SANDBOX ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LITERATURE2

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William Simpson's The Literature of Ancient Egypt

Simpson, William Kelly. (1972). The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry. Edited by William Kelly Simpson. Translations by R.O. Faulkner, Edward F. Wente, Jr., and William Kelly Simpson. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300014821.

Introduction

Page 1-2: Paraphrasing her, Simpson basically says that the monuments and art of ancient Egypt are well known to the general public, but the extent of its literature is still (in 1972) only known by specialists in the field partly because of a lack of translations, but also because she says that Egypt really had no Homer, Aristotle, or Virgil to speak of.
Page 2-3: QUOTE: "When the Egyptian language was gradually deciphered in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the texts proved to be of an extremely heterogeneous nature. They included ledgers, inventories, payrolls, distribution lists of foodstuffs and equipment, and letters—all the usual components of a busy economy. Not unexpectedly, many of the inscriptions belong to the category of religious texts: hymns, prayers, rituals, and guidebooks to the underworld and the hereafter. On the temple walls are illustrated manuals of temple service and illustrated chronicles of the kings: their battles, conquests, and lists of tribute. In the tomb chapels of the officials are formulas relating to the provisioning of the funerary cult, a sort of perpetual care, and texts of a biographical nature relating their careers and describing in often stereotyped phrases their ethical probity. The texts from ancient Egypt include matters as diverse as the accounts of lawsuits, trials of thieves, medical and veterinary manuals, and magical spells against scorpions and other creatures."
Page 3: QUOTE: "Within the mass of material studied by several generations of Egyptologists there has emerged a series of compositions which can unquestionably be regarded as literature in our sense. The closest parallels are to be found in other parts of the ancient Near East in the literatures of Mesopotamia and the people of the Old Testament. These compositions are narratives and tales, teachings (instructions), and poetry. Their identification, study, and analysis is a scholarly endeavor in its early stages, yet progressing rapidly; scholars of many countries are constantly contributing the results of their studies."
Page 3-4: QUOTE: "For some of these texts a single, complete papyrus has survived. For others a few poor copies can be eked out with the help of numerous fragmentary excerpts on potsherds and limestone flakes. Still others lack the beginning or end, or both. Not a few compositions are known by title or a few sentences only, and there remains the slim chance that luck or excavation will produce more of the text."
Page 4: QUOTE: "The compositions in the anthology at hand have been selected on the basis of literary merit or pretensions thereto, with a few additions. The selections from the pyramid texts, the hymns in honor of Sesostris III, and the great hymn to the sun of Akhenaten belong strictly speaking to the religious literature. Similarly, the poem of victory in the stela of Thutmose III has parallels in the historical texts and is not literary in itself. But the literary merit and interest of these selections warrant their inclusion. There are other literary texts which we would have wished to include and which may be added in a second edition, notably The Satire on the Trades, The Plaintiff of Memphis (the tale of King Neferkare and the General), The Instruction of Ani, and The Satirical Letter of Hori to Amenemope, as well as several fragmentary compositions of various periods, and the Late Egyptian Miscellanies, the often copied exercise pieces assigned to apprentice scribes. Yet R.O. Faulkner, one of the collaborations in this enterprise, has remarked that Erman in his anthology cast his net far too wide."
Page 4-5: QUOTE: "The compositions have been arranged mainly by type rather than by date. The first section, the narratives and tales of the Middle Kingdom, consists of King Cheops and the Magicians, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, The Shipwrecked Sailor, and The Story of Sinuhe. These were probably set down in Dynasty 12 (1991-1786 B.C.), although the first relates events of the Old Kingdom and the foundation of Dynasty 5 (2494-2345 B.C.), and the Eloquent Peasant is set in Dynasty 9/10. The second section comprises the narratives of the New Kingdom, Dynasties 18-20 (1554-1085 B.C.), which are known as the Late Egyptian Stories since they are written in Late Egyptian. This section is the work of Wente and incorporates many new ideas on his part. The tales included are The Quarrel of Apophis and Sekenenre, The Capture of Joppa, The Tale of the Doomed Prince, The Tale of the Two Brothers, The Contendings of Horus and Seth, The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood, Astarte and the Insatiable Sea, A Ghost Story, and The Report of Wenamon. The last is a literary report relating events in the first years of Dynasty 21. The third section, comprising wisdom or instruction literature and the lamentations and dialogues, encompasses a wide chronological range. The Maxims of Ptahhotpe [sic], The Teaching for Merikare, The Teaching of King Amenemes I to His Son Sesostris, The Man Who Was Tired of Life, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage, and the Prophecies of Neferti are presented in translations with notes by Faulkner. The Teachings for Kagemni, The Lamentations of Khakheperresonbe, The Loyalist Instruction, and The Instruction of Amenemope are the work of Simpson. In the fourth section are included songs, poetry, and hymns. The Poetry from the Oldest Religious Literature (the Pyramid Texts) and The Victorious King (stela of Thutmose III) are translated by Faulkner. The Cycle of Songs in Honor of Sesostris III, The Hymn to the Aten, and the Love Songs and The Song of the Harper have been prepared by Simpson."
Page 5-6: QUOTE: "Of the genres included, the most comprehensive is narrative. The term includes a wide variety of elements, purposes, and aspects. The Sailor and Sinuhe are ostensibly straightforward tales. Both have been recently explained, however, as lehrhafte Stücke, instructions or teachings in the guise of narratives, with the protagonists, the unnamed sailor and Sinuhe, as models for the man of the times, expressions of the cultural virtues of self-reliance, adaptation to new circumstances, love of home, and so forth. It is perhaps significant that there is no Egyptian term for narrative or story as such. A term mdt nfrt is usually rendered as belles lettres or fine speech. Otherwise, the terms for writings or sayings are employed. King Cheops and the Magicians is cast in the form of a cycle of stories, the recitation before the king of the marvels performed by the great magicians of the past, yet it concludes with a politically oriented folk tale of the birth of the first three kings of Dynasty 5. The narrative of the Peasant is a framework for an exhibition of eloquent speech in which injustice is denounced. In the Late Egyptian Stories the protagonists are frequently the gods, and the worlds of myth, religion, and folk history mingle."
Page 6: QUOTE: "The one genre for which the Egyptians had a specific term, sboyet, is the instruction or teaching. In almost every case these compositions begin with the heading, 'the instruction of X made for Y.' The practicality and pragmaticism [sic] of the advice given by Ptahhotpe [sic] and the author of the Instruction for Kagemni are frequently contrasted with the piety expressed in the later Instruction of Amenemope. The two earlier instructions are set in the form of advice given to a son by the vizier. The two royal instructions, Merikare and Ammenemes I, are of a different nature; they are political pieces cast in instruction form."
Page 6-7: QUOTE: "A third genre is lamentation and dialogue, of which The Lamentations of Khakheperre-sonbe, The Admonitions, and The Man Tired of Life are the main compositions. Each is extant in a single manuscript. The Prophecies of Neferti, on the other hand, was a popular text, to judge by the frequent Ramesside copies. Of similar nature are the nine speeches of the Peasant, although we have classified it under narrative."
Page 7: QUOTE: "As a last category one can isolate the love poems and banquet songs. The love songs have survived only from the New Kingdom, but it is likely that the lyric was represented in the classical literature also. There are traces of songs in the tomb reliefs of the Old Kingdom."
Page 7-8: QUOTE: "Recent study has singled out two not mutually exclusive aspects for special attention: a literature of propaganda and a literature of pessimism. Under the former are grouped those compositions which have in common the theme of extolling the king or royal dynasty. The Loyalist Instruction is a prime example, and the theme is also developed in its most unadulterated form in the cycle of Hymns in Honor of Sesostris III. Three compositions relate to the beginning of Dynasty 12. The Prophecies of Neferti, although ostensibly set in Dynasty 4, foretell the dire straits of the land and the restoration of Egypt under a savior king, Ammenemes I. The same king's Instruction is an apologia for his life and a manifesto in favor of his son Sesostris I. The third composition is Sinuhe, a narrative beginning with the death of Ammenemes I and presenting a highly favorable view of his successor, Sesostris I. All three compositions were recopied extensively in Ramesside times. The literature of pessimism comprises those compositions in which the land is described in great disorder, such as the just cited Prophecies of Neferti, the Lamentations, and the Admonitions. Here the theme is associated with the ideas of social and religious change. On a personal, psychological level The Man Who Was Tired of Life belongs to this category; it expresses most poignantly the man's distress and his necessary reorientation of values:"

To whom can I speak today?

Brothers are evil.

And the friends of today unlovable.

To whom can I speak today?

Gentleness has perished,

And the violent man has come down on everyone.

Page 8: QUOTE: "Portions of the royal instructions and The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant reflect elements of the same pessimistic background."
Page 8-9: QUOTE: "With a few exceptions the texts in this anthology are translated from manuscripts written in hieratic in ink on papyrus. Hierartic is the cursive form of the hieroglyphic and bears roughly the same relation to the latter as our handwriting does to the type set in books or typewritten material. Texts are written horizontally from right to left or vertically, with the first column on the right. Papyrus is a vegetable precursor of paper which was rolled for safekeeping; over a period of years it becomes extremely brittle and is always subject to insect damage. Hence many of these texts have large sections missing as well as frequent damages within an otherwise well-preserved sheet. Use was also made of writing boards, wooden tablets coated with stucco to receive the ink. A very common writing material is the limestone flake or potsherd, and extensive texts written in ink have survived on these unlikely materials. Black ink and a reed pen were the scribe's mainstays; he also used red ink for contrast in headings, corrections, and account totals."
Page 9-10: A discussion of grammar here, and how it is difficult to determine if a line in poetry QUOTE: "belongs to the end of one stanza or the beginning of the next."
Page 10: QUOTE: "There is prose, poetry, and symmetrically structured speech, although the dividing line is not necessarily sharp. A few texts are written in short lines, as is modern poetry. Yet the same composition may be found written continuously. The latter is the usual practice. Only a few of the texts set as poetry in this volume were written in short lines in the manuscript. In New Kingdom texts large dots above the line serve as a sort of punctuation, and these help in ascertaining divisions. Red ink was used for headings, a device equivalent to our paragraphing. Some translators set these rubrics in small capitals. In our volume we have not used them except as a guide for paragraphing."

Narratives and Tales of Middle Egyptian Literature

King Cheops and the Magicians

Page 15: QUOTE: "This cycle of stories about the marvels performed by the lector priests is cast in the form of a series of tales told at the court of Cheops by his sons. The name of the first son is missing together with most of the story. The second son, Khaefre, later became king and is known as the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza. The third son, Bauefre, is known from other sources; a later text indicates that he may have also become king for a short time. The fourth son, Hardedef, is known as one of the sages of the past, and part of his instruction has survived."
Page 15: QUOTE: "The text derives from a single manuscript of which the beginning and conclusion are missing. The papyrus was inscribed in the Hyksos period before Dynasty 18, but the composition appears to belong to Dynasty 12; the events described are set in the Old Kingdom. The last story is a prophecy of the end of Cheops's line through the birth of the three kings who founded Dynasty 5. The story of their actual birth is presented as a sort of annex. Elements of the miraculous royal birth are represented in later Egyptian and Near Eastern literature and even are reflected in the biblical accounts. The device of providing stories for the diversion of the king is also represented in The Prophecies of Neferti, The Admonitions, and The Eloquent Peasant, as well as several later compositions. The real substance of the composition is certainly the prophecy of the birth of the kings, and the other tales merely lead up to it."

The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant

Page 31: QUOTE: "This work was popular during the Middle Kingdom. Although cast in the form of a tale, it was primarily intended for a conscious literary essay in what the Egyptians regarded as fine writings. The introductory narrative is straightforward, but the peasant's speeches are, to modern taste, unduly repetitive, with high-flown language and constant harping on a few metaphors. However, as a form of writing which appealed to the educated Egyptian, the work could not be excluded from any anthology of Egyptian literature."

The Shipwrecked Sailor

Page 50: QUOTE: "The tale of the sailor is preserved in a single manuscript of the early Middle Kingdom, and it has been suggested that it was written in Dynasty 11. Unlike so many other compositions extant through only one text, it seems to be complete from beginning to end, although the real beginning may be cut off. It begins abruptly with an expedition commander's aide addressing him to console him on an unsuccessful expedition to the south. In trying to cheer him up, the aide relates a set of similar experiences which he had. In the course of these a serpent relates a story. There is a story within a story within a story. The nature and location of the Island of Ka, the enchanted island reached by the sailor, are still subjects for discussion. Some view the entire tale as a sort of psychological journey. At the end of the story the commander speaks his only words; they suggest that he is downcast at the thought of reporting on his unsuccessful mission. The tale represents one of the earliest examples of a narrative quarrying report such as might be found in the Hamamat Valley or the Sinai. The real import of the tale perhaps escapes us. It has recently been suggested that the sailor serves as a model for the man of the times in the same way as does Sinuhe."

The Story of Sinuhe

Page 57: QUOTE: "The Story of Sinuhe is regarded by many as a more or less factual account of the adventures of an Egyptian courtier copied from the inscription in his tomb. No trace of the real Sinuhe, however, has yet been found through tomb reliefs, statuary, or stelae. In its present form the story is a narrative of interest—given its development, the psychology of the protagonist, the use of language, and the picture of the times in Syria and Palestine—and of considerable literary merit. Sinuhe is a resourceful man of his times, a prototype of the proper official at a time of rising prosperity in Egypt and its relations abroad. Impelled by some inner force he cannot explain to flee from the court, he makes his own way and recognizes later both the necessity to return to his king and the advantage of a traditional burial and funerary rites. The story begins with the death of the founder of Dynasty 12, Ammenemes I, in 1961 B.C. and the report of his death made to the army headed by his son, coregent, and successor, Sesostris I. The treatment of the latter in the story is excellent propaganda."
Page 57: QUOTE: "With the exception of religious texts and various standard formulas, no other composition is represented in as many copies or partial copies. Two papyri of Dynasties 12 and 13 provide a fairly complete text. In the Ramesside period in Dynasties 19 and 20 master scribes and their students copied the text in school on limestone flakes (ostraca). One of these has virtually the whole text inscribed on both sides of a large flake."

Late Egyptian Stories

The Quarrel of Apophis and Seknenre

Page 77: QUOTE: "For nearly a century Asiatic Hyksos rulers and their vassals had dominated Egypt, controlling the Delta and Middle Egypt. This Ramesside story of the origins of the conflict between Thebes in the south and the Hyksos King Apophis must be evaluated critically against documents contemporaneous with the war of the expulsion of the Hyksos. For in later times there was a tendency to exaggerate the harshness of Hyksos domination and their impiety toward the gods of the Egyptian pantheon other than Seth, whom the Hyksos may have identified with Baal...In the Ramesside historical romance King Apophis, seeking to agitate the Theban ruler Seknenre, presents him with a fantastic complaint. It is possible that the lost continuation of the story would have presented more substantive immediate causes for the war that ensued. Although King Seknenre's mummy shows that he met with a violent death, it is probably that he did not die in battle against the Hyksos, as is frequently maintained, for an inscription of Seknenre's son and successor Kamose indicates that the war of the expulsion was initiated by Kamose. This war, continued by Kamose's brother Ahmose, paved the way for the formation of the Egyptian empire in Dynasty 18."

The Capture of Joppa

Page 81: QUOTE: "The great pharaoh Menkheperre Thutmose III of Dynasty 18 had probably secured the vassalage of the Prince of Joppa during his initial campaign into Syro-Palestine. Subsequently Joppa, modern Jaffa, on the coast of southern Palestine, rebelled against Egyptian domination. The story The Capture of Joppa concerns the subjugation of the rebellious town by Djehuty, a prominent general and garrison commander under Thutmose III. Although the beginning of his fantastic story is lost, it can be surmised that the two contenders had met outside the town unarmed to discuss the situation. With the soldiers reduced to drunkenness, Djehuty offers to deliver himself and his family to the Prince of Joppa as part of his strategem for recapturing Joppa. The introduction of baskets concealing soldiers into the town is reminiscent of the story of the Trojan horse and the tale of Ali Baba and his forty thieves. There is another fragmentary Ramesside story about Thutmose III's military activity published by Giuseppe Botti, 'A Fragment of the Story of a Military Expedition of Thutmose III to Syrua,' JEA 41 (1955): 64-71."

The Tale of the Doomed Prince

Page 85: QUOTE: "Although written in the simple and rather monotonous style characteristic of stories of the New Kingdom, this tale, as far as it is preserved, captures the reader's interest in its narration of the adventures of a young Egyptian crown prince. Like The Story of Sinuhe, the theme is that of the Egyptian abroad, but in this later story little attention is given to providing local color. Rather the emphasis is upon plot. The reader, who has initially been informed of the boy's true identity and the three possible fates that may ultimately prevail over him, seeks to learn how the youth will finally reveal his royal background to the foreigners among whom he lives and to see how Fate operates."
Page 85: QUOTE: "As J. Sainte Fare Garnot has pointed out (in Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique 43 [Paris, 1950]: 230-38, and in 'Colloque de Strasbourg, 17-19 mai 1962,' Les Sagesses du Proche-Orient ancien [Paris, 1963], p. 120) this story is illustrative of a certain degree of flexibility in the Egyptian concept of predestination. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the tale is lost to us, so that the reader's whetted appetite remains unsatisfied. Drawing attention to a parallel in Diodorus Siculus, Georges Posener (in JEA 39 [1953]: 107) has suggested a happy ending to the story and indicated as well the mythological connotations of certain of the episodes."

The Tale of Two Brothers

Page 92: QUOTE: "This story is based upon a myth that concerned two gods of the Cynopolite or Seventeenth Nome of Middle Egypt (see J. Yoyotte, Revue d'Egyptologie 9 [1952]: 157-59; J. Vandier, Le Papyrus Jumilhac [Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, n.d.] pp. 45-46, 105-06; Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, 2:103^*-06^*, and his The Wilbour Papyrus [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948], 2:50-51) and may reflect an ancient conflict between two neighboring towns that became unified just as the two divine protagonists are reconciled. The elder brother, Anubis, is well known to us, mainly through his role as god of the dead and embalming, but the hero of the tale, Bata or Bet, is less often encountered in the documentation surviving from ancient Egypt. Bata seems originally to have been a pastoral god, whose cult image was in the form of a mummified ram (the Old Kingdom evidence is discussed by Peter Seibert in Die Charakteristik [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1967], Pt. 1, pp. 59-67), but sources later than the Old Kingdom indicate that Bata was primarily a bull, one of the forms he adopts in the story. In a number of Old Kingdom tomb chapels Bata appears as the subject of a peasant's song, while from the late period the Papyrus Jumilhac provides a version of the myth in which Bata is identified with Seth, and Anubis is the hero."
Page 92-93: QUOTE: "Egyptian religious texts, such as the Pyramid Texts, contain many mythological allusions, but the absence of a running mythological account is striking. One form in which mythical concepts were transmitted as an expression of the Egyptian faith was the popular story which might be told by a raconteur in the marketplace. It is obvious that The Tale of the Two Brothers is not an 'official' version of the myth as transmitted through the ages; its vernacular language and such a matter as Bata's appointment to be Viceroy of Kush betray the adaptation of the myth to a changing world. Through the mythically based short story, the commoner in ancient Egypt was able to participate in a form of religious education. It would be wrong to view knowledge about the gods as the prerogative of a select class of priests; the public may have been far more knowledgeable in religious affairs than has often been maintained."

The Contendings of Horus and Seth

Page 108: QUOTE: "This, the longest of the New Kingdom stories, is perhaps the one with the least literary merit, for there is very little in the way of suspense that serves to carry the reader's interest throughout the narration of the story. It is the theme of Horus's superiority over his rival Seth that serves to bind together an episodically constructed tale, whose narrative style is especially monotonous. It has been suggested (see Joachim Spiegel, Die Ezrählung vom Streite des Horus und Seth in Pap. Beatty I als Literaturwerk [Glückstadt: J.J. Augustine 1937]) that the basic composition of The Contendings goes back to the early Middle Kingdom and that what is preserved to us is a rendition in the colloquial language of the New Kingdom. However, the early Middle Kingdom works of literature are considerably more sophisticated compositions, and even the religious literature from the First Intermediate Period may attain greater heights in utilizing the subtleties of the Egyptian language."
Page 108-109: QUOTE: "The Contendings is best appreciated in terms of the function of the mythically oriented short story during the New Kingdom. This particular story is preserved to us on a papyrus that contains some other compositions of literary worth, so that it would seem that the papyrus may have been used by its owner for the purpose of entertaining himself and others. The behavior of some of the great gods is at points so shocking that it is hard to imagine that no humor was intended. Yet at the same time the story provides the reader with basic mythical concepts. Such a dichotomy between coarse humor, even about the gods, and seriousness in religious is an aspect of the Ramesside age, a period when men could both enjoy excesses in life and yet be extremely pietistic...In fact, the episode which Isis harpoons the two rivals who had transformed themselves into hippopotamuses appears in two papyri that are calendars of lucky and unlucky days (Papyrus Sallier IV...). Thus in one context the passage might be enjoyed for its humor, while in the other it might be regarded in seriousness by people who were superstitious concerning each day's undertakings."

The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood

Page 127: QUOTE: "In Egyptian texts and iconography the concept of Truth is regularly personified as the goddess Maat, the daughter of Re. However, in this allegorical tale Truth is conceived of as a male who was blinded at his brother Falsehood's behest because of the circumstances, not quite clear, involving Truth's treatment of a dagger that belonged to Faleshood. The theme of sibling rivalry is reminiscent of the Horus and Seth feud and The Tale of the Two Brothers. In none of these myths or stories is the antagonist totally annihilated, but rather a resolution is effected so that a harmonious situation is achieved with the elimination of further strife. Such a resolution of conflicting opposites is typically Egyptian and reflects the application of the principle of Maat, which embraces the concepts of balance and harmony as well as truth. One's appreciation of this short story would be enhanced if its beginning were preserved."

Astarte and the Insatiable Sea

Page 133: QUOTE: "This poorly preserved story is included in the collection because of its treatment of a theme found elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature. Some have proposed that the Egyptian version is directly dependent upon a Canaanite original (see Theodor H. Gaster, 'The Egyptian 'Story of Astarte' and the Ugaritic Poem of Baal,' BiOr 9 [1952]: 82-85 and 232), but Georges Posener ('La Légende égyptienne de la mer insatiable,' Annuaire de I'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 13 [1953]: 461-78) has argued that the roots of this legend of the conflict between the gods and the sea are to be found in indigenous Egyptian religious thought already as early as the First Intermediate Period, when the Instructions for Merikare was composed. The New Kingdom legend of the hostile and greedy sea is thus only superficially akin to West Semitic accounts through the inclusion of the Semitic goddess Astarte, the substitution of Seth, the equivalent of Baal, for Re, and the use of the Semitic word for sea to describe the liquid element. In this way an ancient myth was modernized for the more cosmopolitan Egyptian of the Empire period."

A Ghost Story

Page 137: QUOTE: "This Egyptian ghost story, incompletely preserved on a number of Ramesside ostraca, lacks the spooky quality that moderns associate with this genre of literature. Death for the deceased Egyptian who had undergone the rites of beatification was an extension of life, and as the practice of festal banqueting in tomb chapels indicates, rapport between the living and the dead was by no means always a gloomy affair. The living could communicate with the dead by means of letters, and in the Teaching of Ammenemes the dead king is conceived of as imparting advice to his son and successor. Egyptian ghosts were not so much eerie beings as personalities to whom the living reacted pragmatically."
Page 137: QUOTE: "Although the High Priest Khonsemhab was probably a fictitious character, the setting of the story in the Theban necropolis was familiar to its readers who lived and worked in western Thebes. We may assume that the story concluded with the successful completion of the spirit's tomb under Khonsemhab's direction."

The Report of Wenamon

Page 142: QUOTE: "The Report of Wenamun stands apart from the other New Kingdom stories in that it is an actual account of an Egyptian who traveled abroad at the end of the New Kingdom for the purpose of obtaining pine from Byblos in Phoenicia. The very format of the papyrus on which the report is written puts it into the category of official documents...Nonetheless, Wenamon's report is included in this volume because he did make a conscious effort to transform what may have originally been rough entries in a diary into a polished account that has literary merit."
Page 142: QUOTE: "It has been customary to see in this report a vivid illustration of the decay of Egyptian prestige abroad at the end of the New Kingdom. Byblos, over the millennia, had had close commercial ties with Egypt, a land where good wood was scarce. There is the possibility that the difficult attitude adopted by the Prince of Byblos toward Wenamon arose not so much because of Egypt's overall decline in the eyes of the world but rather because Wenamon did not really represent the sovereign King of Egypt in his dealings. If it had been an envoy of the still reigning King Ramesses XI, the Prince of Byblos might have responded differently."

Instructions, Lamentations, and Dialogues

The Maxims of Ptahhotpe [sic]

Page 159: QUOTE: "This manual of good and polite conduct is one of the most difficult of Egyptian literary texts, but at the same time it is an excellent example of a genre of great popularity in Ancient Egypt. The earliest manuscript of this work is the Prisse Papyrus, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; it dates from the early Middle Kingdom and by good fortune is complete; another early manuscript, unfortunately fragmentary, is in the British Museum. It would appear that in later times the Egyptians themselves found this text difficult to understand, and in the New Kingdom a second edition was produced in which the original text underwent a good deal of emendation; this later version is represented most fully by British Museum Papyrus 10509. The following translation is based entirely on the Prisse Papyrus, as being the oldest and therefore most authentic."

The Teaching for the Vizier Kagemni

Page 177: QUOTE: "The last part of this text is preserved in the Papyrus Prisse, which also contains the main text of the Maxims of Ptahhotpe. The author was evidently the father of Kagemni, and it has been conjectured that he was the sage Kaires cited in the passage about the writers of the past in Papyrus Chester Beatty IV (see quotation at beginning of our introduction). The text has been translated and studied by A.H. Gardiner...to which additional comments were made by W. Federn...The Instruction is similar to that of Ptahhotpe to the extent that it is preserved."

The Teaching for Merikare

Page 180: QUOTE: "The principal source for this text is a papyrus in Leningrad which dates from the New Kingdom, first studied by A.H. Gardiner in JEA 1 (1914): 20-36. It is in rather poor condition, for of the first twenty lines only isolated sentences or parts of sentences are preserved, so that no connected sense can be extracted from this part of the text, and even later there are still numerous lacunae. Moreover, the scribe Khamwese, who copied this work, was far from careful. Some help is afforded, however, by other manuscripts which, though even more fragmentary, do come to the rescue in places. The text itself is interesting, both because it is a treatise on kingship addressed by a king whose name is lost to his son and successor Merikare, and because it sheds some light on an obscure period of Egyptian history in what is known as the First Intermediate Period, when kings of the Akhtoy family of Dynasty 9/10 ruled northern Egypt form Heracleopolis and a rival dynasty of Inyotefs had their capital at Thebes. Our text makes allusion to the intermittent war that raged between them. As a matter of historical fact, the southern kingdom ultimately overcame the northern to form Dynasty 11 over all Egypt, but that still lay in the future so far as The Teaching is concerned. Apart from the title of the work, the present translation begins in the middle of line 21 of the Leningrad papyrus."

The Teaching of King Ammenemes I to his Son Sesostris

Page 193: QUOTE: "This text purports to be the posthumous advice of King Ammenemes I, who almost certainly was assassinated, to his son, heir, and coregent, Sesostris I. The work must have been looked on as a classic in ancient times, as some seventy copies of parts of it are extant today. The principal and by far the best source for the text is a document known as the Millingen Papyrus, but the original is lost, and we are now dependent upon a hand copy made over a century ago by Peyron (see J. Lopez, in Revue d'Egyptologie 15 [1963]: 29-33). This papyrus was a good text in three pages of manuscript, but unfortunately the third page was destroyed except for the beginnings of the lines, so for the last part of the work we are dependent on the corrupt Papyrus Sallier II and some extracts on ostraca and on a writing board in the Brooklyn Museum. Though the 'teaching' is put in the mouth of Ammenemes I, it was undoubtedly composed under Sesostris I by a scribe named Akhtoy, and it takes a jaundiced, not to say a misanthropic view of the relations of a king with his subordinates: 'trust no brother, know no friend' is the keynote. Judging by the disillusioned, bitter expression on the faces of some of the statues of a later king of the dynasty, Sesostris III, it would seem that he shared this distrust of those about the person of the monarch."

The Loyalist Instruction from the Sehetepibre Stela

Page 198: QUOTE: "The composition which Georges Posener has designated The Loyalist Instruction is known, mainly through his efforts, from two papyri, a tablet, and over twenty ostraca with fragments of the text. These are Ramesside copies except for the tablet (early Dynasty 18), the Louvre papyrus (second half of Dynasty 18), and the stela of Sehetepibre (Dynasty 12). Posener has hazarded the guess that the sage Ptahemdjehuty, known from the list of authors in Papyrus Chester Beatty IV, was the author."
Page 198: QUOTE: "The text comprises two sections, the first admonishing the author's children to respect and obey the king, and the second outlining the nature of the people. An abridged version of the first part is represented in the stela of Sehetepibre, a high official of Sesostris III and Amenemhat III of Dynasty 12. This is the oldest copy of a part of the text, and it is translated here, following Kuentz and Posener, since it is the only consecutive text available. An edition of the instruction with the parallel texts and material not yet published remains to be done."

The Man Who Was Tired of Life

Page 201: QUOTE: "This remarkable Middle Kingdom text, contained in Papyrus Berlin 3024, consists of a dialogue between a disillusioned and despairing man and his soul on the topic of the use of going on living; the speaker sees death as the only escape from the miseries of the world as he sees it, and yet hesitates to take the plunge; the soul likewise vacillates between living and dying, but finally decides in favor of life. Unfortunately, the beginning of the manuscript is lost, and there are lacunae at the start of the existing text, but thereafter it is in good condition."

The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage

Page 210: QUOTE: "This text, first edited in detail by Sir Alan Gardiner in 1909, refers to a period when Egypt was in a state of anarchy, most probably the First Intermediate Period, the time between the collapse of the Old Kingdom and the rise of the Middle Kingdom, although this dating is not universally accepted. The actual manuscript, written on the recto of the Leiden Papyrus No. 344 and probably of Nineteenth Dynasty date, is clearly a copy of a much earlier work written in Middle Egyptian, the original composition of which may well belong to the earlier part of Dynasty 12, when the calamity of the proceeding revolution and civil wars would still have been fresh in the memory of the nation."
Page 210: QUOTE: "The papyrus in which the composition is preserved has lost both its beginning and its end, and is full of lacunae, while many textual corruptions and careless omissions have crept in. Nevertheless, the situation is clear: a wise man named Ipuwer is addressing an unnamed king whose identity may have been given in the lost beginning of the text. He describes the chaotic state into which the realm has fallen and blames the king for his failure to keep order; the sage urges the king to 'destroy the enemies of the august Residence' and to attend to his religious duties so as to bring the gods to his aid; the attributes of the monarch should be authority, knowledge, and truth, yet the present incumbent has let the land fall into confusion."
Page 210: QUOTE: "The work as a whole is not likely to have been contemporary with the state of affairs it describes, but may have been written not long after the restoration of law and order. It may have been intended as a lesson in kingship by way of showing the monarch the consequences of misrule. On the other hand, it may have had a political purpose of supporting the reigning dynasty by contrasting its beneficent rule with the chaos which had gone before."
Page 210-211: QUOTE: "By a typically Egyptian literary device, the text falls largely into groups of paragraphs. Those of the first group all begin with the word indeed; they are followed by a series in which behold is the first word; other keywords are destroyed, destroy, remember, and the phrase it is good when..."

The Lamentations of Khakheperre-sonbe

Page 230: QUOTE: "The author of our lamentations is included in the list of the authors of old, the great sages of the past, in Papyrus Chester Beatty IV. Our text recalls The Admonitions of Ipuwer, The Prophecies of Neferti, and The Man Who Was Tired of Life. In common with the first two, it describes the plight of a disorganized land in a time of troubles. Like the third, it has a discourse with the man's other self. If it were not that The Lamentations is a dialogue with the heart and The Man Tired of Life a dialogue with the soul (ba), one might suspect that The Lamentations represents a reworking of the lost beginning of the latter."
Page 230: QUOTE: "The text is written on both sides of a writing board of Dynasty 18 in the British Museum (No. 5645). It was probably composed in the Middle Kingdom or the Second Intermediate Period. The board is covered with a network of string over which stucco has been washed to form the writing surface, and it is pierced for suspension from a wall or hook...A portion of the text also occurs on an ostracon in the Egytpian Museum in Cairo...The last line in the text is complete but lacks any indication that it represents the end of the composition. Perhaps the composition was continued on another tablet."

The Prophecies of Neferti

Page 234: QUOTE: "Ammenemes I, the first king of Dynasty 12, gained his throne by usurpation from the ruling family of the Mentuhotpes, and to ensure his position used a certain amount of written propaganda, outstandingly represented by the present text...It opens with a situation which recalls that in Cheops and the Magicians. King Snefru of Dynasty 4 is represented as seeking entertainment, and his courtiers recommend to him a sage named Neferti. He is ushered in to the Presence and asked to speak about the future. Neferti thereupon foretells a whole series of calamities which will befall the land, but prophesies that order and prosperity will be restored by the advent of a King Ameny—that is, Ammenemes I; the text is indeed a blatant political pamphlet designed to support the new regime. The principal source of the text is a papyrus in Leningrad which is a copy of New Kingdom date. It is not a perfect copy either in preservation or in accuracy, but there are numerous minor sources on writing tablets and ostraca which provide some help."

The Instruction of Amenemope

Page 241: QUOTE: "This major text was first made available for study in 1923 through the publication of a magnificent, virtually complete manuscript in the British Museum (B.M. 10474). The text is written in short lines like poetry, and the sections are consecutively numbered from chapter 1 to 30. Portions of the text are also known from writing boards in the Turin Museum, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and the Louvre, an ostracon in Cairo, and a fragmentary papyrus in Stockholm. A still unpublished thesis on the text by J. Ruffle was presented at Liverpool University in 1964, and a study by Irene Grumach is due to be published presently. Bibliographical information about this important text can be followed through the articles by B.J. Peterson in JEA 52 (1966): 120-28, and R.J. Williams in JEA 47 (1961): 100-06, the latter a convincing refutation of the suggestion that the text is a translation of a Semitic original. There are indeed close parallels between verses in Amenemope and the Book of Proverbs, especially Proverbs 22:17, 24:22. For the most part, however, the concepts presented in Amenemope are present in earlier Egyptian instruction literature and must be viewed in that context. The contrast between the intemperate, hot-headed man and the tranquil, truly silent man is one of the main themes of the text. The present consensus places the date of the composition in the New Kingdom, although the manuscripts in the main do not predate Dynasty 21. The author of The Instruction was a resident of Akhmim in the Panopolite nome north of Abydos. This was the area from which the family of Queen Teye came, and one might suggest as a date for the composition the years just before the Amarna period, perhaps the reign of Amenhotpe III."
Page 241-242: QUOTE: "A new and reasonably authoritative translation should be based on a thorough restudy of the text with full reference to the most recent literature. The present version cannot hope to achieve this goal. I hope that I will prove serviceable if not free from errors of interpretation."

Songs, Poetry, and Hymns

Poetry from the Oldest Religious Literature

Page 269: QUOTE: "This series of poems comes from the oldest collection of religious texts surviving from Ancient Egypt, known as the Pyramid Texts because they are found in royal pyramids of Dynasties 5 and 6. In the first poem, The Dead King Hunts and Eats the Gods (sometimes known as the Cannibal Hymn), the dead king, newly arrived in heaven to the accompaniment of a cosmic cataclysm, hunts, cooks, and eats the gods in order to absorb their powers into himself, thus becoming Omnipotence."

Cycle of Songs in Honor of Sesostris III

Page 279: QUOTE: "This series of six songs, of which only the first four are well preserved, is part of the archive of papyri from Illahun. They were first published by F. Ll. Griffith, Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob (London: B. Quaritch, 1898), text, pp. 1-3; pls. 1-3...In the second, third, and fourth songs the lines after the first are indented, so that the first words are to be repeated at the beginning of the following verses. The first four are closely allied in subject matter and expression. Erman suggests that they were composed for the arrival of the king at a town south of Memphis. A related composition is The Loyalist Instruction studied by Georges Posener in his Littérature et politique, where these songs are also considered (pp. 127-30). Although they belong to religious (as opposed to secular) literature, the dividing line between the categories is not sharp. The songs embody ideas about the nature of the kingship in the Middle Kingdom, and as examples of poetry they are of particular significance."

The Victorious King

Page 285: QUOTE: "King Tuthmosis III of Dynasty 18 reigned from 1490 to 1436 B.C. He was the greatest soldier that ever ruled in Egypt, carrying his arms in the north across the Euphrates at Carchemish and ruling the valley of the Upper Nile well into the Sudan. After his wars were over, a stela was set up in the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak to celebrate his victories. The inscription represents the god as welcoming the king into his presence as his son, and after a dozen lines of introduction recounting what he had done for the king and what the latter has achieved, the god breaks into a poem of ten verses, finally giving his beloved son his blessing. The poetic portion of the inscription represents the god as granting to the king victory over all nations, and even in translation it is possible to catch an echo of the tramp of armies."

The Hymn to the Aten

Page 289: QUOTE: "In the reign of Amun-hotpe IV-Akhenaten of Dynasty 18 the royal family espoused the worship of the sun disk, the Aten, and neglected the older state and local gods, particularly Amun-Re. The king changed his name from Amun-hotpe (Amun is pleased) to Akhenaten (the effective spirit of the Aten), and he constructed a new residence city at Amarna called Akhet-Aten, the Horizon of Aten, marked out by royal boundary stelae and filled with temples, palaces, villas, for the nobles, workshops for the artisans, and housing for the laborers. Throughout Egypt the names of the old gods were systematically hacked out whenever they appeared in public inscriptions on temple walls and elsewhere. The movement was viewed as a reformation, a return to the royal sun-cult of the pyramid builders. It was later regarded as a heresy and did not survive the king's reign. Akhenaten emphasized the international supremacy of the sun disk and his relation to it as a son. In effect, he interposed himself between the Aten and the people, with his worship directed to the Aten and the people's attention focused upon him as the son and interpreter of the Aten. Whether the system can be considered monotheism is debatable. The broad outlook represented in these texts is a development of earlier Egyptian thought with new elements. Noteworthy is the almost anthropological view of the races of mankind differentiated in color and language. There are close parallels in wording, thought, and sequence of ideas to the verses of Psalm 104."

The Love Songs and The Song of the Harper

Page 296-297: QUOTE: "The love songs of the New Kingdom were arranged in most cases in groups corresponding to cycles. Alfred Hermann has provided particularly perceptive and sympathetic treatment of them in Altägyptische Liebesdichtung. He lists fifty-five songs and four additional fragments from Gardiner and Cerný, Hieratic Ostraca I. Our numbering follows Hermann's list...Although in each case I have used the hieroglyphic transcriptions of the poems in working with the songs, I am particularly indebted and dependent upon the translations by Möller, Schott, Gardiner, and others. The language is Late Egyptian, and the translations are intended to convey a colloquial flavor. The Egyptian word for sister is used to designate the lady, and the word for brother, her lover. Frequently I have rendered the former as a lady, lady love,or girl, and the latter as love or boy."
Page 297: QUOTE: "In the manuscript of Papyrus Harris 500 The Song of the Harper occurs between he second and third groups of love poems (between nos. 16 and 17). Although the song is represented in a different version in tombs, it is this version, thus placed among the love poems, which we translate here...If it seems incongruous to include it among the love poems, the incongruity has an ancient precedent."

Edward F. Wente's Letters from Ancient Egypt

Wente, Edward F. (1990). Letters from Ancient Egypt. Edited by Edmund S. Meltzer. Translated by Edward F. Wente. Atlanta: Scholars Press, Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 1555404723.

Introduction

Page 1: QUOTE: "The purpose of this volume of translations is to provide the nonspecialist and general reader with a broad selection of letters written during the major periods of pharaonic history from the Old Kingdom to the Twenty-first Dynasty. The letters that have survived from this span of nearly a millennium and a half were written by a fairly wide range of people, including the king, his high officials, lesser bureaucrats, priests, army officers, necropolis workmen, and landholders. There are as well a number of letters from women, or to women."
Page 1: QUOTE: "While there are many hieroglyphic texts from pharaonic Egypt, including royal and private monumental inscriptions, such texts are generally composed with reference to ideals regarding the divine kingship or the proper functioning of an official. The rhetoric of such formal and often laudatory compositions renders it difficult for us to discern fact from fiction. Among the documents from ancient Egypt that can bring us closer to the realities of daily life and make the ancients more comprehensible to us moderns are letters. Although letters may contain certain formulae that are repeated, particularly in their introductions, the bulk of a letter is addressed to specific situations that demand the attention of the recipient. Naturally a diversity of subjects is treated in the letters: economic matters, commerce, agriculture, law, administration, family life, and religion, to mention a few."
Page 1: QUOTE: "In contrast to formal hieroglyphic inscriptions, letters, which were written in the cursive hieratic script, provide one with the opportunity to observe Egyptians reacting to specific problems arising in the course of pursuing daily activities, and letters are among the best documents for revealing the workings of the living language of ancient Egypt. They thus can provide an important means for penetrating the psychology of the Egyptians and determining something of the logic of their minds in dealing with immediate situations as well as the values that underlie their approach to problems. In the spontaneous writings of letters one can find Egyptians giving vent to various emotions without the restraints imposed by the more carefully edited royal and biographical inscriptions."
Page 1-2: QUOTE: "The accidents of preservation have in large measure dictated the scope of this corpus, making it possible to include most of the letters that have survived reasonably intact. With the exception of some model letters that have been translated to illustrate what the aspiring student scribe should master in the way of epistolary conventions and style, the correspondence in this volume are primarily genuine letters or copies thereof. Within a body of pedagogical texts known as Late Egyptian Miscellanies, edited by Alan H. Gardiner (1937) and translated by Ricardo A. Caminos (1954), there exist numerous model letters, but because Caminos has provided such felicitous translations of the Miscellanies and also because it is not always easy to determine which of these letters are copies of real letters and which ones are entirely fictitious, I have opted to omit them from this volume."
Page 2: QUOTE: "Papyrus was the preferred material for writing letters in ancient Egypt. Using a rush brush, the scribe would write his letter in black ink in the cursive hieratic script. Hieratic had already been developed in the archaic period as a means of written communication paralleling the more formal hieroglyphic writing, reserved for monumental inscriptions and for religious texts such as the Book of the Dead (Goedicke 1988: vii-ix). While in ancient Mesopotamia the clay tablet letter was frequently contained within a clay envelope that was sealed, in Egypt papyrus letters were not inserted into envelopes. The scribe simply folded his inscribed sheet of papyrus into a neat little packet, around which he tied a string and applied a mud sealing to ensure the integrity of the letter within. Normally the scribe would write the addressee's name and sometimes the sender's name on the exterior of this easily transportable packet."
Page 2-3: QUOTE: "Most letters written in ancient Egypt concerned the affairs of people living in the fertile Nile Valley, held vise-like between the desert plateau on either side of the Nile in Middle and Upper Egypt and fanning out into the verdant Delta of Lower Egypt in the north. The vast majority of settlements, in particular those of the Delta, were located in the flood plain. Many cities and towns of antiquity are today either mounds of habitation still occupied at the higher levels or are simply areas that have been denuded over the ages by sebbakheen, native diggers who have destroyed the site by carting away disintegrated brick for fertilizer. The impressive remains of temples built of stone and the vestiges of mud-brick houses and city walls are still to be found on the moist alluvium, but small documents of perishable materials, such as letters on papyrus, have scant chance of being recovered intact by the modern archaeologists who painstakingly sifts through the debris of ancient settlements on the flood plain. Although papyrus was substantially more robust and durable than our paper, it does not survive at all well when subjected to the dampness encountered in a site that has been inhabited over long stretches of time. Papyrus documents have rarely been discovered in town sites located entirely on the alluvium. No letters on papyrus, for instance, have been recovered from the main settlement areas of such major cities as Thebes, Memphis, Heliopolis, or Pi-Ramessu, the Delta capital of the Ramesside pharaohs. The only towns yielding substantially intact letters written on papyrus are those few which were not situated on the flood plain, or which had a significant portion of the settlement build on land that remained unirrigated such as the island of Elephantine (Letters Nos. 65, 67, 153), El-Lahun (Letters Nos. 78, 84-110), Gurob (Letters Nos. 17, 34), and El-Hiba (Letters Nos. 332-38). Even when the conditions of a site are relatively dry, as at the Middle Kingdom Nubian fortresses of Uronarti and Buhen, the evidence for extensive communications by letter is limited to many fragments on papyrus and the mud sealings once affixed to papyrus letters. In fact, at the Eighteenth Dynasty Malkata palace of Amenhotep III in western Thebes the testimony for letter writing consists solely of more than eleven hundred mud sealings from papyrus letters that have perished entirely (James 1984: 164)."
Page 3: QUOTE: "Much of our information about the daily life of the ancient Egyptians derives from tombs, whose chapels were decorated with scenes depicting people engaged in the activities of this life and whose burial chambers have yielded objects and materials used by the tomb owner while he was alive. This same cemetery environment has also been the source of many papyrus letters, even those whose contents are entirely related to affairs of daily life. From the vast Memphite necropolis of Sakkara come such papyrus letters as Nos. 40, 64, 66, 131, and 133-135, while the necropolis of western Thebes is the source of Nos. 68-72, 79-83, and 111. Letters Nos. 41-43 were copied in a papyrus roll found atop a Middle Kingdom coffin in a tomb at Naga ed-Deir, and Nos. 123-124 derive from a tomb at Tell el-Amarna."
Page 3-4: QUOTE: "With the exception of the letters to the dead (translated in Part XII), which were deposited by living persons in the tomb chapels of deceased relatives for the purpose of communicating with someone in the beyond, it is difficult to determine how it is that letters sent to living individuals found their way into a desert cemetery—and in fact the reasons may not all be the same. In the latter part of the Old Kingdom the Djoser Step Pyramid complex had become the administrative center for work relating to the building of tombs in the Sakkara necropolis, and Letters Nos. 40 and 66, both discovered at the southern end of the great court of the Djoser complex, were probably sent to this destination since they are both concerned with tomb construction. On the other hand, the Hekanakht letters (Nos. 68-71) seem simply to have been discarded in the tomb of a certain Emsah either by Hekanakht's eldest son, Merisu, who had taken the papyri along with him to review in his free time while he was substituting for his father a mortuary priest in the Theban necropolis (James 1962: 2) or possibly by thieves, who had waylaid the messenger and robbed him of the goods he was carrying (Goedicke 1984: 6). There is an extensive archive of papyri, including Letters Nos. 52, 59-60, 149, 164(?), 178, 179, 209-11, 262(?), 280, and 282-287, that appears to have been assembled over some period of time and deposited for safekeeping in the cemetery of the New Kingdom workmen's village of Deir el-Medina (Pestman 1982). In one of the Late Ramesside Letters (No. 313) reference is made to papyri being stored in a tomb at Deir el-Medina, and it may be that most of the Late Ramesside Letters, translated in Part X, were recovered from Deir el-Medina (Cerný 1939b: xv-xvii). In the case of the Letters Nos. 41-43, mentioned above as being found in a roll placed on top of a coffin, one can only surmise that these documents of administrative nature served to enhance the deceased's position in the netherworld because of his loyal participation in the state-sponsored dockyard activities that the papyrus is concerned with. The Semna dispatches (Nos. 79-83) had been copied on the recto of a papyrus whose verso was subsequently inscribed with magical texts. This document ultimately formed part of the burial equipment of a magician who was interred in the vicinity of the Ramesseum in western Thebes. Such is the diversity of circumstances that have contributed to the preservation of letters of the living in the world of the dead."
Page 4: QUOTE: "Although rolls of papyrus were not exorbitantly expensive (Janssen 1975: 447-48), they did have monetary value, which is reflected in the considerable number of letters, especially private letters, that are palimpsest. In the writing of letters it was common practice to use a sheet of secondhand papyrus cut off from a roll that had previously been inscribed for some other purpose. Since papyrus rolls could be manufactured only from freshly harvested papyrus plants, there were probably also seasonal shortages of papyrus that led to the practice of erasing an older text so that a letter might be inscribed on the same sheet (James 1984: 156-64). The fact that the Hekanakht letters (Nos. 68-71) were palimpsest may account for the ease with which they were discarded, for it would have been difficult to reuse these sheets of papyrus which had already been inscribed twice and folded, making erasure difficult. It was only rarely that a scribe would reuse a sheet of papyrus previously inscribed with a letter."
Page 4-5: QUOTE: "Both the cost and the possible unavailability of even discarded documents on papyrus without a doubt contributed to the frequent use of alternative media for the writing of letters: flakes of limestone that were readily obtainable at no cost in areas where tombs were being excavated, and potsherds that resulted from the constant breakage of pottery vessels. Like papyri, these documents, called ostraca, were inscribed in black ink with a rush brush in the cursive hieratic script. As a medium for inscribing a letter the ostracon lacked the possibility for maintaining the confidentiality of the message, for there was no way of sealing it and preventing its being read by others than the intended recipient. Another drawback in the use of ostraca for correspondences was their weight and other physical properties, which would tend to restrict the distance over which they could be sent. Thus, original letters on limestone flakes or potsherds were generally hand-carried only over short distances. Letters on ostraca bear no external address apart from what may be provided in the first sentence of the letter, and sometimes there is no indication at all of the recipients identity. In such cases the letter carrier was simply told verbally to deliver the documents to a specific individual. Ostraca were more clumsy to store than small packets or rolls of papyri, which could be conveniently filed in boxes. Indeed, at Deir el-Medina many ostraca were simply discarded in pits once they had served their purpose."
Page 5: QUOTE: "The ostraca that were actually sent as real letters tend to be briefer than papyrus letters, many being simple requests for supplies—short orders that did not require a high degree of confidentiality. Most letters on ostraca that are known to us are from the Ramesside workmen's village of Deir el-Medina and its environs, including the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, where the citizens of Deir el-Medina were employed in the excavation and decoration of royal tombs. These documents form the bulk of the materials translated in Part IX. There are a few Eighteenth Dynasty ostraca letters that come from other parts of the Theban necropolis: No. 112 is from Deir el-Bahri, and Nos. 119 and 120, purchased in western Thebes, may not have come from Deir el-Medina. Letters Nos. 125-27 were excavated at Tell el-Amarna. Of the Ramesside ostraca translated in Part VIII, No. 136 was found at Abydos, but the provinience of Nos. 141, 142, 148 and 150, which are probably copies of original letters, perhaps used as models in the scribal education, is unknown."
Page 5: QUOTE: "The Ramesside ostraca that are translated in Parts II and III, are not likely to have been the actual letters sent to the king or the vizier, for the exalted status of these individuals would have required a letter to be inscribed on a new sheet of papyrus. Some of these letters were certainly copies of real letters. The large Toronto ostracon, for example, actually contains copies of several letters (Nos. 45, 47, 48, 49) written to two viziers who were not contemporary. These letters were perhaps used as models in the scribal education at the Deir el-Medina school. There exist other ostraca bearing either drafts of letters that were to be inscribed on papyrus for mailing over some distance or 'carbon copies,' retained by the writer of an official letter. To distinguish between a draft and a copy retained for the files or possibly to serve a pedagogical function is difficult, especially when only one version is preserved."
Page 5-6: QUOTE: "One means of ensuring the preservation of an important letter, such as one from the king to a loyal official, was to have it recorded in stone in the hieroglyphic writing, transcribed from an original hieratic version on papyrus. A number of Old Kingdom copies of letters from the king actually preserve the same format as their hieratic originals (Goedicke 1964). Writing boards, which could easily be erased, were used in the scribal education, and one document of this sort (No. 77) may possibly be based on on original letter that was adopted as a model. Letters to the dead were most commonly written on bowls that were deposited at the tomb, but there is one example of a bowl used to inscribe a letter to a living person (No. 128)."
Page 6: QUOTE: "In surveying the corpus of genuine letters, the question arises as to how many were actually penned by the writer and literally read by the recipient. Two possible situations would allow for the actual inscribing of a letter by someone other than its author. The individual writing the letter may himself have been entirely literate but, like a modern executive, may have utilized the services of one or more secretaries who wrote letters from dictation, or the author might have been illiterate and sought out someone possessing scribal talent to write a letter on his or her behalf. There is reasonable evidence to suggest that most kings were able to read and write (Baines and Eyre 1983: 77-81), but we also know that the pharaoh had letter-writing scribes, who took care of much of the royal correspondence. King Djedkare-Izezi of the Fifth Dynasty was able to write and read documents presented for his perusal, and it is probable that the originals of his letters sent to his viziers (Nos. 2-5) were actually penned by this king. From the content of his letters it appears that he was something of a stylist, possessing considerable appreciation for the deft turn of phrase. It is by chance that the oldest letters we possess, both royal and nonroyal (Nos. 62 and 63), come from his reign? One can surmise that Djedkare-Izezi was instrumental in fostering the epistolary genre."
Page 6: QUOTE: "The ability to read and write was a prerequisite for a successful career in the administrative bureaucracy. The highest officials of the land were certainly literate, but, like the king, they had under them corps of professional scribes who often did the actual letter writing. At what point down the ladder of the bureaucracy an official ceased to have the assistance of a subordinate scribe is uncertain, but it is doubtful that very many officials, even at the bottom of the hierarchy, were illiterate, given the extreme emphasis placed on the acquisition of scribal skills for embarking on a career in the civil service (James 1984: chap. 5; Kemp 1989: chap. 3)."
Page 6-7: QUOTE: "For the Old Kingdom it has been assumed that corresponding to each elite official owning a tomb in the Giza and Sakkara necropoleis, there were ten sub-elite scribes, who did not themselves possess decorated tombs but who are frequently depicted performing the scribal occupation in tombs of the elite (Baines and Eyre 1983: 66-67). The Egyptians regarded a scribal education as a national priority and an economic asset to the country. This is confirmed by the great attention devoted in the Twelfth Dynasty to recreating a scribal bureaucracy after the fragmented administration of the land during the First Intermediate Period (Posener 1956)."
Page 7: I'll just paraphrase the material here; Wente basically talks about how the scribes had a multitude of secretaries who perhaps wrote much of their letters for them. He also talks about how letters were used for testimony in court and handwriting used as evidence of authenticity for the author.
Page 7-8: QUOTE: "It has been estimated, primarily on the basis of evidence from the Old Kingdom, that approximately 1 percent of the population of ancient Egypt was literate, or that one in twenty or thirty males was able to read and write (Baines and Eyre 1983: 65-72). There would, of course, have been a higher concentration of literate people in major administrative centers, while in peasant villages throughout the land the rate would have been considerably lower than 1 percent. It is generally assumed that an illiterate free person who wished to send a letter sought the professional services of a public scribe, who for a fee would draw up a letter, using the appropriate formalized greetings and invocations, and composing the body of the letter in the vernacular. 'The writing of letters was undoubtedly a prime occupation for many scribes, especially those who failed to find employment in the various bureaucracies that managed the civil and religious affairs of ancient Egypt,' remarks James (1984: 177). Professional scribes whose primary employer was the government, such as those at Deir el-Medina, might be expected to write private letters, sales documents, and legal instruments for illiterate clients and charge a fee for their services, although we actually possess no record of payments made to professional scribes for such moonlighting (Baines and Eyre 1983: 75). The government scribe would, of course, have had ready access to papyrus, especially to old inscribed papyrus rolls that might be easily erased and reused for letter writing."
Page 8: QUOTE: "What deserves some reconsideration, however, is the concept of the self-employed 'village scribe,' who made a living by inscribing documents for private clients. Although this type of public scribe functioned in the Greco-Roman period and even as late as modern Egypt, the situation may have been different in pharaonic Egypt, when legal documents were far simpler than the highly formulaic contracts of the Ptolemaic period (Baines and Eyre 1983: 74-77). The Hekanakht letters (Nos. 68-70) might be considered as exemplifying the use of a public scribe by a free person not directly involved in the bureaucracy or other institution, for on the basis of the handwriting it can be concluded that two different scribes inscribed the letters sent by him (James 1984: 167; Goedicke 1984: 120). Reviewing both the palaeographic and contextual evidence, Baer (1963: 19), however, suggests that the elderly Hekanakht himself penned his two longest letters, while his third letter, plus a fourth letter from a woman to her mother, as well as some accounts written over a span of three years, were inscribed by Hekanakht's son, Sihathor. Making use of the scribal and epistolary abilities of one's own literate son is not quite the same as paying a self-employed village scribe to do one's letter writing. As it was, Sihathor also seems to have functioned as his father's letter carrier (Baer 1963: 19; Goedicke 1984: 121)."
Page 8-9: Paraphrasing here, Wente basically says that no official or formal postal service was installed; instead messages were conveyed by "friends, relatives, or subordinates of the writer, or anyone who happened to be journeying in the direction of the recipient."
Page 9: QUOTE: "Although women were not generally afforded the advantages of a school education and did not compete with men for posts in the bureaucracy, there were certain positions that were genuinely female, such as priestesses, chantresses, and personnel surrounding the position of Divine Votaress of Amon during the New Kingdom. Although women did not officially compete with men, they were occasionally accorded considerable authority, especially to act on behalf of their husbands (Janssen 1986). Such letters as Nos. 24, 139, 289-91, 303, 311, 315, 319, 321, 324, 336, and 339 provide evidence for women functioning with varying degrees of authority, and certainly some of these women were literate. Occasionally there are references to a woman's writing a letter (Nos. 104, 124, 270, 282, and 297), but one must be cautious in concluding that a woman actually penned the document. Letter No. 124, if my restoration of the passage is correct, provides evidence for a female recipient reading a letter visually (the verb is 'look at,' the same as the one mentioned above in connection with No. 330). Regarding the women of Deir el-Medina, Janssen (1987:167 n. 25) considers it probable that the letters on ostraca sent by women were actually inscribed by them."
Page 9-10: Paraphrasing here, Wente basically says that in letters of the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom generally contain, if the writer had an inferior social status to the recipient of the letter, he had to address him with a soft, humble, subservient tone, whereas in the New Kingdom this was not the case (perhaps parallel with the New Kingdom attitudes about closer and more personal relationships between even man and the gods and goddesses).
Page 10-11: Once again, Wente gives reasons why modern Egyptologists doubt there was a truly formal postal service run by the government, as all available evidence points towards the retainers of government officials being the ones responsible for carrying official government letters throughout the country. This is true of Old, Middle and New Kingdom Egypt.

The Book of Kemit

Page 15: QUOTE: "Compiled in the late Eleventh Dynasty, the Book of Kemit, meaning 'summation' or 'completion,' was a compendium intended for the education of the Egyptian scribe. It comprises three main sections: epistolary greetings, a narrative that concludes with a letter, and phraseology drawn from the realm of the ideal biography. The individual texts that were incorporated in this school book were probably older than the date of compilation. In particular, components of the epistolary formulae are already attested in the Sixth Dynasty (Posener-Kriéger 1976: 2L:454-55). This frequently copied text is preserved on a New Kingdom writing board and on nearly a hundred ostraca. The translation is based on the pioneering reconstitution of the whole text by Posener (1951: pls. 1-21) and consideration of previous translations by Kaplony (1974) and by Barta (1978). The 'Mistress of Bubastis' mentioned in the text is the cat goddess Bastet, whose pleasant feline disposition contrasts with that of the ferocious lioness goddess Sakhmet. In this didactic composition the term 'son' is tantamount to 'pupil.'"

Letters to and from Royalty

Page 17: QUOTE: "At the apex of Egyptian society stood the king, whose nature was both divine and human. Although he was primarily the earthly incarnation of the falcon-god Horus, he was also the son of the sun-god Re. Just as Re regulated the cosmic order, so the king performed the role of Re on earth in defending and maintaining the social order. The king was also the corporate personality of his subjects, and his high priestly function served to integrate human society with the divine realm. In order that the reader may discern the constants and changes in the concept of the divine kingship during the course of pharaonic history, this section provides a chronologically ordered selection of correspondence involving the king either as writer or recipient."
Page 17: QUOTE: "A letter written by the king was called a 'decree,' the same term also used for more formal royal edicts. A number of royal letters have been preserved as hieroglyphic inscriptions on stone, being copies of letters originally written on papyrus in the cursive hieratic script. In some cases, particularly when the content of the king's letter had broad implications, the document, being a decree, was recorded on stone for public display (Nos. 7, 13, and 15). But also quite personal letters from the king to loyal high officials might be inscribed on the walls of a tomb chapel (Nos. 2-6) or on steles (Nos. 10 and 16) to indicate to the reader the position of honor that the recipient had with the king. Two royal letters, one from the Hyksos king Apophis to the ruler of Kush (No. 14) and the other, purportedly from the Hittite king Muwatallis to Ramesses II (No. 20), were incorporated in the framework of historical texts that served to laud the power of the Egyptian king. In a similar vein are the king's letter and the response to it (Nos. 8 and 9) that were inserted as literary compositions in the Story of Sinuhe, a pseudo-autobiographical work designed to elevate the king's position after a period when the institution of divine kingship had been called into question. The other royal letters that have been preserved on papyrus (Nos. 11, 12, 35, and 39) can be considered genuine letters, with the exception of the letter from Papyrus Anastasi IV (No. 32), which is a student's copy of what might possibly have been a real royal reprimand."
Page 17-18: QUOTE: "Letters to the Egyptian king have not survived in great abundance, for no royal archives have been found in Egypt except for the Amarna letters, written in Akkadian on clay tablets. New translations of these diplomatic correspondences from Tell el-Amarna have been made by Moran (1987). With the exception of the selection from Papyrus Anastasi II (No. 31), which is a model letter of adulation to the pharaoh that is translated to illustrate aspects of the divine kingship, the remaining letters to the Egyptian king (Nos. 17-19, 21, 33, and 34) can be regarded as copies of genuine letters."
Page 18: QUOTE: "Included in this section is a group of nine letters (Nos. 22-30) involving members of the royal family and its entourage at the Ramesside capital of Pi-Ramessu. Since the letter of Ramesses IX to the high priest Ramessesnakht (No. 35) was from a find that included ancillary correspondences (Nos. 36-38), the whole of this collection has been translated. This letter of Ramesses IX to the high priest of Amon is an important document in illustrating the relationship between two major figures of the period. The peremptory tone of the king's letter suggests that the growing power of the Amon priesthood at the end of the New Kingdom may not have constituted as great a threat to the throne as has often been maintained. A similar imperious quality is evident in Ramesses IX's letter to the viceroy of Kush Panehsy (No. 39), written at the very end of the New Kingdom. Indeed the Old and Middle Kingdom royal letters betray a kinder, gentler king than do the latest royal letters."

Letters to and from the Vizier

Page 41: QUOTE: "Next to the king the most powerful figure in the land was the vizier, who controlled the administrative bureaucracy and functioned as head of the judiciary. His executive responsibilities were manifold, and the onerousness of the office of vizier, described as being 'bitter,' demanded an individual of extraordinary wisdom and knowledge to maintain the efficient operation of a diversity of government agencies including the treasury, royal and public works, agriculture, riverine transport, and the army and navy. Much of the vizier's time was spent hearing without partiality the petitions of citizens. Two Old Kingdom viziers, Ptahhotep and Kagemni's father, are credited with the authorship of two wisdom texts; and of an Eighteenth Dynasty vizier Rekhmire it is said, 'There is nothing that the god has shut away from him. There is nothing that he is ignorant of in heaven, on earth, or in any hidden place of the underworld' (Sethe 1906: 1701)."
Page 41: QUOTE: "As prime minister, the vizier was in close contact with the king, for whom he served as 'mouth(piece) that brings contentment in the whole land,' and he was 'the great curtain of the entire land and great screen sheltering His Majesty, l.p.h., one according to whose every command things are carried out and regarding all whose projects no one is idle' (No. 52). Articulating and executing the king's will, the vizier also served as a sort of filter deciding which matters were of sufficient importance to bring to the king's attention."
Page 41: QUOTE: "Letters written by the king to the vizier (Nos. 2-5, 7, 11, and 12) have been translated in Part II above. Although several of these royal letters refer to the king's receiving pleasing letters from the vizier, only one partially preserved letter from the vizier to the king has actually survived (No. 33, also translated in Part II)."
Page 41-42: QUOTE: "The extant letters from the vizier to subordinates include three administrative orders from the Twelfth Dynasty vizier Iniotefoker dealing with the outfitting of ships at a dockyard in the Thinite nome and the delivery of food supplies to the Residence (Nos. 41-43), three Ramesside letters (Nos. 51, 53, and 59) dealing with the wages and provisioning of the Deir el-Medina crew of tomb decorators and work on the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and No. 61 from the reign of Ramesses XI concerned with contingents of Medjay-police and Meshwesh-Libyans in the Delta. Letter No. 36, translated in Part II, was probably a vizier's order to supply galena for Ramesses IX's personal use. Since letters from viziers to subordinates are executive orders, they are devoid of any greetings and are generally imperious in tone, but unlike royal letters they are not described as decrees."
Page 42: QUOTE: "More numerous are letters sent by subordinates to the vizier. With the exception of the Sixth Dynasty letter No. 40, all relate to affairs of the Ramesside Deir el-Medina. No. 40 is striking because of the total absence of any felicitations and the blunt manner in which the writer complains to his superior. The Ramesside letters to the vizier are more polite, but not obsequious, usually employing a set formula of communication in which the vizier is referred to as the writer's lord, and the greeting is limited to a terse wish, 'In life, prosperity and health!' In several letters (Nos. 47, 48, and 56) the writer mentions that he is calling on various deities. However, the principal object of these invocations is the well-being of the Pharaoh and only secondarily the vizier's continuance in Pharaoh's favor. Despite the vizier's exalted status, his underlings do not reveal themselves as overly cowed by his authority and often boldly express their grievances."

Letters from the Old and Early Middle Kingdoms

Page 54: QUOTE: "Considering the remoteness in time of the Pyramid Age, it is not surprising that so few papyrus letters have survived from the Old Kingdom. Letters Nos. 62 and 63 are the oldest such documents. Both derive from the funerary temple of Neferirkare-Kakai at Abusir during the reign of Djedkare-Izezi of the Fifth Dynasty, several of whose own letters have been translated in Part II (Nos. 2-5). The Sixth Dynasty letters are of diverse origin. Nos. 64 and 66 were found at Sakkara, while No. 65 is believed to have come from the island of Elephantine, the source of an archive of Old Kingdom papyri that includes No. 67, dealing with the crimes of a crooked count. The Nubian troops mentioned in this letter, which can be dated to the Eighth Dynasty (Edel 1970: 117), were possibly serving as Egyptian mercenaries, a role they were to play during the troubled First Intermediate Period that followed the collapse of the Old Kingdom."
Page 54: QUOTE: "The divided administration of Egypt during the First Intermediate Period ended when the Theban king Mentuhotep II defeated the Heracleopolitan dynasty to the north and reunified the country. The remaining letters in Part IV were written during the period immediately following the death of Mentuhotep II before intensive measures were undertaken by the Twelfth Dynasty to reconstitute a scribal bureaucracy loyal to the king. All the letters translated here probably came from Thebes and are the products of somewhat unsophisticated scribes of the provincial south. With the exception of the fragmentary letter No. 74, the correspondences of the early Middle Kingdom have been edited by James (1962)."
Page 54-55: QUOTE: "The most important of these documents are the Hekanakht correspondences (Nos. 68-71 [from the Eleventh dynasty of Egypt, see pages 58-63]), two of which are among the longest letters surviving from ancient Egypt. Also translated and discussed by Baer (1963) and more recently by Goedicke (1984), these letters, three of which (Nos. 68-70) were written by the gentleman farmer Hekanakht, throw considerable light on the subject of private ownership and rental of land. Shrewd in his business dealings, Hekanakht appears as a miserly individual. Considering the number of people he had in his household, it was more profitable for him to rent than to purchase land for cultivation, and thus he accumulated fluid capital reserves which he could ultimately use for his burial expenses. Being himself a mortuary priest in the Theban necropolis, Hekanakht was fully aware of the cost of a decent burial, which was, in the long run, more important to an Egyptian than social status in this life."
Page 55: QUOTE: "Several of the early Middle Kingdom letters employ epistolary formulae similar to those found in the Book of Kemit, translated in Part 1. Letters Nos. 70, 72, and 73 include Arsaphes, lord of Heracleopolis, among the gods that are invoked. Since Heracleopolis had been the seat of the royal house that the Theban kings had previously opposed and defeated, it may seem strange that the deity of a former enemy was so easily accepted by the Thebans. However, Theban recognition of the religious creativity and cultural superiority of the Heracleopolitans is indicated by the presence of Heracleopolitan mortuary texts in tombs at Thebes. Thebans also brought artists from the north to impart a higher degree of sophistication to the provincial style that had characterized the Theban Eleventh Dynasty."

Later Middle Kingdom Letters

Page 68: QUOTE: "The fruits of the campaign undertaken in the Twelfth Dynasty to train more scribes through an intensive educational program are evident in the documents presented in Part V. The scribes of the later Middle Kingdom reveal a confident maturity in their calligraphy. Being more cursive and employing more ligatures than heretofore, the hieratic script of this period presents considerable difficulties of decipherment that have resulted in long delays in the publication of papyri, particularly those in the Berlin collection, catalogued by Kaplony-Heckel (1971) and currently being prepared for publication by Ulrich Luft."
Page 68: QUOTE: "A series of brief model letters (No. 78), all inscribed on a single papyrus from Kahun, are translated initially to illustrate the standardization of epistolary formulae. Nos. 79-83, written in the reign of Amenemhat III, are actually copies of a series of dispatches sent from the Semna fortress in Nubia. These letters, admirably edited by Smither (1945), were inscribed in the form of a report on a papyrus discovered in a tomb in the vicinity of the Ramesseum in western Thebes. At the Nubian forts of Uronarti and Buhen were uncovered many small fragments of original letters and their mud sealings, attesting to massive communications among the Nubian fortresses and the central administration during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties (James 1984: 164; Smith 1976: chaps. 3 and 5). The remainder of the letters in Part V are from the valley temple and pyramid town, called anciently 'Content is Senwosret' and modernly 'Kahun.' These were associated with the pyramid of Senwosret II at El-Lahun, which is located just off the Bahr Yusef channel of the Nile as it turns westward toward the Fayum lake, the Birket Karun."
Page 68-69: QUOTE: "The documents fall into two main groups: the Berlin papyri (Nos. 84-95) and the Kahun papyri (Nos. 78, 97-110). The Berlin letters, published initially by Borchardt (1899) and Scharff (1924) and retranslated here, form only a portion of a much larger corpus of still unpublished documents (Kaplony-Heckel 1971) which were discovered in a rubbish heap associated with the valley temple. They deal largely with temple affairs. The Kahun letters, discovered by William Flinders Petrie in his excavations of the pyramid towns that immediately adjoined the valley temple, were published by Griffith (1898), who early in the history of Egyptology displayed extraordinary skill in deciphering the difficult hieratic hands. These documents are generally somewhat later than the Berlin papyri (Luft 1982; Matzker 1986) and are broader in the range of their content. Letter No. 96 subsequently appeared on the market at Medinet el-Fayum and obviously comes from the same general area as the Berlin and Kahun papyri."

Eighteenth Dynasty Letters

Page 89: QUOTE: "It is remarkable that so few letters of the Eighteenth Dynasty are extant, for during this period, when the Egyptian empire was established abroad and reached its zenith, there were extensive building activities in the Theban area. One would have expected the epistolary documentation to be more copious than it actually is, if only by comparison with the abundance of letters from the Ramesside community of Deir el-Medina. With the exception of the letters from Tell el-Amarna (Nos. 123-127), all the examples of correspondence in this section have either been discovered or can be presumed to have been found in the Theban necropolis. The first two documents, Nos. 111 and 112, are from excavations in the area of Hatshepsut's funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri in western Thebes. The Senenmut who is casually named in No. 112 is without a doubt the influential steward of Queen Hatshepsut and possessor of a tomb excavated in the area in front of her temple. Also involved in the building of Hatshepsut's temple was the scribe Ahmose, the recipient of several letters (Nos. 113-16) and author of No. 117. These papyrus letters were probably found in western Thebes, where Ahmose served as the deputy of the overseer of works Peniaty."
Page 89: QUOTE: "Sennofer, the mayor of Thebes and the author of letter No. 118, possessed a tomb in the Theban necropolis, noted for its beautifully decorated burial chamber. His letter was never sent, for it reached the Berlin Museum with its mud sealing still intact."
Page 89: QUOTE: "Although Letters Nos. 119 and 120 were acquired in the Theban area, the latter perhaps from Medinet Habu, Letters Nos. 121 and 122 were discovered in excavations at the workers' settlement of Deir el-Medina and represent two of the very few hieratic documents from the Eighteenth Dynasty phase of the town's occupation."
Page 89: QUOTE: "The two papyrus letters from a tomb at Tell el-Amarna (Nos. 123 and 124), though fragmentary, are especially important. They provide the earliest occurrence of epistolary formulae that were subsequently used in letters of the Ramesside period, and they supply evidence regarding a commoner's ability to call directly upon the Aton without the intermediation of the Pharaoh Akhenaton. Akhenaton has frequently been considered to be the only one with direct access to the Aton, the solar disk whose cult this king pursued with monotheistic fervor. The two brief letters on ostraca (Nos. 126 and 127) were discovered in the city of Akhenaton."
Page 90: QUOTE: "Letter No. 128, inscribed on a bowl, bears a certain similarity to the letters to the dead, translated in Part XII, but the request made to the recipient that he should write to a certain woman Tey suggests that he was still very much alive (Gunn 1930: 154)."

Papyrus Anastasi I: A Satirical Letter

Page 98: QUOTE: "The manuscript containing the most complete version of this lengthy epistle is Papyrus Anastasi I, written in a Lower Egyptian hand that is datable to the second half of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The provinience [sic] of the papyrus is unknown, but it is probably from the vicinity of Memphis, perhaps the nearby Sakkara necropolis. Although the composition was certainly intended for pedagogical purposes, it is by no means certain that Papyrus Anastasi I was a schoolboy's copy. In view of the cost of a roll of papyrus, it may instead be the product of a more advanced scribe, prepared for the use of younger students who would more than likely have made their trial copies on ostraca (James 1984: 144). Indeed, some eighty ostraca containing portions of this didactic letter derive from Deir el-Medina. There were apparently two recensions of the Satirical Letter, a northern one and a southern one, the former being closer to the original composition, which was probably written at the Delta capital of Pi-Ramessu in the first years of the reign of Ramesses II."
Page 98: QUOTE: "The author of this literary text in epistolary form was a certain Hori, who was both a scribe and a squire attached to the royal stables. In the Anastasi I version the recipient is entitled 'command-writing scribe of the victorious army' but is not further identified by name, whereas the Theban recension further specifies that the recipient was a 'scribe of recruits of the Two Lands, Amenemope, son of the steward Mose.' Although in my translation I have supplemented the Anastasi I text with the titles and name of the recipient from the Theban recension, it is quite possible that the original version intentionally failed to name a specific recipient in order to make the audience of the work as broad as possible. Elsewhere in the text the recipient is designated by an expression which I have translated 'What's your name?,' something equivalent to an indefinite 'So-and-so.' It is possible that this vague designation of a recipient was reinterpreted as the proper name Mepu, a hypocorostic form of Amenemope, which was then secondarily inserted as the name of the recipient in the writer's greetings (Fischer-Elfert 1986: 283-86). At any rate, the author's intention was to have his work broadly disseminated in the schools, and in this he seems to have succeeded, as witness the many documents bearing portions of the text."
Page 98-99: QUOTE: "There is much that is touched upon in this epistle: proper greetings with wishes for this life and the next, the rhetoric composition, interpretation of aphorisms in wisdom literature, application of mathematics to engineering problems and the calculation of supplies for an army, and the geography of western Asia. The writer not only evinces stylistic superiority but also is a master of a vocabulary that includes many Semitic loanwords, whose interpretation is often difficult."
Page 99: QUOTE: "One is impressed by the geographical awareness of the writer as he guides the reader through those portions of Syro-Palestine that were under Egyptian hegemony at the beginning of Ramesses II's reign. There is some paralleling with Asiatic localities named in earlier war-reliefs of Seti I at Karnak. With the Battle of Kadesh in Ramesses II's Year 5 and the Hittite Treaty in Year 21, there was an Egyptian withdrawal from Syria, but the Egyptian presence in Palestine continued to be felt even more strongly than in the preceding dynasty."
Page 99: QUOTE: "Although this composition was used in schools that had no association with military training, the military aspects of the text are evident, and there is no belittling the position of a military officer who was literate. This stands in contrast to other literary texts that stress the superiority of the scribal profession as against the hardships of the common soldier's life. This treatment of the elite military class falls in line with the militaristic tone of the first part of the Nineteenth Dynasty, whose kings were of military background."
Page 99: QUOTE: "The Satirical Letter can be viewed as a polemical tractate against the long-entrenched system of scribal education that laid great stress on rote memorization of lists of places, occupations, and terms for the natural world. It was no longer sufficient for the scribe simply to know the names of Asiatic localities, but he must also be acquainted with their topography and the routes connecting various places. The text employs sarcasm and irony in its attempt to improve the quality of the student's mind above the level of mere regurgitation of memorized facts."
Page 99: QUOTE: "For many years the basic edition of the Satirical Letter was that of Gardiner (1911), but since then a host of new documents providing illuminating parallels has come to light, chiefly ostraca from Deir el-Medina but also several papyri. None, however, is nearly as complete as Papyrus Anastasi I. Making use of all the new variants that have been published since Gardiner's edition, Fischer-Elfert (1983) reedited the entire composition with all the published parallels and produced a new translation in German with extremely valuable commentary (Fischer-Elfert 1986). The translation presented here owes much to earlier renditions, but the reader should be aware especially of my dependence on the work of Fischer-Elfert—even if I have not always followed his interpretations of certain passages."

Ramesside Letters

Page 111-112: Surprisingly, I don't find anything particularly useful here mentioned by Wente that could be used in the draft. He mentions various letters focusing on subjects such as agriculture, trade, government administration, and military affairs. However, he does not explicitly mention the importance of Ramesside Period letters as a category of literature and makes no mention of epistle writing.

Letters of the Ramesside Community of Deir el-Medina

Page 132: QUOTE: "The village of Deir el-Medina was situated some distance from the flood plain at the base of the desert escarpment on the west side of Thebes. Founded in the early Eighteenth Dynasty, when royal tombs were first excavated in the famous Valley of the Kings, Deir el-Medina served as the settlement for those engaged in the preparation of these tombs as well as tombs of queens and princes in the Valley of the Queens. While there is considerable archaeological evidence pertaining to the Eighteenth Dynasty occupation of Deir el-Medina, it is only with the Nineteenth Dynasty that information about the town's inhabitants is vastly supplemented by ostraca and papyri. Indeed, much of what we know today of the phase of the Egyptian language known as Late Egyptian derives from the abundance of Ramesside documents from the village of Deir el-Medina and its environs."
Page 132: QUOTE: "The Ramesside village numbered about 400 inhabitants, including men, women, and children. As employees of the government, the villagers were supplied by the central administration. Many letters to and from the vizier (Nos. 44-45, 47-60, translated in Part III) relate to the affairs of Deir el-Medina, and the king was kept abreast of the villagers' work and wages (Nos. 18, 21, 33, translated in Part II)."
Page 132-133: QUOTE: "With a literacy rate perhaps as high as 5 percent, Deir el-Medina was probably one of the more literate communities in ancient Egypt (Baines and Eyre 1983: 86-91). We know that the village possessed a school, and scores of schoolboy exercises have survived on ostraca. The job of laying out the hieroglyphic inscriptions and scenes depicting the netherworld was performed by outline draftsmen in the royal tombs, but these draftsmen had also been trained to write the cursive hieratic script. In writing letters such a draftsman might call himself 'scribe,' not as a formal title but simply as an indication of his ability to write. According to Jansenn (1987: 167 n.25), there were literate women in Deir el-Medina, who were able to write their own letters."
Page 133: QUOTE: "Seeing to the safety of the royal tombs were policemen, who did not themselves reside in the village and thus had more frequent contact with the world outside Deir el-Medina. Because of the trust placed in the policemen, they frequently served as letter carriers. Most of the Deir el-Medina correspondence was inscribed on ostraca and hand-carried over relatively short distances in western Thebes."

Late Ramesside Letters

Page 171-172: Wente doesn't say much here, only describing letters of various subjects and locations that were written during the chaos of the reign of Ramesses XI, when Libyans were overrunning the country and the Theban High Priests of Amun (21st and 22nd Dynasty), the first being Herihor, started acting as de facto regional rulers from their base at Karnak. There's really no useful info here for your draft.

Twenty-first Dynasty Letters

Page 205: Again, nothing too important here, except for this about the Twenty-first Dynasty: "The approach to the god Amon revealed in letters Nos. 337 and 338 continues the Ramesside tradition that viewed god as a master of destiny to whom petition could be made."

Letters to the Dead and to Gods

Page 210: QUOTE: "In keeping with the Egyptian view that the afterlife was to a certain extent a prolongation of this life, it is not unusual that ancient Egyptians sought to communicate with deceased relatives. Egyptian letters to the dead were not written simply to convey greetings but were prompted by some unfortunate situation in which the writer or close relative has found himself. The deceased recipient or some other person in the beyond is charged with being at the root of these misfortunes. Letters to the dead have a legalistic flavor, for according to Egyptian beliefs there existed a netherworld tribunal, made up of deceased spirits, presided over by the Great God, that could be invoked to deal with cases involving the dead and the living. The deceased recipient of such a letter is either requested to desist from exerting malign influences or to institute legal proceedings in the beyond against a fellow spirit (Akh) suspected of creating problems for the writer. In an attempt to persuade the spirit, the writer frequently argues how well he has acted in the recipient's best interest, both in life and in death. Generally inscribed on bowls filled with some sort of offering, letters to the dead were deposited at the tomb, where the dead person would be sure to read the letter. The basic edition of most of the letters to the dead is that of Gardiner and Sethe (1928), a work penetratingly reviewed by Gunn (1930). French translations of the corpus of letters to the dead have been provided by Guilmot (1966), in his discussion of this epistolary genre."
Page 210: QUOTE: "Although letters to the dead have a long history extending from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom, letters to the gods appear to be a more recent development, first attested in the Ramesside period. They are basically petitions to a god cast in epistolary form. The practice became more widespread in the Persian and Ptolemaic periods."

R.B. Parkinson's Poetry and Culture

Parkinson, R.B. (2002). Poetry and Culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt: A Dark Side to Perfection. London: Continuum. ISBN 0826456375.

The Study of Middle Kingdom 'literature'

Introduction

Page 4: After skipping some preliminary remarks that I don't find particularly useful for the draft, Parkinson writes, QUOTE: "As with the English Elizabethan age, 'literature' is one of the characterizing features in historians' views of the Middle Kingdom, and the compositions have shaped modern conceptions of it. The literary corpus is a significant portion of the texts known from that period, and they are among the most widely read and cited Egyptian texts. In specific terms, their study is hindered by manuscript lacunae, philological difficulties and incomplete publication of the corpus: new discoveries are probably to be made in most major museum collections of papyri and ostraca (cf. Fischer-Elfert 1997). Reading the texts has often been a matter of slowly battling against these difficulties rather than reading as the word is normally understood (see, e.g., Erman 1927: xliv n.2); aesthetic pleasure is not commonly recorded as a reader's reaction. The fragmentary nature of the corpus is compounded by the lack of ancient inherited paradigms for reading and defining literature, since Egyptian criticism and meta-commentaries are almost non-existent. In comparison with the literature of classical antiquity, this break in interpretation is a major obstacle in the production of modern readings."

General considerations: Definitions, genre, and interpretation

Introduction

Page 22: QUOTE: "Modern literary theory is plural and diverse. For Egyptian texts the primary problem is that their historical and cultural context is alien and inaccessible: this is less true for many of the texts around which literary theory clusters. Parallel concerns are however voiced by critics dealing with early modern works, such as the New Historicists. Many of their studies analyse the relationship between power and literature in Elizabethan culture, addressing concerns similar to those that have been prominent in treatments of Middle Kingdom texts since the work of Georges Posener. In this chapter I review three aspects of reading Middle Kingdom literature with respect to general issues: the nature of what is 'literary'; the role of genre; and the nature of interpretation."

Defining 'Literature'

Genre

Page 33: QUOTE: "The idea of literature as an institution is closely allied to genre theory (e.g., A. Fowler 1982: 18). The difficulties of assessing ancient genres are a specific example of the general difficulties of approaching texts. The apparent and often surprising immediacy of literary texts of times and cultures alien to the reader can blind one to their alterity (Parkinson 1999f: 7). Features of The Tale of Sinuhe that are vaguely similar to modern narratives have tempted readers into assuming that 'it deserves to be called a novel' (Posener 1971: 232), when it is something very different (8.2). Similarly, a reading of The Eloquent Peasant in terms of modern genres, with which it is not comparable, does not produce a satisfactory identification as a novel, lyric or satire, so that Alan H. Gardiner considered that its author was 'anything but a literary artist' (1923: 6-7). More generally, critics describing works from earlier periods often see faults of composition when what is present is a genre which is no longer current (A. Fowler 1982: 259). The attested Egyptian genres have no equivalents for the familiar western ones of epic, tragedy, comedy or pastoral."
Page 33: QUOTE "A general definition of genre is problematic (e.g., Dubrow 1982), but not irrelevant to Egyptian culture, although caution is necessary as Piotr Michalowski warns in relation to Mesopotamian literature (1989: 4):"

Generic categorizations, however, are closely linked with reception, and the reading of ancient texts, when no continuous tradition of reading has survived, presents particular problems that are different from those encountered in old texts belonging to a living stream of interpretation. . .By placing together certain texts we create a close and closed intertextuality, which, in turn, provides us with a false sense of security in reading.

Page 33: QUOTE: "Middle Kingdom compositions—like all domains of Egyptian written high culture—share a strong commonality of form and content (e.g., Eyre 1990: 162-163), and suggest that there was a strong adherence to a tradition of decorum, with a consistent use of formulae and established motifs. They are particularly susceptible to generic analysis. Although the number of literary texts originally belonging to the corpus is unknown, the typological nature of the surviving material is remarkably consistent. Recent literary theory acknowledges that types of literary text are historical and institutionalized forms, in contrast to the system of prescriptive genres of neoclassical theory, which regarded the genres of the corpus of classical texts as universals: 'each era has its own system of genres' (Todorov 1976: 161). Raymond Williams (1977: 185) has argued that genre is" [this quotation spills onto page 34]:

neither an ideal type nor a traditional order nor a set of technical rules. It is in the practical and variable combination and even fusion of what are, in abstraction, different levels of the social material process that what we have known as genre becomes a new kind of constitutive evidence.

Page 34: QUOTE: "I use 'genre' as a convenient term to categorize the 'multiplicity of notations and conventions, evident in actual writing' (R. Williams 1977: 180). A broad period-based approach has to be taken for the Middle Kingdom, because it is difficult to date the literary texts; inevitably the constant variation and the diachronic development of the genres will be underestimated."
Page 34-35: QUOTE: "In assigning texts to genres, the Egyptologist should adopt a historical approach that uses ancient sources such as titles and context, together with an inductive approach in which the genres are elucidated from the works themselves. Not all of these sources are available from the Middle Kingdom. As Fowler notes (1982: 52), the last method of 'indirect constructive inference' is often the most informative. . .The subject matter of Egyptian literary texts is often at the juncture between the different spheres of sacred and profane, royal and private (e.g., Franke 1993: 351-2). Jan Assmann argues that Egyptian literary compositions were functionally specific to education (1.4). Against this style of analysis, discussions of other types of discourse suggest that they were less contextually determined than has often been assumed: for example, letters did more than communicate information, had performative and celebratory aspects and could be monumentalized (Baines 1999a: 24-5 on Old Kingdom examples). Literature itself can be interpreted not as a lack of function but as a cultural function and context in itself, which need not be identified with other institutions that are better attested in socio-functional terms. The literary context that I propose in Chapter 4 is a poorly documented social practice, even as the process of reading leaves no traces (Derchain 1987: 1). Mainly similarly inaccessible social practices existed."

Texts and Intertexts

The Date of Compositions

Page 45: QUOTE: "The passage of time has produced many problems for the reader who seeks to interpret an ancient text, compounding those of cultural alterity. These include the pervasive difficulties of dating a poem, of assessing the state of the text, and of assessing the oral and written contexts of the poem. These factors are integral for any engagement by the reader."
Page 45: QUOTE: "There is little unequivocal evidence that the Egyptians were concerned with the accurate siting of their texts in past periods, beyond the attitude that what was old was good (Baines 1989; Aufrère 1998; for examples, see L. Morenz 1996: 16, 190-3). However, behind many texts' assertions of the antiquity of their original, unknown realities of editing, dating and creation are concealed, and complex pragmatic considerations surrounded the institution of literature. In the Ramessid 'Eulogy of Dead Writers' (2.2.2), the grouping of the wisdom authors into pairs suggests some historical awareness (for general awareness see McDowell 1992). While Hordedef and Imhotep, and Ptahhotep and Kaires are grouped together, presumably by their Old Kingdom settings, the fictional, supposedly 4th Dynasty Neferti is paired with the 12th Dynasty Khety, suggesting that both were regarded as Middle Kingdom figures. The Ramessid scribes may, however, have paired the two figures by their associations with Amenemhat I, and not by the poems' dates of composition."
Page 45-46: QUOTE: "The relative and absolute dating of the Middle Kingdom corpus has aroused controversy — for which one can compare the chronology of the Shakespearean canon (Wells and Taylor 1987: 89-109). Literary works employ 'historical' settings, but few texts can be reliably dated by their ostensible setting or content; exactly or specifically, 'contemporary' settings are a relatively recent phenomenon in fiction. Low dates are increasingly preferred. Discussion has been hampered by problems of circular arguments, historical subjectivity, and a hyper-literal approach (see 1). No literary texts from the Old Kingdom are known as yet, but fewer papyri survive from the period than from the Middle (see lists of Posener-Kriéger 1972, Simpson 1972), and a single new find could necessitate reappraisal. Copies of literary works begin to appear in the surviving record during the 12th Dynasty. The political aspects of Neferti and Amenemhat are so marked that they probably belong to the early part of the 12th Dynasty. The earliest manuscripts are perhaps The Shipwrecked Sailor and P. Prisse (Ptahhotep and Kagemni), which can be dated to the mid- to late 12th Dynasty, and the manuscript of the Herdsman, all from non-royal tombs at Thebes. At the settlement of el-Lahun (see Quirke 1990b: 155-9), administrative documents are attested from the mid-12th Dynasty, yet no literary manuscripts are found before the later 12th Dynasty (Quirke, pers. comm.). The late appearance of literary manuscripts at el-Lahun and Thebes may show that literature was disseminated slowly from the highest court circles into the lower social levels attested at those sites, as well as illustrating the chances of preservation."
Page 46: QUOTE: "The lack of securely dated literary texts make the identification of style for particular periods (Zeitstil) hazardous. Attempts to correlate textual styles and 'mood' with specific periods is over-schematic (Parkinson 1991e: 174-5 with references). One example is The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant which was previously assigned to the First Intermediate Period by its setting and by plausible thematic grounds (such as its attitude to 'greatness'); the text has now been assigned to the later 12th Dynasty (Berlev 1987; Vernus 1990a; Parkinson 1991e; Roccati 1993). The positive or pessimistic aspects of a text are not due to its being composed in a certain period, as has often been argued, but spring from consideration of genre and authorial choice. A stable regime is arguably more likely to propagate fictional 'laments' than one only clinging onto order, for which pessimistic compositions might be too close to the bone."
Page 46-47: "A review of attested historical settings suggests that various options were available to Middle Kingdom authors, who made a choice among them for a variety of aesthetic reasons (cf. L. Morenz 1996: 41-2):"
- "1. For idealistic accounts of wisdom, there was the golden age of the far past, as in Kagemni, Ptahhotep, and the prologue of Neferti (cf. Blumenthal 1996a: 127). Related to this is the exotic and fantastic past of 'once, long ago', which was suitable for tales of wonder (Cheops' Court)."
- "2. The more recent troubled age of the First Intermediate Period occurs in accounts of more problematic life, as in Merikare and the Eloquent Peasant (cf. Parkinson 1991e: 173). The reign of Neferkare, probably Pepy II of the late Old Kingdom, which is the setting for the scandalous events of Neferkare and Sasenet, may belong here."
- "3. The very recent past is appropriate to an equivocal view of the world, as in Sinuhe and Amenemhat."
- "4. The timeless setting of some compositions either embodies an anonymous fabulous world, as in The Shipwrecked Sailor, or the loyalistic world of The Teachings of Man, which is both contemporaneous and timeless and conforms quite closely to the decorum of official texts of the period."
Page 47: QUOTE: "It is desirable to develop specific dating criteria (Björkman 1964; van der Plas 1984) that will allow comparison with more securely dated non-literary and literary materials within the framework of the individual composition. Linguistic features are providing vital criteria as they are studied in more detail. I summarize possible evidence here."
Page 47-48: QUOTE: "1. Manuscripts. The date of manuscripts can provide a relatively secure indication of the period by which a text must have been composed, although it can be taken to implausible extremes with the earliest manuscripts being equated with the date of the composition (e.g., van der Plas 1986; Grimal 1995b; cf. Burkard 1999: 164). Few papyri can be dated absolutely, however, so that paleography is an uncertain criterion; the recent tendency has been to favour later absolute datings. The existence of different styles in hieratic script both in different types of documents and in vertical and horizontal lines within a single manuscript, as well as possible geographic variations in writing styles, renders dating by palaeography uncertain (e.g., P. Westcar containing Cheops' Court). Orthography has hardly been studied since Dévaud (1924). Here even the published conclusions may be compromised by the fact that a manuscript's palaeography or orthography may have copied its older archetype; in the case of P. Prisse, for example, a later date by over a century is suggested by the orthography than by the ostensible style of the palaeography. The level of variants between contemporaneous copies and a text's redactional history may also provide rather approximate evidence for the length of previous transmission (e.g., Burkard 1977: 115, 316-17; Parkinson 1991e; Kahl 1998)."
Page 48: QUOTE: "2. Allusions. Extrinsic features such as the names and titles of non-royal protagonists can offer specific evidence, as can incidental background information in a text. Our ignorance of the details of history renders topical references to dated events of little use. An example is a suggested — but very uncertain — allusion to the assassination of Amenemhat I in The Teaching of Man (3.7; Brunner 1978); this compares unfavourably with the better documented allusions in Vergil, for example (e.g., Farrell 1997). Datings have often relied on identifying hypothetical political or historical allusions in the texts (e.g., Goedicke on Cheop's Court: 1992b: 32-6; Jenni 1998), but these presuppose the 'propaganda' model for literature. More reliable specific correlations are the administrative structure incidentally alluded to in the poems, such as the 12th Dynasty title 'High Steward', which features anachronistically in the Heracleopolitan setting of The Eloquent Peasant (Parkinson 1991c: 178; F. Arnold 1991)."
Page 48: QUOTE: "3. Intertextuality and Quotations. While assessments of a text's general tone and thematic content, such as its treatment of loyalism or of predestination, are often hazardous, comparison of thematic treatments remains valuable, provided that the distinctiveness of literary discourse is accommodated. Correlations between the formulae of wisdom literature are datable texts such as biographies have not yet been fully exploited (exceptions are Blumenthal 1987, Vernus 1995b on Ptahhotep)."
Page 48: QUOTE: "Quotations of one text in another have attracted discussion, but explicitly marked examples, such as the quotation of Kemit in The Teaching of Khety (2d-e), are very rare. It is difficult to tell which text is the quoter and which the quoted. Since the total corpus of literature was comparatively small, it is plausible that one text could have alluded specifically to the words of another, even without marking the allusion. However, similarities between different compositions could be reflections of a common source, or a common literary phraseology, in which formulae were standardized in relation to motifs. The intertextual nature of literature, discussed below, is a complicating factor (on the comparable use of quotations to establish the chronology of the Shakespearean canon see Wells and Taylor 1987: 93)."
Page 48-49: QUOTE: "In many cases the supposed quotations presuppose high dates for literary texts, but almost all of the examples proposed can be explained in other ways. Thus, the suggested quotations of Merikare on the 11th Dynasty 'Hound stela' of Intef II and in the inscription of Montuwoser dated to Year 17 of Senwosret I (Quack 1992: 135) are examples of the common formulaic phrases 'to drive a man from the goods of his father' and 'be partial toward a lord of payments'. Similar arguments affect the alleged quotations from Hordedef in a Coptos Decree of Pepy II and a First Intermediate Period stela (Brunner 1979: 117-19)."
Page 49: QUOTE: "4. Linguistic. An example of grammatical evidence is Pascal Vernus' analysis of a progressive verbal construction (1990a, b). He proposes three stages in its development during the Middle Kingdom, with the absolute dating of the second stage being supported by examples in administrative documents of the reign of Amenemhat III. It is often difficult to convert the relative chronology into an absolute one, and there are few fixed constructions which were used archaistically, while literary language can be distinct from other registers (as Silverman 1980: 96-7)."
Page 49: QUOTE: "5. Literary form. The evolution of literary form cannot yet be charted in detail. The contrasting features of Middle Kingdom and Ramessid literature provide a broad impressionistic framework for dating (J. Assmann 1985: 48-9), if one assumes that those Middle Kingdom compositions which show 'Ramesside features' are later than those which do not. As with the linguistic features mentioned above, one must allow for the existence of different contemporaneous stylistic registers."
Page 49: QUOTE: "Gerhard Fecht has proposed a clear distinction between the metrical rules of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and has used this distinction to posit that an Old Kingdom archetype for The Teachings of Ptahhotep, composed in Old Egyptian, was later translated into Middle Egyptian and, in all but one manuscript, into Middle Kingdom metre (not fully published; see Fecht 1965: 125 n.109, 1986: 246-7). However the use of Old Kingdom metre could be an archaizing device comparable to such a phenomenon or representational art. The script of the 12th Dynasty P. Prisse, which contains the only copy of the teaching composed in Old Egyptian metre, may itself be archaistic (A.1.5, under Kagemni). Any aspect of a composition can be archaistic, but the effect can be more fully attained in metre than in the linguistic idiom of a whole text. The linguistic evidence is therefore likely to be more reliable, and I prefer to regard The Teaching of Ptahhotep as a Middle Kingdom composition written in an archaizing style, rather than a partially modernized Old Kingdom text."
Page 49-50: QUOTE: "I tentatively suggest a chronology based on the possible datings reviewed and summarized in Appendix 1. None of the poems predate the 12th Dynasty. The educational text Kemit (Appendix 2) is from very early in the dynasty. Neferti is from the final decade of the first reign, that of Amenemhat I. From the sole reign of Senwosret I comes The Teaching of Amenemhat, and perhaps Khety. From the following reign of 34 years (Amenemhat II) comes The Tale of Sinuhe. A similarly early date can be suggested for The Tales of the Shipwrecked Sailor and The Herdsman. The Teachings of Ptahhotep and of Hordedef may come from the early 12th Dynasty. By the reign of Amenemhat II, The Loyalist Teaching, The Teaching of a Man and The Teaching of Kagemni had been composed, with Kagemni perhaps late in the group. The poems enumerated above were all composed in a period of about a century. The Eloquent Peasant was perhaps composed in the seven-year reign of Senwosret II, and a broadly similar date can be proposed for Sasobek and the Fowler. The Dialogue of a Man and His Ba comes from late in this phase."
Page 50: QUOTE: "The High Middle Kingdom perhaps saw the compositions of The Teaching of Merikare, and The Tale of Hay and The Tale of Horus and Seth. All the canonical genres were established by this phase of the 12th Dynasty. From the final reigns of the 12th Dynasty and the 13th Dynasty (a period of 130 years) come Khakheperreseneb, Ipuur and the Accounts. The 13th Dynasty also saw The Tale of the Court of Cheops and The Tale of Neferkare and Sasenet."

Textual transmission

Page 50: QUOTE: "For the Egyptians the transmission of a text was an exemplar of cultural performance, and was privileged over oral transmission (L. Morenz 1996: 21-32; Baines 1983, 1984): The Teaching of Khety presents society as divided into a scribal class and lowly illiterate workers, and the Elephantine inscription of Senwosret I dismissively refers to the oral transmission of ritual skills (Schenkel 1975b: 117 [SoNr 2, 1. x+4]; Redford 1987: 53 n. 110). Written literature partakes of writing's role of 'proclaiming all that is forgotten', and as a cultural memory (J. Assmann and A. Assmann 1983; J. Assmann 1992b). The teachings assert that they teach according to the enduring words of the past (Ptahhotep 37), a theme that is developed in the later 'Eulogy of Dead Writers' which assimilates literary texts with 'heirs' and memorial monuments (P. Chester Beatty IV vso 3.3-4)."
Page 50: QUOTE: "Nevertheless, in teachings the sage speaks to his children, and the subsequent transmission is often envisaged as passing orally from children to children (e.g., Ptahhotep 588-95). The end of Kagemni makes clear the equivalence for the literary context of performance/speaking and writing: the maxims are presumably spoken, and are then presented to the children as an already existing papyrus roll. The original pronouncement and the recited text are assimilated, as the Vizier summons his children:"

And at last he said to them:

'As for all that is in writing on this roll,

hear it even as I said it.'

(2.4-5)

Page 50: QUOTE: "In Ptahhotep:"

Memory of (the teaching's maxims) will <not> depart from the mouths of

mankind,

because of the perfection of their verses.

(510-11)

Page 50: QUOTE: "The words are transmitted by written means; repute comes through recital and words of mouth, as also in the biography of the Steward Montuwoser (Sethe 1928a: 80, 11.1-3; quoted on p. 87)."
Page 53: QUOTE: "The preserved textual record is more extensive from the Ramessid Period, when some texts from the corpus were much copied on papyri and ostraca, including tales, teachings, and discourses. Non-literary texts were also copied together with the literary corpus, such as the Kamose inscriptions, or the Building Inscriptions of Senwosret I. Ostraca and writing boards provide the most numerous copies of much of the corpus, but they also include non-literary texts and genres. Ostraca are attested from the New Kingdom at various sites in Egypt and Nubia, but the large majority are from the Ramessid settlement of Deir el-Medina, although the exact original context is usually unknown (overview: Quirke 1996b: 392-4; see also McDowell 1999: 25-7). In the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale collection of these ostraca in Cairo, the most frequently occurring texts are, in descending order: Khety, Amenemhat, Kemit, The Satiric Letter, The Nileflood Hymn, The Loyalist Teaching (Gasse 1992: 52-3). Less frequent are hymns and prayers, and still less Sinuhe (seven examples)."
Page 53-54: QUOTE: "The selection of literary texts for copying was probably determined by the context in which the copies were made, relating to teaching practices that drew on a codified group of 'set texts' in Middle Egyptian. Although the hands of the copies are generally too skillful for schoolboys learning to write (van der Plas 1986: I, 11-14; J.J. Janssen 1992: 86), the copies may be made at an advanced stage of training in literary Middle Egyptian, and dates mark many ostraca excerpts as training exercises (McDowell 1996). These copies are unlikely to have been intended primarily for reading. There are, however, some numbered ostraca, where the numbers do not correspond with the stanzas of the text (Posener 1975), that could mark 'the pages' of 'paperbacks' — the papyri being the 'hardback' editions (J.J. Janssen 1992: 86), but such examples are rare (e.g., the Late Egyptian Tale of the Ghost: von Beckareth 1992; McDowell 1999: 149-52). Moreover, the texts of many ostraca are corrupt enough to be only partially intelligible, due to the corruption of the available textual tradition and not the personal ignorance of the apprentice scribes, and must have been rote exercises (Burkard 1977: 318-21). The scribe's personal copies on papyrus and apprentice work on ostraca and papyri both drew on the same, often corrupt, textual traditions. A correlation between a corrupt tradition and the teaching context is possible, as texts used in schools would be copied and recopied more frequently. Some degrees of corruption in a manuscript, however, need not indicate that the text was copied exclusively by rote in training: scribes might keep bad copies beyond their teaching purpose out of respect for their literary value even if they were largely incomprehensible...Scholastic or cultural use of a literary text can give it an 'encyclopedic' function regardless of its legibility."
Page 54-55: QUOTE: "Wisdom texts, especially teachings, were the literary texts most copied on ostraca, while Middle Kingdom tales are rare, except for ones with some historical content such as Neferkare or Sinuhe (the best attested: Baines 1982: 31-2; Koch 1990: vi). This selection was presumably determined by educational concerns, although the nature of such concerns is inaccessible. The educational corpus seems to have often excluded earlier lighter and entertaining works, such as Cheop's Court, and concentrated on edifying texts in the classical language, although love-songs are occasionally included on educational ostraca (see 10.1). The known literary corpus was broader than the educational corpus of set texts. Thus, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, which was apparently not in this corpus, was quoted in a Ramessid literary letter by the Deir el-Medina littérateur Menna (Simpson 1958a; Parkinson 1991c: xxix-xxx; McDowell 1999: 144-7; L. Morenz 1998). The Ramessid tradition as a whole reflects a general codification of earlier poems into a corpus of 'classical' compositions (J. Assmann 1985; Loprieno 1996b: 55-8) that were hallowed by their age and distinguished from contemporaneous literary activity. Their transmission continued into the Late Period and probably beyond (e.g., Jasnow 1999)."

The Oral and Textual Context of Literature

Page 55: QUOTE: "A history of written discourses is the principal possible approach to the orality of a dead culture. As Jack Goody remarks, no study of oral literature was possible before the tape-recorder, since transcription distorts (1987: 80-1). By the end of the Old Kingdom a limited variety of types of text are attested in various media (e.g., Baines 1983: 577-8). There are copies of religious and ritual texts, preserved in the funerary Pyramid Texts. Private tomb-inscriptions exist, and commemorative inscriptions recording, e.g., mining expeditions. Fragments of administrative texts, letters, accounts and orders survive to show the extensive use of papyrus, presumably also used for the originals of many inscribed texts (L. Morenz 1996: 12 n.51, 199). Kinglists and annals (e.g., Baud and Dobrev 1995, 1997) bear witness to the existence of technical texts, and claims from later periods for the antiquity of technical treatises such as magical and medical papyri may well be in part valid: the biography of the 5th Dynasty vizier Ptahwash mentions a 'box of writings', apparently to do with healing (Urk. I, 42, 1.8; Roccati 1982a: 108-11)."
Page 55-56: QUOTE: "The balance of current evidence suggests that no literary works were written down in the Old Kingdom (see above), a lack which John Baines (1999a) addresses. In contrast to the slow and visible development of the funerary biographies (Lichtheim 1988; Gnirs 1996; Doxey 1998), the rapid emergence of the system of written literary genres in the Middle Kingdom in a full and stable form suggests considerable oral prehistory. As Tzvetan Todorov remarked, 'a new genre is always a transformation of one or several old genres' (1976: 161; cf. A. Fowler 1982: 149-69; Mathieu 1996a: 217). Since written literature was almost certainly performed at least in part, a transition between oral and written poetry might not have seemed as drastic as it does to us. Whether the oral poetry before the Middle Kingdom comprised prototypes of later compositions, or the actual texts which were later written down, has been debated (see L. Morenz 1996: 38). It is possible that the texts existed in an oral form before being committed to writing, but although genres present themselves as 'transcriptions' from oral compositions, the relationship between oral and written forms is very complex. The exact oral transmission of oral compositions is unlikely (contrary to many studies; see Goody 1987: 110-22 on the ancient Indian Vedas)."
Page 56: QUOTE: "Middle Kingdom Egypt was a predominantly oral 'face to face' culture in many respects, and the dynamics of oral performance are visible in many of its genres. The patterning of expression is often additive rather than subordinative and the use of formulae is prominent and aggregative rather than analytic, as when epithets appear in long sequences. Since an oral composition cannot be reread (with turning back pages) to remind the reader, the style may be repetitive and copious. An oral work conceptualizes knowledge with close reference to the specific life-world, and considerations of opposed ideas is formulated in agonistic fashion. The relationship of performer and audience with the literature is empathetic and participatory. This brings a tendency toward narratives that are objectivizing in style: because the reaction is communal and given, it need not be spelled out."
Page 56: QUOTE: "A parallel and older culture of songs, folktales and folk wisdom certainly existed in the Middle Kingdom, but evidence for the oral arena is sparse. Scenes on tomb walls provide a few harpist's songs, and workmen's songs (e.g., Parkinson 1991a: 27), but these are unlikely to be a direct transcription. There is sparse evidence for oral performers in written sources: the late Middle Kingdom Ipuur (4.11-13) and Cheop's Court (L. Morenz 1996: 42-3) mention singers and musicians. Oral story-telling is implied by a reference in a funerary inscription to travellers returning home 'to tell your campaigns to your wives' (Sethe 1928a: 88, 11.22-3). The influence of oral literature is perhaps detectable in the literary travesty of lowly (and thus illiterrate) wise men (see 4.3), although within high culture there was also oral performative literature, such as the song of the princesses in Sinuhe. In wisdom texts and compositions such as The Eloquent Peasant, the role of proverbial maxims and formulae suggests the influence of oral poetry, as do folkloric elements of The Shipwrecked Sailor (Baines 1990a: 57-61). In A Man and His Ba the atmosphere of the third lyric is suggestive of later love-songs,⁹ perhaps pointing to an otherwise unrecorded type of lyric in the Middle Kingdom."
Page 56: With that inline footnote citation #9, R.B. Parkinson writes, QUOTE: "See Kaplony 1970 for a possible example of such a lyric in Coffin Text spell 671 (CT VI, 299); his reading, however, relies on a very uncertain rendering of VI, 299d. The earliest manuscripts for the Late Egyptian love-songs is from the early 19th Dynasty (Mathieu 1996a: 22-3; for the date of P. Harris see Gardiner 1932: ix)."

The Social Context

Middle Kingdom Society

Page 64-65: I will skip some notes here that I don't find particularly useful; QUOTE: "1. Social differentiation . . .The creation and flourishing of literature has been linked to the rise of an intellectual, liberated 'middle class' at this period (Loprieno 1988; 1991a: 212-13). The extent to which this hypothetical group can be identified with the 'officials' (srw) mentioned in the texts is uncertain (Quirke 1990a: 92; Doxey 1998: 157-9). Detlef Franke (1998a) has also argued that this hypothetical group cannot be identified in the 'little men' (ndsw: cf. Doxey 1998: 196) of Middle Kingdom texts, and he reaffirms the economic and cultural dependence of the elite and subelite on the king. The Middle Kingdom was arguably a patronage society (Gnirs 2000b; Junge 2000). While the existence of literature is probably related to social changes, this group is problematic as an explanation of literature."
Page 65-66: QUOTE: "2. A culture of individuality. The 'theme of loneliness and isolation' (J. Assmann 1982b: 965) gains prominence in texts of the 10th-12th Dynasties. The concern with individual experience in the texts is a concern similar to what Stephen Greenblatt (1980) has termed 'self-fashioning' in the English Renaissance. One aspect is an emphasis on ethical behaviour as expressing the consciousness of individuality, which is embodied in the motif of 'following the heart' (Loprieno 1988: 86-91). A second aspect is religious, partly embodied in the concepts of the heart and the ba ('soul'; Loprieno 1988: 91-7; see also J. Assmann 1982b, 1984a: 215-20), and partly in the relationship between human individuals and the divine and royal spheres. In literature, the divine is presented in terms of its relationship to the human world, both in wisdom texts which express 'the way of god' (Khety 30a), and in narratives that tell of the divine's impact on individual lives, including 'personal piety' (Blumenthal 1998b). A third aspect is the 'culture of celebration' attested in First Intermediate Period later biographies (L. Morenz 1996: 110-11). For example, the late 13th Dyunasty statue of the brewer Renefseneb-Dagi, probably from the Heqaib chapel at Elephantine, describes him as:"

a man of festival,

beloved of myrrh,

who associates with holiday.

Page 66: QUOTE: "These phenomena are not necessarily signs of the evolution of individuality, but evidence of the history of discourses."
Page 66: QUOTE: "3. Expanding literacy and access to written culture. The early Middle Kingdom saw a 'media revolution', and the increased use of writing was an enabling factor for literature (L. Morenz 1996: 3, 201). Access to funerary texts offers a means of charting this: Middle Kingdom memorials at Abydos and non-royal tombs show an increasing use of funerary texts, but this was not a single or simple progression. In the late 12th Dynasty expansion and diversification in burial practices (Bourriau 1991), the memorials at Abydos come from rather lower levels of society than hitherto, but although a few inscriptions belong to individuals who had no titles (Quirke 1991c) such memorials do not include the Coffin Texts themselves, suggesting that some categories of texts were no less restricted than earlier. These changes in mortuary practice suggest that throughout the Middle Kingdom full literacy continued to be restricted principally to the male titled and official classes. The impact of increasing literacy on cultural artefacts [sic] was probably considerable: writing allows a dialogue which 'may relativize significant tenets of ideology, so that discordant conceptions come to be present in one and the same context ... necessarily unique to them' (Baines 1984: 697). It is likely that the textualization of a new form of discourse in terms of looser decorum was formulated in the ambient of the royal court, rather than being a subversive movement due to an increased spread of literacy."

Literary Manuscripts in Society

Page 66-67: QUOTE: "Literary texts are composed in a grapholect—a means of essentially written communications (3.3.1). Thus a prime concern for siting them is the level of full literacy in society, assessed by Baines and Eyre (1983) at approximately under 1 per cent. Literacy is never a monolithic phenomenon and such estimates can only model an order of magnitude for a complex and varied range of usage (compare Thomas 1986 on early modern England). The appearance of literature seems to coincide with the 'fixation of a particular register of written language', a formal, socially marked, official language (Loprieno 1996e: 518-20; Moers 2000: 59-80). Literary texts are thus in part a phenomenon of the male central elite and royal court, and a unitary part of the 'restricted' elite cultural apparatus (Eyre 1990: 162-4). Written literature is a medium created near the core of the literate state, and excludes the lower, non-literate levels of society; as such it is concerned in part with prestige and ostentation (L. Morenz 1996: 52). The attitudes towards the lower non-literate classes in The Teaching of Khety, for example, recall the effects of expanding literacy in Elizabethan England, which 'reinforced the existing social hierarchy by enabling the upper classes to despise their inferiors' (Thomas 1986: 117). Within the limits set by literacy, it is unknowable how restricted access to literature was, but the ability to become literate seems not to have been available to many levels of society, despite a presentation of the social order as meritocratic (Baines 1983: 585-6). The extent of upward social mobility is uncertain, and such mobility seems to have been conformist, with self-made men adapting to elite standards."
Page 67-68: QUOTE: "Indirect evidence for the social structure of literature is supplied by the groupings of texts in archives, where literary texts are not obviously distinguished or classified as separate entities. Literature shows affinities with various institutional spheres—temple, tomb, palace, administration. The principal means of circulating literature was by manuscript: many texts are described as being 'found' as a result of archival investigations (L. Morenz 1996: 52-5), and the content of colophons suggest the same for literary texts (see below). One can only speculate by what means, and how extensively, copies of literary texts were circulated: in the Roman Republic publication was 'casual and fluid' while 'most readers depended on borrowing books from friends and having their own copies made from them' (Reynolds and Wilson 1991: 23-4). Some poems are attested in manuscripts from throughout the country, such as Sinuhe, with Middle Kingdom manuscripts from Haraga in Middle Egypt and Thebes in the south, but it is possible that some may have been circulated only locally: examples of such may include some of the tales from el-Lahun, which are known only from that site. The Ramesside community of Deir el-Medina provides a later example of local literary production (Bickel and Mathieu 1993). This pattern may well reflect a distinction between works commissioned and/or approved by the royal court and regarded as canonical, and local, lesser-known works. The texts of commemorative inscriptions are likely to have been circulated officially through the country (L. Morenz 1996: 139), and the same may have applied to canonical literary texts. In this context, institutional libraries may have been focal points for circulating copies and for individuals who obtained manuscripts for themselves (see Nordh 1996: 155-6)."
Page 68: QUOTE: "Little is known about the nature and scope of institutional libraries (Burkard 1980; Quirke 1996b: 394-9); the principal sources derive from and relate to much later temple libraries (e.g., Tait 1977). How comprehensive such archives could be is suggested by Roman Period archival copies of Middle Kingdom commemorative inscriptions from Asyut (Osing and Rosati 1998: 55-100; Kahl 1999), and a 26th Dynasty copy of The Teaching of Amenemhat possibly from a temple context in Elephantine (P. Berlin 23045: Burkard 1977: 7-8; Verhoeven 1999: 259). This papyrus indicates that literature may have been stored in temple libraries, at least in the Late Period. Temple libraries are attested from the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (e.g., L. Morenz 1996: 13, 84-6, 170-8). In the mid-13th Dynasty Abydos stela of King Neferhotep I, the king declares his desire to see the religious 'writings of Primeval times of Atum: Open (them) for me, for a great inventory (sjpt-wr)' (Helck 1983: 21, 11.6-7); he is answered:"

'May your person proceed to the Houses of Writing and see the Divine

Words!'

His Person proceeded to the House of the Book.

And then his Person opened the writings with these Friends.

Then his Person found the writings of the House of Osiris Foremost of Westerners.

Page 68-69: QUOTE: "This is probably a temple library, although there is some New Kingdom evidence for palace libraries (Parkinson 1999e: 51-3). Such palace libraries could have included literary texts; quotations from, and allusions to, literary texts occur in royal inscriptions. For example, Loyalist 1.5-7 may be quoted in the inscription of King Neferhotep I (Helck 1983: 23, 1.10)."
Page 69: QUOTE: "Another important institution was the House of Life, which was both a scriptorium and an institution for advanced learning (Nordh 1996: 106-84, 193-215) that was attached to temples, but also closely associated with palaces and courts. Ritual and official texts are attested in connection with it and it very probably also contained literary texts, but it was not necessarily their primary place of composition or circulation. Jan Assmann (1996b: 71-2) assigns literature to the institutional frame of the school, but there are few references to the 'school' in literature, even in the teachings (although Djedi in Cheops' Court has pupils: L. Morenz 1996: 117). The use of literary texts in scribal training is arguably at least partly secondary (see 3.2.2 10.1)."
Page 69: QUOTE: "Thus literature appears not to be tied to any particular institution (Institutionsabstrakte: L. Morenz 1996: 201). It is uncertain how far compositions would have been programmatically circulated under the instructions of the ruling group and royal court, or independently through members of the elite interested in belles lettres. Since the literate elite was small and had strong institutional ties, these two alternatives are not exclusive; the dichotomy between institutional and individual spheres may be inappropriate. A late New Kingdom example of a composition occurring in more than one context is the 'Qadesh poem' of Ramses II, which was 'published' on temple walls and was also apparently disseminated in manuscript form soon after the event it commemorated (1285 BCE), being attested in non-royal archives (von der Way 1984: 34-43; see below)."
Page 69-70: QUOTE: "There is firm evidence for individual as well as institutional 'libraries' in the Middle Kingdom (L. Morenz 1996: 142-58); a fictional example is Djedi, who brings his 'writings' with him when summoned by Cheops (8.3-4). The Ramessid settlement of Deir el-Medina remains the only site form which non-royal archives have been recovered with any detailed archaeological or social context: the library of P. Chester Beatty begun in the late 19th Dynasty by the Scribe of the Tomb Qenherkhepshef (Pestman 1982; Nordh 1996: 165-8; McDowell 1999: 134-5) is the most extensive. It contained a wide range of material including: an archive of letters, memoranda and inheritance-documents of its various owners' families; various papyri with the following genres, often on the same roll: hymns, including The Nileflood Hymn; magical and medical texts; a manual on the interpretation of dreams; Miscellany-texts (including the Satiric Letter and the Miscellany containing the 'Eulogy of Dead Writers'); teachings (including The Teaching of Ani and The Teaching of Khety); Late Egyptian tales; love songs; the Qadesh poem; and a ritual text. The lack of any Middle Kingdom compositions apart from Khety might suggest that 'the owners did not read the classics for pleasure' (McDowell 1999: 134). This collection was built up over more than a century by successive owners, and was eventually deposited in or beside a tomb-chapel in the necropolis of the village, presumably for safe-keeping (Posener 1978: vii; see also Parkinson and Quirke 1995: 64; Bickel and Mathieu 1993: 48-9 n. 103). The textual sources drawn on by the collectors remains unknown (in general see Aufrère 1998: 49-53), but some love-songs are described as having been 'found in a book-container' (P. Chester Beatty I 16.9; Iversen 1979: 78); this particular manuscript seems to have been a personal gift from one scribe to another."
Page 70: QUOTE: "Extant Middle Kingdom archives come from comparable non-royal and not very elevated spheres, suggesting that Middle Kingdom literature was not exclusively courtly. The lack of archaeological provenances for many manuscripts, however, is a severe problem. The presence of copies of some literary texts in non-royal tombs—from which come most substantially intact manuscripts—has suggested early on that they were intended to give pleasure in the afterlife as in this life (Goodwin 1866: 11). P. Prisse (Kagemni and Ptahhotep) was said to be from the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Naga, Thebes; a manuscript of The Tale of Sinuhe has a similar provenance from the necropolis of Hagara, near el-Lahun, and P. Lythgoe came from the Residence cemetery at el-Lisht. The placing of manuscripts in tombs was clearly secondary, but it is uncertain how far it gives evidence for their primary usage: they can hardly have been intended only for other-worldly pleasure, since administrative texts have also been found in tombs (the very early 12th Dynasty P. Reisner I-IV, placed on a coffin in tomb N 408 at Naga el-Deir: Simpson 1963a: 17, frontispiece). The meaning of this practice is unknown; perhaps the papyri formed part of the deceased's professional equipment—as has been suggested for the Ramesseum papyri—or were status symbols of literacy. It is hard to imagine that the specific contents of these administrative texts were any longer meaningful. The placing of non-funerary papyri in tombs continued occasionally after the Middle Kingdom (Quirke 1996b: 391; his R23 is an intrusive deposit). Four examples provide evidence of private archives."
Page 70-73: Parkinson then goes on at length describing these four examples; it's a lot of material you don't need for your draft! It's just important that there were examples of private archives, don't need to describe them in detail like this.
Page 73: QUOTE: "Literary manuscripts are almost invariably written in the everyday cursive hieratic script used for documents such as letters and administrative documents. The compositions were thus not part of monumental discourse. The use of hieratic further distinguishes literary texts from those written in the linear hieroglyphic script, which was usually reserved for religious, liturgical and funerary texts connected with the temple sphere, although technical texts were written in either script form (e.g., L. Morenz 1996: 62, 70-1). There are only a few examples of Middle Kingdom literary works copied in linear script; all are later copies of The Teaching of Amenemhat on ostraca, written in linear hieroglyphs between ruled lines. The choice of script probably derives from the ostracon being an apprentice exercise, written in the same script as the educational text Kemit (Appendix 2), and not from its being copied from an otherwise unattested type of literary papyrus, a copy of linear hieroglyphs from a temple library."
Page 73-74: QUOTE: "In the 12th Dynasty there were two styles of hieratic, one used for administrative and practical texts, and a less cursive one used for broadly literary texts, including technical treatises such as Onomastica. The el-Lahun papyri also show the different types of documents were formatted differently in terms of hand and layout. It is, however, unlikely that an exclusive literary format can be identified, except that literary texts, unlike many other types, are always illustrated. The literary manuscripts are not isolated from other domains of written culture. Literary manuscripts are not presented as esoteric, unlike texts that were inscribed in places of limited access and unlike sacred texts (cf. L. Morenz 1996: 78-87; in general Baines 1990b), nor does anything suggest that they were ever transmitted orally in restricted circles, as suggested by the courtly epithet: 'one who hears what only one person hears' (J.M.A. Janssen 1946: 110 [Fo. 19]). As Jack Goody (1987: 118) remarks, written texts can be circulated with less authorial control than orally transmitted ones."
Page 74: QUOTE: "The transmission of a text in multiple manuscripts in itself is not a distinguishing feature of the literary corpus; there are numerous examples of funerary, magical and technical texts, and commemorative inscriptions, such as that of the Semna and Uronarti stelae, which were contextually bound to display in a royal chapel at a border (Eyre 1990: 138), are known to have existed in more than one copy. The physical means of copying literature does not correspond to an absolute distinction between it and other texts preserved on other media. The Loyalist Teaching was transferred from literary manuscripts to a stela, and performative ritual texts were transferred onto tomb walls (e.g., L. Morenz 1996: 58-70). Conversely, texts could be transferred from a monumental context to a manuscript, such as the Building inscription of Senwosret I preserved on the 18th Dynasty Berlin leather roll; such monumental texts were also drafted and stored in manuscript form. The usage of hieratic manuscripts is nonetheless relevant in placing the literary canon in the intertextual context, and is indicative of literature's situational mobility."

Authors and Authorship

Page 75-76: QUOTE: "The identity of the authors of Middle Kingdom poetry is unknown. With one possible exception, the author-figures featuring in the literary texts are pseudonymous. The 'author-function' is differently constructed in the Middle Kingdom form modern Europe and 'does not operate in a uniform manner in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture' (Foucault 1977: 130). Of the literary corpus, only the teachings and discourses are explicitly identified in their titles with a male protagonist who is their supposed creator. Wisdom is exemplified and validated by the experiences of individuals who possess it, so that the protagonist is easily presented as an author figure. One teaching is made by 'a man for his son' (A Man 0.2), its anonymity presumably emphasizing its wisdom's universality. A similar disregard for authorial identity can be detected in the textual history of The Loyalist Teaching, the only surviving Middle Kingdom copy of which is the Abydos stela of Sehotepibre, which is entitled so as to make him the protagonist. This would have been a strikingly blatant plagiarism if identified authorship had been important in the literary tradition."
Page 76: QUOTE: "The supposed composers of teachings frequently are—or resemble—known prestigious historical figures, and three are royal, but they are not the actual authors. The 'author' Prince Hordedef also features in a tale as a protagonist; both 'authored' wisdom texts and tales use the same historical periods as settings. The pseudonymity of The Teaching of Amenemhat was explicitly acknowledged by Ramessid scribes—whether or not one believes their attribution to a historical author Khety (see pp. 90-1). None of the protagonists of other wisdom genres, such as The Discourse of Sasobek, is a certainly attested historical figure; this lack of historical fame may relate to those genres' embodying of troubled conditions, which it would be inappropriate to link with figures of established eminence. It cannot be known how far the audience regarded the claims to authorship as fictional, or how far they were intended to do so. Some protagonists were later sometimes presented as if historical (see 2.2.2). It is, in any case, easy to blur the distinction between fiction and fact in literature, both for the audience (without intention) and for the author (deliberately). Explicit signs of fictionalization that the modern reader cannot detect may well be present in many cases (see further 5.1.2)."
Page 76: QUOTE: "Ramessid exceptions show that the actual author and protagonist of a wisdom text could be the same individual. Deir el-Medina authors include the draughtsman Menna (Guglielmi 1983; McDowell 1999: 144-7; see J.J. Janssen 1992: 87 n.35), the Scribe of the Tomb of Amennakht, and possibly the scribe Hori (Bickel and Mathieu 1993; McDowell 1999: 139-42). However, these texts are not known to have been circulated beyond the authors' immediate associates, and may well belong to a different, more 'proletarian' literary context (Loprieno 1996b: 55-8) where levels of literacy were higher than in the Middle Kingdom."

Audience and Performers

Page 78-79: QUOTE: "Literature's context is known only from its own self-representations within fictional frames, where it is 'performative utterance' which actually creates its object' (Iser 1989: 6); it remains uncertain when, where and how the compositions would be performed. The compositions seem designed for performance (Eyre 2000), an impression strengthened by modern adaptations and recitals (Parkinson 1999f: 11 n.11; 2000a). There are no independent textual or visual representations of readings; one representation of a possibly parallel situation is the 11th Dynasty scene of a seated 'scribe of the divine book' reciting a ritual text to a seated princess Ashayet on her sarcophagus (L. Morenz 1996: 71-4; photograph: Fischer 1996: pl. 14b). Literary self-representations include performances to groups (e.g., Neferti and The Eloquent Peasant; Chappaz 1986: 105-6), from which one may infer that the compositions could be read aloud at elite social gatherings; the epilogue of Kagemni (2.6) implies the possibility of a group reading a text to itself. Private reading should not be excluded. One word for these performances is šdj ('to recite') (Schott 1990: 521), also used of biographies, letters, and spells, implying a formalized, declamatory method of delivery; funerary representational art uses various arm and hand gestures to indicate that people are reciting (Dominicus 1994: 77-130), and these may well correspond to actual performance practice. Singing (ḥsj) is reserved for specific types of spells, and for praise songs, harpists' lyrics, love-songs, and funerary laments (Schott 1990: 489; L. Morenz 1996: 47-8). Its meaning may be close to that of šdj. Fictional descriptions of literary performances do not mention instrumental accompanists, and the literary context must be considered separately from that of the harpists who are often shown blind and thus unable to read (e.g., L. Morenz 1996: 75-7; Schlott 1996). Neferkare and Sasenet suggests an opposition between the two types of performance, in that the tale's protagonist is drowned out by court musicians when attempting to perform before the king (P. Chassinat I X+2.x+8-13). One literary protagonist, Ipuur, however, was later attributed with the title 'god's singer'."
Page 80: QUOTE: "The internal audience described in some poems is part of the works' generic setting, comprising, for example, the children of the speaker of a teaching. The majority of such audiences are officials, many of higher rank than the speaker, and a number are from the royal court (Parkinson 1996a: 143). This fictional audience may not have corresponded with the actual intended audience, especially since the poems present a schematic picture of society. Thus, Sinuhe and The Eloquent Peasant avail themselves of settings at court, but finds show that they were read elsewhere in the Middle Kingdom. Comparable assessments of audiences for works of art in later cultures are able to draw upon sources lacking for the Middle Kingdom."
Page 80: QUOTE: "Subject matter is perhaps a more reliable indication of the social environment than fictional setting. The vision of the poems extends beyond the royal court circle, but all still centre round the views and concerns of the official class: The Eloquent Peasant is not centred around the concerns of a peasant from the oases. The restrictions of literary suggest that the 'implied readers' of a text must have been members of the elite or subelite (e.g., Baines 1990a: 57 n.9). Through recitation before a non-literate audience, the audience may have included a wider group than that of the written text. Similarly, funerary inscriptions refer to a wider audience than the literate (Eyre and Baines 1989: 109; Eyre 1993: 116), as on the stela of the Steward Montuwoser from the reign of Senwosret I:"

Now as for any people who shall hear (sdm) this stela...

Now as for any scribe who will recite (šdj) this stela,

All people will come up to him.

Page 80-81: QUOTE: "The extant to which literature permeated, or was restricted to, particular social levels, is unknowable (Eyre 1993: 119). The multiple levels of meaning in tales such as The Shipwrecked Sailor and Sinuhe, which are both adventure tales and symbolic narratives, suggest that they were intended for audiences of varying levels of sophistication. Much in the corpus, such as the use of esoteric material in The Shipwrecked Sailor and the allusions to specifically written forms, could only be fully appreciated by the literate elite, but this would not hamper some level of appreciation, for example, in a hypothetical village setting. However, a village audience's understanding of The Eloquent Peasant would be very different, through a difference in sympathy, with that of a courtly audience, and such an extended and lowly audience for the poems is ultimately implausible."
Page 81: QUOTE: "It remains difficult to imagine an actual reading of a work on the basis of the fictional descriptions: the fictional protagonist could correspond to an actual performer reciting from a manuscript or from memory, possibly a specialized performer, while the frequently attested role of the person who brings the protagonist to the scene of his performance may correspond to officials at the royal court with responsibility for entertaining the king (as is attested for other forms of recreation: see below). Outside the royal court, such organization would have been less institutionalized, while the nature and number of the audience remains uncertain and was probably diverse. It has been suggested that at least some literary works, including pessimistic discourses, were for recital at festivals (e.g., L. Morenz 1999a: 131-5). Ursula Verhoeven's suggestion (1996) that a specific royal ritual at Thebes was the occasion for the Late Egyptian Story of Horus and Seth is illuminating but ultimately problematic, underplaying the extent to which this text could have been circulated before and after the ritual and beyond that particular context — the copy was still part of a non-royal archive several generations later. The fictional descriptions of literary events do not place them in a specific context, but only in a holiday mood, suggesting a specific atmosphere was the occasion."

Literary Form

Literary Genres

Page 108-109: QUOTE: "In the absence of any ancient critical discourse, the inference of literary types draws on signals and indicators in the works themselves. The most explicit general signal is a direct label, often presented as a title or incorporated into the work in other ways (A. Fowler 1982: 92-8, 130-48). Ancient terminology is crucial, but it is sparsely attested (listed by Schott 1990), as is the case with all types of Egyptian writing. No specific designation for a tale is known, while generic terms such as mdt 'discourse' can describe a wide range of texts, although they have a more specific genre in certain contexts (see n.3). The use of terms is often determined by the specific fictional context: the speeches of The Eloquent Peasant are variously referred to as 'a lament' (nhwt, B1 60), 'this speech' (mdt-tn, B1 103), 'my plaint...my wretchedness' (hn:j...B 1 311-2), 'this perfect speech' (mdt-tn-nfrt, B1 349-50), and 'your petitions' (...B2 128). These cannot provide a typology for the poem as a whole."
Page 109: QUOTE: "Titles of compositions have a limited potential for the Middle Kingdom. Their frequent use is comparatively recent in literature; the opening formula of a text would give the audience as strong a generic signal as a title (A. Fowler 1982: 92, 98-105; Conte 1986: 76). Titling conversations vary from genre to genre; in the absence of any lists of literary works, once can only hypothesize that those without a title were referred to by their opening words, or 'incipit' (Parkinson 1996b: 302 n.47 with refs)."
Page 109: QUOTE: "The range of features such as Alastair Fowler outlines (1982; see 2.3) are sufficient to provide the following hypothetical schema of genres. Future discoveries of texts and analysis of relative chronology will alter this pattern, just as a new composition can reconfigure the genre system."

Genre	Tale	Teaching		Reflective discourses
Subgenre(s)	Tale	Royal Teaching	Private Teaching	Discourse or verses	Dialogue

Page 109: QUOTE: "This schema is not an attempt to classify the main literary genres, but to offer a map that will clarify the relationships among the various texts. It presents a synchronic overview of the whole Middle Kingdom (of necessity), and ignores diachronic and dynamic features which will have been influential. The genre system of the New Kingdom was radically different."
Page 109: QUOTE: "The tales are non-commemorative, non-functional, fictional narratives; a common word in The Shipwrecked Sailor is 'narrate' (sdd). In these works, the narrative relation of events dominates. The tale is formally the most open-ended genre (including complex sequences of tales, and incorporating other genres), and may well be the least well represented by surviving texts (see 3.2.2). They display a wide range of tone, language and structure; they also display a variety of subject matter, but this is not a sufficient basis to propose any subgenres (pace J. Assmann 1992a: 380-2). All extant Middle Kingdom tales lack titles, apart from characteristic—but not invariable—introductory formulae: 'There once was ...' and 'Now there was once a time when ...' (Parkinson 1996b: 303)."
Page 110: QUOTE: "The wisdom texts are predominantly sapiential discourses; a key word is 'know' (rh). The coherence of this generic group is established by form, theme and style. The group can be divided into two: the didactic genre in which a key term is 'teach' (...e.g., Ptahhotep 37, 47); and more reflective compositions with terms such as 'take thought for' (mhj) and 'meditate' (...e.g., Neferti 3a; A Man and His Ba 32, 68, 78; Khakheperreseneb rto 10, vso 1)."
Page 110: QUOTE: "The didactic genre is the most explicitly and strongly defined. Extant examples are entitled 'teaching' (...). The formal structure varies from episodic aggregates of maxims dealing with distinct situations to longer, more interwoven thematic structures; these types are not mutually exclusive. The dominant tone in the teachings is didactic, although gnomic statements justifying the instructions are frequent, as are narrative sections that cite experience as an authority. Most teachings are centred around 'historical' individuals of high rank. The genre divides between royal and non-royal teachers. Content and tone vary accordingly, with the royal teachings having a higher proportion of gnomic and narrative elements."
Page 110: QUOTE: "Several of the reflective wisdom texts are entitled 'discourse' (mdt). Two examples are known from a single papyrus, with rather extended titles 'Beginning of the Discourse...'; neither subsequent text survives (Renseneb, The Fowler). In Sasobek the title (without 'Beginning of ...', A.17) is prefaced by an introductory narrative, whose beginning is lost (A.1-16); this could have been preceded by a title. Neferti has no title, but opens with a narrative prologue (1a-2q) and a descriptive introduction (2r-3e); Khakheperreseneb has a descriptive title (rto 1) which, like the introduction of Neferti, is not limited to a single designation. Both include the self-designation 'discourses' (mdt) or 'verses' (tsw). Introductions in this genre vary, and the choice between a title, narrative or prologue may have been determined by the complexity of the fictional context; even those which open with titles have phrases implying a particular setting and circumstances (Sasobek A.17; Renseneb 1-2; The Fowler 1-3)."
Page 110: QUOTE: "The most distinctive formal feature of the reflective wisdom texts, which are mainly pessimistic in tone and are often termed 'laments', is a syntactic verse-pattern 'then-now' (see 3.3.1). As a whole, however, these texts are not 'laments'; Neferti, the only complete example, moves to a broadly positive resolution. The discourses also include more discursive passages that develop arguments."
Page 111: QUOTE: "Closely related to the discourses in style, tone and subject matter are A Man and His Ba and Ipuur, which are formally distinct in that the audience, passive in other discourses, assumes a significant speaking role. These two texts are structured as dialogues, in which the subject-matter is considered in a consistent series of exchanges, with individual speeches varying greatly in length. The argument has a rhetorically dramatic aspect. Both dialogues include 'then-now' formulations, as well as series of short stanzas patterned with refrains; both are fragmentary. The end of A Man and his Ba is reached without a narrative section (147-55), but this need not imply that the opening lacked a narrative (see p. 218 for possible reconstruction); one can, however, compare Neferti, which opens with narrative (1a-3e) and concludes with the monologue (15g). It is uncertain whether either dialogue would have included a title comparable to that in Khakheperreseneb."
Page 111: QUOTE: "Within individual texts there are indications of stylistic hierarchy, which may suggest that there was also a correlative hierarchy of genres and subgenres. A system of genres commonly involves hierarchy: 'not only are certain genres regarded prima facie as more canonical than others, but individual works or passages may be valued more or less according to their generic height' (A. Fowler 1982: 216). The principles of decorum that are related to hierarchy can govern many intrinsic features of genres such as appropriate subject-matter, as well as the mixing of genres. In the Middle Kingdom eulogy was apparently highly regarded—as in Latin literature, where it is a higher theme in Vergil's eclogues (e.g., Martindale 1997c: 113). In the argument of A Man and His Ba the lyrics with refrains seem to take precedence over narrative parables. To judge by the later reception (3.2.2) and the style of the teachings, they were perhaps the most elevated genre, while the tales were the least. Groups of compositions in a single genre can display differing degrees of elevation."
Page 111-112: QUOTE: "The majority of the 38 or so extant Middle Kingdom literary texts fall into the three groups mapped above. Additional fragments point to a wider range of possibilities, suggesting not only that the map is partial and affected by the chances of survival, but also that the system was inherently flexible and unschematic, open-ended both in formal terms and in the development of genres. These texts are absent from the Ramessid educational canon, although this is inconclusive for assessing their position in the Middle Kingdom. P Ramesseum II does not match the principal genres: the papyrus contains a collection of short maxims, in which the word 'teach' occurs several times. They are not arranged systematically by subject, although several seem to be grouped thematically (Yoyotte 1961: 117-18; L. Morenz 1997a), and they mobilize diverse attitudes (Yoyotte 1961: 118). These short proverbs recall the style of oral wisdom of a kind alluded to in such compositions as The Eloquent Peasant (B1 50-51, 117; Parkinson 1992: 162). The fact that these maxims use an exclusively proverbial form of presentation does not mean that they are more 'popular' or 'oral' than the other teachings: they contain phrases closely parallel to other 'canonical' texts (Barns 1956: 11-14). To judge by their context in the 'Ramesseum library' (4.2), they are not a copying exercise by an apprentice scribe. The structure is almost an extreme reduction of the maxim structure of Ptahhotep and Khety, and Blumenthal notes that the self-description of Khakheperreseneb as a 'collection of words' could apply to these maxims (1996a: 125); another possible parallel is the onomastica where each entry is laid out on a separate manuscript line (such as P. Ramesseum D) as some of the maxims are (for demotic monostichic texts see, e.g., Quack 1994: 19). The arrangement of the manuscript, in which the layout changed during copying, suggests a formally freer type of text that was perhaps adapted and excerpted by each copyist. This looser structure and composition might have been a more peripheral form than that of the more culturally central teachings or discourses. Such texts might have been composed and circulated within a more restricted circle, whereas the more central compositions were apparently disseminated through the country in a relatively standardized form."
Page 112: QUOTE: "Two more substantial compositions are The Sporting King and The Pleasures of Fishing and Fowling which have affinities with Late Egyptian literature, and have been dated to the 18th Dynasty (J. Assmann 1985: 48-9), although a fragmentary late Second Intermediate Period manuscript of a possibly related type of eulogy (Parkinson 1999d) suggests that such discourses were part of the Middle Kingdom literary canon."
Page 112: QUOTE: "All the literary genres, although distinctive, are not autonomous and cut off from other types of discourse. Most are canonical and in that reflect the concerns of central ideology, changing as it does (cf. R. Williams 1977: 180-5). The creation and use of genre is—like all writing—integral with the exercise of elite power (Brannigan 1998: 77-8), although the evolution of genres is not determined solely by 'power', but by a complex web of social practices. The same is true of metre and style, as is accessible in much later better documented works such as Paradise Lost (1667) where the choice of blank verse was informed by intertextual, cultural and political concerns (Lewalski 2000: 456-8)."

Readings

Tales

High and low narratives

Page 149: QUOTE: "A small group of fully preserved high register tales are the best known and studied poems and hence can be analysed in greater depth than is possible than for other texts. Both Sinuhe and The Eloquent Peasant seem to have been central to the surviving Middle Kingdom canon, being preserved in four manuscripts each from the period. Two of these finds group them together, and these tales are not only related by genre, but can also be regarded as thematically complementary: Sinuhe presents himself as an innocent wrongdoer, while the peasant proclaims himself an innocent sufferer. Although a narrative mode cannot address intellectual themes as abstractly as discourses can, neither of these two tales is a simple relation of events. Their emplotment also reveals that the sequence of events is subordinate to other concerns and generates faultlines. The Tale of King Cheops' Court and that of The Shipwrecked Sailor are relatively complete unitary compositions that have the superficial appearance of simple folktales, different from the rhetorical elaboration of varied styles in the other tales. The contrast of these two from the same social context allow one to chart the range of literary entertainment in terms of response."

Discourses and dialogues

Discourses: The world's recreation

Page 193: QUOTE: "The extant discourses display a wide range of subject matter, as well as varying degrees of abstraction form the situation presented by their settings. They are also tonally distinct in degree of pessimism. The discourses are dominated by lament formulations, reflecting the reversals of the Nile, death, and the pattern of the transfer of rulership. The association of the king with the Nileflood occurs in Senwosret I's self-presentation as an agent of recreation and renaissance (Franke 1996: 290), and the discourses exist against this official presentation of the pattern of loss and renewal, and the general importance of the non-existent and inchoate in Egyptian thought (Hornung 1982: 172-85). However, the social role-reversals of the discourses also invert the descriptions of the ordered behaviour of servants and the professions in official discourse such as First Intermediate Period biographies (L. Morenz 1999a: 125-30)."
Page 193-194: QUOTE: "The Words of Neferti is the only completely preserved discourse, and is thus the most significant exemplar of the genre. It is also the most explicit text articulating literary activity and charts the differentiation between official eulogy and a more mediated, entertaining, form of discourse. This treatment may be in part an artefact of the poem's early date, when written literature was comparatively new, and required a more explicit identification than later. The composition's conciseness may also be conditioned in part by this date; longer and more elaborate compositions come later. Although Neferti engages with specific political themes from the recent past (Posener 1956: 21-60), its construction may be intended to prevent the poetry from being 'simply a vehicle for political comment' (Tarrant 1997b: 173 on Vergil): Neferti's discourse is introduced by substantial, frivolous-toned, narrative prologue."
Page 194: QUOTE: "The narrative setting has two ostensibly programmatic effects. One is to guarantee through royal authority the prophetic discourse in honour of the future king Ameny, which follows the prologue: the renowned Sneferu himself (Graefe 1990) is the person who transcribes it—although the original audience can hardly have believed that the eulogy was a genuine prophecy. Sneferu's renown also enhances the glory of Ameny, since the poem associates the two of them by presenting the royal succession as passing from Sneferu's idealized reign to that of Ameny. The conflict between order and chaos revealed as the passage from rule, through interregnum, to rule is well attested in official discourse, and is the poem's major structuring theme. Royal inscriptions describing the restoration of monuments were presumably one official prototype for the description of chaos (e.g., the Tod and Elephantine inscriptions of Senwosret I). Similar descriptions of ruin and restoration also occur in the contemporaneous non-royal inscriptions of Sarenput I [???] in the chapel of Heqaib in Elephantine (stela nos. 9; Franke 1994: 160-1). In Neferti, however, Sneferu's frivolity marks him as the fictional king par excellence; although he authorizes the prophecy, he also fictionalizes it."
Page 194: QUOTE: "The second effect of the setting is to counter and contain the prophecy's negative aspects before it begins. In the face of the lament, Sneferu's renown acts as a reassurance that all will be made well, which is reinforced by the semantic similarity of his name with the name of the protagonist — 'He who makes good' (snfrw: Graefe 1990: 259) and 'May you be good' (nfr.tj) — as well as with Neferti's 'perfect speech' (mdt-nfrt) and 'good deed' (sp-nfr: 1l; L. Morenz 1996: 5-6). He also contains, and thus counters, the lament by recording it in writing, but this simultaneously signal's the event's literary nature: he is producing the archetype of the poem's manuscript (compare the roll at the end of The Eloquent Peasant). The containment is staged in terms of enjoyment; since he requests 'entertainment' (1m, 2k), he moves the text's reception from one of indoctrination to one of amusement."
Page 194-195: QUOTE: "The antiquity of the setting provides a reassuring frame for the discourse, but also transforms the prophecy for the actual Middle Kingdom audience. The lament is in the future tense, doubly neutralizing the lament's impact: the chaos is in the past for the actual audience who view it through the fictional audience, for whom it is in the future. This framing, however, also distances the positive resolution of the prophecy (as Blumenthal notes 1996a: 119), and the intricate temporal perspective provides an oblique angle on the political concerns (as with the Aeneid: Tarrant 1997b: 117). The transfer of discourse into a non-functional context is signalled, as in The Eloquent Peasant, by the juxtaposition of two contrasting modes and by a sharp contrast in style between the simple and repetitive narrative, in two long stanzas, and the more concise, elevated style of the shorter stanzas of the lament. The scenario of the Royal Tale would create expectations of a eulogy, but instead a brief introduction describing Neferti's discourse (3a-e) prepares the audience for a change in tone, and an agonized cry follows:"

Stir my heart,

and beweep this land, in which you began!

(3f)

Page 195: QUOTE: "Although this is an extemporary performance before the king, the sage addresses his own heart. The monologue is ostensibly an interior meditation, and this device moves the discourse into a subjective personal world since the fictional and the actual audience are identified with the sage's heart."
Page 195-196: QUOTE: "The contrast in tone with the narrative might be considered a humorous touch, in which a commoner gives the king a shock, as in the central episode of Cheops' Court, but the text provides no indication that Sneferu does not get what he wants. The lament is explicitly presented as a source of pleasure for the fictional audience, paralleling the role of such discourses as literature in the Middle Kingdom corpus. The style of the narrative is marked as verging on entertainment parody, and the changes in expectations are integral to literary discourse (5.2). The lament's basic pattern of 'then-now' inversions itself thematizes sudden changes. The comic tone of the narrative and the amiable role-reversal that is produced by the poem's being written down by the king neutralizes the disruptive implications of such inversions, transforming the pattern of inversion into delight. The sage is associated with the joyful goddess Bastet (23), as against the baleful Sekhmet with whom she is often paired, which may be significant in characterizing his utterances as positive rather than negative. The inversions of the lament and the humour of the narrative diversely inhabit common ground: social role-reversal, with 'the lowermost uppermost' (12c), can evoke laments for the dead (L. Morenz 1999a: 115 n.29; 3.3.1), but also is potentially humorous in many cultures, where comedy concerns 'the master supposed for the servant, the servant for the master' (G. Gascoigne, Supposes [1566]), cited by A. Fox 1997: 187). Both the light-hearted role-reversals of later 'satiric papyri', and the intertext of the lament genre suggest that such comic potential is relevant to Egyptian texts. Thematically, the two sections of the poem become unified as the audience realizes that both the narrative and the lament are concerned with ideal rulers."
Page 196: QUOTE: "Neferti's lament, which is presented as imagined reality, includes wide-ranging descriptions of chaos. Although the chaos is recounted as in the future, it is presented as immediate to his own heart:"

Do not tire! Look, it is in front of you!

May you attend to what is before you!

Page 196: QUOTE: "This looking at chaos recalls inscriptions in which the king views destroyed temples before restoring them, as in the Tod inscription: 'A disaster is what I have seen' (1.28). That inscription also shares the poem's concern with enemies throughout the land (1.30; cf. 7d), and poor men becoming robbers (1.29). A phrase in Neferti's lament occurs in a later stela of Ahmose I (rto 18: Helck 1983: 109; Neferti 4c), where the restoration is prompted by the king's memory of the disaster, an inner awareness similar to that evoked by Neferti here. The presentation of chaos in Neferti is, however, more elaborate than in official discourse. Elke Blumenthal (1982: 6) identifies a sequence of themes concerning cosmic matters (4-7), Asiatics (6-8), and internal chaos (8-11, including personal chaos resulting from failures in communication), and concluding with a return to the cosmic theme (11). This is not a simple ordered progression. Th themes are densely interwoven and run across stanza boundaries, while elements acting as refrains, such as 'Destroyed is...' and 'I shall show you' (dj:j-n:k), run counterpoint both to the stanzas and to the motifs...There also is an element of contradiction in the chaotic world: the 'river of Egypt is dry' (6a), but two stanzas later foreign flocks come to drink at the water (8a)."
Page 196: QUOTE: "Throughout, the lament encompasses cosmology. The chaos is enough to provoke the injunction 'May the Sungod begin to (re)create!' (4c, echoing 3f), foreshadowing the theodic complaint to the creator that is elaborated in the later Ipuur (Blumenthal 1996a: 115). The concluding stanza encapsulates and summarizes the whole lament in the loss of the sage's and god's birthplace:"

The land will have no Heliopolitan nome —

the birthplace of every god.

Page 197: QUOTE: "The mention of the nome marks the climax of the lament, and recalls its origin since it is spoken by a man from there (2s). Egypt is abandoned by all the gods (a theme in later writings: J. Assmann 1991: 276-87). The lament presents 'a powerful rendering of life as the Egyptians most deeply do not want it', to paraphrase Northrop Frye on King Lear (1964: 99)."
Page 197: QUOTE: "Neferti offers no direct explanation for the cause of the chaos, although the Sungod's withdrawal is implicitly a reaction to the social wrongs. The assertion that 'The Sungod separates himself from mankind' (11d), however, alludes to the myth of the sundered world and mankind's rebellion against the creator. The discourse as a whole does not need to discuss the origin of the chaos, since the lament is countered with the prophecy of the arrival of a king Ameny (13a) who fulfils [sic] Neferti's wish for a re-creation of the land (4c). The contrast between the withdrawal of the gods and the arrival of the king is counterpointed geographically by the loss of the god's (and Neferti's) birthplace i the northern Heliopolitan nome (12g) and Ameny's arrival from the south (13a-b), and the parallel is reinforced by wordplay between the 'birthplace' (mshnt) of the gods' and the 'child (ms) of Southern Egypt' (12g-13b). The topographical change suggests that the future will be different from, and will surpass, the past, just as the new order will neutralize the chaos."
Page 197-198: QUOTE: "The name of king Ameny is a short form of Amenemhat, which to an early 12th Dynasty audience meant Amenemhat I, and the mention of a fortress named 'Walls of the Ruler' confirms this identification with a specific detail (Posener 1956: 22-8). Ameny's arrival from the south and the orientation of the lament towards the north and east of the country may have legitimized Amenemhat's expansion from Thebes and his suppression of internal dissent in the north (cf. Do. Arnold 1991: 18-19). However, the southern origin of Ameny also alludes to the myth of the distant goddess Sekhmet (Franke 1994: 8 n.1), which belongs with that of the sundered world and the rebellion of mankind. Ameny's descent as the son of a 'woman of Bowland' may be a discordant historical allusion, contradicting what the audience knew of Amenemhat I's actual ancestry, and reinforcing the fictionalized nature of the prophecy. While the allusiveness of naming Ameny — literally 'The Hidden One' (13a) — rather than Amenemhat might be appropriate for a prophecy, it also reverses the aim of panegyrical identification: commemorative texts aim to record the name of the restorer of order. Although the name allies him with the creator god, who in other texts has 'hidden himself' after the sundering of the world (7.2) but who here returns to Egypt, it also blurs his historical identity. The obliqueness of the naming is striking in a setting that generates expectations of a direct eulogy."

The End of Discourse

Page 232: QUOTE: "Despite problems of dating and context, it is possible to ask why the pessimistic discourse is so characteristic of the Middle Kingdom. Its emergence has been regarded as a natural consequence of the Kingdom's use of literature as a vehicle for political propaganda, but this approach is problematic. New Historicist critics argue that 'as soon as a genre of representations begins to ask troubling questions, power finds a new way in which to represent its interests' (Brannigan 1998: 78). This point may be relevant for the Middle Kingdom, where the most directly questioning discourses, such as Ipuur, seem to date from late in the period. One might thus suggest that the lament genre which expressed and contextualized the problematic earlier in the Middle Kingdom gradually became too threatening, as its increasingly direct complaints and questions threatened the ability of the court poets to secure a resolution. However, this reading may underestimate the complexity of the earlier works, in which the strategies of containment are in part subverted, and may impose an overly programmatic 'entrapment' model."
Page 232: QUOTE: "Since entertainment was central to literary reception, other, less programmatic, factors are relevant to the disappearance of a genre. The ability of high cultural participants to enjoy 'pessimistic' poems imagining distress and poverty may have diminished as the court and government became less prosperous and stable in the late 13th Dynasty and beyond (e.g., Bourriau 1988: 53-4)."
Page 232-233: QUOTE: "The apparent absence of new pessimistic discourses from the period of renewed prosperity in the New Kingdom may also have been due to a canonization of existing wisdom literature, that made the creation of new writings in the discourse genre inappropriate (e.g., Baines 1996a: 157-65). This attitude was perhaps part of the trend towards lower forms of literature, including more peripheral forms and topics. Extant evidence suggests a hiatus in the production of the three classical genres in the early New Kingdom, with official texts, eulogy, and lyric becoming the principal genres of early New Kingdom literary activity. These genres are prominent in the intertext of these compound genres, suggesting that they had a transitional status in the gradual dispersal or evolution of the discourse genre."
Page 233: QUOTE: "Nevertheless, the teaching and tale genres were revived in the later New Kingdom, in a diversification in cultural decorum. The new teachings were a consciously classical re-creation, to judge by their not being composed in full Late Egyptian (Baines 1996a: 168), while the Late Egyptian narratives were a development of 'low' tradition of Middle Kingdom tales. In New Kingdom writings, the basic human need to express pessimism and the untoward seems to have found expression in genres other than discourses, such as harpist's songs, personal piety texts and the satiric Miscellanies. Although these changes are unlikely to have been the result of a conscious policy, but are rather the result of a gradual evolution, the question remains: if the classical genre of teachings could be revived, why not the discourses."
Page 233: QUOTE: "The abandonment of the high theodic tradition, and the completeness with which it was supplanted, may embody a decision not to raise potential 'things of darkness' continually in a culturally central medium and canonical genre. The fact that the protagonists of the dark discourses were listed with other less threatening literary sages, and were represented in the Ramessid 'Daressy fragment' (2.2.2) interspersed with ancestral holders of state offices, might also suggest that the awareness of any distinctly dark note in these texts had lessened. The discourses were still circulated and read, but their canonization into classic texts and educational exercises may well have formed an appropriation and partial neutralization of their original potential subversiveness...But if canonization lessened the ambivalence of the discourses, their potential as productive models for new composition remained, as is shown by the revival of many aspects of the genre in much later periods (see, e.g., Depauw 1997: 97-9; Frankfurter 1998: 241-8; Bresciani 1999)."
Page 233-234: QUOTE: "The neglect of the darker genres of the Middle Kingdom's literary heritage in the New Kingdom can perhaps be elucidated by suggesting that the closeness of Middle Kingdom literature to official discourse was paradoxically what allowed it to be subversive, since it could simultaneously contain and provoke subversion. In the late New Kingdom, by contrast, literature had become a more distinct form of discourse, as seen in the diglossia between Ramessid literary Late Egyptian as opposed to the Middle Egyptian employed for official and monumental texts. In the process literature became less able to generate subversion in a maintainable or acceptable (i.e., entertaining) form. The discourse genre did not 'begin to ask troubling questions' (Brannigan 1998: 78), but the context that enabled those questions changed, so the ending of the discourses may not reflect the political exhaustion or suppression of a genre but a shift in the ever-changing relationship between literary and official discourse."

Teachings

Learning nothing: The problem of context

Page 235: QUOTE: "The genre of teachings is well attested in Middle Kingdom manuscripts, and was central to the corpus of the Ramessid Period, but its modern reception has been problematic. It is the most alien genre for modern readers, and some of the most sophisticated analyses of Egyptian literature make it almost peripheral compared to tales (1.4). Much study by Egyptologists has assumed a literal interpretation of the genre-term 'teaching', and the poems are generally agreed to have been part of the Middle Kingdom education syllabus and a vehicle for teaching rules of conduct (e.g., Shupak 1993: 2-3), although there has been little discussion about their precise context (in general, see Brunner 1991a). This assumption underlies Jan Assmann's analysis of all Middle Kingdom literature as 'cultural texts'. I here argue that Teachings belong to the same literary context of entertainment as the tales and discourses."
Page 235: QUOTE: "The literal meaning of the term 'teaching' (...) cannot be doubted, nor its relationship to scribal training with attendant corporal punishment (Shupak 1993: 31-3), but the narrowly functionalist approach to the genre is not necessarily compelling. Numerous copies of Middle Kingdom teachings were made during scribal training in the Ramessid Period (3.2.2), but the functioning of the texts' content in teaching practices is problematic, because the state of many copies, which are corrupt to the state of unintelligibility, suggests that they were exercises in writing out texts rather than absorbing the wisdom they contained; in manuscript cultures verbatim memorizing and copying are often important for their own sakes (Goody 1987: 167-90)."
Page 235-236: QUOTE: "The extant Middle Kingdom manuscripts of teachings span the second half of the 12th Dynasty. All lack contextual provenance, except for P. Prisse containing Ptahhotep and Kagemni, which may come from a non-royal tomb at Thebes, possibly together with The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (4.2). No Middle Kingdom copies show any evidence of having been made by apprentice scribes. Although there are no Middle Kingdom educational ostraca, several writing boards survive: the temporary nature of their surface suggests that these were educational copies (Vernus 1984). These writing boards, however, contain no teachings, but only model letters, funerary formulae, name lists, and the educational composition Kemit. Literary texts do occur on ostraca and writing boards in the late 17th to early 18th Dynasty. The earliest board with a teaching is Carnarvon Tablet I from the start of the 18th Dynasty, which contains Ptahhotep and part of the commemorative text inscribed on King Kamose's stela; the writing board with The Oxford Wisdom Text is from the same period. Thus, although there are some educational manuscripts from the Middle Kingdom, the educational usage of literary genres — as opposed to Kemit — is unattested before the end of the Second Intermediate Period. Teachings appear in educational copies at the same time as other genres, including tales (Sinuhe), discourses (Khakheperreseneb), and commemorative texts (Kamose). Only two pieces of evidence can be cited for literary texts being used in the Middle Kingdom educational practice, and both are indirect and speculative. 1) The Teaching for Merikare refers to the king 'signing the writings' (18b) while young, but the type of writings and level of education are not specified. 2) Pascal Vernus (1996b: 121) suggests that one text tradition of Ptahhotep (represented by L1, L2, and C) was a redactional variant on the original text (that of P. Prisse) to provide a more comprehensible text for students and that this tradition is first attested in a mid-12th Dynasty manuscript (L1). Nothing suggests, however, that L1 is an apprentice manuscript, or that the variations between the two manuscripts had this purpose."
Page 236-237: QUOTE: "The case of the Kamose inscription shows that the New Kingdom educational practice included a secondary usage of some texts, and the prominence of teachings in this corpus need not therefore indicate their primary function. The secondary educational usage of a text is not a reliable indicator of its primary function: even the Ramessid love-songs, generally considered to be, in part, entertainment literature, are found in an educational copy (McDowell 1999: 152; Posener 1977-80: no. 1635). As a modern example, one can cite the Collected Works of Shakespeare, which are taught in schools, of which copies are common in middle-class houses although they are not always understood in detail and are often preserved in textually corrupt and highly redacted versions, and which are closely associated in most people's minds both with schooling and with definitions of national culture and heritage. Following the Egyptological model, they could be analysed as primarily educational texts, but there is convincing evidence that they were not originally written or published to be school texts or cultural icons (cf., e.g., Sinfield 1994; Greenblatt 1988: 160-1)."
Page 237: QUOTE: "The teachings state the explicit aim 'to teach' throughout past, present and future:"

I shall speak a great matter, and shall cause you to hear,

cause you to know the counsels of eternity,

the way of living truly,

the passing into blessedness.

(Loyalist 1.3-8)

Page 237: QUOTE: "The first verse also occurs in King Neferhotep I's inscription, where it introduces the king's plan to erect cultic monuments (Helck 1983: 23 1.6). The teachings are injunctions to perfection (e.g., Amenemhat 1e) and as such the protagonists 'speak Maat' as exemplars, whereas the protagonists of the other genres are situated in less ideal contexts. The teachers urge obedience to ideology and for that reason seem to have been at the centre of the stream of tradition; the texts' aim to turn ignorance into wisdom (Ptahhotep 47) is integral to divine and royal creation:"

He (the king) creates the ignorant to be wise.

(A Man 4.1; Fischer-Elfert 1999: 68-70)

Page 237: QUOTE: "They enact the dissolution into chaos of the discourses exactly in reverse, acclaiming the powers of loyalty and wisdom to effect transformations."
Page 237: QUOTE: "The world that they represent is ostensibly unproblematic, and their discourse is often considered 'authoritative' rather than 'authorial' (Loprieno 1996b: 46)."
Page 237: QUOTE: "However, even in these poems there is a tension between the ideology and its individual embodiment. Although the compositions deal with the ideal of wisdom, and have appropriate settings in the past or in the reign of an unspecified king, they formulate the interplay of ideal and actual in terms of personal conduct and ethical choices, and the settings act as fictionalizing devices (5.1.2)."
Page 237-238: QUOTE: "The nature of the original audience and response of the teaching genre is difficult to induce as it is with other genres. The very number of the ostensible addressees changes from singulr to plural in both Amenemhat and Loyalist, while there is no indication that the intended actual audience — as opposed to the fictional audience — is young, any more than that The Eloquent Peasant's actual audience were High Stewards. The teachings are marked by their vibrancy of thought and density of utterance as being intended for a sophisticated audience (as Vernus notes with different conclusions: 1996b: 121). The genre's setting in which the teacher leaves his position and hands over to a successor need not indicate a concern with actual induction into office, since it fits within the fictional frame. The same applies to teachings as 'testaments' spoken by the dead. Induction and testament are markers of broad cultural themes, not of a specifically educational context (cf. Perdue 1981 on liminality)."
Page 238: QUOTE: "The response of learning as declared in the settings is problematic. The royal teachings in particular are not as exclusively didactic as they claim. Amenemhat states it will teach how to be king (1d): no specific information is provided, and the intended audience was not limited to royal princes, as this statement implies if taken literally. Since kingship was an ideological centre to the whole culture, the topics would be relevant to a wider audience, and humanity itself is addressed directly (5a-c). Amenemhat, however, provides description rather than directly didactic information, and only the first three stanzas have any substantial didactic content or form; it is probably one of the earliest examples of the genre. The most instruction that Amenemhat gives is that kings should not trust people, and should be morally good. Likewise, the claim of The Teaching for Merikare to 'give all the laws about their kingship' (48b) cannot be taken literally. In tone, the royal teachings are reflective as well as didactic, and in many places are didactic by example, through implication, and by extension rather than directly: in Merikare, the king giving the teaching urges Merikare to learn 'the virtue of my generation' (50a)...In both royal teachings, the explicitly didactic elements cluster at the start and end of the text, at the framing points."
Page 238-239: QUOTE: "In contrast, a few Ramessid Period teachings attested at Deir el-Medina were written by contemporaneous historical individuals, such as the Letter of Menna written by a draughtsman for his son which addresses a specific and possibly 'real' situation in a literary manner, and The Instruction of Amennakht which was copied by the Scribe of the Tomb Amennakht's apprentices (p. 76). These examples, however, embody later decorum and literary practices, higher rates of literacy, and a different attitude to text compilation. Such 'historical' teachings are also attested only as local productions, and are conscious imitations of the then classic Middle Kingdom poems. They thus provide little evidence for the role of the central high cultural works of the earlier period."

Appendix 1: Survey of the Middle Kingdom literary corpus

The Extant Corpus

Page 293: QUOTE: "This list is arranged by genre rather than by date, in the order: tales, discourses and dialogues (including compound genres), and teachings. Within each genre the texts are arranged by the date of their fictional setting (in the order: divine history, human history, general or unspecified). Each entry provides brief information about the manuscripts, of the form and completeness of the preserved text, and of the date of the setting and of composition. For texts preserved in a single manuscript, fuller details are given, while indications of the earliest extant manuscript are given if more than one is preserved."

A.1.1. Tales

(1) The Tale of Horus and Seth and other tales of gods from el-Lahun

Page 294: QUOTE: "P. Lahun VI.12 (= P. UCL 32158) dates from the late 12th Dynasty, and is from a house in Rank N el-Lahun (Gallorini 1998). On the verso is an administrative fragment, and the papyrus belongs to an excavation lot containing a medical text, letters and accounts, that were apparently the vestige of an official archive (Lot VI: Quirke 1990b: 166). The orthography of many of the el-Lahun papyri is dated before that of the Shipwrecked Sailor by Eugène Dévaud (1924). Fragments of two columns and two lines survive (c. 40 verses), narrating Seth's attempted seduction of Horus. The position of tales about the gods within Middle Kingdom literary genres is disputed. Jan Assmann (e.g., 1977c: 33 n.52) has suggested that this and The Cairo Mythological Tale were parts of magical texts rather than tales, but fictional tales with at least one divine character are attested, and they are more likely to be tales (e.g., Baines 1996b: 366, 1999a: 34-5; Quirke 1996a: 266-7)."

(2) The Cairo Mythological Tale

Page 294: QUOTE: "The recto of a late Middle Kingdom manuscript, said to be from the Theban necropolis at el-Qurna ('Gurnah'; P. Cairo CG 58040), comprises a column of 10 lines, and a fragment with the remains of a further 4 lines of another column."

(3) The Tale of the Court of King Cheops

Page 295-296: QUOTE: "The tale is preserved on the fragmentary P. Westcar (= P. Berlin 3033; Burkard and Fischer-Elfert 1994: 114-15 no. 171), of unrecorded provenance (Dawson and Uphill 1995: 438). The date of the papyrus is disputed: it is generally assumed to be of the 15th/17th Dynasties (Möller 1909: 18-19), but the early New Kingdom has also been suggested (e.g., Barocas 1988: 129; Mathieu 1999: 37). Twelve columns survive (= c. 535 verses), and these open with a series of tales set in various Old Kingdom courts (Djoser, Nebka, Sneferu), which are told to King Cheops (c. 2551-28 BCE) by his sons. The first tale is lost apart from Cheops' response, and it seems that at least two columns are missing. That tale was probably introduced by a narrative prologue similar to that of The Words of Neferti. Instead of a fourth tale, there is a narrative about a wonder done by the wise man Djedi in the presence of Cheops himself. After this comes a third person narrative describing the birth of the first three kings of the 5th Dynasty (2465-26 BCE). The end is lost, and the manuscript breaks off in the middle of an incident, but only a few short episodes may be missing. The royal characters are historical (although Prince Bauefre is slightly problematic: von Beckerath 1975a). The non-royal characters are not otherwise known and are presumably fictional; some feature in the list of P. Athens (L. Morenz suggests a possible historical original for Djedi: 1996: 122 n.541). The actual mother of the first two 5th Dynasty kings was Khentkaus, while in the tale the mother is the wife of a priest, Rudjdjedet. The Late Middle Egyptian language suggests a later date of composition than that of other early or mid-12th Dynasty tales. H. Jenni (1998) has argued for an early 12th Dynasty date, reading the tale as propaganda for Senwosret I, but this is unconvincing. Ludwig Morenz (1996: 107-10) and others assign it to the Second Intermediate Period on its general atmosphere and presentation of kingship. Some favour an early New Kingdom date partly on similar grounds (e.g., Goedicke 1992b: 35-6). Detlef Franke has noted that the tale's presentation of three brothers as kings recalls the sequence of kings at the height of the 13th Dynasty (Neferhotep I, Sahathor, Sobekhotep IV: 1994: 69-70). Whether or not this is a coincidence, a dating to this general period is the most plausible."

(4) The Tale of King Neferkare and General Sasenet

Page 296-297: QUOTE: "Three short episodes of this tale are preserved on fragments of a 25th Dynasty papyrus from Thebes (P. Chassinat I = Louvre 25351), a stone writing board from Deir el-Medina, and a 19th Dynasty writing board (totalling c. 73 extant verses). The tale is set in Memphis and concerns an affair between a king and his military commander; a 'pleader of Memphis' attempts to denounce the commander, and the king, probably the historical Neferkare Pepy II (c. 2246-2152 BCE), is tracked by a courtier(?) Hent's son Tjeti...The language, names and titles are suggestive of a Middle Kingdom date. In style and tone the tale is reminiscent of The Tale of Cheops' Court, and may date from the same general period or later."

(5) The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant

Page 297: QUOTE: "The almost complete text is known from four Middle Kingdom manuscripts from Thebes (c. 610 versos), of which one also contained The Tale of Sinuhe (P. Ramesseum A = P. Berlin 10499; Burkard and Fischer-Elfert 1994: 116-17 no. 173). The earliest are the two partial copies from 'Berlin library' (see 4.2) of the second half of the 12th Dynasty, which present slightly different versions (Bi and B2 = P. Berlin 3023, 3025; Burkard and Fischer-Elfert 1994: 112 no. 168, 114 no. 170). The tale is set in the reign of Nebkaure Khety of the Heracleopolitan Dynasties...Within an ironic narrative are set nine discursive petitions on the nature of Maat, which occupy most of the composition. The narrative, however, is the mode which determines the meaning of the whole as an allusive theodicy. Various factors suggest that the tale was composed in the mid-12th Dynasty; a more precise date of composition may be provided by B1 65-8, which is a mock titulary similar to that of Senwosret II (Parkinson 1992)."

(6) The Tale of Sinuhe

Page 297-298: QUOTE: "The composition is preserved in five Middle Kingdom manuscripts (with variants) from Thebes and the necropolis of Haraga in Middle Egypt near el-Lahun (L. Morenz 1996: 115-6), and over twenty New Kingdom copies (provenances including Thebes, the tomb of Sennedjem at Deir el-Medina, and Deir el-Ballas). The earliest manuscript is P. Berlin 3022 (Burkard and Fischer-Elfert 1994: 110-11 no. 167), from the 'Berlin library' (see 4.2) from the second half of the 12th Dynasty; Obsomer (1999: 208) suggests a date in the reign of an Amenemhat, perhaps III, based on a scribal error in the manuscript. The tale of voluntary exile and return under Senwosret I is complete (c. 575 verses), and has been much analysed [sic]. The narrative is introduced as the biography of a courier whose service began under Amenemhat I:

The Patrician and Count,

Governor of the Sovereign's Domains in the Syrian lands,

the True Acquaintance of the king, whom he loves,

the Follower, Sinuhe says:

Page 298: QUOTE: "The first-person narrative incorporates a rich variety of genres. The setting and the eulogistic elements may suggest that it was composed shortly after the reign of Senwosret I: R 4-5 implies that both kings Amenemhat I, Senwosret I and Queen Nefru are imagined as already dead. Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 185) supports an early Middle Kingdom date."

(7) The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor

Page 298-299: QUOTE: "This tale is preserved in one manuscript (P. St Petersburg 1115), which may have been written by the same scribe as P. Prisse (Hodjash and Berlev 1997: 285, n.9; von Bomhard 1999; 4.2), and thus may also have come from Thebes. The dating of these manuscripts is uncertain (see below, Kagemni), but they probably come from the mid- to late 12th Dynasty. Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 185) places the composition in the first half of the 12th Dynasty, while Sergei Ignatov (1994: 197-8) places it at the very start. The tale is a first-person narrative, ostensibly a simple tale of adventure...Although the preceding margin is unusually narrow, nothing is lost before this (c. 210 verses), and the manuscript is complete. The structure involves a tale within a tale, told by a serpent about the problem of suffering. The tale ends as the follower relates his lord's laconic and dismissive reply."

(8) The Tale of P. Lythgoe

Page 299: QUOTE: "This fragmentary manuscript comes from the necropolis at el-Lisht (P. MMA 09.180.535), from the cemetery south west of the pyramid of Amenemhat I near the tomb of Senebtisi (Simpson 1960: 65-6, 1980: 1059; for the date of Senebtisi see, e.g., Ryholt 1997: 84). It can be dated by the hand to the second half of the 12th Dynasty."

(9) The Tale of the Herdsman

Page 300: QUOTE: "This fragmentary tale is preserved in the same manuscript as The Dialogue of a Man and His Ba, from the Theban 'Berlin library', on a sheet that was partially cleaned and then added to that roll from another manuscript. The hand is from the second half of the 12th Dynasty, but in an older style than that of the dialogue (cf. L. Morenz 1996: 136-7). Traces show that four lines were erased at the start and four at the end; it is uncertain how much has been lost before and after these. Twenty-five lines remain (= 35 verses), describing in the third person an incident apparently featuring a herdsman, who tells his colleagues of his meeting with a goddess in the marshes. It includes a 'water-spell' known also in Coffin Text spell 836; the relationship between the two texts is unclear. Vernus' linguistic analysis assigns the composition to the early 12th Dynasty (1990b: 185)."

(10) The Tale of Hay/Khenemsu

Page 300-301: QUOTE: "The conclusion to a third person narrative survives on the fragment of a late 12th Dynasty papyrus from a house in rank N at el-Lahun, the recto of which contains an apparently liturgical (e.g., Parkinson 1999d: 187-8) copy of hymns to Senwosret III (P. Lahun LV.1 vso = P. UCL 32157; see Gallorini 1998). This group of papyri included a veterinary text, mathematical texts, and accounts of people associated with the priestly sphere (Lot LV: Quirke 1990b: 165)."

(11) The Tale of a King and the Ghost of Snefer

Page 301-302: QUOTE: "Four fragments of a Late Period papyrus — possibly 25th Dynasty — comprise pieces of 22 lines (P. Chassinat II = P. Louvre E 25352; c. 45 verses). The papyrus comes from the Theban area (Posener 1957: 120). There is mention of a king and an 'excellent spirit' who identifies himself as 'Khentyka's son Snefer', both of which names are attested in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The tale is composed in late Middle Egyptian, similar to that of The Tale of Neferkare and Sasenet."

(12) The Tale of the House of Life

Page 302: QUOTE: "Fragments of a tale occur in five columns of a manuscript (P. BM EA 10475 vso) in a hand very similar to that of P. Westcar from the 17th Dynasty(?). The provenance is unknown, but may be Thebes. The verso contains a verse-pointed narrative in Middle Egyptian, mentioning the palace, a woman with 'the enti[re] Royal Apartments under her hand' (X + 5.1), and the House of Life. There is a high proportion of dialogue in what survives; the fifth column describing a 'period of 40 days as a fair festival' (X+5.3) seems to have been the end of the text."

(13) The Tale of Nefer[...]

Page 302: QUOTE: "P. UCL 32156A is a late 12th Dynasty papyrus from el-Lahun."

(14) The Tale of Nemay

Page 302-303: QUOTE: "A group of four fragments from el-Lahun (P. UCL 32105A and B)..."

(15) Other Tales from el-Lahun

Page 303: Parkinson just describes other little text fragments from el-Lahun that contain tales.

A.1.2. Discourses and Dialogues

(1) The Words of Neferti

Page 303-304: QUOTE: "The text is completely preserved (c. 190 verses), in New Kingdom copies only, of which the earliest is from the first half of the 18th Dynasty (recent list: Mathieu 1993: 343 n.43). Provenances include Memphis (Quirke 1996b: 390) and Thebes. There is a narrative introduction set in the court of Sneferu (2575-51 BCE)...The great lector priest of Bastet, Neferti is asked for 'a few perfect words, and choice verses' (1l-m). He responds with a lament for a chaotic period, and 'takes concern for the events in the land; / he recalls the state of the east' (3a-b). This chaos will be ended by the arrival of a king called Ameny, who can be identified with Amenemhat I. There is no epilogue, although the last lines allude to Neferti's future fame, and this is indeed attested in the Ramessid 'Eulogy of the Dead Writers' (P. Chester Beatty IV vso 3.6), and P. Athens. On the basis of the eulogy of Ameny / Amenemhat I, the composition has often been assigned to his reign or shortly afterwards (e.g., Eyre 1993: 115), although such a eulogy could have been composed later in the 12th Dynasty, in part glorifying him as a dynastic ancestor rather than a contemporaneous ruler. Ludwig Morenz (1996: 109-10), however, suggests a date in the Second Intermediate Period on the basis of the prologue's similarity with the style of Cheops' Court; on balance, this seems unlikely."

(2) The Words of Khakheperreseneb

Page 304: QUOTE: "The text is known from an early 18th Dynasty writing board from Thebes (BM EA 5645) and an ostracon. The protagonist is acclaimed in the Ramessid 'Eulogy of Dead Writers' (P. Chester Beatty IV vso 3.7) and is also depicted with the title 'lector-priest' on the 'Daressy Fragment'. His name incorporates the phenomenon of Khakeperre Senwosret II, and shows that the poem must be of his reign or later; Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 188) places it in the 13th Dynasty. The text on the board is arranged into three paragraphs, which were apparently copied at different times, on the front of the board, and on the back (c. 90 verses). It may thus be either a selection or a complete version of the text (Parkinson 1997b: 65-6). Perhaps, significantly, it lacks a colophon. The title is:"

The collection of words, the gathering of verses,

the seeking of utterances with heart-searching

made by the priest of Heliopolis,

Seny's son Khakheperreseneb,

called Ankhu.

Page 304: QUOTE: "It is a reflective lament about 'what is throughout the land' (vso 1), addressed to the protagonist's unresponsive heart."

(3) The Discourse of Sasobek

Page 305-306: QUOTE: "This discourse is preserved in a fragmentary manuscript from the 'Ramesseum library' at Thebes (P. Ramesseum I = P. BM EA 10754; see 4.2), copied in the second half of the 12th Dynasty...The date of composition is uncertain."

(4) The Discourse of Renseneb

Page 306: QUOTE: "This is known only from an incomplete manuscript of three lines and an additional fragment from the second half of the 12th Dynasty, provenance unrecorded (P. Moscow — Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts — 1965)...The date of composition is uncertain."

(5) The Discourse of the Fowler

Page 306-307: QUOTE: "The start of this text is preserved on the verso of the same manuscript as Renseneb, and comprises four lines...The verso of the mid-to late 12th Dynasty P. Butler (= P. BM EA 10274) from Thebes (Parkinson 1991c: xi, xxvi) contains 39 lines of a discourse. The manuscript lines of P. Butler are numbered and indicate that nine are missing from its start. The discourse is spoken by a fowler to his superior...This is probably the same composition as the discourse of P. Moscow; a total of c. 50 verses is preserved between the two manuscripts. The style of the discourse resembles that of the petitions of The Eloquent Peasant."

(6) The Abydos Discourse

Page 307-308: QUOTE: "A New Kingdom(?) ostracon from Abydos contains the opening of a discourse in five lines, of which only the beginning 30 per cent is legible..."

(7) The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord to the Limit

Page 308: QUOTE: "This dialogue is known from a fragmentary 19th Dynasty manuscript (P. Leiden I.344 rto) from Saqqara, containing 17 columns, of c. 14 lines each (c. 660 verses) On the verso is a hymn to Amun (Zandee 1992). Only the top left hand part of column 1 is preserved, but the extant text opens in media res, suggesting that at least one further is probably lost (i.e., 40-50 verses). The first extant column of the verso text is apparently the star of that composition (Zandee 1992: 6), however, suggesting that not much of the start of the role is missing (i.e., only one column form the start of the recto: cf. Fecht 1972: 42). There was presumably either a brief narrative introduction, similar to that of Neferti and Sasobek, or an extended title, as in Fowler and Renseneb. It is uncertain how many lines of the poem are lost at the end. After the final extant lines (17.1-3), there is a lacuna of about ten manuscript lines followed by traces in the verso hand (three lines: Zandee 1992: 1083-4, pl. 37-8), so there cannot be much of this copy of the poem lost in the lacuna (at most 25 verses). J. Zandee suggests that the lacuna may have contained the continuation and conclusion of the verso text and that not much of the original roll is lost, but the verso text is too fragmentary to estimate exactly what length of roll is missing at the end. It is possible that this copy of the poem originally ended shortly after 17.3, but it is also possible that the roll contained an incomplete copy of Ipuur, or that it originally contained a complete copy of Ipuur on the recto that was partially erased when the papyrus was reused to copy a hymn to Amun which began on the verso but extended onto the recto."
Page 308: QUOTE: "The text is a lament about the state of the land: Ipuur (or 'Ipu the elder'), who is given no title, is addressing the 'Lord of the Limit', who replies with at least two speeches (15.13, 16.11). The Dialogue takes place before an audience — perhaps the Lord's entourage — that is also addressed (e.g., 7.1). The Lord is apparently the king, rather than a god, although the text's concerns are theodic."
Page 308: QUOTE: "The date of composition is disputed. As the text stands, internal evidence points to the late Middle Kingdom (e.g., Vernus 1990b: 189-90), but many critics (e.g., Fecht 1972) have made redactionist studies and dated parts of the composition earlier. Wolfgang Helck (1995: 72-7) has suggested, without any concrete evidence, that the text is not a unity (cf. Quack 1997: 347). The sage is mentioned on the 'Daressy Fragment' as 'the Overseer of Singers, Ipuur' (cf. L. Morenz 1999a: 131), and he may be included in the list of P. Athens."

(8) The Dialogue of a Man and his Ba

Page 309: QUOTE: "The dialogue is preserved in a papyrus from the second half of the 12th Dynasty 'Berlin library' at Thebes (P. Berlin 3024); Burkard and Fischer-Elfert 1994: 113 no. 169; see 4.2). It may have been composed around the middle of the dynasty, not long before the group of manuscripts were written, since colloquialisms and an unusual interrogative nominal construction (20) might suggest a later Middle Kingdom date (cf. Silverman 1980: 85-6), although Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 185) associates the dialogue with the texts of the early Middle Kingdom. At the beginning of the manuscript, at least half a sheet is lost — perhaps one and a half sheets, which would have contained around 35 lines. 155 lines remain, including the end of the composition (c. 200 verses)."
Page 309: QUOTE: "The poem is a dialogue in various literary styles, between a man (the 'Lebensmüder' or 'man tired of life' of Adolf Erman's original edition) and his ba on the nature of death, which is recounted by the man who is not named in the extant text. It seems to take place before an audience of accessors (addressed in the plural in 1). The composition may have opened with a brief statement as in the New Kingdom dialogue The Contending of the Belly and the Head (see p.218)."

A.1.3. Other Wisdom Texts

(1) The Oxford Wisdom Text

Page 310: QUOTE: "A fragmentary writing board in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1964.489a, b), probably from Thebes, has seven lines of text on each side (c. 50 versos). The hand is possibly the same as that of Tablets Carnarvon I and II form Deir el-Bahri and dates to the start of the 18th Dynasty (Vernus 1984: 706, no. 8)...The language is classical Middle Egyptian. The date of composition is uncertain."

(2) The Maxims of P. Ramesseum II

Page 310: QUOTE: "P. Ramesseum II (= P. BM EA 10755), from the late Middle Kingdom 'Ramesseum library' at Thebes (see 4.2), comprises two fragments containing six columns which seem from the hand to have been copied at different times (c. 115 verses)."

(3) The Ramesseum Wisdom Fragment

Page 310: QUOTE: "A small fragment now mounted together with The Discourse of Sasobek (P. BM EA 10754. 'Frags.D') seems to be in a distinct, though similar, hand. This is presumably from the 'Ramesseum library', and is apparently part of an otherwise unknown text, not mentioned by Barns (1956) or Gardiner (1955a)."

(4) Excursus; The el-Lahun Wisdom Text

Page 311: QUOTE: "P. UCL 32106C rto contains 7 vertical lines in black with red verse-points to the lower right of each section of text..."

A.1.4. Compound Genres

(1) The Account of the Sporting King

Page 311-312: QUOTE: "A late 18th Dynasty manuscript contains parts of 18 columns; it is uncertain how much is lost at each end (P. Moscow, unnumbered; c. 455 verses). The papyrus was purchased at Thebes (Caminos 1956: vii), and may derive from a Theban library of manuscripts comprising copies of Ptahhotep (L2), Sinuhe (G), Merikare (M), Fishing and Fowling and the New Kingdom Mythological Tale (Quirke 1996b: 390 suggests Saqqara as the findspot for unstated reasons). The fragments reveal a narrative interspersed with long eulogizing speeches made by the King's Sealbearer Sehotepibreankh, an official otherwise unknown, to a king who is playfully titled 'Two Ladies: Fisher and Fowler' (B1.3, C1.12). There is mention of Amenemhat II (E2.10), who is presumably the king who requests these speeches during a court hunting trip (A2.1-3). The text therefore dates no earlier than the second half of the 12th Dynasty. The Annals of Amenemhat II include an account of a fishing and fowling trip."

(2) The Account of the Pleasures of Fishing and Fowling

Page 312: QUOTE: "This text is likewise known only from a late 18th Dynasty papyrus occupied by a monologue in praise of pastoral activities (totalling c. 570 verses). The provenance is the same as that of The Sporting King'...Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 186) assigns the composition to the second half of the 12th Dynasty."

(3) The Royal Elegy of P. BM EA 10475

Page 312: QUOTE: "Fragments of seven columns on the recto of a manuscript, in a hand very similar to that of P. Westcar, contain a royal eulogy; on the verso is The Tale of the House of Life. The provenance is unknown, but may be Thebes. The eulogy refers to an unnamed king in the third person. One rubric (X+2.x+5) suggests that the discourses were contained within a narrative frame, similar to The Sporting King or to the commemorative Royal Tales."

A.1.5. Teachings

(1) The Teaching of Kagemni

Page 313: QUOTE: "The final section of this teaching (c. 45 verses) is preserved on two columns at the start of the 12th Dynasty P. Prisse (= P. Bibliothèque Nationale Paris, 183-94) which was said to be from the necropolis at Dra Abu el-Naga at Thebes (Dewachter 1988; see 4.2). The dating of P. Prisse, which may have been written by the same scribes who copied The Shipwrecked Sailor, is controversial; both can be dated to the mid- to late 12th Dynasty. Both the teachings it contains are set in the Old Kingdom and are apparently written in an archaistic style of hieratic, while The Shipwrecked Sailor manuscript exhibits the more modern convention of both horizontal and vertical lines, and a less formal and slightly less archaic style of script. It is uncertain how much is lost form the start of the manuscript. The end of the Teaching is preserved together with a narrative conclusion in which a Kagemni becomes vizier under the new king, Sneferu (c. 2575-2551 BCE). Kagemni is almost certainly the pupil rather than the teacher, and was perhaps based on the historical vizier Kagemni of the 6th Dynasty (c. 2300 BCE) who was revered in the late Old Kingdom and early Middle Kingdom. The father was probably a vizier, and may perhaps be identified with the Kaires mentioned in the Ramessid 'Eulogy of Dead Writers' (A.2)."
Page 313: QUOTE: "The date of composition is very uncertain. The use of the demonstrative p3 in 2.5 might suggest a date of composition later in the 12th Dynasty rather than earlier."

(2) The Teaching of Hordedef

Page 313-314: QUOTE: "Only copies from the Ramessid Period survive; provenances include Deir el-Medina. These provide an incomplete text (c. 75 verses), despite the composition's recorded fame. The teaching is attributed to an attested historical figure of the 4th Dynasty (c. 2540 BCE), who was revered from the late Old Kingdom on...and was later renowned for his wisdom apart from this teaching...The date of composition is uncertain, perhaps early in the Middle Kingdom since the language appears early (e.g., Lichtheim 1973: 6; Ritter 1999: 46, suggesting end of the 11th Dynasty). The 'Harpist's Song form the Chapel of King Intef', which cites Hordedef, has been used to date the teaching. The song is stated to have originated in the chapel of an 11th (or 17th?) Dynasty king Intef, and so might support a pre-12th Dynasty date for the teaching, but that attribution of the song is probably fictional."

(3) The Teaching of Ptahhotep

Page 314-315: QUOTE: "Two distinct versions of this composition are attested from the second half of the 12th Dynasty in P. Prisse probably from Thebes (see above, Kagemni) and L1 (= P. BM EA 10371/10435). The dating of P. Prisse is disputed, and Eugène Dévaud considered that L1 was the earlier manuscript (1924). Only the version preserved in P. Prisse (P) is complete, with the other (L1) is essentially that found in a late 18th Dynasty papyrus perhaps from Thebes (L2; see above, The Sporting King). The existence of two versions need not imply that there was a long period of transmission before the mid-12th Dynasty, and that the text originated in the Old Kingdom. Pascal Vernus' linguistic analysis would place the composition early in the Middle Kingdom (1990b: 185 n.177), and an intertextual relationship with the graffito of Ameny at Wadi Hammamat (temp. Senwosret I) also suggests an early 12th Dynasty date. Ramessid copies are known from Deir el-Medina (Vernus 1996b; Fischer-Elfert 1997: 18-23)."
Page 315: QUOTE: "The teaching is set in the old age of Ptahhotep during the reign of Isesi (2388-56 BCE). Two historical viziers Ptahhotep (I and II) are known from that time; the career of the first would fit the setting more exactly, and he may have been the basis for the character here. In the complete copy (c. 495 verses), there is a narrative prologue, followed by 37 maxims and a reflective epilogue."

(4) The Teaching for Merikare

Page 315-316: QUOTE: "The body of this text, which is known only from New Kingdom copies, is complete, although the start is extremely fragmentary (c. 390 verses). Provenances include Memphis and Thebes; the earliest manuscript is from the mid-18th Dynasty. The king Merikare named in the title is attested as a historical figure, although his position in the Heracleopolitan dynasties (2080-1987 BCE) is unsure (Vandersleyen 1995: 6-8). The identity of the teacher is uncertain (see López 1973)...The date of composition is uncertain: Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 185) assigns it to the 11th or the early 12th Dynasty, while Joachim Quack (1992: 114-36), favours an early 12th Dynasty date. Susanne Bickel (1994: 178-9, 219), by contrast, has suggested a New Kingdom date from a composition of cosmology with the Coffin Texts; I agree with her observations but suggest that the difference is one of discourses rather than chronology. The poem's stylistically interwoven quality might suggest a date later in the 12th Dynasty than Amenemhat."

(5) The Teaching of Amenemhat I

Page 316-317: QUOTE: "The text is complete (c. 95 verses), but preserved only in New Kingdom copies from Thebes and Memphis, of which the earliest is from the start of the 18th Dynasty (Gardiner 1935b; Grimal 1995b: 276-7; Guksch 1998)...According to a prayer for the scribe Khety in the Ramessid P. Chester Beatty IV, the teaching was composed by him 'when he (the king) was at rest' (vso 6.14), and therefore has been assigned to the reign of Senwosret I or later. Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 185) places it in the early 12th Dynasty, but Nicolas Grimal (1995b) unconventionally suggests a date in the 18th Dynasty. Khety is also listed among other sages in the 'Eulogy of Dead Writers' (P. Chester Beatty IV vso 3.6), and P. Athens; he probably does not figure on the 'Daressy Fragment'."

(6) The Teaching of Duaf's Son Khety

Page 317-318: QUOTE: "Although the text is complete (c. 190 verses), the predominantly Ramessid copies are corrupt, making its interpretation, including that of the protagonist's name, problematic. The earliest copy is from the early 18th Dynasty; provenances include Thebes and Memphis. If the name is read as 'Duaf's son Khety' (Posener 1980a), he may be the same Khety who is acclaimed as the author of The Teaching of Amenemhat in P. Chester Beatty IV. Thus, he could have been a historical figure and the actual author of this teaching, which would then date to the early 12th Dynasty (in accordance with Vernus' linguistic analysis: 1990b: 185). Khety, however, could also have been a fictional sage, to whom Amenemhat was preudonymously attributed (see 4.3, 5.1.2). He is described simply as 'a man of Sile' (if read thus), a place in the north-eastern frontier of Egypt; this designation is more reminiscent of the later 12th Dynasty (Quirke, pers. comm.). The dating is thus uncertain...Posener's analysis as early 12th Dynasty propaganda to recruit scribes is problematic in terms of method (1.3). Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert also favours an early 12th Dynasty date (1999: 417-8); it cannot predate the founding of the new capital by Amenemhat I, since the 'Residence' is mentioned (1c and 2e)."

(7) The 'Loyalist' Teaching

NOTE: A more common spelling is for "Sehotepibre" is "Sehetepibre" according to Google. According to this site, Sehetepibre was a government treasurer for Senwosret III and Amenemhat III, and attributes the text "Loyalist Instructions" to him.
Page 318-319: QUOTE: "The complete text (c. 145 verses) is known only from New Kingdom copies; the earliest dates from the start of the 18th Dynasty. Provenances include Thebes and Deir Rifa. An edited version of the first half occurs on the biographical stela of the King's Sealbearer Sehotepibre from Abydos, of the reign of Amenemhat III (Cairo CG 20538; Lange and Schäfer 1902: pl. 40; Sethe 1928a: 68-9). This part enjoins praise of, and loyalty to, the king from officials, while the second half concerns the individual's responsibility to the rest of society. These surviving titles in the later copies are suggestive of a vizier as protagonist. The name of the protagonist was edited out by Sehotepibre, and is lost in the later copies...The stela of Sehotepibre was modelled [sic] on that of the Vizier Montuhotep (temp. Senwosret I: see Obsomer 1995: 172-89, 225-9), and the teaching Sehotepibre used might have been of a similar date — Montuhotep has even been suggested as the author (Berlev 1976: 325; Posener 1976: 14; Simpson 1991: 337; Fischer-Elfert 1999: 418-20), but there is no specific evidence for this hypothesis. Vernus' linguistic analysis (1990b: 185) favours the earlier date. Oleg Berlev (1981: 15) has suggested an allusion in 5.7 to the name of Senwosret I (ts-wsrt = sn-wsrt), and compares the text with the graffito of Hor in the Wadi el-Hudi (temp. Senwosret I: Seyfried 1984: Obsomer 1995: 630-5; Fischer-Elfert 1999: 399-401, 420). B.U. Schipper (1998) argues that the original text was the short version found on the stela, and that the longer version is a New Kingdom reworking and expansion of the Middle Kingdom original; her redactionalist approach, however, relies on questionable assumptions."

(8) The Teaching of a Man for His Son

Page 319: QUOTE: "The Teaching of a Man is preserved in New Kingdom copies only, and remains incomplete (c. 215 verses survive); the earliest manuscript is Second Intermediate Period: provenances include Thebes and Medinet Ghurob. Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert (1999) has reassembled the text into 24 stanzas, but there is a lacuna of unknown length at the start of stanza 14, and the section his edition terms 'Anhang I' is now known to be part of the teaching, somewhere before stanza 17 (Fischer-Elfert 1998: 91). The title is universalized, alluding to the phrase 'son of a man', that is, 'gentleman'...The teaching has three major themes: loyalism (1-8); rhetoric and correct behaviour in judicial activities (9-19); and the role of rhetoric in handling underlings and domestic matters (20-4)."
Page 319: QUOTE: "The date of composition is uncertain. The early 12th Dynasty has been suggested on the basis of a dubious historical allusion to the death of Senwosret I (3.7; Brunner 1978). Fischer-Elfert (1999: 417-21) associates it with The Loyalist Teaching and Khety, whereas Vernus (1990b: 186-7) assigns it to the second half of the 12th Dynasty on linguistic grounds."

Brewer and Teeter's Egypt and the Egyptians

Brewer, Douglas J. and Emily Teeter. (1999). Egypt and the Egyptians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521445183.

A Chronology and History of Egypt

Page 27: QUOTE: "Although much is known about the political and social history of ancient Egypt, there are many areas that are still subject to question. The Egyptians did not leave any comprehensive histories, so the historical framework of ancient Egypt must be reconstructed from annals of individual reigns, autobiographical texts, historical sources from outside Egypt, and archaeological materials. Of special importance among these sources are king lists from Turin, Karnak, Abydos, and Saqqara. These unannotated lists of the names of rulers are useful for establishing the sequence of kings and their reigns; they present special problems, however, as their accuracy is impinged upon by political biases of the times in which they were written and by the conflation of legendary and actual historical events."
Page 27: QUOTE: "One of the earliest attempts to compile a comprehensive history of Egypt was undertaken by Manetho, an Egyptian priest of the 3rd century BC. Although his work has been lost in its entirety, excerpts from it are preserved in quotations by later historians. Modern scholars, following Manetho's work, have divided Egyptian history into a series of thirty-one dynasties ranging from the last ruler, Menes, to the conquest of Alexander the Great."
Page 27: QUOTE: "Neither Manetho's work nor the other king lists can be considered real histories of Egypt with comprehensive chronologies, and the days, months, and years of events were marked within individual reigns in only a few of the lists (the Turin king list and Palermo Stone). These notations are valuable for determining the length of a specific reign. One cannot, however, simply add the reigns of the all the kings together to determine an absolute duration for the ancient Egyptian civilization. (If one does, the beginning of Dynasty 1 falls around 5500 BC, a figure known by other methods of dating to be off by almost 2,400 years). This is because some kings reigned simultaneously (co-regencies) and, during periods of social unrest, some dynasties were, likewise, concurrent. Nevertheless, specific dates can be established for a few textual references because celestial events, such as the sighting of the helical rising of the star Sothis (Sirius), were noted by the ancient Egyptians and can be precisely dated by modern astronomers. These 'fixed dates', which occurred during the reigns of Senwosert III, Amunhotep I, Thutmose III, and Ramesses II, are used as absolute chronological dates for Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern history."
Page 27-28: QUOTE: "To measure the passing days, ancient Egyptians employed two calendars, the civil and the religious. Evidence for both exists from the early Old Kingdom, and both divided the year into twelve thirty-day months. These twelve months of the year were grouped into three four-month agricultural seasons: the inundation (akhet), the growing period (prt), and the harvest period (shemu). Each month was divided into three ten-day weeks. The year began on day one, month of akhet, the start of the inundation. One shortcoming of these calendars was that both were only 360 days long, a figure considerably shorter than the actual solar year (the 365.25 days that the earth takes to circle the sun). Thus, fixed seasonal events or solar events, such as the start of the inundation or the sighting of certain stars, gradually moved forward in the calendar, away from the month with which those events were associated. The Egyptians solved this shortcoming by adding intervals to the end of each calendar (an idea similar to our modern 'leap year'). The civil calendar was followed by five days, while a thirteenth month was inserted into the religious calendar every two to three years to compensate for the gradual disassociation of the actual seasons from their calendar designations."

James H. Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. I & II

Breasted, James Henry (1962). Ancient Records of Egypt: Vol. I, The First to the Seventeenth Dynasties, & Vol. II, the Eighteenth Dynasty. New York: Russell & Russell, a division of Atheneum Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0846201348.

The Documentary Sources of Egyptian History

Page 3: QUOTE: "The general course and the gradual development of Egyptian civilization are in some respects roughly traceable in its surviving material documents, in the products of the artist and the craftsman, which we are accustomed to assign to the domain of the archaeologist. With these invaluable material documents the present volumes of course do not deal. They purpose to present only those written documents from which the career of the Nile valley peoples may be drawn at the present day. A rapid survey of the materials herein presented may enable the non-Egyptologist to gain some preliminary conception of their general character."
Page 3: QUOTE: "Comparatively speaking, but very little of the rich and productive civilization which flourished for at least five millenniums before Christ on the banks of the lower Nile, has survived in written documents for our enlightenment. Accident has preserved but here and there the merest scrap of the vast mass of written records which the incessant political, legal, administrative, religious, industrial, commercial, and literary activities filling the life of this ancient people, were constantly putting forth. We may make one exception: the religious literature, doubtless the least instructive, as a whole, of all their literary documents, has survived in an incalculable mass of temple inscriptions and papyri, which have never even been adequately published, much less exhaustively studied."
Page 3-4: I'm guessing that the Abydos King List, Saqqara Tablet, and other chronicles were not yet discovered in James Henry Breasted's day (i.e. before his death in 1935), since he mentions here: QUOTE: "It is with those documents in which the national career as a whole can be traced that we have here to deal. From the pre-dynastic age onward the kings kept a series of annals, recording in each year the great deeds and achievements of the Pharaoh which he thought worthy of perpetuation. Of such annals only two fragments have survived: the Palermo Stone, part of a record extending from the earliest times down into the Fifth Dynasty; and the annals of Thutmose III's wars, of which a few extracts were excerpted by a priestly scribe and recorded on the walls of the Karnak temple. Had we the annals of the Pharaohs in complete form, we might perhaps write almost as full a history of Egypt as it is possible to do for the Middle Ages of European history. Without these, we are dependent upon a miscellaneous mass of documents of the most varied character and value, which chance and circumstance have preserved from destruction these thousands of years. In general, such documents show more literary character and picturesqueness than the Assyro-Babylonian records; but the latter dry and formal annals possess greater historical value, and exhibit a preciseness which indues them with a rare availability as sources. The Egyptian records which chance has preserved to us are, as a whole, so vague and indefinite in their references to peoples, localities, persons, and the character of events, that they are often tantalizing in what they do not tell us. Thus in records of whole campaigns of Thutmose III in Syria the hostile Syrian king is designated merely as that foe (lit. fallen one), and we are uncertain whether the king of Kadesh, of Mitanni, of Aleppo, or of some other realm is meant. The real excerpts from Thutmose III's Annals (II, 391 ff.), however, show that such records contained an elaboration of detail not less precise and historically available than the cuneiform annals. So much the more must we deplore their loss."
Page 4-5: QUOTE: "How hazardous was the life of such a document may be well illustrated by the great building inscription, upon a huge stone stela, erected by Sesostris I nearly two thousand years before Christ, in his new temple at Heliopolis. The great block itself has since perished utterly; but the practice-copy made by a scribe, who was whiling away an idle hour in the sunny temple court, has survived, and the fragile roll of leather (498 ff.) upon which he was thus exercising his pen, has transmitted to us what the massive stone could not preserve."
Page 5: QUOTE: "That we possess any documents at all from the Old Kingdom (2980-2400 B.C.) is chiefly due to the massive masonry tombs of that age, in which they were recorded. The exceptions are inscriptions on foreign soil, and a few scanty fragments of papyrus containing accounts and letters. The vast quantity of such papyrus documents which once existed is evidenced by the constant appearance of the scribe with his rolls, his pens, and his ink palette, in the tomb reliefs. Such hints from the numerous reliefs in the tombs of this age are the source of our knowledge of the material culture of the time. The chief inscriptions which accompany them consist almost exclusively of the name and many titles of the owner of the tomb. Now and again the legal enactment by which the tomb was endowed and maintained is recorded on the wall. Such wills and conveyances are, of course, invaluable cultural documents."
Page 5-6: QUOTE: "Gradually the nobles were inclined to add a few biographical details to the series of bare titles. The first of such scanty biographies appears at the end of the Third Dynasty (170 ff.), after which there is a growing fondness for recording at least the chief honors received by the deceased from the Pharaoh, especially the furnishing and equipment of his tomb at the king's expense. The daily intercourse of the deceased with the king, the privileges which he enjoyed in connection with the royal person, or now and then the copy of a letter from the king to his favorite—all these serve to make such biographies of inestimable value in completing our picture of the culture of the time. In the Sixth Dynasty these biographies become real narratives of the career of the departed noble, or at least of his most notable achievements in the service of the Pharaoh. The most important documents of this character are the biographies of Uni (291 ff.), and the nobles of Elephantine (325 ff., 355 ff., 362 ff.), one of whom has inclined therein a personal letter from the king (350 ff.)."
Page 6: QUOTE: "As the aggressiveness of the Pharaohs increased, their foreign enterprises found record on the rocks in a number of distant regions (outside of Egypt proper), where they still exist. In the Peninsula of Sinai they appear in the First Dynasty (began 3400 B.C.); by the Fifth Dynasty (ended by 2580 B.C.) the officials who led such expeditions commenced to add their own records below the mere relief depicting the triumphant king, a scene to which heretofore only the name of the king was appended. From the Fourth Dynasty such memorials begin to appear in the alabaster quarries of Hatnub, behind Amarna; and from the reign of Isesi, in the Fifth Dynasty, they become more and more numerous in the quarries of Hammamat in the eastern desert, on the road from Coptos to the Red Sea. Practically all that we know, for example, of the power and deeds of the Eleventh Dynasty (2160-2000 B.C.) is drawn from records in these quarries."
Page 6-7: QUOTE: "They soon become so regular that their stoppage is almost certain evidence of an interruption in the orderly course of government in the Nile valley. Similar inscriptions on the rocks at the first cataract (316 ff.) begin in the time of Mernere, of the Sixth Dynasty (2625-2475 B.C.). The earliest inscription (472, 473) above the cataract in Nubia itself dates from the reign of Amenemhet I, the first king of the Twelfth Dynasty (2000-1788 B.C.). Under the Empire such records on foreign soil appear also in Syria and Palestine (III, 297). Quarry inscriptions within the borders of Egypt do not begin until the Middle Kingdom, when we find in the limestone quarries of Ayan (Turra-Masara) just south of Cairo (739, 740); at the sandstone quarries of Silsileh they first appear under the Empire."
Page 7: QUOTE: "From the Middle Kingdom (2160-1788 B.C.) on, the memorial stelae at Abydos are exceedingly valuable. Officials on various commissions, whose business carried them to the holy city, improved the opportunity to erect memorial stones craving the favor of Osiris, the great god of the dead, for themselves and their relatives. Now and again such an officer narrates the circumstances which called him to Abydos; thus Ikhernofret, the treasurer of Sesostris III, records on his stela (661-70) not only the occasion of his visit, but also a copy of the royal letter which contained the command dispatching him thither."
Page 7-8: QUOTE: "In this age the tomb biographies become extremely valuable, because of their tendency to fulness and family details—a tendency already visible in the Tenth Dynasty tombs at Siut (391 ff.). But unfortunately only the tombs of Middle Egypt, chiefly at Benihasan (619 ff.), are preserved. Royal monuments with inscribed records become more plentiful, especially in Nubia, where the boundary stelae of Sesostris III (651-60) are especially noteworthy; and in the quarries of Hammamat and the mines of Sinai. Papyri of any kind in the Middle Kingdom are still none too plentiful. Literary papyri are well represented by several magnificent manuscripts. Of business and administrative documents, like letters, bills, accounts and tax lists, we have examples in the Kahun Papyri, of which the second find, now at Berlin, is still unpublished. But papyrus documents of strictly historical import, such as we can include here, are still rare in this age."
Page 8: QUOTE: "Under the Empire (1580-1150 B.C.) the available documents both in quantity and quality for the first time approach the minimum which in European history would be regarded as adequate to a moderately full presentation of the career of the nation. Scores of important questions, however, still remain unanswered, in whatever direction we turn. Nevertheless, a rough framework of the governmental organization, the constitution of society, the most important achievements of the kings, and to a limited extent the spirit of the imperial age, may be discerned and sketched, in the main outlines, with clearness and fair precision, even though it is only here and there that the sources enable us to fill in the detail."
Page 8-9: QUOTE: "It is especially royal monuments which are more plentiful in the Empire, as compared with earlier times. The first and most important class of such documents is found in the temples—a source which in the earlier periods has totally perished. It was customary already at the beginning of the dynasties for the king to commemorate his victories in the temples. This custom led in the Empire to extensive and magnificent records on the temple walls, on a scale not before attempted. Such documents were less records than triumphal memorials, and as historical sources they are therefore very insufficient. They dealt with events with which all were familiar at the time of their erection, and hence specific references to the said events are rare, or, if present at all, are couched in such vague and general terms that little can be drawn from them at the present day."
Page 9: QUOTE: "They consist chiefly in extensive reliefs on the temple walls, depicting the victorious Pharaoh in battle, capturing prisoners, or presenting prisoners and spoil to Amon. They are accompanied by descriptive and explanatory inscriptions, which unfortunately consist, for the most part, in conventional phrases in laudation of the Pharaoh as a mighty ruler. As the temples of the Eighteenth Dynasty have to a large extent perished, the priceless records of that imperial family have perished with them. We have three great series of reliefs: one representing the birth of Queen Hatshepsut (II, 187 ff.), and a duplicate depicting the birth of Amenhotep III (II, 841 ff.), while the third pictures the voyage of Hatshepsut to the land of Punt (II, 246 ff.). More valuable are the extracts from the annals of Thutmose III on the walls of the Karnak temple (II, 391 ff.), already mentioned, and a similar record of his son Amenhotep II on a large stela at Karnak (II, 780 ff.). The temple records of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties are much more plentiful; but they are almost exclusively of the unprecise character above described. Besides the great record of Merneptah's Libyan war, (III, 569-617), which is a much better source, they are chiefly memorials of the wars of Seti I (III, 80-156), of his son, Ramses II (IV, 294-391, 448-91), and of Ramses III, of the Twentieth Dynasty (IV, 1-145)."
Page 9-10: QUOTE: "Another class of temple records is the building inscriptions. Apart from their value as records of building enterprises, they contain valuable references to the history of the builder. In a number of cases the early career of the builder and the manner in which he came to the throne are prefixed as an introduction to the record of the building itself. This is observable as far back as the building inscription of Sesostris I, in the Twelfth Dynasty (498 ff.); in the Eighteenth Dynasty (1580-1350 B.C.) we gain invaluable hints of the early life of Thutmose III from his great building inscription in the Karnak temple (II, 131 ff.). Such building records not infrequently also contain priceless references to the wars and campaigns of the Pharaoh, whence he may have obtained the wealth for the edifice in question. Notable examples of this class are the stela of Thutmose III in the Ptah temple at Karnak (II, 609 ff.), and the great summary of the buildings of Amenhotep III left by him on a stela in his mortuary temple at Thebes (II, 878 ff.)."
Page 10: QUOTE: "Records of restorations are not less valuable. The restoration records of Hatshepsut at Benihasan (II, 296 ff.) throws a significant sidelight on the reasons necessitating such restoration of the temples, after their neglect by the Hyksos; while the short remarks of Harmhab and Seti I, recording their restorations after the revolution of Ikhnaton, are invaluable indications of the widespread activity of the latter (II, 878). Again, we gain a hint of the anarchy following this revolution, from the record of Harmhab's restoration of the mummy of Thutmose IV, after its violation by tomb-robbers (III, 32 A ff.)."
Page 10-11: QUOTE: "Stelae dedicating the finished temple to the god were set up in the holy of holies, at the place where the king stood in the performance of the royal ritual. Some of these were of enormous size, that of Amenhotep III in his temple behind the Memnon colossi being no less than thirty feet high, and hewn of a single block (II, 904 ff.). The content of these dedication stelae does not differ essentially from that of the building inscriptions; they likewise contain references to the wars of the kings erecting them. The most important of these now surviving are the two in duplicate erected by Amenhotep II at Amâda and Elephantine (II, 791, ff.). The temple obelisks also occasionally bear inscriptions of historical importance, and among these the inscriptions of Hatshepsut (II, 304 ff.), of Thutmose III (II, 623 ff.), and of Thutmose IV (II, 830 ff.) furnish very useful data."
Page 11: QUOTE: "All these temple records, being for the glory of the Pharaoh, are couched in language very poetic and highly colored, although the poetic form is not always discernible. Among them, however, are found poems in praise of the sovereign, exhibiting strictly poetic structure, with rigid divisions into strophes. Some of these contain references and allusions which, in view of the scantiness of our materials, may be employed historically. Such hymns probably existed from the earliest days of the dynasties, but the earliest example preserved is dedicated to the praise of Sesostris III, of the Twelfth Dynasty. In the Empire the most notable example celebrates the fame of Thutmose III (II, 655 ff.). It is the earliest of such poems possessing real historical importance."
Page 11-12: QUOTE: "Royal records not of this class of temple memorials are not numerous. Of actual state documents we possess very few. The viceroy of Kush recorded on stone the decree in which Thutmose I announced his coronation, and of this rescript we possess two copies (II, 54 ff.). At the opening of the Nineteenth Dynasty (1350-1205 B.C.) we have the royal decree instituting the administrative reforms of Harmhab; it is possibly in its original form (III, 45-67). Another great example of a state document is the famous treaty between Ramses II and the Hittite king Khetasar [Muwatalli II???] (III, 367-91). The remarkable report of the unfortunate envoy to Syria, Wenamon, may also be a few pages from the royal archives at Thebes (IV, 557 ff.). A few letters from the king personally (e.g. 350 ff., 664, 665) and some legal records (IV, 499-557) complete the list of state documents. The remaining royal documents are of a miscellaneous character, like the unique memorial scarabs of Amenhotep III (II, 860 ff.), or the huge stelae erected as landmarks by Ikhnaton for the purpose of demarking the limits of his new capital at Amarna (II, 949 ff.). Finally, the greatest of all royal documents is the enormous Papyrus Harris, recording the good deeds of Ramses III (1198-1167 B.C.) to gods and men, compiled for his tomb, as a title to consideration at the hands of the gods in the future life (IV, 151-412)."
Page 12: QUOTE: "The private monuments of the Empire are also more numerous than before and contribute greatly to our knowledge of it. The tombs of the Pharaoh's grandees have now become more personal monuments than ever before. These men, who were guiding Egypt on her imperial career, delighted to perpetuate in their tombs some record of the brilliant part which they were playing in these great events. The generals and administrative officials who under the Pharaoh governed the Empire, now sleep in rock-hewn tombs at Thebes, the chambers of which still bear magnificently painted scenes from their active and adventurous lives. Here we behold the reception of tribute from the remotest limits of the Empire, borne on the shoulders of Palestinians, Syrians, or northern islanders, the whole being accompanied by explanatory inscriptions. The various duties and activities of the greatest officials of the government are here depicted, and from these scenes and the appended inscriptions we can draw fuller data respecting the Empire and its organization than from any other source."
Page 12-13: QUOTE: "These tomb chapels, besides the Amarna Letters, are also the only surviving contemporary source for the civilization of Syria and Palestine in the second millennium before Christ. The most important of such tombs is that of Rekhmire, the vizier of Thutmose III (II, 663-762). The biographies of the generals preserved in these tomb chapels are not infrequently our only source for entire wars of the Pharaoh, of which we should not otherwise have known anything at all—not even that they took place. Besides these tomb inscriptions, the nobles also recorded their biographies, or at least some of their achievements, on the statues accorded them by the Pharaoh in the Karnak temple. Examples of such records are the statue of Senmut (II, 345 ff.), or that of Beknekhonsu (III, 561 ff.). After the Eighteenth Dynasty the Empire abounds in papyri: letters, bills, receipts, administrative and legal documents, memoranda, numerous literary compositions, scientific treatises like those on medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, religious documents, and innumerable ostraca, or potsherds and flakes of limestone bearing receipts, letters, memoranda, or literary fragments. These, for the most part, fall outside the scope of the present volume and will appear in later series of these Ancient Records."
Page 13-14: QUOTE: "Such are the main sources for the history of the Empire; there are, of course, numerous unimportant miscellaneous monuments which we have not mentioned; nor do we recall all of the classes of documents already referred to in the older epochs, like the inscriptions abroad, which now become very plentiful. Indeed, the rocks of the first cataract under the Empire became a veritable visitors' register of the officials and functionaries who, passing on some commission in Nubia, left a record of the errand, or merely name and titles, engraved on the rocks above the reach of the inundation (e.g., II, 675 ff.). Inscriptions of the emperors are found in Nubia as far south as the island of Tombos, and mere cartouches with tiles up to the fourth cataract."
Page 14-15: QUOTE: "With the decline of Thebes in the Decadence (1150-663 B.C.) and the transference of the seat of power to the North, the great mass of records of the royal houses was produced, and their monuments were erected, in the Delta, where almost the whole has perished forever, with the destruction of the exposed Delta cities, overwhelmed by invasion after invasion from abroad, and gradually engulfed by the rising soil as deposited from century to century by the inundation. The fortunes of the northern dynasties can therefore be traced only in the scanty monuments of Thebes, in which the Pharaohs no longer built largely, and at Memphis, where we have a series of dated stelae recording Apis burials in the Serapeum. These are of great value from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. At Thebes the records of the restoration of royal mummies extend from the last generation of the Twentieth into the Twenty-second Dynasty (IV, 592 ff., 636 ff., 661 ff., 664 ff., 688 ff., 690 ff., 699 f.); and a series of dated Nile levels on the quay at Karnak continues from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (IV, 693 ff.). We have at Thebes also a few temple records from the priest-kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty (1090-945 B.C.), a series of decrees of Amon (IV, 614 ff., 650 ff., 669 ff.), and some not very important building records of the high priests of Amon, during the same period. The same is true in the Twenty-second Dynasty (945-755 B.C.), though the brief Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Dynasties (755-712 B.C.), and the Ethiopian period (Twenty-fifth Dynasty, 712-663 B.C.). At this point, fortunately, the scanty monuments of the Delta are supplemented by the historical stelae erected by the Ethiopians at Gebel Barkal (Napata). Among these, the narrative of his conquest of Egypt by Piankhi is one of the most remarkable documents of ancient Egypt (IV, 796-883)."
Page 15: QUOTE: "The paucity of documents, so painfully evident during the Decadence, is even worse under the Restoration (Twenty-sixth Dynasty, 663-525 B.C.). Besides the great adoption stela of Psamtik I at Thebes (IV, 935 ff.), a few Serapeum stelae, important for the chronology, a small number of statue inscriptions of noblemen of the time, and some miscellaneous stelae of little importance, we possess almost nothing from the Restoration. Unhappily, the papyri, which are so plentiful during the Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-first Dynasties, are few and unimportant throughout the remainder of the Decadence and the whole of the Restoration. Fortunately, Herodotus, and the Greek historians after him, enter at this point with invaluable accounts of the history and civilization of the Restoration epoch; but these foreign sources do not fall within the province of these volumes."
Page 15-16: QUOTE: "Besides these contemporary native sources, we possess also a series of later native versions of important events in the history of the nation. These documents are either merely folk-tales, of course differing strikingly in form from the more formal contemporary records; or they are products of the later priesthoods, which, in the form of a tale, give an account of some earlier event, which they so interpret or so distort as to bring reputation, or even material gain, to their sanctuaries. Of the folk-tales we have three of importance: Papyrus Westcar, relating the prodigies attending the birth of the first three Fifth Dynasty kings; Papyrus Sallier I, narrating the cause of the war with the Hyksos; and Papyrus Harris 500, in which is told the story of the capture of Joppa by one of Thutmose III's generals named Thutiy. As tales these documents have no place in this series, although each is based on some actual historical incident, which may be obscurely discerned in the narrative. The priestly tales are likewise three in number: the Sehel inscription, recounting the gift of the Dodekaschoinos at the first cataract to Khnum by King Zoser of the Third Dynasty; the Sphinx Stela (II, 810 ff.), recording the accession of Thutmose IV to the kingship, because as prince he cleared the Sphinx of sand; and finally the Bentresh Stela, containing a tale in honor of one of the Theban Khonsus, by showing that he was carried to a distant Asiatic kingdom in order to heal its king's daughter, in the days of Ramses II (III, 429-47). The last two stories seemed of sufficient importance to be included here. It was with tales in common circulation like these that Herodotus' informants regaled him, and the narrative portions of Manetho's history were largely made up of just such stories, of which further examples from Ptolemaic times have survived in Demotic dress."
Page 16: QUOTE: "It will be seen that the great mass of the documents available are found in Upper Egypt, and but a scanty few in the Delta. This unfortunate fact makes all our knowledge one-sided, and the history of the Delta, the civilization of which must have risen at a very remote date, remains for the most part unknown to us. Our loss is here like that in Greek history, in which we know almost nothing of the great civilization in the powerful cities of Asia Minor, from which the culture of the early states in Greece drew so much."
Page 16-17: QUOTE: "The documents thus briefly surveyed have reached us, with very few exceptions, in a state of sad mutilation. This mutilation and gradual destruction are a ceaseless process, which, if not as rapid as formerly, nevertheless proceeds without cessation at the present day. In Egypt, the exposed monuments, like the great geographical list of Sheshonk I, are perishing with appalling rapidity, and many of them without ever having been properly copied or published. Even the portable stone monuments at present in the museums of Europe suffer more or less; and I have seen valuable stelae so attacked by the moist air of northern Europe that whole layers might be blown from the inscribed surface by a whiff of the breath. Such an inscription is doomed to disappear in a few years. Papyri when mounted between hermetically sealed glass plates survives indefinitely."
Page 20: After going on and on about how people have been making inaccurate translations of Egyptian documents and inscriptions since the time of the Napoleonic Campaign in Egypt, Breasted writes: QUOTE: "The result of all this is that many of the most important documents of ancient Egypt are at present accessible to the Egyptologist only in publications so incorrect that in many cases they are absolutely unusable. It will be evident, therefore, that he who wishes to know exactly what the original documents of ancient Egypt state cannot work exclusively in his library, but must go behind the publications and turn back to the originals themselves, in Egypt and the museums of Europe."
Page 20: QUOTE: "For the purposes of these volumes it was therefore absolutely indispensable in most cases to go back of the publications [sic]. The author, therefore, made and repeatedly revised his own copies of practically all the historical monuments in Europe, before the originals themselves. In the few cases where the original was not accessible, good squeezes and photographs supplied the deficiency, or professional colleagues furnished from the originals specially collated readings of doubtful passages. Of the monuments in Egypt the author copied a great many at all the more important sites, especially Thebes and Amarna, where he made a complete copy of all the historical inscriptions; and in the museum at Cairo (formerly Gizeh)."

James H. Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. III

Breasted, James Henry. (1962). Ancient Records of Egypt: Vol. III, the Nineteenth Dynasty. New York: Russell & Russell, a division of Atheneum Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0846201348.

James H. Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. IV & V

Breasted, James H. (1962). Ancient Records of Egypt: Vol. IV, The Twentieth to the Twenty-Sixth Dynasties, & Vol. V, Indices. New York: Russell & Russell, a division of Atheneum Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0846201348.