The Artemis Liturgical Papyrus

Tuesday, October 5 at 6:00pm: Visiting Research Scholar Lecture

The Artemis Liturgical Papyrus
Presented by Jacco Dieleman

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
New York University
Lecture Hall
15 East 84th Street
New York, NY 10028
isaw@nyu.edu
www.nyu.edu/isaw
free and open to the public

reception to follow

This presentation will offer a preliminary survey of an unpublished Egyptian manuscript, dating to the late Ptolemaic or early Roman period, that preserves a unique collection of liturgical texts for Osirian rituals adapted and inscribed for the burial of a woman named Artemis, daughter of Herais. I term the manuscript 'The Artemis Liturgical Papyrus' after its owner. To date, eight columns have been identified in the Louvre and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Apart from the liturgical texts themselves, the manuscript is of particular interest for its inclusion of rubrics in Demotic serving as instructions for use to the incantations, which are otherwise all written in Classical Egyptian in the hieratic script. The Greek names of the deceased and her mother are also consistently written with Demotic characters. Highlights of the manuscript are a version of the Ritual of Bringing Sokar out of the Shrine, parallels with the Apopis Book, a curious bark ritual, and instructions for rotating the mummy. The sequence of rituals appears to follow the schema of rituals performed at the Sokar Festival as depicted in the memorial temple of King Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. Apart from the manuscript's obvious significance for the study of Egyptian ritual, the presence of Greek personal names in an environment that is textually and ritually fully Egyptian in nature raises important questions about the processes and mechanisms of acculturation and religious adaptation in Ptolemaic and early Roman Egypt.