possibilities for papyri publication, exploiting digital technology now that the computer has become standard in academic research. The reader will find three means of access to the original content: 1) The printed pages with the transcriptions, transliterations and translations of the letters providing our interpretation of all but the smallest fragments. This will probably be the main channel of access for the majority of users. The letters are ordered according to their UCL catalogue number (see 'history of publication' below) and divide into three groups: The First Group of Previously Unpublished Letters (UC 32091B - UC 32156B); The Letters Previously Published by Griffith (UC 32197 - UC 32216); The Second Group of Previously Unpublished Letters (UC 32271 - UC 32364). The transcriptions are reproduced at 70% of original size in order to be accommodated onto the page. The transliterations are in a form close to the Gardiner style (still the most familiar transliteration system). So, i is used rather than j for ~, and I[. rather than q for Ll. Similarly, as standard in Anglophone Egyptology, reconstructed elements (particularly inflections) are not transliterated - transliteration thus approximates the written form of the letters (particularly for grammatical endings) . The renderings deliberately make use of what have become conventionalisms for translating commonly occurring elements such as letter formulae. 2) The index, also printed, provides a summative survey across the letters published in this volume. It is intended as a reference and a research tool, particularly for such features as the use of vocabulary and formulae in letters. For reasons of space and economy, more detailed commentary has been left over for separate supplementary volumes . Similarly, palaeography has been held over for future work drawing on the full range of categories of content in the UCL corpus. 3) The entire collection of papyri, down to the smallest fragment and including all categories of content (not only letters), is presented in digital form on the CD enclosed with this volume. This provides the user with colour digital scans of every item. These colour images can be examined on screen with greater clarity than conventional black and white plates and can be printed out in colour for research or educational use, for example on an ink-jet printer. The full advantage of the CD-ROM will be seen particularly with passages written in red pigment, for example the replies to letters, or the rare short letters written entirely in red. The CD also contains a set of transcriptions for all categories of content. The transcriptions have been included after considerable discussion on our part. We recognise that the reading of hieratic is a specialised skill and thus transcriptions are likely to be valued by most readers (at least as an aid). However, it is important to note that the transcriptions are in their late 1990s form (when the material was digitised as part of the project to digitise the holdings of the Petrie Museum) and lack reference to the more detailed work for publication in which we are now engaged. The final published versions may thus differ in detail from those provided on the CD (as a check against the transcriptions of the letters published here will reveal), but we are of the view that the scanned transcriptions provide an important additional access to the entire collection in advance of full publication of the other categories of material. The digital mode of presentation may not be familiar to all Egyptological colleagues, but we believe that the advantages outweigh any initial inconvenience. We have been working with these digital resources for several years and have found them to be a most efficient medium for our own teaching and research. All the images are also available on the Petrie Museum web-site (http://www/petrie.ucl.ac.uk) . We should like to make it clear that our work has concentrated on dealing with the material in sum and we are in no doubt that further detailed work on individual letters or groups of letters will lead to improved readings and improved renderings. This publication should be treated as but the beginning of a new phase in the study of the UCL Lahun papyri and the Middle Kingdom site at Lahun and we look forward to the further progress colleagues will make with the material presented here.

lll

Guide to Using the CD (now replaced with a download – see contents page) The digital images are organised according to, and named after, the inventory number in the Museum catalogue. Many items, and most of the glass plates in which they are stored, are larger than A4 and/or have writing on both sides and thus have one more than one file. For the letters, the file-names can be cross-referenced with the letters in this volume by using the letter index on pages 179-183. All photographic images are in JPEG format (.jpg), all transcriptions inTIFF format (.tiff). The files are stored in four separate folders entitled: Papyri 32091 to 32156; Papyri 32268 to 32364; Papyri Griffith; Lahun transcriptions. The exact appearance of the affixes to file names may show limited variation between PC and Apple machines (and their particular system versions - e.g. Apple OS 9). All the images can be copied directly onto hard disks or other storage devices, provided there is enough available memory, and can be printed out on both colour and black and white printers. For PC users The digital images can be opened directly in image browsers supplied (e.g. with both Windows 2000 and Windows XP) by double clicking on the icon or file name, or can be opened within a standard image manipulation programme. For Apple users The digital images can be opened directly in QuickTime (OS 9) or Preview (OS X) by double clicking on the icon or file name, or can be opened within a standard image manipulation programme. Mark Collier has used these images regularly within Adobe Photoshop, most recently Adobe Photoshop 7 run on OS X (requiring version 10.1.3 or higher), which can be particularly recommended for its enhanced browser facility. Acknowledgements Our respective institutions, the University of Liverpool and the Petrie Museum, have supported our work on this project over a number of years. Professor Liz Slater and Professor John Davies (as successive Heads of School of the School of Archaeology, Classics and Oriental Studies, University of Liverpool) and Sally MacDonald (as Manager of the Petrie Museum, UCL) deserve special mention for their support and advice in the later years of the project. Publication could not have been attempted without the full conservation programme carried out by Bridget Leach throughout the 1990s and, in the last two years, completed by Renee Waltham. Funding was provided by two principal sources: the Centenary appeal of the Egyptology Department/Petrie Museum at UCL, London (under the aegis of Professors HS Smith and GT Martin, organised by Elizabeth Blyth with a generous response from around the world), and a British Academy Small Research Grant of £4500 awarded in 1991. . We are most grateful to David Davison of Archaeopress for agreeing to publish this work and in accommodating authors faced with other demands on their time whilst bringing this manuscript to completion. We would like to thank the past and present staff of the Petrie Museum, University College London who have helped us on this project - Sally MacDonald, Rosalind Janssen, the late Barbara Adams and Roy Strong. Ivor Pridden deserves special mention for his work and advice on producing the Master CD of the digital images. We are grateful to Professor Geoffrey Martin, then Edwards Professor of Egyptology at UCL, for the invitation to work on this material after the death of Cyril Spaull. John Ray, Reader of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, provided us with free access to Spaull's preliminary work on the first group of unpublished letters, preserved in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge, and the UCL photographs made for him. We are indebted to Vivian Davies, Keeper of Egyptian and Sudanese Antiquities at the British Museum, for his advice and support throughout the project and, in particular, for the project of photography of all items in the first group of unpublished papyri, as well as the material published by Griffith. Peter Hayman was the photographer for this project. Mark Collier would like to thank the following organisations for support, primarily for other aspects of his research but also covering the initial stages of this project: the British Academy (post-doctoral fellowship); Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (junior research fellowship) and All Souls College, Oxford (post-doctoral research fellowship). He would also like to offer special thanks to his Egyptological colleagues in SACOS - Chris Eyre, Ian Shaw and Steven Snape: the mutual support for aiding research provided at Liverpool within the demands of the modern University system has been invaluable in the preparation of this volume. Professor Harry Smith has been a constant source of support and advice throughout the project. We hope that this volume brings to fruition one of his long held ambitions for the collection in the Petrie Museum. . Mark Collier & Stephen Quirke Liverpool & London, October 2002

iv

THE LAHUN PAPYRI: INTRODUCTION

1889-1898 - from discovery to the first publication The Middle Kingdom papyri from Lahun in University College London seem all to derive from the two seasons of excavation at the site by Flinders Petrie in spring and autumn 1889. They are heterogeneous in content, and to be distinguished from the homogeneous deposit of business papers and letters from the Valley Temple refuse heap, unearthed almost a decade later and assembled by Ludwig Borchardt for the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. 1889 was early in the history of development of archaeological recording, and Petrie was not himself present at many of the moments of discovery of finds. It is therefore extremely difficult to identify even general provenance within the site for any of the papyri. Petrie used the term 'Kahun' to denote the town, 'Illahun' for the pyramid complex and Third Intermediate Period cemeteries nearer the pyramid and medieval dyke, and then Brunton adopted 'Lahun' to distinguish the finds from the 1914, 1920 and 1921 seasons. This already confusing multiplication of one name becomes inoperable in the absence of adequate documentation for the earlier, and sometimes the later seasons of excavation. Petrie himself may not have known whether specific objects came from town, Valley Temple, tombs in or nearer or farther from the town, or the upper part of the pyramid complex. Therefore it seems safest to return to the simplest form of the local Arabic toponym from which Petrie derived his various names, and refer to all features on the site - including the town - as Lahun. Archaeologists may find it easier to continue to use 'Kahun' for the town site, such a distinctive and easily separable feature of the landscape. However, for work on museum objects from the old excavations, that name does not offer a reliable basis on which to identify the precise provenance of objects - including the papyri - and, worse, could mislead future researchers into false assignations of objects to types of site (funerary, domestic, religious, royal, non-royal). Therefore we recommend for all old excavation material 'Lahun' as a suitably neutral designation of provenance for these sketchily documented finds. Although the documentation is limited, identification of precise findplace is so important for studies of literacy and social context of writing that here we cite all the references to findplace known to us, starting with the direct evidence of the excavation documents, and proceeding in chronological order. 1. Labels on or with objects in the Petrie Museum:

labels affixed to papyri designating lot numbers: numbering system of Roman numeral - point - Arabic numeral. See pp. x-xiii for listing and discussion. labels on boards and envelopes for 'Lot II': 'Head of Rank C' labels on boards and envelopes for 'Lot III': 'Head of Rank B' 2. Journals (the circular letters that Petrie wrote home during his excavation seasons - originals in the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, copies of archaeologically relevant passages in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London): First season at the town site at Lahun, from typescript copy for 1888-1889

P.93, letter XXIV, week 8-15 April 1889, general note on Middle Kingdom date of the town beside the Valley Temple of the pyramid at Lahun, 'Medinet Kahun', fourth item of proof: '(4) papyri scraps found like papyrus Prisse of XII dyn, but not of later hands' (from comment at top of p.93 'if two days only have started such questions' these seem to be minor items already found before the items described pp.94-95) Pp.94-95, same letter and week 'Next day came three hieratic papyri, written in the early hand of the XII dyn., and two sealed up with clay impressions of early scarabs [sketch here of the stylised sema-tawy motif] the other scroll pattern ... These are about the size of this sheet each (8 x 5 ins.), and though wormed somewhat will be nearly all legible' P.98, letter XXV, week 14-20 April 1889 'Bits of early hieratic papyri are also of daily occurrence' 'Another complete papyrus of 11 lines and 1 column, folded up and sealed with a large seal of an official of Amenemhat, almost illegible ... This is from a different region of the town to the others, halfway down in a chamber full of rubbish' P.101, letter XXVI, week 21-28 April 1889 'And, what I have been longing for, a rubbish heap of papyri; on a small scale it is true; but still three nearly complete and pieces of several more. Some of these are the finest written that I have yet seen here; apparently long accounts, all on ruled columns and lines, exquisitely neat and in a beautiful clear clean hand; much of it in red. I have flatted and laid out to press 7 square feet of sheets and fragments, all XIIth.'

V

P.102, same letter and week 'More luck with XII dyn. papyri; a lot strewn about in a chamber, but sadly eaten by white ants. However there is one perfect about a dozen lines, another nearly so, four half eaten at, and scraps of many others.' P.103, same letter and week 'The seals on the papyri show how commonly scarabs, with mere designs, were used in personal seals in the early times' P.104, same letter and week 'A very interesting find is a clay seal from a papyrus which has been burnt, that apparently gives the name of this place, Kahun. It is Ha-Usertesen-hetep' (description of seal continues and his reading of name as Neferiankh) · P.107, same letter and week 'Another ivory mirror handle; a shell-saw with rush bound handle, and a papyrus of a dozen lines with parts of two other columns have come in today' P.108, letter XXVII, week 28 April - 4 May 1889 'Another good papyrus of 9 lines quite perfect, and three lines of a second document on the same: I never saw a piece so fresh and white' P.109, same letter and week 'A great batch of papyri, about 6 or 8 nearly complete, one large sheet of two closely written columns with red sentences interspersed: and pieces of a dozen or more other documents which can many be put together I hope' P.120, letter XXIX, week 12-18 May 1889 'The most important find was a pot with alphabetic sign [sketch] sunk in the floor of a chamber, while a couple of feet or so over it in the rubbish was an early papyrus (XII-XIV), a pilgrim bottle of polished drabware, a rake, an adze handle, a pick handle, a pick blade of wood with holes for thong. a fire stick, with burnt holes where the upright revolved. A grain scoop, a leather ball, and a pair of shoes "with the woolly side in" ... An interesting seal on a broken papyrus seems to give the name of this place as on another seal before, Ha-usertesen-hotep; with perhaps an official's name Ha-usertesen' (with sketch)

Second season at the town site at Lahun, from typescript copy of Kahun, Gurob and Jaffa (Tell Hesi) 1889-1890 winter season: P.2 'Also some bits of papyri today' (nearest preceding date was arrival at Illahun 3 Oct) P.11, end of same section 'More hanks of thread, ivory hairpins, bits of papyrus, alphabet pottery, beads etc. etc . of the usual style have come in. So altogether an uneventful week is yet worth having' (p.16 8-14 Nov. 1889 'a broken papyrus of Amenhotep IV (Khuenaten, XVIII dyn.) was found in one room, but not low down') P.17, same letter of 8-14 Nov. 1889 'Some good papyri have at last turned up. One document is of 11 columns, beginning with full titles and cartouches of Usertesen III, and only a little injured at the ends of the columns. On the same sheet are two other documents in lines, nearly entire. With this was a large piece of a hieroglyphic papyrus in columns; and several fragments' (p.22 28 Nov - 5 Dec. 1889 'A batch of tools of the XVIIIth dyn. is dated by a papyrus with the name of [sketch Nebmaatra] Amenhotep III found with it. This papyrus was rolled up, wrapped in cloth, and put in a rough pottery tube, broken, alas! in the finding')

3. Publications 1890-1898 Note that W.M.F. Petrie, Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara (London 1890) appears to contain no references to findspots; on p.45 Griffith simply records at the start of his contribution to the report 'Fragments of a large number of papyri have been brought home by Mr. Petrie, from the Xllth Dynasty town of Kahun'. On p.12, Petrie records that, in this period between the spring and autumn 1889 seasons of excavation, Percy Newberry was 'engaged in mounting the papyri', and also that Griffith was 'devoting his spare hours to mounting and reading the hieratic papyri'. W.M.F. Petrie, Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob (London 1891), Griffith p.47 'A vast number of the fragments are not larger than an inch square, many are less than half an inch, but thanks to Mr. Petrie's careful packing in "lots" as they were obtained, and to the means of characterisation that I have just mentioned, there is no cause to despair of discovering how pieces join if they will join (although one lot may contain 50 or 60 documents of which other parts are sometimes to be found in a different lot) ... It must be mentioned, however, that to all appearance, quite one half of the papyri of which Mr. Petrie obtained the remains are represented by a single small or even minute fragment' F. LI. Griffith The Petrie Papyri. Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob, principally of the Middle Kingdom (London 1898). P. l 'Kahun, LV.1 ... Found at Kahun, November, 1889 .. Lot LV. contained several interesting pieces, but unfortunately none of them is dated'

vi

P.5 'Kahun, Vl.1 ... Found at Kahun, April, 1889 ... This valuable papyrus was in a very fragmentary condition. The third page has been reconstituted of no less than forty-six separate pieces, the peculiar writing always ensuring their identification from amongst the vast heap which composed the find No.VI. ... ' P.12 'Kahun, LV.2 ... Found at Kahun, November, 1889' P.15 'Kahun, IV.2 ... Found at Kahun, April , 1889' P.16 ' Kahun, IV.3 ... Found at Kahun with the last' P.16 'Kahun, LV.3 ... Found at Kahun, November, 1889 P.16 'Kahun, LV.4 ... Found at Kahun with the last' P.19 'Kahun, I.3-5 ... A group of three documents or fragments found together, rolled up and sealed' P.25 'Kahun, IV.I ... (Some small fragments fitting to the left-hand end of this papyrus were in Lot XVIII ., which is probably therefore part of the same find.)' P.31 'Kahun, I.1 ... Found vertically folded, and sealed with the impression of a scarab, scroll pattern, Kahun, Pl.x.20' P.35 'Kahun, I.2 ... The sheet has been rolled or folded and then doubled down across the middle. For impression on seal see Kahun, Pl.x., no.19, apparently the same that was found on the papyri in Pl.ix' P.37 'Kahun, II.I ... Found at Kahun, April, 1889. Lot II. is closely connected with Lot I., and contains many references to the Sopdites' P.51 'Kahun , XIV.I ... Fragment, found alone' P.80 'Kahun, V. l ... Found alone (apparently near Lot VI.), sealed with the large and much -injured seal, Kahun , Pl.x., 21 ' This is the last in the Griffith selection for which any comment on find circumstances is given. Taking all of these references together, it is clear that Griffith had to rely entirely on Petrie for any information on findspot. From the announcement that finds 'have come in' on a particular day in the week 21-28 April 1889 (first season 'journal' typescript p.107, cf second season p.11), it is also clear that Petrie himself often received material at a distance from the findspot, whether at his workplace on site or at his accommodation . This spatial gap between excavation director and excavation is not entirely contrary to more recently developed archaeological practice; however, it is compounded by lack of site subdivision and consequently limited site sector supervision. It is important, then, to remain realistic about the degree to which findspot can be reconstructed. From the old labels and marks, it seems that large brown envelopes were used to store each of the "lots" cited by Griffith in the 1891 publication . These lots received Roman numerals in sequence, reaching as high as number 78 on one envelope, with reference to a lot 85 on the small excavation storage box used to preserve a seal from a papyrus (the seal is now in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology , UC 7312; the storage box is still preserved with the object, and bears the ink label 'Seal from papyrus Kahun 1890 LXXXV. l '). It is not recorded whether Petrie himself assigned these numerals, or whether the numbering was done in Egypt or in England, and if in Egypt sequentially find by find, or in groups week by week, or at the end of each season. It seems that it was Griffith who then sorted within each lot, and assigned an Arabic numeral to each separable original manuscript. The labour in this immense initial sorting task can be glimpsed in revisions of the Arabic numerals with lot numbers on labels affixed to papyri not selected for publication. Evidently, as one fragment was found to belong to the same manuscript as another, it ceased to have an independent item identity, and all subsequent numbers had to be revised downwards. In view of the hieratic expertise required for these identifications of separate manuscripts among the fragments, only Griffith, with the assistance of Newberry, can have been involved at this stage of the processing of the finds, and the 1890-1891 publication contributions by Griffith imply that this took place in England. All items published by Griffith in 1898 are identified by this system of Roman numeral lot number combined with Arabic numeral; the second item in lot I is thus Lot 1.2 in the publication. For several items Griffith published date of discovery; items in Lots II, IV and VI are from the work in April 1889, and Lot LV from November 1889. For two papyri, Lots XV.I and V.1, Griffith specified that they were 'found alone', Lot V.l with the added note 'apparently near Lot VI'. It is not clear what kind of written or oral communication might have given rise to the latter phrasing ; Griffith may have deduced that a find was made in isolation, from the absence of other items in that lot. None of these published comments provide any information on the place of findspots within the town or adjacent sites such as the Valley Temple of the pyramid complex or the refuse heaps outside the town . In the unpublished excavation documentation, only two finds, lots II and III, are given a specific provenance, being from the 'head ' of 'Rank C' and 'Rank B' respectively. The Middle Kingdom town site at Lahun is rigorously orthogonal, and the street grid offered the excavator long blocks of houses as discrete units on his plan of the site for his 1890 publication of the first part cleared; he called these blocks 'Ranks', and identified them by letter, starting with A at the block nearest the Valley Temple, where work seems to have

vii

begun at the beginning of April 1889. The 'head' is the west end, nearest the town wall and desert with the pyramid in the distance. On the 1890 plan, both Ranks B and C appear incomplete at their west end, and it is possible that the lots II and III were both found in rubbish. Their association with the small houses in this part of the town is therefore relative rather than absolute; it seems unlikely that they derive from the large houses in the centre of the town, but this is one possibility for their deposition in a less elevated social context. The comments in the 'journals' provide less specific information on findplace, but at least pinpoint the week in which some lots were found. From comparison with the published data, the find in week April 8-15 can be identified by the references to seal impressions as Lot 1.3-5 and Lot 1.1 and I.2. It is not clear whether they were found in one place. Although this is 'Lot I', the entry for the first two days of work, on a page preceding the entry with this find, already refers to 'papyri scraps' in Middle Kingdom hieratic (the handwriting being in the style of Papyrus Prisse, the most famous Middle Kingdom manuscript). The substantial documents of Lot I would scarcely be called 'scraps', and the use of the papyri scraps as the fourth item of proof for the Middle Kingdom date of the town implies that the more substantial, and so more decisive, written evidence had not been found when he wrote those lines. Therefore the lot numbering cannot represent a pure chronological sequence. The following identifications may be proposed for the other lot finds in the journal typescript for the first season: P.98, 14-20 April 1889 'Another complete papyrus of 11 lines and 1 column, folded up and sealed with a large seal of an official of Amenemhat, almost illegible ... This is from a different region of the town to the others, halfway down in a chamber full of rubbish' = LotV P.101, week 21-28 April 1889 'a rubbish heap of papyri; on a small scale it is true; but still three nearly complete and pieces of several more. Some of these are the finest written that I have yet seen here; apparently long accounts, all on ruled columns and lines, exquisitely neat and in a beautiful clear clean hand; much of it in red. I have flatted and laid out to press 7 square feet of sheets and fragments, all Xllth.' = Lot III P.102, same letter and week 'More luck with XII dyn. papyri; a lot strewn about in a chamber, but sadly eaten by white ants. However there is one perfect about a dozen lines, another nearly so, four half eaten at, and scraps of many others.' = Lot II P.107, same letter and week 'Another ivory mirror handle; a shell-saw with rush bound handle, and a papyrus of a dozen lines with parts of two other columns have come in today' P.108, letter XXVII, week 28 April - 4 May 1889 'Another good papyrus of 9 lines quite perfect, and three lines of a second document on the same: I never saw a piece so fresh and white'= Lot VII P.109, same letter and week 'A great batch of papyri, about 6 or 8 nearly complete, one large sheet of two closely written columns with red sentences interspersed: and pieces of a dozen or more other documents which can many be put together I hope'= Lot VI

The second season journal typescript records just one major find: P.17, 8-14 Nov. 1889 'Some good papyri have at last turned up. One document is of 11 columns, beginning with full titles and cartouches of Usertesen III, and only a little injured at the ends of the columns. On the same sheet are two other documents in lines, nearly entire. With this was a large piece of a hieroglyphic papyrus in columns; and several fragments'= Lot LV

From the survey workings crammed into the pages of the Petrie excavation notebooks, and from references to other object finds in the 'journals' and publications, Carla Gallorini has reconstructed the progress of work across the site (' A Reconstruction of Petrie's Excavation at the Middle Kingdom Settlement of Kahun', in S. Quirke ed., Lahun Studies (London 1998), pp. 42-59). Petrie stated that more than one front was opened in his clearance of the preserved half of the town, and therefore in most weeks he was working on more than one part of the town. This undermines any attempt to determine the exact provenance of his finds. However, he comments that one papyrus was found (isolated?) during the week 14-20 April in 'a different region of the town to the others'; since his work began in the middle of the town later than the work on the desert edge beside the Valley Temple, it seems likely that this papyrus came from the middle area of the town, either large or small houses, and therefore that the finds of the preceding week were all from the Valley Temple end of the town, with small houses only. Gallorini notes that the other object finds of the first days of work came from Rank A. From the manuscript information we have already seen that Lots III and II are from Ranks B and C. The 'journal' descriptions appear to confirm that Rank B with Lot III was cleared first; the numerical sequence of lots is again an approximate rather than a pure chronological sequence. Perhaps Petrie gave the lot numbers at the end of each day, or perhaps more likely each week, rather than precisely at the moment that they were found.

Vlll

In sum, there are provenances to a part of a Rank for Lots II and III, likely provenance to a Rank (A?) for Lot I, and central town area provenance for Lot V. Griffith published the latter as being found 'apparently near to Lot VI', and this would therefore share the same general provenance, the middle of the town. For Lot LV this also seems likely, but is uncertain. Although it is disappointing not to have more precise locations for a greater number of finds, it is worth noting that Lot IV is the only other lot known to have contained more than a few items. This, together with the vague references to papyrus scraps as a daily find, leaves the impression that the material was strewn across the whole site. There was something in the order of seventy-eight to eighty-five separate groups of papyri given to Petrie by the men clearing the town. Some at least came from areas with modest scale houses. For all the problems with the documentation, the archaeology of the Middle Kingdom town at Lahun does not support the extremely low literacy levels generally ascribed to ancient Egypt. This mass of writing calls for a more nuanced appreciation of the roles of writing and reading, and the social reach of the written culture across the different classes, ages, genders inhabiting this architecture and landscape. The letters from Lahun offer the most direct route into this spectrum of literacies in the Middle Kingdom.

The Lahun Papyri: history of the publication The UCL Lahun papyri constitute one of the most remarkable harvests of papyri of any age, and their sheer bulk has been the major factor in the delays throughout the history of publication of the group. The single other main reason for the slow progress in producing a full catalogue of the collection has certainly been the outstandingly high quality of the original selective publication by Frances Llewellyn Griffith in 1898. Understandably, Egyptologists considered the work done, when his two exemplary text and plates volumes appeared (F. LL Griffith The Petrie Papyri. Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob, principally of the Middle Kingdom (London 1898)). The postwar fire at the museum exacerbated the problem to some extent, as it must have created the impression of damage to the papyri, though in fact no modem fire damage is visible on any piece of the papyri themselves - see below. Nevertheless, the main obstacle has been the quantity of material. Raymond Faulkner, Paul Smither and Cyril Spaull all devoted more or less time across several decades, but no new publication emerged. Instead , the selection published by Griffith became the point of departure for comments on those papyri and for general accounts of the written evidence from the site. In 1991 the authors of this volume were invited to begin work on the collection. At this stage, there were in addition to the items published by Griffith some sixty-six glass frames full of papyri. Few of these retained lot numbers and item numbers . The larger pieces had been glazed in individual frames, with thin glass, and there were ink labels on the faded and partly singed paper binding; this is the principal visible effect of the postwar fire on the collection, and there is no discernible damage to the ancient papyrus in the frame (the remark in the Lexikon der Agyptologie III, 293 n.4 should be read in this light). In 1994 transcriptions of all these unpublished items were complete . Thanks to an appeal to support publication, conservation had been carried out by Bridget Leach for the most seriously endangered items, including famous manuscripts such as the 'Kahun Medical Papyrus' and the Hymns to Senusret III. At the end of 1994, the late Barbara Adams, then Curator of the Petrie Museum, rediscovered in a manuscript storage cupboard, towards the window at the east end of the museum, a large parcel marked as 'Kahun papyri' and containing hundreds of additional fragments. With this exciting new museum find, instead of finalising publication, the authors were confronted again with the task of transcription, and Bridget Leach returned to a programme of conserving and mounting under glass the vast new mass of material. In 1999 Renee Waltham joined her in this task, and a year later, nearing the end of the available conservation funds, the final sets of fragments were simply mounted under glass, in order to avoid any further delay in publication. Most of the 1994 find comprises very small fragments, but they retained Petrie 'lot numbers' and include several important additions to our stock of writing from the late Middle Kingdom. Despite early hopes, it has not proven possible to link any of these unpublished fragments, with lot numbers, to the fragments in the sixty-six frames, largely without lot numbers. Therefore a catalogue by lot number is no longer possible ; almost half the collection cannot be ascribed to a particular lot. With five items from the Griffith publication already registered, the catalogue of the entire collection was completed for the museum inventory, including all other items published by Griffith . These new UC numbers offer the only unitary sequence of numbers, and are the only means of identification for museum staff in relation to the rest of the museum collections. They are now the only numbers for a large proportion of the papyri, and are therefore adopted in this publication as the primary reference number for all items. The items selected by Griffith for publication have frequently been cited in other works, and each has its own UC number. For the items rediscovered in 1994, a UC number has been given to each received unit, either a single fragment with lot and item number, or a group of fragments with group identity such as 'letter fragments from lot VI' . For the unpublished items framed before 1994, most frames were given a provisional number when the bulk of the series was mounted under glass some time after the Second World War, and this has simply been converted into a UC number; frame xl is now UC 32091, and so on to x62, with the final unnumbered frames following as UC 32153-6. These contain different fragments, and Cyril Spaull, or his predecessors, had given a letter to each item within a frame, proceeding from top left to bottom right: the fragments from four manuscripts in frame UC 32091 are UC 32091 A, B, C and D. The few instances where a lot number label is preserved on the papyrus indicate that the present arrangement in the frames may bear no relation to an original grouping by lots; it may never be possible to determine whether specific fragments in or across frames were discovered together or not.

ix

UCL Lahun Papyri - list by lot numbers Griffith recorded lot number for each of the 65 items in his 1898 publication. In the first group of unpublished papyri a few items have lot number marked on the support, or by a label affixed to the papyrus itself. The great majority of these have no lot number, and are so heterogeneous that it seems likely that they come from many different lots. The second group of papyri comprises largely small items with lot numbers on the large and small Petrie envelopes in which they were found in 1994, or on labels affixed to the papyrus.

Lot No.

Item No.

1

1 2 3

4 5 6 7

2

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 3

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 4

1

2 3 4 5

5 6

Contents imt-pr of Wah UC 32058 swnt of lhyseneb for brother UC 32167 wpwt of Sneferu wpwt of Hori, father of Sneferu wpwtofHori (degraded fragments with 3-5) letter from Iyemiatib statement of claim UC 32055 letter from Neni ( ..) letter UC 32123 letter UC 32131 letter UC 32122 card '11.6 Head of Rank C' letter fragment UC 32287 letter fragment UC 32288 legal document fragment UC 32289 petition fragment UC 32290 letter fragment UC 32291 letter from Wah, fragment UC 32292 legal fragment UC 32293 accounts fragment year 40+x UC 32294 legal fragment UC 32295 letter fragment, across guideline UC 32296 journal year 34 (scribe of town?) series of nine model letters letter from a woman named Ir letter from Khemem ( ..) letter from Senbu to Ankhtyfy ( ..) accounts fragment UC 32113C accounts fragment UC 32297 works namelist accounts fragment letter fragment UC 32298 blank fragments Lot III= UC 32300

wpwt of the regular lector Khakaura/Sneferu mathematical manual fragment mathematical manual fragment letter grain accounts fragment letter from Imyershenet

1 2 3 4

5

treatments concerning childbirth accounts fragment used to strengthen item 1 ( ..) letter from Irysu letter

X

7

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

letter from Iyib letter UC 32128 letter in red letter fragment cattle account, v/h commodity list commodity list Tale of Horus and Seth, v/h production sector accounts works namelist works namelist works namelist year 43

1 2

imt-pr of Mery Kebi for his son Intef Iuseneb UC 32037 (fragments in envelope)

2

letter from Kemeni fragments in envelope '?portion of Horus and Seth VI.12?'

1

pottery accounts document year 38

8 9

( ..)

accounts fragment UC 32121 accounts fragment UC 32130 works/grain accounts fragment works/grain accounts fragment year 43 accounts fragments +UC 32268-9 with 'Lot VI frags' memo concerning stores year 44 ( ..)

accounts fragment UC 32188 (framed with UC 32281) accounts fragment UC 32129A accounts fragment UC 32125

10 fragments in envelope

11

1

letter to a woman fragments in envelope

14

1

early accounts fragment

15

1

letter from Pepu to a woman named Sobekhotep

16

1

field yield account fragments in envelope also marked 'lot 100'

17

1 2 3

letter UC 32124 ( ..) list of 30 good or bad days

12

13

fragments in envelope (NB: Griffith recorded (some) lot XVIII fragments as part of IV. I)

18 19

1 2 3 4

field sizes fragment ( ..)

letter from mty n s5 Impy letter from general Impy fragments in envelope

20

fragments in envelope

21

fragments in envelope

22

1 2

fields accounts fragment UC 32119 F larger of two letter fragments

xi

23

fragments in envelope

24

fragments in envelope

25

fragments in envelope

26

fragments in envelope

27

fragments in envelope

28

fragments in envelope

29

1-2

UC 32111 C, accounts document? obscured by mud

30

fragments in envelope

31

fragments in envelope

32 33

fragments in envelope

34

fragments in envelope

35

fragments in envelope

36

1

fragments in envelope (or could be lot 36? mark not clear)

37 38

accounts fragment

1-2

fragments in envelope

39

fragments in envelope

40

fragments in envelope

41

1

table of dancers and singers at festivals debris from card UC 32271-32274?

42

fragments in envelope

43

fragments in envelope

44

1

accounts list (inw of high officials) fragments in envelope

45

1

fragment with high numerals fragments in envelope

46

fragments in envelope

47

fragments in envelope

48

1

fragment in envelope fragments in envelope

49 50 51 52

fragments in envelope

53

fragments in envelope

54

fragments in envelope

55

1 2 3 4 5-7.1 8

Hymns to Senusret III, v/h end of tale hieroglyphic veterinary papyrus mathematical fragment mathematical fragment ( ..) accounts (inw of officials, '{rn>)

xii

56

1 2

letter from Nehyeni fragments in envelope 'belong apparently to LV .2'

57

1 2 3 4

( ..) UC 32115C letter fragment (envelope marked LVII.2-4) accounts fragment with weapons

58 59

fragments in envelope

60

fragments in envelope

61

fragments in envelope

62

fragments in envelope

63

1

64

grain cargo accounts fragment fragments in envelope fragments in envelope

65

1

letter to or from Meri

66

1

UC 32114 C letter fragment fragments in envelope

67 68

1

fragments in envelope

69

fragments in envelope

70

fragments in envelope

71

fragments in envelope

72

73 74

fragments in envelope

75

fragments in envelope

76

fragments in envelope

77

fragments in envelope

78

1

fragments in envelope

Note UC seal impression from a Lot LXXXV papyrus(?) Note too UC 32301 '100' and UC 32321 '105' - not explained

Xlll

xiv

First Group of Previously Unpublished Letters: UC 32091B - UC 32156B

\}

0

'13?0

0

11 I

~ ~~,

rr

Qtf-1 -t;.

iii

.32..0.91

2

B

UC 32091B Frame Fragmentary hieratic papyri, mounted in one glass frame, labelled as A-C, of which P UC 32091B is a letter. The frame is divided into t~o for the digitised images on the CD : UC32091A and UC 32091B (labelled after the first fragment in catalogue order to be found complete on the image in the CD file), giving the following files for recto and verso (all the digitised photographic images of the papyri are in JPEG format and carry the additional suffix .jpg ) : UC 3209JA-f, UC32091 A-b and UC32091 B-f and UC32091B-b. f stands for 'front' (thus ordinarily the recto) and b for 'back' (thus ordinarily the verso). In the CD reference accompanying each letter entry both 'front' and 'back' images of the papyrus in question are indicated, thus referencing images of the papyrus as a whole, even where the verso contains an alternative document category (such as an account)

PUC 32091B recto CD: UC32091B-fand UC32091B-b

Description P UC 32091B comprises 12 fragments written on both sides in black. The two largest fragments are from a single manuscript with recto letter and verso accounts. Largest fragment: h: 13.2; w: 5.3. Text (recto only)

UC 32091Bi nb nfrw nbw 3 [swgs-ib p]w [n] nb '.w.s. 4 [. • ...••.•.••.. .. .] .. • '~=i lines 5-7 traces only 1 [. ••• •• •• •••• •• •• •• • • •.•• ]

2 [. .•..••••

• .....••

.]

[ ....... ........... . ...... .... (a deity)], lord of [ ........................ ] and all the gods [Th]is [is a communication to] the lord l.p.h. [ .......... ] ... my rations .

UC 32091Bii .jy {. ... ] p5]-nty-n=i [ •• •• •• • •• • • •••••• ••• .] nb '.w.s. [ •. .... .. . . .......... .] nb '.w.s. [. . . . ... . . . ... . ...... .] nb '.w.s.

. l {. • .. • •.• ••• •• .•• • •..•..

2 [ . . •• • •...•......•.• 3 4

5

6 [ •. • • •.• ••. . .• . • . .]

st

[ ...............................................]

[ ............... ......... Pa]netyeni [ ... .. ....................... ] the lord l.p.h. [ ............................ ] the lord 1.p.h. [ ........... ................. ] the lord 1.p.h. [ ........... ....... .... ... . .]it(?)

A third fragment (UC 32091Biii) may or may not belong to the same manuscript but yields no continuous text.

3

!, ej 1:::::7 ~

--

u.--

6

1-0-\

¥}

V

h

h 32._09 2. A

4

V

UC 32092A-C Frame: Fragmentary hieratic papyri, mounted in one frame, labelled A-C, all being letters. The frame is divided into two on the CD: UC32092A and UC 32092B (labelled after the first fragment visible on the digital image), giving the following files for recto and verso: UC 32092A-f, UC32092A-b and UC32092B-f and UC32092B-b.

UC 32092A CD: UC32092A-fand UC32092A-b

Description 2 fragments of a letter, with 4 columns on recto and 2 columns on verso, in black. h: 9.1 + 13.2; w: 7.4. Text (columns): Recto 1 !Jrwfy sw mdt nt st,, p[n .......... ....] [. ..................................... .] sgm.n b5k-im ir nsw-bity !J