Ancient Egyptian Literature

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Introduction

Ancient Egyptian Literature, literature of ancient Egypt, recorded in inscriptions or written on papyrus.

Ancient Egyptian literature is characterized by a wide diversity of types and subject matter; it dates from the Old Kingdom (c. 2755-2255 bc) into the Graeco-Roman period (after 332 bc). Such literary devices as simile, metaphor, alliteration, and punning are found.

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Range of Literary Forms

The religious literature of ancient Egypt includes hymns to the gods, mythological and magical texts, and an extensive collection of mortuary texts. The range of secular literature includes stories; instructive literature, known as “wisdom texts”; poems; biographical and historical texts; and scientific treatises, including mathematical and medical texts. Notable also are the many legal, administrative, and economic texts and private documents such as letters, although not actually literature. The individual authors of several compositions dating from the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom (2134-1668 bc) were revered in later periods. They came from the educated class of upper-level government officials, and their audience was largely educated people like themselves. Indeed, many literary compositions of the Middle Kingdom were composed as political propaganda, to teach the students who learned to read and write by copying them (on tablets and pottery fragments) to be loyal to the ruling dynasty. Many of these same wisdom texts were still copied by New Kingdom (1570-1070 bc) schoolchildren more than 500 years later, along with more contemporary texts designed to undermine the glamour of the new military profession. Some of the stories include elements of mythology and may owe much to an oral storytelling tradition.

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Old Kingdom

The oldest literature preserved, the Pyramid Texts, are mortuary texts carved inside the pyramids of kings and queens of the later part of the Old Kingdom; they were designed to ensure the dead ruler's rightful place in the afterlife. These texts incorporate mythology, hymns to the gods, and daily offering rituals. Many autobiographical inscriptions from private tombs recount the deceased's participation in historical events. Although no stories or wisdom texts are preserved from the Old Kingdom, some Middle Kingdom manuscripts may be copies of Old Kingdom originals; an example is “The Instruction of the Vizier Ptahhotep”, composed of maxims illustrating basic virtues (such as moderation, truthfulness, and kindness) that should govern human relations and describing the ideal person as a just administrator.

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First Intermediate Period

Following the breakdown of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts were appropriated by private individuals; supplemented with new incantations, these texts were painted on coffins, from which the name Coffin Texts is derived. Private individuals also continued to have their tombs inscribed with autobiographical texts, which often recounted their exploits during this time of political unrest. To this First Intermediate period (c. 2255-2035 bc) are attributed various laments over the chaotic state of affairs. One of these, “The Dialogue of a Man with his Ba” (“soul”), is a debate on suicide; another, the earliest example of the songs sung by harpists at funerary banquets, advises “Eat, drink, and be merry, before it's too late!”