1. Journal of Ancient History 1 (280)
  2. «The Stelae of Sesostris»: a Topos of Ancient Historiography and the Reality of Ancient Egypt

«The Stelae of Sesostris»: a Topos of Ancient Historiography and the Reality of Ancient Egypt

Ladynin Ivan A.

 The article deals with the famous topos of the classical historiography about the stelae erected by the legendary Egyptian king-conqueror Sesostris wherever he waged war. The stelae bore an inscribed account of the war if the people subdued in it had been valiant; female genitalia were added to the account if the foe had shown cowardice. The earliest and the lengthiest evidence of the fable is Herodotus’ narration (II. 102). The prevailing opinion that the prototype for Sesostris was Senwosret III is undoubtedly true; further reasons to connect Herodotus’ account with the background of his reign can be found in his Nubian inscription of the year 16 (the Semna Stela BM 1157, ll. 9–12 = the Uronarti Stela Khartoum 3, ll. 6–10), where any unhelpful general retreating from Nubian foes is described as Hm (Wb. III. 80. 7; actually, an obscenity written with the hieroglyphic sign GG(SL) N41 that symbolized exactly female genitalia and is likely to be translated as «effeminate», «unvirile»; note the root Hm «to retreat» – cf. Wb. III. 79, similar in phonetics and writing and also present in the same passage of the inscription). There are reasons to believe that the Nubian inscriptions of Senwosret III praising his military effort were widely propagated during his reign, which contributed to shaping his image of the great conqueror (not quite up to reality, as his effort was certainly greater than the extent of his conquests). Eventually, Late Egyptian historiography contaminated the reminiscences of all the stages of Egyptian expansion in the 2nd millennium BC within the story of Senwosret III/Sesostris and probably attached to it the recollections about the stelae erected at the Euphrates frontier by Thutmosis I and III. Hence the inclusion in Sesostris’ story of his vast conquests in Asia, as well as of his advent to Europe (Thrace and Scythia), probably, as it has been suggested by the students of the topos, under the influence of the Persian time, in order to position Sesostris as a much more successful conqueror than the Achaemenids.

Keywords: ancient tradition, Late Egyptian historiography, Herodotus, Sesostris, Senwosret III, Nubia, Euphrates, stelae, 16th dinasty
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