Beyond Boundaries: Intef’s Experience in the Wadi Hammamat Quarries
Résumé
With the inscribed landscape of the Wadi Hammamat greywacke quarries as its frame, the presentation will focus on the inscription of a dignitary named Intef (Montet no. 199), which dates back to the beginning of the 12th dynasty, under the reign of Amenemhat I (ca. 1981–1952). Considered by Pierre Montet as “the most difficult [engraving] to decipher of all the inscriptions in the Hammamat,” the lecture will present a new textual interpretation of this early Middle Kingdom narrative, based on innovative readings and a re-contextualized analysis in the material and textual landscape of the quarries in which the text emerged.
Drawing from the text itself, the talk will underline the ways in which this inscription—as a sample of other local engravings—was composed on-site, on the basis of the forerunners’ “already-said.” Beyond the “referential rationalization” that constitutes the lens through which expedition texts—too often considered as mere “reports” or “daybooks”—are read, the discussion will query the referential regime of expedition narratives. It will be argued that the text displays a “possible world,” born of a deeply-rooted-in-fiction experience of textual creation, which somehow echoes the boundary-transgression motif of fictional literature to come (e.g., the Shipwrecked Sailor).
All in all, the communication will offer a glimpse of a new interpretive history of the Wadi Hammamat inscriptions and their prior writing practices, while focusing on the intelligibility of the writing act itself.