Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
Near Eastern influences and autochthonous characteristics. The iconographies of the
funeral scenes carved upon the stelae are typically Egyptian, even if often details
deriving from the Near Eastern culture may be found. In fact, the faces of the dead
have pronounced Semitic features and frequently also the clothes, the ornaments and
the furnishings present Eastern influences.
In these cases, the divinity most frequently attested is Osiris. This god is
represented or mentioned in many of these objects, often with other Egyptian deities
in charge of the funerary horizon. Many deceased placed their trust in him to obtain a
good life after death, so that he seems to exercise a sort of “religious monopoly”
regarding the Afterlife beliefs. In fact, Semitic divinities are attested only in
connection with priestly titles, but they were never directly invoked, at least in the
epigraphs hitherto discovered. Probably the well-known and powerful god Osiris
offered more guarantees compared to the Near Eastern divinities connected with the
afterlife.
In his recent book The Aramaeans, Lipiński has written: “The main source for the
religious history of the Aramaic-speaking populations in the Iron Age is epigraphic
and onomastic”. In fact, onomastic studies have always made an essential contribution
to the knowledge and understanding of the Ancient Near Eastern religions. In this
case, this kind of analysis reveals that the names are both Egyptian and Semitic, and
frequently they are “theophoric”. Furthermore, few Semitic deities are mentioned in
priestly titles, whereas foreign people holding an Egyptian priesthood are not attested.
The Elephantine papyri and the graffiti found in some Egyptian sanctuaries provide
with other important information about the worship and temples of Near Eastern
divinities. The choices, the alterations and the elaborations put into effect by these
foreigners are very interesting, because they allow us to understand not only the
“great attraction and influence” exerted by Egyptian religion, but also the
“extraordinary cultural-adaptation capability” of the Near Eastern communities.
Summing up, the Semitic people adopted integrally the Osiris cult and the
Egyptian funerary practices (and sometimes also Egyptian personal names), but they
did not renounce their Near Eastern divinities. They elaborated and developed a
peculiar religious coexistence of oriental cults and beliefs in the Egyptian Afterlife.
Actually, these Semitic people didn’t modify deeply their religion or create a new
one, they did not bring to effect a literal syncretism, in the true sense of the word.
They set up a specific type of coexistence where the religious Semitic and Egyptian
aspects were clearly distinct: this must be viewed as a new, or at least a different,
expression of cultural identity, or as is nowadays said, of ethnicity.
Lapis Lazuli in the Tôd Treasure: a new investigation
Michèle Casanova, Virginie Danrey, Denis Lacambre, Geneviève Pierrat-
Bonnefois, Philippe Quenet, David Warburton
The “Tôd Treasure” was discovered in 1936 under the pavement of the Middle
Kingdom Temple of Montu by F. Bisson de la Roque at Tôd (Egypt). It consisted of
four copper-alloy chests mainly filled with silver and lapis lazuli artefacts. Not only
the original publications did not fully record the actual content of the deposit but the
subsequent studies mainly focused on the silver objects and the burying date of this
ritual offering.
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