Amarna Studies and Other Selected Papers
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ORBIS BIBLICUS ET ORIENTALIS KATE BOSSE-GRIFFITHS AMARNA STUDIES AND OTHER SELECTED PAPERS ed. by J. Gwyn Griffiths UNIVERSITY PRESS FRIBOURG SWITZERLAND VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT GÖTTINGEN 2001 2 © 2001 by Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz Paulusdruckerei Freiburg Schweiz UV ISBN V&R ISBN 3 CONTENTS Page Introduction 7 PART 1. MATERIAL RELATING TO AMARNA (1) The Memphite Stela of Merpta¤ and Pta¤mose. 15 JEA 41 (1955), 56-63. With 2 Pls. and 1 Fig. (2) Bead Collars with Amarna Amulets in the Wellcome 27 Museum of the University of Wales, Swansea Actes du XIXe Congrès International des Orientalistes. Égyptologie I. Paris, 1975, 20-24. (3) The use of Disc-beads in Egyptian Bead Compositions. 31 JEA 61 (1975), 114-24. With 5 Pls. (4) A Beset Amulet from the Amarna Period. 51 JEA 63 (1977), 98-106. With 2 Pls. and 4 Figs. (5) Two Lute-players of the Amarna Era. 64 JEA 66 (1980), 70-82. With 2 Pls. (6) The Fruit of the Mandrake in Egypt and Israel. 82 Fontes atque Pontes. (Festgabe H. Brunner; Wiesbaden, (1983), 60-71. With 2 Pls. and 4 Figs. (7) Finds from the ‘Tomb of Queen Tiye’ in the Swansea 97 Museum. JEA 47 (1961), 66-70. With 1 Pl. (8) Gold Leaf from ‘the Shrine of Queen Tiye’ in the 108 Swansea Museum. DE 6 (1986), 7-10. (9) The Great Enchantress in the Little Golden Shrine of 111 Tut‘ankhamœn. JEA 59 (1973), 100-108. With 2 Pls. and 2 Figs. (10) Further Remarks on Wrt §k3w (The Great Enchantress) 124 JEA 62 (1976), 181-2. (11) Review of M. Eaton-Krauss and E. Graefe, 127 The Small Golden Shrine (1985). JEA 73 (1989), 271-3. (12) Incense for the Aten. 131 In The Intellectual Heritage of Egypt. (Studies presented to L. Kákosy, ed U. Luft, Budapest, (1992), 77-79. With 1 Pl. (13) Some Facts about Maya’s Tomb. 135 DE 4 (1986), 17-25. PART II MATERIAL FROM OTHER ERAS 4 (1) A Prehistoric Stone Figure from Egypt. 142 Valcamonica Symposium, 1972. (Capo di Ponte, 1975), 313-16. With 1 Pl. (2) Zwei Kunstwerke aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung der 146 Eremitage. ZÄS 72 (1936), 131-135. With 5 Figures. (3) Some Egyptian Beadwork Faces in the Wellcome 152 Museum at the University of Wales, Swansea. JEA 64 (1978), 99-106. With 2 Pls. (4) Baboon and Maid. 165 In Studien zu Sprache und Religion Ägyptens. (Fs. W. Westendorf, Göttingen, 1984, ed. F. Junge), 743-8. With 3 Pls. (5) Remarks concerning a Coffin of the Twenty-first 174 Dynasty. DE 19 (1991), 5-12. With 1 Figure. Based on a paper presented to the 3rd International Congress of Egyptology at Toronto, 1982. (6) Problems with Pta¤-Sokar-Osiris Figures. 181 Presented to the 4th International Congress of Egyptology, Munich, 1985. With 1 Pl. (7) The Papyrus of Hapi-Ankh. 189 ZÄS 123 (1996), 97-102. With 1 Pl. (8) Review of Véronique Dasen, Dwarfs in Ancient 198 Egypt and Greece (1993), CR 44 (1994), 16-17. (9) Review of P.G.P. Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of 200 Palestrina: early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy (1995), CR 46 (1996), 282-4. (10) Phaedra’s Letter: On a mosaic-pavement 203 in a museum at Ismailia (hitherto unpublished). With 3 Figs. (11) The Qur’an in Salman Rushdie’s Novel, 212 The Satanic Verses. New Welsh Review 7 (1994), 57-64. With 1 Pl. Addenda. (After the separate sections.) Bibliography: Dr Kate Bosse-Griffiths 222 General Index. 237 5 Abbreviations JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (London) CR Classical Review (Oxford) DE Discussions in Egyptology (Oxford) LÄ Lexikon der Ägyptologie, I-VI, ed. W. Helck, E. Otto, and W. Westendorf (Wiesbaden) 1971-1986 ZÄS Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Leipzig and Berlin) 6 7 Introduction KATE BOSSE-GRIFFITHS (1910-1998) Born in Wittenberg (Lutherstadt) in 1910, a daughter of Dr. Paul Bosse, a gynaecologist, Käthe Bosse attended the Melanchthon Gymnasium there and later the Universities of Munich, Bonn, and Berlin, studying Classics, Arabic, and Egyptology. She was awarded a doctorate in Munich under Alexander Scharff in 1935, and her dissertation (Die menschliche Figur in der Rundplastik der Ägyptischen Spätzeit, von der XXII, bis zur XXX, Dynastie) was published (Glückstadt, 1936, reprinted 1978), after which she assisted in the Egyptian section of the Berlin State Museums. She was dismissed from this post because of her mother’s Jewish origins; later her mother died in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. After leaving Germany she received academic help in the U.K., especially from the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, and this enabled her to work as an assistant in the Department of Egyptology at University College London under Stephen Glanville; here she was mainly concerned with the Petrie Museum. Later she assisted in the Egyptian section of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and was a senior member of Somerville College. It was in Oxford that she met her future husband, J. Gwyn Griffiths, who was then an Advanced Student at The Queen’s College, also interested in Classics and Egyptology. They were married in 1939 in the Rhondda Valley in Wales, and in 1946 made their home in Swansea. Here Kate was made Hon. Curator of Archaeology at the City Museum and in 1971 was given a similar post at the University’s Wellcome Museum, following the reception of a large collection of Egyptian antiquities from the Wellcome Trustees, an arrangement furthered by Dr. David Dixon. She produced a catalogue of about 3000 of these objects, and retired in 1995. She took great pleasure in Professor Alan Lloyd’s successful campaign, with aid from Europe and the National Heritage Lottery Fund, to establish a new building for the Egypt Centre in the College, where the Wellcome Collection is housed and where the upper gallery now bears her name. The new building adjoins on the Taliesin Arts Centre, whose director, Sybil Crouch, has strongly supported the expansive phase. In this whole process, and 8 particularly in publication plans, Mr. V. Anthony Donohue has made an invaluable contribution. In Part I of these selected papers the topics are related to the Amarna era, but this term is used in its wider sense, with reference not only to the reign of Amenophis IV / Akhenaten (1364-1347 B.C.), but also to the era of this Pharaoh’s predecessors and successors. Thus the reign of Amenophis III is the background of the opening study, which concerns a Memphite stela with figures of high priests of Memphis; parts of this stela, in London and Leiden, are shown to have belonged together. Several of these studies relate, at the same time, to individual objects encountered in museums, and most of them are in the two Swansea museums, the City Museum and the Wellcome Museum. A feature of these studies is the detailed attention paid to the Kleinkunst of the Amarna era. Thus the bead-collars with pendant amulets are shown to reveal the popularity of the dancing Bes-deities who protect the lives of women and children. The female Beset is particularly in vogue. Part II features religious and artistic themes from other eras. Among them figures a papyrus of the Late Period which offers a previously unpublished version of parts of Spell 15 of the Book of the Dead with three hymns to the sun-god. The god Thoth as a moon-deity appears as an Amarna amulet, and a rare little stela in Swansea, probably from Deir el-Medineh, shows him being adored by a young woman. It belongs perhaps to the Twentieth Dynasty, when the influence of Mesopotamia was apparently inducing a phase of intense ‘personal religion’ in Egypt. (Discussed in ‘Baboon and Maid’.) ‘Phaedra’s Letter’ shows how a play by Euripides finds a lively illustration in a mosaic now in the Museum of Ismailia. Some of the interpretations offered in these studies have been questioned. Many of the articles present the first publication of the objects involved, and the author was not likely to feel that she could offer definitive answers to all the questions raised. Indeed some of the discussions provided are in the nature of ‘work in progress’. At the same time wise use was made of views held by experienced scholars such as Cyril Aldred and Eiddon Edwards, whose friendly advice was always respected even if, at times, rejected. In many cases, as with Marianne Eaton-Krauss and Erhart Graefe, the debate on matters of interpretation is conducted with all courtesy on both sides and with explicit references in the text. In some other cases the debt to other scholars is not always indicated. Among these is Harry James, formerly Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, whose support, interest, and sound advice have been much appreciated. It was he who ceremonially opened the first museum form of the collection in 1976; and on November 30th 1999 he unveiled the memorial plaque to Kate, recording her work as the ‘First Honorary Curator of the Wellcome Museum, University of Wales, Swansea, 1971-1995’, an inscription given 9 also in Welsh. In terms of helpful discussion she was indebted to Jaromír Málek and his staff at the Griffith Institute, Oxford; also to Geoffrey Martin and David Dixon; Jac and Rosalind Janssen. At the British Museum W. Vivian Davies and his expert staff (M.L.Bierbrier, Carol A.Andrews, John H. Taylor, Jeffrey Spencer and Stephen Quirke) were always helpful. Her debt to Maarten Raven is explicitly noted in her discussion of Pta¤-Sokar- Osiris figures. Her discovery of the Twenty-First Dynasty coffin in the Royal Albert Museum Exeter led to its transfer to Swansea, albeit without any sense of pleonexia.