Endnote 14 – When Was the Age of the Patriarchs?—Of Amorites, Canaanites, and Archaeology

These texts consist of magical curses on actual or potential enemies of Egypt. They were inscribed on objects which were then ritually smashed to insure by sympathetic magic that the power of the individuals named would likewise be broken. There are two groups of these texts from the Middle Kingdom: (1) a number of bowl fragments (now in Berlin) published by K. Sethe in Die Aechtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyotischen Tongefässscherben des mittleren Reiches (Berlin: Berlin Akad. Abhandlunge No. 5, 192,6) and (2) a group of inscribed figurines (now in Cairo and Brussels) published by G. Posener in Princes et pays d’Asie et de Nubie (Brussels: Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1940). For translations of a few of these texts see ANET, pp. 328–29.