Talk:Book of the Dead of Qenna

Ongoing Problems:
The Isis quotation, which relates to her pregnancy with Horus, may actually hold little relevance to House of Hearts issue. Isis speaks in Spell 151, however. She is the guardian of Imseti, who in turn guards the canopic jar containing the liver. (Needs citations. Ann Macy Roth, 1992, Hieroglyphs Without Mystery, Univ. of Texas Press, has an excellent discussion of the parallel canopic jar spell for Serket and Qebesenuef, guardians of the jar with the intestines.  This shows the glyphs and is accessible to general readers.)

Overreliance on secondary sources. A few are okay, but only 3 peer-review items cited so far. Digression to explain spell 151 is unfortunate. However, House of Hearts depends on Spell 151 and significance of Qenna depends on House of Hearths.

Lacking information on provenance. Description and facsimile copy by Conrad Leemans, 1882. Papyrus was found in a mummy but already cut into leaves instead of rolled up. Meyer concurs with Budge that Qenna was a merchant. Meyer cites Conrad Leeman 1882 and Samuel Binion.

Source: Meyer, Isaac. 1900. The Oldest Books in the World, p. 365. Google Books.

Identity of Owner: Many Egyptians had the name Qenna. There are at least two Qennas from workmen’s village at Deir el-Medina in Ramesside period. See Davies, B. 1999. Who's Who at Deir El -Medina. Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, free pdf copy at: http://www.nino-leiden.nl/publications.aspx?id=10 (scroll down for choices). These Qennas are not the one the papyrus belonged to. This issue also affects Wikipedia article “Qenna.”

Content and organization of Qenna.
(Needs much additional information).

Van Dijk 1995 relied on Naville 1886, a collation of Book of Dead copies then known, as primary source for House of Hearts, supplemented by photos of Qenna supplied by museum. This suggests Qenna had not received full scholarly publication when van Dijk wrote, but correct me if I'm wrong. Scholarship may change soon. The series Totenbuchtexte, in publication by Orientverlag with 8 vols. out now, does not cover Spell 151 yet, but plans to.

Planned Revisions of article
List of BOD spells in order of appearance in Qenna: 16A, 15A, 16B, 15A2, 1, TG, 17, 180, 181, 15B3, 151, 83, 84, 85, 82, 126, 144, 77, 86, 99, 99B, 119, 125A, 125B, 102, 136, 136A, 136B, 32, 39, 79, 88, 87, 81A, 146, 79, 63A, 89, 110, 148, 185, 186, 27, 78.

Source: Univ. of Bonn, Germany, Das Altagyptische Totenbuck:  Ein Digitales Textzeugenarchiv [website], item record at http://totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/objekt/tm134346 (Needs confirming book or journal citation.)

This content includes Spell 17 Hymn to Atum, 125 Negative confessions, 151 Anubis over mummy with Four Sons of Horus, 148 Celestial cows and steering oars, and 185-186 Hymn to Osiris. (Needs citations)

There are of course omissions and duplicates in the spell selection. (Needs citation.)

In Papyrus Ani, Spell 30B accompanies the weighing of the heart vignette (Von Dassow, article biblio). However, this spell is missing from the inventory above. Did Qenna have the vignette without this text, with an alternative text, or no vignette at all? (Needs answer and citations)

Answer may be that vignette is present but with entity having baboon + sun disk iconography substituted for Thoth as recorder of heart weighing results. Nothing about spell that goes with it. This is also according to Meyer, p. 365 in Google Books ed., source for provenance info.

The Univ. of Bonn record above dates Qenna to Dyn. 19. Ani was probably somewhat later. (Needs citation)

Source suggestions:
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Sources in German.

Luscher, Barbara. 2006. Die Verwandlungssprüche ( Tb 76-88): Totenbuchtexte, Band 2. Orientverlag, Basel. These are synoptic editions with hieroglyphic, this one covers Spells 76 to 88. This book is in the Totenbuch series discussed above. Material from Qenna appears here, but not Spell 151.

Luscher, Barbara. 1998. Untersuchungen zu Totenbuch Spruch 151. Harrassowitz. This is part of another series, Studien zum Altagyptischen Totenbuch by Harrassowitz Verlag, with material in German, French, and English.

Backes, Burkhard, Ed. 2009. Bibliographie zum Altagyptischen Totenbuch. Part of the series from Harrassowitz.

University of Bonn website used above. Jessegalebaker (talk) 21:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit, Oct. 20, 2014
Isis, Horus, heart, and mother connections added with further relations to Coffin Texts, per talk page notations above. -Jessegalebaker (talk) 19:30, 20 October 2014 (UTC)