Insinger Papyrus

Last updated
The Insinger Papyrus is kept at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.jpg
The Insinger Papyrus is kept at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.

Insinger Papyrus (Papyrus Insinger) is a papyrus find from ancient Egypt and contains one of the oldest extant writings about Egyptian wisdom teachings (Sebayt). The manuscript is dated to around the 1st century BC according to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden where the main part is kept. [1] [2] Other sources suggest it dates to the 1st century AD, and to the 3rd century BC. [3] [4] [5] Fragments have also been found in other collections.

Contents

Contents

The Insinger Papyrus is a fragmented papyrus scroll with the beginning and end of the scroll missing, the size is about 612 × 27.5 cm (241 × 10,5 inches). The text is written on the rectoside. [3] [1]

The text is an example of the ancient Egyptian literature genre wisdom teachings (Sebayt) and shows that Egyptian traditions persisted even under foreign rule and how they were adapted to the requirements of new times. [3]

The manuscript is a collection of writings and includes 25 surviving chapters. [3] [2] [4]

The scripture is broken down into different themes with numbered chapters and contains over 800 maxims. [4]

The maxims are written as one-liners similar to a proverb, examples are: [6] [5]

The text is written in demotic and the manuscript is dated between year 0 and 100 AD around the Greek period and the Roman period. [3] [1] [2] It is probably a transcript of an earlier manuscript. [4]

History

It is not known when the scroll was discovered. In 1895, the scroll was sold in Akhmim [1] by French businessman Frenay to Dutch photographer and antique dealer Jan Herman Insinger. [3] [4] Insinger then lived in Luxor where he among other things worked with Gaston Maspero. [7]

The manuscript is the most comprehensive and significant of the preserved texts in the genre of wisdom teachings, one of the oldest genres in ancient Egyptian literature.[ citation needed ] In contrast to other extant wisdom teachings emphasizing proper social behavior, the Insinger Papyrus puts the emphasis on ethically correct behavior. [3] [4]

In 1922, the Dutchman Pieter Adriaan Aart Boeser published the first transcription and translation in the article "Transkription und Übersetzung des Papyrus Insinger" in Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie (OMRO, vol 26).

In 1926, the Czech František Lexa published a transcription with commentaries and interpretations in French in the book Papyrus Insinger.

In the late 1970s, Karl-Theodor Zauzich (attendant for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – Penn Museum) discovered three additional fragments in the Museum's collections belonging to the Insinger Papyrus. These were bought for the museum in Egypt in 1910.[ citation needed ]

The archive number of the papyrus at Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is F 95 / 5.1 and E 16333 A-C at the Penn Museum.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus</span> Writing and implement

Papyrus is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge. Papyrus can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book.

<i>Book of the Dead</i> Ancient Egyptian funerary text

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated r(ꜣ)w n(y)w prt m hrw(w), is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day or Book of Emerging Forth into the Light. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1,000 years. In 1842, the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius introduced for these texts the German name Todtenbuch, translated to English as 'Book of the Dead'.

The Teaching for King Merykara, alt. Instruction Addressed to King Merikare, is a literary composition in Middle Egyptian, the classical phase of the Egyptian language, probably of Middle Kingdom date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rijksmuseum van Oudheden</span> National archaeological museum of the Netherlands

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is the national archaeological museum of the Netherlands, located in Leiden. It grew out of the collection of Leiden University and still closely co-operates with its Faculty of Archaeology. The museum calls itself "the national centre for archaeology" and focuses on ancient Egypt, the ancient Near East, the classical world of Greece, Etruria and Rome and the early Netherlands.

<i>Instruction of Amenemope</i> Ancient Egyptian literary work

Instruction of Amenemope is a literary work composed in Ancient Egypt, most likely during the Ramesside Period ; it contains thirty chapters of advice for successful living, ostensibly written by the scribe Amenemope son of Kanakht as a legacy for his son. A characteristic product of the New Kingdom "Age of Personal Piety", the work reflects on the inner qualities, attitudes, and behaviors required for a happy life in the face of increasingly difficult social and economic circumstances. It is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of ancient near-eastern wisdom literature and has been of particular interest to modern scholars because of its similarity to the later biblical Book of Proverbs.

<i>The Maxims of Ptahhotep</i> Ancient Egyptian literary composition by Vizier Ptahhotep

The Maxims of Ptahhotep or Instruction of Ptahhotep is an ancient Egyptian literary composition by the Vizier Ptahhotep around 2375–2350 BC, during the rule of King Djedkare Isesi of the Fifth Dynasty. The text was discovered in Thebes in 1847 by Egyptologist M. Prisse d'Avennes. The Instructions of Ptahhotep are considered didactic wisdom literature belonging to the genre of sebayt. There are four copies of the Instructions, and the only complete version, Papyrus Prisse, is located in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. According to William Kelly Simpson, scholars tend to believe that the Instructions of Ptahhotep were originally composed during the Middle Kingdom, specifically the Twelfth Dynasty. The earliest extant copies of the text were altered to make them understandable for the Egyptians of the New Kingdom. The text presents a very good picture of the general attitudes of that period. The Instructions of Ptahhotep addresses various virtues that are necessary to live a good life and how to live accordingly to Maat, which was an important part of the Egyptian culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instructions of Amenemhat</span>

Instructions of Amenemhat is a short ancient Egyptian poem of the sebayt genre written during the early Middle Kingdom. The poem takes the form of an intensely dramatic monologue delivered by the ghost of the murdered 12th Dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat I to his son Senusret I. It describes the conspiracy that killed Amenemhat, and enjoins his son to trust no-one. The poem forms a kind of apologia of the deeds of the old king's reign. It ends with an exhortation to Senusret to ascend the throne and rule wisely in Amenemhat's stead.

Sebayt is the ancient Egyptian term for a genre of pharaonic literature. sbꜣyt literally means "teachings" or "instructions" and refers to formally written ethical teachings focused on the "way of living truly". Sebayt is considered an Egyptian form of wisdom literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prisse Papyrus</span> Ancient Egyptian papyrus

The Prisse Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian papyrus datable to the Middle Kingdom which was discovered by the inhabitants of Kurna and given to French orientalist Émile Prisse d'Avennes at Thebes and published in 1847 and is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.
Inhabitants of Kurna originally found the papyrus inside the rishi coffin of pharaoh Sekhemre-Wepmaat Intef of the 17th Dynasty, whose tomb was probably located in Dra' Abu el-Naga' near Thebes.

The Instruction of Hardjedef, also known as the Teaching of Hordedef and Teaching of Djedefhor, belongs to the didactic literature of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. It is possibly the oldest of all known Instructions, composed during the 5th Dynasty according to Miriam Lichtheim, predating The Instructions of Kagemni and The Maxims of Ptahhotep. Only a few fragments from the beginning of the text have survived on a handful of New Kingdom ostraca and a Late Period wooden tablet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Egyptian literature</span> Literature written in the Egyptian language

Ancient Egyptian literature was written with the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caspar Reuvens</span> Dutch historian and archaeologist

Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens was a Dutch historian and archaeologist. He was the founding director of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, the world's first ever professor of archaeology, and conducted the first excavations at the Roman provincial site Forum Hadriani in the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dispute between a man and his Ba</span> Ancient Egyptian text

The Dispute between a man and his Ba or The Debate Between a Man and his Soul is an ancient Egyptian text dating to the Middle Kingdom. The text is considered to fall into the genre of Sebayt, a form of Egyptian wisdom literature. The text takes the form of a dialogue between a man struggling to come to terms with the hardship of life, and his ba soul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">František Lexa</span>

František Lexa (1876-1960) was a Czechoslovakian Egyptologist. Lexa began his career as a secondary school teacher. Having learnt the Egyptian language by himself, he became the first person to translate and publish Egyptian texts into Czech in 1905. Lexa spent the rest of his career at Charles University in Prague, first as a private senior lecturer of Egyptology in 1919, then an associate professor in 1922, then Czechoslovakia's first Professor for Egyptology in 1927, and finally the first director of the Czechoslovak Institute of Egyptology in 1958. Lexa's students included Jaroslav Černý and Zbyněk Žába.

The Instructions of Kagemni is an ancient Egyptian instructional text of wisdom literature which belongs to the sebayt ('teaching') genre. Although the earliest evidence of its compilation dates to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, its authorship has traditionally yet dubiously been attributed to Kagemni, a vizier who served during the reign of the Pharaoh Sneferu (r. 2613–2589 BC), founder of the Fourth Dynasty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loyalist Teaching</span> Ancient Egyptian text

The Loyalist Teaching, or The Loyalist Instructions, is an ancient Egyptian text of the sebayt ('teaching') genre. It survives in part from a stela inscription of the mid Twelfth dynasty of Egypt. The whole text can be found in papyrus scrolls of the New Kingdom period. Its authorship is uncertain, although it has been suggested that it was written by the vizier Kairsu of the early Twelfth dynasty. The text emphasizes the virtues of loyalty to the ruling pharaoh and the responsibilities one must maintain for the sake of society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maarten Raven</span> Dutch Egyptologist (born 1953)

Maarten J. Raven is a Dutch Egyptologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willem Pleyte</span> Dutch Egyptologist and museum director

Dr. Willem Pleyte was a Dutch Egyptologist and museum director.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead of Qenna is a papyrus document housed at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. One of several thousand papyri containing material drawn from Book of the Dead funerary texts, Qenna uniquely includes a passage that describes a deceased person’s activity in an afterlife location it calls the “house of hearts.” While the house of hearts is mentioned in at least two tomb inscriptions, Qenna treats it in more detail. The passage appears as an addendum within Spell 151 of the Book of the Dead:

"You will enter the house of hearts, the place which is full of hearts. You will take the one that is yours and put it in its place, without your hand being hindered. Your foot will not be stopped from walking. You will not walk upside down. You will walk upright."

The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection is a collection of Egyptian papyri in the possession of the University of Copenhagen. It was founded in the early 1930s by Prof H. O. Lange with the help of funds from the Carlsberg Foundation. The majority of the documents were purchased between 1931 and 1938. Later on, in 1939, the foundation, with the consent of the Ministry of Education and the headmaster, presented its collection in the University of Copenhagen.

References

Literature

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Demotische papyrus (Dutch)". Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  2. 1 2 3 "Demotische papyrus (Dutch)". Trismegistos. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Demotische wijsheidsleer (Dutch)". MuseumKennis, Leiden. Archived from the original on 2011-10-01. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Lost and found fragments of Egyptian wisdom". Penn Museum. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  5. 1 2 "Altägyptische Weisheitslehren (German)". Universität Hildesheim. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  6. "Bestiary". Reshafim.org. Archived from the original on 2011-04-29. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  7. "Queries". Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE). Archived from the original on 2011-05-05. Retrieved 2011-04-25.