A few explanations to the spell in the burial chamber of Neha at el-Qatta previously discussed by H. Schneider (1977) and T. J. Allen (2013). The inscription was believed to provide Neha, after his death, with magical power over representations (probably statuettes) of his “workers-kAwtyw” designed to serve him in the next world. However, as an indispensable condition for the effectiveness of the spell was considered to be the faultlessness of the acquisition of the representations, the latter was asserted in passages resembling an ideal autobiography.
The use of the noun aSAt in parallel with the “workers-kAwtyw” in a couplet in ll. 14–15 corroborates T. M. Shekhab el-Din and O. D. Berlev’s guess about aSAt as a social term for people who are subject to compulsory work assignments but have not yet been assigned to specific jobs. The expression mr(y)t(=f) Ds=f “his own household people” in l. 22 is the Middle Kingdom colloquial equivalent of the mr(y)t=f n(y)t Dt=f, which has survived in Nehery’s tomb at el-Bersheh and on the pedestal of a sculptural group of four figurines from the mastaba of Shepi at Dahshur (CG 512). The latter parallel is of special significance, since in the selection and arrangement of other spells Neha’s burial chamber is also comparable to certain tombs in the Dahshur–Lisht region.
The noun nDs in l. 17 and the use of the word Ds with the meaning “own” in connection with people date the composition to no later than the reign of Senusret I.