Demotic

J. Pope, "The Historicity of Pediese, Son of Ankhsheshonq," Revue d'Égyptologie 66 (2015), 199-225 and pls. XVIII-XXV. Nous publions ici la statue Stockholm NME 81 qui appartenait à un homme nommé Padiaset, fils d'Ânkhchechonq, prêtre de Sobek, d'Anubis et d'Hathor, Chef des prêtres d'Hérichef et Grand de Netjeret. L'inscription de cette statue a souvent été commentée en lien avec le papyrus Rylands IX, mais son interprétation reposait sur une traduction préliminaire sans examen de la statue. Le présent article propose une nouvelle traduction, accompagnée de photographies et d'un apparat critique, et une datation sur la base de l'analyse stylistique de la statue. À la lumière de ces nouveaux éléments, nous sommes amenés à réévaluer la pertinence du lien avec le papyrus mentionnée ci-dessus.

Publication of Stockholm statue NME 81. It belonged to a man named Pediese, son of Ankhsheshonq, who was a Priest of Sobek, Anubis, and Hathor, an Overseer of the Priests of Heryshef, and a Grandee in Netjeret. The statue has frequently been discussed in relation to Papyrus Rylands IX, but these interpretations have relied upon a preliminary translation without photographs or stylistic analysis. A new translation is presented here with photographs and full annotation, and the date of the inscription is evaluated through stylistic analysis of the statue. In light of these new elements, the statue's relevance to Papyrus Rylands IX is reassessed.

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The 2200+ selected references, constituting the core of the literature, are organised according to an elaborate classification for immediate identification of subject matter (The book may be ordered from http://saisbooks.co.uk) :

000 - General and Introductory
          001 - Sign lists and dictionaries
          002 - Introductory publications and general syntheses
          003 - Literature
          004 - Cartouches
005 - Proto-Egyptian [Palaeography]
          006 - Sign lists
          007 - Inscriptions
                      0071 - Seals
                      0072 - Pottery inscriptions [not sealed]
010 - Old Egyptian [Old Kingdom]
          011 - Old Egyptian Signs and Dictionaries
          012 - Old Egyptian Grammars
          013 - Old Egyptian Texts
020 - Middle Egyptian [Middle Kingdom]
          021 - Middle Egyptian Signs and Dictionaries
          022 - Middle Egyptian Grammars
          023 - Middle Egyptian Texts
030 - Late Egyptian [New Kingdom]
          031 - Late Egyptian Signs and Dictionaries
          032 - Late Egyptian Grammars
          033 - Late Egyptian Texts
050 - Ptolemaic
          051 - Ptolemaic Signs and Dictionaries
          052 - Ptolemaic Grammars
          053 - Ptolemaic Texts
060 - Coptic
          041 - Coptic Signs and Dictionaries
          042 - Coptic Grammars
          043 - Coptic Texts
          044 - Coptic and Ancient Egyptian

-------------- Parallel scripts

070 - Hieratic [since Dyn 1 or earlier]
          071 - Hieratic Signs and Dictionaries
          072 - Hieratic Grammars
          073 - Hieratic Texts
                      0731 - Early Hieratic texts
                      0732 - Middle Hieratic texts
                      0733 - New Kingdom Hieratic texts
                      0733 - Later Hieratic texts
080 - Demotic
          081 - Demotic Signs and Dictionaries
          082 - Demotic Grammars
          083 - Demotic Texts
                      0831 - Early Demotic texts
                      0832 - Middle Demotic texts
                      0833 - Late (Roman) Demotic texts

----Cross periods by genre and all types of supports (papyrus, leather, wood, etc..) ----

090 - Poetic texts (all periods and genre)
          091 - Songs
          092 - Music
100 - Philosophical texts (Teachings, morals, etc...)
          101 - Scientific (general and not belonging to below)
          102 - Astronomical & Astrological
          103 - Botanical & Agricultural
          104 - Medical
          105 - Historical and self laudatory/propaganda
                      1051 - Scarabs
110 - Legal & Administrative
                      1101 - Ostraca (general)
          111 - Taxation
          112 - Marriage
          113 - Birth & Death
          114 - Land tenure and acts of property
          115 - Trade and export/imports
          116 - Mummy labels and equivalent
          117 - Titles
120 - Religious
          121 - Daily Ritual
          122 - Votive inscriptions
          123 - Pyramid Texts
          124 - Coffin/Sarcophagus Texts
          125 - Book of Coming Forth (Book of the Dead) and related
          126 - Passage to the Netherworld
                      1261 - Shawabtis
          127 - Cryptic texts
          128 - Hymns and prayers
          129 - Magical texts
130 - Specific subjects (cross periods, including lexicography, onomastics)
          131 - Verb
          132 - Noun
          133 - Adjective
          134 - Other specific grammatical forms
          135 - Vocalization

"The First Tale of Setne Khaemwas" 4.35-4.36 has most often been understood to mean that Setne returned to the tomb of Naneferkaptah "With a forked stick in his hand and a brazier of fire on his head," as a gesture of penance for having stolen the Magic Book of Thoth. It is here argued that the proper translation is "with a spike and staff in his hand, and a fiery brazier above his head," and that this is a description of an apotropaic ritual designed to protect Setne from the magical power of the ghosts of Naneferkaptah and his wife Ihweret

Priests of the local Egyptian elite had access to higher posts in the administration or army and that Egyptian scribes, retrained as Greek notaries or village scribes, were enrolled into the social class of the Persians at Pathyris. These are, though, exceptional examples of social mobility, involving only a few inhabitants of the village who happen to belong to the local Egyptian elite.
After the Upper-Egyptian revolts, the king set up new camps in the South. Pathyris received a camp shortly before 161 BC. Local Egyptians who in the past were herdsmen and at times fulfilled military service as ‘man of Syene’ or similar, thus continuing an Upper-Egyptian tradition, were inscribed in the camps as soldier serving-for-pay and were enrolled into the social class of Persians, an intermediary class of second-degree Greeks, probably having some legal and fiscal privileges. Such enrolment lead to a certain degree of Hellenization and was hereditary: their sons and daughters became Persians.
In some periods, especially after 116 BC, several Persian soldiers serving for pay were unemployed and thus not paid by the government. Such Persians were labeled  ‘Persians of the epigone’ in Greek texts, ‘Greeks born in Egypt (among the children of the soldiers)’ in Demotic documents. The Persians of the epigone constituted a form of reserve troop from which soldiers serving for pay could be recruited for particular campaigns, for instance, during the Judean-Syrian-Egyptian conflict in 103-101 BC. When recruited, the Persians of the reserve (epigone) temporarily became Persian soldiers serving for pay, but could afterwards revert to the status of Persian of the reserve (epigone). Some Persians of the epigone probably remained non-active soldiers for their entire lives. Several made a living as herdsmen.
The enrolment of these locals into the social class of Persians involves social mobility on a much larger scale than was previously understood: not only the Egyptian elite could enjoy upward mobility. There are hardly any common Egyptians at Pathyris: the inhabitants are either priests or Persians. The Ptolemaic king thus aimed at mobilizing the Egyptian people for his cause, undoubtedly in order to avoid new native rebellions in the South.

Traditionally, it has been assumed that the Greek alphabetic numerals were independently invented in the sixth century BC. However, the author finds a remarkable structural similarity between this system and the Egyptian demotic numerals. He proposes that trade between Asia Minor and Egypt provided the context in which the Greek numerals were adopted from Egyptian models.

The entire senet episode in the Tale of Setne Khamwas appears to be a well-crafted allegory of a deeper religious mystery, i.e., senet as a means of communication between the living and the dead, as well as the realization of the netherworld process of resurrection through the gaming medium. The episode functions on two levels: 1) what is obvious to the general reader with only an entertaining character apparent; 2) what appears as a subtext to the more knowledgeable reader, in which the episode functions as a literary adaptation of the ancient senet gaming ritual. Those Egyptians who were aware of the senet game's religious character would have recognized in it the specific instrument by which Setne becomes like Re and acts in the manner of the sun god.

In this paper, the author discusses the spelling and accentual conventions used by Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) in many of his manuscripts (including those of his major literary works) as they first appeared in the monumental edition of the Odyssey (Odyseia) of 1938. From the 1950s onwards, these conventions have been concealed from the readers due to the homogeneity imposed on the editions of Kazantzakis’ Complete Works by their editor, Emmanuel Kasdaglis (1924-1998), with Kazantzakis’ consent. It is argued that despite the fact that Kazantzakis did grant his permission for the overall abolishment of his simplified spelling and accentual system (monotonic) in these editions, he himself continued using them in all his manuscripts (correspondence, notes, literary works, etc.) until his death in 1957. Given this ‘authorial statement’, an attempt is made to trace the origin and first uses of Kazantzakis’ conventions. It is demonstrated that Kazantzakis’ turn from polytonic to monotonic and a simplified orthography dates in 1921-1922 and is suggested that the origins of this turn must be looked for in the discussions on spelling and accentual reform that appeared in the short-lived but important demoticist journal Logos of Constantinople (1918-1922). More specifically, the paper stresses the importance of an article by Elisaios Gianidis (1865-1942) published in the May-June 1921 issue of Logos, which advocated a reformed system containing most of the features that Kazantzakis adopted a little later. The paper concludes with the editorial options available today for the works of Nikos Kazantzakis and suggests that the practices of the 1950s editions should be abandoned for the benefit of both the author and the readers.

With contributions from noted authorities in the field, A Companion to Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt offers a comprehensive resource that covers almost 1000 years of Egyptian history, starting with the liberation of Egypt from Persian rule by Alexander the Great in 332 BC and ending in AD 642, when Arab rule started in the Nile country.

The Companion takes a largely sociological perspective and includes a section on life portraits at the end of each part. The theme of identity in a multicultural environment and a chapter on the quality of life of Egypt's inhabitants clearly illustrate this objective. The authors put the emphasis on the changes that occurred in the Greco-Roman and Late Antique periods, as illustrated by such topics as: Traditional religious life challenged; Governing a country with a past: between tradition and innovation; and Creative minds in theory and praxis. This important resource:
- Discusses how Egypt became part of a globalizing world in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times
- Explores notable innovations by the Ptolemies and Romans
- Puts the focus on the longue durée developments
- Offers a thematic and multidisciplinary approach to the subject, bringing together scholars of different disciplines
- Contains life portraits in which various aspects and themes of people’s daily life in Egypt are discussed

Written for academics and students of the Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt period, this Companion offers a guide that is useful for students in the areas of Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and New Testament studies.

This important volume contains 175 documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan), which yielded hundreds of papyri in hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Coptic, spanning a period of 3,000 years. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines, such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language, and onomastics. The volume includes seven sections, each containing carefully translated and extensively annotated documents of one language group. Excellent cross-referencing allows the user to trace forerunners and successors. Each section is preceded by an introduction; the Aramaic, Demotic, and Greek sections are concluded with a prosopography. The book closes with a select topical index.

Praise for the first edition
“This is a groundbreaking work, intensely focused in its conception, comprehensive in scope, a priceless resource for students of law, society, and history. I wish I had written it.”
— Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski, Professeur à la Sorbonne-Université de Paris-I and author of Droit et justice dans le monde grec et hellénistique (2011) and The Jews of Egypt (1997)

“This publication, unique in its conception, provides the English reader with a window into three thousand years of continuity and change in the archival documents of a major Ancient Near Eastern site. It is an essential resource for all those interested in the social, political, religious, legal, or linguistic history of Upper Egypt and those who lived in it and ruled it from earliest historical times up to the rise of Islam.”
— Stephen A. Kaufman, Professor of Bible and Cognate Literature, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio; Editor-in-chief, the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project

Praise for the second revised edition
“There have been many books and articles about the ancient Jewish community of Elephantine in Egypt, first discovered more than a century and a half ago. But this book is unique: the only one to set that community within the sources for Elephantine and its environs over three millennia of Near Eastern history, from the Egyptian Old Kingdom to the early Islamic period. Porten’s book thus opens up Elephantine as a laboratory for studying long-term historical continuity and change in many dimensions. The challenge here is greatly enhanced by the meticulous presentation of the diverse textual sources for Elephantine, carried out by Porten and his associates; accompanying the careful translations are concise and yet comprehensive introductions to the texts and their historical contexts, detailed philological notes, and indices to the persons and topics mentioned. For the present new edition, the whole has been brought up to date, reconsidering issues of translation and historical background, and supplying missing textual elements. One can only congratulate Bezalel Porten for a major achievement: giving new life and accessibility to a volume that will remain an essential reference on Elephantine and much more in the ancient and classical history of the Near East.”
— Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, Harvard University.

This paper presents the edition of three new horoscopes from Athribis in Upper Egypt (O. Athribis 17-36-5/1741), and the reedition of ANAsh.Mus.D.O.633, identified as part of the same group of horoscopes originating from Athribis. The first three horoscopes date to the reign of Augustus (27, 21, and 6 BCE), and the Ashmolean text to year 8 of Cleopatra, 44 BCE. The Athribis group constitutes the earliest attestation of horoscopes from Egypt. They include the date of birth, name, and origin of the native, entries for the two luminaries and the planets, and the position of the four cardines and Places. Relevant features not commonly present in other Demotic horoscopes are a series of lunar dates following the 25-year cycle of P. Rylands IV 589, the complete listing of the Places, Term rulers in the longitudes, and a short phrase that may be connected to the calculation of the length of life.

Farmland was allotted to Egyptian soldiers (Hdt. 2.168; Fischer-Bovet, "Egyptian Warriors") and also to foreign mercenaries as noted by Herodotus (2.154; see further Austin, Greece and Egypt in the Archaic Age, 15-22 and Agut-Labordère, "Plus que des mercenaires!") and implied by the usufruct of land by the Jewish garrison at Elephantine (Porten, Archives from Elephantine, passim; see also Kaplan, "Cross-Cultural Contacts among Mercenary Communities"). Although some of this land fell under the administrative purview of temples (as per the soldiers listed as cultivators in P.Reinhardt) this represents another way in which the pharaoh could exploit Egypt's agricultural wealth. 11 Meeks, "Les donations aux temples dans l' Égypte".

The paper aims to collect and discuss evidence for astrologers in Egyptian temples during the Graeco-Roman period from several kinds of data, including astrological and astronomical texts, inscriptions, and documentary sources. Material evidence is also considered. It attempts to answer questions of who could act as an astrologer and what knowledge was required to become one. In addition, the paper discusses the position of astrologers in the temple hierarchy and other areas of knowledge in which astrologers were involved.

The Egyptian priest Kalasiris of Heliodoros’ Aithiopika is one of the most complex characters in the ancient Greek novels. While many studies have been devoted to him from the fields of classics and ancient philosophy, no in-depth analysis of Kalasiris has been pursued from the field of Egyptology so far. In this paper I analyze two passages of the Aithiopika: Kalasiris’ description of the two types of Egyptian wisdom in 3.16.3–4, and the necromantic ritual of the old woman of Bessa in 6.14–15. I compare the presentation of Egyptian magic and necromancy in these passages with two descriptions of necromancy in Demotic literature: the reanimations of the scribe of the divine book in the beginning of the Fight for the Armor of Inaros, and of the wife and son of Naneferkaptah in Setne I. By means of this comparison I demonstrate that the difference in Kalasiris’ dichotomy between the two types of Egyptian wisdom does not reside in the magical practices themselves, but in the degree of initiation of their practitioners and the nature of their motivations.

Nanaya is a latecomer … she appears from nowhere to become the greatest Mesopotamian goddess of all times-greater than the Sumerian Ninhursaga, the highest lady of the Sumerian pantheon, more enduring than even the Semitic goddess par excellence, Ištar, who was worshipped from one end of the Near East to the other … Despite this fame, she remains a lady of mystery.

P. Monts.Roca inv. 314 contains the only Demotic monthly almanac attested so far. It preserves a section of two columns that record the movement of the planets for two consecutive years (Venus and a hint of Mercury in column 1, and Jupiter and Mars in column 2), indicating month, day, zodiac sign, longitude in degrees and minutes, and synodic phenomena if present. From the analysis of the information recorded I propose a dating of the data to the years 71–73 CE. The table contains the first evidence for the designation of synodic phenomena in Demotic, and allows for the proposal of an interpretation of the origin of the sign for first and last visibility used in Greek papyri. It also contains evidence for a secondary use of the sign for zero, attested in Babylonian astronomical texts as well. P. Monts.Roca inv. 314 thus provides further evidence for the transmission of astronomical knowledge from Mesopotamia to the Greek world through the mediation of Egypt.

To what extent can the folklore of modern Egypt be traced back across time to ancient Egypt? This dissertation aims to answer this question through a case study of concepts and practices related to human reproduction across 5000 years of Egyptian history. The continuity of such concepts and practices has been suggested by many authors, but none have done systematic research to prove their assertions.

This work traces these concepts and practices back in time, from contemporary anthropological sources, to medieval authors like Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Hajj, back through the hagiographic literature documenting the battle for the faith of Egyptians between early Christians and pagans, to classical ancient Egyptian texts, art and archaeological sources. Attention is paid to systematic similarity diachronically, and suggestions are made as to the reason for their continuity, in spite of such major changes like language and religion.

Among the topics covered are treatments for humidity in the womb as a cause of female infertility and male impotence caused by magic. Rituals carried out until today at sacred sites including ancient temples, churches and mosques are examined. The origins of the contemporary Egyptian post-natal ritual carried out on the seventh day after birth and related rituals are sought in Islamic, Coptic and ancient Egyptian sources. Finally, actions taken to prevent insufficient lactation and barrenness are explored.

It is hoped that this study will inspire and encourage other scholars to incorporate material from all time periods of Egyptian history into their research in order to enhance the insights possible.

This is a copy of my PhD dissertation from the University of Chicago

The funerary literature from ancient Egypt has long been studied. However, the final manuscripts in this tradition have received negligible attention. In the first two centuries of the Common Era, a new funerary composition appeared, with papyrus as its most common medium for transmission. The composition consisted of a series of formulaic phrases, voiced primarily in the third person, concerning the deceased’s postmortem existence, participation in the following of Osiris, reception of offerings, the proper mortuary treatment, and well wishes for remaining children. All known manuscripts can be dated to the first and second centuries of the Common Era, were written in Demotic script and grammar, and derive mostly from the Theban area. A small portion of the corpus was illustrated with a variety of vignettes reinforcing the main concepts of the textual formulae. The composition has been referred to by its opening phrase as the ʿnḫ pȝ by “May the ba live” formulae.

The identity of the original owners of the manuscripts, despite the indication or preservation of personal names, remains mostly obscure. In the few cases where an individual can be identified, it is clear that they belong to the upper class of Egyptian society. Therefore, the small size and often hasty appearance of the texts cannot be taken as evidence that they were cheap substitutes for the poor. The papyri were specifically intended to be placed among the mummy wrappings, implying a certain level of social standing.

The origin of the formulae can be traced to an oral tradition that circulated at least by the time of the Ptolemaic Period. Short formulaic phrases would have been recited during the funerary rituals and similar formulae would have been uttered by grieving family and tomb visitors. At some point in the early Roman Period, a selection of these common phrases was committed to writing, initiating the manuscript tradition preserved today. The formulae represented the mourning lamentations of the bereaved and were therefore stated in the texts to derive from Isis. Several features in the manuscript tradition demonstrate the oral circulation of the formulae and suggest that scribes composed some of the manuscripts from memory without resorting to a template text from which to copy.

Once committed to writing, the ʿnḫ pȝ by “May the ba live” composition became part of a textual tradition. The surviving manuscripts preserve fragmentary evidence for the redaction of the text. Roman Egypt had a vibrant funerary literature industry in which this new composition became the most codified and most often reproduced. Scribes had intimate knowledge of all of these texts as is reflected in the highly intertextual nature of the texts with respect to both topical content and borrowing of formulae across multiple scripts (hieratic, hieroglyphs, Demotic) and registers (graffiti, literary texts, ritual texts).

In the recent exhibition catalog Death Dogs: The Jackal Gods of Ancient Egypt by Terry
Wilfong, there appeared as number thirty-two a papyrus inscribed with a Demotic text
accompanied by a rather interesting illustration. Wilfong mentions that the “text is, as
yet, unedited, but the illustration — showing a jackal-headed god most likely to be Anubis shooting a bow and arrow toward a grotesque naked male figure — makes it all but certain that this papyrus is a magical text. A jackal-headed god shooting a bow and arrow is sometimes represented in amulet form (for example, see Andrews 1994, 47, fig. 52a), and this image may be related.” The authors are currently working to edit and publish the papyrus in full. This preliminary publication will serve to confirm Wilfong’s suspicions about the text, the jackal-headed figure, and to situate the illustration explicitly within the larger corpus of archer figures from ancient Egypt.

Social media platforms have exploded in the last decade and have emerged as the arenas for discursive democracy, sociality, and digital dissidence across Africa. This article historicizes and genealogizes the exponential, if slightly imperceptible but nonetheless phenomenal, growth, maturation, and spread of social media on a continent that had been described in the scholarly literature as the blackhole of informational capitalism. It argues that the progressive centrality of social media in the quotidian lives of Africans, which has invited consternation and censorship from many African governments and inspired precarity in the traditional media sphere, instantiates the materialization of the demotic turn in communication, which situates the ordinary person as the fulcrum of the communicative process.

Available online: https://rivista.museoegizio.it/article/the-turin-papyrus-online-platform-tpop-an-introduction/     

In recent years, scholarly communities as well as the general public have been increasingly requesting open access to museum collections, prompting institutions to offer online catalogues, mostly of selected objects, in some cases even of their complete collections. Major Egyptian papyrus collections, however, have so far been extremely slow in adopting this open-access approach. Until recently, this was also true of the Museo Egizio in Turin, which houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities worldwide.

The TPOP project aims to conserve, document, digitize and contextualize hundreds of papyrus manuscripts and thousands of fragments in a newly created online platform. This platform will enable scholars to work collaboratively on the material and will provide a straightforward publication outlet for both the scholarly and the general public. It aims to generate value beyond the mere preservation of material culture. The virtual “restoration” of papyri by digitally reconstructing them and joining fragments online makes possible what physical restoration does not allow, namely, the long-term preservation of written cultural heritage and its accessibility by anyone from anywhere and at any time.

Publication with detailed commentary of Ostracon DOW 113 from the collection of Sten V. Wångstedt. The current location of the ostracon is unknown, and the author has worked from a photograph. The medico-magical spell inscribed on the object, which is a rarity in demotic but paralleled thematically in earlier Egyptian, Greek, and Coptic, is dated palaeographically to the third or second century BCE.

Late Egyptian, the language of ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period, is attested in written form in a large array of literary and non-literary genres, mainly in the hieratic script on papyri and ostraca, but also in hieroglyphic monumental epigraphy. Late Egyptian is the first stage of the second major phase of Egyptian, according to the widely accepted division of the history of the language into Earlier and Later Egyptian. Typologically, Late Egyptian reflects major differences with respect to earlier stages of the language. Being more analytical in character, Late Egyptian thus displays a marked tendency to separate morphological from lexical information. It also tends to be more explicit in the articulation of sentences at the macro-syntactic level (Conjunctive and Sequential) and more time-oriented in its system of grammatical tenses than the aspect-oriented system of Classical Egyptian

This paper gives a detailed overview of the development which ultimately lead to the Coptic script, inlcuded earlier effortd to render Egyptian language in other writing systems. It discusses every single source in detail, including proposals for improved translation and understanding of some difficult texts like the Old Coptic Horoscope.
The systems which ultimately became the Coptic script probably had their origin in the Egyptian priestly milieu of the early Roman period (1st century CE). There are at least two basically differetn approaches, one (in Upper Egypt) creating very soon a full set of signs for all consonants which could not be adequately written in Greek, the other one (perhaps originating in Lower Egypt, but mainly attested in the Old Coptic magical passages of PGM IV) making a more restricted use of signs derived from Demotic.
Contrary to some claims by other scholars, Old Coptic is clealry also used for texts of communication, not only texts which function efficaciously by way of sound.

By the early 3rd century BC the cult of the god Chnum-Arensnuphis, for whom sanctuaries and cult personnel are attested in Elephantine between c. 685–349 BC, had evolved in the Theban area into a cult of the autonomous god Arensnuphis. In the milieu of the mortuary workers in Western Thebes he was worshipped in his own chapel, and newborn children in Thebes were named after him. A few decades later the deity appears in Elephantine as “Lord of the Abaton”. His connection with the burial site of Osiris on the island of Biggeh and his identification with Horus as protector of Osiris’ remains, may explain why his cult flourished in Medinet Habu, the location of another famous tomb of Osiris. It appears that only in a later stage the Egyptian god Arensnuphis crossed the frontier into Nubia, where he was similarly regarded as a god related to the Abaton. An active Theban cult of Arensnuphis certainly existed until the late 2nd century BC, when minor priests in Medinet Habu possessed several shrines of the god. After the late 2nd century BC direct evidence that Arensnuphis still received cult in the Theban area is lacking, but indirect onomastic data illustrate the persistence of his worship: the latest securely dated Theban documents containing personal names compounded with the name Arensnuphis are dated around AD 130.