The Papyrus Boulaq 18 is an
ancient Egyptian administrative document. It contains an account of the
Theban palace dating to the 13th Dynasty (around 1750 BC). The papyrus lists the palace officials and the rations they received day by day. Important officials mentioned are, for example, the vizier
Ankhu
Ankhu was an Egyptian vizier of the early 13th Dynasty, who lived around 1750 BC.
Family
Ankhu was the son of a vizier. Labib Habachi proposed that his father was the vizier Zamonth. The mother of Ankhu is known as Henutpu, the name of Zamont ...
, but also the queen
Aya. Therefore, the document is of great historical importance. It also reports the journey of the king to the temple at
Medamud
Medamud (, from ) was a settlement in ancient Egypt. Its present-day territory is located about 8 km east-north from Luxor.
The Temple of Montu was located here. It was excavated by Fernand Bisson de la Roque in 1925, who identified sev ...
and reports the arrival of a delegation of
Nubia
Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...
ns.
Discovery
In 1860 AD, the Papyrus Boulaq 18 was found in the tomb of the ''scribe of the great enclosure''
Neferhotep at
Dra Abu el-Naga by
Auguste Mariette. It is now in the
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...
in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
.
People mentioned
*
..(king) name destroyed
*
Aya (queen)
*
Ankhu
Ankhu was an Egyptian vizier of the early 13th Dynasty, who lived around 1750 BC.
Family
Ankhu was the son of a vizier. Labib Habachi proposed that his father was the vizier Zamonth. The mother of Ankhu is known as Henutpu, the name of Zamont ...
(vizier)
*
Aabeni (high steward)
Next to the queen, other family members of the king are mentioned. These include the king's son Redinefni, as well as several sisters of the kingː Senetsen, Renre, Bebiaaat, Bebisheryt, Pesshu, Horemhab, Neferetiu, Khememet and Zathanthor.
Theories
The exact dating of the document is disputed. The name of the king is heavily destroyed. Formerly scholars identified the pharaoh in question with
Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep
Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep (appears in most sources as Amenemhat Sobekhotep; now believed to be Sobekhotep I; known as Sobekhotep II in older studies) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period, who reigned ...
, but recent studies, in particular by
Kim Ryholt
Kim Steven Bardrum Ryholt (born 19 June 1970) is a professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen and a specialist on Egyptian history and literature. He is director of the research centeCanon and Identity Formation in the Earliest Litera ...
, have led to the identification of the king as either
Imyremeshaw
Smenkhkare Imyremeshaw was an Egyptian pharaoh of the mid 13th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period.
Imyremeshaw reigned from Memphis, starting in 1759 BC or 1711 BC.Thomas Schneider following Detlef Franke: ''Lexikon der Pharaonen'', A ...
or
Sehetepkare Intef.
[K.S.B. Ryholt, ''The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800-1550 BC'', Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997] The 2019 full new publication of the papyrus by Schafik Allam reads the partly destroyed cartouche as Ameni.... Sobekhotep (Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep).
[Allam: ''Hieratischer Papyrus Bulaq 18''. pl. 18a]
See also
*
List of ancient Egyptian papyri
This list of ancient Egyptian papyri includes some of the better known individual papyri written in hieroglyphs, hieratic, demotic or in Greek. Excluded are papyri found abroad or containing Biblical texts which are listed in separate lists.
...
Main editions
*A. Mariette: ''Les papyrus egyptiens du Musee de Boulaq vol. II,'' Paris 1872
*A. Scharff: ''Ein Rechnungsbuch des königlichen Hofes aus der 13. Dynastie'', In ''Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde'' 57 (1922), S. 51-68, Tafeln 1**–24**
*Schafik Allam: ''Hieratischer Papyrus Bulaq 18''. 2 volumes, Tübingen 2019
References
External links
Les papyrus égyptiens du Musée de Boulaq (Band 2)at Heidelberg historische Bestände.
Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt
Egyptian papyri
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