Egypt Exploration Society

Three Old-Kingdom Travellers to Byblos and Pwenet

Author(s): Percy E. Newberry
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Dec., 1938), pp. 182-184
Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3854788
Accessed: 12/01/2010 22:05

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 (182)

THREE OLD-KINGDOM TRAVELLERS TO BYBLOS

AND PWENET
BY PERCY E. NEWBERRY

I
IN the Sixth-Dynasty tomb of Khui at Aswan (cf. Porter-Moss, Top. Bibl., v, 235) is a short
historical inscription which has not been fully comprehended by the two scholars-Breasted
and Sethe-who have studied it. Unfortunately they had access only to J. de Morgan's
copy published in 1894 in the Cat. des Monuments, I, 157, which is so inaccurate as to be,
in Breasted's words, 'impossible to use'. Neither Breasted nor Sethe examined the original
text at Aswan, so that it is not necessary to discuss all the emendations that they made;
it will suffice to record that in 1901 Breasted1 had recognized the name of Pwenet ('Punt')
in de Morgan's blundered copy, and that two years later Sethe2 had seen that Khui's name
must be restored below that of Tjetji in this historical inscription. Sethe's restoration of
this personal name is correct, but in the 1st edn. of his work he quite unjustifiably altered de
Morgan's --j , given without the determinative Li, to c[ (with I and Iv?i
hatched) 'Kush'; this alteration has been followed by Breasted without any question-mark
in the translation of the text which he printed in his Anc. Rec., I, ? 361. In the 2nd edn.
of Urk., I, however, Sethe returned to de Morgan's reading.
When at Aswan in 1926, I myself copied the inscription and found it to be clear so far
as the names of the two places visited by the travellers are concerned. My copy runs as
follows:

FIG. 1.
'The Director of the Kiosk, Khnemhotpe, says: I went forth with my lord, the Noble

(h4ti-c),the Treasurer of the God, hu) to ({Pene) } . .4 I was brought back (?)
,,,)pY/lr\~l~,Khu Pet
in safety after visiting those countries.'
Tjetji's tomb (Porter-Moss, op. cit., 240) was excavated in the same necropolis as that
-* '
of his fellow-traveller Khui. An inscription in it records that it was he who ~

`
op. cit., 200, has J for ) and 7 1_uu 'His (Tjetji's) daughter, the
lady Haremkawes' (de Morgan has $ l'$ IUUU-15). In the tomb of Khui it is this
1PSBA 23, 238. 2
Urk., i, 140-1.
3For this arrangementof hieroglyphsin a line, cf. Urk., i, 125, line 8.
4
Urk., i, 141, in the 1st edn. reads cI D 'eleven times', but in the 2nd edn. | a
5 Other correctionsto b de Morgan'scopies of the texts in this tomb are: The vertical line
immediately in front of the seated figure of Khui begins IS and there is no second in his name.
 THREE TRAVE,LLERS TO BYBLOS AND PWENET 183

Khnemhotpe who is said to have accompanied his lord on his expedition to Pwenet, and
a lady Haremkawes, a daughter of Khui's wife Senti, is figured.

II
In the Wadi Hammamat there are two graffiti on rocks which give the name and titles
of a Tjetji who is certainly the same individual as the one named in the Aswan tombs.
The first simply gives the title and name 24 11 'the Treasurerof the God, Tjetji'. The
second, a long horizontal line of hieroglyphs with some hieratic signs interspersed, reads:

FIG. 2.

'Commission executed by the Treasurer of the King of Lower Egypt, the smr-wcti,the
Treasurer of the God, the Commander of the Army,2 the Overseer of the Hunting-Country,3
the Overseer of gold,4 the Overseer of all the Countries of the South5 . . . who sets the
terror of Horus (the King) in the foreign Countries,6 Tjetji.'
These two graffiti at Hammamat were probably engraved when Tjetji was passing
through the famous Wadi on his way to or from Pwenet, for it is well known that the
Egyptians used this overland route through the Eastern Desert to the port of the ancient
S;ww (Koser), and there embarked on ships for the southern land.
Although the two above-mentioned graffiti at Hammamat are, in my view, to be
attributed to the Tjetji of the Aswan tombs, there are others in the same Wadi which
the
possibly refer to him before he was appointed to the important office of Treasurer of
God.7 One of these is dated in the 18th year of the of I
reign Pepy (Urk., I, 938). It records
a Royal Commission that was executed by an Overseer of all the Works of the King,
together with the Treasurers of the God, Ikhi and Ihu, while among those who accompanied
these high officials was a Master Builder ( J|) Tjetji. This latter person is named again
in a graffito on a neighbouring rock (Urk., I, 959) where he is given the title of Master Builder
of the Pyramid (AJsl][). This Royal Commissionwas carriedout by the Treasurerof
the God Ikhi, one of the two Treasurers who accompanied the expedition dated in the 18th
year of Pepy I, mentioned above.
The officerburning incense before Khui is entitled fM 'Director of the Kiosk'. J. de Morgan'scopy of
the inscriptions upon the false door is full of errors; it was correctly copied and published in 1889 by
Griffithin PSBA 11, P1. 1 of his Notes on a Tour in Upper Egypt, pp. 228 ff.
I 60.
Couyat-Montet,Les Inscr. hiirogl. et hierat. du OuddiHammamat(1912), No. 64, p.
2 My copy (Fig. 2), made in 1896, gives ~, not ~ as in Couyat-Montet,op. cit., No. 35, p. 46, P1. x.
3 The hieroglyphdepicts a man holding a throwstick, but the stick is straight, not bent, as in Metjen's
tomb at Berlin (Urk., I, 6). For this geographicalname (apparently not recordedin Gauthier,Diet. geog.),
see Naville, Xlth Dyn. Templeat Deir el-Bahari, I, p. 7, and cf. de Buck, CoffinTexts, I, 282 h, 299 k.
4
My copy has if:, not P7I as in Couyat-Montet.
5 The hieraticsign after 7 appearsto me to be a form of
~, but it is not like any of the early examples
given by MoIIer, Hierat. Pal., I, No. 291. Note that in the tomb of Tjetji at Aswan, Tjetji 'brings the
, /
-Z,,:
9 'U'
(Urk., i, 141).
6 For this phrase, cf. Urk., I, 124, 132, 141: Mariette, Mlastabas,187-9.
7 Several 'King's Sons' of the Old Kingdom bore the title: cf., inter alia, Leps., Dkm., II, 18-22, and
Mariette, Mastabas,187, 189, 191.
8 =Couyat-Montet, op. cit., No. 107, p. 74. 9 =Couyat-Montet, op. cit., No. 103, p. 72.
184 PERCY E. NEWBERRY
Yet another graffito in the Wadi Hammamat (Urk., I, 941) records an expedition that
had among its members the Treasurersof the God, Ikhi and Ihu, and included the ?jo q
'Dignitary2 concerned with the papyrus-roll, Khui', the officer whose duty it was to keep
the records of the expedition. This Khui may well be the same person who afterwards
bore the title of Treasurer of the God, and was accompanied by the Director of the Kiosk,
Khnemhotpe, on his travels to foreign countries.
1
Couyat-Montet,op. cit., No. 61, p. 58.
2
That this title does not imply elevated rank is obvious from a considerationof the officialswho bore
it: see interalia, Davies, Ptahhetep,n, Pls. xxv, xxx; Gunn,Ann. Serv. 25, 251. Couyat-Montet,op. cit., 58,
errs in giving ? in place of ? in the personalname.