Carnarvon Tablet

The Carnarvon Tablet is an ancient Egyptian inscription in hieratic recording the defeat of the Hyksos by Kamose.[1]

Contents

On the reverse side of tablet no. 1 is inscribed the beginning of The Maxims of Ptahhotep.[2] On the obverse side of this tablet is a description of Kamose's victory over the Hyksos. The inscription is copied from a stela in Karnak.[3] In the inscription, Kamose exclaims (in a translation by James B. Pritchard):

Let me understand what this strength of mine is for! (One) prince is in Avaris, another is in Ethiopia, and (here) I sit associated with an Asiatic and a Negro! Each man has his slice of this Egypt, dividing up the land with me. I cannot pass by him as far as Memphis, the waters of Egypt, (but), behold, he has Hermopolis. No man can settle down, being despoiled by the imposts of the Asiatics. I will grapple with him, that I may cut open his belly! My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatics![4]

Sir Alan Gardiner provides the following alternative translation, noting the control of Upper Egypt by the Kerma culture of Nubia:

On tablet no. 2 there is a heavily damaged inscription.[6]

Discovery

It was found in 1908 by Lord Carnarvon on two wooden tablets covered stucco in fine plaster.[7] It was discovered amongst pottery debris on a ledge close to the entrance of a tomb near the mouth of the Deir el-Bahari valley.[8] Howard Carter believed this tomb to date from the Seventeenth Dynasty.[9]

Notes

  1. ↑ Alan H. Gardiner, ‘The Defeat of the Hyksos by Kamōse: The Carnarvon Tablet, No. I’, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 2/3 (Apr. - Jul., 1916), pp. 95-110.
  2. ↑ Gardiner, p. 95.
  3. ↑ James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Third Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 232.
  4. ↑ Pritchard, p. 232.
  5. ↑ Gardiner, Sir Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs, 1961, reprint Oxford University Press, 1979, p.166
  6. ↑ Gardiner, pp. 95-96.
  7. ↑ Gardiner, p. 95.
  8. ↑ Gardiner, p. 95.
  9. ↑ Gardiner, p. 95.

References

  • Alan H. Gardiner, ‘The Defeat of the Hyksos by Kamōse: The Carnarvon Tablet, No. I’, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 2/3 (Apr. - Jul., 1916), pp. 95-110.
  • Battiscombe Gunn and Alan H. Gardiner, ‘New Renderings of Egyptian Texts: II. The Expulsion of the Hyksos’, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Jan., 1918), pp. 36-56.
  • James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Third Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).

Further reading

  • The Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, Five Years' Explorations at Thebes (London: Henry Frowde Oxford University, 1912), plate xxvii, xxviii and pp. 36-37.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.