June5] PROCEEDINGS. [1S94.
ce que timidement j'avaiscru pouvoir rendrepar " Conseiller intinie
du roi dans toutes ses places, prophetede Seschet." Toutefois,le
second I pouvait appartenir comme e.pithete a [j n n ,le texte datantdes Sa.rtes, qui abregent souventIes formes des mots,
commeils sautent volontiersla caracteristique a du teminin.
M. Le Page Renouf,*sans connaitre mesvuesa ce sujet, il
y a longtemps, est arrive a lire comme moi," prophete de Seschet,"
le passage de l'inscription du Louvre. Le meme savantciteaussi
la de"ese 1 nn ^k\ J^> , des textesdes pyramides, en la regardantcommeidentiqueall ™r du monument du Louvre. Maisle
., de la pyramide de Teta, se rencontre dans
r
une formule a l'alliteration ("Nephthysa resserre pourtoi tous
les membres en son nom de Seshait, damedes enceintes),! selon
- Pioceedings, XV,page378. [HereI only say what I proved elseivhere,ten
yearsago] Thefreshevidencecitedby our learned friendand valuedcolleagueis
indeed mostexcellent. Buton referring to my argument (in Transactions,
Vol. IX,p. 303), he can hardlyfail to see that he has misapprehended it. I
do not cite the name of the goddess Seshaitof the Pyramid of Teta in connection
withthe nameuponthe statuette of the Louvre, but as a variant in copies of one
and the same ancienttext. I appeal to two sets of variants.
I. The wlw/epassageof the text in Teta 268 is found elsewhere. I have
quotedthe British MuseumPapyrus 10081 as containing it. But it also occurs
on the lid of the red granite sarcophagus(No.3) in the British Museum,copiesof
whichwillbe found in Sharpe, I, 77, and in Vyse, Pyramids,II, 136 sq. From
a collation of theseidenticaltextsthe equation ™r• = sciait is necessarily inferred.
- The sameequationresultsfroma comparison betweenthe netting scenein
the greathall of the temple at Karnak and the same sceneat Esneh. Thename
of the goddess which is ideographical ly written at the latter placeis, in the
former,phoneticallywrittenSeiait.
Withsuchfactsbeforeone,and they are absolutelyindependentof eachother,
therecanbe no more mistakeaboutthe statue in the Louvre thanwiththat in
the Berlin Museum. Andeachof thesestatuesfurnishesabsoluteproofthat we
havein the above cases,I and 2, to do with phoneticvariants,not with different
readings. The consilienceof evidenceis so striking as to deserve this additional
statementof it.
Theuprightpartof the ideogram 'T^ is evidently (as Dr. Pleytc, I think, first
asserted)the reed-pen, an appropriate symbolof the writing goddess.
P. t.E P. R.]
t Kecueil de I'ieweg, XIV,page184.
253