A List with the Forms of Osiris and the Names of Royal Ancestors (P. Turin Cat. 1877)

This article concerns P. Turin Cat. 1877, a papyrus containing a litany to Osiris and royal ancestors on the recto and a set of administrative texts on the verso. The list of Osiris’ names corresponds to spell 142 of the Book of the Dead, to which the scribe added the names of the main pharaohs, some queens, and some prin-cesses of the 18 th Dynasty and the early 19 th Dynasty. Most of these royal figures belonged to the family of Ramses II, suggesting that the recto of the papyrus probably dates to the reign of Ramses II, while the verso may date slightly later in the Ramesside Period. The association of names of Osiris with royal names is very rare and the papyrus was probably used in a cultic context, offering an interesting example of a Book of the Dead spell also used in a ritual.


Description of the papyrus
The position of the second fragment is not certain.
Based on the content of the recto and the position of the fibers of the papyrus, it could be placed at the end of the second column. As for the verso, the scribal hand may correspond to that of the previous column, but the content of the column -the royal titulary of Ramses VI -suggests placement of the fragment in the middle of the second column. In this case, however, the content of the recto would                The line representing the leg separated from the body appears to be common during the 20 th Dynasty.

Provenance and studies of the papyrus
A9 42 II,12 The absence of the arm behind the seated man is attested during the 20 th Dynasty.
A23a/A311C 12bis III,2 This sign is not very common.

B39A IV,7
This sign is not common.
D39 104 II,9 This form, which shows the vase separated from the hand, is attested during the 20 th Dynasty.
This version is more like a hieroglyph.
E9 143 III,9 The perpendicular head is found during the 20 th Dynasty.

F12
148 IV,5 The slightly curved snout occurs more often during the 20 th Dynasty than earlier. The rounded tail is the typical version during the earlier New Kingdom, while the tail with a corner in the middle is seen during the 20 th Dynasty.
G5 184 III,9 III,10 The form of the falcon with the upper part not closed can be found during both the 19 th and the 20 th Dynasties.

G17d
XIV IV,8 The identification of this ligature is not assured and is different from the usual versions. It could also be ; see below, col. IV, note (b).

G36 198
II,x+31 III,6 IV,8 The head of the bird is usually closed during the 20 th Dynasty.

III,12
This sign is not very common.
This sign is not very common.

Fragment 1, column I
On the first preserved fragment, column I includes 13 lines of text. The two subfragments it is composed of were joined sometime in the last century, as Pleyte and Rossi's 1869-1876 publication depicts the column on two separate fragments. 29 The position of the fragment relative to the one with columns II-IV is uncertain; it could be placed slightly lower (as in Fig. 16), but the lacunae are two large for a confident decision to be made in this regard.
In any case, based on all known versions of BD 142 from the New Kingdom, to which this papyrus dates, column I certainly comes before column II. (e) Ruty-iset is probably a toponym and seems to correspond to the current city of Abusir, as Didier Devauchelle observes. 32 Another translation, adopted by LGG II, 551, prefers "Osiris, der um die Mannschaft (außen) herum ist". Furthermore, "Osiris in Heliopolis" and "Osiris <in> Ruty-iset" are not included either in the list of the Osireion or in P. Nu, but they are in P. Berlin P 3002 (3rd register, no 11, 4th register, no 1). 33

Fragments 3 and 4, column II
Column II spans at least two fragments: the first column of fragment 3 (column II of the currently reconstructed text), which corresponds to the upper part of the papyrus and contains 14 lines of text, and fragment 4, which corresponds to the lower part with 15 lines. To these two fragments, a further fragment with 3 lines can be added based on the fibers of the papyrus and the similar content. If we compare the upper part of this column with column IV, which probably includes the upper part of the papyrus, it appears that 2 lines at the beginning of the column are missing, so that we can estimate the column to have contained between 29 lines (without fragment 2) and 32 lines (with fragment 2). Fragment 2 II,1 [Wsir ] II,1 [Osiris ].  the Osireion seems to contain these names (register III, no 24,26,27). Thus, the Osireion and P. Greenfield have the same order as P. Turin Cat. 1877, but with a further name after "Osiris in the nome of Abydos", that is "Osiris in Deni" (P. Greenfield, 35f,11 and Osireion, register III, no 25).
(f) From this point (II,22) to the end of the preserved column (II,29), and maybe also of fragment 2, are the names of other deities than Osiris that are preserved in versions later than the New Kingdom.
The restitutions are given here following P. Greenfield (36a,5-36a,18), which has a similar structure.  (e) Some traces are visible, but they are insufficient to suggest a restitution.

Fragment 3, column III
Notes on the translation (a) The writing 6wti certainly refers to the mother of Ramses II, usually written 6wy or 6wiA (cf., for example, KRI II, 844-47; the scribe has probably written ti for y).
(b) The ligature at the end of the cartouche clearly refers to the name of the goddess Mut, as it often appears in the cartouche of Queen Nefertary -though it is normally written at the beginning of the cartouche, or at least before mr "beloved" (cf. KRI II,[848][849][850][851][852][853]. Kitchen reads the group as a phonetic writing of the goddess (KRI II, 922), although it could also be a ligature of the vulture-glyph with a "t" ( ).
(c) The traces in the last line are insufficient to identify the name of Ramses II's daughter here.

General comment on P. Turin Cat. 1877 recto
The recto of P. Turin Cat. 1877 lists names of Osiris that correspond to BD 141/142 -specifically the second part of Spell 142, dedicated to Osiris -in association with the names of royal ancestors and members of the royal family.

Names of Osiris and other deities (columns I-III)
The order of names in columns I and II reflects the tra-

Royal names (column IV)
The list in column IV gives the names of the following pharaohs in reverse chronological order: Sesostris I for the 12 th Dynasty and then Ahmose to

The fragmentary texts on P. Turin Cat. 1877 verso (Figs. 18-19)
The verso of P. Turin Cat. 1877 contains three or four different texts that have no relationship with the recto. The papyrus was probably reused after the scribe had copied the main text on the recto. As the focus of this article is on the litany on the recto, I will only provide a description of, and very short comment on, this part of the papyrus, as it could be useful for further, more detailed research.

Text 1
The first text on the verso contains only a single line with traces of a date.  Year

Text 2
Text 2 consists of two columns containing elements of a royal titulary, probably referring to Ramses VI.
The two columns seem to belong to the same text, though this is not certain since each seems to have been written by a different scribe. We can compare, for example, the way that Horus is written at the beginning of each column and the type of ink used, which is darker in the left column. Fragment 4 is placed at the end of this column because of the content of the recto. Finally, the position of the fragment at the end of the second column (fragment 2) is not certain. The signs in these two columns are higher than in the other texts on the papyrus. The position of fragment 2 would make sense in the lacuna in line 2 because of the meaning. In this case, the complete line would be: But there does not seem to be enough room and it would have no sense for the meaning of the recto, which is why I prefer to place fragment 2 somewhere near the end of the column, even though this position remains uncertain.
The fragment x+9 would be better placed in the lacuna of line 2, so that the translation would be: "who prevails over the hundreds of thousands," the Nebty-name of Ramses VI. 40

Text 3
This fragmentary text written in five lines is dif-

Some remarks on litanies of Osiris and royal names in the cultic context
The text written on the recto of P. Like Spell 142 and other texts like it, the litany of P. Turin was thus probably a wdnw ("offerings" or "litany of offerings") used in a temple context. What is particular about this papyrus is the presence of pharaohs', queens', and princesses' names in addition to those of Osiris. Name-lists of royal ancestors such as the Ramesseum list, the Abydos list, or those found in ritual papyri are common enough. 54 The names of royal ancestors can vary from one document to the next, or even within the same papyrus -as in the Ritual of Amenhotep I. 55 Usually Mentuhotep II was the main pharaoh for the Middle Kingdom, but in some cases Sesostris I is also be mentioned, as indeed in P. Turin Cat. 1877. 56 These lists rarely mention female members of the royal family. There are of course exceptions, such as Queen Ahmes-Nefertary, wife of Ahmosis, 57 or women of the royal family of the 18th Dynasty, who appear in stelae, tombs, papyri, and other objects from Deir el-Medina. 58 The queens and daughters of the family of Ramses II occasionally appear in temple lists, as do the sons of Ramses II, but they are not attested together in a liturgy following a litany of Osiris, as seen in the Turin papyrus. 59 Therefore, it seems that priests introduced the names of the royal family on this papyrus in order to associate them with the offering ritual usually devoted to Osiris.
Another interesting point is that the names of kings are prefixed by "Osiris", while those of women are prefixed only by the title they bore during their lives.
This may indicate that they were still alive when the papyrus was copied (with the exception, of course, of Ahmes-Nefertary).
The ritual on this papyrus was certainly used in a temple where royal ancestors and living members of the royal family were invoked so that they could benefit from the cult and the offerings. Kitchen wondered if this text may stem from the archives of Ramses II in Abydos. 60 This could be possible because of the links between the version in the Osireion and in P. Turin Cat. 1877. Yet, the papyrus was probably found in Deir el-Medina, where other lists are known, 61 and was certainly used in a Theban temple, but a common model with the Osireion's version is possible. At some point, probably during the Ramesside Period, it was then reused to record administrative texts and a royal titulary.