Famine Stela
The Famine Stela is an
Description
The Famine Stela was inscribed into a natural granite block whose surface was cut into the rectangular shape of a
The inscription
The story told on the stela is set in the 18th year of the reign of Djoser.
The text describes how the king is upset and worried as the land has been in the grip of a drought and famine for seven years, during which time the Nile has not flooded the farmlands.
The text also describes how the Egyptians are suffering as a result of the drought and that they are desperate and breaking the laws of the land.
Djoser asks the priest staff under the supervision of high lector priest Imhotep for help. The king wants to know where the god of the Nile, Hapi, is born, and which god resides at this place.
Imhotep decides to investigate the archives of the temple
The king is pleased with the news and issues a
Dating of the inscription
Since the initial translation and examination by French Egyptologist Paul Barguet in 1953, the Famine Stela has been of great interest to historians and Egyptologists. The language and layout used in the inscription suggests that the work can be dated to the Ptolemaic period, perhaps during the reign of king Ptolemy V (205 – 180 BC). Egyptologists such as Miriam Lichtheim and Werner Vycichl suggest that the local priests of Khnum created the text. The various religious groups in Egypt during Ptolemaic Dynasty jostled for power and influence, so the story of the Famine Stela could have been used as a means to legitimise the power of Khnum's priests over the region of Elephantine.[2][1][3][4]
At the time of the first translation of the stela, it was thought that the story of a seven-year-famine was connected to the
The Famine Stela is one of only three known inscriptions that connect the cartouche name Djeser (“lordly”) with the serekh name Netjerikhet (“divine body”) of king Djoser in one word. Therefore, it provides useful evidence for Egyptologists and historians who are involved in reconstructing the royal chronology of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.[3][4]
References
- ^ ISBN 0-520-24844-9, page 94-100.
- ^ a b c P. Barguet: La stèle de la famine à Séhel. Institut français d´archaéologie orientale - Bibliothéque d´étude Paris, volume 34. Cairo 1953
- ^ ISBN 90-04-10619-7, page 352–356.
- ^ ISBN 90-04-13245-7, page 13–19.
- ^ Joachim Friedrich Quack, "Ein ägyptisches Handbuch des Tempels und seine griechische Übersetzung," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik; 119 (1997), pp. 297–300.
- ^ Cyrus H. Gordon, "Before the Bible: The common background of Greek and Hebrew civilization," Orientalia, 22 (1953), pp. 79–81.
- ISBN 0-87820-424-5, page 58 & 59.