This pdf is a digital offprint of your contribution in S. Bickel & L. Díaz-Iglesias (eds), Studies in Ancient Egyptian Funerary Literature, ISBN 978-90-429-3462-7

The copyright on this publication belongs to Peeters Publishers.

As author you are licensed to make printed copies of the pdf or to send the unaltered pdf file to up to 50 relations. You may not publish this pdf on the World Wide Web – including websites such as academia.edu and open-access repositories – until three years after publication. Please ensure that anyone receiving an offprint from you observes these rules as well.

If you wish to publish your article immediately on open- access sites, please contact the publisher with regard to the payment of the article processing fee.

For queries about offprints, copyright and republication of your article, please contact the publisher via [email protected] ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA ————— 257 —————

studies in ancient egyptian funerary literature

edited by

susanne bickel and lucía Díaz-iglesias

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT 2017 Table of Contents

Abbreviations VII Susanne Bickel, Lucía Díaz-Iglesias Introduction XIII Florence Albert Un groupe de papyrus funéraires tardifs 1 James P. Allen The Pyramid Texts as Literature 29 Bernard Arquier Le double sarcophage de Mésehti: l’espace, le verbe et le temps 43 Burkhard Backes Re-reading Pyramids? Gedanken zu Korrelationen zwischen Inhalt, Anbringungsort und hypothetischer Lesefolge funerärer Texte anhand PT 313‒321 73 Susanne Bickel Everybody’s Afterlife? “Pharaonisation” in the Pyramid Texts 119 Martin Bommas Middle Kingdom Box Coffin Fragments from Assiut. The Unpublished Coffin Boards Birmingham S1Bir and S1NY 149 Jan-Michael Dahms Die Zusammenstellung von Pyramiden- und Sargtexten im Sarg des Karenen (Sq6C) und im Grab von Chesu dem Älteren (KH1KH) – Die Rolle des Verstorbenen als Empfänger oder Handelnder in sacerdotal und personal texts 181 Lucía Díaz-Iglesias Local Reworkings of Core Mythological Notions: the Case of Herakleopolis Magna 205 Silvia Einaudi Some Remarks on Three Book of the Dead Vignettes in the Tomb of Padiamenope (TT 33) 247 VI table of contents

Louise Gestermann Möglichkeiten und Grenzen textkritischen Arbeitens am Beispiel altägyptischer funerärer Texte 263 Ramadan B. Hussein Text Transmission or Text Reproduction? The Shifting Materi- ality of Pyramid Texts Spell 267 295 Günther Lapp Die Vignette zu Tb 15 aus Papyrus London BM EA 10466–7 331 Alexandra von Lieven Originally Non-funerary Spells from the Coffin Texts: the Example of CT spell 38 345 Barbara Lüscher Papyrus Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale 46: ein Beitrag zur frühen Rezeptionsgeschichte des Totenbuches 355 Bernard Mathieu Re-reading the Pyramids. Repères pour une lecture spatialisée des Textes des Pyramides 375 Antonio J. Morales Unraveling the Thread. Transmission and Reception of Pyramid Texts in Late Period Egypt 463 Isabelle Régen Note de cryptographie. Le nom du bâton-serpent dans la 1re heure de l’Amdouat (n° 62) 497 Zsuzsanna Végh The Transition from the Coffin Texts to the Book of the Dead: The Origin of the Glosses in Book of the Dead Spell 18 513 Mareike Wagner Die Sprüche 648 bis 654 der altägyptischen Sargtexte 553 Harco Willems The Method of “Sequencing” in Analyzing Egyptian Funerary Texts. The Example of Coffin Texts Spells 283 and 296 599 Indices 621 English and Arabic Summaries 659 Local reworkings of core mythological notions: the case of Herakleopolis Magna

Lucía Díaz-iglesias*

Once a repertory of written texts in continuous discourse had been developed,1 ancient Egyptian religious compositions are characterized by a double trend towards the conservation of inherited ideas, on the one hand, and towards the revision of contents, on the other. The first tenden- cy is derived from the reverence for received texts and (long)-established traditions whose efficacy and legitimacy was proved by continuous use,2 coupled with the authoritative value of what were considered as works of gods or emanations of Re.3 Both factors did not necessarily lead to the “canonical” reproduction of compositions.4 They rather contributed to the

* I would like to express my gratitude to Susanne Bickel for her continuous academic and personal support during my stay in the University of Basel. Thanks are also due to Anna Garnett, who has undertaken the task of proofreading this article. 1 Considerations of the date of setting down in writing of the earliest mortuary texts, as well as their range, place of storage, and relations to other genres are discussed by J. Baines, Modelling Sources, Processes, and Locations of Early Mortuary Texts, in S. Bickel, B. Mathieu (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre: textes des pyramides & textes des sarcophages : actes de la Table ronde internationale, textes des pyramides versus textes des sarcophages : IFAO, 24-26 septembre 2001 (BiEtud 139), Le Caire, 2004, p. 17‒30. For the earliest attestation of continuous written language in speeches directed by deities to the king, see Idem, Prehistories of Literature: Performance, Fiction, Myth, in G. Moers (ed.), Definitely: Egyptian Literature: Proceedings of the Symposion “Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms”, Los Angeles, March 24‒26, 1995 (LingAegSM 2), Göt- tingen, 1999, p. 20 and L. Morenz, Die Götter und ihr Redetext: Die ältestbelegte Sakral- Monumentalisierung von Textlichkeit auf Fragmenten der Zeit des Djoser aus Heliopolis, in H. Beinlich et al. (eds.), 5. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung Würzburg, 23.‒26. September 1999 (ÄAT 33.3), Wiesbaden, 2002, p. 137‒158. 2 the weight of performances, oral traditions, and the oral sphere should not be under- estimated, although they remain difficult to grasp. 3 J.L. Gee, Were Egyptian Texts Divinely Written?, in J.-C. Goyon, C. Cardin (eds.), Actes du Neuvième Congrès International des Égyptologues (OLA 150), Leuven, 2007, p. 807‒813; Y. Volokhine, Reliques et traces en Égypte ancienne. À propos de la présence sur terre d’écrits et d’objets d’origine divine, in P. Borgeaud, Y. Volokhine (eds.), Les objets de la mémoire. Pour une approche comparatiste des reliques et de leur culte (Studia Religiosa Helvetica), Berne, 2005, p. 47‒72. 4 a debate was raised in recent years around the consideration of the Book of the Dead as canon (J.L. Gee, The Book of the Dead as Canon, in BMSAES 15 (2010), p. 23‒33) or as open tradition (A. von Lieven, Closed Canon vs Creative Chaos. An in-depth Look at (Real and Supposed) Mortuary Texts from Ancient Egypt, in Problems of Canonicity and 206 l. díaz-iglesias maintenance of elements of their contents and forms, such as central mo- tifs or core notions,5 formal conventions and structures, or patterns of in- teraction in the divine world.6 In fact, new texts were often composed from the re-use of pre-existing elements.7 The second driving force is related to the actualization of contents, incorporating new elements as well as changes in all domains of religious conceptions and practices8 or (when no new ideas come into play) in the way or medium of expressing them.9

Identity Formation in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, University of Copenhagen, May 26‒28, 2010, in press). I am thankful to the author for sharing her hitherto unpublished work with me. Von Lieven discusses in this same article the case of compositions with a high degree of canonisation such as the Amduat. 5 susanne Bickel argues for a process of transmission of ideas and concepts (which she dubs “tradition conceptuelle”), which developed in parallel to the process of textual trans- mission (“tradition textuelle”). For the re-elaboration of the “complexe sémantique” of the ferrymen and the transforming journey of the deceased in the course of time, see S. Bickel, D’un monde à l’autre: le thème du passeur et de sa barque dans la pensée funéraire, in S. Bickel, B. Mathieu (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre, p. 91‒115, esp. 113, 115. 6 k. Goebs has discussed several of these patterns (structural relationships between actors (=characters) or between actors and objects, locations, or situations) in A Functional Approach to Egyptian Myth and Mythemes, in JANER 2 (2002), p. 27‒59, esp. 42‒57. 7 this combining and recombining of themes and passages into the construction of new texts is described as “bricolage” (following the terminology of Claude Lévy Strauss) by scholars analysing the earliest religious productions (for the Pyramid Texts, see H. Hays, Transformation of Context: The Field of Rushes in Old and Middle Kingdom Mortuary Literature, in S. Bickel, B. Mathieu (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre, p. 181 and n. 55) and the latest ones (for the Artemis Liturgical Papyrus, a late Ptolemaic or early Roman burial ritual, see J. Dieleman, Scribal Bricolage in the Artemis Liturgical Papyrus, in B. Backes, J. Dieleman (eds.), Liturgical Texts for Osiris and the Deceased in Late Period and Greco- Roman Egypt. Liturgische Texte für Osiris und Verstorbene im spätzeitlichen Ägypten. Proceedings of the Colloquiums at New York (ISAW) 6 May 2011, and Freudenstadt, 18‒21 July 2012 (SSR 14), Wiesbaden, 2015, p. 218, 229‒231. 8 h. Hays dealt with what he termed “mutated traditions”, analysing how traditions (motifs and structures) first found in Pyramid Texts spells were modified in Coffin Texts through the expansion of function and the change of context: H. Hays, Transformation of Context, p. 175‒200; Idem, The Mutability of Tradition: the Old Kingdom Heritage and Middle Kingdom Significance of Coffin Texts Spell 343, in JEOL 40 (2006‒2007), p. 43‒59. For the incorporation of Amun-related religious concepts into the Book of the Dead rep- ertoire (especially in the so-called “supplementary spells”) during the Third Intermediate Period, which mirrors the New Kingdom and later economical and political importance of the clergy of Amun-Re in Thebes, see A. Wüthrich, Élements de théologie thébaine: les chapitres supplémentaires du Livre des Morts (SAT 16), Wiesbaden, 2010. 9 In this sense, the nature of the change of Coffin Texts in relation to Pyramid Texts rested less on a change in belief and more on a change of practice — the setting down in writing of the funerary compositions on enduring surfaces for the benefit of non-royal individuals — according to M. Smith, Democratization of the Afterlife, in J. Dieleman, W. Wendrich (eds.), UCLA, Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles, 2009 (http://es- cholarship.org/uc/item/70g428wj, last accessed 01/04/2016). A similar opinion is voiced by H. Willems, Historical and Archaeological Aspects of Egyptian Funerary Culture. Reli- gious Ideas and Ritual Practice in Middle Kingdom Elite Cemeteries (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 73), Boston ‒ Leiden, 2014, p. 174. M. Smith also acknowledges local reworkings of core mythological notions 207

It is thus linked to the introduction of new devices of discourse10 and of novel forms of combining texts.11 A dynamic, creative, and lively pro- cess spanning between the poles of “tradition” and “innovation”12 thus lies at the core of the production and reproduction of religious texts. To be discussed here are funerary, cultic and liturgical, and encyclopedic compositions. This complex cultural phenomenon contrasts sharply with the superficial and erroneous perception of the immutability of ancient Egyptian religion. It can be illuminated when conducting analysis of such compositions at a synchronic level (by examining contemporary witness- es or versions of a given text) and/or at a diachronic level (by following the semantic nuances introduced in a given spell with a long history of transmission or by tracking the development of a motif over the course of time through different religious compositions). This paper aims to approach the vitality and creativity of religious discourse by drawing attention to the role played by local factors in the dynamics of textual composition. This author considers that one way in which changes or new perspectives in religious productions became crys- tallized was the integration into established central frameworks and top- ics (and thus the reworking thereof) of local features: whether religious, historical, or pertaining to the landscape of different regions. A twofold, bidirectional (or, better, flowing circularly), and ever-enriching process the importance of new topics, new devices of expression, and the reinterpretation of older spells in the more recent corpus (Coffin Texts). 10 For instance, while dialogues are already attested in Pyramid Texts, they achieve a greater development in Coffin Texts, and their fundamental role in the transformation of the deceased has been analysed by S. Bickel, Dialoge und das Dialogische in den altägyptischen Sargtexten, in A. el Hawary (ed.), Wenn Götter und Propheten reden - Erzählen für die Ewigkeit, Berlin, 2012, p. 64‒82. For new discursive strategies in Coffin Texts, unfolded in parallel to similar developments in other non-religious spheres, see L. Coulon, Rhétorique et stratégies du discours dans les formules funéraires: les innova- tions des Textes des Sarcophages, in S. Bickel, B. Mathieu (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre, p. 129‒142. 11 according to the hypothesis of A. Morales in his study of the adaptation of Pyramid Texts to new settings after the Old Kingdom, the structure of the textual programmes deco- rating burial spaces and objects (with their strings/series and groups of PT used in full or abridged versions and alone or in connection with CT) can be modified in accordance with the different ritual practices and beliefs of the local cemeteries and temples of the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom (A. Morales, The Transmission of the Pyramid Texts into the Middle Kingdom: Philological Aspects of a Continuous Tradition in Egyptian Mortuary Literature, 2013, PhD Dissertation, Pennsylvania). 12 Caution should be exerted when applying these concepts to ancient Egypt culture, following the comments of A. Diego Espinel, Play and Display in Egyptian High Culture: the Cryptographic Texts of Djehuty (TT 11) and their Sociocultural Context, in J.M. Galán, B.M. Bryan, P.F Dorman (eds.), Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut. Papers from the Theban Workshop 2010 (SAOC 69), Chicago, 2014, p. 297‒299. 208 l. díaz-iglesias was thus set in motion: on the one hand, it entailed the integration of traditional motifs/patterns in the local reality and, on the other, it implied the recasting of local elements into these topics and patterns — enrich- ing their connotations along the way — and the projection of these local (re)creations into the more broadly recognized Egyptian traditions. The point of departure of this article is, firstly, my doctoral disser- tation, based on the mythological traditions built around the city of Herakleopolis Magna (20th Upper Egyptian nome) and its surroundings which surface in different religious sources,13 and, secondly, a research project developed at the University of Basel intended to approach the figure of Osiris from a local viewpoint.14 Osiris represents an excellent case study for exploring local traditions, since in the process of expan- sion of his cult across Egypt, his main traits and mythological cycle were expanded through the absorption of religious elements character- istic of different regions. From this standpoint, we can examine if (and to what extent) the cultic background of an area, especially its religious traditions and tutelary deities, as well as its historical and cultural role contributed to shape some aspects of this deity and to generate specific Osirian manifestations. Many of the examples that will be used to illustrate the issues raised in the ensuing discussion will be taken from my research on Herakleopolis Magna, where the reader can find detailed references to the sources and check variants of the texts mentioned here. Elements pertaining to other traditions and mythological cycles (of Heliopolis, Hermopolis, Gebelein, Abydos, Thebes, or Busiris) will complement this paper.

1. Creativity based on local factors: fundamentals and methodologies

In recent years, several scholars have argued in favour of the existence of intensive bidirectional interactions between “central” traditions (i.e. supraregional, achieving a certain hegemonic status across a wider part of the land) and local traditions (i.e. ideas and practices characteristic

13 L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna. Continuidad y reelabo- ración a partir de las fuentes funerarias y cultuales (Aula Ægyptiaca-Studia 7), Bellaterra, 2014. 14 See Naref and Osiris Naref: A Study in Herakleopolitan Religious Traditions (ZÄS- Beiheft 3), Berlin, 2017; El desarrollo de las formas osirianas locales: un modelo expli- cativo, in A. Pérez Largacha (ed.), La Egiptología ibérica en 2016, forthcoming. An English translation of the latter (The Development of Local Osirian Forms: an Explanatory Model) will be published shortly after the edition of the Spanish volume. local reworkings of core mythological notions 209 of a given region or place or considered thus)15 from different points of view. Two recent contributions tackle this issue of mutual influences or interdependences, both of which supersede previous views dominated by the consideration of the superimposition of one (the central) over the other or their independent co-existence.16 The authors of these contribu- tions draw upon different sources (material culture or religious texts) and examine two different periods of ancient Egyptian history. The first of these authors, Richard Bussmann, analyses both archi- tecture and votive types to evaluate the degree of local variation (or of their framing in the local milieu) in temples of the 3rd millennium BC.17 According to Bussmann, localness can be measured on these materials when we can recognize diversity at a countrywide level and when there is regularity at a local level. Contrary to Barry Kemp’s famous Anatomy of a civilization, which featured the relationship between the “Great Tradition” (that of the ruling elites) and the “Small Tradition” (that originating in lo- cal contexts by ordinary people) in terms of power and conflict, Bussmann defends that both traditions were connected by mutual exchanges and in- terdependencies. He concludes that “the Great Tradition can be developed out of local traditions and be recognised in local contexts as part of its own culture. In return, local art can be modelled according to the more standardised, exclusive art of high culture”.18

15 for the issue of regional cultural variation and the different sources that can be mined for data to identify diversity and their limitations, see the overviews of: F. Hagen, Local Identities, in T.A.H. Wilkinson (ed.), The Egyptian World, London ‒ New York, 2007, p. 242‒251; D. Jeffreys, Regionality, Cultural and Cultic Landscapes, in W. Wendrich (ed.), Egyptian Archaeology, Oxford, 2010, p. 102‒118. 16 Significantly, both contributions draw upon ideas and concepts ofM. Marriott (Lit- tle Communities in an Indigenous Civilization, in M. Marriott (ed.), Village India. Stud- ies in the Little Community, Chicago, 1955, p. 171‒222). This scholar refined an analytical framework defined by Redfield and Singer of a “primary civilization” based on Indic urban materials, adding the notions of “universalization” (“a carrying-forward of materials which are already present in the little traditions”, an upward movement that gives rise to the great tradition), of “parochialization” (“direct transmission or spread of elements downward from great to little”) and “residual categories” (representing “neither the results of upward movement nor [...] of downward movement, but rather the stability of contents, created and retained within either tradition”). Quotations are from ibidem, 197, 199, 203. 17 R. Bussmann, Local Traditions in Early Egyptian Temples, in F.D. Friedman, P.N. Fiske (eds.), Egypt at its Origins 3. Proceedings of the Third International Conference “Ori- gin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt”, London 27th July ‒ 1st August 2008 (OLA 205), Leuven, 2011, p. 747‒762. In Great and Little Traditions: Theorising the Archaeological Record of early Egyptian temples, in M. Ullmann (ed.), 10. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung. Ägyptische Tempel zwischen Normierung und Individualität (KSG 3), Wies- baden, in press, he dwells on the theoretic and historiographic basis of this approach. 18 R. Bussmann, Local Traditions, p. 759. His integrative approach is reflected in other contributions: The Social Setting of the Temple of Satet in the Third Millennium BC, 210 l. díaz-iglesias

The second author, Joachim Quack, turns his attention to several pas- sages recorded in mythological manuals and priestly monographs of the 1st millennium BC. Quack brings forward the idea that their content results from the interaction of lokalen kleinen Traditionen (based on economic resources, landscape or topographical features, and cults of a small area) on the one hand, and landesweiten Grundstrukturen or überregionale Theologie (which included, according to him, zentral konzipierte Texte, Grundmuster/Normmodell, zentrale Konzeption, zentrale religiöse Tradi- tion) on the other.19 He concludes that the use of widespread topics and models to convey the specific traits of an area was a creative device (in the hands of an elite group with a high cultural profile), which further aided the incorporation of the latter into the supraregional traditions. It should be added that the religious productions of a given region, such being the case of Gebelein during the First Intermediate Period, have also been analysed by Ludwig Morenz from the angle of the interplay of Traditionsgut and Lokalkolorit giving way to a neue Einheit.20 This schol- ar claims that “die lokale Komponente sollte nicht zu klein veranschlagt und nicht auf die Reproduktion von Textvorlagen aus einer modellhaften zentralen Sakralschrifstelle (with origin in Heliopolis or the northern sa- cred centres) verkürzt werden”.21 He bases this statement on the consid- eration that this Gedankengut is not exclusively the object of a passive reception but can be subjected to an active modification that results in a Lokalprodukt. New creations composed in local temples should, accord- ing to him, also be posited not only for Gebelein, but also for other centres actively engaged with the tradition of Coffin Texts such as Hermopolis.22 in D. Raue, S.J. Seidlmayer, P. Speiser (eds.), The First Cataract of the Nile. One Region - Diverse Perspectives (SDAIK 36), Berlin, 2013, p. 21‒34 (esp. p. 21 where he claims: “[...] it has become more evident that the central perspective reflected more strongly in royal and elite culture needs to be seen as a distinctive tradition constructed within and responding to a more diverse social and cultural universe”). 19 J.F. Quack, Lokalressourcen oder Zentraltheologie? Zur relevanz und Situierung geographisch strukturierter Mythologie im Alten Ägypten, in Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008), p. 5‒29. To similar types of sources is dedicated the work of J.B. Jørgensen, Egyptian Mythological Manuals. Mythological Structures and Interpretative Techniques in the Tebtunis Mythological Manual, the Manual of the Delta and Related Texts, PhD Dissertation, University of Copenhagen, 2014. The author concludes that local and re- gional mythical traditions collected in these texts are interpreted and structured upon a basic mythical pattern: that of the Heliopolitan Ennead. 20 L. Morenz, Die Zeit der Regionen im Spiegel der Gebelein-Region: kulturgeschicht- liche Re-konstruktionen (ProblÄg 27), Leiden, 2010, passim and especially p. 408‒409, 411‒415, 446‒447, 454‒458, 470‒471, 479, 489‒491, 591‒594. 21 Ibidem, p. 412. 22 i will not dwell on the case of Hermopolis as a centre of reception of (Memphite) fu- nerary texts, production of local compositions, and dissemination of both, since its position local reworkings of core mythological notions 211

Precisely, a diachronic analysis of the mythemes that revolve around Herakleopolis Magna and the god Osiris Naref in the works mentioned in the introduction also shows that they often combine local elements with core mythical notions, the result of this intersection being the lo- cal reworking of mainstream mythological episodes in new texts. For the sake of clarity, “mainstream” is used here to refer to core notions in reli- gious beliefs and practices and to widespread — or widely in circulation, at least as far as the literate group was concerned — conceptual frame- works, plots, and modes of discourse in religious sources. The expression is thus akin to the Zentraltheologie of Quack. By “local reworkings” this author understands the creative re-interpretations or adaptations of these core notions/frameworks/discourses from a local point of view.23 As a result, core mythological episodes (for example, the creation of the world by the sun god or the coronation of Osiris) and specific traits of deities are associated with a given centre. By the same token, elements characteristic of an area (religious traditions, historical and cultural developments, as- pects of the local landscape, etc.) are incorporated in the dynamic process of text production and transmission and can end up enriching the stream of shared traditions. It is important to highlight some features from the outset. Firstly, the importance of these local interpretations and associations does not lie in an exclusivity, which they cannot claim (cf. infra), but rather on their creative merging of general ideas with local hallmarks. Secondly, these creative reworkings and productive engagement with circulating notions and venerable traditions do not entail (in general) major breaks, because the weight of the “tradition” vector mentioned in the introduction was strong. On account of these factors, this author suggests to consider that the creativity of local reworkings lies in the introduction of subtle se- mantic shifts (inserting variations within a general sphere of meaning) or in the creation of thematic emphasis (giving prominence to certain as- pects), but using conceptual or formal conventions, which were regarded as prestigious references, to communicate meanings. These subtleties and emphasis ultimately served to integrate the specific or local within the has been well analysed by L. Gestermann, Sargtexte aus Dair al-biršā. Zeugnisse eines historischen Wendepunktes?, in S. Bickel, B. Mathieu (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre, p. 201‒217. For the role of Assiut in the reception, transmission, and production of tra- ditions, see J. Kahl, Siut-Theben. Zur Wertschätzung von Traditionen im alten Ägypten (ProblÄg 13), Leiden – Boston – Köln, 1999. 23 In a similar venue, G. Pinch speaks of “localized retellings of core myths” (G. Pinch, Egyptian Myth: a Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions 106), Oxford, 2004, p. 63‒64. 212 l. díaz-iglesias general and to progressively enrich the shared traditions and frames of reference. Lastly, the scope of the phenomenon and the procedure fol- lowed by ancient textual editors call for the integration of funerary and cultic or liturgical sources in our analysis, given their numerous inner connections. Several authors have drawn attention to the inextricable link between the spheres of the temple (divine cult) and the tomb (fu- nerary/mortuary cult). This is reflected in the fact that these spheres and their sources shared rites, ritual contexts and attitudes of officiants and recipients in the cult, and phraseology or distinctive statements.24 These interconnections and shared characteristics have lead scholars to posit the existence of an all-embracing or common ritual milieu,25 a “Textpool religiöser Texte”,26 and a common stock of knowledge or of mythologi- cal contents, which could be described — referring to expressions used by different authors — as: “Genotext or general store/archive of cultural knowledge”,27 “fonds de connaissances culturel”,28 “fund of religious and often mythical associations”.29 Reference was made above to the lack of exclusivity of the local re- workings, associations, and productions. Indeed, when comparing variants

24 H. Hays, The Worshipper and the Worshipped in the Pyramid Texts, in SAK 30 (2002), p. 153‒177. For points in common and differences between the funerary (i.e. re- lated to the deceased and inaccessible parts of tomb) and cultic (connected with the world of rituals and the use of liturgies) spheres of use, see most recently and comprehensively D.C. Luft, Funerär und liturgisch. Gedanken zur Verbindung von Inhalten, Funktionen und Verwendungsbereichen altägyptischer religiöser Texte, in B. Backes, J. Dieleman (eds.), Liturgical Texts for Osiris and the Deceased in Late Period and Greco-Roman Egypt, p. 37‒73. The interconnections between Osirian liturgies and private funerary composi- tions of the Late and Greaco-Roman Periods are explored from different angles in the contributions of this volume co-edited by B. Backes and J. Dieleman. 25 H. Hays, SAK 30 (2002), p. 153. 26 D.C. Luft, Funerär und liturgisch, p. 46‒47, Abb. 3, who describes the idea of Textpool as: “[...] der die uns derzeit weitgehend unbekannten genauren Vernetzungen der religiösen Textproduktion und Archivierung im Detail ausblendet und wie eine Art „black box“ als Sammelbecken aller (einstmals) existierenden Texte gemeint ist”. 27 M. Smith, The Reign of Seth: Egyptian Perspectives from the First Millennium, in L. Bares, F. Coppens, K. Smoláriková (eds.), Egypt in Transition. Social and Religious Development of Egypt in the First Millennium BCE. Proceedings of an International Con- ference, Prague, September 1‒4, 2009, Prague, 2010, p. 396. Smith further refers to “a basic core of mythological material, perhaps articulating relationships between deities or groups of deities rather than presenting a narrative in the strict sense of the word, which composers of texts that were intended for use in different contexts and for different pur- poses reworked and reshaped in whatever ways they deemed appropriate” (ibidem, p. 396). 28 S. Bickel, Le thème du passeur, p. 113. 29 K. Goebs, The Cannibal Hymn: Continuity and Change in the Pyramid Text and Cof- fin Text Versions, in S. Bickel, B. Mathieu (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre, p. 144. Elsewhere the author refers to an “archive of cultural, in our case mythical, knowledge” (JANER 2 (2002), p. 32‒33). local reworkings of core mythological notions 213 of Coffin Texts or Book of the Dead spells30 or when going through several hymnic compositions,31 it is remarkable that the link established between a mythological episode/situation or a trait of a major god (such as Osiris), on the one hand, and a locality, on the other, is not standardized, exclusive, or excluding.32 On the contrary, mythic episodes and divine traits can be situated in different areas, being the case that Osirian burial rites can be recalled in connection with Rosetjau, Abydos, Heliopolis, Herakleopolis Magna, Letopolis, etc., or that processes related to the creation of the world and the emergence of the sun god can be framed within Heliopo- lis or Hermopolis33 in 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC sources. These examples prove that there was no claim to monopoly in such statements, and this circumstance is owed to two factors. Firstly, the multiplicity of approaches so integral to ancient Egyptian thought and worldview per- mitted the existence of various simultaneous perspectives. Secondly, the ideas underlying such important mythemes as the burial of Osiris or the creation of what exists were too widespread and highly significant in fu- nerary beliefs, ritual practices, and theological speculations, at least as far as the elite were concerned, to become exclusive possibilities. While acknowledging the existence of this wide spectrum of choices in locations of mythemes, this author would claim that one should go beyond the general notions into the specific circumstances. We need to investigate whether all Osirian burial rites were said to be enacted in the same way in all the places mentioned or if all primeval cosmogonic processes took place according to the same steps in the different cen- tres referenced. It is important to determine if, despite being patterned

30 for CT: A. de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts, Vols.I –VII (OIP 24, 49, 64, 67, 73, 81, 87), Chicago, 1935–1961. The specific sections of BD will be indicated after the system of T.G. Allen, The Book of the Dead or Going Forth by Day: Ideas of the Ancient Egyptian Concerning the Hereafter as Expressed in their own Terms (SAOC 37), Chicago, 1974, p. 2. 31 in the so-called “glorifying description”, epithets are used to describe the forms of ap- pearance of a god, the scope of his power, the effects his epiphany causes, and his actions. These can be set in a given cult center (developing into the so-called Kulttopographie). 32 M.A. Stadler also notes that although the topos of Hermopolis as “Ort seltener Schriften” appears in various Book of the Dead colophons, the city was not the only place exclusively connected with the discovery of texts (Weiser und Wesir: Studien zu Vorkom- men, Rolle und Wesen des Gottes Thot im ägyptischen Totenbuch (ORA 1), Tübingen, 2009, p. 92‒94, 107). The same is true of the episode attested in much later sources in relation to Assiut in which a dog feeds on or leaks Osiris’ corpse. Although the cult of canids is well rooted in the Cynopolite nome, this event is also based on the observation of the general behaviour of dogs and can be located elsewhere, for example in the 17th/18th Upper Egyptian nomes according to Papyrus Jumilhac XV, 9‒XVI, 22 (J. Quack, Archiv für Religionsge- schichte 10 (2008), p. 12‒15). 33 m.A. Stadler defends the existence of Hermopolitan cosmogonic traditions in these early periods (see n. 56). 214 l. díaz-iglesias after a general model, there are any meaningful differences among them (the subtle semantic shifts mentioned above) or if the focus lies on any specific aspect(s) (the aforementioned thematic emphasis). If the latter are the cases, it would be interesting to contextualise the mythical events mentioned and evaluate their localness. This entails analysing if the local context of religious beliefs and practices of the locality within which they are framed had any bearing on the specific way in which the burial rites and the emergence of existence were presented in the sources. Despite the undeniable range of variability and variation in the formu- lae of funerary and cultic texts, there are also some meaningful regulari- ties or tendencies which should be highlighted.34 On close inspection one can appreciate that the link between the particular mythological episode/ situation or the specific trait of Osiris and a given area was not established at random. The conferral of royal power upon Osiris through his crowning in Coffin Texts, for instance, is framed in certain localities but does not haphazardly occur at any place. If this link is not chosen randomly, it could instead be based on various grounds which are worth taking into considera- tion. Sometimes it rested on a wordplay, which was a creative device often used by Egyptian composers to highlight essential connections in the natu- ral, human, or divine world between concepts, beings, things, and actions which shared phonetic, formal, or semantic similarities.35 In this sense, it is often claimed that the connection of Busiris (+dw) with the djed-pillar,36 whether in the form of the local relic of Osiris assigned to the Busirite nome37 or in the ceremony of the elevation of the djed-pillar — celebrating

34 Regularity within diversity is also the key to approaching local specificities accord- ing to R. Bussmann (Local Traditions, p. 757). However, whereas this author can quantify and assess material coming from a given site, the numerous lacunae affecting religious sources (one should only remember the very low number of objects produced and retrieved with Coffin Texts, according to the calculations of H. Willems, Historical and Archaeo- logical Aspects, p. 140‒165), the mechanisms integrating the specific within the general operating in religious productions, and the cultural dissemination and use of various tradi- tions across the territory impose a broader look at sources from different localities. 35 to the extensive bibliography on wordplays collected by J. Quack (Archiv für Reli- gionsgeschichte 10 (2008), p. 13, n. 31), add B. Mathieu, Les hommes de larmes. À propos d’un jeu de mots mythique dans les textes de l’ancienne Égypte, in Hommages à François Daumas, Montpellier, 1986, p. 499‒509. 36 H. Altenmüller, Djed-Pfeiler, in LÄ I, 1975, p. 1100‒1105. 37 The vertebral column (psD) is assigned to the the 9th Lower Egyptian nome and related to the Dd-pillar: H. Beinlich, Die “Osirisreliquien”. Zum Motiv der Körperzer- gliederung in der altägyptischen Religion (ÄgAbh 42), Wiesbaden, 1984, p. 252‒254 (cf. 262 for the attribution of this same relic to Mendes, +dt, a toponym which is also based upon the sign Gardiner R 11); C. Leitz, Geographisch-osirianische Prozessionen aus Philae, Dendara und Athribis. Soubassementstudien II (SSR 8), Wiesbaden, 2012, p. 364‒365. local reworkings of core mythological notions 215 the resurrection of this god and his triumph over his enemies38 — is based on a wordplay. Both the toponym and this sacred object shared the root Dd and contain the same sign (Gardiner R 11) in their spellings. Beyond puns, editors also strived to integrate the physical and his- torical peculiarities and the religious and cultural traditions of different regions in their compositions. In order to identify meaningful regularities in the relationship between a mythological episode or divine trait and a locality in funerary and cultic sources, this author suggests conducting an in-depth analysis at three different levels:39 ‒ First, the intratextual context of the local reference should be considered, moving from the immediate words encircling it to the wider textual context (the spell within which it is embedded, other surrounding texts, and the rest of the compositions written on an object). Despite often being repeated, it is no less important to stress that when approaching these compositions, attention must be paid to several aspects related to the process of textual edition: titles and colophons (paratextual elements), iconographic elements, the context(s) of use and purpose(s) of a formula,40 its possible ritual dimension(s), formal aspects such as the roles in which the protagonists are cast, or details pertaining to the physical layout (for example, the selection of an ap- propriate surface and the part of the object on which the composition was written), all of these aspects can hint at the explanation of the content and of specific details. The recognition that texts can be trans- mitted in clusters or sequences, although not in the sense of absolutely fixed groups, since their composition and inner order can change at

38 for the meaning of this ceremony, see J. van der Vliet, Raising the Djed: a rite de marge, in S. Schoske (ed.), Akten des vierten Interna­tionalen Ägyptologen Kongresses München 1985, Band 3: Linguistik, Philologie, Religion (SAK Beihefte 3), Hamburg, 1989, p. 405–411; P. Koemoth, Le rite de redresser Osiris, in J. Quaegebeur (ed.) Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the International Conference Organized by the Katholike Universiteit Leuven from the 17th to the 20th of April 1991 (OLA 55), Leuven, 1993, p. 158–174, especially 171–172. The earliest attestation of the connection of this ceremony with Busiris in CT spells is dealt with by Végh in this volume. 39 Building upon the levels pursued by H. Hays in his study of changes in meaning con- cerning the Field of Rushes between PT and CT: H. Hays, Transformation of Context, p. 178. 40 The direct bearing of the nature and purpose(s) or function(s) of a given religious composition on its content or on how this content is presented is well reflected in the analysis of M. Smith, The Reign of Seth; K. Goebs, JANER 2 (2002), Eadem, The Cannibal Hymn; C.D. Luft, Funerär und liturgisch, which brings a wealth of factors that should be considered in the analysis of functions (content, medium, surface treatment, context, and relationship with other objects of the same context) into play. Some of these quoted authors refine con- cepts and ideas used by J. Assmann, Die Verborgenheit des Mythos in Ägypten, in GöttMisz 25 (1977), p. 7‒43, esp. 37‒38. 216 l. díaz-iglesias

times, plays a major role. Particularly in the cases of thematic sequenc- es41 or of mortuary liturgies,42 the spells integrated in a group can dwell on the same topic(s), show functional similarities, or bear many inter- textual references.43 ‒ Second, a synchronic assessment should take place, examining con- temporary witnesses of a composition retrieved at a given site and also in different areas of the Egyptian geography. A way of assessing the weight of the local attachment is to explore whether the link between a mythological episode/divine trait and a locality was frequently kept in the diverse sources transmitting a given spell or hymn, in which case it seems reasonable to suggest that a relationship between both was being emphasised. In general, different witnesses of a given spell tend to adhere more or less to a model, but producers and copyists were not constrained by any need for literal (or canonical) reproduction,44 and there was no mechanical transmission of texts.45 Moreover, formulae spanning several funerary

41 I follow the definition of H. Buchberger (Transformation und Transformat, Sarg- textstudien I (ÄgAbh 52), Wiesbaden, 1993, p. 58‒59) of thematic sequences as successions of textual segments that are thematically connected or are variants of the same topic, even though they are only attested in one source. 42 the work of J. Assmann has been fundamental in the recognition of mortuary liturgies: J. Assmann, Egyptian Mortuary Liturgies, in S.I. Groll (ed.), Studies in Egyptology present- ed to Miriam Lichtheim, Jerusalem, 1990, I, p. 1‒43, Idem, Mort et au-delà dans l’Égypte ancienne, Paris, 2003, p. 359‒439, Idem, Altägyptische Totenliturgien 1‒3 (Supplemente zu den Inschriften der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-historische Klasse 14, 17, 20), Heidelberg, 2002, 2005, 2008. 43 An example of intertextual references in a mortuary liturgy is given in n. 58. 44 On this certain scribal flexibility see: E. Hornung, Zur Struktur des ägyptischen Jenseitsglauben, in ZÄS 119 (1992), p. 125; S. Bickel, La cosmogonie égyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire (OBO 134), Fribourg ‒ Göttingen, 1994, p. 286; P. Vernus, La position linguistique des Textes des sarcophages, in H. Willems (ed.), The World of the Coffin Texts, Proceedings of the Symposium held on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Adriaan de Buck, Leiden, December 17-19, 1992 (EgUit 9), Leiden, 1996, p. 161‒162; H. Willems, The Social and Ritual Context of a Mortuary Liturgy of the Middle Kingdom, in H. Willems (ed.), Social Aspects of Funerary Cult in the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms: Proceed- ings of the International Symposium Held at Leiden University 6-7 June, 1996 (OLA 103), Leuven, 2001, p. 253‒372, esp. 257. 45 Advocates of Textual Criticism recognise the importance of the so-called open transmission, according to which changes in funerary compositions could be introduced at a more intentional and larger scale, B. Backes, Zur Anwendung der Textkritik in der Ägyptologie. Ziele, Grenzen und Akzeptanz, in A. Verbovsek, B. Backes, C. Jones (eds.), Methodik und Didaktik in der Ägyptologie : Herausforderungen eines kulturwis- senschaftlichen Paradigmenwechsels in den Altertumswissenschaften, Paderborn, 2011, p. 463‒467; L. Gestermann, Die altägyptischen Sargtexte in diachroner Überlieferung. Perspektiven einer corpusbasierten historisch Linguistik und Philologie, in I. Hafemann (ed.), Internationale Tagung des Akademienvorhabens “Altägyptichen Wörterbuch” an local reworkings of core mythological notions 217

corpora attest to the creative engagement with received traditions.46 The extent of potential modifications should, however, be nuanced. For the particular case of the Coffin Texts, James K. Hoffmeier was able to show that there was no large systematic and iconoclastic trend towards modifying textual products for local theological reasons.47 Notwith- standing, he conceded that minor editing alterations could take place or that new texts could be composed which reflected the theology of a nome or its neighbouring areas.48 Despite the fact that we are often der Berlin-Branderburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 12-13 Dezember 2011, Ber- lin, 2013, p. 377, 378‒379 and her contribution in this volume. 46 for the so-called Cannibal Hymn, see K. Goebs, The Cannibal Hymn, p. 143‒173. Goebs underscores that changes of emphasis on a common theme between PT 273/274 and CT 573 were due to the purposes the spell wanted to achieve. See also the contributions of S. Bickel and H. Hays mentioned in n. 5 and 8 above for further changes in other thematic spells attested in these two corpora. A specific example of thereception of Coffin Texts spells and their reworking into the Book of the Dead is found in S.E. Thompson, From Two Ways to Totenbuch: A Study in Textual Transmission and Transformation, in S.E. Thompson, P. der Manuelian (eds.), Egypt and Beyond: Essays Presented to Leonard H. Lesko upon his Retirement from the Wilbour Chair of Egyptology at Brown University, June 2005, Providence, 2008, p. 333‒340. The process through which older materials (mainly Coffin Texts) were incorporated into the Book of the Dead has been sketched by L. Gestermann, Aufegelesen: Die Anfänge des altägytischen Totenbuchs, in B. Backes, I. Munro, S. Stöhr (eds.), Totenbuch-Forschungen: gesammelte Beiträge des 2. Internationalen Totenbuch- Symposiums, Bonn, 25. bis 29. September 2005 (SAT 11), Wiesbaden, 2006, p.102‒112. Even within the so-called Saite recension in the Book of the Dead tradition, when steps towards the codification and systematisation were taken, M. Mosher could demonstrate the endurance of a creative thinking, marked by the constant revision of contents, throughout the Late Period (M. Mosher, Five Versions of Spell 19 from the Late Period Book of the Dead, in E. Thompson, P. Der Manuelian (eds.), Egypt and Beyond, p. 237‒260). 47 J.K. Hoffmeier, Are There Regionally-Based Theological Differences in the Coffin Texts?, in H.O. Willems (ed.), The World of the Coffin Texts, p. 45‒54. 48 hoffmeier pinpoints the case of the differences between the versions of the Book of the Two Ways in sources of el-Bersha and Kom el-Hisn (ibidem, p. 50). Concerning the latter, D.P. Silverman has drawn attention to what he calls “regional preferences” and “con- scious editing” in the texts of the tomb of Khesu the Elder (KH1KH, probably dating from the end of Eleventh Dynasty into the early reigns of the Twelfth Dynasty): D.P. Silverman, Textual Criticism in the Coffin Texts, in W. K. Simpson (ed.), Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (YES 3), New Haven, 1989, p. 39‒43, Idem, Coffin Texts from Bersheh, Kom el Hisn, and Mendes, in H. Willems (ed.), The World of the Coffin Texts, p. 133‒137, Idem, A Spell from an Abbreviated Version of the Book of the Two Ways in a Tomb in the West- ern Delta, in S.I. Groll (ed.), Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim, II, p. 853‒876. M.A. Stadler partakes Hoffmeier’s opinion, stating that “in begrenztem Rah- men ist eine Adaptation der Texte auf regionale Mythen dankbar” (Weiser und Wesir, p. 103). This limited adaptation is explored for the Hermopolitan Coffin Texts by B. Billson, Two Aspects of Middle Kingdom Funerary Culture from two Different Middle Egyptian No- mes, Masters Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2010, p. 25‒36. The local perspective is also reflected in the Coffin Texts by the selection of the deities mentioned in a formula. Such is the case of CT VI, 162n‒v [563], attested on coffin G1Be, in which, against a backdrop of Heliopolitan and Dendrite conceptions, aspects of Gebelein were integrated (L. Morenz, Die Zeit der Regionen, p. 402‒409; H. Willems, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 109 (2) 218 l. díaz-iglesias

faced with the problem that many formulae are only attested once, in cases where several witnesses are at our disposal, the close examination of all versions should be part and parcel of our analysis, and explana- tions that account for the recognized variants should be attempted. At a synchronic level, the intertextual context can also be explored, in order to trace whether other texts of roughly the same date also reflect a similar view. If a link between a mythical episode/divine trait and a locality is attested in more than one spell of the same corpus and/or in several contemporary hymns, this relationship forms a recurrent image that cannot be dismissed as the product of chance. ‒ Third and finally, the diachronic evaluation offers valuable insights. Tracking the development of a local association over the course of time and in different but interrelated sources of the religious sphere allows the examination of continuities, changes of emphasis, and the assumption of new (sometimes completely different) meanings. In this transversal perspective, intended to build bridges across productions of different periods, it is worth pursuing the following questions: did a link, attested in earlier sources, endure in later productions or was it modified? What is the nature and depth of the changes introduced: rewording, insertion of new points of view, episodes, or characters (sometimes amounting to alterations in the constellation of actors in- volved), conceptual shifts, altogether changes in the root meaning, or omissions? And further, can we determine the reasons for these modi- fications: changes in the context of use and purpose(s) or function(s) of a composition, variation of the surface where the text is written, embedding in a new textual sequence and arrangement, expansions of theological speculation or development in funerary and mortuary con- ceptions and practices, new historical setting, individual choice of the person commissioning or executing the object/monument, or misun- derstandings on the part of editors or copyists of earlier models? As a result of conducting this three-fold analysis we can suggest the fol- lowing: if a link between a location and a mythical episode/situation or a divine characteristic recurs across many variants of a religious compo- sition and displays an important degree of regularity, if it is attested in several roughly contemporaneous spells and/or hymns, and if it endures (with or without modifications) in later productions, then the relationship

(2014), p. 92). The adaptation to local traditions is also apparent in minor changes in the decoration of Middle Kingdom canopic boxes of el-Bersha (B. Billson, Two Aspects of Middle Kingdom Funerary Culture, p. 22‒24). local reworkings of core mythological notions 219 can be dubbed “preferential” (not exclusive or excluding) and was prob- ably not chosen at random. Instead, it constituted a salient feature in the religious discourse, or would end up being regarded as such. As a cultural representative trait, it could cross the boundaries of genres and be re- flected in other types of documents, such as belles lettres, royal encomia, and royal monumental inscriptions.49 Once we have evidence for this preferential link, the next step entails looking for the reasons that could underlie and explain such an associa- tion. To assess its degree of localness and be able to establish a regional attachment, one should investigate if this link can be related to one or several aspects characteristic of a given geographical area. A number of questions that require wider research can be raised in this respect: 1. Are there any distinctive features in the landscape or any dominant economic activity in the area which could influence the development of a tradition?50 We can recall in this sense that local resources or landmarks such as lakes or areas where minerals could be extracted, dying the spot with prominent colours, were often taken as the frame of, or the trace left by, episodes occurring in the divine world; events which could be conveyed through brief mythological allusions or more substantial etiological narrations.51 The case of the Herakleopolitan

49 see the case of Heliopolis, portrayed as the stage for a divine tribunal in the Contend- ings of Horus and Seth and in the tale of Truth and Falsehood as well as in Ramesside royal inscriptions (S. Bickel, Héliopolis et le tribunal des dieux, in C. Berger-el Naggar, B. Mathieu (eds.), Études sur l’Ancien Empire et la nécropole de Saqqâra dédiées à Jean- Philippe Lauer (OrMonsp IX/1), Montpellier, 1997, p. 114‒115, 118‒120). Hermopolis was also related to the creation or preservation of texts and to wisdom in different literary genres (M.A. Stadler, Weiser und Wesir, p. 68, 78‒80, 107). 50 The powerful appeal of the physical setting and topographies of certain localities and their conceptualisation through different means (ranging from toponyms, to sacred landscapes, to their embedding in mythological episodes) have been well explored for the cases of Abydos and Amarna: J.E. Richards, Conceptual Landscapes in the Egyptian Valley, in W. Ashmore, A.B. Knapp (eds.), Archaeologies of Landscape. Contemporary Perspectives, Malden (Mass.) ‒ Oxford, 1999, p. 83‒100; J.W. Wegner, From Elephant- Mountain to Anubis-Mountain? A Theory on the Origins and Development of the Name Abdju, in Z.A. Hawass, J.E. Richards (eds.) The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Essays in Honor of David B. O’Connor (SASAE 36), Le Caire, 2007, p. 459‒476. 51 Several examples drawn from Papyrus Jumilhac are quoted by J. Quack (Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008), p. 16‒18), but see H. Willems’ interpretation of a passage in the Pyramid Texts based on local aspects of the Busirite landscape quoted in section 2.1. L. Morenz explores the Mythologisierung der Landschaft in the region of Gebelein, especially in relation to the two white limestone ridges which run parallel to the Nile and gave rise to one of the designations of Gebelein ( jnr.tj), with examples taken from the main corpora of funerary literature (Die Zeit der Regionen, p. 94‒108). Although H. Willems in his review of Morenz’s study (Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 109 (2) (2014), p. 90) remains dubious about the sources this researcher uses to substantiate 220 l. díaz-iglesias

lakes, a dominant hallmark of the physical and cultic topography of Nn-nsw and of the otherwordly landscape, will be explored in section 2.1. Another example of how the local milieu could shape religious representations is found in Olivier Perdu’s study of the iconography of Andjeti, the tutelary deity of the region of Busiris. According to Perdu, the meaning and origin of his divine attributes can be found in the local context of herding activities extending over the northern area of the Delta, with Busiris further occupying the middle of a flood plain crossed by several Nile branches and dominated by extensions of stagnant water.52 2. Does the historical position attained by a city/region or the cultural role that it came to play within Egyptian traditions exert any influ- ence upon the origin or transformation of these local reworkings and associations? We may consider, for example, if the new position of Herakleopolis Magna as the place of origin of the ruling family in the early First Intermediate Period had any bearing on the episodes of legitimate coronation of Osiris in this city which emerge for the first time in Coffin Texts and Middle Kingdom Osirian hymns (see section 2.2). Moreover, in many ancient cultures, certain locations symbolised specific concepts and were integrated into the collective and cultural memory of a group.53 Thus, Heliopolis came to encom- pass notions of divinity — being described by Susanne Bickel as “le symbole et la quintessence de sainteté et de prestige spirituel”54 — and his arguments, he acknowledges the influence that the mounds of Gebelein would have exerted on local religious beliefs. 52 O. Perdu, Un dieu venu de la Campagne, in RdE 56 (2005), p. 129‒166. For the possible connection of Letopolis with another regional economic activity (in this case bird catching) as the backdrop for a late episode occurring in this locality in which Osiris is trapped in a bird net, see J. Quack, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008), p. 9‒12. 53 the concept of cultural memory was introduced by J. Assmann (see Collective Mem- ory and Cultural Identity, in New German Critique 65 (1995), p. 125‒133, Religion und kulturelles Gedächtnis. Zehn Studien, München, 2000, Cultural Memory and Early Civi- lization. Writing, Remembrance and Political Imagination, Cambridge, 2011), and has a significant reception in an editorial project directed by M. Bommas (M. Bommas(ed.), Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies, London ‒ New York, 2011, M. Bommas, J. Harrisson, P. Roy (eds.), Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World, London ‒ New York, 2012). The intellectual and religious bearing of Assiut and the insertion of textual, architectural, and artistic products of this region into the cultural memory of the Egyptians have been evaluated by J. Kahl, Siut-Theben, p. 339‒348, 352‒355. Connected to the concept of cultural memory, M.A. Stadler applies the idea of lieu de mémoire to the case of Hermopolis (Weiser und Wesir, p. 66‒115, esp. 66‒68). 54 S. Bickel, La cosmogonie égyptienne, p. 287‒291 (citation corresponds to p. 291); Eadem, Héliopolis et le tribunal des dieux, p. 113‒118 (quoting numerous funerary sourc- es); D. Raue, Heliopolis und das Haus des Re: eine Prosopographie und ein Toponym im local reworkings of core mythological notions 221

also of provision and partaking in the community of the gods — be- ing the “paradigmatische Ort der Versorgung des Toten” in words of Jan Assmann and Martin Bommas.55 Meanwhile, Hermopolis, as the main cult centre of Thoth, strongly connected with writing and wis- dom, and as a place related to the conservation of valuable texts56 was associated with scribal/intellectual values and considered as a centre of knowledge and of production and discovery of texts. 3. Do the main figures of the local pantheon, particularly its tutelary deities, show any aspects, epithets, and/or spheres of action that can be related to the episodes framed in a given locality? In the case of the Herakleopolitan nome, the strong connection of Heryshef with water and with kingship could be related to the mythical notions of purification and assumption of royal power that predominate in part of the references to Herakleopolis Magna attested in funerary and cultic sources (see sections 2.1 and 2.2).57 By the same token, a specific at- tribute of Osiris tended to be emphasised in a locality where this feature found some grounding in the local context. It is no wonder that Mendes, headed by a ram deity — Banebdjedet — thought to be the external manifestation (bA) of Re, Osiris, or both was perceived as a perfect stage for the appearance or interaction of the bas of the latter gods in Coffin Texts.58 The same local scenario (Mendes) and religious conception

Neuen Reich (ADAIK 16), Berlin, 1999, p. 8‒12 (especially for the meanings of the concept Heliopolis in the New Kingdom); C. Jacq, Recherches sur les paradis de l’autre monde d’après les Textes des pyramides et les Textes des sarcophages, Paris, 1993, p. 21‒25. All these works collect references related to the mythological dimension and symbolic mean- ing of Heliopolis. 55 J. Assmann, Totenliturgien 1, p. 259‒260. 56 M.A. Stadler, Weiser und Wesir, esp. 89‒94, 186‒189, where the author also posits a connection of Hermopolis with the beginning of creation and the rising of the sun. Cau- tion regarding some of the sources used to illustrate specific Hermopolitan cosmogonic processes is, however, expressed by L. Gestermann in her review of Stadler’s monograph (in LingAeg 18 (2010), p. 285‒286). 57 L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 445‒490 explores the influence of Heryshef on various mythemes connected with Herakleopolis Magna. 58 The beauty of Osiris is described as the “living ba which is in Mendes” (bA=k anx jmy ©dt: CT I, 249a [60]/B10Ca, B10Cb, B10Cd, B4C) or, in another version of this text, as “your two living bas which are in Mendes” (bAwy=k anx jmy ©dt: CT I, 249 a [60]/B10Cc). Another spell of the same mortuary liturgy (covering spells CT 44 to 62 and labelled CT.2 by Assmann and Bommas, Totenliturgien 1, p. 60, 199‒200, 201‒332) insists, according to one witness, on the fact that the bA of the deceased, likened to Osiris, is in Mendes and his saH in the house of the two bas (smn=t(w) bA=k m ©dt [...] saH=k m pr bAwy: CT I, 225f, 226a [50]/B10Cb, B10Cc). The so-called “Mendes doctrine”, inserted in the most widely attested spell of the CT corpus, features the merging through an embrace of Re and Osiris as bas in Mendes (CT, IV 276/277‒280/281c [335], analysed by H. Willems, Chests of Life, A Study of the Typology and Conceptual Development of Middle Kingdom Standard Class 222 l. díaz-iglesias

(bA) are reflected in Middle Kingdom Osirian hymns where both ap- pear among the epithets and descriptions used to praise the king-god of the underworld.59 In this case, we can point to the existence of a preferential relationship, based on a thematic emphasis (cf. supra). moreover, subtle coincidences can be found when carefully examining the sources at our disposal. For example, on a door from a chapel erect- ed by Amenemhat II in Hermopolis, the king is referred to as mry jmy kAA “beloved of the one that is in his mound”. The nature of this divine being precisely matches the involvement of this centre in the cosmogo- nic process and in the rising of the sun attested in funerary sources.60 finally, when analysing the influence of regional theological cur- rents on religious compositions, one should also consider whether the (evolving) aspects which define a god at a given locality found their way into these texts. A notorious example is that of Amun, whose de- veloping theology during the New Kingdom, Third Intermediate, and Kushite Periods is reflected in the so-called chapitres supplémentaires of the Book of Going Forth by Day.61 4. Is any ritual — mortuary, funerary, or divine — specific to a cer- tain area (whose existence can be traced in archaeological, written, or iconographic sources) reflected in religious compositions? A most

Coffins (MVEOL 25), Leiden, 1988, p. 152‒154). CT 493 concludes with the statement: jw bA=s m +dt m Nn-nsw “her ba is in Mendes and in Herakleopolis Magna” (CT VI, 75b [493]/B3Bo). The connection of Herakleopolis Magna with the ba of the deceased prob- ably rests on the parallel perception of its ram god Heryshef as the ba of Osiris. 59 I follow the division of D. Franke of Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasty attestations of hymns, mainly written on stelae found at Abydos or allegedly coming from this site, in seven types (D. Franke, Middle Kingdom Hymns and other Sundry Religious Texts - an Inventory, in S. Meyer (ed.), Egypt - Temple of the Whole World: Studies in Honour of Jan Assmann. Ägypten - Tempel der gesamten Welt (SHR 97), Leiden, 2003, p. 95‒135). Mendes is only mentioned in types I and II. In type I, composed of six witnesses (ibidem, p. 96‒98), which can be further subdivided in two groups according to the inner textual variants, the bA of Osiris is endowed upon him in Mendes (dy bA=f m ©dt) in stelae Oxford QC 1109 (of ¢nty-Xty-m-HAt, P.C. Smither, A.N. Dakin, Stelae in the Queen’s College, Oxford, in JEA 25 (1939), pl. XX, 1, l. 8) and London BM EA 218 (belonging to the same owner, HTBM IV, pl. 31, l. 7‒8). The other four sources, forming the second subgroup (stelae Paris Louvre C 30 and Louvre C 285 and chapel Hannover 1976.80a), altogether omit references to Mendes or are damaged in this section (stela Cairo CG 20498). In Franke’s type II, trans- mitted in three sources (ibidem, p. 98‒99), Osiris is qualified with the epithet “great of bA in Mendes” (aA bA m ©dt) in the longest and best preserved example (stela London BM EA 447 (893), of Jmn-m-HAt, HTBM IV, pl. 48‒49, l. 3‒4). 60 M.A. Stadler, Weiser und Wesir, p. 188. The author sets in parallel this epithet with a gloss in BD 17 where it is stated of the sun god: jw=f Hr kAA n jmy ¢mnw “He (Re) was over the mound of the one who is in Hermopolis”. 61 A. Wüthrich, Élements de théologie thébaine, p. 27‒41, 67‒78, 141‒149. local reworkings of core mythological notions 223

straightforward case is Abydos. In the compositions we are dealing with, the mythological and ritual events framed in this place (the cal- culation of the difference, the Haker feast, or the duel) clearly recall the celebrations performed for Osiris during the Abydene mysteries.62 Another example comes from the southernmost Egyptian region. The special connections of the main gods of Elephantine, its sacred struc- tures, and the religious festivals of the area with water and the inun- dation63 have their counterpart in references to Abw in early funerary compositions as the place from which the purifying and refreshing water offered to the deceased comes.64 On the whole, assessing localness in light of these four groups of ques- tions should not be limited to the examination of religious productions. It requires a closer look at the regional and local context — no matter how scarce sources for earlier periods may be65 —, integrating materials coming from an area (its physical milieu and sacred structures,66 royal and private

62 Z. Végh, Counting the Dead - Some Remarks on the Haker Festival, in J. Corbelli, D. Boatright, C. Malleson (eds.), Current Research in Egyptology 2009. Procceedings of the Tenth Annual Symposium which Took Place at the University of Liverpool, 7-9 Janu- ary 2009, Oxford, 2011, p. 145‒156. The prominent position of Abydos in the Osirian hymns of the Middle Kingdom collected by Franke (see n. 59), with plenty of epithets built upon this toponym, may well be owed to the context of the sources. Not only do many stelae come from Abydos or are attributed to this locality, but the hymns written on them could also have been sung in the course of the Abydene celebrations (D. Franke, Middle Kingdom Hymns, p. 126‒130). 63 S.J. Seidlmayer, Landschaft und Religion. Die Region von Aswân, in Archäologischer Anzeiger 2006/1 (2006), p. 223‒235, offers an overview of all these issues and integrates them into the landscape of the area; R. Bussmann, Die Provinztempel Ägyptens von der 0. bis zur 11. Dynastie. Archäologie und Geschichte einer Gesellschaftlichen Institution zwischen Residenz und Provinz (ProblÄg 10), Wiesbaden, 2010, p. 15‒39, Idem, The Social Setting of the Temple of Satet, p. 21‒23, explores the temple structures and the archaeological findings up to the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty; royal inscriptions of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties in which kingship ideology is intertwined with local religious beliefs are studied by L.D. Morenz, Der von Gott begnadete Herrscher. Eine sakro-politische Verkündigung des Chnum für Jnj-jt=f-aA monumentalisiert auf einem Sakralbau in Elephantine, in MDAIK 60 (2004), p. 107‒118. 64 PT 459 § 864b; PT 508 § 1116a‒b; PT 665B § 1908c; CT I, 282d-e [67] (sources from Thebes, Saqqara, and el-Bersha), I, 299h [72] (parts of CT 67 were interpolated in this spell only in T2C). The connection of the locality with water is repeated in other for- mulae: CT IV, 133d [317] (a spell for transformation into Hapy, only transmitted in Siutian sources); probably also in CT III, 335i [245] (in the context of the birth of the creator’s son amidst water). 65 given the greater amount of later sources and the larger number of studies available, I concentrate in this contribution on earlier materials capable of shedding light on the initial phases of local reworkings. 66 R. Bussmann (Die Provinztempel) and E. Hirsch (Kultpolitik und Tempelbaupro- gramme der 12. Dynastie : Untersuchungen zu den Göttertempeln im Alten Ägypten (Achet - Schriften zur Ägyptologie 3), Berlin, 2004) offer a wealth of data on religious structures, 224 l. díaz-iglesias inscriptions where reference can be found to special festivals and elements pertaining to the cult of the local gods in tombs, personal cult structures,67 and rock graffiti),68 but also from elsewhere. This integrative and bal- anced approach, encompassing sources of different domains, can bring us closer to the phenomenon of local reworkings. Thus said of the earliest sources, it is well known that local religious traditions, beliefs, and practices became progressively more visible in different fields and types of documents. The 1st millennium BC offers a wealth of information on these aspects, notably through the so-called mythological manuals and through priestly and nome monographs.69 These encompass religious data (with frequent references to the local mythology) from a large part, or the whole, of the Egyptian territory70 sacred objects, and epigraphic materials from Dynasties 0 to 12. The fruitfulness of com- bining the analysis of funerary compositions with temple reliefs of a locality is demonstrat- ed by M.A. Stadler (see n. 60 above) and L. Morenz. The latter could prove a connection between CT VI, 268c‒e [647] — only attested on coffinG 1T — and a scene of Mentuhotep in the chapel of Hathor at Gebelein (Cairo TR 24/5/28/5) which, together with other north- ern traditions, served as model of inspiration of the CT passage: L. Morenz, Die Zeit der Regionen, p. 446‒454. 67 An example of local religious celebrations for defeating enemies comes from the tomb inscriptions published by H. Willems, Dayr al-Barshā Vol. 1, The Rock Tombs of Dje- hutinakht (No. 17K74/1), Khnumanakht (No. 17K74/2), and Iha (No. 17K74/3), with an Es- say on the History and Nature of Nomarchal Rule in the Early Middle Kingdom (OLA 155), Leuven, 2007, p. 50‒51, n. x, 96‒100. An overview of the site of Dayr el-Bersha and its importance for the reappraisal of Middle Kingdom nomarchal culture and the development of Coffin Texts is undertaken by the same author inHistorical and Archaeological Aspects, p. 59‒123. The vital role played by mortuary chapels and ka-houses in the religious life of a nome is exemplified by the case of Elephantine (D. Franke, Das Heiligtum des Heqaib auf Elephantine: Geschichte eines Provinzheiligtums im Mittleren Reich (SAGA 9), Hei- delberg, 1994) and analysed in general by H. Willems, Historical and Archaeological Aspects, p. 113‒123, 206‒211, 227‒229. 68 new material for analysis of Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom local cultic activities is brought forward by the recent publication of several rock inscriptions (R. Müller- Wollermann, H. Vandekerckhove, Die Felsinschriften des Wadi Hilâl (Elkab VI), Turn- hout, 2001; A. Gasse, V. Rondot, Les inscriptions de Séhel (MIFAO 126), Le Caire, 2007). 69 Quack discusses the content, phases of redaction, and nature of these sources (Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008), p. 6‒9). 70 Some priestly manuals offering an overview of the local myths of several nomes have been published: D. Meeks, Mythes et légendes du Delta d’après le papyrus Brook- lyn 47.218.84 (MIFAO 125), Le Caire, 2006; J. Osing, Hieratische Papyri aus Tebtunis I (CNI publications 17), Copenhagen, 1998; J. Osing, G. Rosati, Papiri geroglifici e ieratici da Tebtynis, Firenze, 1998. Priestly and nome monographs of the Graeco-Ro- man Period are the subject of recent reassessments by: C. Leitz, Die Gaumonographien in Edfu und ihre Papyrusvarianten. Ein überregionaler Kanon kultischen Wissens im spätzeitlichen Ägypten. Soubassementstudien III (SSR 9), Wiesbaden, 2014; A. Rickert, B. Ventker (eds.), Altägyptische Enzyklopädien. Die Soubassements in den Tempeln der griechisch-römischen Zeit. Soubassementstudien I, Band II (SSR 7), Wiesbaden, 2014, include many contributions tackling these issues. local reworkings of core mythological notions 225 or of specific provinces.71 These sources should be contextualised and analysed within the Late Period trend towards the Kodifizierung von Wissen.72 Without claiming to trace back every idea recorded in such compositions into the past or to fill in gaps indiscriminately, these later sources are more detailed and can be also mined with caution for investi- gating the local context.

2. Creativity based on local factors: the case of Herakleopolis Magna

The case study of the capital of the 20th Upper Egyptian nome (Nart xntt, with capital in Nn-nsw, Herakleopolis Magna) and its region effectively illustrates the subject of this paper: the vitality and lively character of re- ligious discourse and the incorporation of local features into funerary and cultic texts, resorting to general mythological patterns. It is noteworthy that no element from this area can be traced among Pyramid Texts spells, whereas from the Coffin Texts through the latest productions (Letters for Breathing and Late and Graeco-Roman Osirian liturgies), one can wit- ness a steady growth of references to the city in different mythological episodes and situations and mobilising certain gods and divine constella- tions. Progressively and from the First Intermediate Period onwards, this locality and other elements of the surroundings would attain an important role as the burial place of Osiris and destruction of solar and Osirian enemies, regenerative purification, vindication, and assumption of royal power by Osiris and Re. It is probable that the historical and cultural phases of the First Inter- mediate Period and Middle Kingdom represented a turning-point, marked by the growing importance and power of regional elites (and nomarchal courts) and by the burst of local idiosyncrasies in different material and cultural fields.73 This trends coincided with the large-scale intervention

71 The classical examples being papyrus Jumilhac (J. Vandier, Le papyrus Jumilhac, Paris, 1961) and the so-called Fayum Book (to the first in-depth study of H. Beinlich, Das Buch von Fayum. Zum Eigenverständnis einer ägyptischen Landschaft (ÄgAbh 51), Wiesbaden, 1991, should be added his latest edition: Der Mythos in seiner Landschaft. Das ägyptische „Buch vom Fayyum” (SRaT 11), Dettelbach, 2014). 72 J. Assmann, Der Tempel der ägyptischen Spätzeit als Kanonisierung kultureller Identität, in J. Osing, E.K. Nielsen (eds.), The Heritage of Ancient Egypt. Studies in Honour of Erik Iversen (CNI Publications 13), Copenhagen, 1992, p. 12‒13. The author pleads for understanding the “Tempelgedanke der ägyptischen Spätzeit als Projekt einer umfassenden Kodifikation kultureller Identität und Erinnerung” ibidem( , p. 9). 73 Very instructive overviews are provided by: S.J. Seidlmayer, The First Intermediate Period (c.2160‒2055 BC), in I. Shaw (ed.), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford 226 l. díaz-iglesias of kings in local temples and their interaction with the gods of a given area.74 Against this backdrop, the “written codification” or insertion in the sphere of the priestly-scribal culture of different local traditions that sur- face in Coffin Texts and Middle Kingdom hymns would have taken place. In the case of the Herakleopolitan nome, this general situation merged with the special circumstance that its capital rose in prestige as the cradle of the Ninth‒Tenth Dynasty, a new Dynasty that fell back on the funda- mentals of the Memphite and Heliopolitan culture and heritage. Probably as a result of this double stimulus (the growing regional dynamics and the royal aspirations to consolidate legitimacy), the main city and other local elements were projected into the symbolic afterworld and into episodes of the divine community. Though we cannot discard the possibility that the conception of these ideas might have taken place at an earlier stage, it is only when they were committed to writing from the First Intermediate Period onwards that they become visible. The Herakleopolitan region retained a strategic position in the New Kingdom and rose to prominence again in the Third Intermediate Period, not only as the seat of an important branch of Libyan chieftains, but also as a vital node in the interrelations of the northern royal capitals and the Theban clergy of Amun.75 In fact, the strong kinship and political rela- tions knitted with the southern metropolis raised many scions of the Lybi- an local chiefs to influential religious positions in Thebes during a period when this city became a leading centre in the production and revision of funerary and cultic sources. The religious and cultural importance of this region of Upper Egypt left an imprint up until the latest religious produc- tions of the Graeco-Roman Period, a fact that consolidates the symbolic significance of the area and attests to the integration of the Herakleopoli- tan mythical cycle in the wider cultural traditions. In the following subsections, a group of examples will be presented to illustrate both the preceding discussion on the interaction of local elements

‒ New York, 2003, 108‒136, 451‒453; H. Willems, The First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom, in A.B. Lloyd (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Chichester ‒ West Sussex ‒ Malden, 2010, p. 81‒100, Idem, Dayr al-Barshā. 74 R. Bussmann, Die Provinztempel Ägyptens, p. 459‒488 summarises the develop- ment of the interactions between kingship and local temples from Dynasty 0 until the reign of Mentuhotep III, based on archaeological and written (mainly names of domains and annals) sources. For the Middle Kingdom, see the overview provided by E. Hirsch, Kultpolitik und Tempelbauprogramme der 12. Dynastie. 75 The most recent analysis of R. Meffre reviews earlier views on the position of Herakleopolis Magna during the Third Intermediate Period and offers plenty of data and discussions (R. Meffre, D’Héracléopolis à Hermopolis. La Moyenne Égypte durant la Troisième Période intermédiaire (XXIe-XXIVe Dynasties), Paris, 2015). local reworkings of core mythological notions 227 with mainstream religious patterns, motifs, and discourses, and also the importance of the diachronic perspective in shedding light on the lively character of local constructions (section 1).76

2.1. Herakleopolitan lakes: purification and rebirth in a local landmark In ancient Egypt, distinctive elements of the local — natural or cultur- ally modified — setting were integrated into religious compositions as the stage where mythical events and actions took place. Several exam- ples have been highlighted and those of Busiris and Thebes will set the scene for the presentation of the Herakleopolitan case. In the former, the marshes and inundation basins characteristic of the Busirite landscape (and locally called wrw) were metaphorically turned into the watery pri- meval Nun from which the deceased emerged and into which he plunged according to PT 625 (=CT 151 and BD 67).77 In the latter, the experience of particular topographies (especially of desert and rocky environments and of the dramatic geography of el-Qurn and the Valley of the Kings) could have influenced the construction of the intricate and complex land- scape of the Amduat.78 The example of Busiris conveniently illustrates how an aspect of the local environment could be mobilised and assigned a value in relation to a general regenerative mechanism well attested in other funerary texts — the crossing of the Nun, repeating the process of creation. The same applies to the lake/s of Herakleopolis Magna. Water and lagoons seem to have been a characteristic feature of this settlement, situated at a short distance from the Bahr Yussuf,79 together with the presence of natron in

76 Only the Egyptian sources will be indicated in the footnotes of the ensuing subsec- tions. Thorough discussions of their contexts and content, full analysis of variants, and detailed information on Egyptological publications are provided in L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna. 77 H. Willems, The Physical and Cultic Landscape of the Northern Nile Delta Accord- ing to Pyramid Texts Utterance 625, in C. Zivie-Coche, I. Guermeur (dirs.), “Parcourrir l’éternité”. Hommages à Jean Yoyotte, Turnhout, 2012, II, p. 1097‒1107. For the influence of the landscape of the Busirite area in the configuration of the divine attributes ofA ndjeti, see n. 52. 78 P. Robinson, Crossing the Night: the Depiction of Mythological Landscapes in the Am Duat of the New Kingdom Royal Necropolis, in R. Ives et al. (eds.), Current Research in Egyptology III, December 2001 (BAR IS 1192), Oxford, 2003, p. 51‒61. 79 classical writers describe the area of Herakleopolis as an island: Strabo (Geogr. 17, 1, 35), Ptolemy (Geogr. IV, 5, 55‒60), Pliny (Hist. Nat. V, IX. 50). Water damaging and inundating archaeological strata has been the hobbyhorse of researchers working in this site, even before the construction of the first dam inA swan (E. Naville, Ahnas el Medineh (Heracleopolis Magna): with Chapters on Mendes, the Nome of Thoth, and Leontopolis (MEEF 11), London, 1894, p. 4‒5, for the situation in 1891; W.M.F. Petrie, Ehnasya, 1904 228 l. díaz-iglesias the configuration of the geological strata of the area.80 The counterpart to this dominant physical position of the local lake/s is the prominence of such element/s in the cultic sphere. A pond was an integral element of the name and nature of the tutelary deity of the nome @ry-S=f (literally “the one who is over/controls his lake”) who was conceived as a ram-god, an animal strongly connected with fecundity, regeneration, and water.81 Moreover, the lake integrated within the local temple and its cultic ac- tivities had enough (ideological, religious) importance and appeal to have also been the object of courtly attention in the first dynasties.82 When the lake/s were projected into the landscape of the otherworld, an undertaking which can be traced back to the Coffin Texts, they were turned into places where the deceased purified himself or was purified and thus achieved rebirth. Thus, this passage of CT 335 features the deceased stating:83 wn=j m tA(=j), jj-n=j m njwt=j, ptr r=f st? Ax[t] pw n(y)t j[t]=j ¦m, dr(w) jw=j, xsr(w) njt=j, sHrw jsft jr(yt)=j. wab-n=j m sSwy wrwy aAwy ntyw m Nn-nsw, swab aAbt rxyt n nTr pw aA nty jm<=s>. ptr r=f sw? Ra pw Ds=f, ptr r=f sSwy pwy aAwy? am HH rn=f, wAD- wr rn n ky, S pw n(y) Hsmn Hna S n(y) maAt

(MEEF 26), London, 1905, p. 1‒3, for the works conducted at the site in the inundation season in 1897). This fact points to the closeness of the water table to the ground surface and its possible springing up in the form of lakes in antiquity. 80 Salt was mined for obtaining potassium nitrate during the time of Muhammad Ali (1769‒1849) in Ehnasya el-Medina. The two main areas of extraction, Ma’m al Kôm el-Assâra and Mellaha, are clearly visible in the earliest maps of the site (U. Wilcken, Die Berliner Papyrusgrabungen in Herakleopolis Magna im Winter 1898/9, in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 3 (1903), see map of H. Schäfer) and even nowadays in Google Earth. The presence of salt or a salt-enriched lagoon in the environment would explain one of the names given to the Herakleopolitan ponds as “Lake of Natron” in funerary compositions (CT V, 257b [420], IV, 208/209c‒216/217c [335], BD 17 a § S 8), wishes for the Afterlife (see n. 92 below), and representations on offering tables (Berlin ÄM 17038). A geological survey could prove the validity of the assertions concerning the presence of underground and surface water as well as natron-rich soil in ancient times, which are based on archaeo- logical observations and the analysis of written and iconographic sources. 81 the connections of ram-gods with water in general and particularly of Heryshef with his lake have been dealt with elsewhere, L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 447‒450, 458‒460, 464‒467 (with earlier bibliography). It should be added that Heryshef’s partner was Hathor, a deity who complemented very well his fertile and regen- erative capacities. 82 a royal visit of Den is recorded on the so-called Palermo stone: PS r.III.9 (year x+9 of Den): aHa Nn-nsw S Hwt-nTr ¡ry-S=f “halting (at) Herakleopolis Magna and the lake of the temple of Heryshef”. 83 the most comprehensive account of the bathing in the Herakleopolitan lakes is found in CT IV, 206/207b‒226/227a [335], later re-edited with certain modifications in BD 17 a § S 8. These are two of the most widely distributed and enduring compositions within the Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead traditions. local reworkings of core mythological notions 229

Sm=j Hr wAwt rH(w)t[-n]=j tp m [ jw] n(y) mAatyw, ptr r=f s(y)? wAwt pw Smt-n jt=j ¦m Hr=s m wDA=f r sxt jArw, spr(=j) r tA n(y) Axtyw pr=j Hr sbA Dsr, [p]tr r=f sw tA n(y) Axtyw? nTrw pw HAw qAr. jr sbA pw, aAwy-ry pw wDA-n{=j} jt=j ¦m Hr=f r Axt.84 I existed in (my) land, after I came from my city. What is that? That is the horizon of my father Atum. My wrongdoing has been done away with, my evil has been dispelled, the falseness that adhered to me has been removed. I have bathed / purified in those two great and stately lakes which are in Herakleopolis Magna, in which offerings of the rekhyt have been cleansed for this great god who is within (=the city). Who is he? He is Re himself. What are those two great and lakes? His name is Swallower of Millions, the name of the other is Wadj-Wer. They are the Lake of Natron and the Lake of Maat. I go on the roads which I [have] known in the direction of the [Island] of the Righteous. What is that? They are the ways on which my father Atum went as he pro- ceeded to the Fields of Rushes. (I) will reach the Land of the Horizon dwellers and will go forth over the sacred portal. What is the Land of the Horizon dwellers? This (=is the land of) the gods that are around the chapel. As for this portal, it is the double doors through which my father Atum proceed to the horizon. This spell is, in numerical and geographical terms, one of the most widely attested compositions of the Coffin Texts repertoire across Egypt, being notably absent in sources coming from Assiut. The events portrayed by nearly 30 witnesses take place, without exception, in the same scenario, so that the relationship between the events and the local stage was firmly established. What is interesting is that the presentation of the role of the Herakleopolitan lakes — practically conceived as a local extension of the Nun — was modelled upon existing patterns and motifs, already attested in the Pyramid Texts: the daily bathing of the sun and the king in watery extensions to be reborn anew.85 Thus, the local landmark tapped into the more broadly understood and recognized traditions and models, without

84 Version of coffin M57C. The variants am HH and wAD-wr given for the names of the lakes are quite exceptional among CT witnesses of spell 335 (other instances can be found in T1Len, Sq8Sq, and Sq1Sq), but were integrated with further variations in BD 17 a § S 8. 85 the emerging of deities, the king, or the deceased renewed from the primordial wa- ters (often embodied in lakes and watery fields) was a mainstream topic of Egyptian funer- ary texts. In the Pyramid Texts, the Fields of Rushes were a favourite stage for purification before sunrise (examples discussed by H. Hays, Transformation of Context, p. 177‒182). The importance of lakes for purification endures in CT, see C. Jacq, Recherches sur les paradis de l’autre monde, p. 101‒108 (drawing on examples from the PT and the CT). 230 l. díaz-iglesias aiming at an exclusive or excluding relation, but adding the novelty of the staging in a hallmark of the Herakleopolitan landscape. Together with ideas inherited from the Pyramid Texts, elements characteristic of the more recent religious outlook of Coffin Texrs also surface in this par- ticular episode of purification. The bathing in the sSwy wrwy aAwy ntyw m Nn-nsw is only one stage underlying the main topic of CT 335: the journey that the deceased, assimilated to several solar deities, undertakes before sunrise and through the afterworld to reach the eastern horizon and the place of embalming of his dead father (Osiris).86 The trip also entails overcoming certain dangers and facing a trial to obtain justification. Div- ing into the water of the Herakleopolitan ponds endowed the deceased with a regenerated, pure, and divine-like (emulating the sun god) condi- tion that allowed him to reach all his goals. If we proceed to the second level of analysis, the synchronic assessment of other references found in Coffin Texts, we see how Herakleopolis Mag- na was related to the general idea of purification (active and passive),87 be it through means of water88 or without the intervention of this (meta- phorical and real) cleansing agent.89 This connection between a concept/ state (purification and resurrection) and this locality, first attested in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom sources, proved very fruit- ful and long-lasting in terms of textual and pictorial representations.90

86 For this topic or general scheme and for the axis son/ritualist (often equated with a young or active god)—dead father/beneficiary, which can be found in many CT spells, see: H. Willems, Heqata, p. 163, 173, Idem, The Embalmer Embalmed. Remarks on the Meaning of the Decoration of some Middle Kingdom Coffins, in J. van Dijk (ed.), Essays on Ancient Egypt in Honour of Herman te Velde (Egyptological Memoirs 1), Groningen, 1997, p. 360‒361, Idem, Historical and Archaeological Aspects, 187‒195, 198; H. Hays, Mutability of tradition, p. 51. 87 The distinction between passive and active depends on the roles adopted by the protagonists. Active purifications are enacted by priests (or the deceased once reborn and acting as a priest for a god) during the embalmment (or in fact during the preparation and execution of any ritual). Passive purifications are undergone by the deceased, likened to the inert Osiris. I take this distinction from the study of H. Willems, The Embalmer Embalmed and have applied it to the mythemes of purification in Herakleopolis Magna (L. Díaz- Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 171‒270). 88 CT V, 257a‒i [420]. 89 CT I, 210c‒211c [47]. 90 The successor of CT 335, BD 17 a § S 8, introduces several innovations in the sec- tion of the Herakleopolitan lakes: multiplication of the variants of their names, overt as- sociation between purification in them and rebirth, and their iconographical rendering as fecundity figures, accompanied by symbols of fertility and solar rebirth. Through verbal and visual mechanisms, their perception as an embodiment of the primeval aquatic chaos from which life in a latent state could arise was achieved. A formal analysis and interpreta- tion of this text and vignette is provided in L. Díaz-Iglesias, Commentary on Heracleopolis Magna from the Theological Perspective (I): the Image of the Local Lakes in the Vignette local reworkings of core mythological notions 231

It gave way to a tradition which endured in religious sources transmitted via successive recensions of BD spells until the Graeco-Roman Period91 and was also integrated in wishes for the Hereafter in tombs of private individuals,92 which attest to the afterlife aspirations of the deceased.

2.2. Coronation and exercise of royalty in Herakleopolis Magna The capital of the 20th Upper Egyptian nome was also portrayed for the first time in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom funerary sources, partially coinciding with the period when the city reached its political height, as the stage where Osiris assumed royal power (via his corona- tion or enthronisation).93 There he receives signs of rank (the atef- and the wereret-crowns), several practical tools for a successful government, and more abstract qualities for the exercise of royal power, while he also man- ages to defeat his enemies, headed by Seth. Among the abstract qualities, his SfSft (magnificent appearance, aura, charisma, prestige, or reverential fear) stands out and is created for, or endowed upon, him in this same city. The most elaborate and detailed composition portraying Osiris’ access to power in Herakleopolis Magna is CT 313 (IV, 87b‒90p), only transmitted of Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead, in Trabajos de Egiptología / Papers on Ancient Egypt 4 (2005), p. 31‒106, revised and updated in Eadem, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópo- lis Magna, p. 209‒222, 230‒270. 91 BD 17 a § S 8 (see n. 90); BD 175 c § S 2 bears an etiological explanation of the origin of the lake/s. Given the interconnections and combination of mythical notions in religious conceptions and productions, the episodes of purification in Herakleopolis Magna should be set in relation with the notions of justification in the city and declaration of one’s faults (practically an instance of purification through the so-called “negative confession”). The epitome of such intertwining can be found in BD 125 A § S 3, where the deceased declares abw=j abw bnw pwy aA nty m Nn-nsw “my purity is the purity of the benu bird that is in Herakleopolis Magna” in the frame of the postmortem judgment. For different mythemes related to vindication in the Herakleopolitan nome, see L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 271‒334. 92 new Kingdom sources: TT 100 (tomb of Rx-mj-Ra); TT 57 (tomb of ¢a-m-HAt); Paris Louvre C 66 (tomb of @wy-Srj), and Leiden K9 (chapel of Wsr-HAt); Vienna ÄS 127 (stela of Wp-wAwt-ms); Third Intermediate Period (or Saite) sources: Leiden AMM 18 (M. 3) (coffin of +d-Mntw-(jw=f-anx)) and P. Oxford Ms. Egypt a. 4 (P) (papyrus of anx=f-n- ¢nsw). 93 The importance of the Herakleopolitan traditions concerning the local coronation of Osiris were soon recognised: H. Kees, Göttinger Totenbuchstudien. Ein Mythus vom Königtum des Osiris in Herakleopolis aus dem Totenbuch Kap. 175, in ZÄS 30 (1930), p. 65‒83; A. Rusch, Die Theologie des Osiris und die Herakleopoliten, in WZKM 54 (1957), p. 161‒167; J. Yoyotte, Une notice biographique du Roi Osiris, in BIFAO 77 (1977), p. 145‒149. For further details, see: L. Díaz-Iglesias, The Role of Osiris in the Mythological Cycle Devised around Heracleopolis Magna and its Territory, in P. Kousoulis, N. Lazaridis (eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists, Uni- versity of the Aegean, Rhodes 22–29 May 2008 (OLA 241), Leuven, 2015, p. 1173‒1185, Eadem, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 335‒433. 232 l. díaz-iglesias on the coffin B5C.94 However, if we pursue the synchronic assessment among other CT spells, we see how some contemporary compositions bore mythical allusions that betray a similar conceptual background.95 As in the example of the mytheme of purification in the Herakleo- politan lakes, the events surrounding the coronation of Osiris are staged for the first time in Herakleopolis Magna in Coffin Texts and are shaped according to general models and reference points recurring in Pyramid Texts spells; in this case, according to those related to the transfer of pow- er in the Hereafter. From the Pyramid Texts, several features distinguish a legitimate kingship: its derivation from the early generations of god-kings (Atum, Re, or Geb), the reception of royal insignia (elements which carry power, aid in defeating the enemies, and render its recipient visible), and the acknowledgement and recognition of the whole community (in the form of the approval and joy of, for example, the Ennead).96 For the line of reasoning defended in this paper, it is interesting to note that these features pervade the Coffin Texts spells which portray the ascension of Osiris to royal power in this Upper Egyptian locality.

94 This composition has been the object of several analyses: R.O. Faulkner, Coffin Texts Spell 313, in JEA 58 (1972), p. 91‒94; H. Altenmüller, Bemerkungen zu Spruch 313 der Sargtexte, in J. Osing (ed.), Form und Mass. Beiträge zur Literatur, Sprache und Kunst der alten Ägypter. Festschrift für Gerhard Fecht zum 65. Geburtstag am 6. Februar 1987 (ÄAT 12), Wiesbaden, 1987, p. 1‒17; H. Buchberger, Transformation und Transfor- mat, p. 470‒497; K. Goebs, niswt nHH–Kingship, Cosmos, and Time, in Z.A. Hawass (ed.), L.P. Brock (col.), Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000, Cairo, 2003, II, p. 242‒243, tb. 3 a‒e; an examination from the Herakleopolitan perspective is undertaken in L. Díaz- Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 347‒359. 95 references to the insignia and elements of power borne by Osiris in this city recur in CT IV, 316b‒318e [335]. Although the passage is transmitted in sources from Thebes, Meir, el-Bersha, and el-Lisht — the latter hitherto unpublished — some dispense with the refer- ence to Herakleopolis Magna as the frame of the action. This is particularly notable among Hermopolitan witnesses. An abbreviated version of this section of CT 335 was included in CT IV, 328h‒l [336], and here the local reference was also omitted. In CT I, 78g‒m [26], the saH of a divine being, probably to be identified with Osiris, looms in Herakleopolis Magna (CT I, 78l). saH refers here to “dignity” in the sense of a sign of (royal) socio-political rank, of the resurrected and eternal body, or of both. 96 See W. Barta, Untersuchungen zum Götterkreis der Neunheit (MÄS 28), München – Berlin, 1973, p. 84, 98‒99; U. Luft, Beiträge zur Historisierung der Götterwelt und der Mythenschreibung (Studia Aegyptiaca IV), Budapest, 1978, p. 50‒56, 65‒67, 90‒91, 108‒110; E. Endesfelder, Die Realisierung des Herrschaftskonzepts in den Pyramiden- texten, in S. Schoske (ed.), Geschichte, Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Rechts- geschichte, Nachbarkulturen. Akten des 4. Internationalen Ägyptologen-Kongresses, München 1985, Hamburg, 1990, p. 47‒54; H. Roeder, Mit dem Auge sehen: Studien zur Semantik der Herrschaft in den Toten- und Kulttexten (SAGA 16), Heidelberg, 1996; K. Goebs, niswt nHH, Eadem, Crowns in Egyptian Funerary Literature: Royalty, Rebirth, and Destruction, Oxford, 2008. local reworkings of core mythological notions 233

To bring the synchronic analysis to completion, attention should be turned to cultic contemporaneous compositions, i.e. to Osirian hymns. According to what was discussed in section 1, the question arises: are the mythological associations evoked by a locality in the mind of those in charge of compiling and transmitting funerary texts also attested in hymns? As a matter of fact, Middle Kingdom sources focused on extolling Osiris also bear similar references to his royalty in Herakleopolis Magna, highlighting the permeability of ideas and phraseology between funer- ary and cultic compositions. Among the six documents attesting to Detlef Franke’s type I of Osirian hymns,97 the prestige of this deity is connected with Herakleopolis Magna in the two variants integrated in this group. Thus, it is stated of Osiris: dy bA=f m ©dt Sfyt=f m Nn-nsw “to whom his ba is given in Mendes and his prestige in Herakleopolis Magna”98 and nb SfSft m Nn-nsw “lord of prestige in Herakleopolis Magna”.99 Furthermore, some documents of type I also refer to the presentation of the wereret- crown to this deity in this same city.100 The royal connections interwoven between Herakleopolis Magna and Osiris, first attested in the aforementioned documents, endure and are greatly expanded along the same lines. Thus legitimacy, regal rank, pres- tige, and symbols of divine kingship are emphasised in this local context in different funerary and cultic compositions and in temple inscriptions spanning between the New Kingdom and the Graeco-Roman Period.101

97 See footnote 59. 98 Stelae Oxford QC 1109 and London BM EA 218 (243), both belonging to ¢nty-Xty- m-HAt. See n. 59. 99 Stela Paris Louvre C 30 (of %bk-Htp and %bk-jrj). The rest of the sources of this vari- ant omit references to Herakleopolis Magna. Another example attesting to this association comes from stela London BM EA 236 (1367), of Wp-wAwt-Htp, the only component of Franke’s type III (D. Franke, Middle Kingdom Hymns, p. 99). After alluding to the ma- jestic and terrifying appearance of the god (nb snD, aA SfSft, nb fAw), the hymn goes on to describe him as aA m Nn-nsw. 100 rdy n=f wrrt m-xnt Nn-nsw, in the sources mentioned in n. 98. The stelae Paris Louvre C 30 and Paris Louvre C 285 (of %bk-Htp) and the chapel Hannover 1976.80a (of Wnmj) – see n. 59 – feature the conferral of this crown upon Osiris in the presence of the Ennead. 101 1. Funerary compositions: the episodes included in CT IV, 316b‒318e [335] are re- sumed and broadened in BD 17 b § S 4; BD 175 c § S 1‒3 unfolds how the access of Osiris to royalty took place in Herakleopolis Magna, integrating the main elements of the areas’ cult and mythical topography. 2. Osirian hymns: several sources transmitting one subgroup of Franke’s type I of Mid- dle Kingdom cultic compositions (see n. 98 and 100) into the New Kingdom insist on Osiris’ reception of the wereret-crown and happiness in Herakleopolis Magna (Brussels MRAH E. 5300, Cairo CG 70038, Florence 1505, Leiden VI 50), while others omit it, at- testing to the coexistence of several traditions. Some of these New Kingdom sources also refer to the Sfyt/SfSft of Osiris in this same city: Brussels MRAH E. 5300 and Leiden VI 50. 234 l. díaz-iglesias

Concerning the quality of SfSft of Osiris in Herakleopolis Magna, at- tested both in funerary and cultic compositions from the First Intermedi- ate Period/Middle Kingdom onwards, two aspects should be stressed. On the one hand, no monopoly was intended in this association, given that this same quality could be exhibited in different centres in other Coffin Texts spells.102 On the other hand, there seems to have been a thematic emphasis or preferential relationship between SfSft and Osiris in the case of the Herakleopolitan nome: it appears in Coffin Texts and hymns of the Middle Kingdom and is pervasive in later sources. For the purpose of as- sessing localness and exploring the basis upon which this link could have been built, it is necessary to set our sights on the background of beliefs of this region. In the local traditions, magnificent appearance and reverential fear were typical features of its tutelary deity, Heryshef. For ancient Egyp- tians, prestige (SfSft/Sfyt) was related to rams both on phonetic grounds, since Sft/Sf was one of the designations of this animal species, and in real terms, since the prominent chest and horns of a ram and his great energy made an impressive image. Moreover, this quality was specifically con-

The integration and adaptation of these Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom compositions into the Book of the Dead tradition (as chapter BD 181 b § S 1) entailed the omission of all references to Herakleopolis Magna. As spell BD 181 was usually inserted between chapters with a strong solar component, a reworking of the hymn’s content could have been operated by giving pride of place to the old Heliopolitan components (with references to Heliopolis and the Ennead included at the expense of the Herakleopolitan ones). New regal elements are conferred upon Osiris in Herakleopolis Magna according to BD 185 M § S 1. Many New Kingdom and post-New Kingdom Osirian hymns of different types and extensions exalt the qualities of the god as aA, wr, nsw, sr, and smsw as well as his possession of the atef-crown and/or SfSft-dignity in Herakleopolis Magna: New Kingdom sources: Bologna KS 1944 (@r-mnw), Leiden AP 51 (PtH-ms), Cairo JE 3299 (PA-Ra-Hr-wnmy=f ), TT 178 (Nfr-rnpt), TT 296 (Nfr-sxrw), TT 157 (Nb-wnnf ), P. London BM EA 10470 (Anj); Third Intermediate Period sources: Vienna ÄS 6269 and Vienna ÄS 6270 (Ns-pr-nbw), P. London BM EA 10554 (Nsj-tA-nbt-ASrw), P. Oxford Ms. Egypt a. 4 (P) (anx=f-n-¢nsw); Saite‒Ptolemaic sources: TT 36 (Jbj), BD 128 a § S 1 (a Middle Kingdom hymn that originally held no references to Herakleopolis Magna reworded for its inclusion in the Book of the Dead tradition (Kushite-Saite recension); a variant of this latter spell with a new reference to the crowning of Osiris in this city is to be found on the statue London BM EA 713). 3. Osirian liturgies: Herakleopolis Magna appears as a stage where homage is paid to Osiris as king-god: hymn transmitted in P. Cairo JE 97249, papyrus 15 and P. Vienna Vin- dob Aeg. 12001; Ceremony of glorifying Osiris in the God’s domain; Rite of Overthrowing Seth and his Confederates. 4. Temple inscriptions: biography of Osiris in Dendera (J. Yoyotte, BIFAO 77 (1977)); D. X, 157, 61‒63 (similar examples are quoted by C. Leitz, Geographisch-osirianische Prozessionen, p. 241‒243); D. X, 284, 3‒5. 5. Compositions from the New Kingdom onwards highlighting royal aspects of Osiris in Naref (a landmark of the 20th Upper Egyptian nome frequently mentioned in religious and cultic sources) are analysed in L. Díaz-Iglesias, Naref, p. 104–119. 102 CT I, 78 m [26] places it in Abydos. local reworkings of core mythological notions 235 nected with Heryshef, whose name was reinterpreted as @r-Sfyt/@ry-Sfyt (“ram-face”, “magnificent face”, “the one who is over dignity”) from the New Kingdom onwards to emphasise this feature of his multifaceted per- sonality. Finally, it is important to note that SfSft-dignity also stems from, or is in close connection with, the atef-crown that both Osiris and Heryshef share. This item of regalia was not only the most prominent crown of the latter, but was also part of Osiris’ emblems in general and of his particular manifestation in the Herakleopolitan nome.103 In conclusion, in the preferential relationship established between one feature of Osiris and Herakleopolis Magna, the local background seems to have played a prominent role. The aspects of this deity magnified with- in this place were not chosen at random but were rooted in the local reli- gious milieu. One may well wonder if the prominent royal facet displayed by Heryshef — probably resulting from the promotion of this deity by the Herakleopolitan Dynasty — and the historical context — with new kings seeking for legitimacy — would not have also influenced the initial conception or setting down in writing of the mythemes concerning the royalty of Osiris in this locality of Upper Egypt. Thus a possible explana- tion based on historical grounds could be advanced for the fact that in the First Intermediate Period/Middle Kingdom the city did not only tread in the mytho-political stage of the Hereafter, dominated by Heliopolis and the heavenly sphere in the Pyramid Texts, but was also portrayed as the seat of the legitimate kingship of Osiris.

2.3. Diachronic analysis In the continuous process of creation, transmission, reception, revision, and edition of religious texts extending over several centuries, diachronic changes are not only due to conscious grammatical modernisations or to unconscious mistakes on the part of editors and copyists. Modifications in treatment and content as well as creation of new compositions can be taken as the mirror which reflects new interpretations and general chang- es introduced in religious notions and practices, or at least in the ways of conveying them. Adding the diachronic perspective, with the study of the geographical and chronological variety or consistency of the formulae

103 The connections of ram-gods in general and particularly of Heryshef with SfSft are dealt with by: J. Assmann, Schefit, LÄ V, 1983, p. 549‒551; L. Manniche, Amun aA Sfyt in a Ramesside Tomb at Thebes, in GöttMisz 29 (1987), p. 79‒83; Y. Volokhine, Une désigna- tion de la “face divine” HAwt, HAwty, in BIFAO 101 (2001), p. 373‒375; L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 447‒448, 449‒450, 460‒461, 473‒485. 236 l. díaz-iglesias over the course of their dissemination, allows us to examine the degree to which older ideas and local reworkings were preserved, substituted by new notions, subjected to shifts in emphasis, or received new meanings. Several cultural and social transformations, among which rank changes in religious thought, decorum, and practice, allowed the progressive inclu- sion of more details in funerary and cultic sources, particularly of those used in the private sphere. While in the early sources — those of the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdon — references to Herakleopolitan hallmarks are reduced to brief allusions to actions and situations in the divine world, from the New Kingdom onwards old traditions began to be deployed with a richer phraseology and imagery. Together with the pres- ervation of old mythical notions, new beliefs or novel forms of express- ing old traditions are introduced. The mixture of tradition and innovation resulted in a wide spectrum of possibilities in perception and expression: endurance of old formulae, rewording of the latter to add new contextual details and divine characters, alterations in emphasis or the point of view from which a topic is dealt with, and incorporation of new associations and meanings to fit in the main (evolving) trends of the theological discourse. The tendency towards the preservation of old notions and the parallel inclusion of changes in content and treatment of these traditions is exem- plified with the case of the Herakleopolitan tomb of Osiris.104 In the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, the existence of a sepulchre of Osiris in the local context can be surmised from allusions in Coffin Texts spells to the concealment and protection of the god’s corpse in Naref, to his burial organised by Shu or Re, and to the performance of funerary rites connected with the defeat of the enemies (Ploughing of the earth, xbs tA) in Herakleopolis Magna.105 Several compositions from the New King- dom onwards resort to the same mythical notions, sometimes with slight rewordings but always maintaining the core meaning, and transmit them across the centuries into Ptolemaic times.106 But these compositions also

104 Episodes revolving around the burial of Osiris in the 20th Upper Egyptian nome are discussed in L. Díaz-Iglesias, El ciclo mítico de Heracleópolis Magna, p. 65‒116, 124‒149. Specifically for the funerary Osirian traditions located in Naref see Eadem, Naref, p. 55–82. 105 CT IV, 338a, h [339] (sStA tA m NArf “make the land secret in Naref”); CT IV, 316b‒ 318e [335]/T1Cb, IV, 315f, 316b‒318b [335]/M1NY (burial of Osiris ordered by his ascend- ants in concomitance with the conferral of the wereret-crown to the god in Herakleopolis Magna); CT IV, 95i‒r [314]/B5C, IV, 333a‒b [337], IV, 338a, h [339] (xbs tA in Herakleo- polis Magna). 106 the expression sStA tA (see n. 105) gives way to sStA jrw/sStA aA jrw “concealing the Forms/Great of Forms (=Osiris)” in BD 18 § S 9 (for which, see also Végh in this volume). This spell is integrated in the Graeco-Roman Period into the First Document of Breathing local reworkings of core mythological notions 237 include new elements such as references to the relics of the god, a funer- ary mound that hides his tomb, and a tree which grows on top of it upon whose branches perches his bA.107 These novel aspects reflect changes progressively taking shape in the wider theological speculation, namely the multiplication of points of view from which the tombs of Osiris were conceived, their perception as mounds covered by trees,108 the emphasis laid on the cult of the Osirian relics,109 and the importance of the concep- tion of the union of Osiris’s body with the sun’s bA.110 with further modifications; BD 145 w § S 4 and BD 194 (formerly known as BD 125 A b § S 4) adhere to the idea of hiding and protecting the god in Naref, but express it as jw=j h(A)b=kw r N-Ar=f Hbs-n=j nty HAw=w/nty jm Hr HAw “I have descended into Naref and have dressed/covered the one who was in nakedness”; BD 1 § S 4 (transmitting CT 314 ‒ see n. 105 ‒ into the BD tradition), 175 c § S 1 (with an aetiological explanation), and a scene in the Hibis Temple indicate that the ritual of xbs tA was an important feature of Herakleopolitan traditions (H. Sternberg el-Hotabi, Die “Götterliste” des Sanktuars im Hibis-Tempel von El-Chargeh. Überlegungen zur Tradierung und Kodifizierung religiösen und kulttopographischen Gedankengutes, in M. Minas, J. Ziedler (eds.), Aspekte spät- ägyptischer Kultur. Festschrift für Erich Winter zum 65. Geburtstag (AegTrev 7), Mainz am Rhein, 1994, p. 239‒254). 107 Two traditions regarding the type of Osirian relics assigned to the Herakleopolitan nome are preserved in BD 18 § S 9 and P. Chester Beatty VII vº 6, 5‒9. Osiris is de- scribed as bA Ra Dt=f Ds=f Htp m Nn-nsw, mnx hnw m Nart, xprt r sTt bA=f “ba of Re and his own body that rests in Herakleopolis Magna, perfect of joy in the Naret tree, which came into being to lift his ba” on the New Kingdom stela Paris Louvre C 286 of Jmn-ms (=BD 185 A § S 1; with a variant attested in the stela London BM EA 645 of Jmn-m-jnt of the Twenty-second Dynasty). Significantly, the tree holding the ba of Osiris in this sen- tence is the emblem of the Herakleopolitan province, so that a local element is integrated into the new conception of the physical appearance adopted by Osirian tombs. Priestly monographs of the Graeco-Roman Period collect information on the relic of this nome (substituting the plurality of bodily members of earlier traditions of BD 18 and P. Chester Beatty with a single relic), the location of the local tomb ( jAt) of Osiris, and the presence of vegetal sacred species surrounding and protecting it: E. I, 343, 5‒6; E. VI, 124, 6; D. X, 80, 5‒9; P. Jumilhac V, vignette; P. SI inv. I 2 + P. Carlsberg 54 + P. Tebt. Tait Add. 1 a‒f + P. Berlin P. 14412i and P. Carlsberg 182 + P. SI inv. I 77 (P. Tebt I, 2). 108 For the conception of the tomb of Osiris, see S. Einaudi, The “Tomb of Osiris”: An Ideal Burial Model?, in J.C. Goyon, C. Cardin (eds.), Actes du Neuvième Congrès Inter- national des Égyptologues (OLA 150.2), Leuven, 2007, p. 475‒485. The importance of trees in connection with Osiris’ burial has been addressed by P. Koemoth, Osiris et les arbres: contribution à l’étude des arbres sacrés de l’Égypte ancienne (Ӕgyptiaca Leodiensia 3), Liège, 1994, p. 165‒178, 292‒294. 109 To the classical study of H. Beinlich (Die “Osirisreliquien”. Zum Motiv der Körperzergliederung in der altägyptischen Religion (ÄgAbh 42), Wiesbaden, 1984), add L. Coulon, Les reliques d’Osiris en Égypte ancienne: données générales et particularis- mes thébains, in P. Borgeaud, Y. Volokhine (eds.), Les objets de la mémoire. Pour une approche comparatiste des reliques et de leur culte (Studia Religiosa Helvetica 2004/05), Berne – Oxford, 2005, p. 15‒46. 110 During the New Kingdom, the relationship between Osiris and Re, which can be traced back to the Pyramid Texts, was strengthened, became more permanent, and found its way into textual and pictorial compositions. The bibliography on this topic is extended and I only quote the reassessment of T. DuQuesne, The Osiris-Re Conjuction with Particular 238 l. díaz-iglesias

In the same light, other major diachronic changes in broad theologi- cal trends could be explored. For example, modifications in Egyptian cosmogony between the Old Kingdom‒Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom or the rise of certain deities during the New Kingdom and 1st millennium BC (specially child gods and different forms of Horus) left an imprint in local reworkings. Their impact can be traced in the introduc- tion of new actors (Re and Horus) and new topics in the mythological episodes (cosmogonic processes, destruction of solar enemies, transmis- sion of royal inheritance to the son) staged in the Herakleopolitan context.

3. Driving forces

In the two previous sections, several criteria that can be applied to the recognition and evaluation of the phenomenon of local reworkings and its reflection in religious sources were suggested, and the example of Herakleopolis Magna as a case study was presented. However, getting closer to the underlying actors is a more difficult undertaking, mainly on account of the scarcity of sources. Who, and which centres, were re- sponsible for the (re)creation and production of ideas and texts from a local perspective remains an unsettled issue that probably varied accord- ing to historical periods.111 Was it that the Residence and the main tem- ple linked to the royal court were the driving forces?112 If so, we could perhaps reckon that behind this policy may lie an effort to encompass and integrate the cultural diversity into a unified religious and politi- cal structure.113 However, another alternative or (rather) complementary

Reference to the Book of the Dead, in B. Backes, I. Munro, S. Stöhr (eds.), Totenbuch- Forschungen: gesammelte Beiträge des 2. Internationalen Totenbuch-Symposiums, Bonn, 25. bis 29. September 2005 (SAT 11), 2006, Wiesbaden, p. 23‒33. 111 While the questions raised here may well apply to many phases of textual produc- tion, the references given in the footnotes are mainly centred on the earlier stages and are relevant to Coffin Texts, Middle Kingdom Osirian hymns, and Book of the Dead in the Theban recension (the earliest attestations of Herakleopolitan mythological reworkings). 112 For S. Bickel, the homogeneity in the presentation of cosmogonic processes in Pyramid and Coffin Texts derives from the work of sages connected with Heliopolis and the Memphite royal court and from the diffusion of the textual tradition of the Residence (S. Bickel, La cosmogonie égyptienne, esp. p. 285‒298). 113 For the different (mainly religious) mechanisms through which “ein Groβterritorium mit seiner Diversität, seinen unterschiedlichen religiösen und sozialen Traditionen” was in- tegrated into a unified structure under the command of a single ruler in the 3rd millennium BC, see S. Bickel, Die Verknüpfung von Weltbild und Staatsbild. Aspekte von Politik und Religion in Ägypten, in R.G. Kratz, H. Spieckermann (eds.), Götterbilder, Gottesbilder, Weltbilder. Polytheismus und Monotheismus in der Welt der Antike (Forschung zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 17‒18), Tübingen, 2006, I, p. 79‒99 (cf. for the policies of kings of Dy- nasties 0‒5 in local temples R. Bussmann, Die Provinztempel, p. 460‒469, 506‒512) and local reworkings of core mythological notions 239 scenario is also possible — especially in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom — and counterbalances the opinion that almost all crea- tive enterprises were fueled from the Residence.114 We may envisage that the largest regional centres were (also) responsible for the introduction of local perspectives. It is likewise probable that the institution(s) in charge of editing and producing funerary and liturgical texts in such regional foci would not only take into account the traditions of their own region, what- ever their socio-cultural origin might have been. Most probably, they also integrated and gave written shape to other traditions, information about which was available in these institutions (as a result of archival activities linked to the cultural memory)115 and/or formed part of the shared and common heritage of the ancient Egyptians. The circulation and reception of local traditions across the country could account for the situation encountered at Abydos in the Middle Kingdom. As Harco Willems noted: “considering how often religious concepts of Abydene origin are alluded to in the Coffin Texts, one might have ex- pected that the site would have afforded an impressive amount of sources.

M. Campagno, Aspectos de un proceso de cambio: Estado emergente y religión en el valle del Nilo, in Cahiers Caribéens d’Égyptologie 2 (2001), p. 5‒26. The important role of the Residence during the Middle Kingdom as a generative or commissioning base in relation to production, and its close contact with centres of ideation or development of the concept, has been discussed by S. Quirke, The Residence in Relations between Places of Knowl- edge, Production and Power: Middle Kingdom Evidence, in R. Gundlach, J.H. Taylor (eds.), 4. Symposium zur ägyptischen Königsideologie / 4th Symposium on Egyptian Roy- al Ideology. Egyptian Royal Residences, London, June, 1st‒5th 2004, Wiesbaden, 2009, p. 111‒130. 114 L. Morenz argues against the “impliziten Axiom, daβ bedeutende sakrale Texte nur im Umkreis der Residenz geschaffen wurden. Textschöpfung in der Residenz ist zwar eine wahrscheinliche Option, doch für verschiedene konkrete Einzelfälle keineswegs zwin- gend” (L. Morenz , Die Zeit der Regionen, p. 462, n. 1337). According to Marcel Zitman, some decorative patterns of coffins are attested earlier inA ssiut than in royal workshops of the Memphite-Fayum area (M. Zitman, The Necropolis of Assiut. A Case Study of Local Egyptian Funerary Culture from the Old Kingdom to the End of the Middle Kingdom (OLA 180), Leuven, 2010, I, p. 339‒340). 115 that the House of Life at Hermopolis collected Memphite textual materials is clear from the studies of P. Jürgens (Grundlinien einer Überlieferungsgeschichte der altägyptischen Sargtexte: Stemmata und Archetypen der Spruchgruppen 30 ‒ 32 + 33 ‒ 37, 75 (‒83), 162 + 164, 225 + 226 und 343 + 345 (GOF IV/31), Wiesbaden, 1995, p. 84) and L. Gestermann (Sargtexte aus Dair al-biršā). This material was further transferred to Thebes and several localities in Middle Egypt (ibidem, Eadem, Die “Textschmiede” Theben - Der thebanische Beitrag zu Konzeption und Tradierung von Sargtexten und Totenbuch, in SAK 25 (1998), p. 83–99; P. Jürgens, Grundlinien, p. 83‒84; H. Willems, Historical and Archaeological Aspects, p. 176‒177, 226‒227). J. Kahl has studied the transmission of Siu- tian productions — Wissenserzeugnisse — to other localities such as Thebes and Tebtynis (Siut-Theben, Idem, Assiut ‒ Theben ‒ Tebtynis. Wissensbewegungen von der Ersten Zwi- schenzeit und dem Mittleren Reich bis in Römische Zeit, in SAK 43 (2014), p. 159‒172). 240 l. díaz-iglesias

Yet only three sources inscribed with Coffin Texts!”.116 This state of af- fairs is also attested in the case of Herakleopolis Magna; while the city achieved a certain importance in the otherwordly and divine landscape, very few sources of the nome record formulas portraying Herakleopoli- tan mythological events. This circumstance may well also be owed to the loss of First Intermediate Period/Middle Kingdom archaeological and epigraphical materials of the capital of this Upper Egyptian region117 and to the fact that fundamental places for the commission, ideation, and use of religious compositions such as the royal palace, the local temple, and the royal necropolis of the Ninth/Tenth Dynasty118 remain hitherto undis- covered. Yet the parallelism with the Abydene and Hermopolitan situa- tion is conspicuous. Due to the numerous lacunae in the archaeological register, the recog- nised importance of unpublished materials,119 and the loss of many inter- mediate steps in the process of textual production, we may not be able to ascertain where a given tradition was created or “codified” in written form. Notwithstanding, this author endorses the words of Willems con- cerning the origin and, especially, the spread and reception of traditions: “It is obviously of some importance if a text localizes a mythical event in a particular city [...] one may refer to the well-known myth according

116 H. Willems, Historical and Archaeological Aspects, p. 167. The same is true of Hermopolitan sources, when Stadler states the following: “[...] aber schon in den ST die nicht-hermupolitanischen Textzeugen deutlicher auf Hermupolis verweisen als die hermupolitanischen” (M.A. Stadler, Weiser und Wesir, p. 105). 117 Two First Intermediate Period/Middle Kingdom tombs decorated with Coffin Texts found at the site — H1H and H2H — were published by A. Rocati, I Testi dei Sarcofagi di Eracleopoli, in Oriens Antiquus 13 (1974), p. 161‒197 and J. López, Rapport préliminaire sur les fouilles d’Hérakléopolis (1968), in Oriens Antiquus 14 (1975), p. 61‒73. Conditions prevailing at this site, especially the rising water table, have caused great damage to the painted decoration of these tomb-chambers. On the other hand, lacuanae are not only due to what material has survived, been discovered, or published (most often belonging to tomb contexts of the provincial elite). We must also count with biases in the sources themselves: what is transmitted might be only a fraction — probably what was regarded as more fitting for the afterlife — of what originally existed in archives and what circulated through dif- ferent channels, such as the oral sphere. 118 Part of the funerary texts used for the Herakleopolitan king Wahkare Khety are in- cidentally known through the coffin of Djehutyhotep (B16C), who probably drew on a master copy prepared for the king or on the Vorlage used to compose the latter for the decoration of his coffin: J.P. Allen, The Funerary Texts of King Wahkare Akhtoy on a Middle Kingdom Coffin, in J.H. Johnson, E.F. Wente (eds.), Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes (SAOC 39), Chicago, 1976, p. 1‒29; W. Schenkel, Zur Herakleopolitanischen Tradition der Pyramidentexte, in GöttMisz 28 (1978), p. 35‒44. 119 Sizable gaps will be covered by the future publication of the sources from el-Lisht (the significance of which can be gleaned from the overview given by J.P. Allen, Coffin Texts from Lisht, in H. Willems (ed.), The World of the Coffin Texts, p. 1‒15) and Assiut (announced by M. Zitman, The Necropolis of Assiut, p. 4, n. 31). local reworkings of core mythological notions 241 to which the tribunal held session in Heliopolis to vindicate Horus against Seth [...]. It is of course likely that the Heliopolitan intellectuals played some part in its development, but in the historical period it forms part of the basics of Egyptian religion in general, and not simply of the Helio- politan priests.”120 Under this premise, we may conclude that the fact that we find Herakleopolitan mythemes in two groups of contemporary re- lated sources (funerary and cultic) used in different locations without major semantic differences, and that these are transmitted and further (re)elaborated in later sources indicates that they became integrated into the common textual and conceptual heritage. No matter where these local reworkings were initially developed, they were turned into an object of remembering and transmission in different centres. Whichever individuals or centres were the driving forces for the in- troduction of the local perspective, it is clear that its authors belonged to a socio-cultural elite and possessed connections with, or access to, the priestly sphere or its institutions. They had a great familiarity with the general notions and trends of religious discourse (which can be subsumed under the concepts of archive of cultural knowledge and core mythologi- cal material), but also a profound knowledge of the provincial milieu.121 As examples discussed in section 2 illustrate, they opted for conveying issues related with the latter under the cloak of the former, perhaps for symbolic and practical reasons, since the weight of tradition and decorum and the efficiency of old models for the ends pursued would have played an important role. Outside these Gelehrtenkreisen, we can envisage that there existed a wide spectrum of forms and meanings within which ideas based on local elements circulated in a province at different levels, in- cluding oral narratives. However, through the narrow angle of the shape that these ideas adopted in religious sources produced and used by re- duced social groups pertaining to the literate elite, little can be said about other scenarios (cf. infra) or about the spread of religious conceptions across the population.

120 H. Willems, Heqata, p. 305. 121 For J. Quack, this intimate familiarity with geographical small areas and their re- sources indicates that the creation of these conceptions arose from the regions concerned (Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008), p. 11, 17, 21, 28). He also posits their creation within Gelehrtenkreisen, bearing an in-depth awareness of land-wide religious traditions. L. Morenz attempts to identify certain authors of funerary and religious compositions with individuals combining archival work and creativity and developing their activities in close contact with local temples (Die Zeit der Regionen, p. 444‒446, 452‒454, 588‒591; Idem, Zum grossen Revisionsprozess der funerären Texte in der XI. Dynastie, in ZÄS 138 (2011), p. 39‒40). 242 l. díaz-iglesias

Another question raised by this query on actors and institutions behind local reworkings is whether the deep cognizance of various different pro- vincial milieus was attained through the material preserved in libraries and/or through direct witness. The Per-ankh was the institution par excel- lence in charge of compiling, producing, reproducing, safeguarding, and transmitting a variety of compositions/traditions/knowledge and a place of teaching and learning, in close relation with cognate centres such as the Per-medjat. Both were further connected with temples in various ways.122 Whether such institutions could have stored encyclopaedic documents similar to the late regional monographs — offering an overview of the specific local traditions of the different nomes —, but with a more limited scope in their contents, cannot be stated with certainty.123 In a similar ven- ue, it cannot be proved or discarded whether some rules recorded in the so- called “Book of the Temple”, detailing the specific instruction on sacred

122 To the classical assemblages of evidence for the House of Life of A.H. Gardiner (The House of Life, in JEA 24 (1938), p. 151‒179) and G. Burkhard (Bibliotheken im Alten Ägypten. Überlegungen zur Methodik ihres Nachweises und Übersicht zum Stand der Forschung, in Bibliothek, Forschung und Praxis 4 (1980), p. 79‒115), should be added several recent discussions on archives and libraries that also incorporate the intervening bibliography: K. Zinn, Libraries and Archives: The Organization of Collective Wisdom in Ancient Egypt, in M. Cannata (ed.), Current Research in Egyptology 2006: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Symposium University of Oxford 2006, Oxford, 2007, p. 169‒176, Idem, Temples, Palaces and Libraries. A Search for an Alliance between Archaeological and Textual Evidence, in R. Gundlach, K. Spence (eds.), Palace and Temple. Architec- ture - Decoration - Ritual. 5th Symposium on Egyptian Royal Ideology. Cambridge, July, 16th‒17th, 2007, Wiesbaden, 2011, p. 181‒202; K. Ryholt, Libraries in Ancient Egypt, in J. König, K. Oikonomopoulou, G. Woolf (eds.), Ancient Libraries, Cambridge, 2010, p. 23‒37; K. Webb, “The House of Books”: Libraries and Archives in Ancient Egypt, in Libri 63(1) (2013), p. 21‒32; B. Lüscher, Kursivhieroglyphische Ostraka als Text- vorlagen: Der (Glücks-)Fall TT 87, in U. Verhoeven (ed.), Ägyptologische “Binsen”- Weisheiten I-II. Neue Forschungen und Methoden der Hieratistik. Akten zweier Tagungen in Mainz im April 2011 und März 2013, Mainz ‒ Stuttgart, 2015, p. 87‒89. Drawing on Siutian materials transmitted across Egypt, J. Kahl has advanced interesting ideas on how a House of Life could have worked and how the transference of knowledge and productions was achieved (J. Kahl, Siut-Theben, p. 283‒335, Idem, Assiut ‒ Theben ‒ Tebtynis). 123 J. Baines states that encyclopaedic knowledge could have been gathered in different forms for its own cultural value from earlier times (Modelling sources, p. 23‒24). Lists (of kings, gods, states, etc.) used to preserve encyclopaedic topics already in the Old King- dom could have been conceived in the Early Dynastic Period or during the Third‒Fourth Dynasties and had a limited currency (Idem, An Abydos List of Gods and an Old Kingdom Use of Texts, in J. Baines et al. (eds.), Pyramid Studies and other Essays Presented to I.E.S. Edwards, London, 1988, p. 124‒133). In his analysis of nome monographs dating to the end of the Egyptian civilization, J. Osing draws attention to early examples of the tradition of composing lists with geographical and cultic data of each province, harking back to the Middle Kingdom White Chapel (albeit in this case religious information is reduced to patron gods): J. Osing, La Science Sacerdotale, in D. Valbelle (dir.), Le Décret de Memphis. Colloque de la Fondation Singer-Polignac à l’occasion de la célébration du bicentenaire de la découverte de la Pierre de Rosette, Paris, 2000, p. 132‒133. local reworkings of core mythological notions 243 traditional texts of Egyptian culture (mdw-nTr) and on the customs and idiosyncrasies of every nome which the sons of prophets should receive from the jmy-r sbAw, apply to earlier periods.124 Although all extant copies of this composition date to the Roman Period, Quack has suggested that it derives from an original of the Middle Kingdom or early New Kingdom.125 On the other hand, the inter-province circulation of local traditions and the acquisition of knowledge about these could have had wider roots and bases. There probably existed strong relations and exchanges be- tween institutions dedicated to textual ideation, production, safeguard, and transmission (libraries, archives, courts).126 Aside these, the progres- sive intervention of kingship in local temples in the course of the late Old Kingdom through the Middle Kingdom,127 and the joint missions involv- ing personnel from different centres — including palace officials and staff from the main temples of Heliopolis, Memphis, and Abydos — to under- take royal commands on various geographical spots128 would have led to

124 J.F. Quack, Die Dienstanweisung des Oberlehrers aus dem Buch vom Tempel, in H. Beinlich et al. (eds.), 5. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung. Würzburg, 23.-26. September 1999 (ÄAT 33.3), Wiesbaden, 2002, p. 161, 164‒166, 170. 125 Ibidem, 159‒160. 126 Kahl envisages that the transference of the cultural products from Assiut, conceived as part of the cultural memory of ancient Egypt, was achieved through (personnel of) librar- ies and Houses of Life (Siut-Theben, p. 283‒290, 320). A prominent example of intercon- nections between royal court and provincial Houses of Life of the early Middle Kingdom is that of Iha. He was jmy-r sSw pr anx in Hermopolis and paid frequent visits to the Theban royal court, where he acted as tutor of royal children and overseer of the private quarters of the king (H. Willems, Dayr al-Barshā, p. 65, 67, 68, n. k, 70‒71, n. ae, 90, 98‒99, 104, 111, Idem, Historical and Archaeological Aspects, p. 95, 97, 177). On the other hand, in the Middle Kingdom the nomarchs “seem to have entertained intensive contacts with peers in other nomes” (H. Willems, Nomarchs and Local Potentates: the Provincial Administration in the Middle Kingdom, in J.C. Moreno García (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Administration (Handbook of Oriental Studies 1.104), Leiden ‒ Boston, 2013, p. 389). 127 S.J. Seidlmayer, Town and State in the Early Old Kingdom. A View from Elephan- tine, in J. Spencer (ed.), Aspects of Early Egypt, London, 1996, p. 114‒119; R. Bussmann, Die Provinztempel Ägyptens. The study of the latter takes as its starting point the position and role of provincial temples: “sind als Schnittstellen zwischen Residenz und Provinz eine entscheidende Relais-Stelle der Kommunikation” (p. 10). 128 S. Quirke, The Residence, p. 127‒130 (drawing on Abydene stelae of the begin- ning and mid-Thirteenth Dynasty and the Great Abydos Stela of King Khasekhemra Neferhotep), Idem, Six Hieroglyphic Inscriptions in University College Dublin, in RdE 51 (2000), p. 223‒239, pl. XXXII inf. D. Franke suggests that officials of the Residence and Memphite priests of Ptah took part in the Middle Kingdom local Sokar/Heqaib-festivities in Elephantine (D. Franke, Das Heiligtum des Heqaib, p. 69, 129). Rock-inscriptions at Wadi el-Hôl bear witness to the journey of the priest Dedusobek from the Thinite nome to Deir el-Bahari in the reign of Amenemhat III in order to perform a ritual for Mentuhotep: J.C. Darnell et al., Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert, Vol. 1: Gebel Tjauti Rock Inscriptions 1‒45 and Wadi el-Hôl Rock Inscriptions 1‒45 (OIP 119), Chicago, 2002, 97‒101, Pls. 65, 74‒82. 244 l. díaz-iglesias an interregional interaction and to the transference of cultural knowledge. It is conceivable that close contact of provincial administrators (some of whom were engaged in temple activities) with the royal court, providing a bridge between the two spheres,129 contacts between craftsmen, artists, and places of production (workshops),130 peregrination to the sacred cen- tres (especially to Abydos),131 and different types of journeys made by members of the elite for pleasure or by specific individuals and groups to fulfill a task,132 would have also expanded the knowledge horizon and

129 Individuals connected both to the local community and the central administra- tion are already attested in the Early Dynastic Period (example of Elephantine quoted by R. Bussmann, The Social Setting of the Temple of Satet, p. 33) and the early and mid Old Kingdom (S.J. Seidlmayer, Town and State, p. 118‒119). Since the end of the Old Kingdom, a predominant role in this sense could have been exerted by the provincial elite, occupying the highest priestly positions in local temples (R. Bussmann, Die Provinztempel Ägyptens, passim, esp. 503‒506, 509‒513; J.C. Moreno García, Les temples provinciaux et leur rôle dans l’agriculture institutionelle de l’Ancien et du Moyen Empire, in CRIPEL 25 (2005), p. 93‒124, describes the complexity of the relationships and interactions of many actors around local temples; the religious role of the nomarchs has been dealt with by H. Willems, Dayr al-Barshā, p. 89‒90, 95‒98, 100‒107 and 110 (for the suprarregion- al activities of the Hermopolitan nomarchs and their connections with the royal court) and V. Selve, Les fonctions religieuses des nomarques au Moyen Empire, in CRIPEL 15 (1993), p. 73‒81, Eadem, Les titulatures religieuses des nomarques comme indices de l’évolution des relations entre pouvoir central et pouvoirs locaux avant et au-delà de la Première Péri- ode Intermédiaire, in Méditerranées 24, Paris, 2000, p. 69‒80). An interesting example of these provincial officials is that of the Chief inspector of priests of Horus of Nekhen who, in the early Seventeenth Dynasty, was appointed to go to the Residence (Itj-tawy) to escort some cult images of the main gods of Hierakonpolis (probably manufactured in the capi- tal): W. Hayes, Horehaʿuef of Nekhen and his Trip to Iṯ-Towe, in JEA 33 (1947), p. 3‒11. 130 The sources attest to the mobility of specialists in different periods. The most conspicuous cases of the First Intermediate Period are those of Jnt-nxt (stela Cairo TR 3/6/25/1, W. Schenkel, Memphis, Herakleopolis, Theben: die epigraphischen Zeugnisse der 7.-11. Dynastie Ägyptens (ÄgAbh 12), Wiesbaden, 1965, p. 239, No. 381) and of Jrty-sn (stela Paris Louvre C 14, ibidem, p. 245‒249, No. 403; W. Barta, Das Selbstzeugnis eines altägyptischen Künstlers (Stele Louvre C 14) (MÄS 22), Berlin, 1970). Other examples are discussed by H. Köpp-Junk, Reisen im Alten Ägypten. Reisekultur, Fortbewegungs- und Transportmittel in pharaonischer Zeit (GOF IV/55), Wiesbaden, 2015, p. 241‒243. Master copies of funerary compositions also circulated within the territory. The spread of Memphite, Hermopolitan, and Siutian products has been mentioned in n. 22, 115. For Theban models with Book of the Dead spells arriving to Memphis in the New Kingdom, see U. Rössler-Köhler (Zur Tradierungsgeschichte des Totenbuches zwischen der 17. und 22. Dynastie (Tb 17) (SAT 3), Wiesbaden, 1999, p. 68‒69, 74‒75). 131 To the reference work of J. Yoyotte, Les pèlerinages dans l’Égypte ancienne, in Les pèlerinages (Sources Orientales 3), Paris, 1960, p. 19‒74, add the study of Y. Volokhine, Les déplacements pieux en Égypte pharaonique : sites et pratiques cultuelles, in D.T.M. Frankfurter (ed.), Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, Leiden ‒ Boston ‒ Köln, 1998, p. 51‒97 and H. Köpp-Junk, Reisen im Alten Ägypten, p. 233‒235. 132 J. Baines, Travel in Third and Second Millennium Egypt, in C.E.P. Adams, J. Roy (eds.), Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East, Ox- ford, 2007, p. 5‒30. This article opens up with the important assertion that: “Travel [...] require people ‒ or rather elites ‒ to acquire experience and culture through interchange local reworkings of core mythological notions 245 generated a cross-regional awareness, sometimes through first-hand ex- perience. These local agents might have also contributed to the spreading of traditions through courses that are not explicitly voiced in the available sources. Drawing wider conclusions on the reach of these ideas and local re- workings must also be tempered by the fact that we do not know if the main notions conveyed by the sources dealt with were embraced by all ancient Egyptian social groups.133 In general, the type of objects where the religious and cultic compositions here analysed were written had an elite focus: they were ordered or used by a reduced group of elite people to ensure a pleasant afterlife, a good remembrance among the living, and a share of offerings in the divine cult. Even within this literate microcos- mos, many uncertainties remain. The process through which a potential consumer of funerary or hymnic compositions decided upon the materials to include in the tomb or grave goods, or his/her understanding of their content is still little understood. For funerary productions, Bickel sug- gested that there could have been an intellectual preparation during life to confront the fear of death and the afterlife.134 For the hymns of the Middle Kingdom, Franke ventured that those who commissioned stelae with such compositions had access to these texts through their direct participation in the Osirian mysteries (as witnesses or musicians/singers/priests). After the religious event, they either took copies of the hymns or remembered them by heart.135

and through assimilation of values that are available from, and associated with, particular places. Categories of such places are capital cities and religious centres” (ibidem, p. 5). See also J. Baines, Modelling the Integration of Elite and Other Social Groups in Old King- dom Egypt, in J.C. Moreno García (ed.), Élites et pouvoir en Égypte ancienne, CRIPEL 28 (2009‒2010), p. 127‒136. H. Köpp-Junk, Reisen im Alten Ägypten, p. 213‒266, esp. 238‒251, examines the mobility of different Berufsgruppe within and outside the Egyptian territory. 133 For Pyramid and Coffin Texts the different positions (varying between the extremes of widespread circulation and accessibility only to the small elite) are recently discussed by H. Willems, Historical and Archaeological Aspects, p. 211‒219. On the former, see also de contribution by S. Bickel in this same volume. J. Baines addresses theoretical and practical aspects on the issue of the communication of the ruler and elite with other lower social groups and the imparting of values in the Old Kingdom (J. Baines, CRIPEL 28 (2009‒2010), p. 117‒144). 134 S. Bickel, Le thème du passeur, p. 113‒115. That cosmographic texts, which are attested in funerary and temple contexts, needed a special preparation and knowledge (in the form of initiation) is defended by A. von Lieven (Mysterien des Kosmos: Kosmogra- phie und Priesterwissenschaft, in J. Assmann, M. Bommas (eds.), Ägyptische Mysterien?, München, 2002, p. 47‒59). 135 D. Franke, Middle Kingdom Hymns, p. 132‒135. 246 l. díaz-iglesias

The aim of this contribution has been to address the issue of regional cultural variation and the interaction between local traditions and “central” mythological patterns, as reflected in funerary and cultic productions. I have departed from the idea that notions, practices, and even natural ele- ments rooted in the local milieu were integrated and reformulated in these sources according to widely shared or “central” (and evolving) mytho- logical references, core notions, and schemes. I have also called atten- tion to the dynamic process of production of religious compositions, with texts and traditions prevailing in time assuming new meanings and forms which can be subjected to a diachronic analysis. Emphasis has also been placed on the existence of mutual relationships between the divine cult and the funerary cult spheres, with texts originating in one field adapted to the other or drawing their inspiration from the same pool. Although local aspects are more conspicuous in later periods, owing to the greater amount of sources available and to changes in decorum, I believe it is worth addressing earlier material. New light can thus be shed on cultural traditions and the historical development of each nome, and the symbolic role and meaning of certain centres across time can also be dealt with. To clarify some of the issues raised here, further work is needed on the issue of inter-provincial relationships and on the structures of com- munication between the centre/court and the provinces and among differ- ent social groups. Despite the many gaps in our sources, more in-depth research should be conducted on the leading residential and regional in- stitutions and agents that contributed to the dissemination of different religious traditions and compositions, and on the occasions for this dis- semination (temple cult, religious festivals, funerary practices, official missions, private travels, etc.).