The Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative: P. Sallier III and the Battle of Kadesh.

AuthorKadish, Gerald E.
PositionBook Review

The Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative: P. Sallier III and the Battle of Kadesh. By ANTHONY J. SPALINGER. Gottinger Orientforschungen. IV. Reihe, Agypten, vol. 40. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2002. Pp. xiii + 389. [euro]98 (paper).

Going beyond previous studies of the transmission of the ancient accounts of Ramesses II's encounter with the Hittites at Kadesh in his fifth regnal year, Spalinger has produced an important scholarly monograph on the reasons why pSallier III [BM EA 10181](+ pRaife)--a version of the "Poem"--looks and reads the way it does. Spalinger's work blends meticulous attention to detail and careful analysis with occasional obiter dicta. Although he must inevitably deal (and sometimes disagree) with the views of previous scholars, the book is not primarily polemical. The amount of work and thought, and the command of both the modern literature and Egyptian texts, are impressive. Only a brief outline of the book is possible here.

Chapter one presents a line-by-line study of the principal differences between pSallier III and the other versions collected by Kitchen (RI II, 2-101), based also on recent photographs compared with Netherclift's 1841 transcription for passages no longer preserved. Spalinger also analyzes some significant paleographical features of the papyrus. He offers (pp. 99ff.) three main conclusions on the sources of the divergences from the monumental copies: (1) idiosyncratic writings of the copyist and his difficulties in understanding the hieratic of his exemplar; (2) alterations of grammar and syntax that reflect "more contemporary language"; and (3) the errors that may well have been in the text Pentaweret set himself to copy.

In chapter two, Spalinger persuasively argues that the year 9 date of the colophon of pSallier III is the date of the original composition (not necessarily of the copy Pentaweret worked with). He goes on to argue that Pentaweret's position was within the mid-level civil administration, probably the fiscal bureaucracy. That Pentaweret chose to copy a text associated with the Delta Residence in which the king figures most prominently ("nationalistic-propagandistic") suggests that the copyist was employed somewhere in northern Egypt. Spalinger regards Pentaweret as a reasonably competent scribe, trained in bureaucratic texts, but interested (if less competent) in literary narrative.

Chapter three focuses on the displacement of the Menna episode (P 205-23) from after...

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