Pharaoh’s Man, ‘Abdiel: The Vizier with a Semitic Name
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
Already a library member? Log in here.
Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username
Footnotes
1. See Strata: “Nefertiti Mystery Solved,” BAR, May/June 2015.
Endnotes
1. See Alain Zivie, “Le nom du vizir ‘Aper-El,” in Marcel Sigrist, ed., Études égyptologiques et bibliques à la mémoire du Père B. Couroyer, Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 36 (Paris: Gabalda, 1997), pp. 115–123. But the proofs of the paper were not sent to the author for corrections, so that numerous mistakes in the hieroglyphs and the transliterations, not due to him, spoil his demonstration, as was well understood by Christian Cannuyer in his review in Chronique d’Egypte 74 (1999), pp. 43–46.
2.
See particularly Thomas Schneider, Asiatische Personennamen in ägyptischen Quellen des Neuen Reiches, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 114 (Freiburg: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht, 1992), pp. 66–68.
3.
For a recent status quaestionis with a complete bibliography, see Alain Zivie, “Le vizir et père du dieu ‘Aper-El (‘Abdiel),” in Giuseppina Capriotti Vittozzi, ed., Egyptian Curses I: Proceedings of the Egyptological Day held at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Roma, 3rd December 2012 (Roma: CNR Edizioni, 2014), pp. 83–99.
4.
See Alain Zivie, “Une tombe d’époque amarnienne à Saqqarah,” Bulletin de la Société Française d’Egyptologie 84 (1979), pp. 21–32; Alain Zivie, Découverte à Saqqarah: Le vizir oublié (Paris: Seuil, 1990). It has been published in Arabic—Kachef fi Saqqara. El-Maqbara Abria (Cairo: Editions Dar El-Fikr, 1995)—with a foreword by Zahi Hawass. See also Alain Zivie, The Lost Tombs of Saqqara (Toulouse: Caracara Edition, 2007), an updated edition in English (translated from French by David Lorton) of Les tombeaux retrouvés de Saqqara (Paris: Rocher, 2003).
5.
See Alain Zivie, La tombe de Maïa, mère nourricière du roi Toutânkhamon et grande du harem, Les tombes du Bubasteion à Saqqara, vol. 1 (Toulouse: Caracara, 2009); Alain Zivie, La tombe de Thoutmes, directeur des peintres dans la Place de Maât, Les tombes du Bubasteion à Saqqara, vol. 2 (Toulouse: Caracara, 2013).
6.
See Alain Zivie, “Recherches et découvertes récentes dans la tombe d’Aperia à Saqqarah,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (April/June 1989), pp. 490–505; Alain Zivie, “The Treasury of ‘Aper-El,” Egyptian Archaeology: The Bulletin of the Egypt Exploration Society 1 (1991), pp. 26–28.
7.
See Roger Lichtenberg, “La radiographie des ossements retrouvés dans la chambre funéraire du vizir ‘Aper-El,” Bulletin de la Société Française d’Egyptologie 126 (1993), pp. 38–43; Eugen Strouhal, “L’étude anthroplogique et paléopathologique des restes du vizir ‘Aper-El et de sa famille: premiers résultats,” Bulletin de la Société Française d’Egyptologie 126 (1993), pp. 24–37.
9.
See Alain Zivie, “Le vizir ‘Aper-El au Musée,” in Zahi Hawass, ed., Egyptian Museum Collections around the World: Studies for the Centennial of the Egyptian Museum, vol. 2 (Cairo: Supreme Council of Antiquities, 2002), pp. 1261–1274.
10.
On the tribulations of the funerary material of tomb Bubasteion I.1, see Alain Zivie, “The Saga of ‘Aper-El’s Funerary Treasure,” in Sue H. D’Auria, ed., Offerings to the Discerning Eye: An Egyptological Medley in Honor of Jack A. Josephson (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 345–355.
11.
See Valérie Looten-Lacoudre, “Fouille et restauration de bijoux nouvellement découverts dans le materiel de la chambre funéraire d’‘Aper-El,” in Bulletin de la Société Française d’Egyptologie 126 (1993), pp. 17–23.
12.
This year 10 was a good year for the wine according to several sources; see Pierre Tallet, “Une jarre de l’an 31 et une jarre de l’an 10 dans la cave de Toutânkhamon,” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 96 (1996), pp. 381–383.
13. Nevertheless we must note that the name ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El) appears as a toponym in a letter dating from the Ramesside period (Papyrus Anastasi VIII). The text mentions an expedition of grain and the death of a certain Any, son of the sailor Pay, and of his children. These people are said to be “of/from ‘Aper-El of the great statue of Ramses beloved of Amun, sun of princes.” These events happened under the 19th Dynasty. Their geographical frame was the Eastern Delta, and therefore the toponym ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El) was probably located in that part of Egypt. For this letter, see the study of Sarah Groll, “The Historical Background to the Exodus: Papyrus Anastasi VIII,” in Marcel Sigrist, ed., Études égyptologiques et bibliques à la mémoire du Père B. Couroyer, Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 36 (Paris: Peeters, 1997), pp. 109–114. The author tries to directly connect the events and the general frame related in this letter with several themes in the narrative of the Exodus, but this aspect of the article is not really convincing from my point of view.
14.
In her recent book Amenhotep III: Egypt’s Radiant Pharaoh (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012), p. 247, Ariel Kozloff, a specialist of this reign, suggests that the Egyptian official Amanappa (probably a transcription of Amenempe, meaning “Amun is in Ope”) of the Amarna Letters, has replaced his name with ‘Aper-El in year 5 of Akhenaten’s reign, his former name becoming inappropriate because it refers to the god Amun. The parallel mention of a charioteer named Huy, like the son of the vizier, a common name, is not enough to give consistence to this hypothesis.
15.
Bernard Mathieu suggested with some good arguments that the children educated in the kap would have been children born on the same day as the future sovereign; see “L’énigme du recrutement des ‘enfants du kap’ dans l’Egypte pharaonique: une solution?” Göttinger Miszellen 177 (2000), pp. 41–48. If it is the case, ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El) would have been born on the same day as Amenhotep III. Nevertheless, although intriguing, this approach of the question of the “children of the palace” still needs to be confirmed.
16.
Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, a specialist of the Judaism and the Jews in Egypt in the Greco-Roman period, presents ‘Aper-El as a “proto-Joseph,” avoiding the impossible confusion and identification, but seeing nevertheless a link between the two characters; see Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Ramesses II to the Emperor Hadrian (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1997).
17.
We have evidence of this kind of research, for example, with the novel Joseph and Asenath, written by an Egyptian Jew. See Alain Zivie, La Prison de Joseph: L’Egypte des pharaons et le monde de la Bible (Paris: Bayard, 2004), where I approach this kind of question. This has never been published in English, but a new modified, enriched, and updated version is now ready to be published in French under the title L’Egypte et la Bible, where I also evoke the question of ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El). There is a project to publish this French edition together with an English edition (titled Egypt and Bible), as soon as the question of the funding is resolved. At the same time, the publication of the tomb Bubasteion I.1 at Saqqara is now being prepared and will be included in the series Les tombes du Bubasteion à Saqqara (Toulouse). Finally, if support is found, an updated English edition of Découverte à Saqqara: Le vizir oublié (which won awards from the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the Société des Gens de Lettres, Paris) under the title The Forgotten Vizier: Chronicle of a Discovery will be pursued.