At the conclusion of Leadership under Fire: The Pressures of Warfare in Ancient Egypt, I felt the need to supply a large number of references in footnotes, not merely to satisfy the eternal cravings of academic Egyptologists, but also to indicate that I had, indeed, been able to penetrate into the tiniest and darkest crevasse concerning the subject in order to capture the hidden elixir of scholarship. But that had been impossible. So, for those who may have considered that I had committed a scholarly lapse, perhaps akin to Ernst Kantorowicz and his Kaiser Friedrich II,1 let this be, then, my supplement.
In essence, as I state in the Introduction, part of the impetus for this study came from Prof. Nicolas Grimal in 2019, and I must thank him for persuading me to talk about Kamose now. To that remarkable pharaoh, best known today for his two stelae of warfare I have returned to Thutmose III, Ramesses II, and Pianchy. But in order to be most fair with the extant royal historical inscriptions, the military ones, and not to overlook a host of significant rulers and their compositions, Merenptah and Ramesses III are included as well. By doing so I had the added advantage of being able to provide a link from the great Ramesses to his like-named successor of early Dynasty XX. The Introduction and Themes chapter which opens the study is a detailed summary of the entire thrust of argument, especially that analyzing the court-inspired eulogies of the Ramesside Period and the concept of a “hymnic-epic” orientation of most of the compositions discussed. As well, it performs an effective section dealing with one of the work’s key themes, and owing to that the final chapter (7), the actual Conclusion, is short.
The Introduction also is intended to announce the basis for future research on these encomia and for that reason I have adumbrated the later sections, in particular chapters 3–5 which cover the poetical, and to Miriam Lichtheim the “epic” nature of the Kadesh Poem and Merenptah’s Israel Stela. The later discussion of Ramesses III’s Medinet Habu narratives concentrates upon the Year Five Inscription because one can compare and contrast its second half with the narrative of the Sea Peoples war in the Year Eight Inscription, and thereby contribute more to an earlier study of Thomas von der Way. But it is owing to Lichtheim’s conceptual breakthroughs, rarely mentioned in the scholarly literature, that much of my energy in the latter half of this work has been expended. I am hoping that this study is a springboard for a more advanced work of mine, but also will be able to stimulate others. It is not exhaustive.2
I have to thank once more Nicolas Grimal for his inspiration, Thomas Schneider, who read some of the chapters dealing with Merenptah and Ramesses III, and to be sure both Profs. Peter Brand and Claude Obsomer who once more came to my aid in supplying me with their excellent photographs. There is only one per chapter, and each is intended to show the hieroglyph text itself, nothing more. In fact, Plate 2 specifically links up with the opening paragraphs of the second chapter. A palaeographical aspect is intended. A special word of thanks is directed to Benedict Davies, who has seen the entire work through, and has provided excellent editorial supervision far beyond the call of duty. Finally, to Erika Mandarino of Brill goes, equally, my heartfelt thanks, I now being the writer and not the reviewer.
This study was essentially written with later additions, corrections, and improvements to be sure, during Lockdowns I, II, III, IV, and V.3 in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2020–2021, roughly from March to March. I decided aut cum scuto aut in scuto that this would be completed. It was.
Alan Schulman was my guiding Professor when I was an undergraduate at Queens College, CUNY, New York City.
Finally, the abbreviations follow the “Bibliographical Abbreviation (Egypt/ANE)” at:
Auckland, 1 March 2021
Anthony Grafton, The Footnote. A Curious History (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press; 1997), 70–71; and Yakov Malkiel, “Ernst H. Kantorowicz,” in: Arthur Evans, Jr. (ed.), On Four Modern Humanists (Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1970), 181–192.
To borrow T.S. Eliot’s sharp phrase, I am not “lemon squeezing” here: The Frontiers of Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at the University of Minnesota, Williams Arena on April 30, 1956 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota; 1956), 14.
Politically and medically speaking, to be sure.