Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
action by Seqenenre appears to Apophis to be a legitimate response, which results in
his discomfiture. Though it is also possible that the court’s incompetence is played out
to the end, this possibility provides little scope for plot development. It is therefore
probable that Seqenenre emerged as the victor of the tale, in however shambolic a
manner. By demonstrating that the text is a parody, a linguistic method helps us both
understand the characters and also test hypotheses about the plot’s trajectory.
The Egyptian coffins in the collection of Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery
Aidan Dodson
Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery and its predecessor institutions have owned
over the years eighteen coffins/mummy cases from Egypt, ranging in date from the
Old Kingdom to the end of the Late Period, together with masks of Ptolemaic/Roman
times. This paper will review these objects, together with what is known of their
history, to mark the re-opening of the Museum’s Egyptian gallery in 2007.
Bird at the back of the atef crown
Monika Dolinska
The paper deals with the attestations of a small bird of prey decorating sometimes the
back of the atef crown. Usually it is described as a falcon – which is understandable,
as three-dimensional representations of Horus falcon protecting king’s head are well
known (e.g. the famous Khafre statue). However, on closer scrutiny, all of the birds
appear to be vultures, not falcons. Why then this bird was chosen to decorate the atef?
What mythological motifs connected to the royal ideology could have inspired this
idea? And what was the time-range of its attestations? The atef in question is of the
variety enveloping the head of the king in a similar way as a white crown does,
without the ibes wig. This variety was especially popular in the first half of the
Eighteenth Dynasty which was also the span of time over which vultures appeared
quite often (but not always) at the back of the atef. Silhouettes of vultures are attested
on royal atefs in temples of Deir el-Bahari, Medinet Habu, Karnak, Elephantine,
Kumma and in the tomb of Rekhmire in West Thebes. One can envisage the
possibility that there was an actual royal crown decorated with a bird made of gold
foil, in use at that time. Still the reason of using this motif remains to be explained.
The most obvious seems the identification of the vulture as Nekhbet if we accept that
the uraeus at the front of the crown represents Wadjyt, both of them together
constituting the tutelary goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt. But are we sure that
the uraeus really is Wadjyt? We should not forget about the broader understanding of
the uraeus as any goddess assuming the role of the Solar Eye under the all-embracing
name of Uret-hekau. The search for the real identity (or identities) of the uraeus
goddess can help to answer this question. Variants appearing on crowns (other than
the atef crown) such as the double uraeus, the couple: uraeus and vulture’s head, two
uraei and vulture’s head etc. are also taken into account. Some questions concerning
the atef crown – its origin, evolution of shape and possible meaning – are also
commented upon.
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