A New ‘Robbery’ Papyrus: Rochester Mag 51.346.1

Abstract

First publication of Papyrus Rochester MAG 51.346.1, dated to the fourth month of Peret, day 15 of the first year of the ‘Repeating-of-Births’, corresponding to Year 19 of Ramesses XI. It lists the thefts by the Chief Doorkeeper of the Karnak Temple, Djehuty-hotep, and reads as if it were an abridgement of a much longer and more detailed report. New light is shed on Djehuty-hotep, who is mentioned in other related manuscripts as one of the chief culprits in the extensive plundering of royal and temple property at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty. By providing evidence that even the Karnak temple had been plundered, the Rochester papyrus suggests that the ‘Repeating-of-Births’ presented Herihor with the need to conduct an extraordinary anticorruption campaign in the early part of this period.