Die Toponymen- und Kultnamenlisten zur Tempelanlage von Dendera nach den hieroglyphischen Inschriften von Edfu und Dendera.

• Author: Depuydt, Leo
• Position: Book Review

Die Toponymen- und Kultnamenlisten zur Tempelanlage von Dendera nach den hieroglyphischen Inschriften von Edfu und Dendera. By HOLGER KOCKELMANN. Die Inschriften des Tempels von Edfu, Begleithefte, vol. 3. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2002. Pp. xvi + 299 (paper).

The texts inscribed on the walls of those distinctive Egyptian temple domains located in southern Egypt and dating to Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine times (ca. 300 B.C.-ca. A.D. 600) belong in a class of their own. Three properties make interpreting them difficult: the many new values assigned to hieroglyphs; the only partly successful efforts to write in a long-dead stage of Egyptian; and the esoteric subject matter (cf. JAOS 122 [2002]: 892). The high level of specialization required to analyze these texts makes them the domain of a small and select group of students of ancient Egypt. The two best preserved and most imposing among the said temples are the one at Edfu, whose construction spans much of the Ptolemaic period, and the one at Dendera, which dates to the end of the Ptolemaic period and to the Roman period. The Edfu temple was completed in the first century B.C., about the time when building at Dendera began. It is as if the completion of one big project freed up a limited supply of resources for a project of similar proportions. Other connections and similarities between the two temples makes this hypothesis attractive. A mere glance at the ground-plans of both temples already reveals many striking resemblances.

The work under review also illustrates the affinity between Edfu and Dendera. Its topic is a set of four name-lists. The names all refer to the temple domain at Dendera, with or without its narrow or wider surroundings. All four lists bear the title rnw nw njwt tn "the names of this town." One of the four lists, however, is inscribed on the Edfu temple. That fact alongside other relations between Edfu and Dendera justifies the publication of a book on names of Dendera in a series devoted to Edfu.

The four name-lists are as follows ("D[endera]" and "E[dfu]" refer to Emile Chassinat's monumental editions of the Dendera and Edfu texts, MD to Dendera texts so far published only by Auguste Mariette in 1870-73): (1) E V 346,6-347,5 (40 names); (2) D VI 165,10-169,7 (146 names); (3) MD I 16b, 1-11 (136 names); and (4) D VII 140,2 (3 names). Three names are the most prominent (Hauptnamen) (pp. 52-66): Jwnt (for which the author suggests as a possible original...