Die datierten und datierbaren Ostraka, Papyri, und Graffiti von Deir el-Medineh.

• Author: Darnell, John Coleman
• Position: Book Review

Die datierten und datierbaren Ostraka, Papyri, und Graffiti von Deir el-Medineh. By WOLFGANG HELCK, edited by Adelheid Schlott. Agyptologische Abhandlungen, vol. 63. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2002. Pp. 573. [euro]146.

The rich epigraphic and archaeological material from Deir el-Medina, and the complex, intimate, and even voyeuristic view they often allow into the lives of the royal workmen of New Kingdom Thebes have long captivated both Egyptologists and the Egyptologically interested public. A number of scholars, such as Jaroslav Cerny (A Community of Workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period [Cairo, 1973]) and Dominique Valbelle ("Les ouvriers de la Tombe": Deir al-Medineh a l'epoque ramesside [Cairo, 1985]), have sought to provide an overview of the history of the Deir el-Medina community based on a chronological ordering of major documents. Probably most informative are the myriad of ostraca and papyri from the small city. A number of these documents are explicitly dated and many others allow themselves to be ordered chronologically on the basis of their content. An understanding of the various family genealogies and the succession of workmen and officials in the community have over time allowed for an at least rough dating of many of the surviving bits of textual material. Works such as that of Manfred Gutgesell (Die Datierung der Ostraka und Papyri aus Deir el-Medineh und ihre okonomische Interpretation [Hildesheim, 1983]) have demonstrated both the problems and the possibilities of this approach. The present work by Wolfgang Helck is the first published attempt to present a chronologically ordered framework of texts spanning the life of the Deir el-Medina community during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. For the Egyptologist who is not so intimately concerned with Deir el-Medina, Helck's book offers the ideal tool for acquiring the maximum amount of chronological information from the Deir el-Medina documents. Considering how widely scattered these documents are, through both the institutions in which they are housed and their various publications, Helck's chronological overview provides both an excellent index to the documents from Deir el-Medina for the regnal years of New Kingdom rulers and also creates a good starting point for any detailed investigation of issues concerning the Deir el-Medina community.

Adelheid Schlott prepared for publication the manuscript left by the late Wolfgang Helck in 1993. She augmented and...