Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume II: The New Kingdom

Front Cover
Miriam Lichtheim
University of California Press, Apr 3, 2006 - History - 264 pages
First published in 1973 – and followed by Volume II in 1976 and Volume III in 1980 – this anthology has assumed classic status in the field of Egyptology and portrays the remarkable evolution of the literary forms of one of the world’s earliest civilizations.

Volume I outlines the early and gradual evolution of Egyptian literary genres, including biographical and historical inscriptions carved on stone, the various classes of literary works written with pen on papyrus, and the mortuary literature that focuses on life after death. Introduced with a new foreword by Antonio Loprieno.

Volume II shows the culmination of these literary genres within the single period known as the New Kingdom (1550-1080 B.C.). With a new foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert.

Volume III spans the last millennium of Pharaonic civilization, from the tenth century B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. With a new foreword by Joseph G. Manning.
 

Contents

Inscriptions from Private Tombs
11
Inscriptions from Royal Monuments
25
The Great Hymn to Osiris
81
Hymns and Prayers from ElAmarna
89
A Prayer and a Hymn of General Haremhab
100
Three Penitential Hymns from Deir elMedina
104
Prayers Used as School Texts 1 10
110
From the Book of the Dead
119
Be a Scribe
167
The Immortality of Writers
175
Love Poems
181
From Papyrus Harris 500
189
The Destruction of Mankind
197
The Two Brothers
203
Truth and Falsehood
211
The Report of Wenamun
224

Chapter 125
125
The Instruction of Any
135
The Instruction of Amenemope
146

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2006)

For thirty years Miriam Lichtheim was Near East Bibliographer and Lecturer at University of California, Los Angeles. She retired in 1974 to devote herself to Egyptological research and later moved to Jerusalem where she taught at Hebrew University. She died in 2004. Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert is Professor of Egyptology at the Aegyptologisches Institut of the University of Leipzig.

Bibliographic information