Coptos Decrees

The Coptos Decrees are 18 complete or fragmentary ancient Egyptian royal decrees ranging from the 6th Dynasty (2345–2180 BC) to the late 8th Dynasty (c. 2170 BC). The decrees are numbered with letters of the Latin alphabet, starting with "Coptos Decree a" and ending with "Coptos Decree r". The earliest of the series were issued by Pepi I and Pepi II Neferkare to favor the clergy of the temple of Min, while the others are datable to the reign of various kings of the 7th/8th Dynasties, and concern various favors granted to an important official from Coptos named Shemay and to his family members. The decrees reflect the waning of the power of the pharaoh in the early First Intermediate Period.

The Coptos decrees should not be confused with the Coptos Decree of Nubkheperre Intef, a unique document datable to the much later 17th Dynasty.

Ten of the decrees were discovered during the 1910–1911 excavations of the temple of Min at Coptos by Adolphe Reinach and Raymond Weill, working for the Société française des fouilles archéologiques. The decrees had been carefully stowed under the ruins of a Roman mudbrick structure. The remaining decrees originate either from the same excavations or from illegal operations by local people that were sold in Luxor in 1914 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The decrees are inscribed on limestone slabs 7–20 cm (2.8–7.9 in) thick, 100–200 cm (39–79 in) long and 50–180 cm (20–71 in) high which were intended to be set in the mudbrick wall of a gateway or vestibule inside the temple of Min. As time passed, the space available on the temple walls diminished and the Coptos decrees were dismounted and put away to make space for newer decrees which explains their find spot.

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