The Ramesseum Papyri
Project leader: Richard B.
Parkinson
Department: Ancient Egypt and Sudan
Project start: 2005
Other British Museum staff: Bridget Leach
Other departments: Coins and Medals,
Conservation and Scientific Research
External
partners:
Oriental Faculty, Oxford University
The Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin
Seminar for Egyptology and Coptology, University of
Goettingen
CNRS, Ramesseum project
Description:
The Ramesseum papyri have been described as the ‘most precious
single find of papyri’ from pharaonic Egypt. They were discovered
by Flinders Petrie in 1895-6 in a plundered thirteenth Dynasty
shaft-tomb (c. 1700 BC) that was part of a Middle Kingdom cemetery
at Luxor, later covered by the funerary temple of Ramses II (the
Ramesseum). The papyrus texts comprise the archive of the
tomb-owner, who was probably a priest. The majority of the papyri
(136 items) are now held in the British Museum, while several
others reside in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. The texts span a wide
range of genres and dates, and include the best known Egyptian
literary work, The Tale of Sinuhe. Most are liturgical
texts or texts of healing that may reflect the priest’s
professional activities and the collection was probably built up
from various sources over three generations. The priest’s magical
equipment which was found with the papyri is now in Cambridge and
Manchester.
The papyri are
very fragmentary and fragile and because of this (together with the
problematic nature of the original editions in the 1950s), they
have been largely unstudied as a group. Inspired by the recent work
of the French-Egyptian (CNRS) team under Mme Nelson who are
re-excavating the Middle Kingdom cemetery, this Museum project is
working towards a full re-evaluation and publication of the find,
drawing on a range of international colleagues. The Museum’s role
is largely that of commissioning, enabling and coordinating the
necessary research from specialists in various institutions to
enable a better understanding of this unique ancient library.
Objectives:
The project will further the publication of
the Museum’s collections and provide new editions and translations
of the archive. It will re-establish these texts within their
associated material culture, social practices, archaeological
contexts and landscapes, while aiming to highlight the museological
issues concerning the analysis and display of texts, exploring both
ancient and modern receptions of Ancient Egyptian writings. The
find allows a unique social contextualisation of manuscripts and a
detailed investigation of who would read such texts and why they
were copied and transmitted. The project will also investigate the
archive from a comparative literature perspective and explore the
possibility of ‘subaltern studies’ for Ancient Egypt with such
textual data. In association with University departments, it will
assist in developing an integrated model for Ancient Egyptian
philology for publication and teaching.
Following a
complete new digital photographic record of all the papyri,
projected publications will include a monograph on the history of
two of the texts from the time of their composition through to
their modern reception by R. Parkinson. This establishes the
theoretical and wider implications of the project. Proposed further
publications include the first full publication
of finds from the tomb with Janine Bourriau (Cambridge); new
editions of the magical texts as a doctoral thesis by Pierre Meyrat
(Geneva),under Prof. Fischer-Elfert, Leipzig; a
commentary on one of the literary texts, and new editions of
the literary papyri by R. Parkinson (P. Berlin 10499 [with Frank
Feder, Berlin], EA 10754-5). Related classes are being taught in
Oxford and Goettingen.
One of the texts, The Tale of Sinuhe, is being
performed as part of the Ledbury Poetry Festival in
July 2009.
Publications:
R. B. Parkinson, Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry: Amon g
Other Histories (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell 2009)
(http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405125470.html)
R. B. Parkinson, ‘The History of a Poem: Middle Kingdom Literary
Manuscripts and Their Reception’ in G. Burkard et al. (ed.),
Kon-Texte: Akten des Symposiums “Spurensuche – Altägypten im
Spiegel seiner Texte” München 2. bis 4. Mai 2003 (ÄAT 2004),
pp. 51-63
R. B. Parkinson, ‘Among the Temples of
Millions of Years’, in E. MacTavish, Made in
Egypt (Canterbury: E.L.C. MacTavish, 2005), pp. 59-62
B. Leach, ‘A Conservation History of the Ramesseum
Papyri’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 92 (2007),
pp. 1-16
Images (from top):
- Papyrus conservator Bridget Leach examining fragments of the
medical text of P. Ramesseum 3.
- P. Ramesseum B, a dramatic liturgy in honour of King Senwosret
I.
- The Ramesseum temple, showing the Middle Kingdom cemetery to
the right of the enclosure. The tomb with the papyri was under the
mud-brick magazines at the top corner of the enclosure.