Ramesside Registers of Egyptien de Tradi

On Forms and Functions, 41-86
Ramesside Registers of Égyptien de Tradition:

The Medinet Habu Inscriptions
Todd J. Gillen, University of Liège
Abstract
This paper engages the conceptual tool of register to explore the relations between form and function in
the historical inscriptions of Ramses III at Medinet Habu. In addition to a synchronic characterisation
of the registers in use in view of their situational features and according to linguistic, discourse, and
material parameters, the paper also offers a discussion of certain situations of formal identity (one
form–many functions) and functional identity (many forms–one function) via a phraseological case
study. Thus it is a contribution to the study of both the Medinet Habu texts and the heterogeneity of
Ramesside égyptien de tradition.
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview
This paper aims at exploring the relationships between form and function in the corpus
of historical inscriptions of Ramses III at Medinet Habu. It is a broad investigation
that opens (§1) with an exposition of the concept of register — theoretically and in
relation to the study of Ramesside Egyptian language1 — and its usefulness not
simply for capturing recurrent clusters of formal linguistic features, but for attempting
to situate those features in relation to what they do (particular metafunctions) and vis-
à-vis the contexts of their realisation. Following this background, §2 explores the
situational parameters of the Medinet Habu texts, discussing the large social and
cultural dimensions for their realisation, beginning with issues of materiality. In
attempting to identify the distinctively Egyptian resources via which different kinds of
meaning can be framed or staged for realisation, this section relates to genre. The
treatment of form–function relations is continued in §3 with a broad characterisation
(no complete description is attempted2) of the linguistic registers in use, revealing a
complicated picture: two principal registers are observed vis-à-vis the collocation of
sets of grammatical constructions, among other discourse features, and I demonstrate
how rhetorical strategies entail the mixing of registers in the realisation of the goals of
the genre. Finally, §4 discusses how this mix of registers has resulted in certain
* The core of this work derives from my doctoral thesis, Gillen (2009). I would like to thank
Stéphane Polis for his personal and intellectual encouragement during the writing of this paper, as
well as the reviewers Andréas Stauder, Orly Goldwasser and Eitan Grossman for their helpful
comments.
1 The concept of register in Egyptology already has a significant bibliography, of which a core
selection comprises Goldwasser (1990; 1991; 1999), Groll (1975-6), Junge (1985), Polis (in press),
Stauder (2013a). These and other works will be discussed further in specific contexts below.
2 A complete catalogue of verb forms in the texts can be found in Gillen (2009).
42 Todd J. Gillen
Egyptological interpretive difficulties: on the one hand I address the different gram-
matical functions that a single form may have (one form–many functions) via two
different case studies, the sDm=f and bw sDm=f; on the other hand I observe the
opposite situation (many forms–one function) in reference to a set of phraseologically
related negations, emphasising the importance of taking into account phraseological
histories in the understanding of aspects of égyptien de tradition.
1.2 The ‘historical’ inscriptions of Ramses III at Medinet Habu

The ‘historical’ inscriptions found on the walls of the mortuary temple of Ramses III
at Medinet Habu commemorate the conflicts between Egypt and the Libyans and Sea
Peoples in the 20th dynasty (13th century BCE). The texts form a closed corpus boun-
ded by the physical temple context and possess a distinct uniformity not only of
subject matter (= military/war), but also lexicon, grammar and structural arrangement.
Much of the discussion in this article is concerned with the longer ‘narrative’ texts,
dated (according to the texts) to Year 5, Year 8 and Year 11, though irresistible exam-
ples are also drawn from the texts known as the Year 11 Poem and Year 11 Prologue,
as well as the caption texts: the short inscriptions accompanying the war scenes — the
Nubian campaign, Syrian campaign, Libyan campaign, Sea Peoples campaign —as
well as the lion hunt scene.3
The texts are composed in a peculiar variety of Ramesside Egyptian that draws on
a historical wealth of linguistic resources and resists coherent classification within
standard grammatical descriptions. While there has been a fair degree of attention
paid to grammatical sequentiality and the narrative organisation of the texts,4 their so-
called ‘rhetorical’ and eulogistic aspects have been essentially ignored,5 while their
peculiar grammatical temporalities continue to pose particular difficulties for Egypto-
logists. Such are common problems for texts to which can be applied the label
égyptien de tradition.6 The goal of this contribution is not to resolve these problems
once and for all, but to exploit the framework of register as a means of capturing the
linguistic idiosyncrasies of the Medinet Habu texts and of contextualising them socio-
culturally.
3 For the texts, see Epigraphic Survey (1930: pls.1-54); Epigraphic Survey (1931: pls.55-113); KRI
V, 8-98. Annotated translations can be found in Edgerton and Wilson (1936) and RITA V, 9-87.
Additional translations can be found in Junge (2005a) – Year 8 text only; Wilson (19693: 262-3) –
selection of longer texts; Peden (1994) – longer texts only.
4 Wente (1959), Cifola (1988), Spalinger (1988). Israeli (1991) makes the first steps in acknow-
ledging properly the mix of narrative and eulogy.
5 Despite the insightful comment in Wilson (1930: 26) that the historical information in the texts “is
not given in narrative form but is imbedded deep in a matrix of royal glorification, where fact is
almost buried in pretentious poetry. The scribe was, of course, far more interested in the matrix
than in the nuggets of fact.” See also the astute comment relating to the difference between
description and narration at Medinet Habu in Jansen-Winkeln (1995: 98, n.59).
6 Vernus (1996: 556-7) in particular has pointed out the infiltration of ideological texts by features
of the vernacular language, specifically “dans le traitement par la propagande monarchique des
questions d’actualité, en particulier des guerres (inter alia les inscriptions royales de Séthy I,
Ramsès II, Merneptah, Ramsès III).” See also in more specific detail for earlier texts Stauder
(2013b: 43-50 and 51-52).
Ramesside Registers of Égyptien de Tradition 43
1.3 Register and Ramesside Egyptian language

The concept of register has been deployed as a tool for capturing the variation across
and within texts, specified (to put it most simply) according to use. This narrowly
textual use of the concept is set within a broad discussion of language as socio-
culturally constituted and constitutive. This discussion perhaps first found explicit
formulation in the work of scholars like Bakhtin (in his discussion of the notion
speech genre and use of the term heteroglossia),7 and has been elaborated in branches
of language study rooted in anthropology (e.g. so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis8) and
sociology9, and more specifically resulting in coherent streams like linguistic anthro-
pology10 and sociolinguistics11 that themselves have become differentiated in assump-
tions, methods and goals.
Probably the most well-elaborated, commented-on, and widely-applied account of
register in recent years is that given by Halliday within the parameters of his Systemic
Functional Linguistics.12 His sophisticated theory views register as a semantic pheno-
menon, “the necessary mediating concept that enables us to establish the continuity
between a text and its sociosemiotic environment.”13 Register is the particular textual
outcome of a scope of cultural potentiality that is situationally specified. While the
description of such a totality is potentially infinitely complex, we can nonetheless out-
line the principle parameters involved. Without going into the entire theory, I wish to
point out a number of aspects that are relevant to this paper in providing theoretical
foundation.
1.3.1 Register as instantiation process: from system to texts

The theory models register as a purely descriptive concept addressing the realization
of meaning over non-hierarchically-ordered strata. To put it succinctly, if somewhat
simply, specific lexicogrammatical selections are formed in dialectic processes of
activation: context activates possibilities of meaning, meaning activates possibilities
of wording, wording activates possibilities of phonetics, and so on, in interminable
cycles.14 This model makes use of a dynamic instantiation process that sees Saussu-
rean langue (system) and parole (instance) as the same thing viewed from different
time depths, and posits instead a cline of instantiation: “[s]een from the instantial end
of the cline, a register appears as a cluster of similar texts, a text type; whereas seen
from the systemic end, a register appears as a subsystem.”15
7 Bakhtin (1981 [1935]).

8 Whorf (1954).
9 e.g. classically Bourdieu (1991).
10 e.g. Irvine (1989).
11 e.g. notably Silverstein (1985) and (2003).
12 Halliday and Matthiessen (20043).
13 Halliday (2002 [1977]: 58).
14 Hasan (2010: 12).
15 Halliday (2005 [1995]: 248).
44 Todd J. Gillen
Fig. 1. Cline of instantiation/realization.16

In the discussion of varieties of Ramesside Egyptian, such a perspective allows us to
reflect on certain changes in Egyptological approaches to register: there has been a
tendency to describe variety in terms of High and Low systems, either based on
criteria of literariness, mostly predicated on diamesic dimensions (written vs. spo-
ken),17 or ideas of diglossia involving a binary understanding of social hierarchies in
terms of elite/non-elite.18 More recently, recognition that our access to Egyptian lan-
guage is as a phenomenon both exclusively written and chiefly elite in nature has
accompanied a shift away from such avenues of research.19 Register is now pursued
with an increasing sensitivity to variation between individual texts, an approach which
has resulted in seeing a plurality of varieties linked to a range of domains of
practice.20 Thus égyptien de tradition has more recently been viewed not so much as
variation within a singular, structurally functional and symmetrically isomorphic (one
form–one function) phenomenon, but rather as a blanket term for varieties of language
use arising in view of heterogenous factors.
In brief, if Ramesside Egyptian was once sketched in terms of dual complemen-
tary linguistic systems from which texts were generated, the task appears now to
approach the colourful spectrum of material from the opposite direction: to describe in
detail the linguistic features of various individual texts and define registers according
to observable clusters of regularities. Prior to a fast-approaching period where we will
be able to interrogate large quantities of data along multi-dimensional criteria of
analysis, and hence investigate the delimitation of registers via statistical analyses,21 a
preliminary step must comprise exploratory analyses qualitative in nature, such as
Polis’ analysis of the registers used in the various works produced by the Deir el
Medina scribe Amunnakhte.22 The case study of the Medinet Habu corpus presented
here is inspired by this kind of work.
16 After Halliday (1991: 275). Also reproduced and discussed in Hasan (2009: 169).
17 Goldwasser (1990).
18 Goldwasser (1999).
19 See in general the insightful general comments in Loprieno (2006).
20 Junge (1985) attempted a diachronic systematisation of Egyptian language in these terms.
21 Cf. already Gohy, Leon and Polis (2013).
22 Polis (in press).
1.3.2 Registers as cultural practices: situational and metafunctional parameters

While one of the steps in a register analysis is to identify recurrent clusters of linguis-
tic features, register has a much wider conceptual scope. In Halliday’s model, lexico-
grammar is just one level in a stratified complex of realization; it is the formal
encoding of particular metafunctions associated with particular contexts or situa-
tions.23 The study of register cuts across these strata in the attempt to capture regular
correlations between all three:
“The patterns of determination that we find between the context of situation and the
text are a general characteristic of the whole complex that is formed by a text and its
environment. We shall not expect to be able to show that the options embodied in one
or another particular sentence are determined by the field, tenor and mode of the
situation. The principle is that each of these elements in the semiotic structure of the
situation activates the corresponding component in the semantic system, creating in
the process a semantic configuration, a group of favoured and foregrounded options
from the total meaning potential that is typically associated with the situation type in
question. This semantic configuration is what we understand by the register.”24
In this way, register is understood as a semantic concept describing the realization of
particular meanings over these different strata, the active dialectic “between a text and
its sociosemiotic environment.” Language and social context are seen not as discrete
phenomena in a relationship of interactivity, but rather as semiotic systems in
relationships of realization with one another. The implications of this theoretical
approach to the tangibly empirical execution of a register analysis are clear: in
addition to the attempt to describe the linguistic features characteristic for a text or
group of texts, it is also necessary to explore the situational features for their produc-
tion and reception.
These procedures remain fairly interpretive for the ancient Egyptian case, since
many of the situational characteristics remain unknown (especially for objects and
texts removed from their original use contexts) or completely alien to us.25 Rather, we
often use a kind of hermeneutic logic to reconstruct situational parameters from the
23 This system could be elaborated in the following manner (though accounts do vary):
Situation is strictly pragmatic and addresses the context of a given language use with three para-
meters: 1. Field: the event(s) in which the language use is set, including participants, actions and
circumstances; 2. Tenor: the relevant social roles, relationships and actions of the participants
involved in the (inter)action; 3. Mode: the form taken by the language (spoken/written, extem-
pore/prepared).
The metafunctional layer is semantic in nature and addresses what language does in such circum-
stances, with three correlating dimensions: 1. Ideational: Representation of natural world; content
(transitivity: participants, process types, circumstances); 2. Interpersonal: Enacting social roles;
taking a stance (mood, modality, intonation); 3. Textual: Presentation and organization of language
(thematic organization, cohesion – on clausal and discourse levels).
The lexicogrammatical layer captures the linguistic resources involved in realising metafunctions
in view of the situation. On the clausal level, these resources include (in the English language):
1. Noun phrases (participants); verb types, argument structures (process types); prepositional
phrases (circumstances); 2. Statements, questions, demands (mood); modal constructions (moda-
lity); 3. Marking theme/rheme (thematic organisation) and given/new (cohesion).
24 Halliday (2002 [1977]: 58).
25 Especially the so-called ‘monuments’; cf. themes addressed by Nora (1989) in his discussions of
the lieux de memoire.
46 Todd J. Gillen
texts themselves,26 in which special emphasis is often placed on the role of language
in constituting (rather than constatively describing) the reality it speaks of,27 a point
particularly salient in the discussion of égyptien de tradition, for which monumental
performance is a significant aspect.28
Our understanding of the associations between linguistic and situational aspects of
language varieties and the metafunctional dimensions of their realisation has its own
difficulties, and can be a complicated picture, given the metaphorical extension that
characterises some of the more literary textual genres: in ancient Egypt, we are
already aware of how syntactic constructions arising in a particular context for a
particular purpose come to be coopted for the expression of diverse messages.29 For
example, the tomb autobiography, with its means of self-thematisation and concep-
tualisation, has been identified as the principal genre giving rise to the literary
expression of a wider elite consciousness in the Story of Sinuhe.30 Even clearer is the
appropriation in the New Kingdom scribal community of the letter genre for the
exploration of profound social questions and for the expression and codification of
deeper cultural knowledge.31 Orly Goldwasser has shown, in her register analysis of
pAnastasi I,32 how the shift in linguistic repertoires is related to a shift in conceptual
reality. Here we begin to get a sense of register variety as more broadly socio-cultural
rather than strictly linguistic.
One corollary is that each register possesses its own distinctive history. While
many have commented that égyptien de tradition is a non-linear phenomenon,33 there
is still work to be done in describing specific uses of the language in view of their
particular situations and goals, the discourse traditions on which they draw, the
indices that they evoked for the audience, and as arising from unique communities of
practice differentiated in members (not simply topographically delimited, but taking
into account the vertical hierarchies and horizontal solidarities of social and economic
networks). From this perspective, each does not comprise an amalgamation of
elements arising randomly from a singular and linear linguistic stratigraphy, but rather
the formation of a register is the result of a series of meaningful realizations with
26 See, for example, the discussions in Adrom (2005); Assmann (1999: 1-69).
27 See Adrom (2005: 11) for discussion (with reference to Searle’s speech act theory) of the genera-
tive potential of (particularly institutional) declarations in contrast to more conservative Egypto-
logical approaches that treated texts as constative and thus susceptible to falsification.
28 Some of the interpretive space here is occupied by the term Sitz im Leben: recently it has come
simply to be associated with the situational features of a text or artefact, but in its original usage (in
biblical exegesis), it included the functions of texts in their cultural contexts. For such functional
variety and its links to genre, cf. generally Assmann (1995) and Vernus (1990); Vernus (1996:
560-1) speaks of “variabilité fonctionnelle”.
29 The term “Ausgangstyp” has been used to describe this process, from Lotman (1972: 151, n.6). For
its deployment in Egyptology, see Moers (2001: 169ff. and n.8). Cf. more generally Todorov
(1976).
30 Assmann (1983). Quirke (1990: 93), rightly complements the general picture for the development
of literature with other sources (oral and epistolary forms, religious texts), yet in doing so
implicitly agrees that Egyptian literature arose from practical contexts.
31 See the examples of letter formulae used to frame prayers, eulogies, wisdom texts, onomastica,
etc. assembled in Hagen (2006: 95-6).
32 Goldwasser (1990). See also Goldwasser (1991).
33 E.g. Vernus (1996) or Der Manuelian (1994).
heterogeneous motivations in full view of deep chronological linguistic histories and

contemporary surface interrelations between distinct registers. That the features of
each register are naturally usually in flux is a particularly relevant point for the study
of the Medinet Habu texts inasmuch as the Ramesside period is an especial time of
variety.
The register analysis in this paper is a synchronic characterisation;34 tracing the
diachronic history of a register would involve tracing a number of idiosyncratic paths
of use of both individual linguistic elements and clusters of features, and recent work
on égyptien de tradition (most notably by Stauder35) has begun to open up these sorts
of paths of study. Although I do not discuss grammatical variety in detail in this
paper, it seems important to mention a significant theoretical assumption: linguistic
texture is treated here as activated and constrained by its situations of use and as
deployed in metafunctional realizations of specific social and cultural indices (among
which are included attitudes to the past) relevant to the community of practice in and
for which it appears. Given that Ramesside Egyptians have not left evidence of any
great metalinguistic discourse,36 the idea is rather to discern the language ideologies
implied by particular patterns of language use, that is to say, the social forms in which
linguistic awareness often manifests.
1.4 Notes to a register analysis

In addition to Halliday’s framework for register,37 the concept of formality is
deployed as a central descriptive reference point throughout the register analysis that
forms the core of this study. As a productive analytical tool in the field of socio-
linguistics and (linguistic) anthropology,38 it can be described most simply as a sensi-
tivity to the ways in which symbolic forms are systematically structured and the
degree to which these constrains manifest. In Egyptology, as elsewhere, formality is
seen as a property of both material and linguistic domains. Inasmuch as we are
interested in the constraints operating in particular social situations,39 material form-
ality can be actualised as special codes of dress and action, manners of speaking,
patterns of interaction, etc. Most relevant to the present paper are architectural
aspects: the formation of monumental structured space and decoration of its surfaces.
Similarly, inasmuch as we are interested in the constraints operating on the commu-
nicative code, linguistic formality can be actualised as special types of structuring at
the level of discourse as well as below the level of the sentence — particularly rele-
vant for the discussion below are the grammatical repertoires.
34 In this sense it takes some loose inspiration from Groll (1975-6).

35 Stauder (2013a).
36 Cf. Uljas (2013).
37 In this paper, reference is made particularly to Halliday’s conceptual categories where appropriate,
yet a full SFL description is not engaged.
38 See the insightful analysis of the use of the term given in Irvine (1979), a classic paper in anthro-
pology.
39 Cf. the immensely successful idea of “formal culture”, arising in the Middle Kingdom, from Kemp
(2006).
48 Todd J. Gillen
Not all constraints for different types of action can be placed on a linear conti-
nuum of formality–informality;40 formality finds its principle usefulness as a descrip-
tive tool for capturing the connections between structured symbolic forms and social
ordering (i.e. tenor and its interpersonal metafunction), particularly those of a vertical
hierarchical kind. This is useful in the present case study, given a high prestige
context (both materially and linguistically) that orients principally around this dimen-
sion. Key here is the reference to positional identities, and in the Medinet Habu con-
text there are four main groups: the divine (principally Amun-Re), the king (with his
official identities, most cogently expressed in his titulary, taken at the time of ascen-
ding the throne), the enemies (who are conventionally named41 and thus to some
extent represent ideological placeholders rather than historical persons) and the royal
court (always referred to in an official sense, via titles, and never explicitly named).
Even given such a focus, this register analysis proceeds as a gradual accumulation
of layers of description that implicates multiple dimensions of meaning: from the
material existence of artefacts; passing by their sociological functions; and arriving at
the deeply symbolic mythical, cosmic, theological or ethical meanings that Egypto-
logists often too rapidly infer. Such a procedure, inspired by anthropological thick
description,42 offers the possibility of realising a thorough register description in
situating language use as “only a species within the semiotic genre.”43
In brief, in making use of Halliday’s register framework as a theoretical basis for
treating language as social semiotic and linking the lexicogrammatical to the situa-
tional through its metafunctions; in deploying formality as a sensitivity to the material
and linguistic structures involved in social ordering; and in exploiting thick descrip-
tion as a procedure for layering complexity and depth of meaning, the paper proceeds
as follows: a situational analysis of the Medinet Habu texts, beginning with the mate-
rial dimensions of the monumental and passing to the textual frames in use; a register
analysis that links clusters of linguistic and discourse features to particular metafunc-
tions; and finally, a consideration of linguistic texture at Medinet Habu that results
from an idiosyncratic interaction of registers.
2 Situational parameters of the Medinet Habu texts

We are interested here to determine the general nature of the activities associated with
the production of the Medinet Habu texts that might have a relevant relationship to
their textual form; that is to say, we are interested in the situational and cultural
contexts that both meaningfully constrain and are expressed in language choices.
From the point of view of symbolic encoding, we are interested in the networks of
social and linguistic signification which give rise to particular selections and in which
they find meaning. From the point of view of symbolic construal, we are interested in
the interpretive possibilities that particular signs provoke. Thus the discussion
40 There are of course other dimensions of meaning than the social that formality does not capture;
that is to say, formality may have little explicitly to do with e.g. mythical or theological meanings.
41 Manassa (2003: 6 and n.8)
42 Put into practice and popularised in a now famous paper by Geertz (1973), thick description was
originally theorised by Ryle (1968).
43 Ricoeur (1973).
proceeds from the widest social and material parameters to the most specific textual
and linguistic, attempting to describe the encoding of a textual artefact as the
progressive hermeneutic narrowing of a range of possible significations with the goal
of encouraging construal of a restricted (set of) meaning(s).
For the Medinet Habu texts, there are two important situational dimensions —
completely interrelated — that clearly relate to textual form: the monumental perfor-
mance of the text in a material sense; and the performative situation framed within
each text.
2.1 Materiality of the monumental

That the texts have been rendered in monumental stone hieroglyphs as part of a
‘temple of millions of years’ already gives us a general orientation for situational
features. From a broadly sociological point of view, the temple is the locus of an
extremely high concentration of formality indices: in the cultural landscape, each
temple forms a topographical anchor point for the primary mode of structured collec-
tive action in ancient Egypt, the procession.44 Its architecture provides a location for
and makes possible certain types of (inter)action, at the same time placing restrictions,
intensifying by degrees, on physical accessibility and participation.45 Its codified
forms, although often deriving originally from practical architectural elements, have
become (through stylisation, inflation of size, or simply by the fact of having been
rendered in durable stone) not just clearly marked as ‘sacred’, but constitutive of the
semiotic terms of reference of ancient Egyptian sacredness, and necessarily diffe-
rentiated from sites of the perishable and mundane.46 The space within the temple is
designed for specific activities, for which the greatest degree of bodily care is deman-
ded (hygiene, clothing, footwear, hair, etc.), along with knowledge of and authori-
sation to carry out the most codified and arcane behaviour (gestures, sequences of
actions, rituals, etc.).47
The formal temple context provides the situational field of which the Medinet
Habu inscriptions are a constitutive part. As part of a carefully balanced design, the
texts physically frame the important cultic activities of the gods and king in meaning-
ful ways. Van Essche-Merchez has outlined the ‘syntactic’ organisation of the mili-
tary scenes and texts at Medinet Habu and their relations to the processional axes,48
and this architectonic participation is reflected in the retrograde execution of the
hieroglyphs of the Year 5 text, which are made to orient towards the inner parts of the
temple.49
Further, the deployment of the hieroglyphic script — the most formal mode of lan-
guage use in ancient Egypt — participated in the constitution of institutional culture
and its social hierarchies in its codification of abstract institutional content and highly
exclusive in its accessibility requirements (= the cultural capital of an elite scribal
44 E.g. Assmann (1991).

45 Guglielmi (1994).
46 Assmann (1988: esp. 93).
47 Cf. e.g. Ullmann (2002).
48 Van Essche-Merchez (1992).
49 The exact reason for the use of such an effect would require study of its own.
50 Todd J. Gillen
education, as well as the social capital for authorization); thus an index and point of
definition for both sacredness and prestige.50 Such a mode is also temporally directed:
unlike for example a modern newspaper — whose flimsy materiality and evanescent
content indicates a short term (daily or weekly) primary performance and only attracts
general validity as historical informant depending on its long term survival — the
rendering in monumental stone indicates an eternal validity, an intention to record and
preserve particular messages in the collective memory.
This general validity is also actualised as what a situational description might call
the tenor: as monumental and written, it depends on no individual performer,51 but
rather presents itself in an impersonal manner that embodies the anonymity charac-
teristic of institutions. Such a performance is monologic, authoritative, unquestionable
and irresistible: the amount of economic and cultural capital required to compete or
participate in such a discourse is outside the means of any other individual or group in
society — it actively resists reply. This anonymity is also intrinsic to the content of
the inscriptions, which deals with the communally agreed-upon positional (rather than
personal) identity of the king (discussed in more detail below).52
These material formalisations — architectural participation, hieroglyphic script,
durable support, impersonal tenor — do not simply set the monumental commemo-
ration of the king’s deeds as an integral part of a series of tangible socio-cultural
practices, but also have the effect of naturalising the message in a way that is an
essential part of the successful structuring and regulation of those social practices and
roles that includes economic, political, religious, etc. dimensions. Such a view does
not so much emphasise the king self-consciously and egotistically propagandising
himself to the populace at large, but rather outlines the commemoration of the king’s
deeds and his claims to moral and material worth as elements of large-scale institu-
tional efforts to maintain a specific set of broadly cultural practices that realise
particular social structures. The construction and decoration of a ‘temple of millions
of years’ afforded this opportunity: Ramses III could both makes use of and contribute
to (even posthumously) the cultural topography of collective practice that oriented
about the divine and royal processional and cultic rituals.53
50 If the account of sacralisation given by Vernus (1990) considers certain constraints primarily
relating to the text itself (support, image, language, hieroglyphic writing), then the account of
dimensions of formality given here ventures further into the extra-textual.
51 Van Essche-Merchez (1992: 232-236) systematises the significant planes of performance of the
Year 8 text according to French structuralist concepts of language as communication. On the level
of the material performance discussed at this point, I resist discussing the texts in terms of a
communicative model (cf. Reiche 2006) and prefer to remain with concepts of archive and monu-
mental performance. Van Essche-Merchez offers the following description for the Year 8 text:
destinateur - - - - communication --> destinataire

roi-théorique protection concept-Maât
roi-prêtre offrande dieux IMAGINAIRE
roi-homme propagande peuple égyptien RÉEL
52 Cf. Silverman (1995) for issues related to the personal vs. positional identities of the king.
53 While Assmann (1995: 12) may have a point in asserting that various types of texts (“monumental,
documentary, encyclopaedic and recitation literature”) do not have as their explicit functions social
2.2 Framed performance

Our attention now turns to a description of the situational features of the activity
presented within the text vis-à-vis its textual features and organisation. This phase of
the description refers mainly to genre: within the space of this study, genre is not seen
as a set of emic categories implying a high degree of textual awareness on the part of
the Egyptians in the systematic classification of texts. Rather, it is understood as
clusters of conventionalised features whose deployment activates certain sets of
socially recognised options that may be experienced as expectations about social
roles, activity organization, discourse organization and language use.54 The concept is
not completely deterministic in specifying obligatory responses to conventional
forms, but rather it is probabilistic in generalising common patterns of use.55 The aim
in the present section is not to establish strict categories of text types according to
specific definitions, nor to read particular textual elements as markers of an “Egyptian
classification of texts”,56 but rather to identify the distinctively Egyptian resources
(conventionalised structures, techniques, textual features, etc.) via which different
kinds of meaning can be framed or staged for realization in the Medinet Habu texts.
A number of textual features are discussed in this section with close reference to
the three texts dated respectively to years 5, 8 and 11. While the text features of the
dates and H#.t nXtw “beginning of the victory”57 can be considered classic genre
features in the sense that they are highly conventionalised and occurring only once in
a text,58 they by no means form a cluster of elements distinctly recogniseable as genre.
The concept of frames allows us to explore the range of significations (= meaning
potential) possible for each feature and the expectations each evokes. This is
important given that the Medinet Habu texts have previously been generically
grouped together in an intuitive manner,59 yet there is significant variation in the
strategies they employ (visualised below for a simple overview of text structure). For
the event frames in particular (direct royal address; royal epiphany), it seems vital to
understand both how the broad situational parameters of the monumental are
positioned vis-à-vis more specific textual constraints, as well as the relationship
between event frames and the activation of particular registers. Discussion of other
structuring elements featured here (cartouches, ¦st, ¦st r=f, ¦st ¦r) is integrated into
register description in section 3.
normativity and formativity, the point I make above is that such texts are usually embedded as
elements of larger “cultural texts” (i.e. collective action such as the procession) that play an
explicit part in social structuring.
54 Cf. Biber and Conrad (2009: 33-6).
55 Eggins and Martin (1997: 234).
56 Spalinger (1982: ch.7).
57 This is a common translation, but other interpretations can be found, e.g. “Beginning of the victo-
ries” or “Beginning of the strength/might”, among others.
58 Biber and Conrad (2009: 15-6).
59 Spalinger (1982: 224).
52 Todd J. Gillen
Fig. 2: Overview of features for the Year 5 text
2.2.1 Dates
The dates that appear at the beginning of all four long inscriptions locate the texts in
time, which is to say that, more generally speaking, the date indicates an institutional
administrative framework of partitioning and recording human experience that inter-
faces environmental cycles (year, season, day) and specific, (relatively) stable elite
social network configurations headed by a king, whose official titulary forms an
indispensible part of the convention.
As the conventionalisations par excellence of the temporal presence to the king-
ship and its bureaucracy, dates work to define its domains of existence and action: the
kinds of texts that carry dates are predominantly administrative and monumental. In
addition to structuring roles, these two uses of dates both relate to archive, where
administrative writing of dates is a question of systematic temporal regulation of
activities and the practical archiving of information for later retrieval: the comme-
morative metafunction of the monumental can be seen as a metaphorical extension of
these uses into a more abstract regulation of time and a cultural archiving for a much
longer time period.60
60 For Assmann (1999: 6), the “three most important recording functions” in this respect are:
“(1) Speicherung: Aufzeichnung zu dauernder Verfügbarkeit.
(2) Verewigung: Fixierung des Kommunikationsaktes
The relationship between these domains is further suggested by the content of the
monumental uses:61 the recount of highly administered ‘official’ activities of various
kinds, e.g. temple constructions, military campaigns, or trade expeditions. So comple-
mentary to the use of the monumental for structuring the physical landscape (temples,
but also boundary stelae, etc.), the dates incised in the stone helped to provide and
naturalise a coherent framework for reference to the past, for remembering, and for
forming the core of the historical as a measurable break from the timelessness of
myth.62 The nature of this history is a matter for debate, but by all accounts it orients
selectively and exclusively around the office of kingship (e.g. most explicitly the king
lists) and the struggle of particular elite groups for legitimate control in social and
economic domains and over the terms of culture itself.
There is nonetheless the problem of the significance of the referential specificity
of the dates introducing the Medinet Habu texts: the Year 5 and 8 texts give only the
year, whereas the Year 11 and Year 11 Poem give specific days.
Year 5: 1 (KRI V, 20.14): Hsb.t 5 Xr Hm Hr
Regnal year 5 under the majesty of the Horus
Year 8: 1 (KRI V, 37.10): Hsb.t 8 Xr Hm Hr
Regnal year 8 under the majesty of the Horus
Year 11: 1 (KRI V, 59.1): Hsb.t 11 #bd 4 Smw sw 10 /// n nsw b¦ty
Regnal year 11, month 4 of shemu, day 10 [+x] of the king of upper and lower Egypt
Year 11 Poem: 1 (KRI V, 68.2): Hsb.t 11 #bd 2 pr.t sw 8 Xr Hm Hr
Regnal year 11, month 2 of peret, day 8 under the majesty of the Horus
The interpretive possibilities range from the dates of the monumental execution of the
texts,63 the dates of the events described,64 or the dates of the performances framed
(a) Im generellen Sinne: symbolische Iteration des Kommunikationsaktes ad infinitum

(b) im aktuellen Sinne: fortdauernde Gültigkeit des Resultats eines einmaligen Kommuni-
kationsakts.
(3) Veröffentlichung: Einbeziehung des Lesers in die Kommunikation, Fixierung des Textes als
einer virtuellen Größe, die in der Lektüre aktualisiert werden soll.”
61 Egyptologists have traditionally formed the question of the relationship between administrative
and monumental archives in terms of an alleged Kriegstagebuch: according to this hypothesis,
events were recorded on the field in an administrative shorthand and were later reworked for
monumental use, resulting in features of administrative writing in the monumental sphere.
62 Assmann (1988).
63 Given that the temple seems to have been decorated from the inside out, and texts are dated
sequentially, giving a supposed completion date for the temple proper in Year 12 with the stelae
embedded in the first pylon. We would need to suggest that the specific dates for Year 11 and Year
11 Poem texts refer to the dates of composition, commencement or completion. In this inter-
pretation, even if the dates do not refer to the physical execution, they still probably correlate with
different building phases, assuming that they described events which were roughly contem-
poraneous with construction.
64 The general date for the Year 5 text could be explained by the fact that it recounts two separate
events. The more specific dates of the Year 11 and Year 11 Poem could refer to the days of
particular battles, final victories, or (given the performative frame of royal epiphany, discussed
below) the victorious homecomings of the king. However, the Year 8 text is a problem since it
doesn’t so much recount events per se but rather presents a speech of the king specified in time and
place, for which one expects a specific date.
54 Todd J. Gillen
within each text,65 yet no single signification seems possible for all occurrences.
Either there is a cultural disjunction between the logic of our temporality and the
scheme used here, or we could simply suggest that there are different significations
intended for the different uses — a mélange of significations which could even have
been non-specific for the authors themselves and open to construal in different ways.
Different temporal localisations could then be suggested: whereas the specific dates of
the Year 11 and Year 11 Poem texts could refer to the construction, the events or the
framed performances, the vagueness of the Year 5 and 8 texts suggests a temporal
range that potentially encompasses all of these. Given a commemorative metafunction
that operates in terms of eternity, the distinction does not seem significant for the
current discussion.
Beyond its temporal referentiality, and perhaps more specific to the terms of genre
and register, the appearance of the date as the very first element of each of the texts
reinforces the general institutional impression given by their monumental materiality66
and stages expectations or constraints on the possibilities for:
Content: it is no literary or liturgical composition, but referential of elite or royal
earthly activities; the date indicates the legitimacy and verifiability of the truth-value
of its claims insofar as they occurred within the established limits of the Egyptian
administration.
General interpersonal mode: it does not depend for its authority on pseudepigraphic
attribution of authorship (e.g. classical wisdom literature), nor performance by a parti-
cular person (although the realisation of such a text is naturally only carried out by
institutionally authorised parties), but quite the opposite: the force and value of the
composition derives from exactly the impersonality of its reference to institutional
frameworks such as the system of constituting and measuring time.
Text organisation: the range of possibilities would nonetheless still appear to be quite
wide, given the variety of thematic arrangements, episode structures, and conventions
(including fictionalising resources, e.g. Königsnovelle) for effecting different messa-
ges with different emphases among the corpus of New Kingdom monumental inscrip-
tions with dates.67
Such a broad meaning potential is hermeneutically narrowed via other textual resour-
ces subsequently deployed.
2.2.2 H#.t nXtw

For the Year 5 and Year 11 texts, H#.t nXtw appears at the next significant element
after the date and its accompanying identification of the king (citation below). While
it has been characterised as a genre marker,68 in this study I would like to investigate
what that might mean, specifically by looking into its wider semiotic potential. Stran-
65 Though here we have the opposite problem: if the dates refer to the framed setting, then why
should we have a vague date for the Year 8 text, which describes a setting specified in place and
time, and a specific date for the Year 11 Poem, which describes events in the vaguest temporal
terms?
66 Discussed in §2.1. above.
67 For New Kingdom texts with military content, the material is covered in Spalinger (1982). For an
analysis of the thematic structure and actor roles in NK military texts, see Lundh (2002).
68 Spalinger (1982: 224).
gely, there are in fact no exact parallels for H#.t “beginning” used in such a way,69 and,
as Edgerton and Wilson remarked, it can probably be seen as an alternative form for
the more typical H#.t-o m nXtw “beginning of the victory”, as in the Kadesh Poem of
Ramses II.70
Taking this as a starting point to which we will return, discussion begins with
consideration of the more common H#.t-o m. It is a conventional incipit that introduces
a wide range of texts and is primarily associated with non-monumental spheres. Its
significations extend beyond the referential “beginning of...” in helping to structure a
small prefatory space that gives information about the framed event (usually direct
monologue speech) that forms the main body of the text. For texts inscribed on
multifunctional supports such as papyrus bearing few contextual cues, this space is
crucial for establishing the wide parameters of framed action in which the message of
the text is embedded, in which it can be made sense of,71 and which can activate
certain encoding and construal options in terms of register.
For example, classic wisdom literature (sb#y.t “teaching”) is characterised by a use
of this space to create a pedagogical and culturally recognisable event frame neces-
sary for the explicit purposes of the transmission of knowledge: a communication
involving the declamation of wisdom from a father to his son or children.
Teaching of a man to his son.72
H#.t-o m sb#y.t ¦r¦.tn s n s#=f Dd=f sDm...
Beginning of the teaching which a man made for his son. He says: “Listen...”
Most important to this type of event is the specification of the positional identities of
participants ordered by vertical hierarchies, realised in various ways, for example: the
addressee is often anonymous,73 yet highly specified in positional terms as subor-
dinate within the parent-child relationship74 and enjoying horizontal solidarity within
the male-male relationship; the corollaries in terms of grammar within the text proper
can be observed for example in the frequent use of imperatives for giving orders.75
Yet the nature of this prefatory space introduced by H#.t-o m can vary greatly, with
a range of implications for register and genre. The few monumental occurrences of
the incipit appear under heterogenous circumstances in which the type of support
plays a distinctive role. For example, in the case of the prayer of Ramses III we are
dealing with the monumentalisation of a text composed as a gift of personal piety for
Amun-Re.76 The pragmatic data given to establish the parameters of the event
69 Though see the commentary in fn.81 below.

70 Edgerton and Wilson (1936: 21, n.4a).
71 Assmann (1995: 4), terms this frame “semantic determinative” and “textualization of context”.
72 Edition in Fischer-Elfert (1999a).
73 The use of such pseudepigraphic identities as Hordjedef or Ptahhotep are an important means of
locating authority (and hence legitimacy of content) in the personages of revered scribes in a
classizing era (see e.g. Parkinson (2002: 90-91)), yet this is not directly relevant to the review of
H#.t-o m given here.
74 Note that in the Teaching of a Man to his son, personal identities are not even specified; only
positional ones!
75 Polis (in press) shows that, of the repertoires of the Ramesside scribe Amunnakhte, the register
associated with wisdom texts is grammatically the most conservative.
76 The text makes explicit that the monumental version is a copy of the text inscribed on a gold tablet.
56 Todd J. Gillen
describe a communicative situation of direct speech (speaker, recipient, cluster of

features indicated by wS#/sw#S “praise”) and imply a decontextualised composition
comparable to non-monumental occurrences of H#.t-o m. The fact that the incipit is
relegated to second position in favour of the official commemorative date implies
strata of performance: the framed communication takes place within the (metaphorical
and material) space of a monumental performance.
Prayer of Ramses III on a gold (or silver) tablet (KRI V, 221.5-11).
Hsb.t 12 #bd 2 /// Hm Hr k# nXt o# nsy.t nb.ty wr Hb.w m¦ ptH Hr wsr rnp.wt m¦ ¦tm nsw
b¦ty nb t#.wy wsr-m#o.t-ro mry-¦mn s# ro nb Xo.w ro-ms¦-sw HQ#-¦wnw mry [¦mn-ro] nsw
[nTr.w] D¦ onX
Year 12, month 2 […] the majesty of the Horus, strong bull, great of kingship, Two
Ladies, great of festivals like Ptah, Horus plentiful of years like Atum, king of upper
and lower Egypt, lord of the two lands, Weser-Maat-Re Mery-Amun, son of Re, lord
of diadems Ramses Heka-Iunu, beloved of [Amun-Re], king of [the gods], may he be
given life.
H#.t-o m wS#/// Hkn.w sw#S nb nTr.w [¦r¦.n] Hm n nsw b¦ty nb t#.wy wsr-m#o.t-ro mry-¦mn
s# ro nb Xo.w ro-ms¦-sw HQ#-¦wnw n ¦t=f Sps ¦mn-ro nb ns.wt t#.wy Xnty ¦p.t-s.wt
Beginning of the pouring [out] praises and praising the lord of the gods which the
majesty of the king of upper and lower Egypt, lord of the two lands, Weser-Maat-Re
Mery-Amun, son of Re, lord of diadems Ramses Heka-Iunu made for his noble father
Amun-Ra, lord of the thrones of the two lands, foremost of Karnak.
On the other hand, in the case of the First Hittite Marriage text of Ramses II, we are
told that we are dealing with a text composed explicitly for the monumental context.
In fact, the prefatory space introduced by the incipit (after the date and introductory
eulogy) is used here exceptionally not to create a textual frame for its message, but
rather to posit the event as “this excellent monument” itself, indicating — in an extra-
ordinary case of monumental self-referentiality — the text and its architectural sup-
port as coextensive. There is no direct speech involved here, yet the communicative
tenor and goals of this kind of monumental declamation is indicated with the use of
the terms so# “exalt”, sQ#¦ “extol” and swh# “boast/praise”. The omission of reference
to the speaker is key to the institutional character of the monumental and favours
instead a textual self-performance.
Abu Simbel copy of First Hittite Marriage (main record) (KRI II, 235.13).
H#.t-o m mnw pn mnX n so# pHty n {k}<nb> XpS sQ#¦ Qn¦ swh# nXtw
Beginning of this excellent monument for exalting the power of the lord of the sword,
for extolling the valour, for boasting of the victory...
While the above examples offer two different (and relatively clear) uses of H#.t-o m in
monumental contexts, neither correspond in character to the Medinet Habu instances.
As mentioned above, the closest parallel in this regard is the Kadesh Poem of Ramses
II.
Kadesh poem: 1 (KRI II, 3.2-11).
H#.t-o m p# nXtw n nsw b¦ty KN ¦r¦.n=f m p# t# n Xt#...
Beginning of the victory of the king of upper and lower Egypt Ramses II, which he
made in the land of Hatti...
Year 5: 4 (KRI V, 21.1-2).

H#.t nXtw m [Qn]¦ n t#-mr¦ S#o ro
Beginning of the victory through the might of Egypt, which Re began.
Year 11: 1-2 (KRI V, 59.1-2).
H#.t nXtw n t#-mr¦ smn nsw
Beginning of the victory of Egypt which the king established.
These three instances share a few particularly interesting features: the first is the
nature of the pragmatic information specified. Usually, the event type involves an
instance of direct speech so that the framed event and its communicative parameters
are coextensive (e.g. sb#y.t refers to the event ‘explicit transmission of knowledge’ of
which the main constitutive element is a kind of monologue). In the three instances
above, no reference is made to a communicative event; that is to say, the framed event
is not communicative in nature, and nXtw “victory” seems to only specify a direction
for content (= king’s deeds), however wide its scope.77 We could consider the possi-
bility of a declamative tenor and interpersonal metafunctions implicitly linked to the
term sDd “narrate, tell of”,78 given the collocation of the sDd nXtw “telling of the
victory” in a number of other compositions.79 However, what sDd implies in terms of
performance is not at all highly specified: for monuments, it could — in a manner
similar to that made explicit in the First Hittite Marriage text mentioned above —
entail fluid overlap between the pragmatics of textual and monumental events.80
Rather more simply, if there are no performative parameters textually signalled in the
prefatory spaces of the Kadesh Poem and Medinet Habu texts, it is likely because the
communicative aspects of the event textualised were not foregrounded. The prag-
matics of such a textually realised event need not be made explicit because they are
heavily specified by the material, monumentally performative circumstances of the
existence of the text (see particularly the discussion of archive above).81
77 For nXtw in general, see Galán (1995); Spalinger (1982: 225-232) points out that nXtw is not solely
associated with military exploits and appears in the incipit of the Praise of the Delta residence,
pAnastasi IV, 6.1.
78 Suggested by Spalinger (1982: 225) and (2003). For sDd, see Wb. IV, 394-5.
79 Praise of the Delta residence, pAnastasi II, 1.1 = Gardiner (1937: 12) and pAnastasi IV, 6.1 =
Gardiner (1937: 40); Merenptah Israel stela lines 1-2 (KRI IV, 13.8). cf. also sDd b#w “telling of
the power/manifestation” (of a god or king), attestations cited in Schott (1990: 306).
80 Another interesting direction for enquiry arises with the observation that all three texts discussed
here are fresh compositions, attested in multiple monumental copies, and possessing “abridged”
versions. Further, at least the Kadesh text and the Ramses III prayer are known to have existed in
non-monumental forms; all this perhaps suggests these texts as points of overlap between the
spheres of the monumental and the manuscript (see Vernus 2011), though here I can only speculate
vaguely at the implications of these monumental uses of H#.t-o m.
81 Other instances of H#.t-o m omitting reference to the pragmatic dimension are not necessarily seen
as counter-examples; the argument is that much (pragmatic) information is specified by the
context, cf. instances of “beginning of the book of” vs “beginning of”, where the fact that it is a
book would have been obvious to the reader by its materiality and other textual signals.
E.g. also pCairo 86637, r° 3,1 (Schott 1990: n°1380): H#.t-o m H#.t nHH pHwy D.t ¦r¦.n nTr.w...n Hm n
DHwty gmy.t m pr mD#.t “Beginning of the Beginning-of-Eternity and then End-of-Forever which
the gods made...for the majesty of Thoth, which was found in the library”, where ¦r¦.n and its
grammatical subjects refer to the event H#.t nHH, avoiding reference to the text pragmatics, while
the gmy.t m pr mD#.t phrase that follows refers explicitly to the text as a written work.
58 Todd J. Gillen
This conclusion is reinforced by the particular use the texts make of another
common convention for structuring the prefatory space. As we have seen, H#.t-o m is
followed by some indication of the event type indicating a frame for the text which
follows. Subsequently, it is not uncommon to find the perfective relative form ¦r¦.(t)n
introducing a clause that specifies the main protagonist,82 forming the pattern H#.t-o m
X ¦r¦.(t)n Y “beginning of X which Y made” (where X is the event type and Y is the
speaker/protagonist).83 Since the event is usually communicative in nature, the prota-
gonist is identified as the speaker and originator of the content (see examples from
wisdom literature and the Ramses III prayer above). However, in the Kadesh Poem,
the designation nXtw refers rather to a series of events, so that we are encouraged to
interpret the subject of ¦r¦.n (Ramses II)84 as the ‘author’ of these events. This also
seems to be the sense of its use at Medinet Habu, though the significant deviation in
these cases is the extension of the usual convention H#.t-o m X ¦r¦.(t)n Y to other verbs:
S#o “begin” and smn “establish”, with Re and the king named as the respective actors.
Finally, the unique appearance in the Medinet Habu texts of the form H#.t instead
of the otherwise invariable H#.t-o m is fairly extraordinary.85 While Goedicke’s
suggestion that the meaning of H#.t-o m as “Anfang der Schriftrolle bestehend aus...”86
may be plausible in an etymological sense, its structuring role as a conventionalised
textual incipit indeed warrants its translation as “Beginning of...”.87 However, it must
be stressed that this convention is, like all language, no doubt loaded with socio-
cultural indices and is part of language ideologies that may be largely inaccessible
given the available evidence. From this point of view, any translation of H#.t-o m into
H#.t can be understood in terms of changes in the sets of culturally recogniseable
generic conventionalisations, and complex processes of interpretation of the
expression of one set of cultural reference points in terms of another. Although those
issues are larger than the scope of this paper, the Medinet Habu instances of H#.t as an
This is probably the best place to cite several attestations of H#.t nHH “beginning of eternity”, which
can be found in the Nauri Decree (KRI I, 46.2-3), donation stela JE 72000 of Ramses II (KRI II,
363.2-3) and decree stela JE 34162 of Horemheb (Urk. IV, 2141.7). They avoid reference to the
communicative act, their monumental materiality seemingly activating the performativity of the
text as an event itself. For exampke, the Horemheb decree announces and actualises the “beginning
of eternity” which it describes: hrw [pn] H#.t nHH Ssp [D.t] /// “[This] day, the beginning of forever,
the seizing of [eternity...]” Contrast the presence of H#.t-o m introducing similar phraseology in
pCairo 86637, transforming potentially performative declarations into prefatory metacommentary
that match its material characteristics.
82 Or later on, author or apparent copyist. See Luft (1973) for discussion of the changing nature of
¦r¦.n; and Dorn (in preparation).
83 The various patterns of this kind have been reviewed in a preliminary manner for a restricted
corpus in Gohy (2012: 98).
84 Note that the Kadesh Poem employs a slight variation on H#.t-o m X ¦r¦.(t)n Y.
85 The difference between H#.t-o m and H#.t is cleverly smokescreened by Spalinger (1982: 224) in his
meticulous evasion of transliteration during discussion of the Kadesh and Medinet Habu texts.
86 Goedicke (1961: 147-9).
87 This simple variation in the terms of a definition (etymology vs conventionalisation) perhaps
allows room for both the interpretation of Goedicke and the counter-assertions of Blumenthal
(1980: 8, n.6) and Quack (1994: 83, n.1). Quack’s argument, in referring to the diglossic fragment
of the Teaching of Ani and to Demotic and Greek parallels, that the evidence “spricht dafür, daβ
die Ägypter selbst H#.t¦- o.w als einfaches “Beginn” verstanden haben” neglects both the history of
the convention and the meanings which H#.t-o m had that are not purely referential.
“alternative form for H#.t-o m” represent the earliest example of such a process of
reinterpretation of the conventional expression of a textual role, for which there are a
few later instances.88 More specifically in terms of expectations of genre and register,
its presence on a monumental support is statistically very rare in the first place, and its
unique form (and avoidance of the conventional form) sets the tone for texts filled
with a curious mix of lexicogrammar drawn from diverse parts of contemporary lin-
guistic repertoires.
2.2.3 Event frames: epiphany of the king

Here we explore the particular frames presented as general situational settings for the
text. These can all be seen to orient about some appearance of the king: explicitly in
the case of the Year 8 text, in which the frame is a direct address by the king to his
court, but also implicitly in the Year 5 and 11 texts. This is not surprising; Fischer-
Elfert has reviewed the evidence speaking in favour of the royal epiphany as the
concrete event with which certain Ramesside hymns can be associated.89 This is an
argument that will crystalise more concretely in the register description below
(particularly in respect to the deployment of linguistic forms and discourse organi-
sation), but here we are simply interested in the indications of the framed commu-
nicative situation (whether fictive or based in actuality).
a. Direct address
As we move from the broadest situational parameters of the monumental to the speci-
fic constraints of the textual, we are increasingly interested in how these strata are
positioned vis-à-vis one another. Among the Medinet Habu texts, a great deal of cohe-
rence can be observed: on the one hand, the stone monumentality of such texts, com-
plete with all its formal indices, materialises the system of positional identities it
archives and precludes any question of performative authorization by a particular
speaker. The Year 5 and Year 11 texts capitalise on this authority in maintaining the
formality of an impersonal communicative anonymity and via reference to positional
identities; the Year 8 text does the same with its impersonal narrator of the first 12
columns before the speech of the king. This opening not only positions in a general
sense the king vis-à-vis the divine, Egypt and the enemies, but it also more speci-
fically signals the king’s presence or epiphany and introduces his speech, an event
frame that aligns with the broader monumental frame in the creation of a comparable
sense of formality: the architectural participation, hieroglyphic script and durable sup-
port of the monumental are paralleled by the situational characteristics of a royal
declamation, a context that includes structured action, dress, behaviour, politeness,
deference, etc. Such event constraints can be most clearly observed in his opening
lines:
88 Edgerton and Wilson (1936: 21, n.4a) are astute in referring to Erman (1894) in which the
diglossic fragment of the Teaching of Ani is discussed. In his discussion of this fragment, Quack
(1994: 83, n.1) mentions as a parallel pCarlsberg 1, 2.41 in demotic and hieratic, the beginning of a
spell of the “Anrufen der Sterne”, for the publication of which: von Lieven (2007).
89 Fischer-Elfert (1999b).
60 Todd J. Gillen
Year 8: 12-13 (KRI V, 39.6-8).

nsw Ds=f Dd=f sDm n=¦ t# r Dr=f dmD m bw wo Sn.wt ms¦.w nsw wb#.w [n.w] oH onX.w
nb.w n.w t# n t#-mr¦ D#m.w ¦Hwn.w nb.w n.tyw m t# pn ¦m¦ Hr.w=tn n tp.w-r#=¦ rX=tn
n#y=¦ sXr.w n sonX=tn
The king himself says: “Listen to me, the entire land united in one place: the court,
the royal children, the butlers of the palace, all the living ones of the land of Egypt, all
the infants and the youths who are in this land! Pay attention to my sayings, (that) you
may know my plans for your sustenance...”
Despite the fact that the king himself speaks, his authority in this case does not seem
to derive from the charisma of his person, but rather is marked as deriving from the
positional, communally recognised identities that are explicitly evoked, the king on
the one hand and the entire land, specified in hierarchical order, on the other. In addi-
tion, the king employs imperatives to set the interpersonal stance of a unidirectional
declamation, and the passive role of the audience is made explicit.
In fact, if there are significant parallels between monument and royal declamation
in terms of degree of formality (albeit finding different means of expression), we
might go as far as to say that it is due to a material overlap between the two, given
that the temple is the physical site of such declamations (i.e. window of appearances).
I have emphasised here the coherence of situational formality over multiple levels
inasmuch as it potentially accounts for the general homogeneity in the range of gram-
matical forms between the texts of Year 5 and 11, and that of Year 8. The most
significant implication for grammatical variation is the use of the first person forms in
the royal (autobiographical) recount, resulting in a sort of royal aretalogy.90
b. Epiphany implied
The interpretation of a royal epiphany as the enunciative event for the Year 5 and 11
texts involves an attempt to come to terms with the complex temporalities of the texts
and their particular logic. While the dates do not offer conclusive evidence on this
topic one way or another (see §2.2.1 above), there are other avenues to explore.
While the eulogy portions of the text have a general validity and atemporality
about them, the portions of historical recount have an apparent temporality sent at a
moment after the battle. The Year 5 text makes this clear in the text directly following
the H#.t nXtw phrase:
Year 5: 4 (KRI V, 21.1-2).
H#.t nXtw m [Qn]¦ n t#-mr¦ S#o ro on(n)=f Xr Htp.w d¦.w psD.t /// nXt nb pr¦-o.w pHrr nb
#b.w[t] m¦ s# nw.t
Beginning of the victory through the might of Egypt, which Re began. That he
(=king) has returned is bearing peace,91 the Ennead granted [...5 groups lost...] strong
[...], lord who extends the arm, runner, possessor of an appearance like the son of Nut.
All historical events are recounted as antecedent to this, e.g.:
90 For this interpretation, see Junge (2005a).

91 Re could be interpreted as the referent of the third person pronoun here, yet it is a) logically not
expected and b) not indicated by the royal epithets that follow. The problem is a grammatical one:
although the king is not mentioned explicitly, he is the focus of the eulogistic speech. Re appears
as originator and guarantor of success, the one who caused all to become manifest. cf. Junge
(2005a) for this interpretation which seems obvious, yet otherwise unemphasised in the literature.
Year 5: 13-14 (KRI V, 21.13-14).

p# n ¦mor m ssf.y n pr¦.t=f H#Q rmT=f nb Xnr Dro sp nb m t#=f ¦w¦ m ¦#w.wt
The (one) of Amurru is as ashes, his seed does not exist. All his people have been
captured and they are scattered and beaten, and every remaining (person) in his land
has come in praise.
The Year 5 text makes large analeptic jumps in recounting the leadup to the war, the
attack of the king and the enemy defeat, after which this present tense is resumed
when the king appears at the window of appearances before the royal court,
presenting the captive enemy chiefs. These are the exact conditions for a known
setting of royal epiphany:
Year 5: 37-38 (KRI V, 23.12-15).
ms¦ m H#Q.w DnH Xr p# sSd.w wr.w X#s.wt twt Hr gmH b¦n=w mob#y.t sSm.w n nsw
o.wy=sn pd nhm.w=sn r Hr.t m ¦b mr¦.w ¦w=w (Hr Dd) ¦mn-ro p# nTr ¦-wD s(t) [p#] nX n
p# HQ# [r t#] nb
(enemies) brought as prisoners and bound before the window of appearances, the
chiefs of the foreign lands have been brought together, and see their doom. As for the
council of thirty and the entourage of the king, their arms are outstretched; they
jubilate to the sky with loving heart(s), saying: “Amun-Re is the god who assigns it,
[the] protection for the ruler [against] every [land].”92
The Year 11 text does not begin with the present situation of Egypt, beginning almost
immediately with a narrative analepsis introduced by ¦st r=f, reducing the impression
of a present frame from which the events of the past are recounted. Yet the final result
of the conflict is persistently reported at each stage of the narrative, dispelling narra-
tive tension in preference to a focus on the ideological significance of each event and
referring it back to the main themes of king’s power, enemy destruction, and safety of
Egypt. This temporal point after the battle seems to be the same as indicated in the
Year 8 text, and implied in the Year 5: the event of the royal appearance to announce
the victory. Columns 57-61 contain a speech of the king given to members of the
court claiming victory and its theological corollaries: there is even a spatiality created
that gives the event tangible depth:
Year 11: 60-61 (KRI V, 66.12-13).
dX=¦ p# mSwS [t]# n TmH m nXt n XpS=¦ D¦=¦ Hdb=sn pt¦ st m-b#H=tn
“I have overthrown the one of Meshwesh and the land of Tchemeh with the strength
of my arm/sword, and I caused that they are laid prostrate. Look, they are before
you!”
As monumental symbols, the texts find significance in the assertion of positional
identities (esp. king, but also Egyptians and enemies) and the narrativization of
sequences of causality that lead back to Amun-Re.93 They are able to activate such
meanings by framing an appearance of the king in which such an affirmation could
take place. In the register description that follows, we will investigate to what extent
the indications of monumental and framed event formality are paralleled by analogous
constraints on linguistic expression and discourse organisation, in our attempt to link
92 Interesting here is that the royal court uses a phrase which is known from such victory contexts,
adding to the sense of a ritualisation. See Wilson (1931), who has collected a series of occurrences
of this phraseology.
93 This point is also rightly emphasised in Junge (2005a).
62 Todd J. Gillen
particular grammatical forms with particular activities (most notably the epiphany of
the king) and their goals.
3 Register description
The discussion above has outlined that there are two expectations for this monumental
context: the event frames of royal epiphany associate with eulogistic speech, and the
dates and the H#.t nXtw phrase associate with the report of earthly events. While
previous literature has observed an obvious distinction between eulogy and “narrative
core”,94 this paper attempts to describe how these two directions of expectation are
realised as clusters of linguistic and discourse features. The register description below
is principally occupied with observing the collocation of grammatical constructions,
but it also attempts to capture the contribution of certain register features to discourse
structuring and to the realisation of text metafunctions, principally: temporality, predi-
cation type, discourse organisation, and focus of attention.
3.1 Eulogy
The eulogy register begins already with the dates commencing each text, inasmuch as
the king’s name constitutes a necessary part of that introduction. In fact, the eulogy of
praise is, at its most basic, merely the pronouncement of the name, identifying a god,
king, or person, and which is “in seiner spezifizierenden Intensität verstärkt durch
beschreibende Namen, Epitheta ornantia, die dem Träger aufgrund seines Wesens und
seiner Taten zuerkannt werden.”95 Such a pronouncement, in terms of speech acts,
causes the referent to live, and accompanies his/her epiphany, “da das Erschienensein
des Gottes den primären Anlaß bildet, ihn überhaupt mit einem Hymnus zu
begrüssen.”96 It is a form of praise that maintains an atemporality that lends its propo-
sitions general validity, corresponding to and expressing the intrinsic and unchanging
qualities of the referent; at Medinet Habu, the king and his institutional (social, theo-
logical, mythical, etc.) positioning.97 Such a description is naturally realised on the
linguistic plane chiefly by an array of non-verbal constructions:
Substantive Year 5: 11-12 sbty o# n Km.t
(KRI V, 21.11) Great wall of Egypt.
Adjective epithet Year 5: 9 mnX sXr.w spd hp.w
(KRI V, 21.8) Excellent of counsel, effective of laws.
Participle Year 11: 2 dr pD.t psD.t
(KRI V, 59.2) One who repels the 9 bows.
Adverbial clause Year 8: 8 mr.wt=f ¦#b.wt=f m¦ Hm n ro
(KRI V, 38.10) His love and charm are like the majesty of Re.
94 Cifola (1988) speaks of “literary style” for eulogy, while Spalinger (1988) makes the distinction
eulogy/rhetoric vs. narrative sequence system.
95 Assmann (1999: 17).
96 Assmann (1999: 25).
97 Cf. Assmann (1999: 23).
Nominal clause Year 11: 13 m#¦ pHty qn¦ p# n.ty m nb wo

(KRI V, 60.3-4) The powerful and valiant lion is the one who is the
sole lord.
In addition, a number of sDm=f forms detail ongoing but temporally generalised

actions or events, often the appearance of the king and the reactions of various
parties98 (generally awe/celebration by the Egyptians, and fear/obeisance by the ene-
mies):
sDm=f Year 8: 13-14 tf¦=sn ¦w¦=sn Hr nwT m Ho.w=sn r nmo=w xr gb#.wy=f m¦.tt
(KRI V, 38.10) pnw.w
They get up and they come, agitated in their bodies, in
order to lay themselves under his arms like rodents.
sDm.tw=f Year 11: 40 m##.tw=f m¦ st.wt n p# ¦tn
(KRI V, 64.6) He is seen like the rays of the sun’s disc.
Xft + sDm=f Year 5: 64-5 Q¦=f m¦.tt mnTw Xft pr=f
(KRI V, 26.8) His appearance is the likeness of Month when he goes
forth
m + sDm=f Year 5: 49-50 m##.tw=f... m¦ ro m wbn=f Hr-tp rX.yt
(KRI V, 25.2-3) He is seen...like Re when he shines on the people.
This list is not exhaustive,99 yet a general and preliminary observation can be made
here that the grammatical repertoire used for the purposes of eulogy are quite
conservative in nature; any diachronic comparison with eulogies from earlier
periods100 would easily show up both phraseological parallels as well as the same
repertoire of grammatical forms.101
Above the level of the clause, a number of discourse constraints operate on this
restricted grammatical range: on an interclausal level, the use of parallelismus mem-
brorum. This kind of structuring is well known to Egyptologists, and is characteristic
of a variety of elevated registers; it has been described variously as an integral aspect
of metrical analysis, as conceptual units (Sinneinheiten) or thought couplets.102 As
Wilson noted long ago, while clauses are indeed coordinated in pairs, “it is clear that
the length of any line here has a very general relation to the length of its parallel
member, but no relation at all to the length of other lines in other couplets. It will also
be seen that this balance of members may extend even to a phrase within a
couplet.”103 The excerpt below shows that couplets can be associated in the usual
98 What Assmann (1999: 25) calls “das Begriffspaar Epiphanie vs. Empfang”.
99 Among others omitted here, the so-called emphatic sDm.n=f can also be found in this context,
e.g. Year 8: 26-27 (KRI V, 41.8-9): D¦.n w¦ nTr.w n ns.yt Hr km.t r nXt=s “That the gods appointed
me to the kingship in Egypt was in order to strengthen it.”
100 Some of the relevant material is contained in, and a general impression could be gained from
Blumenthal (1970) and Grimal (1986).
101 In keeping with the paper’s focus, I attempt to avoid the traditional Egyptological terminology of
“classical Middle Egyptian”, following the spirit of Stauder 2013b.
102 An overview and discussion of the relevant works (Fecht, Foster, Lichtheim, etc.), with references
can be found in Burkard (1996). But see also the critical reflections in Moers (2006).
103 Wilson (1930: 29). The example given below is drawn from Wilson’s own exposition.
64 Todd J. Gillen
ways, for example, via synonyms (e.g. 3rd couplet: sH.w – sXr.w), phraseological or
conceptual association (1st couplet: s# – pr¦ – Ho.w) or grammatical pairings (4th
couplet: nXt=¦ – mk¦=¦):104
Year 11: 57-59 (KRI V, 66.7-11).
¦nk s# n ro I am the son of Re;
pr¦=¦ m Ho.w=f I came forth from his body
snDm.kw¦ Hr ns.yt=f m ¦hhy I sit upon his throne in jubilation

Dr smn{=¦}=f <w¦>105 m since he established me as [kin]g and as lord of
[ns]w m nb n t# pn this land.
n#y=¦ sH.w nfr My counsels are good

sXr.w Hr Xpr and my plans come to pass.
nXt=¦ km.t I strengthen Egypt

mk¦=¦ sw and I defend he(r).
D¦(=¦) snDm=s [m] rk=¦ I cause that she sits content [in] my vicinity
dX=¦ n[=s] t# nb th¦ t#S[=s] and I overthrow for her any land which trans-
gressed [her] border.
¦nk wr Hopy.w [xr Df#.w] I am great of inundations, [bearing provisions],

t#y[=¦] ns.yt boH¦.t¦ xr bw nfr and my kingship is inundated with good things.
Broader discourse organisation is achieved principally via the deployment of royal

cartouches and the use of the particles ¦st ¦r.
Referentially, the cartouches are the symbolisations par excellence of the king,
and it is from this referential basis that their various conventionalised textual and
aesthetic roles derive (indeed, they are particularly multivalent: not narrowly textual,
but participating more freely in the realms of the iconic and pictorial). In the case of
the Medinet Habu texts, the appearance of the cartouches is rooted deeply in the
primary metafunctions of eulogistic speech, which retains a significant referentiality:
in a praising description of the king, they are the core message around which epithets
and other linguistic ornaments are elaborated, and their regular repetition in the
present corpus should be considered as a refrain that anchors the various thematic
directions explored in the text. That each ‘section’ of eulogy comprises a single theme
and is ‘closed’ by a set of cartouches is easy enough to observe in the beginning parts
of the Year 5 and Year 8 texts, and it is there where the highest concentration of
cartouches can be found.106
A little more difficult to interpret is the usage of sets of cartouches in narrative
contexts. Almost all past Egyptological treatments of these elements have agreed that
104 For an interpretation of eulogy that identifies larger and smaller units of meaning in addition to
couplets, see for example Maderna-Sieben (1997).
105 Emendation in agreement with Edgerton and Wilson (1936: 86, n.58a).
106 The same usage of the cartouches can be found in the so-called “rhetorical stelae”, e.g. Tanis stelae
of Ramses II, Yoyotte (1949). Cf. also the Hittite marriage texts of Ramses II, in which texts the
cartouches are employed for additional aesthetic effect. Publication in Kuentz (1925).
they “open and close separate paragraphs”,107 “can be used to determine dividing
points within the text”,108 or that they “closed a section”.109 Such statements have
perpetuated110 a general vagueness about the nature of the cartouches arising from
structuralist and overly ‘textual’ approaches combined with an emphasis on the histo-
rical or narrative elements of royal texts. This paper’s focus on register offers a
slightly different perspective.
As implied above, sets of cartouches appear in narrative contexts with much lesser
frequency (see figs. 5-7 in §3.3.3. below). Indeed, while a range of resources can be
observed structuring story information (see §3.2. below), the cartouches do not
explicitly form temporal boundaries for narrative episodes. This conclusion arises
from the close observation that narrative events never precede the cartouches directly;
rather, the author will always segue cleverly from recount into eulogy of the king
before introducing the cartouches:
Year 5: 35-36 (KRI V, 23.10-12).
nw¦ t#y=w wm.t Hr s.t p# sm#[=w st] ¦r¦.w m m[r].w Hr p#(y)=w s#Tw m t# pHty n nsw
Qn¦ m Ho.w=f nb wo sXmty m¦.tt mnTw nsw b¦ty wsr-m#o.t-ro mry-¦mn s# ro ro-ms¦-s(w)
HQ#-¦wn.w
Their mass was gathered at the place of [their] slaughter and they were made into
pyramids on their (own) ground through the power of the king, who is brave in his
limbs; the sole lord, mighty like Month; king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Strong-is-
the justice-of-Ra, Beloved-of-Amun, son of Re, Ramses, Ruler-of-Heliopolis.
I do not mean to deny that the cartouches could by extension take up other textual
roles in other contexts, yet it is clear at Medinet Habu that if the cartouches appear in
proximity to story information, it is because the recount of events is set within the
primary framework of eulogy, so that each temporal episode is reframed as a thematic
section, becoming merely a historical anecdote or proof for the essential truths about
the king that the eulogy comprises.
The combination of particles ¦st ¦r also appears to be a feature of the eulogy
register. It differs from ¦st and ¦st r=f (see §3.2. below) in that it does not introduce nor
is related to narrative information. Its appearance in Year 5: 70 (KRI V, 27.01) and
Year 11: 53 (KRI V, 66.01) is in both cases immediately after a set of cartouches,
preceding a section of text that consists entirely of royal eulogy.111 This has given rise
107 Cifola (1988: 279 and n.17).

108 Manassa (2003: 136, n.8), in relation to a similar use in the Libyan stela of Merenptah.
109 Spalinger (1982: 208, n.54)
110 The whole discussion is limited to footnotes, and there has been little actual analysis: Cifola and
Manassa both explicitly depend for their interpretations on the footnote of Spalinger cited above,
whose own footnotes reveal a similar dependence on the footnotes of past translators. Cited by
Spalinger mid-discussion are various references to the translations of Edgerton and Wilson (1936),
the translation of the Israel stela offered by Lichtheim (1976: 73-7), two translated excerpts of
Medinet Habu texts given by Wente (1959) and a remark made by Wilson (1969: 257, n.15) on the
First Hittite marriage texts of Ramses II: “This text uses the two formal names of Ramses II as a
mark of punctuation.”
111 Spalinger (1982: 220): “The common phrase “Now, as for this good god/Horus” (¦st ¦r nTr nfr
pn/Hr) which introduces a separate rhetorical section, was quite common in these texts”, with
references: Urk. IV, 1744.17; Urk. IV, 2142.9; KRI II, 240.1/2; IV, 2.15; V, 27.1; V, 66.1. Extra
references are to be found in Spalinger (1986: 141, note k): KRI I, 33.6; I, 34.9; I, 40.14; II,
509.10-11; V, 58.3; VI, 10.15; VI, 13.7.
66 Todd J. Gillen
to the easy interpretation that this discourse feature marks a boundary between narra-
tive and eulogistic contexts. Yet a further occurrence of ¦st ¦r at Medinet Habu appea-
ring in a purely eulogistic context (i.e. neither immediately after a set of cartouches,
nor having any remote association with narrative information)112 speaks against such
an interpretation, as does its appearance in other texts comprised entirely of the
eulogistic register.113 The specific role(s) of ¦st ¦r is outside the scope of this paper:
the goal here is merely to argue the existence of two registers that must be understood
as such rather than as a single system of structuring narrative content in the compo-
sition of “historical texts”.
Finally, the focus of attention for the eulogy register is at all times on the king. In
addition to being the referent of the innumerable participles, adjectives and epithets,
he is the referent that most frequently occupies the role of grammatical subject,
mostly as semantic agent (here metonymically designated):
Year 5: 10 (KRI V, 21.9).
sd rn=f ¦b.w r r#-o.w kkw
pH f#w=f nrw=f n# pHw.w t#
His name paralyses hearts to the limits of darkness
and his magnificence and awe reach the ends of the land.
Other agents are often reduced via grammatical means to impersonal silhouettes, for
example the use of the =tw pronoun with a verb of emotion, or a -tw passive with a
verb of perception:
Year 5: 61 (KRI V, 26.2-3).
snD=tw n w#y n Sf.yt=f
one fears from afar because of awe of him
Year 11: 40 (KRI V, 64.6).
m##.tw=f m¦ st.wt n p# ¦tn
He is seen like the rays of the sun’s disc.
The king is also the most readily pronominalised, while other agents are encoded via
long noun phrases;114 any brief change of agents is often overtly marked, for example
emphasis by initialisation:
Year 8: 8-9 (KRI V, 38.11-12).
on snDm Hr wTs.t m¦ ¦tm
Ssp.n=f xkr Hr stX
nb.ty Smo.w=s mH.tyt=s ¦r¦=sn s.t=sn Hr tp=f
Xfo o.wy=f HQ#.t xr nX(#)X(#)
Beautiful of countenance upon the throne like Atum
when he has received the regalia of Horus & Seth.
112 Year 11 Poem: 16 (KRI V, 58.03).

113 E.g. KRI I, 33.6; I, 34.9; II, 509.10.
114 Givón’s Code Quantity Principle is deployed here to capture discourse topic entities: “The less
predictable or accessible a referent is, the more phonological material will be used to code it,”
Givón (1989) and (1991: esp.87-9), i.e. the more descriptively the text represents an object/ele-
ment/character (as subject, object, etc.), the less likely it is to be the topic. According to this
principle, topic entities have a number of tendencies that are textually observable: “a topic is
sooner pronoun than noun; more likely to be definite than indefinite; and sooner subject than
object.” Renkema (2004: 92). See in general Brown and Yule (1983: 68-124).
The Two Ladies, she of the south and she of the north, they make their place upon his
head;
his arms grasp the sceptre and the flail...
These observations are, again, not exhaustive; merely an illustrative selection that
demonstrates how certain discourse features work together to maintain focus on the
king and a discourse coherence that is here interpreted as a tangible aspect of the
eulogy register, harmonising with the other elements discussed (especially gramma-
tical selection, cartouches), with the activity which it describes and constitutes
(= royal epiphany), and with the goals that it realises (= royal praise).
A summative overview of the eulogy register is held over until after the descrip-
tion of the recount register, where the two registers will be contrasted and compared.
3.2 Recount
Where the recount register begins is difficult to determine in each case; often it can
only be detected according to shifts in several parameters simultaneously, as will be
discussed below. In terms of grammatical distribution, the recount encompasses two
temporalities, discussed further below as R2 (past) and R1 (present perfect):115 on the
one hand, the recount proper R2 (past) usually appears as a kind of analepsis
(= flashback), in which events are realised using a combination of verbal and pseudo-
verbal constructions:
Preterite sDm=f 116 Year 8: 19 sHn=¦ t#S=¦ Hr D#h¦
(KRI V, 40.6-7) I established my border at Djahi
Passive sDm + NP Year 11: 22 skm ¦b=sn
(KRI V, 61.8) Their heart(s) were terminated
NP + PsP past Year 5: 33 Hm=f pr¦ r-r=sn m¦.tt sD.t
(verbs of motion) (KRI V, 23.6-7) His majesty went forth against them like a
flame
NP + PsP past Year 5: 36 s[p nb ¦n]¦ m H#Q r km.t
(KRI V, 23.12) [Every remn]ant was [brou]ght as plunder to
Egypt,
On the other hand, there are a number of constructions that take as a primary point of
temporal reference the moment of enunciation, R1 (present perfect) and describe the
present (peaceful) situation in Egypt; here NP + PsP and an aorist sDm=f:117
115 By “temporality” here I refer to the temporal frame of reference indicated by sections of discourse
– the difference between past and present prefect is not often formally marked, e.g. the NP + PsP
construction which is used for both and can only be differentiated contextually from our linguistic
point of view.
116 Including ¦r=f + 4-lit. / loanword, e.g. Year 11: 52 (KRI V, 65.13-14): ¦r¦=w brT r-Dr.w “They all
made a treaty.”
117 Such a temporality overlaps formally with the eulogy register at times, and at other times with the
recount proper (discussed in detail in §3.3.4. below), and seems important for the execution of a
rhetorical strategy that relates the disparate temporalities of the registers in a continuous textual
discourse (see §3.3.2. below).
68 Todd J. Gillen
Year 5: 17-19 (KRI V, 22.2-3).

t#.w X#s.wt fdQ
¦n¦ r km.t m Hm.w
brk dmD n psD.t=s
p# s#y k#.w rsf boH¦ m t#.wy
nhm oS#.t m t# pn
The flat lands and hill countries have been ravaged
and brought to Egypt as slaves,
presented and drawn together for its Ennead;
Contentment, food and game are overflowing in the two lands,
and the masses rejoice in this land.
This account of the grammatical distribution in the recount register is only a characte-
risation and not a full description: it gives the broad outlines and is in no way exhaus-
tive or comprehensive, yet the generally unavoidable impression is that the gramma-
tical repertoire is much less conservative in nature than was observed for the eulogy
register.118 However, such a comparison must be tempered by a consideration of
aspects of the discourse (specifically the analeptic recount proper) that reveal the
idiosyncratic deployment of the above forms.
In relation to interclausal discourse organisation: while a significant degree of
narrativity is involved in the deployment of these forms,119 they do not constitute a
formal sequence system, as Spalinger had tried to show.120 Rather, textual events
approximate the episodic structure of the scenes on the walls of the temple repre-
senting the same events:121 they have a temporal organisation that is non-sequential,
manifested as some interesting discourse texture. Events are not entirely encapsulated
by single verbal constructions or clauses, nor are immediately followed by more
constructions of the same kind. Rather, an initiating clause (often preterite sDm=f, NP
+ PSP with a verb of motion, or passive sDm + NP) sets the temporal context under
which subsequent description is given122 via pseudoverbal constructions (NP + PsP)
that have the tendency of chaining together to form short series.
Year 5: 33-34 (KRI V, 23.6-8).
Hm=f pr¦ r-r=sn m¦.tt sD.t gm¦.t [X]n[r.t] m k#k# wmt
[DnH] m¦ #pd.w m-xnw ¦#d.t
st Hw¦ m Qn¦.w
¦r¦.w m ssf.y
pXd m Hbd.yt Hr s[nf]=sn
118 Indeed, the same means of expression are not used as would be found in comparable recount
registers in First Phase varieties of Egyptian. A large scale survey would be needed to make any
proper comparisons or firm up the idea of a “recount” register recognisable in different corpora,
but as food for thought I point to the Tomb Robberies accounts (Peet, 1930), in which a similar
recount is found, with at times similar grammatical repertoires (combinations of preterite sDm=f,
passive sDm=f, NP + PsP).
119 The literature on narrative at Medinet Habu is reviewed in the full narratological analysis under-
taken in Gillen (2009). Cf. Wente (1959); Spalinger (1982); Cifola (1988); Israeli (1991).
120 Spalinger (1988).
121 Cf. Van Essche-Merchez (1992).
122 For a similar interpretation of grammatical texture in Middle Kingdom literary texts, see Collier
(1996).
His majesty went forth against them like a flame found [sca]tte[red] in thick brush
wood,
(and they were) [trapped] like ducks inside a net.
They were threshed as sheaves,
made as ashes,
thrown down in a heap in their (own) bl[ood].
No clear temporal sequence is apparent between the clauses in these sorts of chains.
The omission of the subject in the clausal sequence adds to the continuity of the
narrative episode, and is diagnostic of information “blocking”.123 The result in the
Medinet Habu texts is the formation of discrete scenes that give the impression of
snapshots rather than flowing temporal progression.
Summative result clauses are an important feature of the Medinet Habu discourse
that should also be mentioned here: “Unlike narrative clauses, which normally report
unique countable events, summative result clauses function as retrospective summa-
ries of a series of previously reported situations.”124 While they may take any gram-
matical form appropriate, at Medinet Habu the passive sDm + NP construction seems
particularly well-suited to this role, often drawing – at any point in the story – the
outcome of the conflict and summing up its consequences, e.g.
Year 5: 40 (KRI V, 24.2-3).
snT¦ n#y=w H#.wt
¦r¦.w m mh.wt m nXt.w
mnS.w Hr rn wr Hm=f
Their leaders were settled,
made into (slave) gangs of captives,
stamped with the great name of his majesty.
Year 11: 46 (KRI V, 65.4).
sDm=n n#y=w Hb.w
¦T# hh=n
We listened to their counsels
and our heat was taken away.
The register description here does not allow us space for a detailed and conclusive
refutation of the sequence system interpretation proposed by Spalinger,125 yet the
observations outlined above illustrate sufficiently that his tabulation of sequential
forms126 is indeed merely a table of grammatical possibilities, not a description of a
sequence system.127
In addition to this particular employment of its grammatical repertoire, the recount
register often exhibits loose poetic organisation. But whereas the regular parallelisms
123 Cf. Fleischman (1990: 206).

124 Fleischman (1997: 162-163). See also Fleischman (1990: 160-161).
125 Cf. the arguments (including observations exposing large inaccuracies in his claims and short-
comings in his data collection) marshalled in Gillen (2009, vol.I: 172-4).
126 Spalinger (1988: 111).
127 This accords with Wente’s brief comments over 60 years ago now (1959: 92): “the effect of this
sort of narrative is to stress the individual importance of each of the events forming the sequence
with an emphasis on the perfected nature of the activity...this form of narrative does not express
the sequence through the choice of verbal constructions; rather it is solely the context which
imparts to these passages narrative character.”
70 Todd J. Gillen
of eulogy are easily discernible, the structures of recount are less predictable and more
difficult to recognise. Each instance in which a poetic arrangement gives form to a
recounted episode is unique in its structure, for example:
Year 5: 51-54 (KRI V, 25.4-8).
(X#s.wt mH.tyw) ¦w¦ (The northern hill countries) came
b#=sn skm and their soul was destroyed
A1 ¦w=w m thr.w Hr t# They were soldiers upon the land,
B1 ky m w#D-wr and another on the sea.
A2 n# ¦y¦ Hr [t# pXd Those who came upon [land were
overthrown
A3 sm#...] and slain...]
A4 ¦mn-ro m-s#=sn Hr Amun-Re was after them,
sksk=sn destroying them.
B2 n# oq m r#-H#.wt m¦ Those who entered into the mouths
#pd.w sXbX m t# ¦#d.t of the Nile were like ducks enclosed
in the net
B3 ¦r¦.w m HnQ [...] and were made as plunder [...]
B4 [...] o.wy=sn [...] their arms.
This section follows a semantic pattern elaborating on an initial summary of the

conflict: it follows the pattern A1-B1-A2-B2, where A1 and B1 introduce specific
sections of the attacking forces (infantry and navy), while A2 and B2 elaborate on the
destruction of the respective groups. A1 and A2 are linked by their common subject
(the enemy) and more specifically by the location (Hr t#). The same link is made in B,
where the metonymy between w#D-wr and r#-H#.wt is clear. A2 and B2 form a larger
parallelism in the use of the synonymous participles ¦y¦ and oq as subjects, both
carrying the demonstrative pronoun n#. These two designations of the enemy describe
in full the attacking forces. Unfortunately, the lacunae do not permit perhaps further
coherencies that may have been present to be recognised, and they do not exclude the
possibility of a metaphor introduced by m¦ in A2 (similar to the one in B2) or the
specification of an Egyptian protagonist in B4 parallel to the role of Amun-Re in A4.
Broader discourse organisation is managed principally via the particle ¦st and the
combination ¦st r=f. Following the arguments of Oréal, ¦st has followed a path of
change “from correlative adverb and comitative postposition to subordinative
conjunction to discourse marker with a main textual and argumentative function.”128
Scholars of Ramesside monumental historical texts have traditionally framed its
function intuitively in this same manner, as discourse marker, for example Manassa in
her discussion of the Merenptah Libyan stela:
“¦st can only precede independent main clauses (including nominal forms of the
suffix conjugation) and indicates concomitance of action. The statements following
128 Oréal (2012: 231-3).

the particle provide elaboration on the preceding statements concerning temporally

parallel events, almost always including a change in the actor or scene.”129
The combination ¦st r=f plays a similar role in narrative contexts, though appearing
towards the beginning of a text130 and introducing actors or situations with “a view to
some further narrative”131:
Year 11: 03 (KRI V, 59.04).
¦st r=f ¦b nTr pn sXpr t# m wHm-o.w
“Now indeed, this god wished to refashion the land”132
Significant for the register analysis here is the exclusively narrative roles and contexts
of ¦st and ¦st r=f and its collocation with other characteristics of the recount register.
Finally, the focus of attention for this register is generally away from the king,
predominantly on the enemies. They occupy the role of grammatical subject more
than any other referent, yet — since the text is mostly occupied with recounting their
defeat and destruction — they only rarely exercise agency, forming the subject of a
great number of passive or stative constructions. For example, in the excerpt of Year
8: 22-24 (cited below), the enemies (or some metaphoric or metonymic designation
thereof) are the theme of most clauses, or where they are not the theme (e.g. in the
clause p# hwt mH...), they are foregrounded (= topicalised) via syntactic means:
initialisation. Their topical strength is further indicated by the elision of an explicit
subject in the string of PsPs (¦tH, g#w, etc.); specification of the subject is not
necessary. In contrast, the king (or his troops) and his actions and agency are strongly
backgrounded to the point of complete omission.
Further, the enemies are the most readily pronominalised in the recount register
for anaphoric reference and general discourse coherence. In the following excerpt,
reference to the enemies is reduced to pronouns and possessives after the initial
nominal phrase designating the enemies:
Year 5: 41-42 (KRI V, 24.4-6).
p# t# THnw p#d
¦r¦=w nhr
mSwS oX¦=[s]n [k#]p m t#=sn
fdQ t#y=sn mny.t
nn s(t) m sp wo
bdS Ho.w=sn nb m-d¦ t# Hr.yt
The land of Tchehnu fled; they made a running off.
(As for) the Meshwesh, they were uncertain and [hi]dden in their land.
Their root was pulled up
129 Manassa (2003: 138). Cf. also von der Way (1984: esp.53-55). The comments of Cifola (1988:
279) and Israeli (1991: 162-3) are both too general and too anecdotal to warrant treatment here,
though are commented on in Gillen (2009, vol. I: 211-5). The most recent and comprehensive
study of the particle can be found in Oréal (2011).
130 In addition to the instance from the Year 11 text given below, see also another occurrence in the
caption texts: Sea Peoples scenes (sea battle): section d.i. (KRI V, 32.6).
131 GEG §119.2.
132 Given the updated discussion of ¦st given in the main text above, I do not hold with Piccione’s
interpretation of this sentence (1980: 108) which assumes a traditional “Middle Egyptian”
interpretation of ¦st r=f as a grammatical indicator of circumstance rather than a discourse marker.
72 Todd J. Gillen
and they were not, in a single case.

It is with the fear that all of their limbs droop.
While this sort of enemy dominance of pronominalisation in narrative contexts is very
frequent133 and marks them as the usual discourse topic, the argument here does not
suggest that they are the only topic for this register (in fact, Amun-Re and the
Egyptians make sporadic appearances as focus), but rather that at Medinet Habu the
recount register is constituted in such a way that places the enemies as the central
focus.134
3.3 Two registers, one text

3.3.1 Summary
The differences between eulogy and recount sections of the Medinet Habu texts along
the five dimensions discussed above can be summarised thus:
Eulogy Recount
Grammatical +Conservative –Conservative
repertoires
Temporality Atemporal (general validity) Past and Present Perfect
Predication type Non-verbal Verbal
Discourse organisation More constrained Less constrained
Focus of attention King Enemies, etc.
Eulogy praises the king in introducing him in epiphany: this is essentially a “naming”
activity that elaborates on the referential symbols that index royal positional and
religious identities by means of non-verbal predications that express generally valid
propositions and are meticulously arranged in specific patterns. It is a highly ritualised
activity steeped in centuries-long tradition and imbued with the conservatism of insti-
tutions that, in its monumental entextualisation, has become conventionalised in its
preservation of a certain range of older linguistic and discourse features.
Set within the frame of a hymn, the recount register is constituted not by resources
expressing sequentiality, but rather via a present perfect tense that elaborates on the
generally valid propositions of the eulogy in describing the current situation of things
at the moment of enunciation: the enemies are neutralised; the land is restored and in
peace; the Egyptians rejoice. In addition, analepses are made via verbal constructions
with past time reference in recounting the events that led to and justified that final
result, foregrounding with passive constructions the enemies, their conscious trans-
gression, their subsequent defeat and begging for peace. In this way, the conventions
133 E.g. Year 5: 26-29 (KRI V, 22.12-16); 51-57 (KRI V, 25.4-12); Year 8: 16-18 (KRI V, 39.14-
40.5); 23-24 (KRI V, 40.15-41.4); Year 11: 14-17 (KRI V, 60.6-15); 23-26 (KRI V, 61.10-62.4);
28-29 (KRI V, 62.10-14); 30 (KRI V, 62.14-63.2); 32-34 (KRI V, 63.4-11); 48-51 (KRI V, 65.7-
12); 51-52 (KRI V, 65.13-14).
134 A further point in favour of this argument concerns ¦st. The change of actor that it has been obser-
ved to mark is, according to my observations, usually away from the main discourse focus: in the
Kadesh inscriptions, for example, the king is the main focus and the narrative proper follows him,
while ¦st generally introduces the simultaneous actions of the enemy — cf. von der Way (1984). At
Medinet Habu, the enemy is the main focus: they initiate the conflict and are destroyed. Thus ¦st
usually introduces the king (or Amun-Re).
of the recount register realise religio-legal concepts of transgression135 and structure

an ideologically coherent Egyptian account of events.
Linking the cluster of features observed above to the wider archive of Egyptian
texts and describing the diachronic development of the register requires the methods
of machine-based corpus linguistics for statistical analysis and multidimensional
comparison.
3.3.2 Rhetorical strategy

The above distinction would be a very straightforward picture if the registers were
deployed in textually discrete sections of each text, and often a text comprises one set
of text metafunctions. At Medinet Habu, a mix of registers is deployed as a rhetorical
strategy, an integration of historical reference into an ideologically ‘true’ matrix, with
the result, whether implicitly or explicitly intended, of naturalising the interpretation
of events by presenting them in terms of axiomatic propositions.
Specific  General
The attribution of ideological and universal significance to specific events is often
achieved by following up the recount of an event with relevant eulogy of the king.
This is of course not only rhetorically motivated in transforming unique events into
generalised conditions, but also characterises this text type — praise of the king
naturally fits in at any point, and he is the subject of the poetic flourishes that round
off many sections (eulogy in bold).
Year 11: 51-53 (KRI V, 65.13-15).
¦T#=sn kms xsy tnm ¦r¦=w They were intimidated, enfeebled and confused,
brT r-Dr.w xr ¦n.w[=sn] and they all made a treaty, bearing [their] tribute
[Hr psd=sn] [...] [¦w¦ m [upon their back(s)] [...]
¦#]w.t r sw#S[=f]
[and coming in pra]ise in order to extol [him],
nTr nfr nb t#.wy ¦r¦ t#S[=f] the good god, lord of the two lands, who makes
r mr¦=f m t#.w Dw.w his border wherever he pleases in the flat lands
and the mountains.
General  Specific
Less frequently, generally valid eulogy introduces a specific event, contextualising it
within the Egyptian worldview and giving it larger significance for the hymnic argu-
ment. A comparison is drawn between ideal situations and actual events, evaluating
the latter and the outcome (and sometimes even ascribing causation) before events are
related. For example, description of the king’s attributes is commonly found intro-
ducing a new section, and predicts the king’s role in the event following, sometimes
without him being explicitly mentioned as taking part in that event. This brings a
rhetorical angle (= king’s agency, instrumentality, causation) to the descriptions of the
135 This emphasis on religious arguments of transgression accords with the work of Israeli (1998), and
is slightly different from the historical conclusion reached by Cifola (1991: 55-57) of a “successful
defense”.
74 Todd J. Gillen
enemy destruction which, as discussed above, are often given in passive constructions
with explicit mention of the agent omitted.
Year 8: 22-24 (KRI V, 40.14-41.1).
¦nk ¦r¦ m wsTn rX pHty=f I am one who acts freely, who is conscious of
pr¦-o.w Sd mnf.yt=f hrw sky his power, an active one, who rescues his
army (on) the day of battle.
n# spr r t#S=¦ n pr.t=sn (As for) those who arrived at my border, their
¦b=s(n) b#=sn skm r nHH D.t seed no longer exists and their heart(s) and
soul(s) are finished for all eternity.
n# ¦y¦ twt n-Hr=w Hr p# (As for) those who came forward united upon
w#D-wr the sea,
p# hwt mH r-H#.t=sn Hr n(#) the full flame was before them at the river
r#.w-H#.t mouths
¦nH n=sn ssw m n¦w¦.w Hr and an enclosure of spears surrounded them on
mr.yt the shore.
This combination of registers has presented a significant challenge to Egyptological

scholarship,136 and a neglect of the eulogistic aspects of the texts and a great focus on
their historical and narrative dimensions has led to a number of approaches that have all
struggled, in different ways, with the treatment of the idiosyncratic Medinet Habu
morpho-syntax and its distribution. Spalinger’s attempt to recognise a formal sequence
system in the texts includes a short catalogue of verbal forms that is selective in only
recognising a “narrative core” to each text,137 while ignoring the frequent eulogistic
interpolations. On the other hand, Cifola’s Proppian structural approach, while recog-
nising thematic and grammatical differences between two registers (what she dubs
“literary style”),138 is too inclusive in its application to the entire textual discourse (both
eulogy and narrative parts, rather than merely the latter, as befits the Proppian method).
Both scholars were in different ways but in similar measures insensitive to the way in
which the Medinet Habu texts recycle motifs in a way that fosters temporal ambiguity.
Finally, Israeli was the first to recognise the lack of narrative formality and the use of
rhetorical arguments in the construction of textual meaning.139
3.3.3 Register distribution

Figs. 5-7 below show the register distribution for the three long inscriptions. These
graphs visualise succinctly the changes in register as a continuous textual flow.
Column numbers are marked along the bottom row and diagnostic textual features
(dates, incipit, cartouches, particles, and direct monologue speech140) are indicated
136 From the very beginning; even the translation of Edgerton and Wilson (1936), although masterful,
is understandably uncertain in many contexts whether to translate in the present or the past tense,
for lack of distinct grammatical morphology.
137 Spalinger (1988: 125-129) = “list of examples”.
138 Cifola (1988: 291, n.24).
139 Israeli (1991).
140 The short remarks of the enemy chiefs that colour the recount are not marked, only the long
speeches.
along the top. Although the register division made above is essentially binary (E
represents eulogy and R represents recount), the recount register is divided in these
graphs into two: R1 represents the present perfect and R2 the past. In this way the
graphs are sensitive to changes in temporal reference in the texts that reflects
ambiguities arising from functional overlap of certain constructions (see §3.2. above),
an overlap that is sometimes used as a rhetorical strategy to ‘bridge’ between the
disparate temporalities of the registers (most evidently in the Year 5 text). Given these
ambiguities and the fluidity of the boundaries between registers in the textual flow
(see above, 3.1.), the graphs avoid strict accuracy in using a wavy line, and the result
given below is not immune to some interpretive leeway.
The graphs are useful for visualising the distribution of the registers and their
constituent features. In connection with the register description given above, note:
- The persistent occurrence of cartouches in sections of eulogy, clustering at the
beginning of the Year 5 and Year 8 texts and significantly absent during instances
of recount. For the Year 11 text, they regularly interrupt the narrative and are
almost always preceded by eulogy.
- The association of the particle ¦st with significant sections of recount, and always
appearing in R2 recount.141
- The combination ¦st r=f at the beginning of Year 11 heading up a section of R2
recount before the main recount section.
- The association of ¦st ¦r with eulogy towards the end of the Year 5 and Year 11
texts.
Fig. 5: Register distribution for the Year 5 text
141 Spalinger (1988: 108, n.5) claims that the cartouches and ¦st function cooperatively to structure the
text: the former “separate the sections, each one having a different theme and a point earlier or
later in time. Within each section, ¦st serves also as a thematic divider.” However, the discussion
above contradicts this in a number of ways:
- They do not function cooperatively in an overt way. Rather, they are merely deployed in
regular ways within their own registers — the mélange of eulogy and recount registers means
that the two are interspersed.
- The cartouches separate eulogistic themes, which may frame narrative episodes. In a text
unfolding in a linear manner, such episodes are obviously necessarily either chronologically
earlier or later than one another. Spalinger’s implication that the cartouches are involved in
temporal ordering is unwarranted, especially given that dynamic verb forms are primarily
responsible for temporal progression.
- It is difficult to see that ¦st has a role as thematic divider. Rather, as discussed above, it
indicates concomitance of action and temporal simultaneity, and involves a change of actor,
place, or scene as well as some kind of contrast.
76 Todd J. Gillen
4 Interpretive implications: linguistic texture and form–function relations

The complex register distribution within each text has implications for the interpreta-
tion of certain grammatical constructions. Rather than a coherent isomorphic system
(one form–one function), the mix of registers in the texts results in a rather varied
impression. In the first case study offered below, I address the different grammatical
functions that a single form may have (one form–many functions) as a result of the
collocation of forms arising from different paths of language change, discussing
firstly sDm=f and then bw sDm=f. In the second case study, I look at the opposite
situation (many forms–one function) in reference to a set of phraseologically related
negations, emphasising the importance of taking into account phraseological histories
in the understanding of aspects of égyptien de tradition. In both cases, the register
mixing described above serves as a foundation for understanding the idiosyncratic
linguistic texture of the texts.
4.1 One form–many functions: sDm=f and bw sDm=f

The sDm=f verb form is extremely common in both registers at Medinet Habu: for
eulogy, we find verb forms with unachieved aspect in the expression of generally-
valid truths, e.g.
Year 5: 12-13 (KRI V, 21.12-13).
wn=f r#=f xr T#w n Hnmm.t r sonX ¦db.wy m k#.w=f ro nb
He opens his mouth with breath for the Heliopolitans in order to nourish the two
banks with his sustenance every day.
For the recount, we find verb forms with achieved aspect in the expression of past
action,142 e.g.
142 There is some ambiguity over the duration of the action (i.e. finished in the past or relevant to the
present: past or present perfect), esp. in the speech of the king in Year 8.
Year 11: 23 (KRI V, 61.10-11).

gmgm=f ¦nH[=f] [fn]d=w Ho.w=sn
He broke apart and enclosed their nostril(s) and their limbs.
As one might imagine, the frequently-appearing unmarked sDm=f forms result in
significant ambiguity for interpretation and translation. We are dealing with two
different registers that have followed different paths of change resulting in a number
of similar-looking forms with radically different functions. In the case of eulogy, the
verb forms with unachieved aspect in comparable First Phase registers are iw(=f)
sDm=f and mrr=f. Diachronically, the former appears as an unmarked sDm=f via
omission or filtering of the particle iw for introducing independent clauses;143 for the
latter, the reduplication of the second radical of weak verbs is no longer productive as
a marker of the aorist.144 In the case of recount, the construction ¦w sDm.n=f (common
to comparable varieties of First Phase Egyptian used for expressing achieved aspect)
undergoes different processes: the -n morphology is rendered unproductive,145 and the
particle ¦w is once more omitted or filtered from independent usage. The resulting
sDm=f forms are morpho-syntactically indistinguishable and must be interpreted via
other means.146
A similarly ambiguous situation characterises the appearance of the bw sDm=f,
e.g. unachieved aspect in eulogy:
Year 11: 31 (KRI V, 63.3).
bw X#o=f Xft Qnd[=f] r Xr on.t=f Hr tp mSwS
He (king) does not turn back, when [he] rages, from bringing down his claw upon the
head of the Meshwesh.
Achieved aspect in recount:
Year 11: 44 (KRI V, 64.13-14).
¦r¦=n brk.w n-Hr=f Dr.t=n Hr tp=n bw pno=f bw nw=f n dw#.w{t}=n sw
We made offering before him, our hands upon our heads, (but) he did not turn or pay
attention to our praising him.
Whereas in varieties of First Phase Egyptian the negation of unachieved aspect could
be expressed as n sDm.n=f, the negative particle n apparently undergoes graphic varia-
tion in being written bw, and the -n morphology suffers the same lapse into unpro-
ductivity, resulting in a bw sDm=f form. Negation of achieved aspect in First Phase
Egyptian could be expressed by n sDm=f, which only undergoes change in the
appearance of the negative particle, resulting in the same form.
Earlier achieved Medinet Habu Earlier unachieved
aspect in recount aspect in eulogy
¦w sDm.n=f  sDm=f  ¦w(=f) sDm=f / mrr=f
n sDm=f  bw sDm=f  n sDm.n=f
Fig. 8. Formal identity at Medinet Habu as a result of different paths of language change
143 Junge (2005: 108-110, §3.0.2).

144 Kruchten (1999: 22-24).
145 Kruchten (1999: 6-22).
146 Here the discussion is purely textual; the question remains open as to whether or not different
sDm=fs were distinguished phonetically; some few verbs do in fact exhibit semi-regular morpho-
logical inflection: ¦r¦, rd¦, etc. See Gillen (2009, vol.I: 23-24).
78 Todd J. Gillen
This sort of situation147 may not have been a problem as long as text genres were
sufficiently discrete, but in the Medinet Habu texts it results in interpretive difficulties
for the present-day reader.148 However, the ambiguity of this overlap may nonetheless
have been exploited as a field of poetic play: there are many instances of eulogistic
phraseology appropriated for the narrative context, and vice-versa. For example, in
the excerpt below, the lexical selection (= the collocation of tf¦, ¦w¦, nwT, and nmo149)
and the topic (= enemies as theme and grammatical subject) are characteristic for the
recount register, yet are found here in a eulogistic context. Thus tf¦ and ¦w¦ — verbs of
movement otherwise found in the NP + PsP construction and used exclusively for the
description of past actions — appear exceptionally as sDm=f forms expressing habitual
action:
Year 11: 13-14 (KRI V, 60.3-5).
m#¦ pHty Qn¦ p# n.ty m nb wo on.t=f sdbH m¦ mstX tf¦=sn ¦w¦=sn Hr nwT m Ho.w=sn r
nmo=w xr gb#.wy=f m¦.tt pnw.w
The powerful and valiant lion is the one who is the sole lord; his claws are equipped
like a trap. They get up and they come, agitated in their bodies, in order to lay
themselves under his arms like rodents.
In fact, it is in this overlap of registers, in this field of play, that novel grammatical
features and usages appear. More specifically, this overlap is in fact crucial to the
overall flow of discourse. As mentioned above in relation to the two temporalities of
the recount register (R1 and R2 – see §3.2. Recount above), the recount of the present
situation of Egypt (R1) overlaps at times with the formal expression of eulogy. For
example, a sDm=f with unachieved aspect may appear in both, compare the two
excerpts below:
Year 5: 12-13 (KRI V, 21.12-13).
wn=f r#=f xr T#w n Hnmm.t r sonX ¦db.wy m k#.w=f ro nb
He opens his mouth with breath for the Heliopolitans in order to nourish the two
banks with his sustenance every day.
Year 5: 19 (KRI V, 22.3).
nhm oS#.t m t# pn
The masses rejoice in this land.
The principal difference rests in the duration of the action: whereas in the constitution
of eulogy a sDm=f describes a permanent state of affairs, for recount it describes a
situation of limited duration, ongoing at that moment (and as a consequence) of vic-
tory.
A similar ambiguity exists between the two recount temporalities: there is no for-
mal difference made between the expression of present perfect (R1) and past temporal
reference (R2), especially in the use of pseudoverbal constructions, the interpretive
distinction being made contextually, e.g.
147 For a related discussion of syncretism in Earlier Egyptian, see Uljas (2011). Thanks to Stéphane
Polis for directing me to this reference.
148 Indeed, such a sDm=f with a wide interpretive flexibility in these and other texts has prompted, in
some Egyptological circles, the unofficial tag “the cool sDm=f”.
149 nwT and nmo are also foreign words, which are common in the recount register and altogether
absent from the more conservative eulogy register.
Year 5: 17-19 (KRI V, 22.2).

T#.w X#s.wt fdQ
¦n¦ r km.t m Hm.w
The flat lands and hill countries have been ravaged
and brought to Egypt as slaves.
Year 5: 36 (KRI V, 23.12).
s[p nb ¦n]¦ m H#Q r km.t
[Every remn]ant was [brou]ght as plunder to Egypt.
It should be underlined that such ambiguities are not purely coincidental, but are
fostered and exploited in the creation of a discourse that weaves punctual historical
events into the fabric of atemporal and ideologically true royal institutional identities.
4.2 Many forms–one function: the phraseology of negation

Building on and inspired by the work of Sarah Groll, who pointed out that Late Egyp-
tian literary texts used many forms for the same or similar linguistic functions,150 this
section attempts to explore the relationship between linguistic conservatism and phra-
seology.
The theme of the king shooting arrows has a long history in monumental inscrip-
tions,151 and at Medinet Habu it appears as a phrase that declares that when he shoots,
he does not miss. This motif is attested ten times, with a significant variation in the
grammatical constructions employed for its expression. Phraseologically, I would like
to distinguish several branches of the tradition, captured in figure 9 below.
The first branch consists of the most frequent form (attested six times) and is
highly conservative, making use of a circumstantial n sDm.n=f, a construction that is
not found at Medinet Habu outside of this phraseology — an important observation in
its own right. It is also highly fixed,152 always making use of the third person singular
pronoun for a subject. For this specific branch of the phraseological tradition, we are
dealing with survivals153 that have been fixed and preserved in particular (eulogistic)
contexts.
KRI V, 16.15 ¦-D¦ Ssr r s.t=f n wh¦{n}.n=f
(king) who sends the arrow to its place, without missing.
KRI V, 25.10 mtr Ssr n wh¦.n=f
(king) true of arrow, without missing.
150 Groll (1975-6).

151 Cf. e.g. Der Manuelian (2006).
152 Apart from seemingly trivial graphical variations in the spelling of wh¦ (see below), only KRI V,
82.12 attests the negation nn, which is frequently interchangeable with the negation n in the
Medinet Habu corpus (here a hypercorrection?), cf. Gillen (2009: 68). Probably there is more than
one reason for this interchangeability, and in this case, the syntactic environment may be a trigger.
For example, in each of the attestations of the circumstantial n sDm.n=f in the Kadesh Poem, the
Papyrus Sallier III copy ‘translates’ it into an adverbial nn + infinitive. It may be that the nn
variation at Medinet Habu is the honest substitution of the scribe in writing a circumstantial by
analogy with the more contemporary nn + infinitive. While there may be another reason for this
substitution, it seems fairly clear that the nn sDm.n=f does not have its own functional role here.
153 Stauder (2013) introduced the concepts of revival, survival, and filtering to describe aspects of
égyptien de tradition.
80 Todd J. Gillen
KRI V, 33.07 Ssr=¦ Hr Xfo n wh¦.n[=f]

My (king) arrow hits the mark, without missing.
KRI V, 49.06 ¦-d¦=f Ssr r s.t=f n wh¦.n=f
It is to its place that he (king) sends the arrow, without missing.
KRI V, 64.08 mX# wnm.yt smH.yt n wh¦.n=f154
(king) who brings into balance the right and the left arms, without missing.
KRI V, 82.12 pD xr Smr.t h#b Ssr[=f m]X# nn wh¦.n=f
(king) who stretches the bow, who sends [his] arrow straight, without
missing.
A second branch of the tradition is inspired by the primary branch of survivals
discussed above: productive variation on the theme and the morpho-syntax result in
independent constructions (= more contemporary “literary” forms bw sDm=f and bw
sDm.n=f ) with noun subjects and adverbial complements (in each of these three cases,
the preposition m appears).
KRI V, 17.09 bw h#y Ssr=¦ m o.wt=sn
My (king) arrow does not miss their (enemy) limbs.
KRI V, 13.07 bw h#y.n Ssr=f m HH
His (king) arrow does not miss a million.
Even the unique usage in the following example seems to be triggered by the proxi-
mity of the arrow phraseology occurring just prior:
KRI V, 33.07 Ssr=¦ Hr Xfo n wh¦.n[=f] o.wy=¦ Dr.t=¦ rwD tw=¦ m¦ b¦k m-xnw Xp.wt bw h#y.n
on.t=¦ m tp=sn
My (king) arrow hits the mark, without miss[ing], and my arms and my hand
are steady. I am like a falcon in the midst of small birds; my talon does not
miss their head(s).
Finally, there may be a third branch recogniseable in the following attestation of wh¦
(phraseologically akin to KRI V, 33.07-08 above), which is prefaced by the arrow
theme. It could be described as more conservative in its use of the n negation and the
spelling wh¦, though is nonetheless productive in its use of a noun subject and the
avoidance of the sDm.n=f:
KRI V, 43.15 mdn [g]b#.wy D¦.yt Ssr r [mr¦/s.t]=f n why o.wy=f m th¦ t#S=f
Calm of arms (so as to) place the arrow where he desires; his arms do not fail
against the one who crosses his border.155
A look at the graphical expression of the above phrases shows up some interesting
correlations. Despite a degree of seemingly trivial variation,156 we can generalise the
data in observing that each phraseological branch displays its own characteristic wri-
ting: on the one hand in the primary branch the verb is written , and on the other
157
hand in the secondary branch it is written .
154 Kitchen restores a second water sign (N33) for the negation, but from a look at the Epigraphic
Survey edition (1932: pl.83) it is not certain that there is enough space.
155 Edgerton and Wilson (1936: 61) suggest that d¦.yt is a perfective active participle.
156 KRI V, 64.08 omits the cross (Z9); KRI V, 49.06 attests the vulture (G1) in the place of the quail
chick (G43) (= scribal error?); KRI V, 16.15 inserts N33 after O4 (= scribal error?).
157 Or even , with the quail chick (G43) being ‘shared’ by both the verb and the negative
particle.
Fig. 9: Phraseological branches of n wh¦.n=f at Medinet Habu

For KRI V, 43.15, the phraseology resembles in some respects the secondary branch,
yet it is written uniquely with a double yod. In this respect it resembles two other
instances of the verb in a different phraseological context. Given that the morphology
does not seem grammatically significant (i.e. a double yod ending here does not
indicate a prospective form), could it be that the productive elaboration of KRI V,
43.15 took as its model the writing more regular for this other sort of phraseology?
KRI V, 42.10 sXr.w=¦ Hr Xpr n why ¦r¦.n=¦
My plans succeed; what I have done does not fail.
KRI V, 25.16 n why ¦r¦.n=f Xpr Hr-o.w
What he has done does not fail, but succeeds immediately.
The basic inference in this section is that the departure from a well-established
repertoire of fixed phraseology results in significant graphical variations. It causes one
to question whether the morphologies attested have any real grammatical substance or
whether they are merely a result of contemporary elaboration on fixed phraseologies
in the mix of registers. For constructions such as the bw sDm.n=f, the implication is
significant, since in the Medinet Habu corpus it does not appear to be an intermediate
form in a linear grammatical evolution,158 but rather a hybrid form emerging only in
certain phraseological contexts.
5 Conclusion
Approaching the Medinet Habu texts with the concept of register allows a sensitivity
of observation in the attempt to link the situational parameters of their existence to
specific clusters of textual and linguistic features. The incremental collection of data
over the course of such a description enables the reframing of our understanding of
the texts: the grammatical repertoire, comprising two distinct registers, realises a kind
of monumental royal hymn, in which the epiphany of the king can be assumed as the
event frame. Eulogistic speech praising the king is the primary declamative speech
setting, and the ‘historical’ content is recounted as events prior to the specific moment
of enunciation, anecdotal proof for the greater truths of the texts. With a sensitivity to
variation and a holistic approach to the texts, the register analysis has also attempted
158 i.e. n sDm.n=f  bw sDm.n=f  bw sDm=f  bw ¦r¦=f sDm.

82 Todd J. Gillen
to clarify aspects of the texts that have in the past represented challenges to their
understanding, specifically those generated by the idiosyncratic mix of registers.
In terms of the larger phenomenon of Ramesside language use, the observations of
this paper are by no means representative of any generally agreed upon system, but
rather the idiosyncratic grammatical repertoires of the Medinet Habu texts and their
deployment should be seen in view of their specific situational parameters and the
particular meanings they realise. The heterogeneity — and in particular the unique
form-function relations — observed in this description contributes to the study of the
phenomenon of Ramesside égyptien de tradition as a field of rich linguistic and
cultural variety.
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Ramesside Registers of Egyptien de Tradi

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On Forms and Functions, 41-86

Ramesside Registers of Égyptien de Tradition:

Todd J. Gillen, University of Liège

1.2 The ‘historical’ inscriptions of Ramses III at Medinet Habu

1.3 Register and Ramesside Egyptian language

1.3.1 Register as instantiation process: from system to texts

7 Bakhtin (1981 [1935]).

Fig. 1. Cline of instantiation/realization.16

1.3.2 Registers as cultural practices: situational and metafunctional parameters

heterogeneous motivations in full view of deep chronological linguistic histories and

1.4 Notes to a register analysis

34 In this sense it takes some loose inspiration from Groll (1975-6).

2 Situational parameters of the Medinet Habu texts

2.1 Materiality of the monumental

44 E.g. Assmann (1991).

destinateur - - - - communication --> destinataire

2.2 Framed performance

Fig. 2: Overview of features for the Year 5 text

Fig. 3: Overview of features for the Year 8 text

Fig. 4: Overview of features for the Year 11 text

(a) Im generellen Sinne: symbolische Iteration des Kommunikationsaktes ad infinitum

2.2.2 H#.t nXtw

69 Though see the commentary in fn.81 below.

describe a communicative situation of direct speech (speaker, recipient, cluster of

Year 5: 4 (KRI V, 21.1-2).

2.2.3 Event frames: epiphany of the king

Year 8: 12-13 (KRI V, 39.6-8).

90 For this interpretation, see Junge (2005a).

Year 5: 13-14 (KRI V, 21.13-14).

Nominal clause Year 11: 13 m#¦ pHty qn¦ p# n.ty m nb wo

In addition, a number of sDm=f forms detail ongoing but temporally generalised

snDm.kw¦ Hr ns.yt=f m ¦hhy I sit upon his throne in jubilation

n#y=¦ sH.w nfr My counsels are good

nXt=¦ km.t I strengthen Egypt

¦nk wr Hopy.w [xr Df#.w] I am great of inundations, [bearing provisions],

Broader discourse organisation is achieved principally via the deployment of royal

107 Cifola (1988: 279 and n.17).

112 Year 11 Poem: 16 (KRI V, 58.03).

Year 5: 17-19 (KRI V, 22.2-3).

123 Cf. Fleischman (1990: 206).

This section follows a semantic pattern elaborating on an initial summary of the

128 Oréal (2012: 231-3).

the particle provide elaboration on the preceding statements concerning temporally

and they were not, in a single case.

3.3 Two registers, one text

of the recount register realise religio-legal concepts of transgression135 and structure

3.3.2 Rhetorical strategy

This combination of registers has presented a significant challenge to Egyptological

3.3.3 Register distribution

Fig. 5: Register distribution for the Year 5 text

Fig. 6: Register distribution for the Year 8 text

Fig. 7: Register distribution for the Year 11 text

4 Interpretive implications: linguistic texture and form–function relations

4.1 One form–many functions: sDm=f and bw sDm=f

Year 11: 23 (KRI V, 61.10-11).

143 Junge (2005: 108-110, §3.0.2).

Year 5: 17-19 (KRI V, 22.2).

4.2 Many forms–one function: the phraseology of negation

150 Groll (1975-6).

KRI V, 33.07 Ssr=¦ Hr Xfo n wh¦.n[=f]

Fig. 9: Phraseological branches of n wh¦.n=f at Medinet Habu

158 i.e. n sDm.n=f  bw sDm.n=f  bw sDm=f  bw ¦r¦=f sDm.

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