An Inscribed Linen Plea from the Sacred Animal Necropolis,North Saqqara

Abstract

Publication of a linen fragment bearing a plea in demotic to Osorapis, the presiding deity of the Saqqara Animal Necropolis, for justice in a legal case. It was discovered by the EES in the Main Temple Enclosure at Saqqara in 1968–9. Two pieces of wood reveal how it was attached to the shrine wall or gate/door frame. Characteristics of the early demotic suggest a date in the fourth century BC, perhaps the Thirtieth Dynasty or Macedonian Period. Comparable pleas and cursive texts on linen, and the link between linen and the hereafter, are discussed.