Egypt Exploration Society
A New Letter to the Dead Author(s): Alan H. Gardiner Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (May, 1930), pp. 19-22 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3854325 . Accessed: 20/10/2013 07:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
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19
A NEW LETTER TO THE DEAD BY ALAN H. GARDINER With Plate x, figs. 1-3. It is a true and surprising fact that new types of Egyptian antiquities, like troubles, never come singly; and an annoying variation of this fact is that never does an Egyptologist publish a book on any topic without some fresh piece of relevant material coming to his knowledge too late for inclusion. The subject of the present article is a hitherto unknown and particularly fine "letter to the dead" belonging to the Haskell Oriental Museum in Chicago, where it bears the number 13945. Permission to publish this was most kindly given to me by Professor Breasted, who also provided the excellent photographs reproduced in Plate x. Like several of the other letters of the same category published by Professor Sethe and myself in our joint work Egyptian Letters to the Dead (London, Egypt Exploration Society, 1928) the new example is inscribed in bold and typical hieratic of the First Intermediate Period (between the Sixth and Eleventh Dynasties) on a vessel of red pottery; but contrary to custom, that vessel is here a jarstand without bottom, and with a lip at the top. The dimensions are: height 23 cm., diameter at top 9 cm., diameter at bottom 12*5 cm. The eight vertical columns of hieratic, with a short additional column (8a) between cols. 6 and 7, are so clearly legible in the Plate that no hand-facsimile is needful. There are one or two palaeographic difficulties, but on the whole the decipherment is plain sailing. The hand closely resembles that of the Kaw bowl (op. cit., Pls. 2, 3). The text runs as follows:
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