Место издания:Русский фонд содействия образованию и науке М
Первая страница:34
Последняя страница:47
Аннотация:Letters by Oleg D. Berlev to Svetlana I. Hodjash in the Archives of the A.S. Pushkin’s State Museum of Fine Arts
The article describes the deposit in the archives of the A.S. Pushkin’s State Museum of Fine Arts containing the correspondence between Sv. Hodjash and Oleg Dmitrievich Berlev (1933 2000), an outstanding Russian Egyptologist of the St.Petersburg’s school, Hodjash’s collaborator in a number of publications (especially Egyptian Reliefs and Stelae in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, 1982, and Sculpture of Ancient Egypt, 2004). The authors analyze a number on letters reflecting Berlev’s interpretation of the phenomenon of Ancient Egyptian scarab-seals (a major object of Hodjash’s research, on which Berlev repeatedly advised her). According to Berlev, the scarab bug was chosen as a symbol of rebirth due to his biologic ability to procreate lavishly, that was manifested in its Egyptian denotation xprr “(the one markedly) able to exist” (the connotation with the image of Chepri seems to Berlev only secondary). The seal was given the form of scarab due to its function to multiply the name it bore (like, otherwise, the forms of frog, babe, calf also bearing the meaning of rebirth); this form of seals appeared in the early Middle Kingdom and initially (as well as later on, from the New Kingdom) could bear only a royal name. The only period when scarab-seals could bear the names of the private persons was the late Middle Kingdom (probably, due to the decline of kingship). Berlev’s interpretation is perfectly original and registered in its full extend only in his letters to Hodjash (the letter did not include it completely in her publication on the subject).