11.7: Inscribed Stone Vessels and Stelae

Constructing, Deconstructing and Curating Personal Identity

Inscription on stone is sometimes characterised as intending permanency and immutability (e.g. Hiebert et al. 2000: 8; Kreamer et al. 2007: 110), yet many examples from ancient Egypt exhibit evidence for adjustment, addendum, palimpsest and erasure. Attested throughout the Pharaonic period (e.g. Der Manuelian 1999; Gozzoli 2000; Yoyotte 1951), erasure can be understood as an act of damnatio memoriae or the result of other changes in social status and relationships between individuals or between people and inscribed things, such as ‘ownership’. Evidence of similar changing relationships is also evidenced on Early Dynastic stone objects including vessels.

Over half of all known early inscribed objects (more than 4500) are inscribed on vessels, the majority being made of hard stone, although most survive as fragments (Regulski 2010: 6, 26; see also El-Khouli 1978). Among these are a variety of rock and mineral types (e.g. basalt, diorite, granite, yellow limestone, quartz crystal, etc., see Aston 1994: 11–73), shaped into a range of forms (Aston 1994: 106–128). They are typically found in high status funerary contexts (e.g. Petrie 1901: pl. 46–53), and to a lesser extent ceremonial contexts (e.g. Quibell 1989 [1900]: pls 31 (2), 36). Vessel imagery contrasts somewhat with that of the labels. The former floats and clusters together with few narratival relationships between images in a compositional field with undefined boundaries beyond the surface area provided by the vessel. On the labels, narrative scenes are attested more often, particularly in the first-half of the 1^st Dynasty, and compositional space is organised by register and column lines as well as the rectangular shape of the plaque itself (Piquette 2007). It therefore seems evident that images on the vessels, while depictive, are intended to serve a more scriptorial than pictorial function. The use of image categories such as ‘sign’, ‘writing’ or ‘inscription’ seems appropriate for the stone vessel imagery, but assumptions concerning a communicative function and a relationships to spoken language, such as the pronunciation of ‘readings’ from this early period, should be considered provisional (Trigger et al. 2001 [1983]: 56; see also Engel 1997: 434–435)

A survey of vessel inscriptions shows that they were made by removing surface material through incisions and less commonly, low relief carving. Many incisions are infilled with pigment/paste, as also attested on the inscribed labels (above). This would have aided visibility but colour also could also serve a symbolic purpose (Griffith in Petrie 1901: 51). Incised inscription usually occurs on the exterior of the vessel. Red or black colour applied directly to the vessel surface, attested more commonly during the 2^nd Dynasty, was often located on the interior vessel surface (Regulski 2004: 955). Among the vessels and vessel fragments at least four types of scribal practice can be distinguished:

1. inscription
2. inscription > inscription
3. inscription > partial erasure / complete erasure
4. inscription > erasure > re-inscription

Subsequent to initial inscription (1), at least a dozen vessels bear inscriptions of type (2). These consist of a series of PIs laid out horizontally and understood as ‘royal’ titles (conventionally rendered nsw.t-bi.t and nbty) associated with Den, Adjib, Semerkhet and Qa’a (see Helck 1987: 101; see also Raffaele 2001 / 2002). It is suggested that after initial inscription, presumably commencing during the reign of the first ruler’s PI in the list, the successor appropriated or otherwise acquired a vessel. The PI of the successor was then inscribed beside the predecessor’s PI (see Kahl 2006: 96–99 for ideological influences on sequence for cylinder seals). Such examples highlight another way in which time is bound up in mark-making. In comparison with the use of different techniques on different faces of a label and implications for the passage of time (above), here a temporal aspect that spans lifetimes is foregrounded in the sequence of graphical expressions of individual identity and social position.

One of the earliest occurrences of sign erasure (3) on stone vessels derives from Abydos tomb complex X attributed to Adjib. These had apparently been inscribed during the previous reigns of Merneith and Den based on traces of their PIs. Excavation of Abydos tomb complex U ascribed to Semerkhet also yielded a number of stone vessels bearing erasures (Petrie 1900: 19–20). Just visible beneath two examples are the faint remains of signs identified by Flinders Petrie as the name of Adjib, Semerkhet’s predecessor (Figure 11), while others bore erasures of the PI of Merneith (Petrie 1900: 19, pl. 5, no. 5, see also 20, pl. 7, no. 6). This practice of erasing (though not completely enough to prevent the PI from being reconstructed) continued into the Old Kingdom. In the Valley Temple complex of Menkaure, a 4^th Dynasty ruler, a cache of Early Dynastic vessels contained examples bearing both erasures and reincision. These included an erased and reinscribed vessel with the PI of Hetepsekhemwy and the erased PI of his successor, Nebra, on another (Reisner 1931).

These various episodes of scribal unmaking and remaking provide the modern investigator with valuable evidence for charting succession and lengths of reign (e.g. Kahl 2006). They also raise the question of whether these activities should be understood as damnatio memoriae, theft or usurpation, or seen as economically motivated. The notion of ‘heirlooms’ (see Jeffreys 2003) and seeing these activities as maintenance or curation may be more appropriate for some vessels, particularly those which bear accumulations of PI inscriptions rather than erasure. The proposal that an inscription was carved by an individual who was not fully literate and made an error in the copying process thus leading to erasure (Dusinberre 2005: 52), is probably not relevant here. Unlike the majority of labels for which making, use and deposition appear to be relatively restricted in time-space (e.g. spanning one, two or three reigns at most), the inscribed stone vessels exhibit more diverse and extended life histories. This may have involved greater opportunities for changes in function and meaning over the generations, as the vessels took on different kinds of significance for those who engaged with and experienced them — presumably rulers, scribes/artisans and individuals working in the funerary domain, if not the great beyond.

A potentially important link might be observed in the relationship between inscribed vessels and changes in high status funerary practices. During the 1^st Dynasty, inscribed stone vessels turned up in close association with the burial chamber and the ruler’s body. By the mid-Old Kingdom, inscribed vessels were still deployed within the funerary domain, but deposited some distance from the pyramid (where the body was presumably entombed), within the Valley Temple where the cult of the ruler was perpetuated. Further study of burial chamber deposition versus placement elsewhere may elucidate the nature and significance of vessel curation where inscriptions undergo replacement versus accumulation.

Partially Incomplete, Partially Complete

The final inscribed find type briefly treated in this chapter is a funerary stele. The vast majority of early stelae derive from the large mudbrick tomb complexes built for many Early Dynastic rulers at Abydos. The entrance to the main structure, the burial chamber and series of side chambers (Reisner 1936), was probably flanked by two large ‘royal’ stone stelae each adorned with the ruler’s PI (e.g. Amélineau 1899: pls 34–37; 1904: pl. 18; Petrie 1900: pl. 1). Surrounding the burial chamber and magazines were rows of male and female human (and some faunal) subsidiary graves. Based on general archaeological association it seems that more than 300 graves were marked with small ‘private’ limestone stelae (e.g. Martin 2011: 2–3; Petrie 1900: pl. 33; see also Martin 2003 on ‘royal: private’ distinction). Small numbers of signs and often a seated or standing human figure were painted, carved, hammered, pecked or scratched onto/into the upper part of often roughly shaped slabs.

A small number of stelae show evidence for multiple or incomplete graphical episodes (e.g. Martin 2011: Stelae 96, 122, 131, 132, 142, 193, 201). A relatively large and exceptionally elaborate example of the so-called private stelae (No. 48) was found in a small chamber (unlikely its original context) to the west of the burial chamber of Qa’a (Figure 12; Petrie 1900: 26–27, 44–45, pls 30–31, 36). Based on Petrie’s (1900: 26–27) written description and Geoffrey Thorndike Martin’s (2011: 44) more recent study, this medium-sized rectangular limestone slab is smoothly dressed on the front from the top to the bottom of the panel. Below this the surface is roughly dressed and the back carefully worked. The edges were rounded off rather than squared. The inscription was sketched onto the surface in a red-brown pigment and finalised in black. Work was then begun to roughly hammer the matrix from around the drafted images, but intriguingly, the task was never completed. This is particularly apparent on the right in the second row where the height of the surface around the sign has not been reduced completely. Consequently, some images are unclear save for traces in red and black colour.

If we assume a right to left ‘reading’ direction (into the faces of the images), it is interesting to note that the process of surface transformation appears to have been undertaken in a different sequence from reading, leaving the right-most images in the second and third rows incompletely defined, including the upright staff held by the stele-owner. From the perspective of the presumed right-left reading direction and importance of this object as a vehicle for expressing the owner’s identity, it seems unusual that the image of the owner, and the beginning of the row just above, were not prioritized in the production process. Perhaps the act of inscription in certain media may have been undertaken according to the combined intentions and technological requirements of the scribe and/or other craftsperson(s) involved.

This evidence for the process of drafting, redrafting and partial carving, as well as erasure, raises a whole host of questions about why objects were not completed prior to being brought to the cemetery. It may be the case that in some circumstances aspects of production took place at or near the graveside (see also Martin 2011: 1). Alternatively, rather than seeing this stele as ‘unfinished’, perhaps its status within its past context of practice was constructed in a more contingent way. As long as a sufficient proportion of the imagery was present and / or discernible by the viewer (where intended), then perhaps the stele was considered to be sufficiently complete to serve its intended purpose. For this and the numerous other smaller stelae found in the same cemetery, the focus of material-graphical action appears to have been marking the personal identity of the deceased. In addition to the inscription, this function may have also been accomplished via the spatial location of the stel(a)e adjacent to (or inside?) the tomb or grave of the individual concerned. If meaning was situated in and constructed through a network of spatial and material, as well as iconographic and semantic relationships, perhaps that an element was not ‘fully’ expressed would not have been perceived as problematic.