Urkunden zur Chronologie der späten 12. Dynastie

The archive of el-Lahun, the most important temple-archive before the Greek-Roman Period, is dated to the second half of the 12th dynasty. The find is divided in two parts that were found in a distance of ten years in 1889/90 and 1899. The first part is now in the Petrie Museum London, the second one almost completely in the Berlin Museum. The London papyri are said to have been come from el-Lahun, while the second find`s origin could be assured by a quick survey in 1899. The Berlin find concentrates fully on the process of the mortuary cult of the king Sesostris II while the London papyri comprise items of rather individual character like juridical documents, lists of households, contracts, even literary pieces. The Berlin find comprises documents of the daily cult in the mortuary temple of the King such as letters, temple-diaries, supply- and festival-lists. The significance of the Berlin part is made even higher by the fact that the date of the Heliacal Rise of Sirius is recorded in the temple- diary of the 7th year of King Sesostris III. Since its discovery this particular date has been the starting point of a number of speculations in connection with Egyptian chronology. Besides this copy published in "Chronologische Fixierung" in 1992, there are a lot of letters mentioning Moon-feasts, whose dates have been used to determine the siderical dates. The letters are, however, not only interesting because of the incidental Moon-dates, they also make it possible to gain a deep insight in the daily life of Middle Kingdom Egypt.