Fair Gegenüber dem ‘Mann von Draußen’ (rwtj)—Zu Einer Passage Einer Inschrift der Ersten Zwischenzeit *

Abstract

The first-person presentation (‘autobiography’) of Henui, a member of the Theban court elite of the Eleventh Dynasty, includes a negative double-verse in an extended parellelism (Moscow, Pushkin Museum I.1.a. 1137a). Henui claims that he neither denounced the ‘man of the ruler’ (z n ḥqȝ)—or ‘a man to/with the ruler’ (z n ḥqȝ)—nor the ‘outsider’ (rwtj). This negative assertion is remarkably similar to the ‘negative confession’. The expression šdj(=j) mdw nb in the double-verse may have a specifically Sethian connotation. The problem of a specific hieroglyphic grapholect in Eleventh Dynasty Thebes is briefly discussed.