Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 102-103. (Budapest, 2005)
ZOLTÁN HORVÁTH: A unique servant statue in the Egyptian Collection
The text is too badly damaged to furnish an unbroken translation; my aim was rather to elucidate the nature of the text. The question marks indicate doubtful readings or renderings. (1) [...] 1100 [heqat 1 , bread 1000, beer [1000 .J (2) for the provisioned Iqer [...] (3) 1000, oxen 1000, and 1000 of [every goodf thfings ...] (4) ... (5) (NN), justified' [. 1000], 'onions ...J (6) 1000 <for> the provisioned [NN J COMMENTARY Col. (1). The first legible though semi-erased sign seems to be certainly CD'-, . 4H The reconstruction is supported by a small writing board in the Louvre, where the quantities 1100 are always preceded by heqats of jt-sm r , btj, bs3, sw.t and w r bw(?). 49 Throughout the text, a sparing of the plural strokes may be attested, like in ti "bread". This spelling also exemplifies that due to the resemblance of forms in hieratic, <==:> was sometimes used mistakenly in place of c —°— ) . ,0 From the numeral "1000" at the bottom, only the tips can be traced. Col. (2). Note that in jmlh,' [ the erroneous (=) has been overwritten to'^. . The scribe might have had the following sign in his mind and simply left out the proper one. The fainter line of may indicate that he, having finished with the word, returned immediately and corrected the mistake without dipping the brush in ink again. (ML^ is given here a rather abnormal shape, which is not exceptional and could be ascribed to the vagueness of the scribe which is characteristic for this text in the case of complex signs. 52 The proper name Jqr is widely attested for the Middle Kingdom, either on its own or in compound name forms.'' 3 I was unable to decipher the imperfectly preserved hieratic group following the name, but contrary to expectation, it is certainly not ms r-hrw that otherwise appears at the beginning of col. 5. Col. (3). The transcription ^->£ for the second hieratic group, which is regular for Middle Kingdom offering formulae, 54 is rather dubious and prompted by the context. For some deviancy in shaping fjfjf , see the remark concerning ÍML^ above. The reading jh follows the argumentation of Lapp. 55 Throughout the inscription, hi "1000"
