Djekhy & Son: Doing Business in Ancient Egypt

213 Pages·2012·3.394 MB·English

by  Koenraad Donker Van Heel

Djekhy & Son

Djekhy & Son
Doing Business in Ancient Egypt
Koenraad Donker van Heel
The American University in Cairo Press
Cairo New York
First published in 2012 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com
Copyright © 2012 by Koenraad Donker van Heel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 24398/11
ISBN 978 977 416 477 4
Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Donker van Heel, Koenraad
Djekhy & Son: Doing Business in Ancient Egypt / Koenraad Donker van Heel. —Cairo:
The American University in Cairo Press, 2012
p. cm.
ISBN 978 977 416 477 4
1. Business—Egypt—Antiques I. Title
650.0932
1 2 3 4 5 6 14 13 12 15
Designed by Adam el-Sehemy
Printed in Egypt
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Chronology xvii
1. People 1
The Family 1
Papyrus Mattha 9
2. Papyri 11
The Box of Muhammad Muhassib 11
The Archive of Djekhy & Son 16
P. Louvre E 7834 and 7838 17
Between 675 and 572 bce 21
Between 570 and 534 bce 24
The Saite Restoration 25
3. Trust: Djekhy 570–549 BCE 35
Just a Businessman from Thebes 35
Trustee 39
Demotic Temple Oaths 41
A Letter from the North 42
Working with Papyri 45
Marital Property Arrangement 46
Papyrus Insinger: A Saite Wisdom Text? 50
The Teachings of Ankhsheshonqy 52
4. Water: Djekhy 559 BCE 57
A Hostile Takeover 57
A Five-thousand-year Tradition 58
v
5. Flax: Djekhy 556–552 BCE 73
Working the Land 73
The Palette of Khonsu 77
Papyrus Rylands 9 79
Into the Flax Business 87
Earlier Work 90
Lease, Harvest, and Tax 93
A Major Deal 94
A Late Payment? 97
The Hand of God 99
6. Grain: Iturech 550–536 BCE 101
The Second Generation 101
Your Grace or Dung? 104
More than Ten Hectares of Land? 106
The Scribe of the Mat 112
7. Trust: Iturech 542–535 BCE 115
The Theban Choachytes’ Association 115
The Patron Saint 121
Egyptian New Year 127
A Complicated Deal 128
8. People: Iturech 539 BCE 133
Iturech Buys a Son 133
9. Earth: Iturech 536–534 BCE 139
A Cattle Keeper of Montu 139
The Lamp Land of Khonsu 140
Not a Real Land Lease 141
The Besmut Family 142
10. Water: Iturech 536 BCE 145
New Mummies, New Opportunities 145
11. Cattle: Djekhy 533 BCE 149
Just a Priest from Thebes 149
12. Ink 151
Hieratic and Demotic: Why Bother? 151
Notes 173
Index 177
vi Contents
Illustrations
1. Ancient Egypt xv
2. Ancient Thebes: East and west banks 4
3. The difference between abnormal hieratic and early demotic 26
4. P. Louvre E 7861 29
5. P. Louvre E 7861 verso 30
6. The double signature in P. Louvre E 7847 31
7. Signature of Iturech son of Djekhy on the back of P. Louvre
E 7832 102
8. What happens if you do not check the original papyrus 106
9. O. Cairo CG 25752 verso? 154
10. O. Turin N. 57033 recto 156
11. O. Turin N. 57038 verso 156
12. O. Turin N. 57047 recto ll. 4–7 158
13. A new reed does wonders for the scribe’s handwriting 160
14. P. Phillips ll. 2–3 (beginnings) 162
15. P. Phillips ll. 7–8 (beginnings) 162
16. P. Phillips l. 9 (middle) 163
17. O. DeM 40 recto l. 6 165
18. O. DeM 44 verso l. 3 166
19. O. DeM 45 recto ll. 15–17 167
20. Unpublished P. Leiden I 375 l. 2 170
vii

Tables
1. Basic inventory of the Djekhy & Son archive 15
2. Revised inventory of the Djekhy & Son archive 18
3. Overseers of the necropolis mentioned in the Djekhy &
Son archive 28
4. Tenants in P. BM EA 10432, in order 76
5. Harvest tax receipts 111
6. Parallel translation of two land lease contracts 130
7. Comparison of P. Louvre E 7833 and P. Louvre E 7837 132
8. Iturech’s tombs in the Theban necropolis 146
ix