Egypt Exploration Society

A Word for 'Representative', 'Substitute', or the Like

Author(s): Alan H. Gardiner
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 37 (Dec., 1951), p. 111
Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3855166
Accessed: 25-11-2015 00:06 UTC

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 BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS III

A word for 'representative', 'substitute', or the like

IN the Tomb-robberies papyri frequent mention is made of a certain Pwer'o, a measurer in the
House of Amuin, who was denounced by the herdsman Bukhaaf as one of his gang, but apparently
never caught and brought to trial. In this he was luckier than several relatives of his, including two
sons and a wife.' In P. Mayer A 3, 7-92 we read of an ergastulum-slave Amenkhacu who I $_Js
men, ^ll B q du ring 'was brought as a ite for' him, but subsequently released on
the ground that he was only his wife's brother. What is the meaning of this word iwe ? Clearly not
'heir' as Peet suggested with a note of interrogation. Personally I have no doubt that it is closely
akin to the well-known demotic feminine noun iwe for a 'pledge', 'surety',, the writing of which
Griffith transcribed3 as 47\k C <,p; and which he rightly equated with the Coptic ey', eo-yS, aoywB
with precisely that meaning.4 Such a word for 'representative' is unknown in the earlier stages of
Egyptian, unless it be found in the term e sq0 applied to women in a number of Illahiin
letters as well as in P. Anastasi VI, that obscurest of all Late-Egyptian miscellanies. Scharff, to
whom we owe a valuable note on that term,5 tells us that it is regularly used in his Middle Kingdom
examples of women who were the iweyt of some official. One of the most striking features of the
Pharaonic civilization was the confidencee reposed in its womenfolk to carry on the work of their
men during the absence or indisposition of the latter,6 and I think it much more probable that
iwMytin the passages alluded to will turn out to signify 'substitute' than that it will be found to
possess some such colourless signification as Arbeiterin. ALANH. GARDINER

Addendum to 'The Baptism of Pharaoh', JEA 36, 3-12

MY recent visit to Egypt has made me acquainted with two additional representations of this rite,
both of some interest. The earlier is a much damaged scene in the temple of Medinet Madi, which
takes back the age of this kind of picture to the end of the Twelfth Dynasty; Suchus stands to the
right of the king, Anubis to his left, and the purificatory stream is one of rankh-signs.7 Suchus
was the principal god of the place, but Anubis is also mentioned there at least twice.8 Why these
divinities were substituted for the normal Horus and Thoth is not clear.
The other representation consists of a wonderfully restored group in the round, exhibited in
Room U 12, Case W, of the Cairo Museum.9 Only tiny portions of the original alabaster remain,
but these include the head of Horus, and the arm stretched out with a bowl on which the name of
Amenophis II is inscribed. It was only when three rankh-signs of the purificatory stream were
recovered and added to the other fragments that the nature of this small group (perhaps about io in.
high) was recognized. It is obscure by what intuition or by whose instructions the ibis-head of Thoth
was recognized by the restorer, since not a trace of it remains. ALANH. GARDINER

I For references see Peet, Great Tomb-robberies,Text, p. I33, under A 27, B I. 5.

2 See op. cit., pi. 24, for the necessary corrections to Peet's original transcription.
3 Rylands Papyri, III, 326. So too Spiegelberg, Koptisches Handworterbuch,i1.
4 Crum, Coptic Dictionary, 6zb. 5 ZAS 59, 27. 6 See Cerny, Late Ramesside Letters, passim.
7 A. Vogliano, Secondo Rapporto degli scavi ... di MadTnetMadl, 24.
8 Op. cit. 25, see too 34, n. Ii.
9 Journal Nos. 3241, 32523, 32674, provenance unknown. I am indebted to Abbas Bayoumi, the Director
of the Museum, for supplying me with these indications.

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