From Voice to Papyrus to Wall: Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts

Since the initial discovery of the corpus of Pyramid Texts by Gaston Maspero in 1880,1 Egyptologists have been attracted by the large collection of texts that were inscribed on the walls of the crypts in some Old Kingdom pyramids, first at the end of the Fifth Dynasty in the pyramid of Wenis, and then later in the monuments of the kings of the Sixth Dynasty buried in Saqqara. For some debatable reasons, the corpus of Pyramid Texts was also used for some queens of the Sixth Dynasty, royal wives and mothers, from the reign of Pepi I onwards, as well as later for (at least) two other kings of the First Intermediate Period: Ibi and the Herakleopolitan Wahkhare Khety. This phase of development of the corpus began around 2345 BCE and expanded for over 160 years until 2184 BCE.2 For this period, scholars have mostly emphasized the pivotal role of the monumentalization of the corpus and the configuration of mortuary literature in ancient Egypt. However, this phase does not represent the initial


Introduction
Since the initial discovery of the corpus of Pyramid Texts by Gaston Maspero in 1880,1 Egyptologists have been attracted by the large collection of texts that were inscribed on the walls of the crypts in some Old Kingdom pyramids, first at the end of the Fifth Dynasty in the pyramid of Wenis, and then later in the monuments of the kings of the Sixth Dynasty buried in Saqqara. For some debatable reasons, the corpus of Pyramid Texts was also used for some queens of the Sixth Dynasty, royal wives and mothers, from the reign of Pepi I onwards, as well as later for (at least) two other kings of the First Intermediate Period: Ibi and the Herakleopolitan Wahkhare Khety.
This phase of development of the corpus began around 2345 BCE and expanded for over 160 years until 2184 BCE.2 For this period, scholars have mostly emphasized the pivotal role of the monumentalization of the corpus and the configuration of mortuary literature in ancient Egypt. However, this phase does not represent the initial This article emerged from the Heidelberg Collaborative Research Center 933 "Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies". The CRC 933 is financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG). I am indebted to this research project and to Professors Markus Hilgert, Ludger Lieb, and Joachim Friedrich Quack for supporting my nomination and facilitating my work as a research fellow at the University of Heidelberg in 2012-2013. This study also owes much to my current research on the transmission of religious knowledge and practices under the auspices of the SFB 980 "Episteme in Bewegung: Wissenstransfer von der Alten Welt bis in die Frühe Neuzeit" and its research division Altägyptische Philologie at the Freie Universität Berlin. I am grateful to Jochem Kahl, Bernard Mathieu, and Ludwig Morenz for comments on a draft of this paper, bibliographic references, and discussion on the oral and literary mechanisms for the transmission of religious knowledge, as well as to the audience at the University of Heidelberg for commenting on issues arising from this material.
stage of this long-lasting tradition.3 Before the reign of Wenis, recitations and performances of the same nature certainly co-existed in the domains of orality and the more restricted realm of writing.4 In fact, these materials constituted the backbone of the Pyramid Text assemblages composed in the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, and that factor accounts for the variation and multiplicity in organization, typology, and function of the corpus components (e.g. various categories, themes, groups, sequences). Consequently, one should identify a stage of the process before monumentalization in which similar materials were used and transmitted orally or in constrained written form.5 Such a phase entails the emergence of the corpus and its initial development in writing until its commitment on the walls of the pyramids, and involved: i) recitation and performance of rituals; ii) Verschriftung or entextualization, i.e. fixation in writing of these materials; iii) editorial selection and recension; and iv) Verschriftlichung or textualization.6 One of the most interesting aspects for the study of this earlier development of the corpus is that such a process of configuration left traces in the resulting compositions used for kings and queens of the late Old Kingdom. In other words, one can identify some formal features of the corpus-as observed in the pyramid assemblages-that do not resonate with the contrived nature of each composition and the mortuary setting in which they appear. Contrarily, these features reveal that each composition incorporated texts of different origin, nature and function, whose existence can be proved in diverse settings before their use in the inner chambers of the pyramids. In addition, there is ample evidence for ritual practices and knowledge among the elite in the earlier part of this period that bridges the gap between the use of these recitations (i.e. in the oral and performative arena) and their monumentalization in stone (i.e. pyramid inscription).
In classical examinations of the corpus, the Pyramid Texts inscribed on the walls of the royal monuments were taken as intentionally composed mortuary literature, a body of texts with the purpose of protecting the king's body, facilitating his transfig-3 Altenmüller 1972, 278. 4 See Baines 2004, 17-18, who points out that oral performances accompanied rituals and, when written down for the first time, around the late Second or Third Dynasty in his opinion, they were alluded to in the form of fictionalized statements such as speeches of gods. In the same vein, Strudwick 2005, 1;Mathieu 2004, 253;Allen 2001, 97;Mathieu 1996, 289;Altenmüller 1984, 20. 5 In a personal communication (24.02.2014), Bernard Mathieu suggested three strata in the redactional history of these texts: I. strate archaïque (Dynastie 0-III e dynastie); II. strate héliopolitaine pré-osirienne (III e -IV e dynasties); and III. strate hélipolitaine post-osirienne (V e -VI e dynasties). 6 These initiatives prompted the configuration of the earliest stage of mortuary literature tradition, in general, and the construction of a miscellaneous corpus for the kings in particular. Additionally, three other traits of adaptation materialized during the process: decontextualization, recontextualization, and monumentalization. These mechanisms will be discussed below. uration into an Akh, and ensuring his well-being in the netherworld.7 Later, further research took the interpretation of the corpus to such divergent avenues as a faithful reflection of the funerary rites for the king (Auferstehungsritual),8 or personal magical equipment for the afterlife (Grabinventar).9 In recent years, scholars have advanced categorically beyond these postulations in the knowledge and comprehension of the Pyramid Texts corpus. As a matter of fact, it is now believed that these texts were not initially composed for the underground chambers of the late Old Kingdom pyramids, a setting that came to incorporate the corpus only secondarily. 10 As the original setting of the Pyramid Texts was not the tomb, it is conceivable that one might identify particular textual features of the grammar, syntax and even the epigraphic aspect of the inscriptions that betrayed their original Sitze im Leben. Because of the vagaries of redactional history, however, the feasibility of associating these diagnostic features with written records before the late Fifth Dynasty is limited. Notwithstanding this flaw, the repertoire of peculiarities in the Pyramid Texts relates some constituents of the corpus with recitations and performances found in the context of sacerdotal mortuary rites and personal magical practices. Thus, it is possible to have an extensive discussion on the original settings of the Pyramid Texts as well as on the process that brought sacerdotal voices and ceremonies, personal recitations, and magical incantations into writing, first in the form of operative scripts in papyri, and later as monumental inscriptions in the pyramids of kings and queens in the late Old Kingdom.
In this paper, I shall address the process of emergence and development of the Pyramid Texts from their oral form to their inscription in the chambers of the late Old Kingdom pyramids of kings and queens. In addition, I identify and comment on some of the original settings of these recitations outside the pyramids. The confirmation that some texts are found in non-royal contexts pre-dating the inscription of the pyramid of Wenis does not support the idea of a gradual diffusion of this material to non-royal people, and indicates that the rituals represented by the Pyramid Texts were already in use by the community before theologians and editors in Heliopolis11 planned the monumentalization of a king's pyramid with fixed recitations.

Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung
In modelling the interim forms that generated the Pyramid Texts, the general procedures by which the texts were transmitted will be hypothesized in accordance with theoretical universal observations in the fields of orality and performance studies. In applying these theories, I have drawn on the studies of the linguist Wulf Oesterreicher,12 anthropologists Richard Baumann and Charles Briggs,13 and the recent work on the subject of the oral-compositional form of the Pyramid Texts by the Egyptologist Chris Reintges.14 Having made this claim, I aimed at sketching out the contours of an extensive program of textual adaptation in media and material that resulted in the advent of the mortuary literature tradition in the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties with visible roots in the early Old Kingdom.
The emergence of ancient Egyptian mortuary literature in the third millennium BCE is the history of the adaptation of recitational materials to the eventualities of media and materiality. Upon a gradual development "as a layering of processes",15 the transformation of the oral discourse into writing began with the use of papyri for transcribing the guidelines of ritual performances,16 and culminated with the concealment of sacerdotal voices and deeds in the sealed-off crypt of Wenis. Thus, the genuine innovation of the Memphite priests, the real landmark in the use of mortuary literature, was the recontextualization of discursive and scriptural materials into the architecture of the pyramid of Wenis at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, not the invention of a corpus. As a result, the (pyramid) texts inscribed on the walls of the king's underground chambers no longer belonged to the realm of verbal art, nor functioned as operative instructions for the priests performing rituals.17 Now, these inscriptions represented a new systematization of ritual practices-a novel ritual syntax-that perpetuated in stone the ultimate goal of the mortuary ceremonies: the transfiguration of the deceased into a successful spirit in the afterlife, an Akh.18 1994, 285-298, the influence of the Heliopolitan priesthood on the composition and control of materials is manifest. 12 Mainly Oesterreicher 2005Oesterreicher , 1998Oesterreicher , 1993. 13 Bauman/Briggs 1990. 14 Reintges 2011. 15 Baines 2004, 16. 16 For a general examination of the nature and interaction of orality and writing in ancient Egypt, see Morenz 1996, 20-43;Eyre 1993, esp. 117-118;andEyre/Baines 1989, 103-114. 17 Hays 2006, 298: "After being inscribed in the tomb, the role of a text was necessarily different. Sealed off from the eyes of any living priest, it only represented the rite […] Whereas the original efficacy of the text as ritual script included the vocalic dimension of its words being uttered by a priest, after its inscription upon walls the efficacy of the text inhered to the hieroglyphs alone, independently of any human voice or effort". 18 Mathieu proposes a stimulating approach that examines the deictic referential frame of the language in the Pyramid Texts (see Mathieu forthcoming). According to his analysis, the use of proximal It is evident that the process of commitment of ritual and magical recitations into scriptio continua or soluta19 in the Pyramid Texts was subjected to several stages of adaptation, detachability, and recentering. In mapping the dimensions of transformation, one can identify a series of transformational procedures, mainly entextualization and textualization, accompanied by decontextualization, recontextualization, and monumentalization. While the first two mechanisms of discourse transformation superseded each other, the latter three procedures were the result of transforming the discourse and separating it from their original cultural and religious contexts of use (i.e. decentering the text).
The initial adaptation of the recitations into the realm of writing, that is, the transfer from phonique to graphique, is a process known as Verschriftung or entextualization:20 "the process of rendering discourse extractable, of making a stretch of linguistic production into a unit-a text-that can be lifted out of its interactional setting".21 By means of this process, the oral materials used above-ground in cultic and ritual activities were cemented in writing, first in manuscripts (papyrus scrolls), which could be stored in temple libraries and used as ritual guidelines by the sacerdotal class. At this point, these materials were still considered to be supports for the ceremonies performed in the original settings,22 although in scriptural form, decontextualized from the oral domain and recontextualized in the realm of deixis in reference to the deceased (Wnjs pn), the absence of distal deictics (N pf), and the interconnection of this type of deixis with the pyramid space (mHr pn Hwt-nTr tn), the deceased's corpse (saH pn), and the monumentalized inscriptions reflect the role of the Pyramid Texts as an "élément du mobilier funéraire" or "objet". My thanks are due to the author for allowing me to read his manuscript before publication and for his observations on the invalid application of modern distinctions between text and object to this particular phenomenon in antiquity. 19 Oesterreicher 2005, 203. 20 See Oesterreicher 2005, 202-203;and Oesterreicher 1993, 271-284. For the Pyramid Texts particularly, see Reintges 2011, 25-28. The process has been termed "mise par écrit" in French and " graficación" in Spanish (see Oesterreicher 1993, 272, ns. 9-10). Cf. Assmann 1988, 26-27, who encapsulates this notion under the phenomenon of Schrifterfindung. 21 Bauman/Briggs 1990, 73 (in the quotation, italics are the authors' emphasis). For an example of the application of the entextualization phenomenon to explicit Pyramid Texts materials, see Hays 2012, 90-92 ("The Entextualization of Group A"), and 198-203 for a comprehensive explanation of the entextualization in the Pyramid Texts. As Greg Urban argues, a given instance of a discourse is unique by virtue of its formal properties; the "transduction" or carrying over of parts of these formal attributes-"metadiscursive markers"-can help to discern the social and religious implications that, in the case of the transmission of rituals and their texts such as the Pyramid Texts corpus, were prominently preserved by a community (Urban 1996, 21). 22 See, for example, the diverse layers of meaning that the scene of a lector priest presenting a papyrus scroll or reciting from it to the deceased could imply, in Manuelian 1996, 561-588. Cf. the comments about the reading of texts from papyri, not from walls, in Hays 2012, 91. For the general idea that many texts of a ritual nature in Egypt contain elements that point to an oral setting, see O'Rourke 2001, 407-410;and Walle 1965, 122-124. literacy.23 Otherwise, no traces of monumentalization had yet occurred. Therefore, at that point the process of entextualization altered the media of recitational materials that still reflected the activities for which they were first used.24 However, a second stage of entextualization followed the fixation of recitational materials in papyrus scrolls (transcripts) and came to transfer these texts onto the walls of the pyramid of Wenis (inscripts),25 divorced from human practice or scriptural aide-mémoire. On that account, the second stage of the process of Verschriftung certainly conveyed a new juncture of decontextualization, recontextualization, and monumentalization.
The practice of collecting recitations, writing them down in papyri, and transferring these scriptural materials to the walls of a pyramid is considered an intellectual undertaking26 that the Heliopolitan sacerdotal class of the Fifth Dynasty initiated for the benefit of the king's afterlife. Thus, religious authority in the environs of the royal court, temples and repositories of Memphis27 must have approved the constitution of the corpus.28 This decision implied recording oral recitations, collecting scrolls, copying, editing and even transferring them to Memphis if they were selected and collected from other parts of the country.29 In addition, to understand the initial history of the Pyramid Texts it is relevant to highlight that this initiative shaped the corpus with a particular structure (i.e. symmetric structure), which would experience gradual modifications-first slightly, in the Sixth Dynasty, and later, more dramatically, in the 23 Both aspects are part of the same process: Bauman/Briggs 1990, 75. 24 I agree with Reintges that the fixation in writing occurs "to sustain the immediacy of the performance and secure it for future recall" (Reintges 2011, 20). As observed in the related studies on early Mesopotamian poetry, the emergence of poetic texts was the result of premeditated oral composition (Teffeteller 2007, 69). 25 For the transference of the oral discourse into the written record as a process that involves the conversion of oral compositions into transcripts that are later converted into (in)scripts (i.e. textual monumentalizations), which is implied in the conversion of "I-transcriptions" to "he-inscriptions", see Svenbro 1998, 48-52. For a definition of the terms "transcript" and "(in)script" in the process of entextualization and textualization, see Nagy 1998, 79. Note that one must not take the relationship of the two contexts, oral and written, as a translation of verbal transmitted knowledge into texts. For the latter idea and its development, see Assmann 1999, esp. 10. 26 See Mercer 1956, who refers to this phenomenon as both "recension" and "redaction". 27 For the suggestion that the significance of the solar cult and the priesthood of Heliopolis, features strongly associated with the inception of the Pyramid Texts, might have materialized as early as the early Dynastic Period, see Cervelló-Autuori 2011, 1125-1149Kahl 2007, 2-3;and the brief history of the raising of the solar cult in Quirke 2001, 115-128, although the author notes that in the formative phase of Egyptian art and writing, ra did not refer to a deity but to the solar entity (p. 22). 28 See Bauman/Briggs 1990, 76-77: "To decontextualize and recontextualize a text is thus an act of control […] legitimacy is one of being accorded the authority to appropriate a text such that your recentering of it counts as legitimate". 29 Baines 2004, 21. For the notion of Transportabilität and its relationship with the transmission of religious texts, mainly in scriptural form, see Kahl 1996, 11. First Intermediate Period-resulting in a varied collection of structures in the Middle Kingdom (i.e. doctrinal structures).30 Furthermore, the recitational materials transferred from the scriptural domain to the monument of the king experienced an ensuing modification known as Verschriftlichung or textualization.31 By means of this process, the entextualized oral discourse acquired attributes of the literary format and detached itself from the discursive style.32 This shift in the style of the Pyramid Texts can be observed in the modification of the original performance structure from interlocutive to delocutive, that is, from the active presence of the first-person pronoun for the ritualist or beneficiary-typical in the speech acts-to the consideration of the addressee as a passive recipient in the second or third person.33 Although the process of entextualization might be considered immediate, the phenomenon of textualization seems to have been characterized by its gradualness,34 and involved the conscious editing of the discursive style by scribes in libraries and repositories.35 The discussion just now culminated with the contribution of the scribal and religious class from Memphis to the execution of these two processes of transformation of the corpus, its fixation in writing (Verschriftung) and style adjustment (Verschriftlichung). As categorical as this definition of the two adaptative procedures might be, it by no means embodies the entire process of the royal Pyramid Texts' inception. In fact, the decisive factor that led up to the configuration of the corpus as witnessed in the pyramid of Wenis was the monumentalization of the texts, a process that-parallel to the theological architectural vertex achieved at this time36-transformed the repertoire of recitations kept in scriptural form into carved, monumentalized inscriptions.37 Such texts no longer belonged to the domain of the scriptural media, but to 30 For a summary of the development of the corpus during the Sixth Dynasty and its gradual transformation from a symmetric structure to doctrinal structures, see Morales 2013, 43-44 (n. 95), and 94-104. 31 See Oesterreicher 2005, 202-204;and Oesterreicher 1993, 271-284. For the Egyptian materials specifically, see Reintges 2011, 28-31;andAssmann 2000, 81-82. Cf. also Assmann 1988, 26-27, who uses the term Schriftverwendung in alluding to the phenomenon of appropriation of the discourse in a new setting and the transformation of the original discourse. 32 Oesterreicher 1998, 12;Oesterreicher 1993, 273-275. 33 Reintges 2011, 28. 34 See Bakker 1999 See the implications of the modifications from poetic-compositional style to literary character in Foley 2004, 101-120;Honko 2000, 3-54;and Nagy 1998, 79. 36 More precisely, the architectural model imitated in the later royal complexes is achieved in the reign of Wenis's predecessor, Djedkare Izezi: see Hays 2012, 79;and Billing 2011, 58. 37 See Hays 2012, 11-13, 257-262;Billing 2011, 58;Hays 2009b, 218-219;and Assmann 2005, 238-241. See also Zumthor 1983, 58, who, in relation to the transfer of settings (decentering) from the domain of the vocale to the textuel, emphasizes the secondary nature of the new setting: "[l]e monument se constitue à un autre niveau, mettons "poétique", défini par une structure seconde, intentionelle et the domain of epigraphy; therefore, they were recontextualized (or recentered)38 by concealing them in a new setting, the mortuary chambers of the king.39 The whole transfer from voice to papyrus to wall reached a pinnacle with the encapsulation of the effective ritual performances in the crypt in which the king's corpse and spirit resided. Now, the monumentalization of the recitations extant in scriptural media (papyrus scrolls) might have demanded the composition of one or several master copies conveying the final assemblage of texts that would be used by the scribes working at the monument. Presumably, this procedure would have allowed the production of master documents in the temple repository, while minor modifications could have been executed onsite. For instance, one can observe the modification caused by remodelling the allusion to the beneficiary of recitations as written in operative papyri40-a roll with nmemonic observations which the ritualist used to address anyone, this Osiris so-and-so or this king-to the explicit reference to the particular king for whom the texts had been selected, copied and, by this method, customized.41 Another feature of the Pyramid Texts that ratifies what has been suggested on the basis of operative papyri is the actual epigraphic correction of non-explicit references in order to carve the king's name in the pyramid.42 As Bernard Mathieu has pointed out, some résultant d'un travail, réorganisant des éléments déjà organisés en structures primaires". 38 Bauman/Briggs 1990, 75. 39 Oesterreicher 2005, 210-211 also defines this process as autonomisation of the corpus. 40 Unfortunately, the only instances available date to the Middle Kingdom: see pap. MafS T2147, a remarkable example of Middle Kingdom operative papyri found by the MafS in the complex of Pepi I at Saqqara. Observe that the published verso and recto sides of T2147 are rather two fragments of different sheets that adhered to each other. The verso of the papyrus shows the use of the non-explicit reference Wsjr mn pn, and therefore betrays the operative nature-as an aide-mémoire-of the document. See Berger-El Naggar 2004, 85-90, fig. 1 (recto with PT217, Pyr. § §155d-159: cols. 4, 6, 13, 14, 18), fig. 2 (verso with PT690, Pyr. § §2096c-2101b. See also the use of mn "whoever" in Gardiner 1955, 11, cols. 18, 19 (pl. II), 91 (pl. V), and frg. a (pl. VI); with remarks in Eyre 2013, 46. A related phenomenon is the nature of some Pyramid Texts in which the role of a non-royal deceased-rather than a royal one-seems to fit better with the contents of the recitations: see Smith 2009, 6-7 (referring to examples PT456, PT467, PT486, and PT571). 41 As only the owner of the corpus could benefit from the efficacy of the perpetuated rites, it was essential to personalize the texts by including the name of the king. One of the features corroborating the scriptural origin of the recitations is the attestation of terms such as "whoever" (mn) and "king" (nsw) in the Pyramid Texts, which were for the most part substituted by the name of the king: see n. 40 above, and Mathieu 1996a, 290-291. 42 See, for instance, Mathieu 1996a, 290, figs. 2-3: PT23 (Pyr. §16a) W : Wsjr jT n=k msDDw nsw nbw mdw m rn=f Dw has been modified to Wsjr jT n=k msDDw Wnjs nbw mdw m rn=f Dw "Osiris, take for yourself all those who hate the king/Wenis and anyone who speaks bad of his name". In such cases, the scribe skipped the non-explicit reference, retaining the vague address to the beneficiary as extant in the original recitation on papyrus, and leaving out any explicit reference to the king: n(j) kw mn nTr pw "O whoever, you belong to that god" (PT215, Pyr. §147a) W . corrections were executed by the scribe in the process of transferring the texts from papyri to the walls, although one should also expect a final reading to rectify minor mistakes.43 A great gap in our understanding of the construction of the Pyramid Texts could be bridged through attention to the Old Kingdom (temple) repositories or libraries in which the operative papyri and master copies for the pyramid assemblages were produced.44 In principle, the operative papyri could be stored in these institutions;45 otherwise, they would have been carried by specialized ritualists such as the lector priests.46 The nature of the transmission of ritual knowledge, texts and iconography during the Old Kingdom defines the functional and cultural-binding role of these repositories associated with the temples of Memphis and its cemeteries. In Jan Assmann's opinion, the normal means of circulation were oral, while writing became significant only in those fields of communication that required the use of artificial storage, such as religious ceremonies.47 Unfortunately, no traces of Old Kingdom operative papyri with religious compositions have been retrieved. Mathieu 1996a, 292-293 (n. 18), and 311. Cf. the use of the term zX-odt for "sketch, draft" in the tomb of Senedjemib Inti as an example of master copies being used for the carving of texts and the practice of final reading in tombs. The topic is discussed in further detail below. 44 The role of manuscript collections, which certainly existed and were of primary importance in the transmission and production of texts, was also critical in the transference of recitations from the domain of speech to the context of monumentalization in the pyramid of Wenis. See Baines 2004, 26-30;and Müller 1984, 244-246. Concerning the early existence of the "house of life" (pr-anx), where texts were composed, and the "repositories" (pr-mDAt), where they were stored, some kind of institutional bureau must have existed in the Old Kingdom: see remarks in Eyre 2013, 311;Zinn 2011, 183-184 (n. 9); Burkard 1980, 85;and Kessler 1984, 929. 45 It is unclear whether the system for dividing the textual units in some pyramid assemblages, namely the usage of Hwt to indicate the conclusion of a text or "stanza", could have been used as a method for organizing papyrus sheets and storing them in any repository. For the use of Hwt in the Pyramid Texts, see Eyre 2013, 49-50;Blackman 1938, 64-66;and Grapow 1936, 35-36. 46 Although the earliest attestation of private libraries has been noticed for the Middle Kingdom-i.e. Ramesseum papyri-the activities of the lector priests during the Old Kingdom might have permitted the use and possession of ritual papyri (see Morales 2013, 120, n. 315;Morenz 1996, 37). As Ong points out in relation to the role of the reciter, it is relevant to observe the illiterateness of singers, poets and bards in early literacy cultures (Ong 1982, 59-61;similarly, Eyre 1993, 115, 120). In the case of Old Kingdom Egypt, the interaction of recitational abilities and literary knowledge in the person of the ritualist should be interpreted as a proof of the gradual development of the institution of writing in society. In fact, the etymology of the title Xrj-Hbt ("bearer of the festal papyrus scroll" or lector priest) refers to the relationship of the specialist with the (written) document: see Morales 2013, 50, n. 116, for further bibliography on the emergence of the lector specialist. In a related note, Eyre points out that "[o]ral poets, all performers, literate or not, dislike having their work copied down. They lose ownership: copyright" (Eyre 1993, 115). 47 See Assmann, 1999, 5-6, endorsed by Ong 1982, who highlights the idea that in the early cultures exposed to literacy, "orality could linger in the presence of writing, even in the administrative milieu". Cf. also the views in Baines 2004, 19, who believes that the most sacred and prestigious texts Trying to compensate for this shortcoming, scholars have discussed the absence of paratextual notations in the corpus, a question that relates to the production, use and management of the Pyramid Texts.48 It is known for later compositions such as the Coffin Texts that paratextual notations helped to define the significance and usage of a text, although they might have not been useful for the ritualist, who would be truly informed of the text's purpose, usefulness and benefits in the ritual. In an attempt to explain the lack of paratexts, if the conventions established in the Old Kingdom for the use of Pyramid Texts were recurrent and corresponded with contemporaneous ritual practices, then no paratextual instruction would be necessary for the accomplished performer to navigate his way through the texts in the scriptural media. Another possibility for the absence of paratexts in the initial phase of the mortuary literature tradition could be that the principles of decorum and secrecy, which ruled the access to and knowledge of these texts in scriptural form, hindered any attempt to apply a system of notations for arranging the texts beyond the arcane role of the specialist dealing with the collection. Finally, the expectation that Old Kingdom manuscripts with Pyramid Texts bore paratextual notations is at this time a vexing question, since archaeological work in Saqqara has not (yet) provided us with any papyrological evidence of such antiquity. Two exceptional exemplars, however, might help us to suggest the possibility that some manuscripts displayed paratextual notations such as titles or directions:49 pap. Ramesseum E and pap. MafS T2147. The first papyrus consists of several fragments in poor condition with a copy of a ritual text-not included in the Pyramid Text repertoire-in cursive hieroglyphs, with parallel lines along the top for the writing of a horizontal heading. The second instance was found in the temple of Pepi I and also presents a horizontal band for a heading, though it is blank (see n. 40).

See
For the most part, the processes of Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung have powerful implications for the structure and language of these recitations as observed in the Pyramid Texts. Investigating how the corpus emerged through the combination of recitations from different settings that were put in writing and how these varied categories of texts (Stilmischung) adapted to a new arrangement for Wenis can therefore elucidate issues such as the modification of the deictic relationship between text and might not have been written down as a restriction that the forms of decorum and the primacy of oral tradition imposed on the priesthood and scribal classes; and Haring 2003, 256-259, who focuses on the resistance of the oral discourse and the capacity of the institution of writing to overcome reactionary positions and spread in society. 48 Most recently, Hays 2012, 3-4;Mathieu 2004;and Grimm 1986. For the concept of paratextuality, see Assmann 2005, 248;and Hays 2004, 178, n. 20. Cf. the rigorous approach in Aufrère 2010, 160, n. 6, who takes the hieroglyphic system as a proof that ancient Egyptians could select particular iconography to express further information about a text without the need for paratextual notation. 49 See Eyre 2013, 46, andAltenmüller 1968, 59 (sections 1 and 2). Both authors state that in religious papyri it is common to find a superior horizontal band, which in most cases is left blank. protagonist (i.e. from first-person pronoun in oral and scriptural domains to second-/ third-person in the monumental versions), the partial transformation of oral written discourse into literary style, the remnant presence of poetic and speech elements, or the flexibility shown by the corpus in adapting to new practices and beliefs in the realm of the private mortuary rituals in the Middle Kingdom.50 Specifically, the configuration of the Pyramid Texts as a text-bricolage with a series of recitations from different settings and contexts51 is what permitted the structuring of the corpus in the form of segments or sequences-also known as Spruchfolge52 or "building blocks"53-and its capacity to adopt and adapt to the ritual practices of the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom.

The "Pyramid Texts" in the Early Old Kingdom
A fundamental question in the analysis of the transfer of Pyramid Texts from the oral domain to pyramid walls is the identification of the primary settings in which these recitations were originally used. In discerning cultural and religious milieux associated with Pyramid Text rituals before the reign of Wenis, one must distinguish between the oral-unrecorded-stage of the process, which unfortunately left only a few vestiges in the inscriptions of the royal assemblages, and the stage of fixation in the writing of recitations (Verschriftung), in which the extant evidence demonstrates the deployment of these texts in particular settings. As regards the second stage and the extant evidence, it was the German Egyptologist Kurt Sethe who first hypothesized that one could identify clear associations between the assortment of items included in offering lists of early Fifth Dynasty royal complexes and the later Pyramid Texts.54 Later, Hartwig Altenmüller highlighted the tabular nature of these precedents that he regarded as "pictorial versions" (Bildfassung) of the Pyramid Texts.55 "Pictorial versions of Pyramid Texts" refers to non-narrative representations of a particular group of this corpus in a particular setting outside the domain of the royal tomb. One of these groups was the offering Pyramid Texts,56 which appeared in the 50 See Morales 2013. 51 In Bauman/Briggs's words, the new systematization or recension of texts becomes an "emergent structure" (Bauman/Briggs 1990, 76). 52 Altenmüller 1972; Allen 1994. 53 As used in Hussein 2013, 275, n. 8 (with the term "building block" borrowed from Boltz 2005). 54 Sethe 1913, 126, ns. 1-10 (pl. 63); and later in the same fashion, Junker 1934, 15, n. 1;andFirchow 1953, 9. 55 Altenmüller 1974, 278. 56 See Hays 2012, 81-92;Hays 2010a, 127-130;and Smith 2009, 8-9, in which the authors discuss the group of offering texts as a clear instance of Pyramid Text material pre-dating the corpus of Wenis. Unfortunately, this is the only group that has been identified in the inscriptional repertoire previous form of lists of items with a specific order in Third and Fourth Dynasty offering lists, an order that in some cases corresponded unmistakably with the series of (narrative) Pyramid Texts of the royal pyramids that alluded to the same offerings, items, and rites.57 In the royal context, the existence of Pyramid Texts in pictorial form was first attested at the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty, in the pyramid of Sahure at Abusir ( fig. 1).58 In spite of its fragmentary condition, the remnants of the offering list in the mortuary temple of Sahure provide us with a partial ordered list59 of items existing in the later Pyramid Texts: PT82 PT84, PT92 PT94, PT128-129, PT139 and PT140-141 (table 1). The presence of these items in the offering list of the mortuary complex of Sahure not only evidences the existence of a non-narrative version of the Pyramid Texts for the king previous to the assemblage of Wenis,60 but also confirms that the same repertoire of ritual texts informed the ritualists before their fixation in writing at the end of the dynasty.61 The relationship between item and text based on a development from the canonical tabular list to the ritual narrative demonstrates that there was a common practice in which every sacred item was necessary for a particular rite.
to the reign of Wenis, and its associations have not yet been analyzed at length (cf. the study by Barta 1963, 5-90, who identified the associated materials but did not refer to the nature of the relationship between the private domain of these offering lists and the later or comtemporaneous royal Pyramid Texts). 57 The Pyramid Texts' narrative version of the tabular lists of offerings and items certainly provides further information on each rite. A phenomenon of similar characteristics has been examined in the Homeric literature, in which extensive lists and catalogues that originally had a performative and oral character were embedded into the narrative for the exhibition of the virtuoso-singer, whose memory and performative skills would enable him to display a deep knowledge of technical matters such as ship construction (Minchin 1996, 19-20). 58 Note that the earlier date of the sources from the private context with offering lists relating to the offering Pyramid Texts might indicate the private origin of the offering rites alluded to in the texts. Cf. the case of the king Pepi II providing written materials for the performance of rituals on the occasion of the funeral of Sabni's father, Mekhu: Jürgens 1995, 85, n. 95. 59 One can observe that the recitations of each fragment follow the canonical order as observed first in the offering lists and then in the Pyramid Texts. For the canonical order (type A) in the offering lists, see Barta 1963, 47-78;and cf. the development of the "genre" in Junker 1934, 71-96. 60 For the related order as observed in Wenis's pyramid, cf. W/S/N i (PT82), W/S/N i 30 (PT84), W/S/N ii 38 (PT92), W/S/N ii 44 (PT94), W/S/N iii 12-13 (PT128-129), and W/S/N iii 24-25 (PT140-141). 61 Pace Eyre 2002, 17-18: "The assumption that Pyramid Texts simply represent a stable and ancient oral tradition, first written down in the later Old Kingdom, belongs to the romantic intellectual climate of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is rooted in universalist preconceptions of cultural evolution. In crude form such assumptions are neither substantiated nor sustantiable on the basis of hard evidence." The same    The direction "Sit down, be silent: the king's invocation" is addressed to the audience participating in the ritual performance and denotes the integration of external practices into the corpus. See analogous directions in PT460 (Pyr. §868c); PT618 (Pyr. §1746a); and sPT734 (Pyr. § §2263a-2264a), CT312 (ECT IV, 70e-71a); Old Kingdom mastabas (Junker 1943, 20-21); and later in the foundation ritual in Luxor and Medinet Habu (Barguet 1952, 5, pls. 1-2); stela Turin 1599 (Mekis 2011, 49-50, l Even the scant evidence attained from the single preserved fragment of the offering list of Niuserre ( fig. 3) supports the pre-existence of offering rites and performances in the royal context. Although the fragment only allows for the identification of three ritualists under a register for offering quantities, the objects represented in their hands66 provide further information and relate the three sections with the items involved in PT129-131 (table 3)   There are even extensive remains of the offering list of Pepi II from the north and south walls of his mortuary temple, which evidences the use of pictorial versions of the texts while the inner chamber of his pyramid was also inscribed with narrative versions of the same rituals.67 In this regard, the monument of Pepi II Neferkare offers evidence that royal mortuary complexes could incorporate both traditions-offering lists and Pyramid Texts-simultaneously, in order to ensure the continual supply of prescribed provisions and items in perpetuity.68 In the private context, however, the attestation of the use of tabular versions of the Pyramid Texts goes beyond Sahure and can be dated to the earlier Old Kingdom. No doubt, as the rituals constituting the Pyramid Texts corpus of Wenis resulted from a long process of experiencing the rites, transferring performances and recitations into script, and monumentalizing these texts on the walls of his pyramid, the rites of the offering lists also underwent a process of "canonization" before the traditional lists of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasty appeared.69 Thus, before the constitution of the type A list, which incorporates ninety items that match the same number of offering rites in the Pyramid Texts, there were more limited groups of items in slab-stelae and tomb inscriptions70 that provide the earliest 67 See offering list of Pepi II on the south wall of the main chapel in his mortuary temple, in Jéquier 1938, 56-64, pls. 61, 67-70. 68 As Assmann 2005, 346 notes: "[t]he mortuary offering and recitation are to transform this place of destitution into a place of abundance". 69 See Listentyp A with the example of Debeheni in Barta 1963, 47-50, and fig. 4. For differences between the initial royal examples mentioned above and their counterparts from the private context, see Smith 2009, 9 (with bibliography). examples of some of the items necessary for the offering rites. For instance, the late Second or early Third Dynasty stela of Sisi (Helwan)71 lists the items necessary for the rites of censing (snTr: PT25, Pyr. §18d) and preparation of the offering table with two kinds of bread (tA rtH: PT89, Pyr. §60c; and tA wr: PT177, Pyr. §103a).72 Another list of items required for the mortuary service, later incorporated into the corpus of the Pyramid Texts, was found on the Second Dynasty stela of Meri (also known as the Bankfield stela), in which one finds epitomized the rites for censing (snTr: PT25, Pyr. §18d), libating (obHw: PT32, Pyr. §23b), and the preparation of the offering table with bread (HTA: PT113, Pyr. §73f).73 This evidence constitutes the earliest proof of the existence of particular rites connected with mortuary services outside the tomb and extraneous to the royal domain, predecessors of the succeeding recitations monumentalized in the pyramid of Wenis.
The progressive development of mortuary services might have been the major reason for expanding the stock of items in the offering lists. Evidence from the Third and Fourth Dynasty indicates the performance of further rites and the incorporation of new products. Nonetheless, the sequencing of the items so far does not follow the canonical order of the type A list. I perceive this variability as an indication of the variety of local traditions in Meidum, Giza, and Saqqara, on the one hand, and the absence of formal religious sanctions at this time on the multiple services addressed to the deceased, on the other. The stela of Khabausokar74 ( fig. 4), for instance, shows that by the Third Dynasty some new items had been integrated into the mortuary service for the deceased, including the sacerdotal services for bread offering (HTA: PT113, Pyr. For a comparative analysis of the dating criteria used with the slab stelae from Helwan and the relative date of this stela in the late Second or Third Dynasty, see Kahl 1997, 137-145, fig. 1;and Kahl/Kloth/Zimmermann 1995, 178-179, n. 11. 72 Saad 1957, 46-48, pl. 27. 73 Hays 2010a fig. 4; Barta 1963, 24-25;andGardiner 1917, 259-260. 74 Murray 1905, 32-35, pl. 1. 75 In addition, the stela of Khabausokar includes four types of meat (swt, jwa, wSn and spr) that might correspond to other known items used in the Pyramid Texts. See a similar case in the fragmentary offering list of Niuserre in n. 66 above. For the types of meat offerings found in the early slab stelae, see Köhler/Jones 2009, 36-56. ing list of Rahotep shows PT25 (Pyr. §18d) PT79 (Pyr. §54d) PT154 (Pyr. §92d) PT152 (Pyr. §91d) PT23 (Pyr. §16d) PT20 (Pyr. §11c) and PT177 (Pyr. §103a), an order similar to the one present in the door tablet of Metjen's false door.76 Most remarkable about this analogy between the construction of a list of canonical offerings required for the mortuary services and the later royal Pyramid Texts is the development of the traditional offering list by the mid-Fourth Dynasty (2550 BCE), two hundred years before the reign of Wenis. Until now, the only evidence demonstrating the existence of offering lists that agreed with the order of the Pyramid Text spells was the offering lists of Debeheni and Khafkhufu I.77 However, by the reign of Khufu and the succeeding kings of the Fourth Dynasty, other instances of offering lists with abridged versions and similar order can be identified. The relationship between the order of the items in the offering lists of the Fourth Dynasty and the later order of the Pyramid Texts reveals that a canonization of mortuary services and rites had begun by the reign of Khufu and had taken its definitive shape by the Fifth Dynasty.
The tomb of Nefer (G 2110), completed in the reign of Khufu,78 offers us two examples of offering lists from this time. Artists represented an offering scene in the south entrance thickness of his tomb (now Louvre B 151), in which the order of the ritual items was PT23 PT25 PT78-80 PT154 PT169 PT112 PT177 (fig. 5). Far from following the exact order of the traditional offering list type A, this abridged version again offered an example of the existence of rites (with a shortened ritual structure) in the private context connected with those alluded to in the royal Pyramid Texts. In addition, Nefer also included a more comprehensive offering list on the false door tablet in the west wall. In this case, the number of items and their order did resemble the canonical one ( fig. 6). In this offering list the following sequence can be identified: PT32 PT25 PT78-80 unknown item PT84 PT117 PT87-90 PT95 PT117 PT164 PT117 PT94-96 PT32 76 LD II, 3 and 5. 77 Hays 2010a, 129-130;and Smith 2009, 9. 78 See Manuelian 2009, 154-155.    ment of the rituals and the incorporation of further sacerdotal items (i.e. ritual activities) into the mortuary services.
The preservation of these lists testifies to the existence of particular conventions in the performance of mortuary services that were promoted to a canonical repertoire composed for the ritualists. The affiliation of a larger number of items and activities indicates the increasing interest in fixing the structure of the mortuary ritual, an idea that fostered the later composition of the Pyramid Texts corpus in the arena of royal ceremonies and beliefs. In the late Fourth and early Fifth Dynasty we find other testimonies of the canonization of the offering list, with some instances, such as the offering lists of Debeheni and Kaninesu I. In the case of Debeheni,84 as Hays highlighted, "the third through ninetieth entries [...] correspond to the items and actions specified at the end of the eighty-eight Pyramid Texts in the same sequential order, beginning with sT-HAb".85 The offering list of Debeheni (fig. 7) goes on with the same particular items related to the Pyramid Texts and concludes with two further items typical of the canonized offering type A list: gsw and HAt-wdHw (Barta's items 91 and 95).86 The tomb of Kaninesu I (G 2155; d. late Fourth or early Fifth Dynasty)87 provides two instances of disparate offering lists: a shorter version on the north entrance thick-84 For this tomb, see Hassan 1948, 159-184, n. 122;Junker 1938, 50;and Junker 1934, 85-96.  In addition to the cases of Debeheni and Kaninesu I, other offering lists of the early Fifth Dynasty demonstrate the incorporation of new items and the process of canonization of the sequence in which these items would be employed in the mortuary services. Two other examples are the offering lists found in the tombs of Nensedjerkai (G 2101) and Kanefer (G 2150).90 The first instance is an offering list found in the south false door tablet with the sequence of items PT25 PT72-79 PT81.91 The case of Kanefer is also remarkable as the concise sequence of twenty-four items corresponds-in contents and order-with a section of the series found in the Pyramid Texts  The development of the offering lists into the standard type-A list and its effect on the composition of the group of offering texts for the pyramid of Wenis becomes even more visible in the instances of the mid-Fifth Dynasty and those contemporaneous with the monumentalization of the Pyramid Texts in the inner chambers of Wenis.
Two noteworthy examples for the understanding of the offering lists as reflections of ritual observances and objects, also attested to in the Pyramid Texts, can be seen in the tombs of Iymery (G 6020) and Neferbauptah (G 6010). The tomb of Iymery, which dates to the reign of Niuserre, provides us with an offering list conceptualized and composed before the reign of Wenis, with the same items and order as in the narrative version of the offering Pyramid Texts ( fig. 10). Iymery's offering list contains the items for PT23 PT25 PT72-79 PT81 PT25 PT32 PT82 PT84-92 PT94 PT96 PT108-171, and completes the list with the items gsw, HAt-wdHw and stpt (Barta's items 91,95 and 94).93 The second case is the offering list of Neferbauptah, dating to the time of Djedkare Izezi, which brings together the same sequencing of items for the ritualist ( fig. 11):  Other remarkable examples from the late Fifth Dynasty can be retrieved from the tomb of Khafkhufu II in Giza (G 7150),95 and the tombs of Usernetjer,96 Sekhemka,97 and Iteti98 from Saqqara. Interestingly, the instance of Iteti's offering list draws to a close our analysis of the relation between the series of items on the offering lists found in the private context and the Pyramid Texts used in the royal one. Iteti's offering list was composed during the reign of Wenis, which means it was contemporaneous with the theological endeavour to transfer into the king's monument the same rites that had previously existed in tabular form.
On a smaller scale, another setting from which Pyramid Text recitations might have originated was the domain of magical and apotropaic practices (personal and collective). The group of protective incantations has been considered some of the 94 Weeks 1994, 21-29, fig. 22. 95 Simpson 1978, 21-27, fig. 50  earliest recitational material to be integrated into the royal Pyramid Texts.99 The two groups of apotropaic texts (i.e. PT232-243 and PT277-293)100 have generally been taken as independent sets of materials embedded into the Pyramid Texts of Wenis for the protection of the king's corpse and his rebirth.101 Originally, these incantations functioned as an agency through which to control snakes and ward off any other noxious creature that might harm the living or the dead.102 It is clear that these recitations continued their development in other royal assemblages of the Old Kingdom,103 and remained in use from this time to the Greco-Roman period.104 Regret-99 See Osing 1986, 132-136 (Gruppe A1: PT226-243; Gruppe A2: PT276-299); and Altenmüller 1984, 20. 100 Following Hays 2012, 107-108, and group K chart in 685. As indicated by Bernard Mathieu, the second group in Wenis, PT277-293, belongs to a larger set of apotropaic texts attested in other pyramids: PT276-299. 101 Ritner 2011, ix. Although Ritner supports the original independence of particular series of the group (i.e. the anti-snake spells or Schlangensprüche PT232-238 and PT281-287) as proof of the embedment of earlier non-Egyptian material, it is possible that the distinction observed in these spells stemmed from the variegated Egyptian settings previous to the late Fifth Dynasty in which these materials were originally located. For the 'Byblite' origin of these spells, which made it into Egypt "perhaps accompanying known timber shipments", see Rittner 2011, xi;and Steiner 2011, 8-14. Cf. the critical positions against this hypothesis in Bojowald 2012, 236-242;and Breyer 2012, 141-146. See further comments on the critical Egyptological positioning against this hypothesis, in particular by Thomas Schneider, in Morales 2013, 85, n. 224. 102 For the significance of these spells, see Sperveslage 2011, 30-37;Kousoulis 2011, 14-26;Borghouts 2007, 21-25, ns. 118-119;Leitz 2002Leitz -2003Rerek"); Meurer 2002, 269-315;Leitz 1996, 381-427;and Borghouts 1984, 707. For the metatextual heading of PT226 that appears in the Middle Kingdom and identifies the primary use of this recitation and the group to which it belongs for protective purposes, see Allen 2006a, 153;and Sledzianowski 1976, I, 24 (1): L1NY L, col. 1: rA n(j) sxsf r(k)rk m Xrt-nTr. 103 With some modifications; see Hussein 2013, 277-278, n. 11;and Hays 2012, 685. 104 See, for instance, the recent studies on the subject by Hussein 2013, passim; Hussein 2011, 220- tably, the performative and oral nature of these incantations in their original state did not contribute to their fixation in writing beyond a few examples from the late Sixth Dynasty and First Intermediate Period.105 Among the recitations identified by Jürgen Osing in his study of the magical texts of Niankh-Pepy, one can observe the presence of excerpts from the Middle Kingdom recitations CT473 (Spruch III),106 CT885 (Sprüche I and IV),107 and CT930 (Spruch II).108 Interestingly, CT885 is associated with some of the Old Kingdom series of apotropaic (anti-snake) texts inscribed on the west wall of Wenis's sarcophagus chamber.109 A remarkable aspect of the spells found in Niankh-Pepy, however, is the personal category of the ritualist, mentioned in the first person.110 In contrast, in Wenis's sarcophagus chamber, texts of the personal category are not common and, in fact, the second or third-person structure is typical here, as it is believed that a ritualist performed the services for the king.111 If less perfect in reliability, this disagreement between the apotropaic texts of Niankh-Pepy, with the beneficiary in the first person, and the texts of Wenis, in the second or third person, is a vestige of certain editorial work applied to the materials during the monumentalization and recontextualization of earlier personal texts into a sacerdotal setting, such as the king's sarcophagus chamber.112 In other words, in the process of transmission from the personal setting to the royal context, the magical texts initially indicating the performer in the first person were transferred into the pyramid and changed to the second and third persons, so as to ensure that the sacerdotal class served the king in his voyage into the afterlife. In spite of the lack of evidence from the private domain in the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, the magical texts of Niankh-Pepy seem to indicate that the apotropaic Pyramid Texts of Wenis might have had precursors of the same type as the late Old Kingdom ones. In addition, textual features of these recitations 222;and Hussein 2009, 89-93. The transmission of this group of Pyramid Texts evidences a sustained system of beliefs on the magical potentiality of these recitations against noxious creatures: cf. the attestation of Pyramid Texts (snake-recitations) in stela BM 190 (probably from Memphis or Saqqara), with PT226-243 (Pyr. § §225a-248a-b). Thanks are due to the research project SFB 980 for providing me with funds for a research visit to the British Museum (d. 30.09.13-10.10.13) where I could examine this stela and other objects of the Late Period that bear late versions of Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts. 105 See the four magical spells inscribed on the wooden coffin bedframe deposited inside the coffin of Niankh-Pepy in Osing 1987, 205-210;and Hassan 1975, 21-22, pls. 15 (B) and 19-20. 106 ECT VI, 3ff. 107 ECT VII, 97p-s. 108 ECT VII, 131b-e, and n. 109 Hussein 2013, 278, n. 14;and Topmann 2010, 341-371. 110 For the deictic distinction of the sacerdotal/collective and personal categories in Pyramid Texts and associated materials, see mainly Hays 2012, 28-33, 52-60;Reintges 2011, 28-31;and Hays 2006, 33-40. See further bibliography in Morales 2013, 46, n. 103. 111 Hays 2009a fig. 1. 112 Hays 2006, 47-54. remind us of particular compositions known as "water-songs" (Hsy-mw or Hst-mw)113 which appeared in private tombs before the reign of Wenis for the protection of cattle against crocodiles, hippopotami and other dangers.114 In interim summary, the evidence on the existence of rites and objects common to both the private offering lists and the royal Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom reveal a clear association between the two realms. Likewise, the incorporation of magical spells that belonged to the realm of personal practices also manifest the existence of primary settings in which these recitations were first declaimed and performed, before they achieved the status of monumental inscriptions. As for the offering recitations, the earliest examples of ritual activities, such as censing, libating, provision of foodstuff and the listing of related items from the Second Dynasty onwards, show a convergence toward a collective system of rituals and services-private and royalfrom which the Pyramid Texts emerged.115 Certainly, the construction of a canonical list of rites and items used for the composition of offering lists in tabular form demanded the fixation in writing of these elements to be used as guidelines, that is, the execution of the process of Verschriftung or entextualization, so that they became more accessible and portable as papyri (i.e. operative copies). No doubt, the process of entextualization of the rites and the fixation of their details (e.g. items, quantities, number of services) not only gave shape to the offering lists for the tomb of particulars, but also provided the fundamental materials for the composition of the offering category of Pyramid Texts in the royal domain. In addition, it might be the case that the development of the offering lists during the Fourth Dynasty in the cemeteries of Giza reached a canonical form before being extended to other necropolises such as Saqqara, and that the traditional model resulting in the early Fifth Dynasty had an effect on the syntax of offering rites of the late Fifth Dynasty and the rest of the Old Kingdom mortuary culture.116 Regarding the apotropaic texts, the absence of personal 113 Strudwick 2005, 402 (text no. 302.A), 405 (text no. 306.F); Leitz 1999, 39-40, pls. 17-18 (pap. BM EA 10042, recto 6, 10); Mathieu 1996b, 106 (n. 349: with bibliography) and 231; Morenz 1996, 60-61, 128-129;Koenig 1994, 74-75 (n. 42);Borghouts 1978, 87 (text no. 126);andSimpson 1976b, 13. 114 Ogdon 1989, esp. 59-62, n. 15. 115 For the statement that other materials, such as the references to sakhu in private tombs, constitute another bond between the mortuary traditions of both contexts (private and royal), see Enmarch 2013, 87-88, n. 25, although the author still considers this link "tantalising and indirect". Cf. the strong relationship of both contexts through reference to the same types of rites, discussed in Hays 2010a; and Smith 2009. 116 For a consideration of the social and religious regulations that might have affected the establishment of mortuary services with particular offering lists and activities in the region of Aswan ( Qubbet el-Hawa), see Seyfried 2003. In addition, one must also consider the later development of the related offering formulae in the First Intermediate Period, when political and economic decentralization produced changes in the expressions of authority among the elite: see Barta 1968, 30, for the emergence of new Bitte in the offering formulae such as "to cross the sky like the king" (Bitte 30) or "to be accepted by the great god" (Bitte 34). magical recitations before the end of the Old Kingdom does not preclude a consideration of the original setting from which the apotropaic Pyramid Texts derived, a group of texts that demanded editorial modification for their inception as sacerdotal services into the royal corpus.

Traces of the Original Forms and Style of the "Pyramid Texts" before Wenis
Theological forethought and scribal management of textual materials were essential in the composition of the royal Pyramid Texts. As an intellectual undertaking, this plan (sxr) was generated by the Heliopolitan sacerdotal class for the benefit of the king's existence-initially Wenis's. It demanded selection, editing, copying, and inscription of a great many religious texts from discrete traditions, and the reconsideration of the doctrine of the afterlife affecting the king's persona.117 As a result, each assemblage became a reflection of prevalent religious ideas and practices, a monumentalization that therefore allowed for later transformation as the theological ideas and ritual praxis of each cultural phase (Zeitgeist) affected the corpus and the priestly vision thereof.118 The process of transforming oral recitations into collections of texts probably emerged even before this plan for the monumentalization of religious texts existed.119 As seen in the previous section, the initial process of fixation into writing (i.e. Verschriftung or entextualization) came about when the discourse embedded in oral and performative practices-mortuary services, magical recitations, and stage directionshad to be retained for operative and storage purposes. That stage of development of the mortuary recitations, from voice to papyrus, was not primarily associated with the more substantial undertaking for the royal pyramids, a process that came about only when the priests of Memphis decided to outmatch the previous mortuary complexes by introducing priestly and personal recitations into the inner chambers of a king.
For the construction of Wenis's assemblage, therefore, the Heliopolitan priests anchored their plan to the extant repertoire of written recitations in operative papyri, probably created, copied, and stored in temple repositories. In addition, they might even have composed or searched for further exemplars.120 In other words, theological 117 Mathieu 2010, 78. 118 Morales 2013, 12. 119 As Hays defined it, "[t]he Pyramid Texts were not composed to decorate the walls of the tombs in which they are first attested. They were adapted to that use from texts prepared to be recited in religious performances" (Hays 2012, 251). 120 The increasing number of Pyramid Texts attested in the assemblages after Wenis seems to corroborate this possibility. For instance, the Pyramid of Wenis contains around two hundred and thirty and scribal work with the existing collections supplied the primary stock of texts for the composition of Wenis's assemblage; textual composition might have enlarged it with new spells. This process, however, necessitated further assignments, mainly the enhancement of the recitational discourse by transforming the language and structure of the recitations from oral-compositional style to literary form (Verschriftlichung or textualization), and the preparation of master copies of the materials-also known as "blueprints"-to be carved onto the walls of Wenis's crypt. This major transformation of the recitations, from papyrus to wall, constitutes the second development of the corpus. Fortunately, vestiges from the earlier stage of the history of the corpus, in which its recitations were written in the oral style and fastened in operative papyri, become visible in the assemblage made for Wenis. Certainly, the gradual transference of oral materials, first to manuscripts and later to monument walls, reflects the ability of the religious discourse to adapt to new media and materiality. Therefore, I consider it essential to visualize both processes (entextualization and textualization) as a result of scribal manipulation and transmission of portentous texts in the high-cultural domain of temples.121 Copies with the respective sections of the assemblage would be edited and personalized in the library, and only later handed over to the personnel assigned to King Wenis's pyramid, who would supervise the carving, emendation, and final approval of the corpus.122 The modification of the texts in situ would have been impractical, as the nature and number of modifications would have required a prolonged stay in an adequate locale with scribal and sacerdotal experts (i.e. library, repository), to carry out editing exercises including loud reading or recitation,123 identification of target-forms, modification, and composition.124 One also encounters references to the inscription of texts on tomb walls, for instance, in the private tomb of Senedjemib Inti (G 2370). Here there is evidence of necropolis personnel (scribes, draughtmen) who employed similar materials to the master copies previously mentioned as drafts (i.e. zX-odt) for the carving of particular texts in private tombs:

jw rdj.n(=j) d(j).t(j) m zX m zX-od(t) Hr jz=f pn sHr=sn jn osty Dd m Hrj=(j) tpt-rd jm mr psS m stp-zA
texts, whereas the last assemblage for a king of the Old Kingdom, in the pyramid of Pepi II, has about six hundred and seventy-five. 121 Following Baines 2004, 26-30. 122 For the two-step process of textual transfer from papyri to the pyramid walls with emendations along the carving and a concluding revision, see Mathieu 1996a, esp. 290-293 (s.v. première and seconde vérification). 123 The practice of silent reading would also be feasible at this stage, although the use of this procedure is not clear (see note below). 124 For the multiple forms of reading (including silent and loud reading), see Contardi 2010;and Morenz 1996, 43-52, fig. 5. "His Majesty has had the decrees concerning it endorsed with the documentary seal. Funerary priests were appointed for him. I have had them (i.e. the decrees) put in writing in a preliminary sketch on this his tomb, and they were carved by the sculptor. The stipulations in them were recited in my face125 according to the apportioning in the court council".126 The zX-odt sketches could then designate scribal copies written in papyri and employed in the carving of texts-in this case, a royal decree by Djedkare Izezi-on the walls of a private tomb. The form of the sketched texts used for the inscription of the collectanea of the Pyramid Texts of Wenis was no doubt unconventional and more extensive and intricate than the copies prepared for Senedjemib's tomb.127 Yet evidence for the use of sketches in the construction and decoration of private tombs before the reign of Wenis highlights the primary role of master copies in the transfer of textual (and iconographic) materials from the locale of the libraries to the site under construction, as well as the editing procedures applied along the way.
One may widen the discussion on the transference of texts in the form of customized master copies from library settings to a particular pyramid by alluding to the traces of the oral style present in the Pyramid Texts. These traits, found in the language and syntax of the Pyramid Texts, corroborate the antiquity of the recitations and their genesis outside the domain of the pyramid. What sorts of vestiges are these, then? Some of the most common features are transformation of the original deictic-structure, coalescence of dialectic variants, presence of archaisms, use of repetitive language and structures, formulaic language, wordplay, and even Semitic loans. Below I present an analysis of instances of these traces, vestiges of the oral-compositional style that resulted from the application of the processes of Verschriftung and Verschriftlichung.
An element of outstanding significance in the transformation of the oral discourse into a literary style was the modification of the deictic-structure of texts from personal structure (first person: "I") to sacerdotal structure (second and third persons: "you, 125 Can this statement be taken as a proof of concluding revision or recitation by priests and relatives? For the latter, see Baines 1999, 25, who believes that priests and relatives could commemorate the memory of the deceased by reading and reciting the biographical texts of the tomb in a formal ceremony. In this respect, Baines follows Helck's opinion that private inscriptions would be recited (Helck 1972, 11). The excavators of the Late Period tomb of Padihor (tomb R1) have also attested the proofreading of the hieroglyphic inscriptions upon their completion (see Coppens/Smoláriková 2009, 69-71). 126 See inscription C, lines 23-26 (biographical data on Senedjemib Inti as provided by his son Senedjemib Mehit) in Brovarski 2001, 43 (n. 94) and 102. 127 For the decoration and inscription of pyramids, see Pfirsch 1994, 293-298;and Pfirsch 1992, 35-36. he") to adhere to the ritual conditions in which the ritualist performed for the king.128 For this matter, one can identify modifications129 of the texts in the form of: 1. physical recarving of personal pronouns, originally chiselled in the first person and later modified to observe the sacerdotal structure;130 2. vacillation, with different pronouns used in the same section;131 3. doubling of pronouns, the original and the adjunct following one another;132 4. residual -j and -jj with third weak verbs, as a vestige of the presence of first-person pronoun before editing;133 5. exemplar disagreement, when two or more attestations of the same text show the use of different pronouns;134 and Occasionally, however, the oral-compositional structure of the Pyramid Texts surfaces through instances in which the spoken and performative nature of the text has not been altered. For instance, one observes the concatenation of interjections, imperatives, vocatives, questioning, and even directions for the ritualists, which reflect the dramatic and performative nature of the recitations: "7tw-snake, where are you going? You will not go! Wait for Wenis because it is Wenis, Geb. HmT-snake, brother of HmTt-snake, you whose father has died, Djaamiu-snake!"

PT299 (Pyr. § §444a-c) W
444a Dt r pt zpA-1rw r tA 444b Tbt 1rw SAs=f nb Hwt kA tpHt 444c SnT nj SnT=j "Cobra to the sky! Horus's centipede to the earth! Horus's sandal is treading on the enclosure's lord, the cavern's bull! Shunned snake, I cannot be shunned!"138 In a stimulating study observing the oral-compositional style of the Pyramid Texts, Chris Reintges explains that the multiple forms of language found in the Pyramid Texts should be perceived as reflections of dialect variations, ongoing language change, and different regional backgrounds.139 These aspects of the corpus evidence the compilation of materials of assorted antiquity from different areas and contexts.140 Therefore, if contexts beyond the mortuary service, such as the temple cult, domestic magical practices, and popular settings with soldiers or guildmen singing,141 supplied recitational material for the royal corpus, then it should be possible to identify some of its attributes and anchor particular sections of the Pyramid Texts to early Old Kingdom materials. Accordingly, the sundry materials revealing dialectic and contemporaneous variation (diglossia), technical language (e.g. legal, mythical, nautical), and archaisms142 would betray this bridge between oral discourse, varied 138 Cf. Teti's version of PT299 (Pyr. §444c) with the deictic reference to the first person modified to the noun of the king to fit the sacerdotal structure: SnT nj SnT 6tj-"Shunned snake, Teti cannot be shunned!" 139 Reintges 2011, 36. 140 The idea that the corpus of Pyramid Texts included recitations from different periods of the Old Kingdom has been recently studied by Gundacker 2009 (non vidi). 141 See Reintges 2011, 15-16 (n. 12);Vachala 2010, 777;and Helck 1972, 13. These authors comment on the performative and oral nature of the Siegeslied embedded in the biographical text of Wenis at Abydos, whose origin is to be found in the context of "einem Chor (mit dem Refrain) und einem Vorsänger" (Vachala), some "secular traditional art, which originated at the royal court" (Reintges), or a workers' song (Helck). 142 One of the questions that has intensified the debate about the archaistic forms in the Pyramid Texts is the so-called "split-stative hypothesis", mainly adopted by Kammerzell 1990 and followed by Schenkel 1994, according to which variant spellings of statives indicate two discrete conjugation patterns, a perfect for the first person (with independent syntactic usage) and the pseudoparticiple (syntactically dependent) for the other persons. Against this hint, both Reintges 2006 andBorghouts 2001 do not take the diverse endings k(j), kj, t(j) and tj as morphologically different, but as pronunciations of the same verb with prosodic and emphatic distinction. In addition, the attestation of an obsolete form sDmm=f, a prospective passive counterpart of sDm.w=f only attested in Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts (Allen 2013, 112), and the use of the negation w (Reintges 2011, 33-34) seem to indicate a form of archaic language not used in private texts during the Fifth Dynasty. settings, and the formal plan carried out by Memphite priests for collecting and composing a corpus for Wenis.143 Additionally, a recent study on the group of Pyramid Text recitations against snakes (PT232-238, PT281-287) has provided a new interpretation for some of the "untranslatable"144 texts in the group. According to Richard Steiner, some of these recitations might have been transferred into the collection prepared for Wenis from early Northwest Semitic (Canaanite) spells,145 a hypothesis that Robert Ritner already proposed in 1995.146 The evidence suggests that the recitations of Semitic origin were incomprehensible to most Egyptians at the time of their inscription into the pyramid of Wenis.147 These recitations, probably disseminated into Egypt from Byblos, might have been copied by some ritualist who knew Canaanite and added them to the esoteric materials projected by the Heliopolitan sacerdotal class. In this case, both the oral style of the recitations and their foreign origin expose a Sitz im Leben absolutely separate from the mortuary context of the royal pyramid. However, this hypothesis has found detractors, mainly on the basis that some of the lexemes identified for Semitic would have not existed around 2500 BCE.148 143 One may consider the possibility that the priests of the Memphite region initially collected these materials for previous kings in the Fourth or Fifth Dynasty, for whom they could have been used in oral form. See, for instance, the date assigned to some of the Pyramid Texts by Allen, 2001, 97, who thinks that part of the corpus might have been written by the reign of Menkaure; Baines 2004, 28, who dates the composition of the Pyramid Texts to the reign of Sahure (early Fifth Dynasty), although he takes the potential existence of the corpus to the late Second or early Third Dynasty; and Kahl 1999, 97-99, in which the author dates the origin of the group PT220-222 in the late Second Dynasty (reign of Khasekhemuy). 144 Sethe 1935, 212, comments that some of these recitations, such as PT236 (Pyr. §240), included "zunächst unverständliche Zauberworte, die in ihrem hj.tj bj.tj schon äusserlich an unser Hokuspokus erinnern". 145 Steiner 2011, 23, 77, and passim. 146 Ritner 1995, 3351-3352, n. 85. 147 Steiner 2011: the Semitic segment would be embedded in the Egyptian recitation in the form of three bilingual units,  148 See the possibility offered by Mathieu 2002, 191, fig. 4, who considers that we might have some palindromes here: e.g. he suggests that "Kebebehititibitiches" might be read as "sS-6j-bjtj-jtj-bjk" (lit. "that is, the scribe, Thoth, the king, the sovereign, the Ibis, and the falcon"). For the positions against Steiner's reading of North West Semitic in these spells, see n. 101 above.

PT281 (Pyr. § §422a-d) W 422a j z z h k w k b b h AAA b j 422b rw n p h tj j rw n p T tj j p h tj j p T tj j 422c m mj n j(w)nw AAA T w b s j(w)f w j(w)nw hnw
Go! Go! Nay-snake! Nay-snake!"149 PT232 (Pyr. § §236a-c) W 236a m mtj m mj mtj mj mtj 236b AAA mwt=f zp-2 mj mtj m mtj 236c ja.tj xAst n(=j) m xm w(j) "Come, poison! Come, poison! Look, poison! Look, poison! You whose mother is Aaa! You whose mother is Aaa! Look, poison! Look, poison! Be washed away from me, foreign land! Don't ignore me!"150 Another set of attributes attested in the Pyramid Texts that reveal the oral nature of the corpus is related to the presence of repetitive patterns, parallel phrasing and cadence, including verbatim repetition, alliteration, dislocation, chiasmus151 and the use of formulae such as epithets. The use of alliteration in the Pyramid Texts152 represents a noticeable marker of oral discoursive form, providing the ritualist or reciter with routine phonetic inflection. In the repetition of particular words or stoicheia, one must see a mechanism to elicit alliterations that could guide and embellish the discourse:153 PT274 (Pyr. § §407a-b) T 407a 6tj pw sxm wr sxm m sxmw 407b 6tj pw aSm aSm aSmw "Teti is the most controlling power, who controls the controlling powers; Teti is the sacred image154 who is most sacred of sacred images."

PT479 (Pyr. § §981a-989b) P
981a wnjj aAwj pt jznn aAwj obHw n 1rw nTrw 981b pr=f m tp hrw wab=f m sxt jArw 982a wnjj aAwj pt jznjj aAwj obHw n 1rw jAbtj 982b pr=f m tp hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 983a wnjj aAwj pt jznjj aAwj obHw n 1rw Szmt 983b pr=f m tp 1rw wab=f m sxt jArw 984a wnjj aAwj pt jznjj aAwj obHw n Wsjr 984b pr=f m tp 1rw wab=f m sxt jArw 985a wnjj aAwj pt jznjj aAwj obHw n Ppj pn 985b pr=f m tp 1rw wab=f m sxt jArw 986a jj 986b pr jr=f pr m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 986c pr 1rw nTrw m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 987a pr jr=f pr m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 987b pr 1rw Szmt m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 988a pr jr=f pr m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 988b pr Wsjr m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 989a pr jr=f pr m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw 989b pr Ppj pn m tpj hrw wab.n=f m sxt jArw "The sky's door has been opened, the Cool Waters' door has been pulled open for Horus of the gods, that he might go forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. The sky's door has been opened, the Cool Waters' door has been pulled open for eastern Horus, that he might go forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. The sky's door has been opened, the Cool Waters' door has been pulled open for Horus Shezmet, that he might go forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. The sky's door has been opened, the Cool Waters' door has been pulled open for Osiris, that he might go forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. The sky's door has been opened, the Cool Waters' door has been pulled open for this Pepi, that he might go forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. So, someone has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds: Horus of the gods has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. So, someone has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds: Horus Shezmet has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. So, someone has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds: Osiris has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds. So, someone has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds: Pepi has come forth at daybreak, having become clean in the Marsh of Reeds."

PT670 (Pyr. § §1977a-c) N
1977a Hw.n=f n=k Hw Tw m jH 1977b smA.n=f n=k smA Tw m smA 1977b oAs.n=f n=k oAs Tw "He has hit for you the one who hit you as a bull; he has killed for you the one who killed you as a wild bull, and has tied up for you the one who tied you up." The associated use of parallel phrasing or Doppelung155 consists in the repetition of names or clauses to draw the attention of the listener to a particular segment of the discourse, and is usually connected to the phenomenon of alliteration observed above: 428a nn nj mwt=f nn nj mwt=f 428b j(w).k rr m nn j(w).k rr m nn mA Tjf Tjf mA Tjf "You whose mother turned him away, you whose mother turned him away, aren't you such, aren't you such? Lion, spit out! Spit out! Lion, spit out!" PT400 (Pyr. § §695a-696g) T 695a ndfdf jrt 1rw Hr bAt nt Dnw 695b bjkwj xntwj prw nb DfAw wr m Iwnw 695c Dj=k t n 6tj Dj=k Hnot n 6tj sAD 6tj 696a sDA=k wdHw n 6tj 696b sDA=k nmt nt 6tj 696c Hor 6tj Hor rwtj 696d jbb 6tj jbb Nxbt 696e hdnwt hdnwt 696f m jn sT hdn=T r 6tj 696g tm xr=T hdn=T r 6tj "Horus's eye has dripped on Horus's Dnw-bush. Falcon (Horus), foremost of the houses, lord of sustenance, great one in Heliopolis, may you give bread to Teti, may you give beer to Teti; may you fresh Teti, may you fresh the offering table of Teti, may you freshen the slaughterhouse of Teti. Should Teti hunger, the dual lion will hunger, should Teti thirst, Nekhbet will thirst. Broom-plant goddess, broom-plant goddess, don't fetch the scent of your broom-plant against Teti, for you don't have to fetch the scent of your broom-plant against Teti." 155 See the phenomenon discussed in Firchow 1953, 12-20.

PT564 (Pyr. § §1421a-1422c) P
1421a wab wab m Sj jArw 1421b wab Ra m Sj jArw 1421c wab Ppj pn Ds=f m Sj jArw 1421d wab 5w m Sj jArw 1421e wab Ppj Ds=f m Sj jArw 1422a 5w 5w fA Ppj pn jr pt 1422b Nwt Dj awj=T jr=f 1422c hpA=f hpA=f hnn hnn hnn hpA=f hpA=f156 "Someone has become clean in the Lake of Reeds, the Sun has become clean in the Lake of Reeds, this Pepi himself has become clean in the Lake of Reeds. Shu has become clean in the Lake of Reeds, Pepi himself has become clean in the Lake of Reeds. Shu, Shu, lift this Pepi to the sky! Nut, give your arms toward him! He will fly up, he will fly up.
Howl, howl, howl! He will fly up, he will fly up!" The reorganization of the grammatical structure with the purpose of emphasizing a particular element of the discourse by topicalization or postposition is another phenomenon attested in the Pyramid Texts. The conscious modification of the discourse produces the dislocation of the structure (with anteposition or afterthoughts),157 and allows the reciter to lay emphasis on the most important element of the recitation: A similar mechanism for elevating the intensity of a particular element in the spell is the chiasmus, also known as "inverted parallelism", a figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to emphasize an idea.

PT374 (Pyr. §658c) T
658c aA rd=k rd=k wr.j SAs=f mnmwt wrt "Your foot is big, large is your foot, and it shall traverse the Great Bed." 156 The principle of alliteration, the repetition of the same or similar sound for the construction of a phonetic routine for the ritualist, can be observed here as well. 157 For further information on both mechanisms (left-dislocation and right-dislocation) see Reintges 2011, 37-38.

PT662 (Pyr. § §1874a-c) N
1874a wbnnj wbnnj xprr xprr 1874b j=k r Ppj jw Ppj jr=k 1874c jw anx=k jr Ppj jw anx Ppj jr=k "Riser, riser! Beetle, beetle! You are related to Pepi, Pepi is related to you; your life is related to Pepi, Pepi's life is related to yours." PT662 (Pyr. § §1880a-b) N 1880a bA.n(=j) n=k bdt skA.n(=j) n=k jt 1880b jt n wAg=k bdt n rnpwt=k "I have hoed emmer for you and have plowed barley for you: (that is) barley for your supply, emmer for your yearly supply." The use of formulaic expressions constitutes another marker of orality in the Pyramid Texts.158 No doubt, the repetition of particular words such as epithets can benefit the reciter by providing him with time to remember his next lines, or pause.159 This aspect of the spoken language offers a possible explanation for the use of a rich repertoire of epithets for the gods and the king in the Pyramid Texts. 1505a Ppj pw mtwt=k Wsjr spdt 1505b m rn=T pw n 1rw jmj wAD-wr 1rw xnt Axjw "Pepi is your seed, Osiris, which is sharp in this identity of yours of Horus in the Great Green, Horus at the fore of the Akhs." Another hint in the identification of oral-compositional forms in the Pyramid Texts is the attestation of wordplays, many of which are achieved by devising meaningful puns with alliteration or parallel phrasing. In the first example below, parallel 158 For a similar phenomenon in Homeric poetic literature, see further comments in Ong 1982, 58-60. 159 In this note, see Rendsburg 2000, 16, n. 15, in which the author discusses the parallel issue of using red ink in manuscripts in order to mark a section for a pause, in the same tone as scribes did with the system of setuma and petuḥa in Biblical manuscripts. In this case, the use of epithets in oral-compositional styled texts might correspond to the same demand by the reciter, who might need a short juncture before continuing with the recitation phrasing can be observed with m kw, while paronomasia is achieved by playing with couplets of words constructed with km ("to be black"), wAD ("to be green") and Sn ("round"), on the one hand, and wr, on the other, so that the recitation focuses on the resulting identities of the deceased, here presented as Km-wr ("great black"), WAD-wr ("great green"), and 5n-wr ("great round"). Upon observing these instances that reveal characteristics of the oral discourse in the Pyramid Texts, one may wonder to what rites do these verbal accompaniments written on the walls of each pyramid refer. In other words, what rituals do they represent? As observed in the previous section, the original setting of two particular groups attested in the Pyramid Texts was certainly not the pyramid. On the one hand, the association between the offering Pyramid Texts and the offering lists, mainly from the Fourth and Fifth Dynasty, contributes to the idea that such recitations were already part of the private mortuary domain before the Memphite priests of Wenis prepared the corpus for the king's pyramid. Furthermore, the link observed between apotropaic recitations in the Pyramid Texts and magical spells employed in private contexts in the Sixth Dynasty also alludes to an original setting outside the king's monument, in which these practices were commonly used, perhaps even as far away as Byblos, from which some of these recitations could have come. Now, the question is whether there were any other settings, contexts, or circles in which similar materials could have been used before their transfer into the royal assemblages.
Offering lists and snake-repelling recitations occurred in private contexts before they were attested in royal monuments, which indicates the prominent role of the former on the configuration of the royal mortuary tradition. The examination of texts, scenes and material culture in the private tombs in the Old Kingdom reveals a similar metaphysical function.160 In fact, most of scholars understand that the words, actions and space represented in the private tombs were intended to elevate the mortal to the superhuman status of a god, a "true of voice" and, ultimately, an Akh,161 in the same manner as the Pyramid Texts intended for the king. Therefore, it is plausible to consider that certain interactions between the repertoire of images and "voices" in the private tombs, the later outcoming Pyramid Texts for the royal individual, and the ideological principles that ruled and distinguish both views of the afterlife must have existed,162 all part of the same religious culture of the period.
Beyond the statement, "I know every ritual by which one becomes an Akh in the necropolis", commonly attested in the biographical texts of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty,163 it is clear that the non-royal deceased was the beneficiary of a series of performances, ceremonies, and recitations whose effects were perpetuated in his tomb and sarcophagus. Consequently, the deceased's transition to the afterlife could be achieved by knowledge and practice164 without the use of extensive written recitations, a medium restricted to the king.165 Certainly, the tombs of private individuals lacked a profuse corpus of religious texts like the Pyramid Texts, but short rubrics and accompanying scenes provided symbolic and referential information associated with the concepts of death and afterlife.166 Regarding the performance of sakhu-rites,167 160 Hays 2010a, 118-120;Wilson 1944, 210. 161 Hays 2010aHays 2010b, 1;Altenmüller 1972, 52 (mainly for the later transmission and usage of the Pyramid Texts in the Middle Kingdom private domain); and Wilson 1944, 209-210. 162 Allen 2006b, 9. 163 See Hays 2010aKloth 2002, 118-119;andEdel 1944, 22-30. 164 Hays 2010a, 123-126;andAssmann 2005, 352-355, 393-404. 165 Baines 1990, 11-12, n. 63. The implications of decorum are also discussed in Bauman/Briggs 1990, 77. Both anthropologists believe that the institutional structures possess mechanisms that confer legitimate authority to control texts, although the idea that "the appropriation of particular forms of discourse may be the basis of institutional power" must also be taken into consideration as it might reflect the situation with the elite of the First Intermediate Period and its access to the corpus of Pyramid Texts. 166 For the symbolic/metaphoric aspect of the scenes and texts in the private mastabas of the Old Kingdom, see Roth 2006, esp. 244-245;Bochi 2003, 161-167;andFrandsen 1997, esp. 82-93. Cf. contra: Walsem 2006, 298-299;and Walsem, 2005, 71-83, in which the author discusses the dichotomy Sehbild - Sinnbild, and suggests that the allegorical or metaphorical meaning of a representation might depend on the context and the intention of the observer.
167 These rites were probably performed upon the monumental superstructure of the tomb: aHa m-dp jz. See Alexanian 2003, 29, n. 4;and Bolshakov 1997, 101, n. 42. concise texts such as an inscription in the tomb of Tjetu168 or a caption in the tomb of Qar169 confirm that ritualists carried out the necessary rituals for the deceased.
Complementary to John Baines's interpretation on the origin of the oral and performative discourse of the Pyramid Texts found in the first-person speeches of gods from the late Second and early Third Dynasties,170 here I bring forward the implication of the private mortuary context in the construction of a royal narrative for the pyramids. Although Reintges provides some import to the gods' speeches,171 he also alludes to the interlocutive performance structure of dialogues in the private tombs of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasty as a major stimulus. He understands the role of the commoner's talk, the question-answer situations between artisans, and the reference to songs recited by retainers as models for the configuration of the oral-compositional style in the Pyramid Texts.172 Because of the importance of the original setting for the oral discourse in the development of written forms and the Pyramid Texts, I believe that early gods' speeches (probably connected to the temple cultic environs), biographical and legal stipulations,173 and religious allegoric references in scenes from daily life in the private tombs all contributed to the configuration of the royal corpus of religious texts. As Firchow already articulated in 1953, [d]ie Inschriften in den gennanten Pyramiden sind Sammlungen von Sprüchen verschiedenen Alters und Inhalts. Viele sind eigens zur Verwendung als Totentexte und erst in der Zeit ihrer Niederschrift in den Königsgräbern verfaßt oder aus älteren Teilen zusammengestellt worden.
168 See Simpson 1980, 12, pls. 28-29, and fig. 24: sAxt jn Xrj-HAbt "making glorifications by the lector priest"; dj obHw "making a libation"; and jnt rd jn Xrj-HAbt "bringing the broom by the lector priest". 169 Simpson 1976a, 5, pls. 7a, 8, and figs. 22-24: wdn j.xt Xrj-HAbt "dedicating offerings by the lector priest"; sAxt jn Xrj-Hbt "making glorifications by the lector priest"; rdjt mw "dispensing water"; and rdjt snTr "bringing the broom". Interestingly, the mastaba of Qar (G 7101) also provides us with a prominent example of the coalescence of meanings, with priests performing sakhu-rites for the deceased including, i.a., snTr (PT25, Pyr. §18d), obHw TA (PT32, Pyr. §23b), and wnxw (PT81, Pyr. §57e), together with the general statement that sAxt ra nb jn wt.w ra nb "daily glorification (is provided) by the embalmers every day" and pr(t)-xrw m dbHt-Htp "invocation offering consisting of food requirements". For G 7101, see Simpson 1976a, 7, pl. 9, fig. 25. 170 Baines 2004, 28. 171 Reintges 2011, 10. 172 Reintges 2011. See also the combination of different models of poetical and legal-administrative discourses that determined the composition of the Pyramid Texts in Reintges 2011, 19, fig. 1. For the development of the legal-administrative discourse as a major reason for the fixation in writing of legal aspects for the tomb owner, see Schenkel 1983, 60. 173 See Reintges 2011, 29-30, for an analysis of the intervention of the two types of biographical texts (Idealbiographie and Ereignisbiographie) in the configuration of particular aspects of the oral compositional form in the Pyramid Texts; cf. Kloth 2002, 230-235, who focuses on the association of the first-person biographical texts with the oath statements to highlight the role of legal context in the fixation of oral discourse into writing. In my opinion, a significant impact on the development of the oral discourse lies in the use of the first-person pronoun recitations of justification and good behavior of the deceased (see, for instance, the mastaba of Idu: Simpson 1976a, 20, pl. 17, fig. 33).
Andere wiederum lassen sich als weit früher erschaffene Ritualsprüche des Königs-und Götterkultes wie als Hymnen an den Sonnengott erkennen, die mit größeren oder kleineren Veränderungen oder auch unverändert in die Sammlungen von königlichen Totensprüchen übernommen wurden. Dazu gesellen sich Zaubersprüche zur Abwehr giftiger Schlangen und anderer schädlicher Tiere, Schlachtopfersprüche, Begleitworte für das Darbringen von Opfergaben und manches sonst.174 Therefore, some of the rites incorporated into the inscriptional and iconographic repertoire of the private tombs before Wenis might offer us some clues to understand the Sitze im Leben in which the Pyramid Texts might have originated. This affiliation between the religious corpus created for the kings of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties and the private mortuary traditions of the early and mid-Old Kingdom is evidently not forthright and categorical.175 Some of the tabular materials seen in the form of elite offering lists and the oral and most popular recitations such as magical spells and guild songs demonstrate the bond between private mortuary cult and personal practices, on the one hand, and royal engagement on the other. Similarly, by allegoric principles, other themes from the private tombs might disguise religious and mortuary conceptions176 that experienced a high-cultural transmission from elite monuments to the royal realm,177 standing for aspects of resurrection and afterlife later embedded in narrative form within the Pyramid Texts.178 Following this hypothesis, there is a series of iconographic and textual themes in the private mastabas of the Old Kingdom that call for further examination. Among 174 Firchow 1953, 9. 175 These features might lead scholars to some forms of hyper interpretation: Bochi argues that as a topos, the references to clothing and linen in Old Kingdom tomb scenes, statues, and tomb equipment could imply generosity, moral obligation, prominent status in this world, regeneration, and a blessed afterlife (see Bochi 1996, 245-246, n. 63); consequently, she discusses the conflation of the motif in diverse contexts. I believe that our understanding of the Egyptian cultural attitude toward clothing in general should restrain us from singling out particular significances of this motif as evidence for the interaction of the private and royal realms. 176 Observe that, as Eyre points out, some of the texts and themes of the private tomb repertoire might also have a different Sitze im Leben: Eyre 1993, 116. 177 Two interesting examples of this approach-with some misconceptions-are Burn 2011 and Vischak 2003, both following Allen 1994. Burn highlights that tomb decoration and Pyramid Texts "appear to have been inspired by the same ideological force" (Burn 2011, 245), although his research points to modifications in the distribution of tomb scenes before the emergence of the Pyramid Texts of Wenis. In her contribution, Vischak aims at identifying similar patterns in the placement of particular themes from mastaba decoration and Pyramid Texts position in the pyramids. Although the hypothesis presented here, that there is a correlation between themes in both realms, seems to me reasonable and well grounded, Vischak carries this association further, to defend a symbolic interpretation of the cosmos present in the architectural space of both monuments, an idea that has recently been proved to be misleading. Cf. the critical position against this idea in Hays 2009b, 201, n. 37. 178 See Bochi 2003, for the inverted phenomenon of royal influence (e.g. scenes from the "world chamber" at the sun temple of Niuserre) over private tomb decoration (e.g. Mereruka and Khentika's scenes of painting the year's seasons at an easel). daily life, ceremonial, and cultic scenes, some particular texts and representations stand out for their exceedengly referential portrayal of religious, ritual and netherworldly matters: offering rituals, carrying chair episodes, pulling papyrus scenes, painting the year seasons, agricultural activities, boat scenes, net fishing, harper songs, and other themes constitute instances of orientational metaphors, whose cultural and religious properties embodied common ideas in both the royal and private realms.179 The theme of the offerings provided to the deceased has been extensively treated in the previous section. The emergence of a corresponding structure in the order and nature of the provisions of the offering lists and the offering Pyramid Texts unmasks such a cultural bond. However, other elements of the private mortuary context offer us further input in the interaction of both realms. In regard to the architecture of the mastabas, Nicole Alexanian comments on the coincidence in the use of the Pyramid Texts by Wenis and the construction of private tombs with stairs.180 Following the author, this structure would be the locale of a particular rite, "the Ba in the sky, the corpse in the netherworld", also mentioned in the Pyramid Texts in similar terms (PT395),181 and later in the Coffin Texts through the entire ritual sequence CT94-96 CT488-500.182 In this ritual, the Ba was supposed to ascend to the sky, carried out by the sun's rays. In addition, this author also refers to the ascension by joining the sun-god (Xnm-Itn) in another rite, which reminds us of the ritual performances achieved on top of the mastaba of Debeheni (see fig. 7) and the ascensional discourse in PT222:183 PT222 (Pyr. § §207c-e + 213b) W 207c xpr=k Hna jt=k 6m oA=k Hna jt=k 6m 207d wbn=k Hna jt=k 6m j.fx n=k mArw 207e tpj=k n rpwt jwnt […] 213a 6m sja n=k Wnjs pn Sn n=k Xnw awj=k 213b zA=k pw n Dt=k n Dt "You shall evolve with your father Atum, you shall go high with your father Atum, you shall rise with your father Atum, and release needs for you. Head to (Nut), the Heliopolitan in the sedan chair […]184 179 Vachala 2010, 777;Bochi 2003, 164-165;and Frandsen 1997, 82.  Another instance of interaction between both realms can be observed in the song of the sedan carrying chair porters (mHnk).185 The carrying chair motif is an interesting one even if the term "sedan chair" (Xwdt)186 is not present in the repertoire of the Pyramid Texts. Here, as a marker of social and religious status, the divine sedan chairs are called wr-Ha and rp(w)t.187 However, as Roth has pointed out,188 there is a link between the use of the sedan carrying chair as a marker of social status with its metaphoric reference to the journey of the tomb owner from one world to another,189 on the one hand, and the funerary overtone of the references to the king being transported in a carrying chair during the royal jubilee and related statements, on the other.
Similarly, the motif of the deceased at an easel painting the seasons of the year in his tomb has also been understood as a reflection of royal or even divine privileges.190 The gesture of painting "seasons" within cartouches-a motif attested in the tombs of the Sixth Dynasty officials Mereruka and Khentika191-alludes to the demiurgic act of creating time and cosmic Maat, performed by the king and the gods. In a sense, the seemingly modest appearance of the creative authority of the deceased in this type of scene also illustrates the restriction of decorum with the artistic representations of the period. This instance of dialogue between royal ideology and elite imitation could also manifest itself in the Pyramid Texts, bridging the gap between both realms and revealing common aspects of their creativity and innovation. Patricia Bochi has suggested that by creating seasons, the deceased was securing his own provision of time as the king himself does in the Pyramid Texts by cultivating and storing barley and emmer in the netherworld.192 PT422 (Pyr. § §760a-761) P 760a aHa zA=k Hr nst=k apr m jrw=k 760b jr=f wnt=k jr=k m bAH xntj anxw 185 See Roth 2006, 244-245 (n. 3), 248 (n. 16); and Altenmüller 1984Altenmüller -1985 186 See Altenmüller 1984Altenmüller -1985 9aw-5mAj from Deir el-Gebrawi) 187 Observe the use of wr-Ha in PT81 (Pyr. §56c); PT438 (Pyr. §811a); and PT467 (Pyr. §892c), while rp(w)t is attested in PT222 (Pyr. §207e); PT356 (Pyr. §580a); PT423 (Pyr. §767b); PT443 (Pyr. §823d); PT549 (Pyr. §1349b); and PT691C (Pyr. §2130a). 188 Roth 2006, 253. 189 Or, as Strudwick 2005 puts it, "the scene with the carrying chair is without doubt an allusion to the desire to be brought back to earth after death." 190 Bochi 2003, esp. 163-164. 191 Although there are only two attestations of this motif, it is important to consider the possibility of individual selection for the tomb decoration from particular artistic patterns in the royal artistic repertoire or the search for innovative motifs, which could largely reflect private aspirations. See Bochi 2003, 168, n. 35. 192 Bochi 2003 cites as examples PT422 and PT461. 760c m wDt Ra nTr aA 761 skA=f jt skA=f bdt Hnk=f Tw jm "Your son shall take up his position on your throne, equipped with your form, and do what you used to do before at the fore of the living, by command of Re, the great god. He shall farm barley, farm emmer, and endow you with them." This idea of securing regeneration, resurrection and time by storing barley and emmer is attested in agricultural scenes and texts from the mastabas of the Old Kingdom, a parallel that promotes a cogent bond-as a religious metaphor-between the royal and private realms:193 Furthermore, references to seasons of the year are observed in the Pyramid Texts in the context of resurrection recitations for the king. In the first instance, it is Osiris-a counterpart of the tomb owner painting the seasons-who masters time in both realms, sky and earth. In the second, the king is fervidly solicited to continue living season after season, precisely the same raison d'être of the representation of seasons in the tomb of Mereruka and Khentika: PT219 (Pyr. § §186a-187a) W 186a m rn=k jmj sAH tr=k r pt tr=k r tA 186b Wsjr pSr Hr=k mA=k n Wnjs pn 186c mtwt=k prt jm=k spdt 187a anx=f anx Wnjs pn nj mt=f nj mt Wnjs pn "In your identity of one of Orion, your season is at the sky, your season is at the earth. Osiris, turn your face and look at this Wenis, your seed that came forth from you, efective. He will live and this Wenis will live; he will not die and this Wenis will not die." Moreover, the repertoire of texts and iconography in the mastabas provides further examples of the interactions between the royal and private circles, such as the representation of "tearing papyrus" (zSS wAD).195 Altenmüller explains that the papyrus obtained through the activities of the deceased was thought to be used in the construction of a ladder to reach the (celestial) netherworld and join the goddess Hathor. This ascension occurs precisely in the region of the northern Deltic marshes (sxt-jArw),196 therefore, "das zSS wAD den Himmelsaufstieg des Grabherrn am Ende des Tages und am Beginn der Nacht symbolisiert".197 The deceased appears wearing a tiara that associates him with the sakhu-rites performed in the liminal region of papyrus thickets and swamps,198 in connection with the ideas of rebirth, regeneration and transfiguration.199 Concerning the idea of the deceased as a participant in the 195 See mainly Lapp 2013, 51-64;Woods 2009, 314-319;Altenmüller 2002a;Wettengel 1992, esp. 323-326, with commentary on previous positions regarding this type of scene; Troy 1986, 58;Harpur 1980, 53-60;and Montet 1957, 102-108. I thank Bernard Mathieu for pointing me to the existence of a block with the representation of this ritual in the mortuary complex of Ankhesenpepi II: see Callender 2011, 261, fig. 100;andLeclant/Minault-Gout 2000, fig. 8, pl. 17. 196 See Altenmüller 2002a, 26-28, andn. 74. See also the comments on the meaning of the presence of papyrus in Old Kingdom tomb equipments in Wilde 2013, 179-180. For the attestation of the "field of rushes" or "marsh of rushes" in the Pyramid Texts, see Hays 2004, 176, ns. 5-6. 197 Altenmüller 2002a. The idea of connecting the "tearing papyrus" with the goddess Hathor and certain aspects of the afterlife treated in the Pyramid Texts appeared first in Junker 1940, 77-81. 198 See Altenmüller 2002a, 28, n. 74 (with reference to Altenmüller 1989, in which the author emphasizes the role of this territory as a liminal space between both worlds and the location where the sun-god Re ascended to the sky. 199 Alexanian 2003, 35, n. 61. ritual of "tearing papyrus", the corpus of Pyramid Texts also emphasizes the ability of the king to traverse the marshes (pHww)200 and benefit from the purification and regeneration achieved in this territory: Tomb of Meresankh III, Giza 1 zSS wAD 2 n 1wt-1r m pHw 3 Hna mwt=s 4 mAA=sn xt nbt nfrt 5 ntt m mHt "Pulling papyrus for Hathor in the marshland together with her mother (i.e. Hetepheres); they view every perfect thing, which is in the marsh."201 PT267 (Pyr. § §367a-b) W 367a aHa j.dr tw j.xm-jwt 367b Hms Wnjs pn m st=k Xnjj=f m pt m wja=k Ra "Stand up and remove yourself, you who do not know the reeds, so that Wenis may sit in your seat. He will row to the sky in your boat, Re." PT512 (Pyr. § §1164a-1165b) P 1164a jhj Tz Tw Ppj 1164b Szp n=k fdt=k jptw nmswt aAbwt 1164c wab=k m Sj zAbj snTr=k m Sj dAtj 1164d sabw=k Hr tpj SAbt=k m sxt jArw 1165a xnz=k pt 1165b jr=k mnw=k m sxt Htp mm nTrw zjw n kAw=sn "Ho, raise yourself, Pepi! Receive these four washing jars of yours, become clean in the jackal lake, and wash in natron in the dual lake. You will be cleansed on top of your water-lily in the marsh of Reeds, you will course the sky, and make your abode in the marsh of Offerings among the gods who have gone to their kas."202 Finally, I will briefly refer to another textual category that indicates a close relationship between private and royal practices and beliefs: the ferryman texts.203 Some inscriptions in the private tombs deal with the control of the boat in a journey by recognizing its parts as well as the benefits of traversing the hereafter on a boat. Scholars have pointed out that these succint inscriptions reflect magical and religious aspects that found certain parallels in the royal corpus of Pyramid Texts.204 PT256 (Pyr. § §303c-d) W 303c Xnj sw mwt=f jtH sw dmj=f 303d hjj nwH=k "Row him, his mother! Pull him in his boat, his harbor: haul your rope!"205 PT613 (Pyr. § §1738a-f) P 1738a jA 0DhD mXnt nj mr-n-xA 1738b jn mXnt tw n Ppj pn pds Tbwt nTr DA zmT jr sxt Htp 1738c j r=f r=f 0DhD mXnt n mr-n-xAj 1738d jnt=k mXnt tw n Ppj pn 1738e dAjj=f jm=s jr sxt Htp 1738f d=f sw Hr gs Imntj n sxt Htp HA nTrwj aAwj "O Hedjhedj, ferryman of the Winding Canal, fetch this ferryboat for this Pepi, that the crossing god's sandal might trample over the ladder to the Marsh of Offerings, So, Hedjhedj, ferryman of the Winding Canal, fetch this ferryboat for this Pepi, that he may cross in it to the Marsh of Offerings, put himself on the west side of the Marsh of Offerings behind the two great gods."

Tomb of Kaiemankh, Giza
1 rs r Hr mr Imnt mj-nw A tp nfr pw 2 rs r Hr sbAtj-mw A tp nfr pw 3 mAa r=k j(w)=k m nj-Xnw 4 TAw mrj pw jw=f HA wHmw mr Imnt wrt jrj Hr jmj-wrt wAt nfrt 5 rs.t(j) r Hr jrj=j Hna jmj Hmww Xt=k sw mwt=f jtH sw dmj=f 6 Xt=k Hr mw TA(j) pw 7 jmj-wrt wAt nfrt sbAtj-mw mAa r=k 8 rs.t(j) r Hr "Keep an eye on the sail-rope, for this is the canal of the West-it is truly good! Keep an eye on the sail-rope, pilot. Hold a good course, one-of-the-stream. The wind of the canal is behind the messenger, for this is the canal of the West. Keep your course to the port, the perfect way! 1992, 33-38;and Bidoli 1976, esp. 26-29. 204 In fact, the most remarkable examples of this type of texts date to the Middle Kingdom but have some antecedents in the Pyramid Texts; see, for instance, Ibi/S/S 587-596. See Hays 2012Hays , 281, n. 1007and Bickel 2004, 94-96, fig. 2.
Keep an eye on the sail-rope, for I shall work with the man with the steering oar. Keep low to the water, o boy! The port is the perfect way. O master of the water, hold a good course. Keep an eye on the sail rope!"206 In addition, Bolshakov pointed out that the scenes of "boat jousting" offer a new perspective on the symbolic significance of tomb decoration. In his opinion, the meaning behind the boatmen's contests alludes to provisions and offerings to be secured for the deceased and to complement the households for the mortuary cult.207 Furthermore, Altenmüller observed that the scenes of boats in the non-royal tombs of the Old Kingdom referred to the need to ensure access to the day and night boats for the deceased, in a similar fashion to that which particular recitations of the Pyramid Texts stipulate for the king.208 A similar tradition associated with the use of the ferryman texts is the use of net-texts, whose themes and function not only reflect points of contact between the private and royal realms, but also seem to reveal the continuities of the mortuary literature in the Old and Middle Kingdoms.209 Finally, it is also noticeable that there are similarities between certain aspects of the legal royal and private compositions and the idea of the deceased's justification (mAa-xrw) in the Pyramid Texts.210 The conception of death as a transference to the netherworld through the presentation of the deceased before a tribunal,211 the significance of vindication for the integration of the deceased within the realm of the gods,212 and the role of the divine tribunal of Osiris213 are only a few examples derived from the corpus. Strudwick 2005, 417;Kanawati 2001, 42-43, pl. 37;and Junker 1940, 57-61, pls. 3-7. 207 Bolshakov 1993, 36-39. 208 See Altenmüller 2002b, in which the author discusses the relationship of the two types of non-royal boats, Henet and Shabet, with the solar bark used by the king, Mesketet. 209 See Bidoli 1976, 11, n. 3, in which the author associated early representations of Fangnetz-activities in the area of marshes, depicted in Old Kingdom tombs, with the religious themes as found in the later (Middle Kingdom) recitations CT473-480. In addition, Bidoli points out the presence of a list of the parts of a ferryboat in the Sixth Dynasty tomb of KA.j-m-anx (id., 28), which connects it with the Middle Kingdom net and ferryman's texts. For a recent study on the continuities of Old Kingdom ferryman texts and Middle Kingdom ferryman and net texts, see Hays 2006Hays -2007 (with further bibliography on ferryman texts in ns. 15 and 29). 210 See n. 172 above. See also Mathieu 1997a, 289-304;and Mathieu 1997b, 11-28,  213 For the mythical allusion, see Mathieu 2011, esp. 150-151;and Mathieu 1998, 71-78.

Conclusion
In summary, this study argues for a re-interpretation of long-standing assumptions on the origin and development of the Pyramid Texts. It is widely acknowledged that the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts represent the birth of the ancient Egyptian mortuary literature tradition. This intellectual shift, with apparent traces of Memphite-Heliopolitan formulation, culminated at the demise of king Wenis with the monumentalization of ritual voices and deeds on the walls of his pyramid. Underneath the magnitude of Wenis's novelty, however, ancient Egyptians perceived not only the sudden reshaping of the mortuary tradition for the royalty but also a progressive transformation of the process of tradition or Überlieferungsgeschehen, the act of tradition itself.214 The genesis of this gradual process of religious transformation therefore occurred long before the reign of Wenis, when the sacerdotal class envisaged the incipient use of operative papyri as aides-mémoire for the performance of rituals and the control of restricted knowledge. By entextualizing oral recitations, the priests of the early Old Kingdom transferred the ritual discourse to the scriptural media. As the relationship between the original setting of a recitation and its textual counterpart was not severed, the ritual discourse was not decontextualized. Also, the materiality of the new media (papyrus scroll) opened up the possibility to distinguish, arrange and store texts by categories. By the reign of Wenis, the decision to transfer scriptural materials to the walls of the king's pyramid entailed the decontextualization and monumentalization of the recitations and their subsequent detachment from their primary settings. In this study, I have attempted to suggest ways to bridge the gap between the form of the Pyramid Texts in the royal monuments and their original settings. For example, examination of the offering lists from the earliest instances in the first dynasties evidences a clear association with the offering Pyramid Texts. Such a nexus indicates that the setting of the mortuary cult and the provision of offerings was involved in supplying recitational material for the later royal corpus.215 In suggesting that this setting of mortuary cultic service provided these materials for the Pyramid Texts, one could argue that the commitment of the basic ritual instructions in stelae and tomb walls of the early Old Kingdom corresponded to a private process of monumentalization of the oral and scriptural discourse. However, this implementation-which would predate the monumentalization of Wenis's pyramid by several centuries-would be restricted by the tenets of decorum inherent to the domain of high-cultural production. Consequently, in the following dynasties the confines of the private offering lists and other categories of non-royal inscriptions would never attain the dimension of the Memphite creation for Wenis and its ritual corpus as scriptio continua.
Above all, the analysis of the oral-compositional style of the Pyramid Texts corroborates the antiquity of the corpus and its interaction with earlier forms of inscriptional evidence. Alongside this, some scholars have opted to stress the association of mid-Old Kingdom temple inscriptions with the Pyramid Texts.216 Based on the correlation of other textual traditions that do not belong to the context of the temple, I suggest that the royal corpus incorporated not only mortuary service and temple materials, but also other types of recitations associated with magical practices, guilds' ceremonies, local festivities, and even arcana. Additionally, there is also ample evidence in mastaba decoration and its scanty inscriptional testimonies to demonstrate the correspondence of afterlife beliefs between both domains.
In sum, within their own world view, the high officials, priests and courtiers of the late Fifth Dynasty witnessed the culmination of a theological plan for perpetuating mortuary rituals that ensured the beneficial afterlife of the king. In all probability, however, these individuals were not intrigued by the nature of the texts used in the royal corpus, as most of them were familiar with the old recitations "by which anyone becomes an Akh".