The Egyptian Coffin Texts VII.

Texts of Spells 787-1185 by Adriaan de Buck Review by: Hans Goedicke American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct., 1962), p. 413 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/502033 . Accessed: 14/10/2013 09:43
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Authors and publishers are respectfully requested to note that all books for review must be sent directly to the review editors: for Old World archaeology to Miss Dorothy K. Hill, The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore i, Md.; for New World archaeology to Dr. Richard B. Woodbury, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. The review editors will be glad to receive any suggestions from authors as to names of possible reviewers. Under no circumstances should a book be sent to a specific reviewer.
THE EGYPTIAN COFFIN TEXTS VII. TEXTS OF SPELLS

787-1185, by Adriaan de Buck (The University of Chicago, Oriental Institute Publications vol. LXXXVII). Pp. xvii - 521, plans 15 on 8 folding plates (line drawings). The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1961. $15.00o.

This latest volume of the Egyptian religious spells written on coffins around the beginning of the second millennium B.c. matches, in presentation and organization, its six predecessors. The present volume exceeds the earlier ones in size and contains 398 spells. Almost two-thirds of them are miscellaneous texts mostly preserved in a single copy. Among them are offering spells (934, 936) a spell for passing the (seven) doors (9o0), and another identifying the different parts of the body with various deities (945). A "spell for the service of the two (river-) banks of Thoth" (994) HANS GOEDICKE possibly results from a local political situation during THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY First Intermediate in a the Period; the request "spell to pass by the southern boundary" (ioi8), "O South, which opposes Heaven, let me pass to Abydos to the MONTOUEMHAT. QUATRIEME PROPH TE D'AMON, place where Osiris is," most likely reflects a historical PRINCE DE LA VILLE, by Jean Leclant. (Institut situation during the fight between the Xth (HerakleoFranpais d'Archeologie Orientale. Bibliothique politan) and the XIth Dynasty (Theban), when the d'Rtude, vol. XXXV) Pp. xvi latter had captured Abydos (an event established by - 309, pls. 70. several historical inscriptions). Imprimerie de l'Institut Franpais d'Archeologie More than half of the volume is devoted to the publiOrientale, Cairo, 1961. cation of a group of texts found inscribed on the inNo single figure in the later stages of Egyptian hisside of the bottoms of a number of coffins from elBarsha in Middle Egypt. They accompany schematic tory stands out more clearly than the Prince of Thebes plans of the Egyptian netherworld, which in part is and Governor of Upper Egypt, Mentuemhat. He lived crossed by two "ways." On account of this, Schack- in the turbulent days of Kushite occupation and AsSchackenburg, who used only one version in his pub- syrian invasion. Amongst the rulers of provinces menlication, introduced the name "Book of the Two tioned in the Annals of Ashurbanipal he alone evokes Ways," by which this group of texts is frequently an uncanny sense of personal contact through two rereferred to although this is not their Egyptian designa- markable portraits in the Cairo Museum. The great tion (Schack-Schackenburg, Das Buch von den zwei mud-brick pylon that surmounts his tomb in Western Wegen des seligen Toten [Zweiwegebuch] [Leipzig Thebes has long served as a landmark to visitors ap1903]). The new publication includes 15 such in- proaching the terraced temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el scribed coffin bottoms; in addition to the inscriptions Bahari. Our impression of the style of the Theban a drawing of each "bottom" is provided. The majority school has been revolutionized by the extraordinary of the texts are also found in the Book of the Dead, wall reliefs which are now known from the recent particularly chapter 144 (cf. Grapow, "Zweiwegebuch exploration of the underground chambers of this tomb. und Totenbuch," ZAeS 46 [1910o] 77f), but the earJean Leclant has produced a definitive study of the lier versions, now available in number, are important records concerning this man. They begin in the reign of the Kushite Taharqa, pass over without mention the for understanding them. Volume VII completes the publication of the Egyp- brief occupation of Thebes when Ashurbanipal drove

tian Coffin Texts by Adriaan de Buck on behalf of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. This corpus is a model text-edition; the wealth of material it contains will have to be studied for a long time to come. It is only regrettable that de Buck himself could not see the completion of his work. Congratulations are to be extended to the Oriental Institute for the conclusion of this corpus. To have all the evidence bearing on the inscriptions on the coffins it would also be essential to have available those texts which are copies of the Pyramid Texts. Those variants of the Pyramid Texts were originally set aside and reserved for a time after the publication of the Coffin Texts proper (de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts I, xi). Now that this task is so splendidly completed one can only hope that the Oriental Institute will also find ways to make these promised copies of the Pyramid Texts available in a similar publication.

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