Smither Old Kingdom Letter Sabni

An Old Kingdom Letter concerning the Crimes of Count Sabni
Author(s): Paul C. Smither

Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology , Dec., 1942, Vol. 28 (Dec., 1942), pp. 16-19
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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(i6)
AN OLD KINGDOM LETTER CONCERNING THE

CRIMES OF COUNT SABNI
By PAUL C. SMITHER
PRIVATE letters reveal to us everyday interests and events-and human failings-the

existence of which we should hardly have guessed from inscriptions and books written
with an eye to posterity. A remote era like the Pyramid Age would doubtless appear
less austere, did we possess some contemporary correspondence. Few papyri,' how-
ever, have come down to us from the Old Kingdom, and only one letter has been com-
pletely translated.2 It is all the more unfortunate, therefore, that the archive, mostly
letters, of the powerful counts of Elephantine of the VIth dynasty should have been
broken up by native diggers at the end of last century.3 Fragments subsequently found
their way to Berlin, Strassburg, and elsewhere, only one of the letters being intact.
This latter, Berlin P. 8869, has been published in a good facsimile by Moller in Hierat.
Pap. Berlin, III, 2-3. It seems an interesting human document, now about forty-three
centuries old, and I have therefore attempted a rendering here.4 M6ller's transcription
is rather unsatisfactory, and a revised version is given opposite.
TRANSLATION
I (To) the Count, the treasurer of the King, sole companion and treasurer of the God, Irew.
2 The overseer of the army Merre(nakhte (?),a son of Kahotpe, son of the sole companion and
lector-priest Sebekhotpe, (says):b
3 I, your brother,c have given my [careful attentiond] to the business about which you sent the
4 sole companion and steward Hotpe, so that I might not do anything which you would not like.
5 Now, if you have written [to] me in order that you might expose the robbery which has been
6 committed against me, well and good.e But if, on the other hand, you have done this in order to
break up the fighting, because you see the two foreign countries .......... I .........f,
7 then I shall see whetherg in fact you love the Count, treasurer of the King [sole companion and
8 overseer of prophetsh] Sabni more than me. But it is better to love the justified rather than
9 continual crookednessi, and this is certainly an occasion for attending to every transgression of this
Io Count. Hek is not one who lives by his own property. But you gave me a clear character' in
11 the Court of Horus,m even as you and I will act togethern so that this count shall not brush aside0
the robbery which he has committed.
12 Furthermore, the sole companion and steward Hotpe has seen that I did not wait for the troops
13 of Medja and Wawat, so that I might [not] do what you do not like.
(Address)
The Count, sole companion and overseer of the prophets of Re', Irew.
Most of these are listed by Moller, Hierat. Pal. I, 9 ff.
2 By Gardiner, YEA xIII, 75 ff. (An Administrative Letter of Protest), and by Gunn, Ann. Serv. xxv, 242 if.
There are, of course, funerary inscriptions containing royal commendations, and the letters to the dead, but
none of these have survived on papyrus. Moreover, they naturally differ considerably from ordinary private
letters. 3 Cf. M6ller, op. cit., Io.
4 The only previous treatment appears to be the brief sk
Kiniglichen Museen, 9I, when the study of Old Egyptian wa

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AN OLD KINGDOM LETTER I7
es @
- 4
I I
I1 I I
A f8 D ^ A ^L- [v v L I
/? <§>,
8R
t, A=
a I
AA L7 AVl
t1 4
_ '- ln I7
( uL^ [ L
D
J4 4
A
^^~~L rl^u n
r^ f^
·c~ g ~ /Jp ^
- - 0
I_ . For t e-d m. cf. A-htt, >Z ,d F C , CeLk VIo,_2, J4,3(). 1

ft .,4. 4 . 4 J RC -4h o -rvtrrL orm r at-et' Int(l4 &tnfl Sace, Q..13. 7to-
I FL tfet 4 Suft , I. .o. A-nt , sp. -it . 7,#L (1 tL) . 81 L . FrT. F O sl t s
8-t. Fztm, frm 4 .$ tL n5i , Ke tx.lt. I,o ,577,( ~ U.8) . . g -re o-c9
9a . q3e, d 4dt t,a3e., -n. o.t ,st AA.. c cMS
BERLIN P. 8869
D

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PAUL C. SMITHER
COMMENTARY
a. The reading of this name is very doubtful, as it is improbabl

a writing of (C>\ j. The names of the grandfather and father pre
inversion, as in Anthes, Die Felsinschriften von Hatnub, Graffiti 1
b. dd may have been omitted at the end of the line through lac
events, the 'overseer of the army' is the writer, for the count Irew n
one to whom the letter is addressed on the verso.
c. The writer of the letter refers to himself throughout as sn-k im, showing that he is
on terms of equality with his correspondent.' The latter is always addressed as zs.k,
'your scribe'. This is nothing but a polite circumlocution, as Prof. Gunn pointed out
to me some years ago, when discussing the examples of this expression in the Heka-
nakhte Letters. Indeed, to interpret zs'k quite literally as 'your scribe' would make
nonsense of the whole letter. In my translation I have therefore rendered sn.k im by
'I', 'me', and zs'k by 'you'.2
d. Perhaps lit. 'thy brother there placed his two hands at the bidding of the business',
but my restoration cw(y) is merely a suggestion. The general sense is certainly 'pay
careful heed to', or the like.
e. ht m st, lit. 'the thing is in place'.
f. It is unfortunate that a lacuna has robbed us of most of the crucial verb. The 'two
foreign countries' are doubtless Medja and Wawat mentioned in 1. 12. Dr. Gardiner
has suggested to me in a letter that sd crh may possibly mean 'break up the fighting' with
the two foreign countries, as the writer says in 1. 12 that he has not waited for the two
Nubian companies. Sd rhk certainly means 'to stop the fighting', as is proved by Pyr.
319 a, 'King N. has broken up the fighting, and has cut short the strife'. Sethe has
pointed out (Ub. Komm. Pyr.) that the King is here acting as peacemaker.
g. I can quote no other instances of this interesting use of m introducing a subordinate
noun clause, but it is a natural extension of m as a conjunction, meaning 'if' (Wb. II, 2).
h. Two signs have been added between 11. 7-8 opposite 'overseer of prophets', but I
cannot interpret them.
i. The masc. noun hLb, 'crookedness', is not recorded by Wb. (which knows only the
fem. hWbt, op. cit. III, 362). Another example of hb is Coffin Texts, I, 73, d; also, as an
adverb 'crookedly', op. cit. II, 229, a; 242, a.3 All these have the reversed ) for deter-
minative, as in our papyrus. For iw 'long', in the temporal sense, see Wb. I, 4; Coffin
Texts, I, 233, d (mir iw, 'long affliction').
j. For rhr hr 'to attend to' see YEA xvII, 59. The idiom was first noticed by Goleni-
scheff, Le Conte du Naufrage (1912), 48, n. I.
k. I have taken swt here to be the indep. pron. 3rd masc. The enclitic particle would
necessitate the translation, 'but without living on his property', which would make less
sense here. At this period it was a common boast of the soi-disant righteous man that
'he lived on his own property', e.g. 'I did not rob (rw;) another of his property (iStf)',
I Cf. Gardiner, YEA xIII, 76, n. i.
2 Following St. Jerome, 'Non verbum e verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu'!
3 An example of the variant writing s3b is quoted below under note 1. Cf. Coffin Texts, II, 148, c.

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AN OLD KINGDOM LE'ITTER i9
Anthes, op. cit., Gr. 22, 7; 'I made this with my own rightful property (i
I never took away a thing belonging to any man for it', Urk. I, 7I-2. For the
wnm ist cf. Gardiner and Sethe, Egn. Letters to the Dead, pl. Iv, 3 ; Coffin Tex
1. sb;kk occurs again in a VIth dynasty letter, Gardiner and Sethe, Egn. Lett
Dead, pl. I, 3 kT"qnP i yq ^iqqOPJ iOQo^ t0A, which I would
translate 'when they caused Irti's son ly to be summoned in order to be commended'
(r sb;kk) to the representative of Behezti'. To Gardiner's examples2 of the simplex
b&k, 'to have a clear character', I can now add 9:>°9S n 9p (Urk. I, 77, I4),
'0 ye who desire that the man in it (the nome) should have a clear character' (note
the det. -), and -D-^:>'-~~ =<~.J? wnn imhr'(i) hr
ntr hr rmt dt, 'I never said anything evil, sinful (iw), cruel (?),3 or crooked
anybody, for I desired to be happy and to have a clear character,4 and that my
should exist with the god and with men for ever' (Urk. I, 204, 9-10).
m. Officials who failed to comply with the Royal Charters of Immunity were p
in the Court of Horus,5 see op. cit., 283, 13; 287, i6; 292, 5.
n. Lit. 'be as one thing'. As Dr. Gardiner points out, wnn makes better sense if
taken as future rather than past.
o. wth r t, lit. 'put to the ground', cf. Wb. I, 253, 7-9.
The opening and closing sentences of this letter are most deferential, but they
hide the writers indignation and distrust. He is a general engaged on military se
in Nubia in connexion with the troops of Medja and Wawat, and he has just
a letter from a colleague, Count Irew, claiming to have discovered serious crime
mitted against the general by a certain Count Sabni. He views this letter wit
feelings, and in his reply discloses his suspicions. Is Count Irew really his sup
or is he trying to make him the victim of some plot? Finally, he decides to seek
against Count Sabni, but he is careful to point out that in the past Irew was his a
in a High Court. He can hardly desert him now. We are abe for a moment to
glimpse of a long-forgotten plitical intrigue.
It is tempting to identify this Count Sabni with the well-known Count of Eleph
of the same name, who brought back to Egypt the body of his father Mekhew
died leading an expedition into Nubia.6 Some support is given to this by the
rence, on a fragment of another letter from the same archive,7 of '...... the stew
Mekhewi's son, the sole companion Sabni'. It is just possible that fresh fragm
the Elephantine letters may be discovered, to shed light on this and other pr
Count Sabni may even have had a complete answer to all the charges.
I I think the sense of 'giving a good character' is present here also.
2 Op. cit., p. 15. 3 =zwn (?). 4 b;kt, a fem. infinitive!
5 Written el [r, but hardly likely to be a different place from wsht nt Hr.
6 Urk. , I135 ff. For his titles see De Morgan, Cat. Mon. I, 146, 148. A Count Sabni, good n
pepi, is also mentioned in an inscription in the tomb of Khewefhar, De Morgan, op. cit., 173
7 Hierat. Pap. Berlin, III, 6, Str. Cb vs. 5.
8 It is worth pointing out that, in Sabni's autobiographical inscription, his father Mekhew o
titles 'Count, treasurer of the king, sole companion and lector-priest' as a posthumous honour
During his life he will have held some less exalted rank.

95.19.200.32 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 16:58:24 UTC

Smither Old Kingdom Letter Sabni

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An Old Kingdom Letter concerning the Crimes of Count Sabni

Author(s): Paul C. Smither

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3855518

This content downloaded from

AN OLD KINGDOM LETTER CONCERNING THE

PRIVATE letters reveal to us everyday interests and events-and human failings-the

This content downloaded from

I_ . For t e-d m. cf. A-htt, >Z ,d F C , CeLk VIo,_2, J4,3(). 1

This content downloaded from

a. The reading of this name is very doubtful, as it is improbabl

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

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