Demotic Ostraca and Other Inscriptions from the Sacred Animal Necropolis, North Saqqara
by John D. Ray
This volume presents demotic ostraca from the Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara, revealing jar-labels, literary, and magical texts from the Ptolemaic period. With over 400 ostraca, it sheds light on the site’s economy, organization, and cosmopolitan nature.
This volume publishes the demotic ostraca discovered by the Egypt Exploration Society in the Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara more than thirty years ago. This site, with its complex of galleries and temple buildings, has brought new insights into Egyptian art and architecture, as well as important information about the economy and organisation of what has turned out to be a cosmopolitan area. The majority of the four hundred or more ostraca published in this volume are written on potsherds, but there are also limestone and gypsum plaster fragments and writing-boards. Collectively, they preserve two different types of text: firstly jar-labels or dockets originally written upon a complete vessel in order to describe its contents or to give directions for its delivery, and secondly compositions written upon a sherd that had already been broken from its parent vessel, or a flake of limestone or some similar material. The texts include literary and magical compositions and a range of texts which argue for the existence of a scribal school of some kind. There is also a short oracular question, various dedications to the gods of the Necropolis, an appeal to the Mother of the Apis, lists of payments and divine images, and a document of self-sale or self-hire which is probably the earliest such document so far recognised. Some of the texts date from the Achaemenid period but the majority are undoubtedly Ptolemaic with some preponderance to the first half of the dynasty.
- By (author) John D. Ray
Other Titles in this Series
Texts from the Baboon and Falcon Galleries
Demotic, Hieroglyphic and Greek Inscriptions from the Sacred Animal Necropolis, North Saqqara
Volume 15
Similar Books
Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries
Highlights from the first century of the Egypt Exploration Society
Volume 8
Archaeological Discoveries at the Temple of Ramesses II in Abydos
Vol. 1: Magazines, Animal Burials, and Miscellanea
Current Research in Egyptology 2024
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Symposium, Jointly Organised by the University of Liverpool, Swansea University, University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, and University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2–6 September 2024
From Egypt to the Levant and Beyond
African Individuals and Groupsain Cuneiform Texts from the Late Bronze Age
Volume 133
Kom al-Ahmer — Kom Wasit III
The Archaeology of Two Ptolemaic Districts in the Western Nile Delta, Egypt
Language, Semantics, and Cognition in Ancient Egypt and Beyond
Proceedings of the International Conference, Yale University, April 16-18, 2021
Volume 14
Mortals, Deities and Divine Symbols: Rethinking Ancient Images from the Levant to Mesopotamia
Studies Offered to Tallay Ornan
Outward Appearance versus Inward Significance
Addressing Identities through Attire in the Ancient World
Volume 15
Sacredness at Deir El-Medina
Proceedings of the International Conference Florence, Italy 14-15 March 2024
Volume 7
The Village Gymnasium at Philoteris/Watfa in the Fayum
In Collaboration with Rita Hartmann. With Contributions by Cacilia Fluck, Mary F. Ownby and Daniela Rosenow
Volume 10
Die Schlangenspruche als alteste semitische Textbelege?
Analyse und kritische Betrachtung von Richard C. Steiners 'Early Northwest Semitic Serpent Spells in the Pyramid Texts
Volume 140
Esna VII – Ubersetzung
Die Inschriften der Aussenwande des Pronaos von Esna. Esna-Studien V
Volume 46
Katalog der Berufstermini der Frauen in Ägypten im Spiegel dokumentarischer Papyri und Ostraka
Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Band 480.2
Volume 480.2
Transzendentales Ägypten
Jenseits, Himmel, Hölle und das Ende in antik-ägyptischen Diskursen
Volume 14
