Ptahshepses (official)

Ptahshepses in hieroglyphics
Surname	Ptahschepses (Ptah schepses; perhaps to read Schepses Ptah) Ptḥ špss Ptah is glorious
1st title	Wer-cherep-hemut Wr-ḫrp-ḥmwt Greatest of the master craftsmen

Ptahschepses (also Ptah-schepses ) is the name of an ancient Egyptian official and high priest of the Ptah of the Old Kingdom , who worked under the kings Schepseskaf ( 4th dynasty ), Userkaf , Sahure , Neferirkare , Sheepseskare , Neferefre and Niuserre (all 5th dynasty ) was.

supporting documents

Sham door of Ptahsheps

Ptahshepses name appears on an ornate false door on which his titles are listed. The inscriptions show that under King Userkaf he married his eldest daughter, Chamaat .

Term of office

Ptahschepses held several high offices and functional titles, including the title of "greatest of the master craftsmen" as high priest of Ptah. He was also a priest at the sun temples of Userkaf, Neferirkare and Niuserre. The Egyptologist Charles Maystre thinks it is conceivable that Ptahschepses was an official colleague of the priest Setju . It is believed that Ptahshepses died under Niusere. At that time he must have been over 60 years old. Osiris , the god of the dead, is mentioned on his false door , who otherwise appears only very rarely on monuments in the 5th Dynasty. The dating of Ptahshepses therefore plays an important role in the question of when Osiris is first mentioned on a monument. Mark Smith points out that Ptahshepses may very well have died under a successor to Niuserre.

dig

Ptahshepses grave is in Saqqara and was excavated by Auguste Mariette . It is about a 38 × 21 m large, massive building. On the east side is the entrance to a small chapel, which consists of only one room. There was also a serdab here . The false door is now in the British Museum in London . A smaller fragment is in the Oriental Institute Museum (Inv. No. 11084) in Chicago .

See also

• Ancient Egyptian official and function titles

literature

• Michel Baud : Famille royale et pouvoir sous l'Ancien Empire égyptien. Tome 2 (= Bibliothèque d'Étude. Volume 126/2). Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Cairo 1999, ISBN 2-7247-0250-6 , pp. 452–454 ( PDF; 16.7 MB ).
• James Henry Breasted : Ancient Records of Egypt. Historical Documents from the earliest Times to the Persian conquest. Volume 1: The first to the seventeenth dynasties. (= Ancient Records. Ser. 2, Vol. 1). University of Chicago Press et al., Chicago IL et al. 1906.
• Auguste Edouard Mariette : Les Mastabas de l'Ancien Empire. Fragment du dernier ouvrage. Publié d'apres le manuscrit de l'auteur par Gaston Maspero . Vieweg, Paris 1889, pp. 110-114. (on-line)
• Charles Maystre: Les grands prêtres de Ptah de Memphis. (= Orbis biblicus et orientalis. 113). Universitäts-Verlag et al., Freiburg et al. 1992, ISBN 3-7278-0794-6 .
• Ancient Egyptian documents. Department 1: Kurt Heinrich Sethe : Documents of the Old Kingdom. Issue 1, Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1903.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ so: Hermann Ranke : The Egyptian personal names. Volume 1: Directory of Names. Augustin, Glückstadt 1935, p. 326, no.19.
2. ^ Peter F. Dorman: The Biographical Inscription of Ptahshepses from Saqqaraː A Newly identified fragment. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. Volume 88, 2002, p. 101.
3. ↑ Mark Smith: Following Osiris, Perspectives on the Osirian Afterlife from Four Millennia. Oxford 2017, ISBN 978-0-19-958222-8 , pp. 118-120.
4. ↑ Auguste Mariette , Gaston Maspero : Les mastabas de l'Ancien Empire: Fragment du dernier ouvrage de A. Mariette, publié d'après le manuscrit de l'auteur. F. Vieweg, Paris 1889, 110-114
5. ^ Peter F. Dorman: The Biographical Inscription of Ptahshepses from Saqqaraː A Newly identified fragment. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. Volume 88, 2002, pp. 95-101.