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society as well as in the royal court,” nevertheless, nothing can be determined about the connection between his status and his title wdpw, if indeed there was one at all. The text also informs us that Merer was a pure one who could slaughter and make offerings in two temples on behalf of the ruler, which function might have been linked to his title ‘overseer of the slaughterers’, as well as with that of wdpw. 1.2.3. Middle Kingdom In the textual sources from the Middle Kingdom, besides wdpw the other word, wb3 appears with a similar meaning. The appearance of both words is the most frequent on stelae, mainly on funerary stelae, as well as on some stelae in wadis and mining areas which commemorate and render accounts of expeditions there. Some examples can be found on other objects from other areas, such as the appearance of wdpw on a limestone slab with a butchering scene on it,”° on a stone doorjamb in a chapel at Elephantine,” and on a wooden rectangular coffin from Gebelein,” in tomb scenes” as well as on papyrus containing administrative documents," or the presence of wb} in graffiti and rock inscriptions" and in tomb scenes” respectively. The main corpus of the examination is based on go funerary stelae; almost all of them came from Abydos. As to the occurrences of the two words on these stelae, wb} appears at least 44 times and wdpw appears at least 120 times. Numerous dissimilar forms of both words can be differentiated, wh? has ca. 20, and wdpw has ca. 15 variant writings, the most distinguishable variations are represented in Table 5. > For the ranking titles, see Baer, 1974, 2-8; Grajetzki, 2000, 220-226; Grajetzki, 2009, 5-6. 7° James, 1974, pl. 88. 7 Habachi, 1985, 55-56, Taf. 80. 7 Lacau, 1904, 86-88, pl. 18, CG 20033. 7 Blackman, 1915, pls. 16, 25; Davies, 1913, pl. 38; Newberry, 1893, pls. 17-18, 35. 8° Scharff, 1922, 1**-21™. Farout, 1994, 143-172; Gardiner — Peet, 1917, 67, pl. 11; 73, pl. 13; 219, pl. 93. Davies, 1920, pls. 6-7, 12, 26. § These numbers show the minimum occurrences of the two words. Since in some cases the texts or the depictions are damaged or broken, one can only presume that one or the other word should stand there, but this cannot be stated with certainty. 81 82
