Un double papyrus lunaire et solaire ? Le manuscrit de Nebhepet (Papyrus Turin, Cat. 1768)

The papyrus of Nebhepet (Turin, Museo Egizio, Cat. 1768) displays singular material and iconotextual features. Probably reused – as attested by the erasing of an earlier name – it was composed by three different scribes, the handwriting of one of whom is recognizable on other papyri. The manuscript was made by joining two papyrus rolls, one resembling a Book of the Dead, the other an “Amduat”, and thus combines the iconography of the two main types of funerary manuscript of the time. The iconography includes many uncommon lunar motives – moon disks but also Wedjat-Eyes – centred on a group of mummiform figures inspired by the Litany of the Sun and including the deceased looking behind his back. Iconographic and textual indexes – in particular the use of the epithet rḫ ꜥn, “who knows the return” – suggest that the Litany of the Sun motif is here reinterpreted as a representation of the crescent moon. The deceased thus follows two paths of regeneration: a solar one, linked to the Going Out by Day and oriented toward the exterior of the manuscript; and a lunar one, centred on the core of the papyrus. This uncommon astral – solar and lunar – model is also found on the mummy board of Nebhepet (Paris, Louvre, E 13047), which displays very personal literary elaboration on the name of the deceased. The examination of this burial assemblage thus reveals great coherence and originality in the conception of a solar-lunar burial formulated by different artists.
Wedja -Eyes – centred on a group of mummiform figures inspired by the Litany of the Sun and including the deceased looking behind his back. Iconographic and textual indexes – in particular the use of the epithet
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, “who knows the return” – suggest that the Litany of the Sun motif is here reinterpreted as a representation of the crescent moon. The deceased thus follows two paths of regeneration: a solar one, linked to the Going Out by Day and oriented toward the exterior of the manuscript; and a lunar one, centred on the core of the papyrus. This uncommon astral – solar and lunar – model is also found on the mummy board of Nebhepet (Paris, Louvre, E 13047), which displays very personal literary elaboration on the name of the deceased. The examination of this burial assemblage thus reveals great coherence and originality in the conception of a solar-lunar burial formulated by different artists.

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