Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

PXjs-, xrin. THEFTS AT THE KING'S COKONATION 213

The people greet and congratulate the king, some
lying prostrate, others bowing before him and stretch-
ing out their hands to him in the attitude of wor-
ship, and to the faithful subjects, who have punctually
paid their taxes in the holy thirtieth year, the cus-
tomary necklaces (answering to our ' orders') are
handed by the courtiers.

Much more might still be related concerning Amen-
hotep III. and his contemporaries, for the monuments
of his time are eloquent, and divulge much. Here is
one statement imprinted with a dark pencil on the two
sides of an old potsherd :—

Let a report be made of all thefts which the workpeople of
Nekhuemmut have committed. They smuggled themselves into the
bouse ; they stole the . . . and spilt the oil; they opened the corn-
chest which contained spelt, and stole the lead at the mouth of the
fountain. They went into the bake-house (?) and stole the provision
of stale bread, and spilt the lamp-oil,—on the 13th day of the month
■Epiphi, on the coronation-day of King Amen-hotep.

As if such a theft had not been enough, the back
of the potsherd continues, in the same strain:—

They went into the store-room and stole three long loaves ;

eight ornaments......they drew (or rather, they sucked) the

beer from the skin which lay on the water, while I was in the
house of my father. Will my lord cause that [justice be done]
me?

And all this happened on the coronation-day of
Pharaoh, the date of which would otherwise, without
this little potsherd, have remained probably for ever
■unknown to us.

Amen-hotep III. must have reigned more than
thirty-five j^ears. The two rock-inscriptions at
Sarbut-el-Hadim, in the peninsula of Sinai, bear
witness to the fact that in the month Mekhir of the
thirty-sixth year of his reign a courtier fulfilled a
commission of the king, in connection with the ob-