BIFAO 122

Among the 16 contributions that BIFAO 122 brings together, we should mention the preliminary report of the excavations conducted at Tell el-Samara by a joint team from the IFAO and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which made it possible to uncover, to the east of the Delta, the remains of one of the oldest Egyptian villages known to date; a study on the discovery, in 2019, of stone blocks bearing the name of Ramses II in the masonry of a building in the center of the kôm of Plinthine, which attest to Ramesside involvement in the northern fringe of the Mareotide, which was previously thought to be devoid of occupation before the Ptolemaic period; a re-examination of the chronological data of the reign of Snefru in the light, in particular, of unpublished photographic archives; the presentation of a collection of seals and seal impressions with royal names from the ^6th Dynasty, found in Balat in the southern sector of the Governors' Palace; two studies on funerary masks from the Roman period, with the presentation, for one of them, of a new, unique and complete portrait, and of several fragments found in Philadelphia. The excavations of the Spanish mission at Dra Abou el-Naga are highlighted through two studies, one of which concerns a series of complete pieces in hemp, which provide the opportunity to consider in detail the particularities of the use of hemp, the technical characteristics specific to its manufacture and the known parallels. We should also note the publication of P. Vatican 38566, written by at least two scribes, which highlights a little-known tradition of the Book of the Dead during the Third Intermediate Period, or that of an unusual stele from the Greco-Roman period, probably of Theban origin, belonging to a certain Pachermontou-panakht, whose post-mortem divinization led to his assimilation to Montu-Rê.