Literatur und Politik im pharaonischen und ptolemdischen Agypten Vortrage der Tagung zum Gedenken an Georges Posener 5.- 10, September 1996 in Leipzig Herausgegeben von Jan ASSMANN und Elke BLUMENTHAL Servei de Biblioteques Biblioteca tats INSTITUT FRANGAIS D’ARCHEOLOGIE ORIENTALE BIBLIOTHEQUE D’ETUDE 127 - 1999OLGA I. PAVLOVA Rhyt in the Pyramid Texts: Theological Idea or Political Reality HE IDEA of rhyt (old Coptic Abu) is one of the most obscure in egyptology. There is no unanimity concerning semantics and etymology of this term. The word rhyt is found in the texts which belong almost to all the epochs of Egyptian written language. The most ancient picture of it as vanellus cristatus dates as far back as Predynastic culture (Cairo 14238 bis). One of the latest monuments, which used in hieroglyphic the term rhyt is the Decree of Canopus. It was reproduced in this text as rm/t) in the demotic language, and as tv dv@pénov in the Greek (AEO I, 99). The use of the rhytbirds in connection with rmt, p‘t, hnmmt, mrt, pédt, inhabitants of the western Delta and the Lower Egypt, the Haunebut, the Libyans, and the Asiatics attracted the main attention of the scholars to the social, ethnic and political senses of the world rhyt', Mostly under the influence of Alan Gardiner's concept (AEO |, 98 *), the rhyt was often interpreted as "plebeians”, "common folk’, “ordinary people’, though in Wb. II, 447-448 were given more neutral meanings of the term: “Untertanen”, "Volk", "Menschen" and “feindiche Wesen” in expressions “die rhyt schlagen’, “die rhyt abwehren’. Multiple references to rhyt in noble titles (wd° p't rhyt; hnty rhyt; sr mst thyt etc.) especially in connection with mrt, the priest title Stn p‘t r rhyt (who exalted p°t over rhyt, BM 159, 1.4) testify to the subjected position of rhyt as “lower classes’. The inscriptions which tell about the gates of temples, palaces and the sky where the rhyt adore their sovereigns or from which they may be expelled led the egyptologists to the conviction that thyt were the common folk organically hostile to the king. This view was rather popular in Soviet egyptology deeply devoted to the Marxist theory of the oriental despotism. The religious contents of this term in the Egyptian religious texts have practically not been clarified by the scholars yet. Moreover, social and political approaches to the meaning See for ex. J.PIRENNE, “Le sens des mots rekhit, pat et JESHO2, 1959, p. 10-12; P. KAPLONY, “Kiebitz(e)", LA II hhenmemet.", AIPHO 2, 1934, p. 689-717; AH.GARDINER, col. 417-422; A. NiBBY, Lapwings and Libyans in Anclent AEOI, 99 +108; W. HELCK, "Die soziale Schichtung des Egypt, Oxford, 1986, p. 7-65. Agyptischen Volkes im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr, ~ 32 OLGA 1. PAVLOVA of this term in religious texts prevailed. The interpretation of the rhyt in these senses in the Pyramid Texts has become one of the starting points of the tradition to translate rhyt as "plebeians” and p't as “patricians” To my viewpoint, the adequate understanding of this term in Egyptian religious literature, particularly in the Pyramid Texts, would be useful for a more profound comprehension of the king's place in eschatological and soteriological conceptions of the Nile valley's inhabitants. This subject also is of great importance for the better understanding of relations between politics and literature in Ancient Egypt, which were studied so fruitfully by Georges Posener in his “Littérature et politique dans I'Egypte de la XII° dynastie’. In the Pyramid Texts, just as on other monuments, thyt is a collective notion: it is a unity of beings. The spelling of this word is mostly in plural ?. For clearing up the meaning of this unity it is necessary to study the context of every utterance, We must also keep in mind the peculiarity of Pyr. as purely religious texts, Religious purposes prevail here over the temporal and earthly ones. This fact seems to be obvious but it is often ignored by those scholars who suppose the other world of the Egyptians to be an absolute copy of their earthly state of being. Meanwhile it is rather probable that the terrestrial world was understood by the Egyptians as a projection (an icon) of the heavens. The earliest records of the term rhyt in Pyr. were found in the pyramid of Unas (Pyr. 230 § 233b; 307 § 483b; 320 § 516a). On the west wall of the funeral chamber of this tomb (Ute. 230) with charms against snakes and other dangerous beings rhyt are represented under the protection of Mdr: “The sky is enchanted, the earth is enchanted. Mdr who (is) behind thyt is enchanted. Enchanted will be the God-whose-head-isblind. ~ You yourself, Scorpion, will be enchanted” (Pyr. § 233b-234a, W 317-319). The utterance ends with the following words: "These are two charms (lit-knots) of Abu (zbw) which are in the mouth of Osiris, which Horus spoke (lit-knotted) over the spine (of the dead Osiris-king)” (Pyr. § 234 be). It is not clear who is {\ EX—a? Wb. IL. 189.5 evasively calls him "Substantiy (?)". K. Sethe supposed Mdr to be Re" or Osiris (2) (Komm. 1, 200) but he did not give any strong arguments to support this idea. He preferred to transliterate §\, EA =o as Mdr, supposing —p to be a characteristic determinative.’ Unfortunately, the sense of this fragment continues to be 9S.A.B. Mercer, A. Piankoff and RO. Faulkner follow this pattern. ~ $.MERCER. The Pyramid Texts 1, p. 71: A.PIANKOFF, The Pyramid of Unas, p.96; R. FAULKHER, The Pyramid Texts, p.55. G.Maspero interpreted Pyr.§ 233-234 in an absolutely different way and translaced Les inscriptions des pyramides de Saggarah, p.46 GG (Pye $4830, Ws £8766. PL: Grey (Pyr 4830.0); By (Pye. 233d, W). vas BEES (yr. $6556, T, M: 8 644e, T § 17366, M): Se (ye $516, W), var, SLR (Pye Eiger es, ane, iL iho TEER lye S6HHe, Nis FLA) Ne 760) SFP Pane aD RENE GAD an "ce gut était auparavant’, BN TBS, N) and Sa (lve § 1726627. | LeciaNT, “7. Pept I, VE P propos des $8 1726ne, 1915 et *2223ac des Textes des Pyramides", in Mélanges Mokhtar, BdE 97/2, 1985, 1-85, doc. |; ef. Aba 405), One can see the “humanize tion’ of the spelling of the term nbyt in later versions tm the pyramids of Pepi, Feplll and Neth (cf. L. SrELEERS, Traduction, index et vocabulaire des Textes des Pyramides, p.37-38). P.Kaplony interprets Imydebsh as ‘Der Ahne (der das thjeVolk beschatzt)” regarding It as one of the names of "Hauptgottes von BBuro", Kleine Beitrage ru den Inschriften der Agypulschen Fruhzett, AgAbh 15, Wiesbaden, 1966. p.185,