Who’s Who IN ANCIENT EGYPT Available from Routledge worldwide: Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt Michael Rice Who’s Who in the Ancient Near East Gwendolyn Leick Who’s Who in Classical Mythology Michael Grant and John Hazel Who’s Who in World Politics Alan Palmer Who’s Who in Dickens Donald Hawes Who’s Who in Jewish History Joan Comay, new edition revised by Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok Who’s Who in Military History John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft Who’s Who in Nazi Germany Robert S.Wistrich Who’s Who in the New Testament Ronald Brownrigg Who’s Who in Non-Classical Mythology Egerton Sykes, new edition revised by Alan Kendall Who’s Who in the Old Testament Joan Comay Who’s Who in Russia since 1900 Martin McCauley Who’s Who in Shakespeare Peter Quennell and Hamish Johnson Who’s Who in World War Two Edited by John Keegan Who’s Who IN ANCIENT EGYPT Michael Rice 0 London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 1999 Michael Rice The right of Michael Rice to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been applied for ISBN 0-203-44328-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-75152-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-15448-0 (Print Edition) Contents Preface vii Acknowledgements x Encountering the Ancient Egyptians xi The Egyptian kingship xxx The gods of Egypt xxxv Chronology xlvi Rank, title and office in Ancient Egypt liii Maps of Ancient Egypt lx WHO’S WHO IN ANCIENT EGYPT 1 Glossary 226 List of abbreviations 232 Bibliography 234 Appendices 238 Appendix 1: entries by occupation 240 Appendix 2: entries in chronological sequence 250 Appendix 3: Ancient Egypt in museum collections 255 Preface Anyone who presumes to compile a work such as Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt will find himself somewhat in the position of C.G.Jung when he felt obliged to write Septem Sermones ad Mortuos (Seven Sermons to the Dead) as a consequence, it seemed to him, of finding his house infested with the spirits of the dead, demanding instruction. Though the spirits of the dead have their place in Egyptian royal legend, for they were said to be the forerunners of the historic dynasties of kings, it is they who are the instructors in this case, summarily demanding inclusion. The compiler is merely the scribe, sitting meekly with legs crossed, awaiting the opportunity to set down the record of their lives at their dictation, a self-effacing servant of Thoth. Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt attempts to identify the most celebrated of the sons and daughters of Egypt, whose attainments forged its unique civilisation. But it also seeks to record the names of less august figures, whose lives may throw a modest but particularly focused shaft of light to show what it may have been like to live in Egypt at the height of its power and prosperity, or in one of its not infrequent periods of hardship and disorder. Some have been included because their lives or careers illumine an aspect of the Egyptian experience which may be unfamiliar or unusual. In general, the Who’s Who records those Egyptians whom the visitor to Egypt or to an Egyptian collection in one of the great museums which house so considerable a quantity (though still only a tiny fraction) of the work of Egyptian artists and artificers, might be expected to encounter. Because of their concern to perpetuate their names, a procedure essential if eternal life was to be achieved, it must surely be that we know many more of the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt than we do of any other ancient culture of comparable antiquity. Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt cannot in the nature of things pretend to be exhaustive; at best it can only be representative. It can only record a sadly limited number of entries; but how many ‘Third Prophets of Amun’, ‘wab priests’, ‘Sole Companions’ or ‘Singers in the Temple before the God’, worthy though they doubtless were, might non-professional readers be expected to accept? But there must be many who fulfil the criteria indicated above who have, for one reason or another, not been given space here; if so, the compiler, not himself a professional Egyptologist, would be pleased to hear of them, possibly for inclusion in future editions. vii Preface The entries in Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt are listed in an English-language alphabetical order. The Egyptians did not, in any strict sense, employ an alphabet, at least until late times. The sequence which is conventionally adopted for the hieroglyphic characters which stand for individual letters is entirely different from the alphabetical order familiar to a European reader; to adopt such a sequence would be perverse and probably deeply confusing. The hieroglyphic script was perhaps the most elegant ever produced, certainly amongst the most complex and subtle; it was reserved mainly for monumental inscriptions and the most important documentary uses. Its two companions, hieratic and demotic, were successfully developed for more everyday use; the last-named was effectively a form of ‘speed writing’. The transcription of Egyptian names presents another hazard. Since the Egyptians did not as a general rule write vowels, and their language involved several consonants that an English speaker, for example, does not use, cannot tell apart, or might not even recognise as meaningful consonants. Scholarly transcriptions are complicated, artificial and scarcely pronounceable. The rendering of Egyptian names in a book such as this must therefore be a matter of compromise—a compromise which in all probability is not completely consistent. Names which when transliterated into a European language would start with an ‘A’ for example, would in Egyptian be written with the group which formed the compound of the name and which an educated Egyptian would know would be articulated as if it began with the sound which English renders as ‘A’. In common with general Egyptological practice today, names have been rendered in a fashion which corresponds more precisely to the Egyptian original than to the Greek, popular in earlier scholarship: thus ‘Amenhotep’ rather than ‘Amenophis’, though, of course Amenhotep itself is an Anglicisation. Similarly, it adopts usages such as ‘Khnum-Khufu’ for the king associated with the Great Pyramid, rather than the name by which he was known to the Greeks, ‘Cheops’. ‘Chephren’ and ‘Mycerinos’ are to be found in association with their pyramids in their correct names of ‘Khafre’ and ‘Menkaure’. In such cases, however, what may still be the more familiar, alternative name is shown in parenthesis. In the case of Late Period kings, particularly from the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty onwards, the Greek forms have generally been employed, as by that time their usage had become widespread outside Egypt. The influence of Greek writers and their versions of Egyptian names is particularly evident when dealing with the familiar names of the Egyptian gods. Most of those which are in common use today derive from Greek transliterations. These have become so established that it would be pretentious in this context to insist on Djehuty rather than Thoth (or Djehuty-mes rather than the familiar royal name, Thutmose), on Heru rather than Horus, Aset than Isis, Asar or Wesir for Osiris. In all these and other similar instances the names of the gods appear in their familiar, Graecised forms. The substance of the entries themselves has been drawn from a wide range of published sources; a number of these are now of some age, as Egyptologists of earlier decades seem often to have been more interested in the lives of individual Egyptians than in the social, economic and historical forces which determined the character of their society and which have tended more to occupy the attention of contemporary scholars. In some cases there are anomalies and variations, a consequence of the influence of a particular researcher’s native tongue, when expressed in English. In general, the form of the names given here conforms with the principal source or original of the entry; if the original transcription viii Preface has not always been retained it is because of a more recent, widespread acceptance of a revised form. The principal publications consulted are listed in the Bibliography and in the individual entries; amongst the most productive sources are museum and exhibition catalogues and books which review specific collections. These, because they are often intended for public information as well as for the use of scholars, frequently contain valuable material relating to the lives and careers of individual Egyptians. Most of the entries in Who’s Who in Ancient Egypt are supported by bibliographical references. In a number of cases objects—statues or inscriptions for example—which bear on the subject of the entry may be identified by the museum in which they are exhibited.