Textual sources, Late period
Extensive textual sources, literary and non-literary, official and private, exist to aid the study of Egypt during the Late period. Hieroglyphs continued to be used for formal monumental inscriptions, whether private biographical inscriptions, formal royal inscriptions and decrees, or religious texts carved on temple walls. Private individuals with the necessary resources built and decorated for themselves monumental tombs. Especially fine examples are those of Saite (26th Dynasty) officials in Thebes (for example, Montuemhat (TT 34), ‘Ankh-Hor (TT 414) and Ibi (TT 36)), and a tomb near Hermopolis of the high priest Petosiris, who probably lived during the fourth century BC, just prior to Egypt’s conquest by Alexander the Great. A very interesting example of a private stela is that of Ta-’Imyhotep, wife of the last Ptolemaic High Priest of Ptah during the reign of Cleopatra VII. Private individuals also dedicated statues of themselves in major temples; these statues frequently bore important biographical inscriptions. Excellent examples include those of Peftjawawy-Neith (Saite), Udja-Hor-resnet (Persian period) and Sematawytefnakht (time of Alexander the Great). Private religious dedications also included large numbers of stelae dedicated to and recording the lives and deaths of various of the increasingly important sacred animals, such as the Apis bulls and Mothers of the Apis, of whom extensive records have been found at Saqqara. Private stelae also include major magico-religious texts, such as the Metternich Stela, covered with texts intended to protect the individual against snake bite and other potential dangers.
Formal royal inscriptions from the Late period include Saite stelae commemorating historical events (for example, the Adoption Stela of Nitocris set up by her father Psamtik I, and the stela erected by Psamtik II recording his campaign in Nubia) and recording temple dedications (Mit Rahina stela of Apries). Similar stelae were established by or on behalf of various Ptolemaic rulers (for example, the "Satrap Stela" of Ptolemy [I], the Pithom Stela of Ptolemy II, and the so-called "trilingual decrees" issued on behalf of Ptolemies III, IV and V). The Persian king Darius I had carved a series of multilingual stelae recording his excavation of the canal connecting the Nile Valley with the Red Sea. Nectanebo I (30th Dynasty) set up the Naukratis Stela recording major contributions to the temple of Neith of Sais. With the apparent exception of the Persian kings who succeeded Darius I, all kings of the Late period contributed to Egyptian temples, whether enhancing existing temples or building new ones. Temple decoration included both dedicatory inscriptions recording the actions of the rulers and extensive presentations of (non-mortuary) religious texts, including hymns, temple ritual and cultic information not preserved from earlier periods. Occasional texts of economic and geographic importance, such as those at Edfu, are also preserved.
An extensive corpus of non-monumental religious texts, especially hymns and a very wide range of mortuary literature, some known earlier but much of it new, has been preserved from the Late period. Much is written in hieratic, in which there are also rare secular literary compositions. However, most secular literature, and some religious texts, were written in demotic, a very cursive script and late stage of the Egyptian language, which was developed during the Saite period and quickly replaced both hieratic (for literary materials) and abnormal hieratic (which had been developed in the Theban area for private documents). New compositions in several literary genres have been preserved in demotic, including narrative stories, didactic or wisdom texts, epic cycles and moralizing animal stories. Some reflect familiarity with foreign literary traditions, especially Greek and Aramaic, while remaining basically Egyptian compositions. Scientific texts, prophetic texts, myths, dreams and dream interpretation are all found.
Large numbers of personal documents have been preserved from the Late period. In the course of the Saite dynasty, demotic replaced abnormal hieratic for such documents and from then until the end of the Late period, private documents written in Egyptian were written in demotic on either papyrus or ostraca. Well attested are private letters, contracts for sale, lease, mortgage (and foreclosure) of private property (real and personal), surety bonds, and oaths sworn before a specified god concerning accusations of broken contracts, theft and so on. Although made between husband and wife, the so-called "marriage contracts" are perhaps better called "annuity contracts," since they are economic documents establishing lines of economic responsibility and inheritance and have nothing to do with the "legality" of the institution of marriage itself. Many demotic documents directly or indirectly reflect administrative concerns (such as the so-called Hermopolis law "code"), lists of people or goods or amounts of money (owed or paid), contracts to supply goods or services, tax receipts, rules of conduct for members of cult guilds, and even letters or petitions addressed to the king or his senior representatives. One of the most informative of the latter is the "Petition of Petiese" (also known as Papyrus Rylands IX), written during the reign of Darius I but covering several generations spanning the Saite and early Persian periods. More informal, but frequently quite informative, are graffiti left in temples, tombs, quarries, mining regions and along major roads.
When Egypt was ruled by non-Egyptian speakers, the official administrative language was no longer Egyptian. From the Persian period, important documents written in Aramaic have been preserved. Some are official or semi-official documents, such as the letters written to the satrap Arsames. Others are private letters or contracts (many come from the Jewish community living at Elephantine in the Saite and Persian periods). Ptolemaic Egypt is especially rich in Greek materials, formal administrative decrees, private letters and contracts, and a vast collection of Greek literature. Egypt in the Late period was home to a number of non-Egyptian speaking populations, many of whom have left behind at least occasional written records. For instance, private stelae and graffiti are attested in Phoenician and Carian (the language of one of the provinces of Asia Minor).
Egypt was part of a much larger world during the Late period, and some of the cultures with which it came into contact left records of that contact. Thus, mention of Egypt occasionally occurs in the annals of Assyrian kings, in writings preserved in the Hebrew Bible, in records of the Roman Republic and, more frequently, in the writings of classical authors from various periods. Among the most famous of the classical authors are Herodotus, who lived during the Persian empire and thus was a contemporary or near contemporary of some of what he wrote about, and Diodorus Siculus, who lived during the Roman empire and compiled his history from earlier classical sources.
Excavation has turned up extensive written material, including inscribed architectural fragments, ostraca and papyri, both Egyptian and non-Egyptian. Although many early excavations treated inscribed materials as separate from the rest of the excavation, many recent excavators have made major contributions to our understanding of Egypt during the Late period by fully incorporating excavated textual information with the other archaeological results. The importance of inscribed materials found in controlled archaeological excavation is underscored by the Egypt Exploration Society’s publication series entitled "Texts from Excavations," several of which stem from their excavations at portions of North Saqqara occupied during the Late period.
Textual sources, Middle Kingdom
Though limited in quantity, there is considerable variety in the textual sources surviving from Middle Kingdom Egypt. Royal and temple records are scarce, while autobiographical texts are fewer than in either the Old or the New Kingdoms. Pedagogic texts constitute a cohesive group that is small in number and survive mainly through later copies, including hundreds of excerpts on New Kingdom ostraca (potsherds and flakes of limestone which provided an inexpensive surface for writing and drawing). Contemporary papyri include some legal and medical texts (veterinary and gynecological) from the pyramid town of Lahun, the Semna dispatches from the fort in Nubia, and letters of a farmer named Hekanakhte. Graffiti from the period found at the quarries in the Wadi Hammamat, at Hatnub and in the Sinai provide interesting insights, while execration texts written in ink on bowls or figurines are among the most significant historical documents of this period. For religious literature, there are numerous examples of coffins and related funerary artifacts inscribed with funerary texts that bridge the gap between the Pyramid Texts (inscribed in the burial chambers of late Old Kingdom pyramids) and the New Kingdom Book(s) of the Dead. There are also votive stelae that attest to the religiosity of the common man.
The Middle Kingdom is perhaps best known from the literary texts that survive from that period. The names of the authors of several of these pieces are known, and they account for half of the eight individual great authors listed on a much later New Kingdom papyrus. Unlike the listed authors of the Old Kingdom, who were princes or highest officials, the Middle Kingdom authors seem to have been scribes who were teachers in the palace or temple schools. Khety, called the greatest of the scribes on a later, well-known papyrus (Chester Beatty IV), wrote what is now known as a Satire on the Trades, that pointed out all the dangers, difficulties and disadvantages associated with the various professions a young man might pursue. Khety argues humorously and emphatically that the scribe’s position is the finest possible goal in life. This type of propaganda for the profession was obviously a school textbook since it survived in hundreds of partial copies.
According to papyrus Chester Beatty IV, this Khety was also known as the author of the Instruction of King Amenemhat I, a propaganda text of a different kind. Written after Amenemhat I had been assassinated (probably as the result of a harim conspiracy), the text was obviously composed for the benefit of his son and successor, Senusret I. It provides some historical information about a difficult transition, albeit from the perspective of one who had to re-establish order after several successive dynastic crises. This popular work is closely attuned with the famous Story of Sinuhe, whose author is unknown, but whose purpose is also to demonstrate both the legitimacy and the goodness of Senusret I. Perhaps related as well is the so-called Prophecy of Neferti, who was another of the famous scribes listed in papyrus Chester Beatty IV. Set in the Old Kingdom court of Seneferu, the text provides some description of the chaos of the First Intermediate Period and foretells ex-post facto the coming of Amenemhat I as a savior. Neferti’s work also shows affinities with the anonymous Story of the Miracles in the Reign of King Khufu. This work was also a prophecy of dynastic change from Khufu’s 4th Dynasty to a 5th Dynasty heavily influenced by the cult of the sun god Re. From details and language this also appears to be a Middle Kingdom work. It is likely that the Khufu setting would have influenced Neferti’s even earlier setting in the reign of Seneferu.
Certainly the most pious text in the well documented genre of instruction literature is the royal "confession" known as the Instruction for King Merikare. The setting for this text is the impending collapse of a dynasty centered at Heracleopolis at the end of the First Intermediate Period. Candidly admitting his own mistakes, the unnamed king advises his son, warning of the omniscience and justice of Re. This essentially religious text obviously has its historical dimension and, whether an original Heracleopolitan text or another 12th Dynasty composition, it fits well with the rest of these texts, that, when taken together, seem to exemplify a different type of historiography which combined explanations of past events as related to their present and as applicable to their future.
Another text with a Heracleopolitan setting that was at least copied, if not written, in the Middle Kingdom is the story of the Eloquent Peasant. The subject is justice; the message is patience. The unseen king is shown to be provident, generous and eventually responsive, and a temperate, deferential and persistent approach with regard to his apparently unresponsive bureaucracy is shown to be the best course. The fanciful story of the Shipwrecked Sailor does not seem to have a historical setting nor does it have any propaganda value, though it may have served as a lesson in how not to explain one’s failure on a royal mission. The instructions of Sehotepibre and Father to Son are gross propaganda pieces that most likely date to the second half of the 12th Dynasty. These works offer little more than exaggerated, fulsome praise of the king, and were probably intended to benefit Senusret III, who had difficulties with local nomarchs (governors) that led to his suppressing them. The Instruction from Father to Son may have been written by a man named Ptahemdjedhuty, from the list in the papyrus Chester Beatty IV The last of the great named authors on this papyrus, Khakheperresonb, complains that he wants new words to express himself since everything had already been said, but he also criticizes those who wrote ex-post facto prophesies as well as those who plagiarized; things that all the other great Middle Kingdom authors certainly were guilty of doing.
Among the literary texts, the Admonitions of Ipuwer, whether describing fictitious or real happenings in the First or Second Intermediate Periods or even in the Middle Kingdom, is an elaborate lamentation addressed either to the king or to the sun god Re. The descriptions are poignant and complete enough that the author may have witnessed the events described, and the text is often used to describe the effects of Egyptian civil war. The Dispute of a Man with His Ba (soul) is the most difficult to understand of the literary texts (both because of its incomplete state and the lack of a clear unifying structure), but it is most intriguing for its psychological debate about suicide as a response to guilt for a heinous crime.
Literary texts such as the Instruction of King Amenemhat I and the Story of Sinuhe are always cited in histories of ancient Egypt because of the information they offer concerning the internal and external affairs at the time, but they are not properly historical texts. The remaining Middle Kingdom texts are classified as non-literary, ranging from tomb inscriptions (religious and autobiographical), stelae (personal and political), to letters, graffiti, contracts and miscellaneous items. The texts on tomb walls in provincial cemeteries, such as Beni Hasan, Deir el-Bersha and Asyut, reveal something about the changes that took place in the First Intermediate Period, the growing independence of the nomarchs, their local administration, and their expeditions undertaken at royal behest. Some stelae of individuals also record expeditions (for example, to Nubia and Syria), but most merely list their owners’ titles and record their personal piety. The texts in the tomb of Hapidjefa at Asyut record in detail the owner’s contracts with priests to provide for his offerings after he died.
The major collections of graffiti from the Middle Kingdom tend to be rather long, formal texts that record quarrying expeditions by dates and leaders, and sometimes give information about the size, specific purpose and noteworthy events. One long inscription from the Wadi Hammamat gives an elaborate explanation of the portent that led to their choice of a stone slab for a sarcophagus lid, something that was thought to have accounted for the success of this expedition. The inscriptions in Sinai are not as lengthy or formal. Based on seamen’s titles, it can be surmised that some part of the route to the quarries was on the Red Sea.
The letters that survive from this period are very limited but interesting. Those from the fort at Semna, in the region of the Second Cataract in Nubia, are reports and generally very fragmentary. The Hekanakhte letters are much more informative about the administration of agricultural land and allow us to get much closer to an Egyptian family (in Thebes) through the eyes of the absent head of the household. Hekanakhte’s letters to his sons instruct them in dealing with his tenants, who work fields that he rents from others, as well as in how to deal with his wives and other children. Another rare papyrus now in the Brooklyn Museum lists the staff members of a large estate in Middle Egypt, both field hands and household staff, including a very high percentage of Asiatics.
Execration texts from the 12th and 13th Dynasties survive from several sites (Saqqara, Thebes and Nubia). Found on either bowls or figurines, these formulaic texts were written to eliminate magically whatever or whomever was considered inimical by deliberately smashing the artifact. Foreign cities and their rulers are listed at length, particularly from the western Asiatic littoral, but Libyan and Nubian enemies of Egypt are also included, as are a few Egyptians whose names and titles indicate probable involvement in a harim conspiracy. Through such ritual these particular enemies could be repeatedly damned.
The large body of funerary literature from the Middle Kingdom is known as Coffin Texts, even though these texts were copied on tomb walls, papyri, stelae, statues, masks, biers and canopic chests (containers for the viscera of a mummy), as well as on wooden coffins of all sizes. The texts include hymns, prayers and spells of all kinds, plus identifications of deities, demons and places of the afterlife. These collections of texts were essentially "guidebooks" to the afterlife similar to the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom. Although the surviving monuments of the Old and New Kingdoms are much more impressive than those of the Middle Kingdom, the texts that survive from this period are generally of the greatest significance, the broadest range and the highest quality, fully justifying the study of Middle Egyptian as the best introduction to this ancient language.
Textual sources, New Kingdom
Only a fraction of the textual output of the New Kingdom (circa 1,550-1,070 BC) has been preserved, but from what remains it is obvious that most traditions established in the Old and Middle Kingdoms were carried on. As before, a sizable portion of the texts pertains to the mortuary cult, as texts have survived in much greater numbers in the dry desert where cemeteries and mortuary temples are located. In what follows, a survey of New Kingdom textual traditions precedes a list of some innovations of the period. As in other epochs of pharaonic history, texts appear mostly on stone walls, papyrus rolls or potsherds.
If distinguished by social function, texts are either public or private. Public or communal texts are not written for any specific individuals, though access may be restricted to certain classes. Public texts encompass those that are intended for display, and those that are not. Private or personal texts are in principle aimed at one or more specific persons. When we speak of ancient Egyptian literature, we usually mean public texts. Literature as a product of the creative and imaginative use of language is a concept born in the nineteenth century. If it were applied to ancient Egyptian texts, the body of texts that could be called literature would be very limited.
Public texts meant for display are mainly historical (that is, autobiographical or biographical) or religious. They typically appear on stone and are as a rule promulgated by political or religious authorities. Like their forebears in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, New Kingdom pharaohs and nobles adorned the walls of their temples and tombs with historical and biographical records of their deeds. Some typical examples are as follows.
In the royal sphere, Tuthmose III had the annals of his sixteen campaigns into southwest Asia inscribed on the walls of the temple at Karnak. On a stela found near the sphinx at Giza, Amenhotep II recounts his love of horses and the many athletic exploits of his youth. At Thebes and elsewhere, multiple copies have been found of a text narrating the battle of Ramesses II against the Hittites at Qadesh in Syria; the king describes with poetic hyperbole how he trounced the enemy all by himself when his troops had deserted him. In the private sphere, the inscriptions in the tomb of Ahmose son of Ibana at Elkab describe the tomb owner’s brilliant military career in the service of the kings Ahmose, Amenhotep I and Tuthmose I. They also provide unique historical information about the end of Hyksos rule in Egypt. The Theban tomb inscriptions of the vizier Rekhmire (TT 100), who served under Tuthmose III, provide, in addition to information about the tomb owner’s life, valuable juridical data about the duties of the vizier, the highest ranking official in the ancient Egyptian administration.
Temples and tombs are also lavishly ornamented with religious texts, including hymns and prayers to gods and kings and ritual texts. These texts are found not only on walls but also on stelae. For example, a hymn on a stela now in the Louvre Museum narrates the myth of Osiris.
Public texts not for display are typically written on papyrus. Among those texts whose imaginative use of language makes them the most akin to what one thinks of as literature in modern times are tales, love poems and wisdom literature. These texts are for entertainment and moral instruction. Among the best preserved tales are the following: the Doomed Prince narrates the adventures of a young Egyptian crown prince abroad; the Two Brothers is a tale of conflict and reconciliation between two brothers, perhaps as an allegory of the strife and unification of two Egyptian cities; the Contendings of Horus and Seth describes the fierce contest between two arch-rivals, the son and the brother of Osiris, and the superiority of Horus; the Report of Wenamen portrays the mission of an Egyptian royal envoy who sails out to buy Lebanese timber for his lord. Two great wisdom texts, the Instruction of Amenemope and the Instruction of Any, continue a tradition inaugurated by such famous Old and Middle Kingdom works as the Maxims of Ptahhotep and the Teaching for the Vizier Kagemni.
Public texts not for display also include religious and magical works. The Book of the Dead is a collection of spells inscribed on papyrus, placed next to the deceased in the tomb. The spells, which differ in number and selection from copy to copy, were thought to protect the deceased against evils in the netherworld. Guides to the Hereafter, a genre exclusive to the New Kingdom, are found on the walls of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings; there they are at least potentially on display, but they have been classified here because they were perhaps originally not so intended. Such Guides (for example, the Book of Caves and the Book of Gates) teach the deceased about the geography and other aspects of the netherworld.
Private texts from the New Kingdom abound, pertaining to every aspect of daily life and commerce, official and casual, such as letters, deeds of sale, accounts, and court documents. What follows is a list of eight characteristics of the New Kingdom textual corpus, as compared to Old and Middle Kingdom texts.
(1) Size of the corpus. New Kingdom texts vastly outnumber those of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. This difference does not seem entirely due to accidents of survival. To what extent increased literacy or population growth played a role remains a matter of conjecture.
(2) Emergence of a "classical" literature. Many literary texts of the Middle Kingdom continued to be copied and read and thus acquired the status of a classical literature. At the same time, Middle Egyptian, the language of the Middle Kingdom, remained in use as an artificial language for religious and literary purposes. The continuation of things Middle Egyptian lends a certain complexity to New Kingdom texts. Among literary texts of the New Kingdom, it is necessary to distinguish between those written in the New Kingdom in Late Egyptian, the contemporary language (e.g. the Report of Wenamen), those written in the New Kingdom in the language of the Middle Kingdom (e.g. the many 18th Dynasty biographical inscriptions), and those written in the Middle Kingdom but copied and read also in the New Kingdom (e.g. the Story of Sinuhe on the Ashmolean Ostracon dating to the Ramesside period (19th—20th Dynasties)). The sense of a classical literature is supported by a text in papyrus Chester Beatty IV which describes the immortality of writers of the past, stating, "A man has perished, and his corpse has become dust…. But writings cause him to be remembered in the mouth of the storyteller."
(3) Variety of linguistic expression. New Kingdom textual sources are characterized by an almost bewildering assortment of idioms. First, there are texts written in the language spoken at the time. This idiom is found as a rule in texts serving a practical function in daily life, be it as official documents of the royal chancellory or as letters between private individuals, hence the name "non-literary Late Egyptian." It is generally assumed that the Report of Wenamen is also a specimen of non-literary Egyptian, as it seems based on actual events.
Most texts with literary pretensions seem influenced by older stages of the language. Their idioms are probably different mixtures of the spoken language and archaizing features. Differences of dialect may also have played a role. For example, the idiom of the literary stories on papyrus is different from that of the monumental inscriptions of the Ramesside era. Both in turn differ from the idiom of the school texts.
Linguistically speaking, the reign of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten was a watershed. In the early New Kingdom, the colloquial language spoken by the average Egyptian had been for some time Late Egyptian, while Middle Egyptian persisted as the written language. One of the many revolutions that took place during the reign of the heretic king was the promotion of Late Egyptian from a vernacular to the standard Hochsprache.
(4) Cosmopolitan character. The New Kingdom was a period of imperial expansion eastward into Asia and southward into Nubia. This is reflected in the texts, thematically in the historical texts such as the Annals of the Asian campaigns of Tuthmose III and in fictional narratives such as the tale of the Doomed Prince, and linguistically in the many Semitic loanwords. As evidence of textual traffic, one might also mention the cuneiform texts inscribed on tablets found at Tell el-Amarna, Akhenaten’s capital, containing correspondence between the pharaoh and foreign rulers.
Another striking point of contact between Egypt and southwest Asia is that the Instruction of Amenemope served as a source for the biblical book of Proverbs 22:1723:10, as Adolf Erman established. Already before Erman’s discovery, it was assumed that Proverbs 22:17-24:22 was once a separate unit. Compare, for example, Amenemope topic 9 (column 11, lines 13-14), "Do not befriend the heated man, nor approach him for conversation," with Proverbs 22:24, "Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man." Proverbs 22:20 indirectly acknowledges the Egyptian source: "Have I not written for you thirty sayings of admonition and knowledge?" The Instruction of Amenemope contains exactly 30 topics (27, 7-8: "Look to these thirty topics; they inform, they educate").
(5) Rise of individualism. This aspect is all-pervasive of life in the New Kingdom. For example, the Book of the Dead, which was inscribed on papyrus, was accessible to a far larger class of people than its Old Kingdom predecessor, the Pyramid Texts, which were the privilege of kings and queens, or than its Middle Kingdom predecessor, the Coffin Texts, which were restricted to high-ranking and wealthy nobles. New Kingdom hymns and prayers give more expression to personal piety than their antecedents. Humility first clearly emerges as a virtue.
No love poetry is attested before the New Kingdom. Perhaps it is a creation of this period. The following verses sound quite modern, and their tone is unlike any Old or Middle Kingdom text: "With graceful step she treads the ground, captures my heart by her movements. She causes all men’s necks to turn about to see her; joy has he whom she embraces, he is like the first of men!"
(6) School texts. A large number of surviving school texts is characteristic of the New Kingdom. Hardly any such Old or Middle Kingdom texts are known, but this may be an accident of survival.
(7) Illuminations in manuscripts. These are also an innovation of the New Kingdom.
(8) Amarna period. As mentioned above, the New Kingdom also encompasses the single most remarkable interval in Egyptian history, Akhenaten’s reign. His theology is explained on boundary stelae erected around the capital at Amarna and in the tombs of his courtiers located there.
