Observations on the Reden und Rufe in the workmen’s tombs of Deir el-Medina

In this paper, I study the workers’ speeches (“Reden and Rufe”) in the 19th-Dynasty tombs of Deir el-Medina and its surroundings. For this period, only three tombs in Deir el-Medina (TT 212, TT 217, and TT 266) and one in the Theban necropolis (TT 16) preserve such texts. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at showing that, after falling into disuse in elite tombs, workers’ speeches appear in the tombs of craftsmen and the upper middle class, further evidence of the “democratisation” phenomenon during the 19th Dynasty. A wall relief fragment of the craftsman Meryptah from Saqqara (18th-19th Dynasty) indicates that this phenomenon was not restricted to the Theban area. The second goal of this paper is to determine what kind of language is used in 19th-Dynasty workers’ speeches, since this literary genre is sometimes thought to be written in the vernacular. I argue that it is a mimetic language, “à-la-manière-de,” more than an actual colloquial language. Regarding this question, the tombs of Ipuy (TT 217) and Amennakht (TT 266) lead to a dead-end because of their fragmentary state. The tomb of Ramose (TT 212) and the tomb of Panehsy and his wife Tarenu (TT 16), on the other hand, reveal Late Egyptian linguistic features. But, because their owners belong to a lower social class than the elite, it might suggest a reinterpretation of the rules specific to the literary genre of the workers’speeches (possible diastratic/diaphasic variation).