777479

research-article2019
EGA0010.1177/0307513318777479The Journal of Egyptian ArchaeologyAbruña Marti

Article

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

1–18
Igai ‘the Lord of the Oasis’ © The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0307513318777479
https://doi.org/10.1177/0307513318777479
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Heri Abruña Marti

Abstract
This article discusses 28 attestations of Igai, ‘the Lord of the Oasis’, some of them overlooked in previous work on the god. After a
survey of previous research, the question of his name will be briefly addressed, and a diachronic analysis of his attestations will be
presented. A table summarising the attestations mentioned in the text can be found at the end of the article.

Keywords
Anubis, Dakhla, Igai, Nineteenth Nome of Upper Egypt, Seth, wAs-sceptre

‘‫اجاى ’رب الواحات‬

‫هنري ابرونا مارتي‬

‫ تصوير الجاي ‘رب الواحات‘ بعض منها قد تم ذكره في دراسات سابقة عن‬28 ‫تناقش هذه المقالة‬
‫ بعد سرد ملخص هذه الدراسات السابقة سوف تتطرق المقالة بإيجاز إلى إشكالية اسم‬.‫هذا اإلله‬
‫ يوجد جدول بنهاية المقالة يلخص التصويرات لمختلفة‬.‫اإلله ثم إلى تحليل تطور تمثيل هذا اإلله‬
.‫لإلله والتي ذكرت في نص المقالة‬

Previous work on Igai
To date, the principal studies on Igai have been undertaken
by Henry George Fischer, Nagwa Arafa and Caroline Hubsch-
mann.1 Unlike Arafa and Hubschmann, whose studies focus
1H. G. Fischer, ‘A God and a General of the Oasis on a Stela of the
Late Middle Kingdom’, JNES 16/4 (1957), 223–35; N. Arafa, ‘Le
dieu Igay’, DE 63 (2005), 11–22; C. Hubschmann, ‘Igai: A Little-
known Deity of Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt’, Rosetta 8 (2010), 42–61.
Apart from these studies, some basic information can also be found
in LÄ III: 123–4; J.-P. Corteggiani, L’Égypte ancienne et ses dieux:
Dictionnaire illustré (Paris, 2007), 227–8; V. Turriziani, ‘Foreign
Deities, Frontier Deities: Evidence from the Old Kingdom’, in K.
Accetta, R. Fellinger, P. L. Gonçalves, S. Musselwhite, and W. P.
van Pelt (eds), Current Research in Egyptology 2013: Proceedings
of the Fourteenth Annual Symposium. University of Cambridge,
United Kingdom March 19-22, 2013 (Oxford, 2014), 174–6.
See also HL4: 1585–6; HL5: 3015; LGG I: 570–1; R. el-Sayed,
Afrikanischstämmiger Lehnwortschatz im Älteren Ägyptisch:
Untersuchungen zur ägyptisch-afrikanischen lexikalischen
Interferenz im dritten und zweiten Jahrtausend v. Chr. (OLA
211; Leuven, 2011), 166; J. Kahl, Frühägyptisches Wörterbuch, I
(Wiesbaden, 2002), 60–1.
exclusively on the god himself, Fischer’s study focused on
the publication of the stela of Inu (doc. 15), a ‘chief of the
army of the oasis’ at the end of the Middle Kingdom. The
most remarkable feature of the monument is the fact that it
records the name of the deity, who is also qualified as ‘the
Lord of the Oasis’. Fischer’s study considered the stela
itself, the administration of the oases and the identity and
origins of Igai. He first established the link between the
deity and the oases thanks to the aforementioned epithet,
concluding that Igai was the god of all the oases of
the Western Desert, with his origins to be found in the
northern oases.2
2Fischer, JNES 16/4, 233.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Corresponding author:
Heri Abruña Marti, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici B,
Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Spain.
Email: heri.rko@gmail.com