Oldal 100 [100]
The spelling of the word wdpw oe‘A is somewhat problematic in this case. Gardiner
does not give any suggestion or solution to the question, he simply does not translate
this section, merely adding that the word is obviously incomplete, some sort of domes¬
tic servant could be expected, but hrpw ‘administrator’ does not fit here.’ However,
among additions and corrections in his work, Gardiner notes that Erman suggested a
misspelled form of the word wdpw, which might be a correct reading indeed, although
wdpw was never written with each phonetic complement (ST Ps), except in the Pyr¬
amid Texts (PT 205 §120b [W/S/E sup. 10]; PT 207 §124b-c [W/S/E sup. 19]; PT 1071
§13 [P/V/E 87] (=PT *769 §13 of Allen, 2013)). Based on this, according to Erman, the
simplest solution would be to emend the ‘p’ to a vessel sign which would give the same
wdpw reading, but in its usual New Kingdom form 8e = Faulkner agrees with this
solution, refining it slightly in translation, he proposes that ‘serving-man’ fits better into
the context.” Interestingly enough, however, Gardiner in his work on the onomasticon
of Amenemope doubts this solution.** He notes that in one of the manuscripts of the
onomasticon,®* the incorrect form ne." of wb3 was used, which is perhaps corrupted
from the form Eh, the shorter version of the word, and hardly from some writing
of the word wdpw SG Ss. He transcribes the sign group as wb3 in the relevant section
of the text, albeit with a question mark.**
The spelling of wh3 =1J2K SXW@AS. is not conventional either. The drill sign was
often complemented with b, 3, b3 bird, or a combination of these, but so far no other
example containing p3 bird as a complement has been discovered. In the hieratic text,
the identification of the p3 bird seems undoubted. Although the interchangeability of
b3 and p3 birds in writing is not unprecedented in hieratic, in this case one might also
think of a scribal error in copying, which might explain the peculiarity of the writing
of wdpw as well.3*°
#9 Gardiner, 1990’, 61.
»° Abbreviations are after Berger el-Naggar et al, 2013.
"Gardiner, 1990”, 113. It must be noted though, that this spelling is not exclusively related to the New
Kingdom, as it was also used in the Middle Kingdom, see Tables 1-4. on p. 26-29. Whether we take
into consideration either the supposed origin of the text, namely the Middle Kingdom, or the sup¬
posed origin of the papyrus, namely the late phase of the New Kingdom, the writing is entirely
appropriate in both cases.
* Faulkner, 1964, 31.
33 Gardiner, 1947, 437.
#4 Leather strip, British Museum EA 10379.
35 For a detailed discussion on the reading of the two words, see p. 21.
»° Although the probability of misspelling or copying both words incorrectly seems likely, it is not
surprising taking into account the frequency of similar errors within the whole text. Besides several
a