Through the Eras

LiteratureDeceased Making an Offering Before Horus, illustration fromthe Egyptian Book of the Dead. © GIANNI DAGLI ORTI/CORBIS. RE-PRODUCED BY PERMISSION.plagued by a hangover, the king asks for stories to diverthim while he recovers. Here again it is difficult to understandthese stories as other than criticism of the currentregime, set in the earlier period.ORAL TRADITION. Earlier twentieth-century scholarsattempted to connect Demotic literature with oraltradition, assuming that the nature of the stories waspopular rather than a part of high culture. Yet it is hardto make the connection between oral tradition and Demoticliterature. In favor of the theory is the large numberof catch phrases repeated throughout a text,reminiscent of a device used by storytellers in many cultures.Additionally, some stories include extended repetitionof paragraphs in different places, another commonoral storytelling technique. Yet, these stories are prose,and most oral traditions are verse in the ancient world.CYCLES. Many stories are found in groups in thesame papyrus and center on one character who lived inthe distant past. For example, there is a cycle concerninga character called Setna Khaemwas, who was historicallythe fourth son of Ramesses II (1279–1213 B.C.E.).Setna stories all involve the use of magic. Many of thestories involve Setna and the ghost of a magician fromformer times. Another cycle centers on the characterOstracon with Demotic inscription. BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART,37.1821E, CHARLES EDWIN WILBOUR FUND. REPRODUCED BY PERMIS-SION.called Inaros and the members of his family. Inaros storiescenter on military exploits, perhaps set in the timeof a King Petubastis of Dynasty Twenty-three (838–712B.C.E.). In any case, the stories resemble the earlier traditionof historical rather than contemporary settings.TEACHINGS. Scholars have known two long textsbelonging to the genre the Egyptians called seboyet, or“teachings,” since the nineteenth century. One text isknown as Papyrus Insinger, the other as The Teachings ofAnkhsheshonqi. Papyrus Insinger is named after J. H. Insinger,a Dutch museum patron who purchased the textfor the Royal Museum of Antiquities in Leiden in theNetherlands. The beginning is lost. A scribe copied thismanuscript in the first century C.E., but the author composedit up to 300 years earlier. A second copy of thetext in the Ny Carlsberg Museum in Copenhagendemonstrates that there were multiple copies. BothAnkhsheshonqi and Insinger consist of one-line sentences.Insinger’s author, however, grouped the sentences intothemes and chapters which he numbered, while thearrangement of Ankhsheshonqi is less clear. The theme inboth texts is that there is a good and a bad way to live.Yet living by the good is no guarantee of success in life.These texts admit, unlike earlier teachings in Egypt, thatsometimes the wicked prosper. Yet the texts counsel thatthe wise man does not judge his life so much by resultsas he does by his morality and piety. The wicked, how-140 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)