Double A for Pamedunakht

We now move to the line for day eleven, where we meet the identity mark of a workman called Pamedunakht. It looks a bit like double A signs. Pamedunakht’s name means ‘The-strong-word’, quite a mouthful, and that may be the reason why his peers also called him Pasen, ‘The-brother’. Remarkably, the identity mark of this man is not related to the way his name or his nickname are written in hieroglyphs or in hieratic. It is, in fact, a geometric shape that does not occur in hieroglyphic or hieratic. We do not know if it had a specific meaning, but it is clear that this mark was used by workmen who lived before Pamedunakht. We also know that some marks were transferable from one generation to the next. So Pamedunakht may have inherited his identity mark from an older family member.

At this point, we understand almost all signs on the ostracon, but there is a final category of signs to discuss. For this, we move back to the line for day ten in the next step.