New Fragments of Papyrus Berlin 3024

Abstract

SummaryP. Mallorca I and II are identified as part of the lost sections of P. Berlin 3024, belonging to the lost beginning of The Debate between a Man and His Ba, and to the lost sections of The Tale of the Herdsman. A detailed material analysis is done, and a hypothesis for the origin of the fragments is discussed, in connection to P. Amherst III. The edition of the text is presented, together with a tentative reconstruction of P. Berlin 3024 + P. Amherst III + P. Mallorca II. Finally, a new interpretation of both the Debate and the Herdsman is proposed, based on a re-examination of the contents of both texts in connection with the new data provided by P. Mallorca I and II.

Social Exclusion in Ancient Egypt: A Sociological Approach

“…The brothers have become evil, and today's friends do not love’) (pBerlin 3024 104: Allen 2011, 175). Moreover, the possibility of talking to the ba has been interpreted as a suicide attempt, a coma, or a nervous depression (Escolano Poveda 2017, 36–7; Renaud 1991; Thomas 1980, 285), while the function and context of the text have been attributed to multiple factors and motivations. Some interpretations have only highlighted its poetic and aesthetic aspect, while others considered that it might reflect the relationship between the living and the dead or a state of neurosis and self-therapy (Allen 2011, 1–2).…”