a contribution to a study of egyptian literature in

A CONTRIBUTION TO A STUDY OF EGYPTIAN LITERATURE IN GRAECO-ROMAN TIMES

By E. A. E. REY MOND LECTURER IN EGYPTOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

The literature of Ancient Egypt, as the ultimate expression of the genius and national character of the ancient Egyptians, is a wholly indigenous product of the country of the Pharaohs, and, inevitably, differs from the accepted canon of formal Greek literature. Egypt never produced, in spite of the eminence of its cultural achievements, any poetry and drama to compare with those of ancient Greece. Its literature is also unlike that of other ancient and modern oriental literatures as well as those of Western civilisations.

Centuries of literary tradition, and above all a strong conservat- ism, predominantly controlled the expression of mind and the trends of thought the ancient Egyptians present in the writings they have bequeathed to us. What strikes us most when we study their ancient history is the rigidity and impersonality of expression that govern all their intellectual activities and in particular their art and literature.

The literature of ancient Egypt has been made familiar to us through being engraved on the walls of temples, tombs, and other monuments. These present to the outer world the contents of their religious and ritual texts, hymns glorifying their kings and their gods, and whatever else had a direct bearing on the life in their temples and other sacred places. They also tend to give the impression that the writing of religious works and inscriptions designed for wall decoration was the main concern and formed the greatest part of the activities of ancient Egyptian men of letters, and that their literature was predominantly religious in character.

Certainly, in Egypt at all periods of its history the main body of texts accessible to us is always closely connected with the life of temples and sacred places and this tradition continued into the Ptolemaic era and beyond. Religious elements feature in most literary works, since they centre on the place the temple with its divine inhabitants held in the life of the country. Likewise, ancient Egyptian art and literature were dedicated to the service of

EGYPTIAN LITERATURE 209

temples and sacred places. This is notable in textual sources from the early days of their history. Inscriptional decoration on the walls of tombs and on other monuments yields a wealth of texts recounting their pious attitude towards their gods and sovereigns, as well as their merits in history. Such texts were designed to commemorate those who had ordered them to be written and engraved there.

It is from these points of view that we should judge the inscriptional treasures recovered from Egypt, in all their varying particularities. The physical characteristics of the country, regarded as a geographical entity, had an enormous impact on the growth and character of the culture of the Valley of the Nile. It was from its geographical position that the formative agents in the civilisation of Ancient Egypt derived-a civilisation that emerged as an entity isolated from the ancient world of the African continent and that of the Near East. The isolated character of this culture is one of its most prominent features and lasted through- out its history. Reinforced by the geographical milieu and by elements in the race itself, this gave rise to a certain mental isolatism-a national self-conceit which was deeply rooted in all branches of activity of ancient Egyptian society.

The recovery of the past as portrayed in documentary sources, either inscriptional or on papyri, has been long and arduous. At about the time when the last remnants of the ancient Egyptian language still continued to be spoken, that is, in the very late 16th century of our era by native Egyptians in remote villages of Upper Egypt, interest in ancient Egyptian antiquities was steadily reviv- ing in Western Europe.' Egyptian monuments brought to Italy during the imperial period were already admired in the Middle Ages and were copied in the period immediately before the Renaissance and in the early Renaissance itself, and hieroglyphic

For the history of Egyptology see F. LI. Griflith, "The Decipherment of the Hieroglyphs", a posthumous article published in JEA, xxxvii. 38 ff.; A .H. Gardiner, "Egyptology Ancient and Modern" in his book on Egypt of the Pharaohs, pp. 1-17; Eric Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs, "Middle Age and Kenaissance", pp. 57-87; and Anne Roullet, The Egyp~ian and Egyptianizing Monuments of Imperial Rome, in particular pp. 10-12 for a sketch of the approach to Egyptian culture from the Middle Ages onwards, from the 'sketchbooks' beginning c. 1450 to 1590, and then to the awakening of interest in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Among the Western manuscripts in the John Rylands University Library is one (Latin MSS. 32-37), not mentioned in any of the works cited above, which is

210 THE JOHN RYLANDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

texts were imitated and copied from Renaissance times onwards. These first attempts to understand the culture as well as the language of the country of the Pharaohs were crystallized in the works of Father Athanasius Kircher, who published two books on the ancient Egyptian language before the end of the Thirty Years War: (a) Prodromus Coptus sive Aegyptiacus, published in Rome in 1636, and (b) Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta, Opus Tripartitum, published in Rome in 1643.3

The aftermath of the religious struggle in Europe was not favourable to studies of the culture of the ancient Near East, though Egyptian antiquities continued to be collected and trans- ported to Europe in the course of the eighteen ~ e n t u r y . ~ A new impetus to the study of Ancient Egypt culture was given by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, and by what followed roughly a quarter of a century later: the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and cursive writing by Thomas Y o ~ n g , ~ and the publi-

of considerable importance in this connection, a Missal written and illuminated for Cardinal Pompeo Colonna (d. 1532). This contains (Latin MS. 32, f. Ixxix) an "Egyptian page", in which the scheme of decoration consists of motives taken almost entirely from Egyptian art. I wish to thank Dr. Frank Taylor for bringing this to my notice. Since I wrote this article there has appeared a book by J.S. Curl, The Egyptian Revival, London 1982, which deals with the influence of Egypt on Western religion, philosophy, art and architecture. It also contains (pp. 55-58) an account of the "Egyptian page" in Cardinal Colonna's Missal.

A. Kircher (1602-1680); cf. P. Marestaing, "Un egyptologue du 17' siecle: Le Pere Kircher", R. T., xxx, 22-36, for an outline study of his career; also W. R. Dawson, Who Was Who in Egyptology, p. 158 (hereinafter referred to as Dawson).

T f . Iversen, op. cit., pp. 88-123. * The study of the 'sketch-books' shows that intellectuals of the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries became involved in discussions about Egypt and its literature. The most prominent figure in the first half of the eighteenth century- and the immediate successor of Kircher-was a Frenchman, Abbe Jean-Jacques Barthelemy from Marseilles (1 7 16-1 795) (cf. Dawson, p. 20). For his attempt to decipher Egyption hieroglyphs in 1752 cf. M.D. David, Les dhbats sur les hieroglyphs aux 17e et 1 6 siPcles, pp. 105 ff. The earliest catalogue raisonnP of Egyptian antiquities I have been able to identify is B. Montfaucon, LantiquitP expliquPe et representie en Jgurines, t. ii ( 17 19). This was followed by the work of the Comte de Caylus (1692-1765) (cf. Dawson, p. 56). Recueil dbntiquitis Pgyptiennes, htrusques, grecques et romaines, 1752.

Thomas Young (1773-1829), cf. Dawson, p. 312; for the best biography see A. Wood-F. Oldham, Thomas Young, Natural Philosopher; also F. LI. Griffith, JEA, xxxvii, 40-41. Young's first work on Egyptological subjects dates from 18 15 : Remarks on Egyptian Papyri and on the Inscription of Rosette.

EGYPTIAN LITERATURE 21 1

cation of the result of this slow and arduous task by Jean Fran~ois Champollion6 in 1822, in his famous Lettre h M. Dacier.

Basic tenets for the understanding of the wealth of Egyptian texts were laid down. However, the approach to Egypt's cultural achievements in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century was not exactly the same as ours. Egyptological interests and attitudes were then largely focused on the impressive architecture and on the monumental aspects of the culture of the Valley of the Nile. The significance of the contents of Egyptian texts does not seem to have attracted the same interest then, and the earlier generations of readers of Egyptian texts appear to have paid little attention to the various kinds of texts preserved on papyri and on stone. Distinctions between religious and secular literature and between official records and individual narratives do not seem to have aroused any interest in the scholars of that time.

The arrangement of Thomas Young's Hieroglyphics7 and Henry Brugsch's Sammlung der Aegyprischen Urkunden, * illus- trate fairly well the kind of views of ancient Egyptian inscriptional material held by the pioneering generation of Egyptologists up to the middle of last century. What was written, or engraved, was

Jean Franqois Champollion (1790-1832). cf. Dawson, pp. 58-59; also A. H. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, pp. 13-14. H. Hartleben, Champollion (1906). has the most complete biography.

Champollion was not able to read Egyptian texts in a connected way until 1825. See PrPcis du systkme hikroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens, 1828, a work which summarizes the achievements between 1822 and 1828. ' Cf. Hieroglyphics, Collected by the Egyptian Society in Egypt, London,

1823. This work shows that Young was engaged in the work of deciphering Egyptian writing well ahead of Champollion. A year after the publication of the Lettre a M. Dacier by Champollion, Young published An Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities.

Heinrich Charles Brugsch (1827-1894), cf. Dawson, pp. 42-43. The Sammlung was published in Berlin 1850, twenty seven years after Young's work.

Brugsch's first work dates from 1848 : Scriptura Aegyptiorum Demotica ex papyris et inscriptionibus e.rplanata, Berlin. He was then 21 years of age. This seems to show that he tackled Egyptian texts through a study of Demotic. He may have been introduced to it by Young's posthumous publication of the Rudiments, cf. below, p. 217, and also n. 10. This would seem to be confirmed by Brugsch's following publication of 1850: Letters a Monsieur le Vicomte Emmanuel de RougP au sujet de la dkcouverte d'un manuscrit bilingue sur le papyrus (Berlin, 1850), and also his Sammlung demotisch-griechischen Eigennamen (1851); his Grammaire dimotique was published in Berlin in 1855 and his Hieroglyphisch-demotisches Woerterbuch was completed in 1867 and published in Leipzig.


then regarded as a single, homogenous bulk of inscriptional wealth. A methodical approach to the understanding of the literary history did not appear until the fifties of last century, and when this did occur it came about quite accidentally. What happened to an ordinary traveller brought about a change in the attitude towards texts written on papyri, and also the beginning of a systematical study of ancient Egyptian literary texts.

An English woman, Mrs. Elisabeth d ' O r b i n e ~ , ~ acquired an object of Egyptian antiquity during her stay in Italy in 1852-a roll of papyrus. On her journey home she stopped in Paris and showed her acquisition to a French Egyptologist, Emmanuel, Comte de Rouge. l 0 He immediately recognized its value and the importance of the text inscribed on it in hieratic, and described the contents of this text in two accounts published in the same year. l l

Elisabeth d'orbiney, ([?l-1860), cf. Dawson, p. 88. I have been unable to find any further information about her.

' O Olivier Charles Camille Emmanuel, Comte de Rouge (181 1-1872). cf. Dawson, p. 84. Although it is generally stated that Eugene Revillout (cf. below. p. 218) was the first demotist in France. evidence can be produced to show that Demotic studies there were inaugurated by de Rouge in 1848. In the same year in which Brugsch published his Scriptura, de Rouge published Lettres a M. de Saulcy sur les PlPments de I'hcriture dhmotique; first published in Revue archhologique, V ( 1848), 32 1-344, and republished in Oeuvres diverses, i. 237-265.

l Cf. Revue archhologique, ix ( 1852). 530 ff. and Oeuvres diverses, ii. 303-31 7: "Notice sur un manuscrit egyptien en kriture hieratique ecrit sous le regne de Merenptah, fils du grand Ramsb vers le XV' siecle avant I'ere chretienne"; cf. p. 319, where de Rouge remarks: "La decouverte d'un ouvrage de pure imagination fait nous savoir que le domain litteraire de I'Ancient Egypte etait bien plus vaste qu'on ne I'avait espere d'abord".

The view generally held, that P. d'orbiney was the first Egyptian literary papyrus to come into the hands of Egyptologists, may have originated in French sources, and this may have been due to de Rouge's disclosure of its contents. I have come to the conclusion that the very first literary papyrus is that which preserves the famous Egyptian tale of Pharaonic date called the Tale of Sinuhe. This papyrus was bought in Egypt by Richard Lepsius some time in the early forties of last century and was included in his Denkmaeler aus Aegypten. vi, pl. 104-107. The publication of its translation, however, is of later date than that of P. d'orbiney. To Charles Goodwin (cf. n. 16, below) we owe the first translation of the Tale of Sinuhe, made available in 1865 under the title "The Story of Saniha" in Fraser's Magazine, no. 422, pp. 185-202, and reprinted in 1866 in a pamphlet entitled The Story ofsaniha, an Egyptian Tale of Four Thousand Years ago translated from the Hieratic Text by C. W . Goodwin; also by the same author in Records of the Past, 1st ser., vi. 131-150. The Tale of Sinuhe came to be known in France much later through the work of F. Chabas, published in 1870: Les papyrus de Berlin. rPcit d'il y a quatre milk ans. pp. 31 -5 1.


So de Rouge was the first not only to identify the first literary text but also to take the initial steps towards the study of ancient Egyptian literature. He may perhaps be regarded as the father of this branch of Egyptology, even though it was not yet recognized either as such or even as an integral part of Egyptological studies. It was de RougC's merit to break new ground in Egyptology in the early fifties of last century.

The papyrus in question has come down to us as P. d'orbiney ' and the narrative it preserves is a mythological tale recounting the adventures of two brothers. It remained for twelve years or so the only literary work of its kind and then a further, sudden change occurred in the mid-sixties of last century.

In 1864 the tomb of a Coptic monk was discovered by Auguste Mariette near Deir-el-Medineh,13 and a wooden chest was brought to light from it. Surprisingly it did not contain anything monastic or even anything relating to Christianity. Inside were three works of pagan literature, namely: (a) a book of precepts of a scribe to his son; (b) a copy of the text of the twelve-hour service in the temple; and (c) a story. The presence of pagan literary texts at the side of the body of a Coptic monk seems, at first sight, surprising and invites all kinds of speculation and conjecture which we can not enter into here. The texts were brought to Paris, unrolled in 1865, and then handed over to Henry Brugsch. Brugsch succeeded in deciphering them and reported on their content two years later, in 1867, announcing the discovery of a new genre IittPraire among Egyptian texts written on papyrus: the historical romance. This narrative was written in Demotic and was the famous romance of the son of Ramses 11, prince Setna Kh2'- em-wast.14 Brugsch's two reports are, indeed, a milestone in

l 2 This papyrus is generally known as the Tale of the Two Brothers; for the translation cf. Maspero, Popular Stories ofAncient Egypt, 4th ed. of 1915, pp. I - 20, and G. Lefebvre, Romans et contes Pgyptiennes, (1949). pp. 137-158.

l 3 There is no further information concerning Mariette's excavations at Deir- el-Medineh.

l 4 This papyrus passed into the possession of the Museum Boulaq, cf. Mariette, Les Papyrus du MusPe de Boulaq, no. 5, i, pl. 29-32; the text was established from Mariette's edition and collated with the original. The papyrus was unrolled in Paris in 1865 and translated by Brugsch; this was the year in which Goodwin published his first translation of the Berlin papyrus preserving the Tale of Sinuhe. It is a strange coincidence that both of the best preserved Egyptian narratives, and literally the most important, the one in hieratic, the other in Demotic, were translated in the same year. The former (P. Boulaq no. 5)

214 THE JOHN RY LANDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Demotic studies15 and mark also a notable step forward in the study of literary texts. However, it took ten more years before another literary papyrus was acquired, by Charles W. Goodwin in 1874, the one known as P. Harris 500, preserving the Tale of the Doomed Prince. l 6 We owe much to Goodwin's work on hieratic papyri, for he was an industrious reader of it. His value in furthering this branch of Egyptological studies has not yet been fully appreciated.

From the mid-seventies of last century the number of literary papyri, both hieratic and Demotic, began to increase. In 1876 Golenischeff announced the discovery of three more papyri containing Egyptian tales, housed in the St. Petersburg Museum." A French Egyptologist, Franqois Chabas, found

is now P. Cairo 30646, cf. Spiegelberg, CCG, ii. pl. 44-47, Texte, p. 88. For the translation cf. F.LI. Griffith, SHPM. 1900, pp. 1-40; B.G. Gunn in The Land q/ Et~cliatirers. A new and revised translation of this text will be made available in a forthcoming number of this Bullerin in the course of this series of studies in Egyptian literature.

The adventures of Setna KhH'-em-wast are known from two papyri. The second was found by W. Spiegelberg among detached sheets of papyrus brought from the Fayyum and published as P. Cairo 30692, cf. CCG, ii. pl. 50, Texte, pp. 112-1 15. A new translation of this papyrus will also be made available.

l 5 Cf. '*Entdeckung eines Romans in einem demotischen Papyrus", ZAS, iv ( 1866), 34-35; Le Roman de Serna conrenu duns un papyrus dkmorique du MusPe Pgyprien a Boulaq, in Revue archPologique, 2= serie, t. XVI (Sept. 1867), 161 -1 79.

The dates 1865-1867 show that Brugsch produced the first translation within eighteen months or so. See also Lepage-Renouf, The Tale of Sernau in Records of the Pasr, 1875, 1st ser. iv. 129-148. In this note only those publications are cited which have historical importance to-day.

l6 For the translation of the Tale of the Doomed Prince, see Maspero, Popular Stories, pp. 185-1 95; Lefebvre, Romans er conres, pp. 1 14-1 24. The title of this narrative is due to Goodwin. For the first report on it cf. C. W. Goodwin, TSBA, 111, 349-356, and Records of the Pasr, ii. 153-160.

For Goodwin ( 15 17-1878), cf. Dawson, Charles Wicliffe Goodwin (Oxford. 1934). Goodwin was a keen reader of hieratic papyri and can rightly be regarded as the father of the study of hieratic papyri in England, cf. ibid., pp. 147 ff. It was his merit to produce the first translation of the Tale of Sinuhe, cf. above, n. 11. As early as 1858 he presented in Cambridge Essays, pp. 226-282, an extensive study of hieratic papyri; see in particular pp. 232 ff., where he gives a summary of the contents of literary papyri in hieratic then available, beginning with P. d'orbiney. Following Young's attempt of 1823 (cf. above, n. 7), Goodwin's work is the first extensive and elaborate nineteenthcentury attempt to produce an anthology of Egyptian literature.

l 7 Cf. Golenischeff, "Le papyrus no. 1 de St. Petersbourg", in ZAS, xiv. 107- 11 1 ; this papyrus is generally known as the "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor", cf. Maspero, Popular Stories, pp. 98-107; Lefebvre, Romans er conres, pp. 29-40.


further'examples in the Museum at Turin, l 8 and before the end of the nineteenth century the Austrian papyrologist James Krall began to describe the contents of Demotic literary papyri in the Rainer Collection in Vienna. l g

The contents of literary papyri opened up new ways of approach to the culture of the ancient Egyptians, and disclosed hitherto unknown aspects of the society of the dwellers in the Nile Valley. Interest in the study of literary texts grew rapidly in the later part of the nineteenth century, and work on the texts and on their translation reached its climax in the nineties. A sudden change in methods of translating and interpreting texts then came from England. In 1889 Francis Ll. Griffith published the results of his three visits to Egypt during the years 1886 to 1888: the Inscriptions of Siut and Rifeh. 20 This publication, as his contempo- raries recorded, "rendered a permanent service to Egyptology". 21

In the same year (1889) Flinders Petrie found an important group of hieratic papyri in the Fayyum. They had been thrown on a rubbish dump before the village of 11-Lahun was abandoned, and by this had been preserved. Hieratic texts were by then nothing new, but this set of papyri was written in an extremely puzzling cursive writing. It was an entire novelty, and its re- construction and decipherment involved much labour and dif- ficulty. This task fell on Griffith. After lengthy preparatory work, he succeeded in publishing the Fayyum papyri in 1898 in his two- volumed Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob. 22 The book was

l 8 Fran~ois Joseph Chabas (1817-1882), cf. Dawson, p. 57; for Chabas's report see Comprs rendus des SPances, 1875, IVe skrie, 111. 57, and Euvres diverses, V. 45 ff.

l 9 For Krall's work see Dawson, p. 160; Wiedemann, R. T., xxviii. 131-1 36; and my account, to appear in the next issue of the MPER.

l0 Francis Llewellin Griftith (1862-1934). cf. Dawson, pp. 126-127; A.H. Gardiner, JEA, xx. 71 ff., which is the most complete obituary. A biography, F. Ll. Grvfirh and his Time, is being prepared by the present writer.

The Inscriptions of Siut were collected during three visits to the site: December 1 8 8 6 1 January 1887; 21 May-29 May 1887; and 16 January-5 February 1888. Within a year the inscriptions were published.

Adolf Erman's welcome announcement of the publication in the ZAS, xxvii. 127, is the best witness to the great interest aroused by the publication of Grifith's work.

22 While examining the publication of the Kahun papyri we have come to realise that the work was produced with a single aid-Brugsch's Dictionary, published in 1867.


recognized at once as "one of the most brilliant achievements of modern Egyptology". 23

It is Griffith's merit to have made a real advance in his subject and to have shown a new way of approach to the study of long and unbroken inscriptions, and in particular to the study of such texts written on papyri. Literary texts already published in the past were revised and re-translated, and the fruits of these activities resulted in a series of anthologies made available before the end of the century.24 These works and the scholarly standards set by those who wrote them retain their value. They provide an outline and an attempt at literary analysis which still leaves a wide field open to us. Since the nineties of last century much has been done to prepare new publications of literary texts and to present new anthologies of Egyptian 1iteratu1-e.25 But these cover the Pharaonic period only and add little to our knowledge of the literature of the period subsequent to the downfall of the New Kingdom (1087 B.C.) and beyond. The literature of the period of the late native dynasties, and in particular that of the era of the Ptolemies, continues to be one of the less explored domains of Egyptology, with many dark areas. It must be admitted that Egyptian literary history has not yet received the treatment it deserves, in spite of both past and more recent attempts. Literary concepts and genres IirrPruires have still not been fully examined.

It is, of course, not my intention to present here even in outline the literary history of Ancient Egypt. I am concerned only with its least explored aspect: the literature from the fourth century B.C. onwards. This may be divided into two parts. The first centres on the study of the literature preserved in Demotic papyri. The second is confined to the study of literary topics in hieroglyphic inscriptions preserved in temples of Graeco-Roman Egypt (the 'Temple Literature'); the latter will be commented on at some future date.

See Erman's admiration expressed in ZAS, xxxv. 173. 24 See Maspero, Contespopulaires de I'Egypte ancienne, the first edition dates

from 1882, Paris, the second one from 1889; Flinders Petrie, Egyptian Tales, published in London in 1895; F .Ll . Griffith, Egyptian Literature, published in New York in 1897.

For a survey, see Handbuch der Orientalistik, i. 2, Literatur, Leiden, 1970; G. Posener's attempt to classify literary texts of Pharaonic date in RdE, vi. 27-48.


In this introductory part, some general considerations ought to be mentioned before we embark on our discussion of the main theme.

The study of Demotic writing and of texts written in this difficult Egyptian cursive-to outline briefly their history-was begun as early as 1802 by a Swedish diplomat, Johan D. Akerblad, 26 in a letter to Silvestre de Saqy 27 published that year. kerbl lad was the first to recognize in the cursive writing on the Rosetta Stone the "demotica" mentioned by Herodotos in his Book 11, chapter 36.

During the period between 1815 and 1837 Thomas Young28 and Jean Franqois ChampollionZ9 continued their pioneering work, mainly on Demotic inscriptions on stone, and it is apposite to mention in this connection that the first steps towards reading Demotic were made through the study of Demotic inscriptions on funerary stelae from Sakkara.30 With this study we associate the name of C. J, C. Reuvens. His work, Letrres a M. Lerronnes sur les papyri bilingues er Grecs, which appeared in Leiden in 1830, is the first published study to present a description of all the Demotic papyri in the Anastasy collection of Egyptian antiquities, one of the finest of the early part of the nineteenth century. Achievements of the pioneering generation of demotists are summarized in Thomas Young's less-known work, the Rudimenrs of an Egyprian Dictionary, published in London in 1831. With this publication the initial period in the history of Demotic studies comes to a close.

After a lapse of about ten years, further contributions to the reading and interpreting of Demotic texts were made between 1847 and 1868 by a young German scholar, Henry Brugsch. 32 It is to Brugsch that we owe the first Demotic grammar and dic- t i ~ n a r y , ~ ~ and he remained the only reader of Demotic until the

Johan David Akerblad (1763-1819), cf. Dawson, p. 4. Akerblad's Lerrre sur les inscriptions hgyptiennes de Rosette was published in Paris in 1802.

NO information about Silvestre de S a ~ y has been found. Cf. above, n. 5.

l9 Cf. above, n. 6. 'O Cf. G. d'Athanasi, A Brief Account of rhe Research and Discoveries in

Upper Egypt, London, 1836. J 1 C.J.C. Reuvens (1793-1835), cf. Dawson, p. 246.

Cf. above, n. 8. Brugsch's grammar was published in 1855. A Demotic grammar, there-


efforts made by the Frenchman Eugine Charles R e ~ i l l o u t ~ ~ in the eighties of last century.

The interest in the study of Demotic texts initiated by Brugsch was taken up by James Kra1135 in Austria. It was Krall who made the first attempt to reveal to scholars the contents of the Demotic papyri in the Rainer Collection in Vienna. In Germany Brugsch's line of work was followed by his pupil Jean-Jacques H e ~ s , ~ ~ and subsequently by Kurt Sethe3' and Wilhelm Spiegelberg. 38

New light was thrown on this aspect of Egyptology by the appearance of an Englishman in London learned society in the eighties of last century, Francis Llewellin Griffith.39 His works are of permanent value. Grifith's first Demotic publication was that of the already-mentioned historical romance of prince Setna Khiir-em-wast. This appeared in 1900 under the title Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, and it at once placed Griffith at the head of living Demotic scholars. In 1899 he accepted an invitation from Lord Crawford to catalogue a large collection of Demotic papyri which the latter had acquired in Egypt. This passed into the possession of the Rylands Library two years later. Griffith brought his edition to completion after ten years of hard work, when the papyri were published in three volumes in 1909 as the Catalogue of the Demotic Papyri in the John Rylands Library. This is, so far, the most extensive and the most elaborate of all Demotic publications that have ever been published, and it is also an almost inexhaustible source for Demotic studies in the future. Griffith's line of work was continued by Sir Herbert T h o m p ~ o n , ~ ~ and by

fore, was the first to open the series of Egyptian grammars published in the second half of the nineteenth century.

34 Eugene Charles Revillout (1843-1913). cf. Dawson, pp. 246-247, who gives a full list of his publications.

3 5 Cf. above, n. 19. Jean-Jacques Hess (1866-1949). cf. Dawson, p. 140.

37 Kurt Sethe ( 1869-1934), cf. Dawson, p. 260. " Wilhelm Spiegelberg (1870-1930), the most prolific editor of Demotic texts

(cf. Dawson, pp. 278-279 who gives the full bibliography of Spiegelberg's works). 39 The full bibliography of his works is to be found in Sludies presented to

F. LI. Griffith (1932). pp. 485-494; his first work dates from 1888. See also the following note.

40 Herbert Thompson (1859-1944), cf. Dawson, p. 286-287. He was the son of a reputable London surgeon and founder of the Golders Green Crematorium. He figures in my prospective biography of F. LI. Griffith, where further details of his career will be given.


the much-lamented Stephen R. K. G l a n ~ i l l e . ~ ' With them we associate two noteworthy Danish demotists Wolja Erichsen4' and Aksel V ~ l t e n . ~ ~

This brief outline indicates that the process of building up Demotic studies within the vast field of Egyptology was a long and gradual one, the work of several generations of scholars, and also a genuinely international affair. The work these scholars left behind them is of considerable value and merit, but there still remains much to be done by present and by future generations of demotists.

Texts written in Demotic script, either on stone or on papyri, have come down to us from Egypt in large numbers. In date they cover a period of about thirteen centuries, from the 8th/7th century B.C. to the end of the fifth century A. D., when Demotic faded away and was replaced by the Greek uncial alphabets. The earliest dated papyrus known at present seems to be P. Louvre E 3228 a44 which records year 3 of Taharka (= 6881687 B.C.).45

4 ' For Glanville, cf. Dawson. p. 116-1 17; his life was short, 1900-1956. Wolja Erichsen (1890-1966), cf. Dawson, p. 98.

43 Aksel Volten (1893-1963), cf. Dawson, p. 295. 44 P. Louvre E 3228A is the first to appear in Griffith's list of Demotic

contracts, cf. Dem.Ryl., iii. 15 and 57-58 for the translation. We shall return to the chronology of early Demotic contracts on another occasion. The Louvre papyrus in question has, on present evidence, the greatest probability of being the earliest dated contact.

After my article had been written there appeared H. J. Thissen's Chronologie in den Jiruehdernotischen Papyri in Enchoria, X. 105 ff. According to the survey carried out by Dr. Thissen the earliest known papyrus written in early Demotic dates from the year twenty-one of Piankhi (740-713 B.C.) and is P. Leiden K 128. This is followed by P. Vatican 2038C of year twenty-two of Piankhi.

For the six Demotic papyri in the Louvre Collections the following order may be suggested: (i) P. Louvre E 3228e of year 10 of Shabaka (713-698 B.C.) (ii) P. Louvre E3228b of year 13 of Shabaka (iii) P. Louvre E3228a of year 3 of Taharka (698-664 B.C.) (iv) P. Louvre E3228d of year 3 of Taharka (V) P. Louvre E3228f of year 5 of Taharka (vi) P. Louvre E3228c of year 6 of Taharka.

Cf. Revillout, Notices, p. 221 ; he mention P. Louvre 3228d as being of year 10 of Shabaka (= 707 B.C.) without any proof. Malinine, Choix de texts

juridiques, pp. 3-14, who published the translation of this text, describes it as P. Louvre 3228b, and dates it 704 B.C. He points out that this papyrus forms. with


The latest texts in date written in Demotic appear to be those among the graffiti in the Temple of Isis at Philae, which extend to the very end of the fifth century A. D.46

Masses of Demotic papyri dated in, or datable to, the periods indicated, were recovered from the soil of Egypt at various times both last century and this. In content most of them are business and legal documents, but not all are official records. In this category the majority are contracts relating to transactions dealing with private property and with other individual undertakings. Such documents often form connected sets of records from family archives of minor Egyptian priests or of ordinary Egyptians and occur in various sites over the whole of Egypt.

Successive generations of demotists seem always to have been more attracted towards the study of legal texts than towards that of the literary ones. In spite of this preference, and of all the achievements both in the past and more recently, a great task still lies ahead. It is unfortunate what we do not yet have a systematic account of the present state of legal documentary sources in general, for we possess neither lists of the chronology of Demotic papyri in relation to the sites from which they came, nor in- ventories indicating all the legal groupings among them. No attempt has so far been made to classify what has survived from family and administrative archives of various dates and proven- ance, and no study has been undertaken of the history of private and administrative law in Egypt which draws on all the evidence made available in extant document^.^' Demotic papyrology has

six others, the earliest group of texts written in a script different from the cursive hieratic of the New Kingdom and also different from the standard Demotic of Saite date. However, he does not give a chronology of these six. An examination of the question is not pursued here.

46 The last dated graffiti at Philae may be assigned to the era of Diocletian, cf. Griffith, Catalogue of the Demotic Graffiti ofthe Dodecaschoenus, p. 214, no. 463.

The last dated inscription in Demotic seems to date from c. 470 A.D., the time of the Emperor Zeno, cf. L.D., vi. 59, no. 128, and Wilcken, Archiv, i. 397.

J. Krall published in MPER, i (1887), 89 ff., a fragment of papyrus bearing the name of the emperor M. Aurelius Antonius, which he describes as the latest dated Demotic papyrus.

What has been stated above shows that the chronology and dating of Demotic papyri are not based on any real evidence.

47 K. Sethe's work Demotische Urkunden zum aegyptischen Buergschaftsrecht (DUB), is one of the exemplary works which was unfortunately not followed by other demotists. E. Seidl's two works (Aegyptische Rechts-geschichte der Saiten-

EGYPTIAN LITERATURE 22 1

nothing to compare with the late Sir Idris Bell's study, Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab C o n q ~ e s t . ~ ~

It is true that in 1909 Griffith published, in Vol. 111 of his Catalogue of the Den~otic Papyri in the John Rylands Library, an inventory of Demotic documents available in publications or in photographs which remains unique of its kind.49 His list, however, ends with the Persian Period in Egypt. N o attempt has subsequently been made to extend this inventory to the Ptolemaic and Roman era.

A detailed analysis of the contents of all the Demotic legal and administrative papyri which have come down to us is, of course, not the purpose of the present undertaking. Our interest lies rather in the literary texts preserved amongst Demotic papyri, for these represent a field which has been even less explored than the former category.

Literary texts among Demotic papyri are, strictly speaking, less numerous than legal ones, and seem to have suffered a greater amount of damage in antiquity than their legal counterparts. What we have in the way of literary texts may best be described as being only the remnants of a once important native literature that flourished in Egypt and had its roots in the periods immediately following the downfall of the New Kingdom, i.e. from 1087 B. C. onwards.

Complete rolls of papyrus preserving continuous narratives do, in fact, exist, but they are rather rare. Most literary items are fragments of various size-occasionally fragments of the same narrative, but most often isolated fragments of literary works which are unrepresented in the literature of Pharaonic times.

There is clearly a great disproportion between the two groups of texts, literary and legal, and this may, perhaps, be the reason for a common belief that texts on Demotic papyri are mainly legal and

und Perserzeit, and Ptolemaische Rechtsgeschicl~te) regrettably do not satisfy modern standards of history, ancient law and papyrology.

48 A Study in the Diffusion and Decay of Hellenism, being the Gregynog Lectures for 1946; readers are advised to consult specially Lecture I, pp. 1-27, "Papyri and the Science of Papyrology".

49 Cf. Dem. Ryl., iii. 15-32. Griffith mentions on p. 31 that the period extending from year 35 of Darius I to Alexander's arrival is almost bare of records on papyri. The position has changed since then and an analytic study of the documents now available is one of the urgent desiderata of Demotic papyrology. Cf. n. 44 for the present position.


businesslike in character, that the world of affairs was the real concern of Demotic texts, and that, therefore, legal texts are more important than the other category.

The disproportion in numbers, however, does not diminish the value and interest of what is contained in the literary texts. Their smaller numbers may have been occasioned by circumstances in the past as well as by the various ways in which they were discovered. There are, and were in the past, archaeological sites greatly productive of Demotic papyri, but hardly any literary text was found among them. In an attempt to explain the probable reason for this situation, a brief survey of the present state of finds in the main archaeological sites may perhaps be of some assistance.

If we begin with the Theban region and from there proceed to Gebelen, which were both in the past the areas most productive of papyri, we find that the number of literary papyri is astonish- ingly low by comparison with legal texts.51 The early and still unsystematical excavations in the Memphite area have yielded legal documents only, mainly contracts from family archives of inhabitants of the districts of Memphis. 5 2 The position of papyrus finds in the Fayyum cities is rather curious. There are some sites at which both categories of material, legal and literary, have been found together; in others, only legal documents have come to light. One of the most striking cases is the city of Hawara in the Fayyum. Rich finds of papyri were made there in the second half of last century, and, perhaps, also after the turn of the century, but these consist of legal texts only.53 Not a shred of papyrus containing any part of a literary work has been identified among them. Yet it is hard to believe that the inhabitants of Hawara were

The accounts presented by Griffith summarizing the state of Demotic records available before 1939, provide the only reliable information; cf. Dem. Ryl., iii. 1 13 ff. and 130 ff.

'' Cf. Spiegelberg, DPB (1902). pp. 6-20. An analytic list of literary papyri belonging to the Theban region is not given here; it is hoped to publish it in a future issue of the Bulletin.

For the list of Demotic contracts from the early. accidental digs at Memphis, cf. Wilcken, UPZ, i. 596-621. An amended version of this list, it is hoped, will be given soon by the present writer.

s3 For the Hawara legal documents see my work on the Embalmers' Archives from Hawara, in Cat. DPAsh., i. 5-7.


quite illiterate. 54 The reason for the lack of Demotic literary texts in surely to be sought in other circumstances.

The situation at Hawara contrasts with that of papyrus finds in other sites in the Fayyum. At Tebtunis both categories of Demotic papyri were found. We have sets of contracts from family archives of the inhabitants of TebtunisS5 as well as administrative records from the archives of the local temple. Parallel to these there is quite an extensive collection of literary textss6 Even more striking is the comparison in the case of Hawara with two sites in the North West region of the Fayyum, Crocodilopolis and Dimt. Private legal documents and taxation texts from the temple record office occur among the papyrus finds.57 In addition, these two sites furnish us with what is so far the largest quantity of and the most interesting material for studies in literary texts: portions of temple libraries, and parts of private libraries of inhabitants of that region.58 However, all the literary texts from these two sites are late in date, extending from the end of the Ptolemaic era to Roman times.

Possible reasons for this inadequacy and for the discrepancy in our documentary sources may be sought in the chances and hazards of discovery, or it may be the result of accidental destruction in antiquity.

The number of literary works extant compared with the length of the period during which Demotic writing was in use (that is, from the 8th/7th century B. C. to the 5th century A. D.) and with the literary propensities of the ancient Egyptians, is, indeed, surprisingly low. Even more astonishing is the position of literary works at some later periods than those of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties. A great gap in extant documentary sources follows, covering about ten centuries, extending to the mid-third century B.C., and in this long period there are hardly any fragments of literary work at all.

For the Hawara society see Petrie, Hawara, Biahmu, Arsinoe (1889). pp. 24-28; 36-37, and my study in the Cat. DPAsh., i . 12-22. " For a partial list see Spiegelberg, CCG, ii, Texte, p. 362. 56 See Volten "The Papyrus Collection of the Egyptological Institute of [sic]

Copenhagen" in Archiv Orientcilni, xix. 70-74. See my articles in the Bulletin, "Dim& and Its Papyri", xlviii (1966), 433-66;

xlix (1967), 464-96; and li i (1969), 21 8-30. See my account, to be published in the next issue of the MPER, giving the

evidence for the literary papyri in the Rainer Collection of Papyri in Vienna.


It would be incorrect to assume that the Egyptians had in any way abandoned their imaginative and literary traditions or had ceased to commit their stories to writing subsequent to the collapse of the New Kingdom. The reasons for this long gap may perhaps be sought in the historical circumstances of the period. Is it possible that this politically-troubled period put an end to the literary pursuits of the ancient Egyptians, or is the paucity of literary texts perhaps due to the destruction caused by wars? While keeping this in mind we must emphasize that, in spite of the paucity of such literary sources, legal documents and funerary papyri have come down to us in considerable numbers from periods later than the second half of the 8th century B.C. It is surely unbelievable that the Egyptians of those times devoted their literary skill to legal documents and funerary texts alone, and gave up recording their tales and other kinds of literature on papyri.

In seeking for a plausible explanation of the problem raised by the state of our documentary sources, we suggest that a more realistic view of the situation be taken and that we should enquire to what extent the gap may perhaps be due to methods of dealing with copies of texts of earlier date by the ancient Egyptians themselves. We must also keep in mind the way in which papyrus rolls were stored in antiquity. Many rolls containing literary texts no doubt deteriorated in antiquity or were damaged, and when the ancient Egyptians made a new copy of a text from one which was damaged, they may not have preserved the earlier and partly deteriorated version, but discarded it as waste. The fact that the largest number of surviving Demotic literary texts on papyri are of late date, in part at least, seems to support this hypothesis.

Papyri containing funerary texts were customarily placed in the burial chamber beside the coffin, and burial sites seem to have been far safer places for the preservation and protection of papyri than were dwelling houses or temple libraries, where the rolls were kept in wooden chests or reed baskets and were thus exposed to much greater risk of damage than those in the vaults of tombs. The importance of tombs in the preservation of papyri may be illustrated further if we recall two cases from the experience of excavators. The manner of discovery of one of the main surviving medical papyri, that which became known as P. Surgical Edwin Smith, is relevant here. The ancient owner of that medical book held it dear, and took it with him in his grave.59 And it is solely

59 Cf. J. Breasted, The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, pp. 20-25.


due to this that the only known surgical document from Ancient Egypt has come down to us. An even more important discovery was made in 1896 by J. E. Quibell in the Ramesseum in Western Thebe~ .~O In the modest tomb of an individual whose name remains unknown, a chest filled with literary papyri was found. This find provides much information about ancient methods of preserving literary works, and the contents of the chest contain useful information about the ancient ways of copying and multi- plying literary works. To these may be added the discovery, already mentioned, of pagan literary works in the grave of a Coptic monk,61 a discovery which was of outstanding importance for the study of Demotic literary texts.

Legal documents had also a greater chance of survival than literary ones. We know that Egyptian families used to keep their own records in earthenware jars which were sometimes placed in the family tomb.62 Taxation and other administrative documents had their own method of preservation. When they ceased to be valid, they were thrown away. Rubbish dumps have proved to be a unique source for papyrus finds on many occasions. In the later periods of Egypt's history such discarded material was used for making mummy cartonnage and from this important documents have also been recovered by modern papyrologists.

Returning to Demotic literary papyri, we see that their connection with temple areas and dwelling houses was always direct and close. We read about books which were found in a particular chamber of a temple,63 or about their storage on the ground floor of private houses. It may suffice to cite here a passage which occurs in the second Tale of Setna Khlr-em-wast : m-Sm r n{ 'yw n p( itne n n(y.k 'yw (r)dme nb nty iw-ir.k fyt.f hn p{ hn iw.i dd n.k ih n dm' p{y. "Go to the ground chamber of thy private apartments. Every book which thou bringest out of the chest, I will tell thee what book it is".64

Cf. J . E. Quibell, The Ramesseum, (1896). pp. 3-4; A.H. Gardiner, The Ramesseum Papyri, pp. 1-2.

Cf. above. n. 13 and 14. Cf. G. Botti, LtArchivio Demolico da Deir El-Medineh, Testo. pl. 1 , pp. 1-4. Cf. P. Chester-Beatty, VIII, rto. 4, 1. 3: "gmyt. tw md(t tn m pr-md(t is n

hwt-ntr,", "This writing was found in the library, (in a) room of the temple"; also IIKh, V. 11-13.

Cf. IIKh, 111. 19-20.


It is not necessary to enlarge on this short statement and its relevance to our enquiry. The wording illustrates well enough the ancient custom of keeping books in the 'hn', "chest", which was stored on the ground floor of private dwelling houses. This was the general custom over the whole country, in private houses and in the libraries of the Per-'Ankh, as well as in those of the temples." Those libraries consisted of collections of such 'Itn', either "wooden" or "reed chests", which were filled with the 'dm", "rolls of papyrus". Our information about the arrangement of private libraries and of the more important collections of papyrus manuscripts, such as those of temples, may be supplemented by archaeological data, for this evidence also gives us information about the fate of such libraries. It is apposite to recall in this connection one of the famous discoveries which Flinders Petrie made in the course of his excavations at Tanis in the late eighties of last century.66 He excavated a partly-destroyed house which had belonged to a certain Bakakhuiu (Asychis), whom Petrie describes as a lawyer at Tanis. This house had been looted and burned in antiquity. Inside it Petrie found a basket of papyri thrown on the staircase opposite a cupboard from which it seems to have been taken. In the cellar of the house ("p< itne p( 'wy") he came across a large number of baskets filled with papyri, most of them burnt or reduced to ashes. As in the second Tale of Setna Kh2'-em-wast, so here, too, the ground floor was used as the store-room for papyri which were in the possession of private persons. From the Bakakhuiu's cellar alone Petrie rescued some- thing like one hundred and fifty rolls, although their state of preservation unfortunately does not permit us to undertake a detailed study of their content^.^' They comprise literary papyri of all kinds, but very badly burnt, thus depriving us of important material once representing a private library.

The case of the private house near Tanis may be typical and one may imagine it to have happened over and over again all over the country at virtually any period of history. Places like the ground- level chambers of houses have always been exposed to a much greater risk of damage by either accidental or deliberate destruc-

bs Cf. Cairo no. 22017 in Kamal, StPIes Ptolhmaiques et Romaines, CCG pl. 7, pp. 18-19.

66 Cf. Petrie, Tanis, i. 41-42. b7 These papyri are now in the Bodleian Library.


tion by looters and vandals both in antiquity and in more recent times. Time, too, has played its part. Deserted houses were invaded by rodents and by various kinds of insect, and these completed the work of destruction. Further, and great, destruc- tions of papyrological material occurred as a result of unsystematical excavation and digging by natives in the course of last century.

This brief survey suggests that the paucity of our literary sources is due, above all, to accidental destruction, most of which had already taken place in antiquity. It is justifiable to argue that what we now have as sources for our work are remnants only, mere chance survivals from a once important literature.

IV. CONTENTS OF DEMOTIC LITERARY PAPYRI

It has been mentioned at the beginning of this study that interest in literary works preserved in Egyptian papyri arose quite late on the part of modern scholars.68 We have also mentioned that it was the merit of Henry Brugsch to have paved the way for the understanding of Demotic literary texts.69 He was the first scholar to show the world that Demotic contains literature of greater attraction than mere legal texts and religious incantations. Many Demotic literary texts have been made available in publications from the turn of the century onwards, in particular through the agency of the two greatest authorities on the subject, Frank Grifi th and S~iegelberg.~' Both scholars accompanied their publications of Demotic papyri with extensive and detailed accounts of the texts they were editing. However, neither a survey of the contents of Demotic literary texts nor an analytic inventory of them has been undertaken in more recent times. It is true that Spiegelberg seems to have planned a survey of the contents of the main literary sources, but he had no opportunity to complete it. A draft only was published, as one of his posthumous articles, under the title "Die Demotische L i t e r a t ~ r " . ~ ~ Subsequently, the late Aksel Volten discussed at length a number of literary topics in the

Cf. above, pp. 212 ff. 69 Cf. above, p. 213. 'O For an attempt to produce such a survey see W. Spiegelberg, "Der

gegenwaertige Stand und naechsten Aufgaben der demotischen Forschung" in Z A S , lix (1924), 131-140; and, more recently, E. Lueddeckens, "Stand und Aufgaben der Demotistik" in Enchoria, viii. 15-23.

'' Cf. Spiegelberg, ZDMG, 25lN.F.. X (1931). 147-171.


introduction to his edition of Demotic texts relating to the interpretation of dreams.12 The late John W. B. Barns showed that the Greek historical romance owes its origin to Egypt. In this connection, too, he also discussed the contents of a number of Demotic historical romances.13 P. M. Fraser examined several Egyptian narratives in connection with his study of Alexandrian literature.14 Lately K. Th. Zauzich has given detailed evidence of his planned index of literary texts in Demotic papyri.15

The study of the historical context in which this literature finds its place, the milieu from which these narratives sprang, as well as a literary analysis of what has survived, all still remain to be examined.

Demotic, in fact, yields a rich variety of literary works, from purely fictional and miraculous or fabulous narratives to semi- scholarly compositions, and demotic papyri of Graeco-Roman date display many categories of subject-matter. However, the literary form in which they were written is limited. As in the literature of Pharaonic times, so in that of the Graeco-Roman era, for the main stream of literary tradition seems to have continued in spite of the politically unsettled situation in Egypt and the dramatic sequence of events from the pre-Ptolemaic period to the Kingdom of the Ptolemies. A survey of literary works which have survived in that tradition through the vicissitudes of changing historical periods, gives ample evidence of a deep interest in literary production, an interest which was common both to native Egyptians and to Graeco-Egyptian society, as well as to the Greeks in Egypt. Literary works written and copied then show purely Egyptian elements in their composition. Literature, as we have it in Pharaonic times, remained anonymous. The ancient Egyptian narrative continued to be the most popular form of composition. It shows only the heroic element but in a more developed conception; the general presentation is more sophisti- cated, giving a strong indication of a rise in the level of culture in the great body of its readers. One of the literary works of

7 2 Cf. A. Volten, Traumdeurung (Introduction) and MPER, v. 147-152. 7 3 Cf. MPER, V. 27-36, "Egypt and the Greek Romance".

The P~olernaic Alexandria, Chapt. 10/v, "Aspects of Alexandrian Literature", I . pp. 495ff.; in particular pp. 675ff.; 11. pp. 723, n. 42ff.

l 5 Cf. K.Th. Zauzich, "Neue Literatische Texte in Demotischen Schrift", Enchoria, viii. 37 ff.; and Enchoria, viii (Sonderband), 45-46.


Ptolemaic date shows the Egyptian manifestation of this literary form. It was called 'S&', "narrative", or "relation". This term appears in the historical romance of Setna KhZe-em-wast already cited above.76

Having outlined the archaeological circumstances under which Demotic literary papyri were recovered and briefly discussed the approach to the study of this field by modern scholars, we may perhaps now proceed towards the main theme of our enquiry-the literary analysis and study of the historical context of Demotic narrative. In a subsequent issue of this Bulletin will appear an inventory of the literary papyri available in publication and a study of the origin and original form of the 'sdy'-narrative.

76 Cf. IKH, VI. 20; IIKh. 111. 31; V. 24. Griffith suggests the rendering "relation" or "story", cf. SHPM, pp. 40 and 141.

a contribution to a study of egyptian literature in

Documents