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The Workman’s Progress. Studies in the village

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 THE WORKMAN’S PROGRESS

STUDIES IN THE VILLAGE OF DEIR EL-MEDINA

AND OTHER DOCUMENTS FROM WESTERN THEBES
IN HONOUR OF ROB DEMARÉE

edited by

B.J.J. Haring, O.E. Kaper and R. van Walsem

NEDERLANDS INSTITUUT VOOR HET NABIJE OOSTEN

LEIDEN

PEETERS
LEUVEN

2014
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword ................................................................................................. VII

List of Abbreviations.............................................................................. VIII

Bibliography of R.J. Demarée ........................................................... IX-XIII

Mark Collier
The Right Side of the Gang in Years 1 to 2 of Ramesses IV .......... 1-20

Kathlyn M. Cooney
A late 21st-early 22nd'\QDVW\&RI¿Q)UDJPHQWIURP7KHEHV
in a Private Collection in Oegstgeest, the Netherlands ............... 21-32

Benedict G. Davies
The aA-n-a: A New Title for a Deir el-Medina Ritualist? ............... 33-41

Koenraad Donker van Heel

P. Louvre E 7858: Another Abnormal Hieratic Puzzle ................. 43-55

Andreas Dorn
9RQ*UDI¿WLXQG.|QLJVJUlEHUQGHV1HXHQ5HLFKHV .................... 57-71

Ben Haring and Daniel Soliman

Reading Twentieth Dynasty Ostraca with Workmen’s Marks ...... 73-93

Harold M. Hays
Pyramid Texts in Amsterdam ........................................................ 95-98

M. Heerma van Voss

Zur Sternstunde für Amenhotep .................................................. 99-101

Willem Hovestreydt
Sideshow or not? On the Side-Rooms of the
First Two Corridors in the Tomb of Ramesses III .................. 103-132

Olaf E. Kaper
The Third Dimension in Stelae from Deir el-Medina ............... 133-155
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kyra van der Moezel

Donkey-Transactions: Some Notes on
Decontextualisation and Accountability ................................. 157-174

Matthias Müller
Es werde Licht? Eine kurze Geschichte von Öl & Fett
in Deir el-Medina in der 20. Dynastie .................................... 175-190

Maarten Raven
Women’s Beds from Deir el-Medina ........................................ 191-204

Alessandro Roccati
Worldwide Magic in Ramesside Egypt ..................................... 205-210

Malte Römer
Miszellen zu den Ostraka der 18. Dynastie
aus Deir el-Bahri und dem Asasif ........................................... 211-216

Deborah Sweeney
Sitting Happily with Amun ....................................................... 217-231

Jaana Toivari-Viitala
A Lady of a Hut in the Theban Mountains ................................ 233-236

Dominique Valbelle
Le khénou de Ramsès II ............................................................ 237-254

Jacques van der Vliet

A Letter to a Bishop, probably Pesynthios of
Coptos (died AD 632) (O. APM Inv. 3871) ............................ 255-260

René van Walsem

Creases on the Throat as an Art Historical
Particularity in Deir el Medina ............................................... 261-289

Lara Weiss
The Power of the Voice ............................................................. 291-303

Harco Willems
O. Gardiner 103: One of a Pair of Legal Statements?............... 305-311

Indices ............................................................................................ 313-332

 THE POWER OF THE VOICE
Lara Weiss*

vox tantum atque ossa supersunt:

vox manet, ossa ferunt lapidis traxisse figuram.
Ovid, Metamorphoses III, 395.

Ten years ago, I endeavoured to study the village of Deir el-Medina in Leiden, an
undertaking for which there could not have been a better environment than under the kind
guidance of the jubilarian. Inexperienced as I was, my attempts to come up with a term
paper that he would simply accept as it was, without suggesting a million and one little
details that I had overlooked, were always both challenging and stimulating – although
obviously they never succeeded. But Rob Demarée is not only an excellent academic
mentor, for he and his wife Cocky even became foster parents of sorts to me. Therefore I
am thus very grateful for this opportunity to participate in this Festschrift, hoping once
again that my little contribution will appeal to him. Happy Birthday, good health and
happiness for many more years to follow!!!

1. METHODOLOGICAL PRELIMINARIES

1.1. ORALITY AND LITERACY

Orality and literacy have been the subject of numerous studies 1 and this is not the place to
elaborate on them at length. In summary, in societies that have a script, oral and written

*
University of Erfurt. I would like to thank Koen Donker van Heel, Jörg Rüpke, Jacques van der Vliet, René
van Walsem and Ewa Zakrzewska for most helpful comments and feedback on earlier drafts of this article. In
addition I would like to thank the students of my class on ‘Orality and Literacy & Religion’ at Erfurt
University in fall 2012/2013 for fascinating discussions on the matter. The present article was written within
the funding of the ERC Advanced Grant “Lived Ancient Religion: Questioning ‘cults’ and ‘polis religion’
(2012-2017, 7th European Framework Program, agreement no. 295555)” supervised by Jörg Rüpke. The
English was kindly polished by Henry Heitmann-Gordon.
1
E.g. J. Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968); J. Goody, The Domestication of
the Savage Mind (Cambridge, 1977); J. Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organisation of Society
(Cambridge, 1986), etc. Comprehensive summaries are found in e.g. W.J. Ong, Orality and Literacy. The
Technologizing of the Word (London, 1982) (Reprint 1987); D.R. Olson, N. Torrance, and A. Hildyard (eds),
Literacy, Language and Learning. The Nature and Consequences of Reading and Writing (Cambridge, 1985)
and E.A. Havelock, The Muse Learns How to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to
the Present (London, 1986).
292 LARA WEISS

traditions and communication coexist.2 One hotly debated aspect is the question as to how
literate and oral traditions differ.3 Based on the work of Jack Goody, a common argument
runs as follows: Written religious traditions require religious specialists who take care of
the transmission of knowledge and its textual fixation. This requires the accumulation of
buildings, personnel and permanent endowments which then stimulates competition of
power between the religious and the political authorities.4 On another level writing and
written traditions are sometimes assumed to cause the creation of (written) dogmas and a
“contextualization or generalization of norms”.5 In a subsequent step, this “process of
‘rationalization’” causes the disappearance of offerings in favour of other forms of
religious practice.6

1.2. SPEECH ACT THEORY AND ORALITY AND LITERACY IN EGYPTOLOGY

In the present paper I argue that speech act theory offers a more fruitful approach than the
aforementioned evolutionary scheme. The term “speech act” was coined by John
Langshaw Austin.7 It means that speech can be performative in the sense that it
“constitutes the performance of an illocutionary act named by an expression in that very
sentence in virtue of the occurrence of that expression”.8
The matter of Orality and Literacy has long been on the radar of Egyptologists, and it
has been shown, for example, that in spite of the extensive textual evidence known from
the village of Deir el-Medina:

2
W.J. Ong, Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word (London, 1982) (Reprint 1987), 8 and cf.
e.g. A.P.M.H. Lardinos, J.H. Blok and M.G.M. van der Poel (eds), Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy and
Religion. Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World 8 (Leiden, 2011, 2).
3
Needless to say there are many other interesting aspects as elaborated e.g. by J.P. Gee, Social Linguistics
and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses (2nd ed.) (London, 1996) or the ongoing conference series on the
subject, the International Conference on Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World; e.g. most recently the
ninth volume: E.Minchin (ed.), Orality, Literacy and Performance in the Ancient World (Leiden, 2012).
Integrating all these new aspects of studies on orality and literacy into the following analysis would deserve a
study of its own. This is however, beyond the scope of the present paper, which can only provide a somewhat
narrow summary of Goody’s work.
4
Goody, Logic of Writing, 18-19.
5
Cf. Goody, Logic of Writing, 12.
6
Cf. Goody, Logic of Writing, 14.
7
Cf. J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford, 1962) and E. Meyer-Dietrich, ‘Recitation, Speech
Acts, and Declamation’, in: W. Wendrich (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (Los Angeles, 2010), cf.
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gh1q0md; accessed on 22nd November 2013.
8
Cf. J.R. Searl, ‘How performatives work’, in: D. Vanderveken and S. Kubo (eds), Essays in Speech Act
Theory (Amsterdam, 2002), 87. The term “illocutionary act” was coined by Austin and later modified and
refined by Searl and others cf. Austin, Do Things and see also J.R. Searl, Speech Acts: An Essay in the
Philosophy of Language (Cambridge, 1969). The present definition applies to Searl’s “performative
utterance”. On the “illocutionary act”; see also the definition in: S. Blackburn (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of
Philosophy (Oxford, 2008). Oxford Reference Online:
http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t98.e1587; accessed on 23rd
August 2012.
 THE POWER OF THE VOICE 293

“The documents reveal an oral village culture, in which the skill of writing was
present in the persons of necropolis administrators (who were in a sense
government representatives), but in which private and judicial matters remained
largely oral.”9

The rate of literacy at Deir el-Medina was relatively high as compared to the rest of the
Egyptian population,10 given that access to education and knowledge was probably
restricted.11 As a result, Haring’s findings are even more applicable to other settlements in
ancient Egypt, where the rates of literacy and scribal practices were even lower. Haring
could detect a certain “increase in the amount of writing in the private and judicial domains
(...) in the first half of the 20th”,12 but this applies mainly to administrative or juridical
purposes as aides mémoires.13 This can, for example, be illustrated by the court and/or
oracle procedures at Deir el-Medina.14 The purpose of the written records kept of these
procedures is not entirely clear,15 and may have differed. It is crucial to note, however, that
the language used in these texts shows that the procedures were hearings in which the
different voices of the petitioner/respondent were heard.16 The oral character of the
procedures is also evident in the frequent use of oaths whenever somebody „promise[s] not
to do something, denies knowing something or denies having something”.17 Some of these
oaths are recorded in a narrative way using the verb for swearing (arq; e.g. jw=j arq=j), but
often the oaths are recorded literally. For example, somebody took an oath to the Lord
saying (anx n nb r-Dd) in front of either the king or the god or „he swore saying” (jw=f arq=f
r-Dd).18

2. ORALITY AND LITERACY IN EGYPTIAN RELIGION

Generalizing Haring’s argument we may state that ancient Egypt – although well-known
for its numerous monumental inscriptions on temple walls, in tombs, as well as on statues

9
B.J.J. Haring, ‘From Oral Practice to Written Record in Ramesside Deir el-Medina’, JESHO 46/3 (2003),
266.
10
Cf. e.g. J. Baines and Ch. Eyre, ‘Four Notes on Literacy’, GM 61 (1983), 65-96.
11
E.g. J. Baines, Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt, Oxford 2007 and K. Exell, Soldiers, Sailors
and Sandalmakers – A Social Reading of Ramesside Votive Stelae (Golden House Publications Egyptology 1;
London, 2009.)
12
Haring, JESHO 46/3, 266.
13
See also B.J.J. Haring, ‘Scribes and Scribal Activity at Deir el-Medina’, in: A. Dorn and T. Hofmann (eds),
Living and Writing in Deir el-Medine. Socio-historical Embodiment of Deir el-Medine Texts (Aegyptiaca
Helvetica 19; Basel, 2006), 107-12 and K. Donker van Heel and B.J.J. Haring, Writing in a workmen’s
village: Scribal Practice in Ramesside Deir el-Medina (Egyptologische Uitgaven 16; Leiden, 2003).
14
Studied in detail by A.G. McDowell, Jurisdiction in the Workmen’s Community of Deir el-Medina
(Egyptologische Uitgaven 5; Leiden, 1990).
15
Compare e.g. McDowell, Jurisdiction, 5-6 with references.
16
E.g. McDowell, Jurisdiction, 18-21.
17
McDowell, Jurisdiction, 35.
18
Compare McDowell, Jurisdiction, 33-7.
294 LARA WEISS

and stelae; and its hieratic texts written on ostraca, textiles and papyri etc. – was still
predominantly characterized by oral traditions. Put differently, ancient Egypt was a literate
society,19 but in spite of its thousand years old tradition of writing, only a small number of
the changes predicted by Goody’s model are in fact attested.20 Obviously ancient Egypt
should not be viewed as a monolithic society, but we may generally agree that both the
composition and storage of texts was at least to some extent organised by the religious
authorities. What interests me in the present paper is why the Egyptian religion did not
become a book religion, as would have to be postulated on the basis of Goody’s
evolutionary model.21 In the following, the role of orality and literacy will be studied in
order to suggest why this did not happen.
Previous Egyptological studies on orality and literacy in religious texts mainly
aimed at tracing the transmission and/or composition of texts and knowledge. A case in
point is Christopher Eyre’s study on the so-called Cannibal spell known from the Unas
Pyramid.22 He emphasized that our “knowledge” of spoken rituals

“derives solely from written text: the transcription of these spoken words as text
on papyrus or the wall of a temple in a format that is essentially equivalent to that
of a service book – the words for recitation – with little (and never sufficient)
narrative explanation for the manner of recitation.”23

19
Compare the definition of a ‘literate society’ by M.C.A. Macdonald, ‘Literacy in an Oral Environment’, in:
P. Bienkowski, Chr. Mee and E. Slater (eds), Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society. Papers in Honour of
Alan R. Millar (New York and London, 2005), 49. Her definition aims at the organisation of societies that
use the “written word in some of its vital functions, even when the vast majority of its members cannot read
and write”.
20
Jack Goody – somewhat unwisely – chose to follow Robert Redford’s ideas on how king Akhenaton
“founded a monotheism” in ancient Egypt; cf. J. Goody, ‘Is image to doctrine as speech to writing? Modes of
Communication and the Origins of Religion’, in: H. Whitehouse and J. Laidlaw (eds), Ritual and Memory.
Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Religion (New York, 2004), 50 and see Goody, Logic of Writing,
12-19. Redford’s idea has currently been confuted; cf. J. Baines, ‘Presenting and Discussing Deities in New
Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period Egypt’, in: B. Pongratz-Leisten (ed.), Reconsidering the Concept of
Revolutionary Monotheism (Princeton, 2011), 62-5. For a critical perspective on orality and literacy and
religion see also recently A.P.M.H. Lardinos, J.H. Blok and M.G.M. van der Poel (eds), Sacred Words:
Orality, Literacy and Religion. Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World 8 (Leiden, 2011). Compare also the
similar situation in the Late Antiquity discussed by E.D. Zakrzewska, ‘Masterplots and Martyrs: Narrative
Techniques in Bohairic Hagiography’, in: F. Hagen, J. Johnston, W. Monhouse, K. Piquette, J. Tait and M.
Wortington (eds), Narratives of Egypt and the Ancient Near East. Literary and Linguistic Approaches (OLA
189; Leuven, 2011), 506-7.
21
Compare, for example, the criticism by Jan Assmann who seems to sorely miss the creation of a canonic
Holy Scripture from the existing texts: cf. J. Assmann, ‘Unio Liturgia. Die kultische Einstimmung in
götterweltlichen Lobpreis als Grundmotiv “esoterischer” Überlieferung im Alten Ägypten’, in: H.G.
Kippenberg and G.G. Stroumsa (eds), Secrecy and Concealment. Studies in the History of Mediterranean and
Near Eastern Religions (Leiden, 1995), 41. In fact, the privilege of the written over the oral is typical for our
own society and cannot unconditionally be assumed for the ancient Egyptian context; cf. e.g. J. Moreland,
Archaeology and Text (London, 2001), 96 and see also Ch. Eyre, The Cannibal Hymn. A Cultural and
Literary Study (Liverpool, 2002), 26.
22
Eyre, Cannibal Hymn.
23
Eyre, Cannibal Hymn, 26.
 THE POWER OF THE VOICE 295

He further stressed the fact that every text “had an oral context of performance”, 24 but,
contested the supposed “oral origin” of their composition.25 This conclusion also applies to
Eyre’s interpretation of the hymns and adorations known from later periods. Although
attested to us in their written form, they “could not exist as a purely written genre”. 26 A
somewhat different view on the Pyramid texts was taken by Chris Reintges who stated that:

“The compilation of these primarily religious compositions represents a major

shift in the royal funerary cult. To secure the king’s post-mortal existence, the
linguistic immediacy of a single performance event had to be sustained through
writing, which thus became available for future recall”.27

In other words, scholars agree that the oral nature of some texts should be understood as an
indication of oral transmission and performance, but the question whether the texts were
also composed orally28 has not been fully solved. Interestingly, Reintges argues that the
aim of the fixation of these texts was not the creation of a canon but “the creation of a
‘reusable discourse’ through text fixation and textualisation”.29 The present hypothesis
takes a slightly different perspective by trying to grasp the symbolic meaning of the orality
in these writings.30 Without denying the significance of these texts as “reusable
discourse”31 and sustainers of the “immediacy of the performance”,32 symbolically the
texts ensure the ongoing speech act.33 In line with this idea, Reintges could demonstrate
that during the “textualization process (...) the original interlocutive performance structure
(...) was transformed into a delocutive one”.34 These modifications meant that “the
speaker-oriented viewpoint” (i.e. the so-called interlocutive perspective) was changed in
favour of the use of the third person.35 It is important to consider, however, that delocutive
verbs are verbs that mean ‘to say something to someone’. These words hence stress the fact

24
Eyre, Cannibal Hymn, 74-5.
25
Eyre, Cannibal Hymn, 17-8, but see C.H. Reintges, ‘The Oral-Compositional Form of Pyramid Text
Discourse’, in: F. Hagen, J. Johnston, W. Monhouse, K. Piquette, J. Tait and M. Wortington (eds), Narratives
of Egypt and the Ancient Near East. Literary and Linguistic Approaches (OLA 189; Leuven, 2011), 20-1.
26
Cf. Ch. Eyre, ‘Why was Egyptian Literature’, in: G.M. Zaccone (ed.), Sesto congresso internazionale di
egittologia II (Turin, 1993), 117 and see Ch. Eyre, ‘The performance of the peasant’, in: A. Gnirs (ed.),
Reading the Eloquent Peasant. Proceedings of the International Conference on The Tale of the Eloquent
Peasant at the University of California, Los Angeles, March 27-39, 1997, LingAeg 8 (Göttingen, 2000), 12-13
on the texts as “script for performance, in the context of literature as a “verbal art””.
27
Reintges, in: Narratives of Egypt, 16.
28
Compare the work by A.B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, 1960).
29
Reintges, Oral-Compositional Form, 16.
30
Compare also W.A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word. Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of
Religion (New York, 1987), 7.
31
Note that Reintges views the „the codification of different forms of spoken discourse“ as the „birthplace of
Egyptian literature“, cf. Reintges, Oral-Compositional Form, 17.
32
Reintges, in: Narratives of Egypt, 20.
33
Reintges, in: Narratives of Egypt, 17.
34
Reintges, in: Narratives of Egypt, 28.
35
Reintges, in: Narratives of Egypt, 28.
296 LARA WEISS

that “saying also means doing something by uttering the relevant words, rather than just
uttering and perhaps quoting them”.36

3. DOING THINGS WITH HIEROGLYPHS

In this context another aspect is crucial. Hieroglyphs were usually carved in stone and used
only for religious writings or writings demonstrating power.37 It was a monumental script
written for eternity. This observation has caused Jan Assmann to distinguish between two
kinds of representation, namely a monumental memorial culture (“Gedächtniskultur”) and
a quotidian culture (“Gebrauchskultur”).38 The main difference between the two is their
use of either non-perishable or perishable materials as well as their respective symbolic
significance. The memorial culture is believed to be characterized by stone architecture
and the hieroglyphic script, whereas the quotidian culture uses the hieratic script and
fugacious mud brick architecture.39 While Assmann’s claim of a strictly (!) defined bipolar
culture40 needs to be further refined, because it can be shown that hieratic texts and
uninscribed objects could also have a memorial function in the practices of everyday life
(see also below), it is generally accepted, that monumental inscriptions usually have a
symbolic function beyond the transfer of information.41 In fact, it is hard to come up with
any scenario in which such an inscription would transfer only information, considering that
even today’s ostensible media, such as street signs, can carry hidden meanings in, for
example, the current political discourse.42 But that is of course another discussion. For the
ancient Egyptian context it is clear that texts carved in stone were not just written accounts,
but performative acts enacted by their very presence – whatever the situation thus created
was.43 An example for such a monumental enactment is the well-known account of the
battle of Kadesh on the Ramesseum that celebrates the victory of Ramesses II even though
the actual historical veracity of this victory is rather disputed.44 The performance of the

36
E.g. F. Plank, ‘Delocutive verbs, crosslinguistically’, Linguistic Typology 9/3 (2005), 471.
37
Compare for example, the definition of monumental writing by K.A. Kitchen, ‘Now you see it, now you
don’t! The monumental use of writing and non-use of writing in the Ancient Near East’, in: P. Bienkowski,
Chr. Mee and E. Slater (eds), Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society. Papers in Honour of Alan R.
Millard (New York and London, 2005), 175-6.
38
J. Assmann, Stein und Zeit, Mensch und Gesellschaft im alten Ägypten (München, 1991), 16-31.
39
Assmann, Stein und Zeit, 17.
40
Assmann, Stein und Zeit, 27.
41
E.g. Eyre, Cannibal Hymn, 25-9. On the “marked difference” between textual and monumental artifacts cf.
e.g. recently J. van der Vliet, ‘‘‘What is Man?’ The Nubian Tradition of Coptic Funerary Inscriptions’, in: A.
Łatjar and J. van der Vliet (eds), Nubian Voices. Studies in Christian Nubian Culture (Warsawa, 2011), 172.
42
E.g. M. Azaryahu, ‘German reunification and the politics of street names: the case of East Berlin’, Political
Geography 16/6 (1997), 479-93.
43
See also A.T. Wilburn, Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain
(Ann Arbor, 2012), 70, and D. Frankfurter, ‘The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic: The Power of
the Word in Egyptian and Greek Traditions,’Helios 21/2 (1994), 192-194.
44
Compare, for example, A.J. Spalinger, The Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative: P. Sallier III
and the Battle of Kadesh (GOF 4/49; Wiesbaden, 2002), 347-65 with references to other texts. On the
interpretation of this type of representation see, for example, recently M.M. Luiselli, ‘The Ancient Egyptian
 THE POWER OF THE VOICE 297

historiographical utterances construed the victory as a historiographical fact. Ramesses II’s

temple decoration activated the topos of the victorious king smashing his enemies and
thereby maintaining the order (even when that meant some glossing over reality). On the
individual level, an example of performative writing is provided by the appeals to the
living found on the entrances of tombs.45 In these texts the deceased ask passing people to
provide offerings for them, which is usually understood as an act intended to guarantee the
well-being of the deceased and simultaneously incur his or her favour.46

4. SPOKEN VS. WRITTEN SPEECH ACTS IN RELIGIOUS RITUAL

But let us return to the example of the Pyramid Texts: a spell attested in the pyramid of
Unas says: “Recite 4 times: The voice has come forth for you. Performance of a libation
offering”.47 Others have already indicated that these kinds of texts are recitation markers
written not only in an “ideal oral form”, but that the performance of the offering took place
by means of speaking.48 These texts should hence not be understood as “voiced texts” in
the sense that they were “intended for oral delivery” and only fully realized by their
performance.49 The latter notion hence coins the written transmission of oral traditions, i.e.
the observation that even though a “voiced text” is fixed in writing, it was still meant to be
performed orally.50 The present argument does not aim at either transmission or
performance, but at the symbolic significance of the texts being discussed. Although these
texts may have been read and/or performed at some point, and may or may not have had
previous oral versions, the process of inscription as well as their presence as inscribed texts
conceptualises them as independent actors that can act without the assistance of a human
reader, performer, or even a viewer.51 The term “written speech act” is very well suited to
describe this phenomenon because it emphasizes the written speaking voice.52 In the
example above, the libation offering would ideally have been performed by a living

scene of ‘Pharaoh smiting his enemies’: an attempt to visualize cultural memory’, in: M. Bommas (ed.),
Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies (London, 2011), 10-25.
45
Compare, for example, Eyre, Cannibal Hymn, 28.
46
E.g. N. Kloth, Die (auto-)biographischen Inschriften des ägyptischen Alten Reiches: Untersuchungen zu
Phraseologie und Entwicklung (SAK Beihefte 8; Hamburg, 2002), 140.
47
D(d)-md.w zp 4 m pri.tj n=k xrw rD.t qbH(.w); see also A. Piankoff, The Pyramid of Unas, Texts
Translated with Commentary (ERTR 5; Princeton, 1968), 57 and pl. 38.
48
Baines, Visual and written, 150-1. On the controversial discussion of the meaning of the pyramid texts cf.
F. Kammerzell, Das Verspeisen der Götter-Religiöse Vorstellung oder poetische Fiktion? Lingua Aegyptia 7
(2000), 190-191 with references.
49
Compare Van der Vliet, Coptic Funerary Inscriptions, 183. On the conception of ‘voiced texts’; cf. J.M.
Foley, How to Read an Oral Poem (Chicago, 2002), 43-5 and see also A. Papalexandrou, ‘Echoes of orality
in the monumental inscriptions of Byzantinium’, in: L. James (ed.) Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, 165.
50
Foley, Oral Poem, 45 and Papalexandrou, Echoes of orality, 165-6.
51
See also Van der Vliet, Coptic Funerary Inscriptions, 184-5.
52
And not the physical act of writing looming in Assmann’s term “writing act”; cf. Assmann, Stein und Zeit,
26. Van der Vliet also uses the term ‘written speech act’: Van der Vliet, Coptic Funerary Inscriptions, 185.
Compare also Frankfurter, Magic of Writing, 193.
298 LARA WEISS

individual, but since the tomb was closed and could not be accessed for continued
performances of the offering, it was replaced by the written speech act on the wall that
continued the performance for eternity. Written speech acts thus proved perpetual, despite
their fixity or reification in writing, i.e., as “frozen” entities.53 Theorization of these texts
as retained speech54 receives substantial support through ritual instructions from private
tombs that indicate who should speak the subsequent words, the recitation marker being
the common formula Dd md.w jn (“words to be spoken by”). The written speech act in
these instances ensured ongoing speech in places otherwise inaccessible to the living, i.e.,
where the speech act could no longer be performed.55 The same principle can be applied to
the Letters to the Dead. For example, a letter preserved on the so-called Qau Bowl (UC
16162) states: “This is an oral reminder ( [Tnw-n.w-rA]) of the fact” followed
by a description of the writer’s cultic performance at the recipient’s tomb.56 Sylvie Donnat
discusses the question of “why the oral procedure was in some specific cases accompanied
by written texts” and offers the following explanatory scenarios: “special occasion (...)
severe, important crisis”; the document as a legal testimony as well as a demonstration of
the addressee's ability to write (i.e. “prestige”).57 These are certainly important elements,
but the main aim was ensuring the ongoing efficiency of the offering invoked by the
written speech act.

4.1. METADISCURSIVE EXPRESSION IN THE TEXTS

In a different context, Mary Beard demonstrated that “a religious system can still be
fundamentally determined by writing and by a ‘literate mentality’, even in situations where
very few of the practitioners of that religion are themselves literate”. 58 Beard’s statement is
important because it stimulates questions of whether and why textual traditions could
retain a fundamental oral character. Like in all literate societies, oral and written traditions
existed side-by-side in ancient Egypt. This is clear, for example, from a text on the shrine
of Tutankhamun stating that the excellent scribes who know the god’s words and the

53
Term: I. Illich, ‘A plea for research on lay literacy’, in: D.R. Olson and N. Torrance (eds), Literacy and
Orality (Cambridge, 1991), 28.
54
Term: W.J. Ong, The Presence of the Word. Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (New
Haven, 1967), 93.
55
J. Assmann, Tod und Jenseits im Alten Ägypten (Munich, 2001), 322; Meyer-Dietrich, Speech Acts, 3. A
similar idea is expressed by the interpretation that the ongoing Stundenwachen were thought to continue for
eternity; cf. M. Smith, Papyrus Harkness (MMA 31.9.7) (Oxford, 2005), 38.
56
S. Donnat, ‘Written Pleas to the Invisible World: Texts as Media between Living and Dead in Pharaonic
Egypt’, in: A. Storch (ed.), Perception of the Invisible. Religion, Historical Semantics and the Role of
Perceptive Verbs, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (SUGIA 21; Cologne, 2010), 56 and see other references
listed by Wb V, 380.1 and TLA lemma no. 550132. And compare her discussion on p. 65.
57
Donnat, Written Pleas, 69.
58
M. Beard, ‘Writing and religion: Ancient Literacy and the function of the written word in Roman Religion.
Question: What was the rôle of writing in Graeco-Roman paganism?’, in: M. Beard et al. (eds), Literacy in
the Roman World, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 3 (Ann Arbor, 1991), 39.
 THE POWER OF THE VOICE 299

utterances will reach the sky.59 Another example is a text inscribed on the so-called Great
Abydos Stela from Ramesses IV (Cairo JE 48831) that also mentions both traditions.60
However, in spite of the extensive evidence of religious texts, the religious system
maintained an oral way of thinking.61 As I argue, the orality retained in the texts was
intentional and indicated the symbolic significance of the text as speech. This is also
supported by the well-known literary meaning of the term mdw.w-nTr as “god’s words”62
rather than “sacred writings”.63 These words can be fixed in writing (e.g. xft Ss pf sStA
mdw.w-nTr),64 but we should take seriously the fact that the term mdw.w-nTr refers to
spoken words rather than written ones.65
Although this may appear somewhat odd to the modern reader, the priority of
speech or ‘the voice’ over text in ancient Egypt can be illustrated with numerous examples
from both religious and profane contexts. Three of them must suffice for the present paper:
The Teaching of Amennakht states that the scribe should deepen his knowledge of texts in
order to realize the excellence of the words of his teacher;66 the speech of the so-called
Eloquent Peasant is fixed in writing in order to preserve his speech;67 and P. Chester

59
jr sS nb jqr rx md.w-nTr tp.y.w-rA=f jw=f pr=f [34] hAi=f m-Xnw p.t; cf. TLA, lemma no. 171130 and see A.
Piankoff and N. Rambova, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon. Texts Translated with Introductions (New York,
1955), Fig. 47. It should be noted, however, that the translation of the nisbeh construction tp.y.w-rA=f as a
noun (tp-rA; “utterance”; cf. Wb V, 287.4-12) and not just as an apposition “those, which are on his mouth”,
i.e. the reference to the words of god being on his mouth, may be subject to debate.
60
cf. S. Morenz, Beiträge zur Schriftlichkeitskultur im Mittleren Reich und in der 2. Zwischenzei. (ÄAT 29;
Wiesbaden, 1996), 30. Compare M. Korostovtsev, ‘Stèle de Ramsès IV’, BIFAO 45 (1947), 157 and 161:
"PAy m sXA.w bn r(A) n (rA); C’est un texte écrit et non une tradition orale".
61
A parallel situation is found in India where the largely oral tradition „functioned within a highly literate
framework“ cf. R. Narashimhan, ‘Literacy: its characterization and implications’, in: D.R. Olson and N.
Torrance (eds), Literacy and Orality (Cambridge, 1991), 177-197. (Quote 179). The author raises many
interesting questions concerning e.g. the spread of literacy, but does not offer much illumination on the
reasons of this phenomenon.
62
Wb II, 180.13; see also, for example, J.F. Borghouts, Egyptian. An Introduction to the Writing and Language
of the Middle Kingdom I, Grammar, Syntax and Indexes (Egyptologische Uitgaven 24.1; Leiden 2010), 55-6.
63
E.g. Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 22 and for a contrary perspective T.Q. Mrsich, ‘Ein Beitrag zum
Hieroglyphischen Denken’, SAK 6 (1978), 121. For a similar criticism towards the understanding of Egyptian
“literature as performance”, see, for example, Ch. Eyre, ‘The performance of the peasant’, in: A. Gnirs (ed.),
Reading the Eloquent Peasant. Proceedings of the International Conference on The Tale of the Eloquent
Peasant at the University of California, Los Angeles, March 27-39, 1997, Lingua Aegyptiaca 8 (Göttingen,
2000), 13; and compare also the discussion below.
64
Compare, for example, G. Lapp, Die Opferformel des Alten Reiches unter Berücksichtigung einiger
späterer Formen (Mainz, 1986), 152.
65
E.g. Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 47 and see also T. Hare, ‘The Supplementarity of Agency in the
Eloquent Peasant’, in: A. Gnirs (ed.), Reading the Eloquent Peasant. Proceedings of the International
Conference on The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant at the University of California, Los Angeles, March 27-39,
1997, Lingua Aegtiaca 8 (Göttingen, 2000), 4 and R.B. Parkinson, ‘Imposing Words: The Entrapment of
Language in the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant’, in: A. Gnirs (ed.), Reading the Eloquent Peasant, Lingua
Aegyptiaca 8 (Göttingen, 2000), 28.
66
(15) j.nw n jr.tj=kj r jAw.t nb.t (16) jr.t nb.t m-zXA.w (17) am=k m sxr.w r-Dd mnx.t (18) tp-rA.w Dd=j n=k;
cf. A. Dorn, ‘Die Lehre Amunnachts’, ZÄS 131 (2004), 43 and see TLA, lemma no. 171130.
67
Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 43.
300 LARA WEISS

Beatty IV (vs. 3,3) states that “it is writing that lets him be remembered, in the mouth of
the reciter of the formula”.68 As a result, one must challenge the idea that the written and
the spoken words are fundamentally different.69 The passage from the Great Abydos Stela
quoted above may indeed be understood in favour of the written tradition at first,70 but
even here the text ends with Thoth writing down the oral orders of the sun god, i.e. speech
fixed in writing. Also in the Book of the Dead 68 the god’s words appear fixed on Thoth’s
papyrus scroll.71 One could obviously argue that reading in ancient Egypt was mainly
reciting, or at least took the form of an audible utterance,72 but there is very little solid
proof for the idea that reading was always heard.73 The significance and power of the voice
should therefore be understood in terms of a symbolic function rather than an actual
audible one. Some magical spells provide further evidence: P. Leiden I 349, spell 4, for
example, states that “the voice of the conjurer is loud when calling for the poison, like the
voice of Re after his Ennead”.74 These lines illustrate two aspects; first, that the voice of
the god Re was considered powerful, and second, that this power could be adopted by the
conjurer by means of a speech act. Put differently, by saying that the voice of the conjurer
is like the one of the god Re, the conjurer’s voice was identified with the voice of the god
and thereby gained its divine powers. The voice of the conjurer is empowered by its
identification with the voice of Re.

68
Cf. jn sS r dd sxA.tw.f m r(A) n dd n r(A); cf. http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/literature/authorspchb.html,
accessed on 22th November 2013 and see Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 21. A similar statement is known
from the Teaching of Merikare, cf. J.F. Quack, Studien zur Lehre für Merikare (GOF 23; Wiesbaden, 1992),
25; cf. Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 31.
69
Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 20.
70
Cf. Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 30.
71
G. Lapp, The Papyrus of Nu (BM EA 10477), Catalogue of Books of the Dead in the British Museum, I
(London, 1997), pl. 18; 9; cf. TLA, lemma no. 78190.
72
See also Morenz, Schriftlichkeitskultur, 43.
73
Compare the situation in Roman Antiquity, where silent reading was known “(though the degree of silence
is still open to debate)”. Some authors have argued that silent reading was “not only (...) unusual, it was
accounted an imperfect and defective method of reading”, cf. G.L. Hendrickson, ‘Ancient Reading’, The
Classical Journal 25/3 (1929), 192. The argument that silent reading was viewed as inferior to reciting has
recently been challenged by e.g. A.K. Gavrilov, ‘Techniques of Reading in Classical Antiquity’, The
Classical Quarterly, New Series 47/1 (1997), 56-73. Others have argued that silent reading was applied to
business transactions and the like, whereas literature was mainly “appreciated through the ears”; cf. R.J.
Starr, ‘Reading Aloud: Lectores and Roman Reading’, The Classical Journal 86/4 (1991), 338. It is now
generally known that in Classical Antiquity people were able to read silently, but “commonly read aloud”; cf.
W.A. Johnson, ‘Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity’, The American Journal of Philology
121/4 (2000), 600. Probably a similar situation is found for the ancient Egyptian case. See also recently Van
der Vliet, Coptic Funerary Inscriptions, 183.
74
xrw pA Sn.tj qAj Hr aS m-sA tA mtw.t mj xrw ra.w m-sA psD.t=f, cf. A. de Buck and B.H. Stricker, Teksten
Tegen Schorpioenen naar P. I 349, OMRO, 21 (1940), 53-62.
 THE POWER OF THE VOICE 301

4.2. TEXT IN SPACE: PUBLIC STELAE AND STELAE FROM DOMESTIC CONTEXTS IN DEIR EL-
MEDINA

The importance of the voice can also be detected in hymns and “praise”.75 Maria Michela
Luiselli has demonstrated that the praise or hymns attested on stelae also display written
speech acts. On these stelae the formula rdj.t-jA.w (i.e. “giving of praise”) re-enacted the
ongoing prayer.76 Similarly, Assmann has argued that these stelae should generally be
understood as “the act of devotion in its entire meaning” defined in both text and
decoration.77 The same interpretation applies to texts written on statues which enabled the
donor of the statue to participate in the temple cults, i.e. texts placed in areas probably
inaccessible to the common public.78 If we recall the importance of the voice that was
outlined earlier, it is not too far-fetched to assume that speech acts would usually have
accompanied the placement of stelae or burial rituals. The written speech acts hence
perpetually re-enact both the prayers and the related offerings (“Hereby NN gives praise
to...”) initially performed. This also applies to statues and stelae set in public or semi-
public contexts, which served as a perpetual stand-in for their donor or subject.
It is thus crucial to keep in mind that the written speech acts usually appear in
places inaccessible to the living and in places where the respective offerings and prayers
could not be regularly performed.79 As a consequence, religious practice in places that
were accessible to the living must have been dominated by the voice, i.e. speech acts. This
hypothesis is supported by the observation that stelae known from the domestic context of
Deir el-Medina differ in one important aspect from the ones previously described: they are
virtually “text-free”. It is of course needless to say that the find context of very few stelae
is known. Some of the stelae now in the museum of Torino and elsewhere may for instance
have been removed from houses before the excavators Georg Möller and Bernard Bruyère
arrived at the site. It is also conceivable that the inhabitants removed some stelae when
they abandoned the village.80 In spite of these limitations, it is significant that only a single
inscribed stela was found in a house.81 The other stelae unearthed by Möller and Bruyère

75
Cf. Ch. Eyre, ‘Why was Egyptian Literature’, in: G.M. Zaccone (ed.), Sesto congresso internazionale di
egittologia II (Turin, 1993), 115-120.
76
Cf. M.M. Luiselli, ‘Das Bild des Betens. Versuch einer bildtheoretischen Analyse der altägyptischen
Anbetungsgestik’, Imago Aegypti 2 (2007), 89-90.
77
J. Assmann, Ägyptische Hymnen und Gebete (Zürich, 1975), 7.
78
E.g. A. Verbovsek, “Als Gunsterweis des Königs in den Tempel gegeben...” Private Tempelstatuen des
Alten und Mittleren Reich (ÄAT 63; München, 2004), 25.
79
The definition of “regularly” is of course subject to debate. If we include the evidence from the domestic
context at Deir el-Medina (see below), we may at least hypothesise that speech acts were performed more
frequently at home than it would have been possible in a more distant location on a normal working day.
80
Compare, for example, the discussion by L. Weiss, ‘Personal religious practice: house altars at Deir el-
Medina’, JEA 95 (2009), 193-195.
81
Namely, cf. B. Bruyère, Rapport sur les Fouilles de Deir el Médineh (1934-1935), Troisième Partie: Le
village, les décharges publiques, la station de repos du col de la vallée des rois (FIFAO 15; Cairo, 1939),
334 and 335 (fig. 206). Not only elaborate stelae inscribed with hymnal texts are virtually absent in the
houses, but also the so-called ear stelae. Only one fragmentary example has been found; cf. Bruyère, Rapport
1934-1935, 204, fig 94; 267 and 268 (fig. 140).
302 LARA WEISS

are inscribed with very brief offering formulae,82 most of which do not start with the rdj.t-
jA.w-formula;83 or display no texts at all. This has already been established in Rob
Demarée's seminal study on the Ax-jqr-n-Ra-stelae from Deir el-Medina, most of which
feature a representation of the ancestor and only a brief text.84 The inscription is usually
limited to the name and the Ax-jqr-n-Ra-title of the respective ancestor. The same applies to
stelae dedicated to gods found in the houses of the village, which show the respective god
with or without an accompanying adorant/offering table. For example, stela Berlin ÄMP
20989 shows ‘To” (i) and his brother Paneferemdjed (i) adoring the statue of Osiris. The
brief transcription reads Wsjr nb AbDw [...] s.t mAa.t 6A [sn]=f PA-[nfr]-m-9d,85 i.e.
providing only the minimal amount of information concerning the benefactor and the
beneficiary. The same applies to stela Berlin ÄMP 21538 dedicated to Amenhotep I and
Ahmes-Nefertari who are shown in the upper register of the stela facing right. Underneath,
three men are shown in adoration attitude facing left. The text informs us about the identity
of the actors: 9sr-kA-Ra dj anx Ra; JH-ms-Nfr.t dj anx my Ra D.t; Imn-[m]-wjA mAa xrw;
sA=f Imn-[m]-jn.t mAa xrw; sA=f Msj mAa xrw, i.e. „Amenhotep I gives life; Ahmes-
Nefertari gives life like Re eternally; Amen[em]wia (i), justified, his son Amen[em]one
(iv), justified, his son Mose, justified“.86 Other stelae display no text at all. For example, a
small stela showing the god Ptah could only be identified by comparative analysis of its
iconography.87 The same applies to a stela dedicated to Renenutet or Meretseger88 and
another dedicated to the god Shed.89
Instead of elaborate hymns the stelae known from the domestic context usually
show representations only (either of gods alone or of people worshipping them). Wherever
text is present, it is limited to a short offering formula and/or the names of the gods or
worshippers respectively. One might of course argue that access to religious texts,
including hymns, was limited and that such things were not available to the villagers.
Whereas detailed knowledge of religious texts may have been accessible to the initiated
priests only, it seems plausible that everybody – and certainly the inhabitants of Deir el-
Medina – would have been able to formulate a quick prayer. It is thus more plausible to
explain the absence of written speech acts in the houses with the fact that (oral) speech acts
could be performed on a regular basis. What is plausible for the stelae might also apply to

82
The only longer offering formula definitely from the domestic context is attested on a stela found in house
S.O. IV; cf. Bruyère, Rapport 1934-1935, 323-324 (fig. 194).
83
An exception is Berlin ÄMP 21565; cf. G. Roeder, Aegyptische Inschriften aus den staatlichen Museen zu
Berlin II (Leipzig, 1924), 397.
84
R.J. Demarée, The 3h iḳr n Rc-stelae. On ancestor worship in ancient Egypt, (Egyptologische Uitgaven 3;
Leiden, 1983), 3 and 178-181.
85
Roeder, Inschriften, 287; 395.
86
Möller, Fundjournal, 126. These artefacts will be made available in the published version of the author’s
PhD thesis Religious Practice at Deir el-Medina, Egyptologische Uitgaven, Leiden and Leuven, forthcoming.
87
Berlin ÄMP 21568; cf. Möller, Fundjournal, 132.
88
A snake goddess JE 63656; cf. B. Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir el Medineh (1931-1932), La
nécropole de l’ouest (FIFAO 10; Cairo, 1934), 86 and 87 fig. 53.
89
JE 63654; cf. Bruyère, Rapport 1931-1932, 86 and 87, fig. 54.
 THE POWER OF THE VOICE 303

at least some of the pictorial ostraca from Deir el-Medina.90 For example, a group of
ostraca show representations of the god Amun as ram91 or as bark,92 as well as other gods
such as Renenutet or Meretseger,93 Thoth,94 and Sobek.95 It is remarkable, however, that
hitherto no depiction of ancestors is known from pictorial ostraca.96

5. CONCLUSIONS

Previous authors had also touched upon the idea of (written) speech acts, but only the
analysis of the domestic context at Deir el-Medina illuminates their significance by
argumentum e silentio. The clue is to understand the written speech acts literally as speech
fixed in writing that has been given permanency as speech and not as ‘text’. This
interpretation allows one to grasp everyday religious practice that is invisible in the
archaeological record. Put differently, the absence of written speech acts in houses
suggests that speech acts were performed on a regular basis. Whether ‘real’ spoken words
or fixed in writing – (written) speech acts thus emerge as the most important means of
communication with the otherworldly. This also explains why the Egyptian religion never
developed a written doctrine: the aim of the written fixation of texts in ancient Egypt was
not primarily “to maintain orthodoxy”,97 but to ensure the ongoing performance of the
speech acts of the ritual.98 In conclusion, the Egyptians did not develop a canonized sacred
script, because the Sitz im Leben of ancient Egyptian religion was oral practice.

90
Compare D. Sweeney, ‘Cats and their people at Deir el-Medina’, in: D. Magee, J. Bourriau and S. Quirke
(eds), Sitting beside Lepsius. Studies in Honour of Járomir Málek at the Griffith Institute (OLA 1985, Leuven
2009, 538 who mentions a category of votive ostraca and compare C.A. Keller ‘Royal Painters: Deir el-Medina
in Dynasty XIX’, in: E. Bleiberg and R. Freed (eds), Fragments of a Shattered Visage. The Proceedings of the
International Symposion on Ramesses the Great. Monographs of the Institute of Art and Archaeology I
(Memphis, 1991), 50-86. See also Brunner-Traut 1956, 17; B.E.J. Peterson, Zeichnungen aus einer Totenstadt.
Bildostraka aus Theben-West, ihre Fundplätze, Themata und Zweckbereiche mitsamt einem Katalog der Gayer-
Anderson-Sammlung in Stockholm (Stockholm, 1973), 12-24 and A. Stevens Private Religion at Amarna: The
Material Evidence (Oxford, 2006), 153. This interpretation may also apply to O. Cairo JE 72504; cf. Demarée,
Ancestor worship, 86-87 and pl. IX. In order to demonstrate this function Dorn has recently introduced the term
“Stelenostraka”, cf. A. Dorn, Arbeiterhütten im Tal der Könige. Ein Beitrag zur altägyptischen Sozialgeschichte
aufgrund von neuem Quellenmaterial aus der Mitte der 20. Dynastie (ca. 1150 v. Chr. (Aegyptiaca Helvetica
23, Basel 2011, 185, in view of the difference between the elaborate stelae the term shall not be applied here.
91
E.g. O. Berlin ÄMP 21463
92
E.g. O. Berlin ÄMP 21456; O. Berlin ÄMP 21446 and O. Berlin ÄMP 21471
93
E.g. O. Berlin ÄMP 21480.
94
E.g. O. Berlin ÄMP 21438.
95
E.g. O. DeM 2650.
96
But see O. Berlin ÄMP 21455.
97
Goody, Modes of Communication, 51.
98
Interestingly, a similar idea has been proposed by William Warburton who argued that the reach of the
voice was not considered to be long-lasting enough in an attempt to explain why script was introduced in the
first place, cf. W. Warburton, Versuch über die Hieroglyphen der Ägypter (edited by P. Krumme) (Wien,
1980), 3. The original publication (apparently an excursion in The divine legation of Moses) was
unfortunately unavailable to me. On the power of writing for the transmission and preservation of speech
over time and space see also J. Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968), 1.