Speaker Details

Dr Amanda-Alice  Maravelia
Hellenic Institute of Egyptology

Presentation Abstract:

Some Astronomical & Cosmographic Elements in the Corpus of the Mining Inscriptions of Wadi ‘el-Houdi

No matter if a mining expedition was intended to cover the Northern Deserts, the Sinai Peninsula or the Eastern Deserts, all of these aforementioned areas were highly rich in minerals and (semi-)precious stones, hence their significance in the broader Pharaonic Project of Mining was great.

Out of the successful results of these difficult but usually very prosperous undertakings there would be financial benefits for the King and the State, proving the royal function of the former as a master of actions (nb jrt-xt) and thus contributing to the preservation and enforcement of the social and political order as a distant echo of the primeval cosmic harmony (M3ct). The Corpus of the amethyst mining inscriptions of Wadi ‘el-Houdi has been published in a complete form by Dr. Ashraf Sadek [SADEK, 1980]. Some of these very inscriptions show astronomical and cosmographic (or cosmovisional) terms, the presence of which is going to be discussed in the present paper. As we have noticed in our previous articles [e.g.: MARAVELIA, 2004, 2006, & c.] the use of astronomical and/or cosmovisional terms in various non-astronomical texts is common, but it was meant under a purely non-scientific or non-astronomical context, that is to express everyday notions that refer to the periodicity of heavenly phenomena connected to calendrical purposes, religious feasts and other cosmo-geographical notions. The term wcrt (= district) for instance is found in the mining inscriptions (3 times), but also in the PT (3 times) and in the CT (50 times) with the meaning of the northern polar celestial area. On the other hand, terms like 3bd, hrw, jtn, rnpt, 3xt, and the like are also met in the amethyst mining inscriptions.

In our contribution we are going to examine in detail all these, presenting important conclusions.