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The Shrines of Hathor and Amenhotep in Western Thebes in the Ptolemaic Period

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The Shrines of Hathor and Amenhotep in Western Thebes in the Ptolemaic Period THE SHRINES OF HATHOR AND AMENHOTEP IN WESTERN THEBES IN THE PTOLEMAIC PERIOD Abstract: The archive of Totoes (P. Tor.Bottiand PSI IX 1016-1025) contains references to a temple of Hathor ‘on the mountain’ and a temple of Hathor ‘inthenecropolis’. On the basis of the information in the archive and additional archaeological evidence, it can be shown that both terms refer to the temple of Hathor in Deir el-Medina. The opinion that there still existed a sanctuary of Hathor in Deir el-Bahari in the Ptolemaic period cannot be maintained. The terms ‘upper ml’ and ‘lower ml’ of Amenhotep son of Hapu in the same archive do not necessarily designate two sanctuaries in Deir el-Bahari: the ‘lower ml’ may have been a chapel located close to Amenhotep’s mortuary tem- ple or in another area of the Theban necropolis. In the proceedings of the 26th International Congress of Papyrology Claudia Tirel Cena discusses the documentary evidence for the cults in the Ptolemaic Hathor temple of Deir el-Medina1. This evidence mainly consists of the Greek and demotic papyri from the so-called archive of Totoes. These papyri were discovered in 1905 in two jars in a house near the temple precinct of Deir el-Medina2. The archive contains 54 papyri (45 demotic — of which 3 with a Greek subscript — and 9 Greek), and they span a period of almost a century (194-100 BC). One of the ques- tions that arose shortly after the publication of the Greek papyri by Vitelli in 1929 (PSI IX 1014-1025) was the identity of the temples of Hathor (or Aphrodite for the Greeks), that were designated in the archive by the epithets ‘inthenecropolis’ and ‘onthemountain’. Among Greek papyrologists a consensus grew that these names were used for the well- preserved Hathor temple in Deir el-Medina and a Hathor chapel in the middle court of the temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari respectively; this opinion remained largely unchallenged even after Botti’s publica- tion of the demotic papyri in 1967 (P. Tor.Botti). The only scholar who explicitly formulated an opinion to the contrary was P.W. Pestman, who concluded in 1981 that both designations were used for the Hathor tem- ple in Deir el-Medina3. Hidden in a footnote and not substantiated by a detailed discussion of the evidence, his opinion went unnoticed in later 1 Tirel Cena (2012). 2 See PSI IX 14: “una casa di abitazione di qualche importanza, a poche diecine di metri dal recinto del tempio”. For an overview of the archive, see www.trismegistos.org/ archive/248. 3 Pestman (1981) 95 n. 1 (see also n. 20 below). AncientSociety 44, 105-125. doi: 10.2143/AS.44.0.3044801 © 2014 by Ancient Society. All rights reserved. 997357.indb7357.indb 110505 114/10/144/10/14 009:049:04 106 E. LANCIERS publications. In her short overview of the scholarly discussion, Claudia Tirel Cena does not reach a clear-cut conclusion and pleads for further investigation: “La questione merita comunque ulteriori approfondimenti que tengano conto dei dati archeologici e della storia precedente della capella di Hathor a Deir el-Bahari …”4. The present contribution offers this more in-depth discussion, taking into account both the documentary and the archaeological evidence. In doing so, I will also touch upon the subject of the identification of the sanctuaries of Amenhotep, son of Hapu, which appear in the same archive. I hope to show that some long- standing opinions about the cultic landscape in Western Thebes in the Ptolemaic period need to be changed. My investigation starts with the Greek papyri. PSI IX 1016 (129 BC) concerns the sale of ἡμέραι ἁγνευτικαί (‘days of purification’, l. 4, l. 29) ἐν ἱερῶι Ἀφροδισίωι καλου(μένωι) Ἁθὺρ Νουεμοντεσεμα ἐν τοῖς κατὰ τοὺς τῶν Με(μνονείων) τάφοις (ll. 11-15, ll. 32-34)5. Spiegelberg recognized Νουεμοντεσεμα as the Greek transcription of the demotic expression ḥnw.t imnṱ ḎmꜢ, ‘Mistress of the West of Djeme’6. He identified the shrine of Hathor, ‘Mistress of the West of Djeme’, with the Ptolemaic temple of Deir el-Medina and, this seems to have been accepted ever since7. In all of the Ptolemaic reliefs from this temple Hathor bears the shorter title ‘Mistress of the West’8; somewhat surprisingly the full form ‘Mistress of the West of Djeme’ is only found in a relief from the time of Augustus in a small chapel at the back of the temple9. In the Thoth temple in Qasr el-Aguz, dating from the reign of Ptolemy VIII, the goddess is called ‘Hathor, Mistress of the West … who resides in Djeme (ḥrj-ibḎꜢmwt)’, in a scene that refers to her tem- ple in Deir el-Medina10. In the Greek papyri from the archive we also find transactions regard- ing ‘days of purification’ ἐν τῶι ἀπὸ βορρᾶ μέρει Μεμ(νονέων) ἐπὶ 4 Tirel Cena (2012) 760. 5 In PSI IX 1019 (110 BC) and 1022 (106 BC) the same temple appears, but without the epithet Νουεμοντεσεμα. 6 See PSIIX 21, commentary ad l. 33; Spiegelberg (1928) 24-26. Cf. Ray (1981) 5 and Pestman (1993) 431. 7 Wilcken (1930) 76; Bataille (1952) 95; Grunert (1979) 75 n. 42; Vandorpe (1995) 228; Montserrat & Meskell (1997) 182 n. 9; Łajtar (2006) 45; Dunand (2010) 48. 8 du Bourguet & Gabolde (2002) 203-205 (index). 9 du Bourguet & Gabolde (2002) §184 line 4; cf. §190. 10 Mallet (1909) 48; for the meaning of ḥrj-ib, see recently Eaton (2012). For a dis- cussion of the scene, see below p. 119. 997357.indb7357.indb 110606 114/10/144/10/14 009:049:04 THE SHRINES OF HATHOR AND AMENHOTEP IN WESTERN THEBES 107 τοῦ ὅρου Ἀφροδισιείου11. The interpretation ἐπὶ τοῦ ὅρου (‘on the border’) by the first editor Vitelli was later questioned by Wilcken, who proposed to emend ἐπὶ τοῦ ὄρου<ς>, (“‘auf dem Berge’ oder … ‘auf dem Wüstenboden’”); in his opinion this sanctuary was different from the Deir el-Medina temple, though he did not offer an identification12. Wilcken’s emendation was questioned by Bataille, who returned to the reading ἐπὶ τοῦ ὅρου and understood the ‘border’ to be the boundary between the district Peri Thebas and the Pathyrites; he identified the temple with the Hathor shrine in the middle court of the temple of Hat- shepsut in Deir el-Bahari13. The publication of the demotic papyri from the Totoes archive in 1967 (P. Tor.Botti) showed that Wilcken’s suggestion was right. In the demotic documents we indeed find a temple called irpjnḤ.t-Ḥrḥnw.t imnṱntḥrpꜢḏwḎmꜢ (‘temple of Hathor, Mistress of the West, on the mountain of Djeme’)14. Notwithstanding this new evidence, however, Bataille’s identification with the Hathor chapel in Deir el-Bahari remained largely unquestioned15, no doubt because the temple of Hat- shepsut is built against the mountain cliff and because the Greek docu- ments locate the temple ἐν τῶι ἀπὸ βορρᾶ μέρει Μεμνονέιων, which would seem to favour a location in the northern part of the necropolis. On the basis of the demotic papyri, the identification of the ‘Hathor temple on the mountain’ with the chapel in Deir el-Bahari, however, can no longer be upheld. In P. Tor.Botti 1 (187 BC) the editor read the name of the temple as rpjḤ.t-Ḥrḥnw.timnṱḎmꜢḥnw.timnṱntyḥrtꜢsbtn ḎmꜢ, which he translated as “tempio di Hathor, signora dell’Occidente di Djeme, signora dell’Occidente, che trovasi sul muro di Djeme” (p. 28). Zauzich corrected the first part of the expression into rpjḤ.t-Ḥr ḥnw.timnṱMꜢʽ(.t)ḥnw.timnṱ (‘Temple of Hathor, Mistress of the West, and Maat, Mistress of the West’)16. But the translation ‘which is upon the wall of Djeme’ must also be corrected. The masculine noun pꜢsbt was used to designate the wall of Djeme (Medinet Habu)17, but a temple 11 PSI IX 1020 ll. 6-7 (110 BC); PSI IX 1018 l. 11 (107 BC). 12 Wilcken (1930) 76. 13 Bataille (1952) 60-61, 96-97. 14 P. Tor.Botti 1: 187 BC; P. Tor.Botti 6: 150 BC; P. Tor.Botti 7: 143 BC; P. Tor. Botti 8; 137 BC; P. Tor.Botti9: 134 BC. 15 Quaegebeur (1974) 50; Grunert (1979) 76 n. 45 (with some hesitation); Vandorpe (1995) 227-228; Vandorpe (2004) 193-194; Łajtar (2006) 45; O’Connell (2007), 254-255. 16 Zauzich (1971) 44. 17 Pestman (1993) 413-414. 997357.indb7357.indb 110707 114/10/144/10/14 009:049:04 108 E. LANCIERS ‘upon the wall of Djeme’ does not make much sense. As Botti already recognized both in his transcription and his index (p. 254), we are in fact not dealing with a masculine noun but with the feminine tꜢsbt, which means ‘the hill’18. This temple ‘on the hill of Djeme’ must be the same as the shrine that is called ‘temple of Hathor, Mistress of the West, on the mountain of Djeme’ in the other demotic papyri from the archive and the temple ‘on the mountain’ of the Greek papyri. The fact that P. Tor. Botti 1 associates Maat with Hathor leads to the identification of the shrine: they were the principal deities of the Ptolemaic temple of Deir el-Medina, where they were worshipped in the central naos19. The con- clusion that the temple of Hathor ‘on the mountain’ is the temple of Deir el-Medina thus seems indisputable20. This identification is not invalidated by the location of the temple ἐν τῶι ἀπὸ βορρᾶ μέρει Μεμνονέιων. Pestman has shown that the name τὰ Μεμνόνεια could not only designate the town of Djeme – Medinet Habu, and more generally the necropolis on the west bank (in which southern part Deir el-Medina lies), but also an administrative district that included the town of Medinet Habu in the southern part (τὸ ἀπὸ νότου μέρος τῶν Μεμνονείων) and Deir el-Medina in the northern part (τὸ ἀπὸ βορρᾶ μέρος τῶν Μεμνονείων); the northern boundary of the district was probably situated somewhere between Deir el-Medina and Dra abu’l-Naga21.
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