Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms [Paperback]

The customer reviews recommended it - and what other customers have to say about a book is usually an important factor as to whether I will buy it. In this case, I was cautious and only bought the first volume. I enjoyed it immensely.

Professor Lichtheim's aim was to provide an up-to-date translation of a representative selection of Egyptian Literature, and in preparing these she states that she has made full use of existing translations and studies. I found her introductory survey on the development of Egyptian literature and her detailed explanation and notes of each text to be most useful in helping me understand what I was reading.

This first volume includes translations of about 50 texts dating from the 5th dynasty of the Old Kingdom to the 14th Dynasty of the Middle kingdom - which covers the period c 2450BCE to c 1650BCE. The texts include tomb inscriptions, selected "Utterances" from the Pyramid texts, Didactic Instructions, Songs and Hymns, as well as three amusing and interesting prose tales - The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, ThreeTales of Wonder, and The Story of Sinuhe.

The Didactic literature is also very interesting, generally being instructions from kings to sons on how to properly rule the kingdom after his death. But they also include such texts as "The Dispute between a Man and his Ba", "The Eloquent Peasant", "The Satire of the Trades", and the much (partially) quoted and often misquoted "Admonitions of Ipuwer".

The book was worth buying for the this last item alone, since this text has often been described as providing textual evidence of events leading up to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. According to Professor Lichtheim, the only surviving text is on a 19th Dynasty Payprus comprising 17 pages of about 14 lines with lacunae in various places, and she provides the complete translation of all that is still legible. In her explanation of the text, she discusses at some length whether the text is "a direct response to a calamity" or an "historical romance". Her conclusion is that "The Admonitions of Ipuwer has not only no bearing whatever on the long past First Intermediate Period, it also does not derive from any other historical situation" She believes it to be "the last, fullest, most exaggerated, and hence least successful composition of the theme 'order versus chaos'" Even if you have already decided that Ipuwer IS describing events leading to the Exodus, it is worth buying this book to read the translation of the full text by a scholar who has provided a most cogent explanation of its provenance

I know this is going to be one of those books which I shall read time and time again. I thoroughly recommend it to other readers, and I certainly intend to obtain Volumes II and III.