5.6: Funerary Writing

Egypt was home to a well developed industry that provided funerary goods on which writing was an important part of the function of the object, including the Book of the Dead, heart scarabs, shabtis and funerary stelae. Access to script for funerary purposes was desirable, but nonetheless dependent on economic circumstances and so while inscriptions are common in wealthy burials, the poor often had to go without. In contrast, writing does not appear to be a usual part of funerary customs in the Southern Levant, irrespective of status. When inscribed goods do appear in burials, they appear as oddities, rather than the norm, and are usually on objects that were also used in life such as amuletic scarabs, finger rings, daggers and vessels, rather than being specifically funerary in character (e.g. Magrill et al. 2004: fig. 24.12; Sass 1988: figs 140–141, 166–167, 268–279).

The exception to this rule may occur where we see Egyptians being buried in the region, as it might be expected that Egyptians living abroad would bring with them their own attitudes to what was suitable as provision for death. In such cases, even though there may be a cultural predisposition to certain funerary texts and services, the ability of the family of the deceased to provide these may not be entirely dependent on wealth. Funerary goods, including suitable texts, are a by-product of support industries. In Egypt, these industries were well developed and there was probably a great deal of competition between suppliers to keep prices at an acceptable level. In the Southern Levant, only certain goods and services may have been locally available, and in particular, the services of suitably trained scribes may have been difficult to obtain. If scribes were in limited supply, and those that were available were chiefly employed by the Egyptian administration, private commissions may have been both expensive and difficult to secure. This may have been equally true of some of the necessary raw materials, such as papyrus. The consequence may have been that only the most wealthy of Egyptians working abroad would have been able to obtain suitable funerary inscriptions for their families, unless they had already arranged for the necessary items to be brought over from Egypt.

It is therefore not surprising that Egyptian funerary texts are extremely scarce in the Southern Levant. An exceptional example is a coffin from Tomb 570 at Lachish. This was crudely painted with a scene depicting the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Nephthys and a hieroglyphic inscription from the Book of the Dead, which it has been argued was executed by a poorly trained scribe (Tufnell 1958: 132). Higginbotham has suggested that this coffin was created by someone not conversant with the proper forms, in imitation of Egyptian funerary practice (Higginbotham 2000: 244). However there is little enough evidence that Egyptian funerary texts were available in the region to serve as the inspiration for this sort of imitation. A more likely explanation is that it was executed by an Egyptian scribe who was not used to this type of commission but was nonetheless aware of the source text.

Another class of funerary text known from the region appears on stone stelae. One example was found reused in the lining of an Egyptian pit burial at Deir el-Balah, but was thought to have originally been set up as a marker over a more expensive grave (Dothan 2008: 155; Mumford 1998: 1663, 1657; Ventura 1987: 105, 115). Ventura (1987: 113–114) has suggested that such markers may have been a substitute for Egyptian cult chapels and the focus of ritual activity. The fact that the lower portion of the object was left undecorated supports the idea that it was designed to be set into the ground in this way, while the choice of stone is entirely appropriate for something that was intended to have continued effectiveness over and beyond the mere event of the burial. Three similar stelae, now in the Israel Museum, have no reliable provenance but are thought to have been looted from the same site (Ventura 1987). All these texts refer to Osiris and give the name of the deceased. Other stelae with Egyptian funerary inscriptions have been discovered in Jerusalem (Barkay 1996: figs 5–6), and Hazor (Goldwasser 1989: 344–345); an uninscribed fragment from a funerary stele has also been found at Beth Shan (Ward 1966: C4, 171). The majority of these stelae were probably made from local materials, suggesting a measure of expediency, but in at least one case the stone was said to be imported Nubian sandstone (Goldwasser 1989: 344).

A well executed funerary inscription was also discovered in the 1500 house at Beth Shan, comprising fragments of a stone lintel for The Commander of Troops, Ramses Weser-Khepesh (James 1966: fig. 93.1, 4). This was part of the structure of the building, which was decorated with a number of inscriptions on door posts and lintels, and is thought to have been the residence of the highest ranking Egyptian at the site. Funerary inscriptions of this type are said to have been placed in private houses at a number of sites in Egypt (Ward 1966: 161, 168) and so reflect a space for the living with commemorative aspects, rather than a space for the dead. This sort of architecture would have made a substantial impression on the non-Egyptian residents of the site, whose own dwellings were constructed with simpler mudbrick superstructures. This elaborate stone architecture and the investment of resources it represented sent a message of power and control. The inscriptions would probably have been placed at visible points such as major entranceways to capitalise on their impact. Although comparable grandeur was present in contemporary temples and palaces at nearby sites such as Pella and Hazor, there does not appear to have been a local tradition of incorporating visible writing into the design in this way, so this feature in particular would stand out. Such buildings would also have had an impact on Egyptian personnel. The sight of Egyptian architecture decorated with Egyptian script would have provided a familiar and comforting environment for those stationed in otherwise alien surroundings.

Another object on which we might expect to see funerary texts is the Egyptian shabti, a type of mummiform figurine that became common in Egyptian funerary assemblages of the New Kingdom. The inscription on a shabti has a very specific role, as it gives the object the power to function as a substitute worker for the deceased in the afterlife, freeing them from manual labour. To this end, shabti texts were usually personalised, with the name of the owner and a formulaic spell. In some cases, a space was left blank for the name to be filled in at or after the time of purchase (Stewart 1995: 47). This seems like a very practical solution to the unpredictability of death, allowing stock to be built up which could presumably be taken and customised elsewhere if required. Despite their popularity in Egypt, and despite the fact that numerous Egyptian personnel were stationed in the Levant and presumably must have sometimes died there, only a handful of clay and faience shabtis have been found in burials across the region, at Timna, Deir el Balah, Tell el-‘Ajjul, Arsuf and Beth Shan, (Dothan 2008: 148; Oren 1973: figs 45.24, 47b.26–28, 49.22–24, 50.13, 76.9; Rothenberg 1988: fig. 28.2). Within this group only the single shabti found at Timna had been inscribed. How should we interpret the absence of such inscriptions? Is this simply coincidence — after all, uninscribed shabtis are sometimes found in Egyptian tombs of the period (e.g. Gurob Tomb 20; Petrie 1890: 38)? Or does this reflect either a deliberate adaptation of usual Egyptian practice, or unusual circumstances relating to local production of this type of object? Several possible scenarios can be proposed to explain this phenomenon.

• A personalised or inscribed shabti is something confined to wealthier individuals, and the kinds of people represented in the tombs discovered to date did not fall into this category.
• It was too difficult, or expensive, to import inscribed shabtis from Egypt. Time may also have been a factor, as mummification was not practised on any of the burials found in association with shabtis in the Levant. Consequently, the body would have begun to decay before funerary equipment could be ordered and sent from Egypt.
• While the personnel servicing the funerary industries at each site included craftspeople who could make shabti bodies, they did not include support staff with scribal training who could create the necessary hieroglyphic inscriptions.
• The idea of the shabti has been accepted but the accompanying texts were deliberately dispensed with.

Each scenario has its own implications with regard to the identity and cultural affiliations of those working and being buried in the Southern Levant. Whatever the circumstances were, although they lack inscriptions the shabti forms are themselves accurately portrayed, which would argue against production by craftspeople who were unfamiliar with this type of object. Similarly there is no attempt to create a ‘pseudo’ inscription, which might be the case if either craftsperson or client wanted to reproduce the look of a shabti without having accurate knowledge of how it should actually appear.

Egyptian funerary equipment is also represented by rare fragments of canopic jars at Gezer and Tell el-‘Ajjul (Macalister 1912, volume 3: pl. 210, no. 64; Petrie 1933: pl. 16, no. 48, pl. 17; Rockefeller Museum 35.4260). Such jars were used to contain the internal organs of the deceased, carefully removed from the body and preserved. Each jar was guarded by a particular deity, with formulaic texts invoking their protection. They are embodiments of not only Egyptian attitudes to death, but also the mechanics of preparing the body for burial, and can therefore be a strong indicator of Egyptian cultural practice. The Tell el-‘Ajjul example comprised a single calcite sherd from the body of the jar, inscribed with a typical funerary formula of the New Kingdom and found in topsoil (UCL Institute of Archaeology EXIII.117/1; Stephen Quirke pers. comm. 2000; Figure 7c). The text was cut into the surface at the time of manufacture, and is an integral part of the overall design; the time and level of skill involved in hollowing the vessel out from a solid block of stone point to some investment of resources, and hence some value for the piece. It is possible that it was brought to the Levant as potential furnishing for an Egyptian-style burial; if so, it does not appear to have been used in this way as it was not found in a mortuary context. Alternatively, it may have been looted from a burial in Egypt and exported as recycled material for manufacturing beads and other small objects (Phillips 1992). In this scenario, the value of the object would lie not in the cultural meaning of the finished object, transformed by its shape and the power of script, but in the physical attractiveness and scarcity of the material from which it was made, and the fact that the thickness and only slight curvature of the vessel’s walls would make it suitable for reworking for a new market.