APPENDIX C
TO start at the very beginning of the Mos action, the tomb inscriptions begin: ‘Copy of the examination [made by] the priest of the [litter] Aniy who was an officer of the court, of the Hunpet of the shipmaster Neshi [which was in the] village of Neshi, as follows:
‘“I arrived at the village of Neshi, the place where the lands are and of which the citizeness Ur[nero] and the citizeness Takharu spoke. They assembled the heirs of [Neshi] together with the notables of the town … ” ’1
It was, as we saw in Chapter Nine, the mother of Khayri who began legal proceedings in Year 14-plus – the number of months is missing – of Ramses II to establish her son’s ownership of the land, arguing that he was the descendant of Neshi through his grandmother, Urnero. In the tomb account of the events that followed Khayri is referred to by name only once and is elsewhere called mos (the son and heir), to indicate his claim as the rightful inheritor: ‘Then Nubnofret, my (Mos’s) mother, came to cultivate the share of Neshi, my father.2 [But] one prevented the cultivation of it. She complained against the trustee Khay (the defendant). One [caused them to appear before] the [vizier] (in) Heliopolis in Year 14-plus of king [Usermre-Setepenre] Ramses Meiamun, given life.’3
In the latter stages of the action the word mos is again used, but in this case to establish that Huy, the father of the plaintiff, was the rightful heir of Neshi, the original owner of the land. After the goatherd Mesman came:
Papa, priest of the temple of Ptah: ‘I knew … [the scribe Huy], the child (mos) of Urnero [who] cultivated this land [year] by year. He having been engaged in cultivating it while saying: “I am the child (mos) of Urnero, daughter of Neshi.” ’
[Hori], bee-keeper of the Treasury of Pharaoh: ‘[As to the scribe Huy], (he was the) child (mos) of Urnero, and as to Urnero (she was the) daughter of Neshi.’
Nebnufer, chief of the stable: ‘As to the scribe Huy, he used [to cultivate his lands year] by year. He acted according to all his desire(s). They carried in for him the crops of the fields year by year. He used to dispute with the citizeness Takharu (his mother’s sister), mother of the soldier Sementawi, and then he disputed with Sementawi her son so that [the land] should be given [to] Huy and they were confirmed.’
Citizeness Tentpaihay: ‘As Amun endures, and as the ruler endures, if I speak falsely, let me be (banished) to the back of the house. As to [the scribe Huy] (he is) the child [mos] of Urnero, and as to Urnero, (she is) the daughter of Neshi.’