Page 100 [100]
OCR
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 domestic 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 Pyramid 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 supposed 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
