Sub-project 1.1 (Historiographic and Narrative Literature - Demotic Texts)
José Rafael Saade (M.A.) conducts a new textual analysis and interpretation of one of the most complex Demotic texts: the so-called Demotic Chronicle. Two significant accomplishments have been reached so far:
(a) building on observations by external advisor Prof. Joachim Quack, Saade has identified two distinct literary layers within the text. In this regard, the collaboration between Egyptologists and Hebrew Bible scholars has proven especially fruitful, as Saade has drawn upon methodological approaches from literary criticism and redaction history developed in Hebrew Bible studies;
(b) while previous scholarship sought to associate the Demotic Chronicle with the so-called Deuteronomistic History (Eduard Meyer, Jan Assmann), Saade has identified significant similarities between this text and the corpus of the Pesharim from the Dead Sea Scrolls
The preliminary results of Saade’s research were presented at several conferences and invited lectures:
In April 2024, for example, Saade gave a lecture titled “Inventing History: Commentary Strategies in the so-called Demotic Chronicle” at Brown University, Providence, RI. Additionally, at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, Saade delivered a paper titled “Interpreting the interpretation: An exact date for Nectanebo II’s accession?”
Likewise, the results of collaborative work between Dr Cross and Saade have been presented at international conferences. Notably, at the 2024 Annual Conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies, they presented their joint paper, “‘Chief of the garden, make your hedge stand’: An Egyptian repurposing of the Persian Paradise.”