World Literature

Ancient Egyptian Literature

• Was written in 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
 Writing in Ancient Egypt—both hieroglyphic and hieratic—first
appeared in the late 4th millennium BC during the late phase
of predynastic Egypt. By the Old Kingdom (26th century BC to
22nd century BC), literary works included funerary texts,
epistles and letters, hymns and poems, and
commemorative autobiographical texts recounting the careers
of prominent administrative officials.
 Egyptian Writings
•Hieroglyphs
•Hieratic
•Demotic
Hieroglyphs
• The Egyptians called their
hieroglyphs "words of god"
and reserved their use for
exalted purposes, such as
communicating with divinities
and spirits of the
dead through funerary
texts. Each hieroglyphic word
both represented a specific
object and embodied the
essence of that object,
recognizing it as divinely
made and belonging within
the greater cosmos.
 • Most non-determinative hieroglyphic
Phonetic Reading signs are phonetic in nature,
meaning the sign is read independent
of its visual characteristics (according
to the rebus principle where, for
example, the picture of an eye could
stand for the English word
eye and I [the first person pronoun]).
This picture of an eye is called a
phonogram of word, 'I‘
• Twenty-four uniliteral signs make
up the so-called hieroglyphic
alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphic
writing does not normally indicate
vowels, unlike cuneiform,
Hieratic
• Hieratic refers to a cursive writing
system that was used in the provenance
of the pharaohs in Egypt and Nubia that
developed along side
the hieroglyphic system, to which it is
intimately related. It was primarily
written in ink with a reed brush
on papyrus, allowing scribes to write
quickly without resorting to the time-
consuming hieroglyphs. Through most
of its long history, hieratic was used for
writing administrative documents,
accounts, legal texts, and letters, as well
as mathematical, medical, literary, and
religious texts.
Edwin Smith Papyrus
• The Edwin Smith papyrus (c. 1600
BC) is the world's oldest surviving
surgical document. It is written in
hieratic script and describes
anatomical observations and the
examination, diagnosis, treatment,
and prognosis of forty-eight types
of medical problems in exquisite
detail. It presents a rational and
scientific approach to medicine in
Ancient Egypt in which medicine
and magic do not conflict.

• Among the treatments described are closing wounds with sutures,

preventing and curing infection with honey and moldy bread (both
of which are today known to contain antibiotics),
stopping bleeding with raw meat, and immobilization of head and
spinal cord injuries. 
 Demotic
• The Demotic script was referred
to by the Egyptians as
"document writing," while early
Western scholars, notably
Thomas Young, formerly referred
to it as 'Enchorial Egyptian'. The
script was used for more than a
thousand years, and during that
time a number of developmental
stages occurred.  Demotic was
used only for administrative,
legal, and commercial texts,
while hieroglyphs and hieratic
were reserved for other texts.
• Contract in demotic writing, with
signature of a witness on the
verso. Papyrus, Ptolemaic era. 
 Egyptian Works
• The Tale of Sinuhe
• Is considered one of the finest works of Ancient Egyptian
literature. It is a narrative set in the aftermath of the death
of Pharaoh Amenemhat I, founder of the 12th
dynasty of Egypt, in the early 20th century BC. It is likely that
it was composed only shortly after this date

• Westcar Papyrus
• is an ancient Egyptian text containing five stories
about miracles performed by priests and magicians. In the text,
each of these tales are told at the
royal court of Pharaoh Cheops (4th dynasty) by his sons. The
story in the papyrus is usually rendered in English as "King
Cheops and the Magicians"
• Instruction of Amenemope
• (also called Instructions of Amenemopet, Wisdom of
Amenemopet) is a literary work composed in Ancient Egypt,
most likely during the Ramesside Period (ca. 1300–1075 BC);
• it contains thirty chapters of advice for successful living,
ostensibly written by the scribe Amenemope son of
Kanakht as a legacy for his son.[1] 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 relationship to the
biblical Book of Proverbs.