Abstract
The Seventeenth Dynasty stela of Emhab from Tell Edfu (Cairo JE 49566) narrates the owner's victory in a drumming contest and role as drummer, probably in Kamose's army. Such competitions are almost absent from Egyptian texts. Emhab's assertion that he ‘kept alive’ while his lord ‘killed’ relates to a hierarchy visible in early Eighteenth Dynasty biographies, in which kings claim to kill and the highest achievement of other combatants is to bring back captives. The gift of a female slave to Emhab is probably a reward for procuring male captives, who would themselves be retained for other purposes. The titles of Emhab and his mother suggest that he was nomarch of Edfu. The relief scene is modelled after Middle Kingdom emblematic groups of king and god; the figure of Emhab derives from that of a god and the god from a royal Horus name.
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