Annual tablets
Annual tablets (or annals tablets ) are ancient Egyptian labels made of ivory or wood that were attached to stone oil vessels and are only attested to from the 1st dynasty . In addition to hieroglyphic information on the contents and the origin of the vessels and an occasional date of the year , they name the reigning king and are therefore important inscriptions for the Egyptian chronology .
The tablets were mainly used to date the goods that were important for the oil tax until the time of King Wadji . Since King Djer , the officials responsible for the biennial tax collection have been named. Simple oil vessels made of clay could also be labeled directly; from the 2nd dynasty , the labels were then completely replaced by direct labeling of the vessels.
Tablets from the early 1st dynasty did not yet contain any dates, but instead various information on religious festivals, Nile stands and certain historical events. Labels that only contained a festive note exist not only for oil but also for other products such as wine .
literature
- Wolfgang Helck : Investigations on the thinite period (= Egyptological treatises. Vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4 , pp. 168-175.
- Peter Kaplony : Annual tablets. In: Wolfgang Helck (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Ägyptologie (LÄ). Volume III, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1980, ISBN 3-447-02100-4 , Sp. 237-238.
Web links
- Francesco Raffaele: Corpus of Ist Dynasty ivory and wooden labels , Early Dynastic Egypt (English)