Les Papyrus de la Mer Rouge II

This second volume devoted to the batch of papyri discovered in 2013 on the site of Wadi el-Jarf (on the western coast of the Gulf of Suez) completes the publication of the logbooks which were part of this collection of archives. Much more fragmentary than papyri A and B -which reported the work of Inspector Merer's phyle in the transportation of limestone blocks from the quarries of Tourah to the Giza plateau-, papyri C, D, E and F record other missions which were assigned to the same team, presumably for a period of about a year. One of these documents, papyrus C, is probably about the building of a harbour near the Mediterranean coast, and confirms the role that hwt-foundations could have played during the early 4th dynasty in the development of areas such as the Nile Delta. Papyrus D, which was probably issued by a scribe named Dedi, shows the activity of several phyles from the same team in repetitive tasks relating to supply and guard which were probably linked to the functioning of the Valley temple of Khufu, and maybe also of his royal palace, at the foot of his funerary complex.