cde 2007 lion stelae

7/28/2019 CdE 2007 Lion Stelae

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Two Ptolemaic Stelae for the Sacred Lionof Leonton Polis (Tell Moqdam)

1. STELA OF KLEOPATRA IN THE PEKING UNIVERSITY MUSEUM (FIG. 1)

Peking University Museum inv. 95.0879Height: 34 cm. Width: 25 cm (bottom), 23.7 cm. (top). Thickness: 5.7 cm max.

Material: limestone.

The Museum of Archaeology of Peking University houses severalEgyptian stelae, of which the one presented here is one of the most inter-esting. They were brought to China by Duan Fang, ambassador of theChinese emperor in the early 20th century, together with nearly one hun-dred other antiquities. He may have bought them during his short stay inEgypt, where he visited Port Said and Cairo in the summer of 1906(1).

Round-topped limestone stela with winged sun-disc at the top, from

which hang two uraei. The scene in the second register represents apharaoh with double crown and cartouche offering the hieroglyphic signfor field to a lion crouching on a pedestal. To the left and right of thescene are two ws sceptres; that on the left stands on a bottom line, whichis set slightly too high. On the lions head is a sun disk with a largeuraeus. Over the back of the lion stand the hieroglyphs Wsir p my Osiristhe lion. There are traces of red paint on the legs, arms and chest of theking(2). The front leg of the pharaoh has apparently been reworked. Thename of the pharaoh in the cartouche above his head is damaged towards

the end, but the first five signs are clear. and must refer tothe name Kleopatra, even though the traces at the end cannot be identifiedwith certainty. Nothing similar is found among the examples of the nameKleopatra in H. GAUTHIER,Livre des rois dEgypte IV, MIFAO 20 (1916).

WILLY CLARYSSE - HAYING YAN

77

(1) On Duan Fang, see the article Tuan-Fang (by H. MOMOSE) in A.W. HUMMEL,EminentChinese of the Ching Period (1644-1912) II, Taipei 1991, pp. 780-782. On his Egyptiancollection, see W. CLARYSSE - Haying YAN,Aegypten in der verbotenen Stadt, Antike Welt37 (2006), pp. 45-51.

(2) No doubt all such stelae were originally painted. Traces of the original painting arebest preserved in the stela from Fribourg (no. 14 in the list below; see the coloured photo-graph in the edition by S. Bickel).


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The contours of pharaoh, lion and sun disc are cut deeper than the other

elements, including the hieroglyphic signs. The contrast between the sundisk and the uraeus hanging from it is very clear.

GYPTE PHARAONIQUE

78

Fig. 1. Peking University Museum inv. 95.0879 (no. 8).


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Under this scene is a one line demotic inscription reading p .wy n t

qs.t n p my the house of the burial of the (divine) lion.2. STELA OF A PTOLEMY IN THE LOUVRE (FIG. 2)(3)

Louvre inv. E 14226Height: 29.5 cm. Width: 20.5 cm. Thickness: 2.4 cm.Material: limestone.

The stela was offered to the Louvre by Perdrizet in 1931. It representsa king, who is identified by his cartouche as Ptolemy , wearing

the double crown and offering a field hieroglyph to a lion with sun disccrouching on a pedestal. Over the lion is written in hieroglyphs Wsir pmy Osiris the lion. Two ws scepters delineate the scene to the left andto the right. The top of the stela represents a winged sun disc with uraeiunder the curved sign for heaven.

* **

A series of similar limestone stelae appeared upon the antiquities market

in the late 19th and early 20th century(4). Most of them represent a

pharaoh offering to a lion god on a pedestal; only four bear an inscription:

the stelae of Amsterdam, Beijing, Hildesheim and Leipzig (nos. 3, 8, 9 and

13 in the following list). The stelae have been listed by H.P. BLOK, DreiStelen im Haagner Museum, Acta Orientalia 8 (1930), p. 222; B. PORTER -R.L.B. MOSS, Topographical Bibliography IV, Oxford 1934, p. 38;C. DE WIT,Le rle et le sens du lion dans lgypte ancienne, Luxor, s.d.,pp. 276-280; and more recently by D. MEEKS,Les donations aux templesdans lgypte du 1er millnaire av. J.-C., in: E. LIPINSKI, State and Temple

Economy in the Ancient Near East II, OLA 6, Leuven 1979, pp. 685-686.Some addenda are given by J. YOYOTTE, Annuaire de lcole Pratique desHautes tudes, 5e section, 96 (1987-1988), p. 158. The following tableadds three new items to the earlier listings(5).

TWO PTOLEMAIC STELAE FOR THE SACRED LION OF LEONTON POLIS (TELL MOQDAM)

79

(3) We thank M. tienne, conservator of the Louvre, for permission to publish this doc-ument here.

(4) There are no clear indications that the stelae belong to the same find as the bronzestatuettes of lions found in the ruins of the temple of Leonton polis in 1884, though atleast one stela (no. 14) comes from the Fouquet collection, like the bronzes. For this find,see E. CHASSINAT, Les antiquits gyptiennes de la collection Fouquet, Paris 1922 and

P. PERDRIZET, Antiquits de Lontopolis, Monuments Piot 25 (1921-22), pp. 349-385.(5) We thank S. Bickel, H. De Meulenaere, P. Dils and D.J. Thompson, who have

helped us with new documents and/or checked our data against the originals.


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80

Fig. 2. Louvre inv. E 14226 (no. 17).


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81

Fig.4.Alexandria399(no.2).

Fig.3.

Cairo22177(=BeniSuef1519)(no.1).


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GYPTE PHARAONIQUE

82

Fig.6.

Copenhagen,NyCarlsbergAEIN311(no.4).

Fig.

5.

Amsterdam,AllardPierson

7772(no.3).


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Fig.

7.

Copenhagen,NyCarlsberg

AEIN309(no.5).

Fig.8.

Bonn,Akade

m.Kunstmuseum(no.6).


83


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GYPTE PHARAONIQUE

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inv. lion king

1 Beni Suef 1519, crouching lion king with pshent offering fieldformerly Cairo Wsir p my Pwrmys nCG 22177 (FIG. 3)

2 Alexandria 399 striding lion king with pshent offering field(712A) (FIG. 4) p my n s R nb .w Ptwrmys

3 Amsterdam, striding lion king with pshent offering MaatAllard Pierson p my n nsw.t-bty Ptrmys n t7772 (FIG. 5)

4 Copenhagen, crouching lion no kingNy Carlsberg Wsir p myAEIN 311 (FIG. 6)

5 Copenhagen, standing god priest offering fieldNy Carlsberg with lions headAEIN 309 (FIG. 7) and atef crown

6 Bonn, Akadem. crouching lion king with pshent offering fieldKunstmuseum Wsir p my(lost in world war II)(FIG. 8)

7 Cairo JE 87841 crouching lion king with pshent offering field

(FIG. 9) Wsir p my cartouchePtlm[ys]

8 Beijing 95.0879 crouching lion king offering field(FIG. 1) Wsir p my cartouche Qliwptr

9 Hildesheim 1897 striding lion and king (damaged) offering field(FIG. 10) lion-headed god

My-s ptynb iw-nw.t(?)

10 Cairo CG 22225 crouching lion (FIG. 11)

11 Copenhagen, crouching lion king offering fieldNy Carlsberg 4 illegible lines,AEIN 312 (FIG. 12) with two cartouches


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85

others text h. w. date of find or purchase

1 58 38 cm Bought in 1885(JE 26923)

2 66 31 14.5 cm before 1900

3 small altar Greek 51 28 cm. copied in 1896with flower

4 small altar 18 15 cm bought in Egyptwith flower around 1890

5 no sun disc 29 19 cm bought in Egyptat top around 1890

6 17 15 cm bought in Cairobefore 1906

7 flower 33.5 27 cm acquired by exchange

(thicker below from the dealerthan above) Abd el-Rahman

el-Sadiq, 1946

8 Demotic 34 25 cm acquired in 1906

9 small altar Demotic 48 31 cm before 1914with flower

10 offering table 26.5 21 cm 1900 (JE 34201)with flower

11 small altar Hieroglyphic 18 15 cm bought in Egyptwith flower around 1890


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inv. lion king

12 Copenhagen, crouching lion Ny CarlsbergAEIN 310 (FIG. 13)

13 Leipzig, crouching lion king offering field,gyptisches Museum before him an empty1668 (FIG. 14) Wsir p my cartouche (horizontal)

14 Fribourg (Switzerland) striding lion and king with hands held up inFig 1999.6 (FIG. 15) lion-headed god. adoration

Above the lion empty cartouche (vertical)two verticalhieroglyphic lines

p my nMy-s pty

15 Stockholm, crouching lion king with pshent offering fieldMedelhavsmuseet Wsir p my empty cartouche1981:13 (FIG. 16)

16 unknown (FIGG. 17-18) two registers: king with pshent offering fieldabove crouchinglion, below thegod Tutu striding,with privateworshipper infront

17 Paris, Louvre E 14226 crouching lion king with pshent offering field,(FIG. 2) Wsir p my with cartouchePtwlmys

18 unknown lion Ptolemy

19 Hehya 1955

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others text h. w. date of find or purchase

12 lion between 25 25 cm. bought in EgyptIsis-Hathor, around 1890Bastet as alion-headedcobra andMiysis withatef crown(6)

13 Greek date 31.2 16 9.4 cm arrived in Leipzigyear 3 (?), before 19089 Mechir

14 a few Greek 41 29 2,5 cm from the Fouquetsigns are Collectionadded on thewingedsun-disc andon thepiedestal

15 30 22 cm unknown

16 private person 34 23,5 cm whereabouts unknown;offering to former collection ofa striding P. MorabitoTutu sphinx inthe lower partof the stela

17 29.5 20.5 2.4 cm gift by P. Perdrizet2.4 cm (1931)

18 Greek ? seen in Cairo in1905 or 1906

19

(6) For the identification of the divine figures, we follow J. YOYOTTE, Annuaire delcole Pratique des Hautes tudes 96 (1987-1988), p. 158.


87


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GYPTE PHARAONIQUE

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Fig.9.

Cairo

JE87841(no.7).

Fig.10.

Hildesheim1897(no.9).


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89

Fig.11.

Cairo22225(no.10).

Fig.12.



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90

Fig.13.


Fig.14.

Leipzig,

gyptischesMuseum1668(no.13).


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91

Fig.16.

Stockholm,M

edelhavsmuseet1981:13(no.15).

Fig.15.

Fribourg(Switzerland)Fig1999.6(no.14).


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GYPTE PHARAONIQUE

92

Fig.18.

Unknownprivatecollection(no.16).

Fig.17.

Unknownprivatec

ollection(no.16).


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93

Publications:

1. A. BEY KAMAL, Stles ptolmaques et romaines (Catalogue gnral duMuse du Caire), Cairo 1905, p. 156 and pl. 51. The stela is illustrated and dis-cussed by M. EL-WESHAHY,Ptolemaic Lion-god Stelae at Cairo and Copenhagen

Museums, in: M. ELDAMATY - MAI TRAD, Egyptian Museum Collections aroundthe World II, Cairo 2002, pp. 1225-1228. The spelling of the royal name isstrange: first the scribe wrote rmys n, followed bypw, which no doubt stand for

Pw, the beginning of the name.2. G. DARESSY, ASAE 5 (1904), p. 119, XVI, no. 8. C.E. Wilbour saw the stela

in an antiquarians shop in Cairo May 1886 (information H. De Meulenaere onthe basis of WilboursNotebookL.f 2.49). In 1900 the monument was already inAlexandria, cf. G. BOTTI,Notice des monuments exposs au Muse Grco-romaindAlexandrie, Alexandria 1893, p. 17. The stela is heavily damaged, especiallybelow. The pedestal on which the lion stands is lower than usual; the sun diskon its head and the hieroglyphs above his back are barely visible. On top ofthe rounded stela is the usual winged sun disk with uraei. We thank Marvat Seifel-Din and J.-Y. Empereur for the photograph of this stela.

3. G. LEFEBVRE, BCH 26 (1902), pp. 453-454 (= SB I 26). A plate is given byP. PERDRIZET, Monuments Piot 25 (1921-22), p. 372 (at that time the stelabelonged to the collection von Bissing in Munich). The most recent publication isby W. VAN HAARLEM, Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum, Allard PiersonMuseum Amsterdam II, Mainz 1995, pp. 53-55 (inv. 7772). The stela is also shown

in four recent exhibition catalogues: R. BIANCHI, Cleopatras Egypt. Age of thePtolemies, New York 1989, no. 106; La gloire dAlexandrie, Paris 1998, no. 140,p. 193;In gyptischer Gesellschaft. Aegyptiaca der Sammlungen Bibel+Orient ander Universitt Freiburg Schweiz, Freiburg 2004, p. 52, Abb. 12c; E. WARMEN-BOL, Sphinx. Les gardiens de lgypte, Bruxelles 2006, pp. 204-206, no. 46 withplate. The text is discussed, with further bibliography, by E. BERNAND,Le culte dulion, Dialogues dhistoire ancienne 16 (1990), pp. 78-80, no. 7.

4. O. KOEFOED-PETERSEN, Glyptothque Ny Carlsberg. Les stles gyptiennes,Copenhagen 1948, p. 62, pl. 84. This stela is not described on p. 62 (where underno. 84/AEIN 311 a description is given of AEIN 312). For a description, seeM. MOGENSEN,Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Den Aegyptiske Samling, Kopenhagen

1930, pp. 333-334 (A755) and M. EL-WESHAHY, Ptolemaic Lion-god Stelae atCairo and Copenhagen Museums, in: M. ELDAMATY - MAI TRAD, EgyptianMuseum Collections around the WorldII, Cairo 2002, pp. 1221-1234. Perhapsthere are some faint traces of a demotic (?) text under the scene.

5.Ibidem, p. 62, no. 86 and pl. 86.6. A. WIEDEMANN - B. PRTNER, Aegyptische Grabsteine und Denksteine aus

verschiedenen Sammlungen III, Strassburg 1906, pp. 30-32, no. 27, pl. X. Theoriginal was lost in the second world war.

7. Unpublished; briefly discussed by D. MEEKS, OLA 6 (1979), p. 686, no. 7.The item was checked for us in the Journal dEntre of the Cairo Museum byS.P. Vleeming.

8. Stela published here; the item is discussed by W. CLARYSSE - Haying YAN,Aegypten in der verbotenen Stadt, Antike Welt 37 (2006), pp. 45-51, with photo-


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9494

graph p. 47, pl. 3; a photograph is also shown in E. WARMENBOL, Sphinx. Les gar-diens de lgypte, Bruxelles 2006, p. 204-206, no. 46 with plate.

9. W. SPIEGELBERG, Recueil de Travaux 36 (1914), pp. 174-176 and pl. VIII; hisplate is reproduced in L.V. ZABKAR, Apedemak. Lion god of Meroe, Warminster1975, pl. XXII, and ZPE 158 (2006), plate on p. 297. H. KAYSER,Die gyptischen

Altertmer im Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim, Hamburg 1966, p. 130gives a description; YOYOTTE, BIFAO 52 (1953), p. 186; CHRISTIEs, New YorkCatalogue December 1996, no. 58; S.P. VLEEMING, Some Coins of Artaxerxes andother Short Texts in the Demotic Script Found on Various Objects and Gatheredfrom many Publications, Studia Demotica 5 (2001), p. 218, no. 216 reproduces thedemotic text under the scene, reading: p tp-ntr Mi-s p ntr the godsdomain of Miysis, the great god. This text is also included in C. LEITZ, Lexikon

der gyptischen Gtter und Gtterbezeichnungen III, OLA 112, Leuven 2002,p. 212, no. 29.10. A. BEY KAMAL, Stles ptolmaques et romaines (Catalogue gnral du

Muse du Caire), Cairo 1905, p. 211 (no plate). There are some traces of red inkon the winged sun disc. Most conspicuous in this stela are the shallow verticalgrooves covering the background of the stone.

11. O. KOEFOED-PETERSEN, Glyptothque Ny Carlsberg. Les stles gypti-ennes, Copenhagen 1948, pl. 85; in the description on p. 62 this stela is wronglynumbered 84 and AEIN 311. For a description, see M. EL-WESHAHY,PtolemaicLion-god Stelae at Cairo and Copenhagen Museums, in: M. ELDAMATY -MAI TRAD, Egyptian Museum Collections around the World II, Cairo 2002,

pp. 1229-1230. The lions head is not surmounted by a sun-disc.12. O. KOEFOED-PETERSEN, Glyptothque Ny Carlsberg. Les stles gyptiennes,

Copenhagen 1948, p. 61, no. 83 and pl. 83. Described by M. EL-WESHAHY,Ptole-maic Lion-god Stelae at Cairo and Copenhagen Museums, in: M. ELDAMATY -MAI TRAD, Egyptian Museum Collections around the World II, Cairo 2002,pp. 1230-1231. The pedestal is exceptionally high and narrow.

13. First mentioned by U. WILCKEN, AfP 4 (1908), pp. 241-242. A plate isgiven by S. BICKEL in In gyptischer Gesellschaft. Aegyptiaca der Sammlungen

Bibel+Orient an der Universitt Freiburg Schweiz, Freiburg 2004, p. 51, Abb.12b. In the empty space below the offering scene is one line of a badly carvedtext, which may perhaps be read as ( Etouv) g Mexer q. The year sign g is par-ticularly uncertain. The 9th of Mecheir may have been an important festival datein Leonton polis, see below pp. 181-186. For the photo and for the permission topublish it we thank Dr. Friederike Seyfried.

14. Presented in the auction catalogue of SOTHEBYs New York, 12.6.1993,no. 287. The stela was acquired in 1999 from the Royal Athena Galleries,and once belonged to the Fouquet Collection in Egypt. It is illustrated by O. KEEL- T. STAUBLI,Im Schatten deiner Flgel, Freiburg 2001, pp. 85-86, and publishedby S. BICKEL, In gyptischer Gesellschaft. Aegyptiaca der Sammlungen

Bibel+Orient an der Universitt Freiburg Schweiz, Freiburg 2004, pp. 50-53, no.12 with Abb. 12a.

15. Stela Stockholm MME 1981:13, published by B. GEORGE - O. KANEBERG,Krlek till Egypten. Konst och konsthantverk fran faraonernas tid I Medelhavs-museet, Stockholm 1999, p. 90.


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95

16. O. KAPER, The Egyptian god Tutu, OLA 119 (2003), pp. 352-353: S-55.We thank O. Perdu for a full description and a photograph of this very damaged

stela, which was sold at Drouot-Richelieu on Feb. 18, 1990 (no. 286 of the salecatalogue). The upper part is a normal lion stela, the offering scene to Tutu mayhave been added in the empty field below at a later stage.

17. Exhibited in the Egyptian galleries of the Louvre (salle 19, vitrine 6) andthus far unpublished. There are traces of red paint on the legs of the king and ofocre paint on the wings of the sun at the top and in the sun disc on the lions head.The stela is briefly mentioned by E. DRIOTON, Bulletin des Muses de France 4.2(1932), p. 20 and in the Guide du visiteur, 1997, p. 104. We thank the conserva-tors of the Louvre Marc tienne and Christiane Ziegler for permission to publishthe text here.

18. E. CHASSINAT, Les antiquits gyptiennes de la collection Fouquet, Paris1922, p. 14 mentions a stela he saw in the shop of a Cairo antiquities dealer, witha Greek inscription reading taf ev tn plin tn lentwn. His descriptionis reproduced by E. BERNAND,Le culte du lion, Dialogues dhistoire ancienne 16(1990), pp. 77-78, no. 6.

19. Hehya 1955 is the reference given by YOYOTTE, Annuaire de lcolePratique des Hautes tudes, 5e section, 96 (1987-1988), p. 158. Hehya is thevillage north-east of Zagazig where the inscription SEG 24 [1969].1193 = SB X10696 was seen in 1960; cf. BERNAND, loc. cit., pp. 68-69. It has not been possi-ble to identify this object in the Cairo Museum. Perhaps it is identical with one ofthe stelae which turned up on the antiquities market later on; no.16, for instance,

is also based upon information given by Yoyotte.

* **

The stelae are said to come from Tell Moqdam in the Delta, calledLeonton polis by the Greeks, where the cult of a male lion flourished inthe Greco-Roman period. The first copies turned up in antique dealersshops in Cairo in 1885 (no. 1) and 1886 (no. 2, where Wilbour alreadynotes the provenance as Tell el Mukhdam). Spiegelberg tentatively

reads the name of the city on no. 9.The locus classicus for this lion cult is AELIANUS,De animalibus XII.7

(= TH. HOPFNER,Fontes Historiae Religionis Aegyptiacae III, Bonn 1923,pp. 427-428): In Egypt they worship lions and there is a city called afterthem. It is worthwhile to record the peculiarities of the lions there. Theyhave temples and very many spaces in which to roam (diatribein); theflesh of oxen is supplied to them daily and it lies, stripped of bones andsinews, scattered here and there, and while the lions eat songs are sung inthe Egyptian language. - - - Many lions are deified in Egypt7, and

(7) A lion cult is also attested in Saqqara, by a late Ptolemaic papyrus and animalremains. The papyrus mentioning taf ka trof lentwn, is still unpublished. It is


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GYPTE PHARAONIQUE

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dwelling places consecrated to their use are face to face. The windows

of some open to the east, others to the west, making life more pleasantfor them. And to preserve their health they have places to exercise

(gumnsia) and wrestling-grounds (palastrai) near by, and their

adversary is a well-nourished calf. And after practising his skill against

the calf, the lion brings it down (this takes time, for he is lazy and

unused to hunting), he eats his fill and returns to his own stable. (trans-

lation of A.F.Scholfield in the Loeb edition, slightly adapted).

Leonton polis - Tell Moqdam is rarely mentioned in the documentarysources. A Greek agonistic inscription listing the ephebs of the city still

shows an abundance of names derived from lwn (lion) and sxurv(strong) as late as AD 220(8). Perhaps worth mentioning is a letter in theZenon archive, which oddly corresponds with the date of 9 Mecheir givenon the Leipzig stela (no. 13 above). On the 4th of Dystros of the 28th yearof Ptolemy Philadelphos the dioiketes Apollonios and Zenon are presentin Leonton polis, as is clear from the docket on the back ofP.Lond. VII1938. This letter about financial matters was sent to Zenon on Mecheir 9(2 April) and reached Zenon on Dystros 4 (7 April, corresponding to 14Mecheir)(9). The party of the dioiketes was in Boubastos from 16 to 26

March and moved to Mendes on 11 April. They may very well have beenpresent at Leonton polis on the 2nd of April and planned their visit thereto participate in the local festival of 9 Mecheir. The coincidence in thedates for such an obscure place is at least remarkable. For a more detaileddiscussion, see our article in this volume, pp. 201-206.

The stelae are generally attributed to the Ptolemaic period; this is con-firmed by the royal names in nos. 1, 3, 4, 8 and 16 and by OGIS II 732, abuilding inscription for the temple of the lion god Ornymenes, dated tothe reign of Ptolemy V, which was acquired by the Ny Carlsberg Glyp-

tothek before 1899, probably together with nos. 4, 5, 11 and 12. TheGreek name Ornymenes apparently translates Egyptian my-s, Miysis

quoted by J. RAY inP. Hor, p. 154 and a photograph is published in JEA 59 (1973), p. 153,no. 59. For the discovery of lion mummies in the animal cemetery of that same place, seeP. CHARRON, Des momies de lions Saqqarah, BSEG 21 (1997), pp. 5-10. A mummifiedlion was found in the same area, near the Bubasteion, see C. CALLOU - A. SAMZUN -A. ZIVIE,A lion found in the Egyptian tomb of Maa, Nature, January 15, 2004.

(8) SEG 51 2159, with the onomastic commentary by J. BINGEN, CdE 76 (2001),

pp. 225-226.(9) For the dates and the correspondence of Zenon in year 28, see P.W. PESTMAN,A Guide to the Zenon archive, pp. 224-225.


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fierce looking(10), which is attested on the Hildesheim stela (no. 9)(11)

In our text the hieroglyphic inscription identifies the pharaoh as a Kleopa-tra, who is represented as a male. Whereas in official inscriptions and on

the walls of the temples, Kleopatra is always presented as a queen(12), pri-

vate dedications from her reign show her as a male pharaoh. Unlike the

famous queen Hatshepsut, Kleopatra did not officially adopt a policy of

representing herself as a male pharaoh. Usually she is shown as a queen

with her son Caesarion(13), sometimes also without a male companion(14).

But local sculptors just went on using the traditional motif of the offering

pharaoh, even when the reigning king happened to be a queen. Thus

Kleopatra is shown as a king on the Greek stelae I.Fay. III 205(=I. Louvre 21), dated in year 1 (July 2, 51 BC) (the scene may have beencut when her father was still alive)(15), andI.Fay. I 14, dedicated jointly

(10) Proposed by P. PERDRIZET, Comptes Rendus de lAcadmie des Inscriptions etBelles Lettres 1922, p. 322, and accepted by both YOYOTTE, loc. cit., p. 158 and BERNAND,loc. cit., pp. 71-73.

(11) For the god My-s - Miysis, see now C. LEITZ, Lexikon der gyptischen Gtterund Gtterbezeichnungen III, OLA 112, Leuven 2002, pp. 211-212, where the Hildesheimstela is quoted as Belegstelle 29. The god is also mentioned in the magical papyrus SB I5620 (= K. HERBERT, Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Brooklyn Museum, New York1972, no. 24; R. MERKELBACH, Abrasax. Ausgewhlte Papyri religisen und magischenInhalts, Papyrologica Coloniensia XVII.4, pp. 123-126) with the names Mios and Miosis.For the nome coins of the Leontopolites, representing Harmiysis as a youthful Ares andonce only as a lion, see now A. GEISSEN - M. WEBER, Untersuchungen zu den gyptischenNomenprgungen VIII, ZPE 158 (2006), pp. 271-275.

(12) As far as official representations are concerned, I here agree with S.-A. ASHTON,Cleopatra: Goddess, Ruler or Regent?, in: S. WALKER and S.A. ASHTON, Cleopatra

Reassessed, The British Museum Occasional Paper 103 (2003), p. 25: Despite the masculinetitle, Cleopatra does not appear in the guise of a male ruler or even with the crown of a pharaoh.- - - Neither the inscriptional evidence, nor her presentation on temple reliefs supports the ideathat it was acceptable for Cleopatra to appear as a male pharaoh. Instead the Queen chose to

associate herself with an earlier prominent female from the dynasty. This is confirmed bythe survey of queens in temple scenes given by M. MINAS,Macht und Onmacht. Die Represen-tation ptolemischer Kniginnen in gyptischen Tempeln, AfP 51 (2005), pp. 127-154.

(13) For instance on the wall of the Denderah temple, but also on the stela in honour ofKallimachos, where a New Kingdom stela was reworked (I.Prose 46 = R. HUTMACHER,DasEhrendekret fr den Strategen Kallimachos, Beitrge zur Klassischen Philologie 17, 1965,with plates).

(14) O. PERDU, Souvenir dune reine ptolmaque officiant seule, ZS 127 (2000),pp. 141-152, has collected the documents where a queen is represented alone in templereliefs. He does not consider these as indications of exceptional political power, but ratheras part of scenes recalling the royal couple acting together before the gods. But he does notdiscuss private monuments.

(15) G. HLBL,A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London - New York 2001, p. 281.See also the plate inLa gloire dAlexandrie, Paris 1998, no. 290, p. 244, and J. ROWLAND-SON, Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt. A sourcebook, Cambridge 1998.


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to Kleopatra VII and Caesarion (44-30 BC). Similarly a male pharaoh is

shown offering on the hieroglyphic stela Cairo JE 55941, which wasrecently redated to year 20 = 9 of Kleopatra by M. Chauveau(16). On thestela London, British Museum 1325, recently published by A. Farid(17), apharaoh is shown twice. Though the cartouches are empty the double date(year 22 = 7) can only refer to Kleopatra. That some stelae were made inadvance is confirmed by nos. 13-15 above, where the royal cartouche wasnever filled in. The Beijing stela may date from the early period ofKleopatra VIIs reign (51-50 BC), when she expelled her brother from thejoint kingship and ruled alone for one and a half years(18) or from a later

phase of her reign, when she was de facto sole ruler. An earlier date,under Kleopatra III, however, cannot be ruled out(19).Where a hieroglyphic inscription identifies the animal, the standing lion

is called the living lion (nos. 2, 3, 14), whereas the crouching lion isOsiris-the-lion (nos. 1, 4, 6-8, 13, 15). It is not certain, however, thatthis difference really indicates a living vs. a deceased animal. In the stelaefrom the Bucheum of Hermonthis, the bull can be shown standing on apedestal or lying down and mummified (the latter position is only foundin the Roman period). All stelae were found in the tombs and therefore

refer to the deceased Buchis, which was at the same time Osiris-Buchisand living ba of Re(20). In the Serapeum stelae of Saqqara of the Saiteperiod and before, as published by M.MALININE, G.POSENER and J.VER-COUTTER, Catalogue des stles du Srapum de Memphis, Paris 1968,standing bulls and mummified bulls appear in roughly the same numbers.Among the titles given to the bull 21 call him living Apis vs. 67Osiris-Apis. As one would expect the standing bulls are more oftencalled living Apis (16 instances against only 5 for the mummified bull),

(16) M. CHAUVEAU, Un stratge indigne contemporain de la dernire Cloptre,Rev. dgypt. 50 (1999), pp. 273-274 (with plate). The most recent edition of the text, byS.P. VLEEMING, Some coins of Artaxerxes and other short texts in the demotic script, StudiaDemotica 5 (2001), no. 157, incorporates Chauveaus correction.

(17) A. FARID, Fnf demotische Stelen aus Berlin, Chicago, Durham, London andOxford, Berlin 1995, no. 4, pp. 33-76 with pl. X; a coloured plate also in S. W ALKER,Cleopatra of Egypt. From History to Myth, London 2001, p. 175. For the text, see S.P.VLEEMING, Some coins of Artaxerxes and other short texts in the demotic script, StudiaDemotica 5 (2001), no. 158.

(18) G. HLBL, op. cit., p. 231 and p. 280.(19) The growing power of the queens in the later Ptolemaic period is well-known; for

a succinct recent description, see G. HLBL, op. cit., p. 206.(20) See R. MOND - O.H. MYERS, The Bucheum II, 1934, pp. 1-44 and III, pl. XXVII-XLVII.


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but for the indication Osiris-Apis, there is no such preponderance for the

mummified bulls (35 instances against 32 for the standing bull). Amongthe later Apis stelae on show in the Louvre there is no clear identificationof the standing bull as a living Apis and the crouching bull as Osiris-Apis.In any case the stelae with the standing bulls and those with the mummi-fied bulls were all found in the Serapeum and therefore all dedicated tothe Osirified Apis. Since the lion stelae apparently come from a singlefind, they were probably also funerary in character. In some of these thegod is represented as Osiris, in others as the sacred animal resurrected bythe funerary rituals and therefore living in a higher, religious sense.

The demotic inscription on the Beijing stela is closely parallelled by theAmsterdam stela no. 3, where a Ptolemy offers Maat to a lion standing ona pedestal with a similar sun disc with uraeus hovering over its head.There are several differences, however, e.g. the standing lion, the smallaltar and the title nsw.t-bity in front of the king. The hieroglyphic inscrip-tion above the back of the lion in the Amsterdam inscription reads:p myn the living lion, against Osiris the lion i.e. the dead lion in theBeijing stela. The general lay-out of the two stelae, however, is remark-ably similar. Under the offering scene the Amsterdam stela also has an

inscription, not in demotic this time, but in Greek: oka tv tafv tnlentwn er house of the tomb of the lions. (This is) sacred. Exceptfor the plural the first part of this is a perfect Greek equivalent for thedemotic text on the Beijing stela and shows that the stela for the livinglions of Amsterdam was probably also used for the deceased lions. Thelast word er is separated from the main text by a blank. As was shownby Nachtergael, this excludes the usual translation sacred house of thetomb of the lions(21). By its sacred character the place was also inacces-sible except for those who were authorised.

MEEKS, loc. cit., pp. 654 and 683-685, lists the stelae where the kingoffers a field hieroglyph to the god as pseudo-donation stelae, becausein contrast to the donation stelae of the XXIInd-XXVIth dynasties, no realroyal gift of land to the temple is involved. Many of these pseudo-dona-tions are addressed to sacred animals. Comparing the text of the Amster-dam stela with that of Hildesheim (no. 9), which reads tp-ntr n My-sthe sacred revenue of Miysis, YOYOTTE, loc. cit., pp. 158-159 con-cluded that the house of the lions pointed to the temple possessions

(21) G. NACHTERGAEL, propos de deux inscriptions grecques dgypte, Ricerche diEgittologia e di Antichit Copte 7 (2005), pp. 9-11.


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rather than to the actual tomb of the sacred animal and that these stelae

might be les enseignes, ou mieux, les stles-chapelles, des offices otaient gres et prpares les offrandes, annexes de briques incluses dansles tmnos. In our opinion the very similar expressions oka tafvin no. 9 and .wy n qs.tin the Beijing stela point to a real tomb with ahouselike superstructure. In the embalmers archives of Memphis andHawara, tombs are often called .wy n rmthouse of man(22). No doubtthe dedication stelae were standing in front of or inside the tombs of thesacred lions and they form a series to be compared with the Buchis stelaein Hermonthis, where the king is also shown offering a field hieroglyph.

The main difference is that, with a few exceptions, the lion stelae were leftuninscribed, unless the texts were painted in ink on the large blank surfaceunder the hieroglyphic scene and have now disappeared.

K.U.Leuven Willy CLARYSSEPeking University Haying YAN

(22) See e.g.P.Louvre E 3266, published by F. DE CENIVAL, BIFAO 71 (1972), pp. 11-65passim, andP.Hawara Lddeckens XI ll.6, 7; XXII l.8;P.Ashm. Reymond,passim.

cde 2007 lion stelae

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