Die Inschriften der 3. Dynastie: Eine Bestandsaufnahme.

• Author: Seidlmayer, Stephan Johannes
• Position: Review

By JOCHEM KAHL, NICOLE KLOTH, and URSULA ZIMMERMANN. Agyptologische Abhandlungen, vol. 56. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 1995. Pp. vii + 262, drawings. DM 88.

The formative period of the pharaonic state constitutes a particularly fascinating topic in Egyptology and has wide relevance to historical and anthropological studies in general. Clearly, the early written evidence plays a crucial part in research on this period, since it sheds light on the emerging political and economical institutions. The interpretation of this material, however, is still fraught with difficulties. Any methodologically sound approach to this corpus must therefore be based on a careful comparative analysis, taking account of the gradual development of the writing system itself. J. Kahl devoted a pioneering study to this issue, Das System der agyptischen Hieroglyphenschrift in der 0.-3. Dynastie, Gottinger Orientforschungen, IV.29 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), and the book under review presents the relevant source material dating from the third Dynasty as a corpus. Actually, the inscriptions of this period were only incompletely covered by P. Kaplony's Inschriften der agyptischen Fruhzeit, Agyptologische Abhandlungen 8-9 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1963-64) as well as by K. Sethe's dated Urkunden des Alten Reiches (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. 1933). The present publication therefore represents a most welcome addition to the existing literature, and its usefulness will all the more be appreciated, as ongoing research in the field is constantly producing new inscriptional material of the Third Dynasty (see, e.g., Z. Hawass, "A fragmentary monument of Djoser from Saqqara," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 80 [1994]: 45-56; J. P. Patznick, "Zu den Siegelabrollungen der Fruhzeit," Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Abt. Kairo 51 [1995]: 179ff.).

The book includes all types of written documents, revealing both the richness and the diversity of the early inscriptional evidence. The material includes ink labels, casual notes on vessels and on limestone ostraca, sealing impressions, tomb stelae, false-doors, and royal monumental inscriptions. This broad range of types is of intrinsic interest since it documents the rapid application of writing both in regulating everyday affairs as well as in ritual contexts during the period under consideration. The technical aspects of the corpus are tabulated on p. 4. The supposition of the authors that papyrus was...