Un oursin pour le dieu. L'oursin de Tjanefer (Turin Suppl. 2761)
(2017) Rivista del Museo Egizio — Vol. 1, p. 1-12 (2017)
Files
ChristinaKarlshausenThierryDePutter.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 1.91 MB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- While digging in the temple of Heliopolis, Ernesto Schiaparelli found a fossilized sea urchin deposited as an offering by the god’s father Tjanefer. The archaeological context suggests that the find is of the Ramesside period or later. Quite uncommonly, the urchin was inscribed with a short text naming Tjanefer and the place where the fossil had been found: “south of ik.” Who was Tjanefer? Where did he collect this fossil? Why did he present it to the god? These are the questions we investigate in this paper. The age of the offering cannot be inferred from the identity of the priest, who lived either in the Ramesside period or later, in the Twenty- Sixth or Thirtieth Dynasty. The echinoid is an Echinolampas africanus, a typical fossil of the mid-Eocene Lutetian strata that constitute the Gebel Moqattam, south of the Heliopolis temple. In the Thirtieth Dynasty and the Ptolemaic period, “ik” referred to a hilly place, located west of the Gebel Ahmar, where the enemies of Re were defeated. It is likely that Tjanefer was aware of this story and deliberately chose this fossil echinoid found close to “ik” as a testimony of his own devotion to the sun-god.
- Affiliations
Citations
Karlshausen, C., & De Putter, T. (2017). Un oursin pour le dieu. L’oursin de Tjanefer (Turin Suppl. 2761). Rivista del Museo Egizio, 1, 1-12. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/177182 (Original work published 2017)