A Family of Priests of the Deified Amenhotep I (Chicago Oim 11107)

A FAMILY OF PRIESTS OF THE DEIFIED AMENHOTEP I (CHICAGO OIM 11107)

Emily Teeter Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

I have very fond memories of spending an after- unusual iconographic features and the informa- noon with Richard Fazzini in the storage areas tion that the text gives about the cult and priests of the Oriental Institute Museum. That sort of of the deified Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina exploration, in the company of the consummate warrant its fuller publication. authority on Third Intermediate Period sculp- The decoration of the stela is divided into ture and relief (among other things and periods), two sections. A recumbent sphinx fills the upper taught me more than any academic course. register. In the lower, a man kneels, facing left According to the museum records, the small toward six vertical columns of hieroglyphs. stela presented here had not been exhibited for The sphinx in the upper register is identified decades prior to 1990, when it was added to the by the hieroglyphic caption as Mrt-sgr hnwt. ımntt" , new installation. Its humble appearance made “Meretseger, mistress of the West.” A winged ser- me initially doubt its authenticity, but I soon pent with sun disk, its wings protectively out- determined that it had not gone unnoted by the spread, floats above the sphinx.5 The winged ser- scholarly community. It is hoped that the fuller pent may serve as a determinative for the name discussion of this stela, which indeed tells an of the goddess who is so closely associated with interesting story about life millennia ago, will be snakes.6 accepted as a gesture of respect for my colleague Meretseger, whose name translates as “she and dear friend Richard, and that it might serve who loves silence,” was a deity especially revered as a small tribute to his distinguished body of by the inhabitants of Deir el-Medina.7 The god- scholarship. dess appeared in a variety of forms, such as a In 1920, James Henry Breasted purchased a serpent, a serpent with a woman’s face, a lion, small round-topped stela (fig. 1)fromAndré a lion with a serpent’s head, a cow, a woman, Bircher in Cairo. It is 15.2 centimeters high, or a woman with a serpent’s head.8 The Orien- 13.2 wide and 2.9 thick. The stela was pic- tal Institute stela is, to my knowledge, unique in tured in a summary article in 1929,1 it was cited representing the goddess as an androsphinx.9 On in Cern´ˇ y’s Community of Workmen,2 and by Bier- the stela, the goddess wears a flat-topped crown brier and Davies,3 and the text was included topped with lyre horns and disk, rather than the in Kitchen’s Ramesside Inscriptions.4 However, the more common simple lyre horns with disk, or two

1 H.W. Cartwright, “The Iconography of Certain Egyp- (Cairo: IFAO, 1929–1930), figs. 55, 56. tian Divinities as Illustrated by the Collections of the Haskell 6 Cartwright, “Iconography,” 188, suggested that the Oriental Museum,” AJSL 45 (1929): 188–189,fig.15. winged serpent, a common form of Meretseger, was added 2 Incorrectly cited as “1107”inJaroslavCern´ˇ y, ACom- to somehow compensate for the unusual depiction of the munity of Workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period,BdÉ50 goddess as a sphinx. (Cairo: IFAO, 1973), 141,note2. 7 See Dominique Valbelle, Les ouvriers de la tombe: Deir el- 3 Morris Bierbrier, “Notes de prosopographie thébain. Médineh a l’époque ramesside,BdÉ96 (Cairo: IFAO, 1985), 315, Troisième série: 14. The Family of Sennedjem,” CdÉ 59 for Meretseger being “la protectrice de Deir el-Médineh.” (1984): 210; Benedict G. Davies, Who’s Who at Deir el- 8 See Bruyère, Mert Seger, 105–122; Dominique Valbelle, Medina: A Prosopographic study of the royal workmen’s community, “Meretseger,” in LÄ 4, 79–80, and Valbelle, Ouvriers, 315 Egyptologiche Uitgaven 13 (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut for the forms of Meretseger. See also representations of the voor het Nabije Oosten, 1999), 153,no.60. goddess in Guillemette Andreu, Les artistes de Pharaon: Deir el- 4 Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions 5 (London: Médineh et la Vallée des Rois (Paris: Éditions de la réunion des Blackwell, 1983), 667.12–15 (hereafter KRI 5). musées nationaux, 2002), 276–281. 5 For another, similar, composition of sphinx (with ser- 9 As noted by Cartwright, “Iconography,” 188:“An pent’s head) with a winged serpent above its back, see unusual if not unique representation…” Bernard Bruyère, Mert Seger à Deir el Médineh,MIFAO58 236 emily teeter tall feathers and sun disk.10 The deity’s wig lap- omitted, allowing the individual to appear with pets fall to the middle of her chest and to the the god without the intermediary figure of the small of her back. The shoulder of the sphinx is king, but as on the Chicago stela, the devotee covered with what is probably supposed to be a is usually relegated to the lower register.16 This broad collar. A band of fabric(?), perhaps repre- sort of composition reflects Ramesside religious senting a corselet, covers her back.11 texts in which the individual directly addresses The lower field of the stela is incised with the god as his or her his personal savior, calling a text and an image of a man facing left, his upon the deity, rather than the king, for his salva- arms upheld in an attitude of adoration, echoing tion.17 the act of “giving [praise]” referred to in the The inscription on the stela is arranged in six inscription. He wears a kilt that billows around vertical columns: his legs. A broad band of fabric crosses his chest from the right shoulder to his left hip. He is bald 1. rdıt" [ı"Aw] n kAa ntA ırt" R# n and clean shaven. This is the same garb and 2. snw.s tA hnwt. tAwy n kA nw#b grooming affected by priests who carry the divine 3. nnbtAwy Nfr-hr. mA# hrw ıt.f" ıdnw" [n] tA ˘ image in processions.12 4. ıst" Kd-. hwt.f mA# hrw sn.f hm-ntr tpy n . ¯ This arrangement of the deity in the upper 5. nb tAwy˘ ˘ register, facing right, and the devotee in the lower 6. "Ipwy mA# hrw register, facing left, represents a stylistic develop- ˘ ment from earlier New Kingdom stelae that show 1. Giving [praise]b to the spirit of the Eye of the king and the deity in the same register, fac- Rec ing each other. This style normally excludes the 2. who has no equal, the mistress of the Two individual who commissioned the stela. In most Lands,d for the ka of the wab priest cases, the deity is to the left, facing right—the 3. of the lord of the Two Lands (ie: the deified most prestigious position,13 and the king faces the Amenhotep I), Neferhor, justified, [and] his god, in secondary place, to the right. When a father, the deputy of the devotee is shown, he or she is in the lower, sep- 4. gang, Kedakhtef, justified, [by]e his brother arate, register.14 This separation of the upper and the first priest of the lower register reflects the formal separation of the 5.lordoftheTwoLands joint realm of the divine and royal from that of 6. Ipuy, justified. the common man. In the post-Amarna 18th Dy- nasty, and increasingly in the Ramesside Period a. Here, kA is written with flat line and three with the rise of personal piety, the composition strokes. Kitchen took the flat sign as the flat of stelae changes.15 At that time, it is increas- bread-loaf sign (Gardiner X4); however, it could ingly common for the figure of the king to be also be a book roll (see Wb. 5, 86.12).

10 For other examples of the lyre horns and disk with ný, Egyptian Stelae in the Bankes Collection (Oxford: Univer- a modius, see Bruyère, Mert Seger,figs.45, 63 (?). See sity Press, 1958). Notable exceptions to these generalized re- also Bruyère’s comments, 109–110, about variations in the marks are the Amarna-era funerary stelae that show the de- appearance of the goddess. ceased adoring Osiris. See examples in Alfred Grimm and 11 Compare to a representation of Meretseger in a The- Hermann Schlögl, Da thebanische Grab Nr. 136 und der Beginn ban graffito; Bruyère, Mert Seger,fig.120. der Amarnazeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), pls. 16, 18– 12 See, among the many examples, the scenes in the 20, 24–28, 30–36. tomb of Khakhenbet (TT 2)inJaroslavCerný,“Leˇ culte 15 For the corresponding change in tomb decoration d’Amenophis 1er chez les ouvriers de la nécropole thé- attributed to personal piety, see Jan Assmann, “Vergeltung baine,” BIFAO 27 (1927): 189,fig.14;TT277 (Amenem- und Erinnerung,” in Studien zu Sprache und Religions Ägyptens 2, inet) in Jeanne Vandier d’Abbadie, Deux Tombes Ramessides à ed. Friedrich Junge (Göttingen: Hubert & Co., 1984), 699. Gornet-Mourraï,MIFAO87 (Paris: IFAO, 1954), pl. 7.2;festival 16 See the many examples in Andreu, Les artistes,nos. processions at Medinet Habu in Epigraphic Survey, Medinet 188, 189, 192, 219, 251, 253. Habu,vol.4, Festival Scenes of Ramses III,OIP51 (Chicago: 17 Jan Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom University of Chicago Press, 1940), pls. 201, 203, 213, 223– (London: Kegan Paul International, 1995), 209–210.Inthe 224, 226;andafiguredostraconinBerlin(no.3308)in Third Intermediate and Late Periods, further development Werner Kaiser, Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin (Berlin: Staatliche can be seen in the very common composition that shows Museen, 1967), no. 725. the deity and the individual in the same register. For many 13 Gay Robins, “Some Principles of Compositional examples, see Peter Munro, Die spatägyptischen Totenstelen, Dominance and Gender Hierarchy in Egyptian Art,” ÄF 25 (Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin, 1973). For earlier examples, JARCE 31 (1994): 33. see Andreu, Les artistes,nos.227, 230. 14 For example, Bankes stelae nos. 9, 11in Jaroslav Cer-ˇ