The present volume contains a record of all wall surfaces inside the court of King Herihor, other than Herihor’s stela and the two great doorways (with later decor), and of all the decorated columns but not the architraves.
OIP 103. The Temple of Khonsu,
With commendable promptitude, only two years after Volume 1 (cf. BiOr 38 [1981], 301-02), this volume comes to complete the record of the forecourt and main hypostyle hall of the temple of Khons in Karnak, by the Chicago Epigraphic Survey. We now at last possess a full and accurate record of the works of Ramesses XI and Herihor there, plus a whole series of supplementary scenes and texts from the 21st Dynasty (Pinudjem I; Menkheperre), a text of Osorkon I, dedications by Nectanebo II, and texts and scenes of Ptolemy II, IV and IX, besides Alexander. Much of what appears here was earlier unpublished; what was known now appears in greatly enhanced form. Thus for Ramesses XI, we now have the full repertoire of scenes from his hypostyle hall which can now be compared with the content of other such halls (e.g., barque-scenes, litany of Victorious Thebes, occurring in the Great Hypostyle Hall of Amun's temple). On a different plane, we at last have a reliable edition of the important (if wretched looking) oracle stela of Herihor under Ramesses XI. In this, the high priest has some of his enquiries refused by the god, but he has 20 years granted him by Amun, plus the carving of a stela - perhaps this very one. The architrave-texts of Herihor as king are remarkably fulsome, and sometimes piquant, not to say amusing. His forecourt has silver, gold, precious gems 'by the bagful'; and Herihor is called 'valiant fighter in the midst of his enemy, who has conquered myriads.' Unless as army-leader he had crushed Libyan intruders, his sole real boast of military action is likely to have been the quelling of civil strife in Egypt itself, or action against the dissident viceroy Panehsy-a far cry from the glories usually implicit in Ramesside-type rhetoric!... The folio of plates is accompanied by a quarto booklet giving not only the list of plates and annotated translation of all texts, but also an informative preface by Dr. Kent Weeks, e.g., on the vicissitudes of royal and priestly features in the reliefs of Pinudjem I; he also indicates that this present volume (fruit of so many collaborators across the decades) was substantially the work of Dr. W. J. Murnane. A new and very welcome feature of the text-fascicle is its full glossary (in transliteration) of all texts in Vols. 1 and 2 of Khonsu. This glossary is admirably articulated, on a plan dear to this reviewer's heart: words are given not just with references, but also according to the phrases and constructions in which they are employed - a model of its kind...[From a review by K. A. Kitchen in Bibliotheca Orientalis 41 (1984) 84-85].
The Epigraphic Survey. 1981.
OIP 123. Temple of Khonsu, Graffiti incised on the roof blocks of the temple of Khonsu at Karnak, written in the hieroglyphic, hieratic, and Demotic scripts and accompanied by the outlines of pairs of feet, caught the eye of Champollion and other early voyagers who succeeded in clambering up onto that part of the roof still remaining over the colonnade of the first court. Such graffiti have usually been interpreted as mementos left by ancient visitors passing through Thebes. A complete survey of all the graffiti on the roof and a detailed study of the inscriptions, carried out over a considerable period of time, has revealed the unexpected fact that far from being casual tourists, it was mostly the priestly personnel of the temple itself whose graffiti have been preserved there. The inscriptions record the name and titles of the person whose footprints are depicted, as well as the name of his father and sometimes that of his grandfather, but only in three cases does the name of his mother appear. Prayers addressed mainly to Khonsu himself demonstrate the firm belief of these priestly servitors in the lasting protection afforded them by the god in whose sacred precinct their graffiti have been carved.
One of the most original groups of graffiti is that connected with the family of one Djedioh, whose inscriptions dating to the time of the Twenty-second Dynasty reveal the existence of a hitherto unknown king of that era named Iny. Other objects depicted among the graffiti are "portrait" heads, sacred barks, animals, birds, and architectural elements, almost all having some connection with the temple itself or with the cult of the god Khonsu. Several small crosses give witness to the reuse of the temple in Christian times as a church.
The 334 graffiti recorded in the volume are richly illustrated by photographs and facsimile drawings. Transliterations, translations, line notes, and commentaries are provided. The text concludes with general, name, epithet, and title indices.
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