The Titles of the Seal Bearer of the Ships in Ancient Egypt until the end of Middle Kingdom

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Ismailia

Abstract

As the seal was put to varied and important uses in Ancient Egypt, they were not only used as administrative securing devices for the state bureaucracy, private individuals, documents, containers, places, but also as amulets during daily life and in the netherworld. It is no wonder that many officials of the Government were concerned about its employment. There were attached to almost every department of the public service, as well as to all the religious institutions of the country; and even wealthy noblemen, usually had one or more of these xtm(w) or sDAw(ty) "seal bearer" in their household, During the Old kingdom, many high-ranking members of the royal government bore the title “xtm(w)/ xtm(ty)-nTr (wiA)” and “xtm(w)/ xtm(ty)-nTr” m (wiA), “God’s Seal bearer of the ship”. The bearer of this title associated with ships of different types and connotations and played an administrative role and its term had variant derivatives and functions associated with it.
The proposed research, therefore, aims to study the titles of the seal bearer of the ships, in addition to its terms and determinatives, interpret them linguistically, identifying the role of the seal bearer through textual and scenery sources, counting the most important employees who bore the title until the end of Middle Kingdom, shedding light on the titles that accompanying the holder of the seal and deducing the nature of the powers and competence of seal bearer from them.

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