Egypt Exploration Society Review Author(s): F. Ll. Griffith Review by: F. Ll. Griffith Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Apr., 1914), pp. 153-154 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3853525 Accessed: 13-01-2016 03:40 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Egypt Exploration Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Wed, 13 Jan 2016 03:40:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 153 NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS University of Toronto Studies. Theban Ostraca, edited from the originals, now mainly in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Part I, Hieratic texts: by ALAN H. GARDINER; Part II, Demotic texts: by HERBERT THOMPSON; Part III, Greek texts: by J. G. MILNE; Part IV, Coptic texts: by HERBERT THOMPSON. University of Toronto Library, London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1913. 15s. nett. This is a selection from a large and miscellaneous collection of ostraca purchased by CURRELLY and MILNE at Thebes in 1906. As usual most of the hieratic texts (31 in all) are written on flakes of limestone and date from the Ramesside period. Such ostraca often contain extracts from literary compositions and they have contributed readings to several editions of important texts which have appeared recently, such as GOLMNISCHEFF'Spapyri of the Hermitage, GARDINER'S story of Sinuhe and the Papyrus Anastasi I in GARDINER'SHieratic Texts. The present series would have contained little of value if it had not been reinforced by a very fine limestone ostracon, inscribed with a group of four model letters of the Ramesside period, added later to the Toronto collection. The text of the letters is corrupt as usual. They are addressed to the vizier Khai and amongst the salutations is the wish that the recipient may have "the prolonged existence of the mountains, the sky and the water." All the ostraca, including some accounts and a curious magical text, are edited with Dr GARDINER'Susual mastery of Egyptian vocabulary and script, and are accompanied by a facsimile of the letters. Mr MILNE'Ssubstantial contribution consists of 146 Greek ostraca with important introductions, comments and elaborate indexes; he acknowledges Professor HUNT'S valuable aid. These ostraca are to be taken as supplementary to the corpus of 1600 ostraca from Thebes, Elephantine and other sites in Egypt published by Professor WILCKENin 1899, and like them for the most part are receipts for taxes. Thirty-one date from the Ptolemaic age, the rest are Roman. Coptic ostraca from Thebes like the hieratic are often written on flakes of limestone. Many have already been edited by Mr CRUM for the Egypt Explorationi Fund, by Mr HALL, and by others abroad. Sir HERBERT THOMPSONhere publishes 48 with a short index. They comprise receipts for taxes and other payments, letters and accounts. But the most welcome part of the whole publication to an Egyptologist is the same scholar's edition of 44 demotic potsherds with photographic facsimiles, being the cream of a collection of three hundred legible specimens. THOMPSONis the first of recent demotists to make a serious study of ostraca and to publish them in photographs, and they promise to be at least as instructive as the Greek, apart from the large harvest of proper names, words, and idioms that they yield to the demotic lexicon. As might be presumed they belong to the lives of the native population and a considerable proportion of them is unparalleled or rarely to be paralleled from the Greek series. Thus while tax-receipts are frequent, there are also lists of priests, temporary transfers of priestly duties along with their emoluments, oaths by the native deities prescribed by the law-courts, letters and various memoranda. One receipt is dated in 110 B.C. and other dates range from Augustus to Caracalla. These choice firstfruits of THOMPSON'Swork among the ostraca were prepared for publication some years ago: meanwhile the results of his researches have not been allowed to lie idle. The Society of Biblical Archaeology publishes in scanty driblets month by month photographs and commentaries on specimens from various sources: the article on horoscopes in Proceedings, vol. xxxiv, and that on a healing oracle of the deified scribe Amenhotp in vol. xxxv, p. 95 may be pointed out Journ. of Egypt. Arch. 1. 20 This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Wed, 13 Jan 2016 03:40:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 154 NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS as of special interest. THOMPSON'SMS. translations of a large collection of tax-receipts from Dendera are analysed by MILNEin an article printed in WILCKEN'SArchiv fib' Papyrisforschung, vol. vi, and add a number of new facts about taxationi to those hitherto known: samples of these ostraca also are appearing in facsimile in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. It is to be hoped that even if Sir Herbert's energies are (liverted into other channels of Coptic and demotic research, his success here will incite some qualified person with fewer occupations to the worthy task of forming a corpus of demotic ostraca. The preliminary treatment of the subject having now been sufficiently done, the lines which such an undertaking should follow are clear enough. F. LL. GRIFFITH. A Topographical Catalogue of the Private Tombs at Thebes. By ALAN H. GARDINER,D.Litt., and ARTHUR E. P. WEIGALL. pp. 45, 15 plates. London: Quaritch, 1913. 10s. nett. Five Theban Tombs. By N. DE GARISDAVIES. pp. xii + 49, 43 plates. Egypt Exploration Fund: Archaeological Survey of Egypt, 1913. 25s. nett. To most visitors to Thebes the private tombs of the Western Bank mean only those of Sh8kh 'Abd el-K1rnah; the famous "Khanmsa-wa-telatan"(the tomb of Rekhtnara), the "Tomb of the Vines," the beautifully painted little tomb-hall of Nakht, the sculptured doorway of that of Ramose (I use here Dr Gardiner's transliteration in order to avoid confusion), and perhaps the conspicuous corridored front of "Wilkinson's House,"while the raised brick pylons which mark the great subterraneansepulchres of Mentemhet (Mentuemhat) and Pedamenopet (Petuamenapt) in the 'Asastf momentarily attract their attention as they ride to Der el-Bahri. They ignore (in both the French and the English sense) the great number of other tombs, of great and little importance, that cover the desert hillsides from KArnet Mar'at in the south to Dra' Abu'l-Nega in the north. These are reserved for the archaeological student to appreciate, and for his use this admirable catalogue has been drawn up. Its preparation has only been rendered possible by the work which Mr Robert Mond has in the last few years taken up of carrying out thoroughly the exploration and conservationrof all the Theban private tombs. This work was tentatively begun some years ago by Prof. Newberry and Mr Howard Carter, the former exploring, the latter, as Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, beginning the work of conservation by the fixing of iron doors to the chief tombs. Mr Mond soon after took up the exploring work, and then, after Mr Weigall had succeeded Mr Carter as Chief Inspector, and had carried on energetically the work of conservation initiated by his predecessor, Mr Mond took up the whole matter systematically, with the result that most of the tombs are now preserved from further possibilities of vandalism, and their study has been undertaken by Dr Gardiner. The work of con- servation is being carried out for Mr Mond by Mr Eric Mackay. The "tombs" in question, which are often so beautifully decorated, and contain on their walls mnaterial of so much iml)ortance to archaeology, are not the actual tombs or burial-chambers themselves, but the outer halls, in which offerings were made. The tomb itself lay at the bottom of the shaft or pit that descended from the hall. Only the hall was decorated at the time when most of the Theban tombs were made, though at an earlier time (XIth Dynasty) the actual burial-chamber was also decorated sometimes, as we see from the grave of the priestess Kemsit at Der el-Bahri (NAVILLE and HALL, Deir el-Bahari, Xlth Dynasty, 1II. p. 9; Plates II, III). The royal tombs in the Bibgn el-Mulfk were fully decorated with appropriate scenes from the Book of the Dead, but private persons did not aspire to decorated tomb-chambers under the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties: they were content with embellishing their tomb-halls with representations of their daily life, as the kings decorated their funerary temples, which corresponded to the tomb-halls of private persons, with pictures of their prowess in war. It is, however, usual to speak of the tomb-halls as if they were "tombs," and in this sense we must here use the word. The catalogue contains 252 numbered "tombs." The old incomplete and divergent systems of nutmerationhave had to be superseded by a new and complete scheme, which will be regularly used in future.