Ramesside Hieratic Documents kept in Viennese Collections

It is a matter of interest of international Egyptology as well as of Austrian cultural and science policy to have the Egyptian monuments published that are kept in Austrian collections. In the project proposed, Egyptian hieratic documents will be edited and analysed that are kept in the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts and in the Papyrus Collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. These documents (nine papyri and some ostraca) date from the Ramesside period, i.e. the time between 1300 and 1000 BC. approximately, and they concern the history, administration and society of ancient Egypt. The rather well-known big religious corpora, such as the Book of the Dead, will remain excluded. The documents mentioned are to be edited and commented upon in all their aspects. Furthermore, Part Two of the project envisages an interpretation of the documents in terms of cultural history, in particular against the background of what is known up till now about the development of Ramesside Egypt. The project is meant to run for one year. For palaeographic and text-critical work, Dr. M. Salah el-Kholi, lecturer at the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, has been considered. Dr. el-Kholi is an Egyptologist who is specialised in Ramesside non-literary texts, and we were glad to learn that he is ready to join in the project. This scholarly co- operation with the Kunsthistorisches Museum will also be welcomed by the Egyptology Department of the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University.

The aim of the project as it was finally carried out was to prepare a new critical edition of the Ramesside Hieratic documents kept in the Egyptian-Oriental collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which should comprise facsimile, transcription, translation and commentary together with photographs as well as historical and philological evaluation. The whole work was realized within sexteen months from december 1999 to february 2002 by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Salah El-Kholi (collaborator of the project), Cairo University. The documents are a series of papyri and ostraca which carry texts in Hieratic script and dated mainly from the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses III (1183/2-1152/1 B.C.) who belongs to the 20th Egyptian dynasty (1186/5-1070/69 B.C.). Through the person of the collaborator of our project and as a result of the cooperation with Egyptian papyrus collections (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; The Cairo University) the project fits well in the socalled Meda-Projects recently promoted by the EU. Among the documents of the project the most important is Papyrus Ambras with inv.-n 3876 of the end of the 20th dynasty. It presents a list and description of tomb robbery papers which had been disappeared and were sold afterwards again to the administration, i.e. to a financial official. The new findings concern the activity of the tomb robberers, who sometimes created for themselves a workshop within the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, where they melted down precious metals but also made copies of wood in order to cover up their theft. The seized tomb robberers were submitted to a rather modern interrogation, where they were treated with fairness and where they could defend themselves. The judgements included acquittal, prison, and death penalty. Likewise important is Pap. 3925, a magical text, who is the only known model for the text written on the socalled Horus stelae, which are known through many copies. The new inspection of the papyrus allowed to recognize and to correct many crucial mistakes in the different variants of the Horus stelae. Pap. Nr. 9340 gives an insight in the interrogation of lower priests, who obviously were involved in an affair with women. So we see that many problems of our present days exist allready in the 2nd mill. B.C. Besides the papyri also several ostraca belonged to the project. I mention especially O.5984, a wine etiquette coming from the wine deposit of the Ramesseum. It tells us of wine supplies for priests and other temple personnel active in the Ramesseum. Three or four wine jugs were delivered every day, that is about 15 or 20 litres.