Travelling in space and time. The ‘west' and ‘east' sides of the Harpoon: two geographic divisions of the same nome or two different regions?"

According to the textual sources of the Late Period, the “Western Harpoon” (VII nome) was located in the westernmost part of the Delta, while the “Eastern Harpoon” (VIII nome) occupied an area in the south-eastern Delta. However, a single province of Harpoon without east-west distinction is known from the Fourth Dynasty sources, recorded in an ostrakon (Leiden J427) and on the walls of the Old Kingdom tombs at Saqqara and Abusir. At the end of the Fifth Dynasty, a province called “Harpoon, side west” appeared in the archaeological documentation, on the wall of the tomb of Akhethetep at Saqqara. The east side of the Harpoon is attested only in the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Mehu and it does not seem to refer to the eastern part of the Delta, but simply to an eastern extension of a unique province, the Harpoon. The aim of the paper is to explore the relationship between the west and the east Harpoon (in archaeology and philology), in order to explore the movement of these two nomes across time, in real geography, and inside the theological imaginary of the people (priests), who re-designed the religious topography of the Delta.