A Short Harper's Song of the Late New Kingdom in the Yale University Art Gallery

Abstract

Federn was the corpus of harper's songs, particularly the song of Neferhotep in the version represented in Papyrus Harris 500. x As a former student and admirer of Dr. Federn, it seems fitting for me to present this brief publication of a song of a few lines in one of the collections at Yale University. In 1937 the Yale University Art Gallery acquired a tomb relief of a man named Suenro (PI. I) as an anonymous gift. At the time of its acquisition the late Dr. Ludlow Bull served as honorary curator of the Egyptian Collection, and its acquisition must be credited to his interest. The relief is of limestone, measures 17 inches high by 26 inches wide, and bears the museum accession number 37.126. For permission to publish it and the accompanying photograph, I am indebted to the Director of the Yale Art Gallery, Dr. Andrew C. Ritchie. Three registers are represented in part. Of the almost entirely missing top register there are only traces, perhaps feet facing right and several jars on the left. The bottom register shows three heads of offering bearers. Of the first only the back of the head is preserved. The second holds a tray of offerings, and the third seems to be bringing an animal-headed canopic vessel. At the extreme right there may be a second canopic vessel with falcon ( ? ) head borne by a missing fourth bearer. The middle register is better preserved. On the left are two members of a funerary banquet seated on the ground with one knee up. The first, a man, holds a loaf or incense cone in his left hand. The second, a woman, has a flower and cone on her head; her left hand is crossed over to touch her right elbow. Above these seated guests or family members are vertical lines for seven short columns of text which were never