Astarte and the Insatiable Sea or pAmherst IX is an Egyptian hieratic retelling of an imported Canaanite story about the Ugaritic goddess Astarte and here rivaling Yam.

Contents

Yam demands tribute from the gods. If his demands are not met, he will overrun the "sky, earth, and mountains." Astarte brings tribute from Ptah, Nut, and Renenutet, but Yam changes the deal: he wants her as his wife, and her divine jewelry that grants lordship over the world.

The conclusion to the Astarte papyrus is inferred from a scrap of a completely different story that mentions Seth, who appears to fight Yam here, being a victor against the sea.

Scholarship

Its interpretation has been a matter of continuous tweaking and addition.

History

It went completely unnoticed until the photographic edition of Percy E Newberry[1] in 1899,[2] after first mention in 1871.[3]

Epistemic bind

The difficulty of study according to Pehal:

"On the one hand, we want to identify as precisely as possible these devices “-emically,” i.e., within the frame of reference provided by that culture’s own linguistic or literary practice. On the other hand, to help us achieve this goal, we can rely only on “-etic” hermneutic categories derived from our own theoretical horizon."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Percy E. Newberry, The Amherst Papyri in the Collection of the Right Hon. Lord Amherst of Hackney, London: Quaritch, 1899, p. 47, pl. xix–xxi.
  2. ↑ Pehal 2014, p. 49.
  3. ↑ Birch, Samuel (1871). "Varia". Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache [ZÄS]: 119–120.
  4. ↑ Pehal 2014.

Bibliography

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