Famine stele

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The famine stele on the island of Sehelnarti

The famine stele is a rock inscription on the Nile island of Sehel in the area of ​​the 1st cataract on the southern border of ancient Egypt .

The inscription was discovered by Charles Edwin Wilbour in 1889 . A scene above the inscription shows King ( Pharaoh ) Djoser making an offering to the local deities of Elephantine , Khnum , Satet and Anuket . The vocabulary, grammar and orthography of the hieroglyphic inscription suggest that it was dated to the Ptolemaic period .

The fictional plot of the inscription dates to the eighteenth year of the reign of Djoser ( 3rd dynasty ). The text reports how Djoser donated the Dodecaschoinos area in Lower Nubia to the god Khnum of Elephantine to end a seven-year famine caused by the absence of the Nile flood. His official Imhotep had previously researched the ancient scriptures and found that the Nile rises near Elephantine and is therefore ruled by Khnum.

A connection between the seven-year famine mentioned on this stele and the official Imhotep is also given by a long inscription in Saqqara . According to tradition, Imhotep was the builder of the step pyramid and the building complex of Saqqara. An inscription found there shows a large number of starving people, which is believed to be related to the famine.

The Nile flood height of " 28 cubits " indicated on the famine stele , in comparison to the data for the Nile flood heights in Elephantine in the area of ​​the Satis temple , corresponds in the region from Elephantine to Sehel to a height of about 92.9 meters above sea ​​level and is not in any Relationship of the otherwise established and traditional values. This information must therefore come from sources that are not directly related to actually measured levels.

The inscription was probably created in Ptolemaic times to underpin claims of the priesthood of the Khnum temple of Elephantine on the proceeds from the dodecaschoinos. The background was perhaps the growing importance of the temple of the goddess Isis of Philae south of Elephantine in Ptolemaic times. In fact, Ptolemy II and his successors donated the Dodekachoinos to the Temple of Isis at Philae.

Another inscription from the New Kingdom , probably from the reign of Ramses III. which was also found on Elephantine, seems to refer to this donation as well. However, it is only preserved in fragments. Here we are talking about the donation of a field to a god, the father of gods and goddesses . This god is very likely to be Khnum.

The inscription is especially known for its references to the Joseph story .

literature

  • Paul Barguet: La stèle de la famine, à Sehel (= Bibliotheque d'Étude. Vol. 34). Cairo 1953.
  • Francis Amadeus Karl Beyer: An Aremic loan word for "cataract" in the description of Elephantines on the famine stele and considerations for dating the same based on the naming of a Meroitic functionary . In: Gábor Takács: Egyptian and Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic) Studies: In memoriam Werner Vycichl . Brill, Leiden 2004, ISBN 90-04-13245-7 , pp. 13-32.
  • Gertrud Dietze: Philae and the Dodekachoinos in Ptolemaic times. In: Ancient Society. No. 25, 1994, pp. 94-97.
  • Miriam Lichtheim : Ancient Egyptian literature: a book of readings. Volume III: The late period. University of California Press, Berkeley / London a. a. 1980, ISBN 978-0-520-03882-0 , pp. 94-103.
  • William Kelly Simpson (Ed.): The literature of Ancient Egypt: an anthology of stories, instructions, stelae, autobiographies, and poetry. 3rd edition, Yale University Press, New Haven CONN / London 2003, ISBN 978-0-300-09920-1 , pp. 386-391.
  • Karola Zibelius: Famine stele. In: Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto, Wolfhart Westendorf: Lexicon of Egyptology. Volume III: Horhekenu - Megeb. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1980, ISBN 978-3-447-02100-5 , column 84.
  • Carsten Peust: famine stele . In: Gernot Wilhelm , Bernd Jankowski (Ed.): Texts from the environment of the Old Testament . New series, volume 1: Texts on legal and economic life. Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, Gütersloh 2004, ISBN 3-579-05289-6 , pp. 208-217 (translation of the text).

Web links

Commons : Famine Stele  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. Lennart Möller: The Exodus Files. New discoveries about the exodus from Egypt . inner cube, Düsseldorf 2010, ISBN 978-3-942540-00-1 , pp. 93-95
  2. ↑ Stephan Seidlmayer : Historic and modern Nile stands. Investigations into the level readings of the Nile from the early days to the present . Achet, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-9803730-8-8 , p. 101.
  3. ↑ Martin Bommas: The temple of Khnum of the 18th Dyn. On Elephantine. Dissertation, University of Heidelberg 2000 ( full text PDF file ).

Coordinates: 24 ° 3 ′ 0 ″  N , 32 ° 52 ′ 0 ″  E