Westcar Papyrus
Westcar Papyrus | |
---|---|
Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin | |
Created | c. 1650 BC |
Discovered | Egypt |
Present location | Berlin, Germany |
The Westcar Papyrus (
The surviving material of the Westcar Papyrus consists of twelve columns written in
The papyrus is now on display under low-light conditions in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.[4]
Discovery story
In 1823 or 1824, British adventurer Henry Westcar apparently discovered the papyrus during travels in Egypt. For unknown reasons, he didn't note the exact circumstances under which he obtained the artifact.[citation needed]
In 1838 or 1839, German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius claimed to have received the papyrus from Westcar's niece. As Lepsius was able to read some signs of Hieratic, he recognized some of the royal cartouche names of the kings and dated the text to the Old Kingdom.[citation needed]
There are inconsistencies about the true nature of the acquisition and the subsequent whereabouts of the Westcar Papyrus. Lepsius writes that the document was on display in the
In 1886, German Egyptologist Adolf Erman purchased the papyrus from Lepsius' son and left it to the Museum of Berlin. As the hieratic signs were still insufficiently investigated and translated, the Westcar Papyrus was displayed as some kind of curiosity. Since Erman's first attempt at a complete translation in 1890, the Westcar Papyrus has been translated numerous times, resulting in different outcomes. The dating of the text also varies.[7]
Material description
Papyrus Westcar is a reused papyrus made of the plant
The text itself is completely written in black
Content
The first story, told by an unknown son of Khufu (possibly
The second story, told by
The third story, told by another son named
The fourth story, told by
The final story breaks from the format and moves the focus to Rededjet giving birth to her three sons. Upon the day of her children's birth,
Analysis and interpretations
Papyrus Westcar is of great interest to historians and Egyptologists since it is one of the oldest Egyptian documents that contains such complex text. Unfortunately, the name of the author has been lost. The most recent translations and linguistic investigations by Miriam Lichtheim and Verena Lepper reveal interesting writing and spelling elements hidden in the text of the papyrus, which has led them to a new evaluation of the individual stories.[4][9]
The first story is lost due to damage to the papyrus. The preserved sentences merely reveal the main protagonist of the story, King Djoser. The name of the hero, who is said to have performed the miracle, is completely lost, but Liechtheim and Lepper think it's possible that the Papyrus was talking about the famous architect and high lector priest, Imhotep.[4][9]
Linguistic stylistics and changing tenses
The second and third stories are written in a conspicuous, flowery, old-fashioned style, and the author has obviously tried to make them sound as if handed down from a long time ago, but fantastic at the same time. He uses quaint phrases and makes the heroes' acting stilted and ceremonious. The first three stories are written in past tense and all the kings are addressed with the salutation "justified" (Egyptian: m3ʕ ḫrw), which was typical in Ancient Egypt when talking about a deceased king. The heroes are addressed in the second and third stories the same way. Curiously, all the kings are addressed with their birth name, notwithstanding that this was unusual in the author's lifetime. While deceased kings were normally called by their birth name, living kings were called by their Horus name. King Khufu is nevertheless called by his birth name in the first three stories, yet in the fourth story, he is treated as being still alive and being the main actor. And even the future kings Userkaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare Kakai are called by their birth names. Verena Lepper thinks, that the reason may be some kind of spelling reform that occurred in the lifetime of the author, perhaps trying to fix the spelling rule for naming a deceased king, in order to show that even the future kings in the story were long since dead during his lifetime. For this reason Verena Lepper doubts that the Westcar stories are based on documents originating from the Old Kingdom.[10]
The fourth and fifth stories are written in present tense. The unknown author moves the timeline and also changes his mode of expression from "old-fashioned" into a contemporary form. He clearly distinguishes "long time passed" from "most recently" without cutting the timeline too quickly. The speech of Prince Hordjedef builds the decisive transition: Hordjedef is sick of hearing old, dusty tales that cannot be proven. He explains that a current wonder would be richer in content and more instructive, and so he brings up the story of Dedi. The last section of the fourth story, in which the magician Dedi gives a prophecy to king Khufu, shifts to future tense for a short time, before shifting back to present tense again. This present tense is maintained until the end of the Westcar stories.[4][9]
Depictions of the kings
Papyrus Westcar contains hidden allusions and puns to the characters of the kings Nebka, Sneferu, and Khufu. An evaluation of the character description of Djoser is impossible due to the great deterioration within his story.
In the second story, king Nebka plays the key role. He is depicted as a strict, but lawful judge, who doesn't allow mischief and misbehaviour to occur. The adulterous wife of the story's hero is punished by being burnt alive and her secret lover, revealed thanks to the loyal caretaker, is eaten alive by a summoned crocodile. Caretaker and crocodile are playing the role of justice, whilst king Nebka plays the role of destiny. Lepper and Liechtheim evaluate the depiction of king Nebka as being fairly positive. A strict but lawful king was ideal for the people of the author's lifetime.[4][9]
In the third story king Sneferu becomes a victim of the author's courage to criticize the monarchy. The author depicts Sneferu as a fatuous fool, who is easily pleased with superficial entertainment and who is unable to resolve a dispute with a little rowing maid. Sneferu must go to the extent of having a priest solve the problem. With this narration and embarrassing depiction of a king, the author of Westcar dares to criticise the kings of Egypt as such and makes the third story a sort of satire. Lepper points out that the critiques are hidden cleverly throughout. It is not surprising, since the author had to be careful—the Westcar Papyrus was possibly made available for public entertainment, or at least, for public study.[4][9]
In the fourth story king Khufu is difficult to assess. On one hand he is depicted as ruthless: deciding to have a condemned prisoner decapitated to test the alleged magical powers of the magician Dedi. On the other hand, Khufu is depicted as inquisitive, reasonable and generous: he accepts Dedi's outrage and his offer of an alternative for the prisoner, questions the circumstances and contents of Dedi's prophecy, and rewards the magician generously. The contradictory depiction of Khufu is an object of controversy among Egyptologists and historians to this day. Earlier Egyptologists and historians in particular, such as Adolf Erman, Kurt Heinrich Sethe, and Wolfgang Helck evaluated Khufu's character as heartless and sacrilegious. They lean on the ancient Greek traditions of Herodotus and Diodorus, who described an exaggerated, negative character image of Khufu, ignoring the paradoxical (because positive) traditions the Egyptians always taught. But other Egyptologists such as Dietrich Wildung see Khufu's order as an act of mercy: the prisoner would have received his life back if Dedi had performed his magical trick. Wildung thinks that Dedi's refusal was an allusion to the respect Egyptians showed to human life. The ancient Egyptians were of the opinion that human life should not be misused for dark magic or similar evil things. Lepper and Liechtheim suspect that a difficult-to-assess depiction of Khufu was exactly what the author had planned. He wanted to create a mysterious character.[3][4][9][11][12]
The fifth and last story tells about the heroine
Ending of Papyrus Westcar
Since the first translations of the Westcar Papyrus, historians and Egyptologists have disputed whether the story was finished or unfinished. Earlier evaluations seemed to show an abrupt ending after the death of the traitorous maidservant. But more recently, linguistic investigations made by Verena Lepper and Miriam Liechtheim (especially by Lepper) strengthen the theory that the Westcar text is definitely at an end after the story of the maidservant's death. Lepper points out that the crocodile sequence is repeated several times, like a kind of refrain, which is a typical element in similar stories and documents. Furthermore, Lepper argues that the papyrus has a lot of free space after the apparent ending, enough for another short story.[3][9][13]
Influences of Papyrus Westcar in later Egyptian tales
Verena Lepper and Miriam Lichtheim postulate that the tales of Papyrus Westcar inspired later authors to compose and write down similar tales. They refer to multiple, and somewhat later, ancient Egyptian writings in which magicians perform very similar magic tricks and make prophecies to a king. Descriptive examples are the papyri pAthen and The prophecy of Neferti. These novels show the popular theme of prophesying used during the Old Kingdom – just as in the story of the Westcar Papyrus. They also both talk about subalterns with magical powers similar to those of Dedi's. The Papyrus pBerlin 3023 contains the story, The Eloquent Peasant, in which the following phrase appears: "See, these are artists who create the existing anew, who even replace a severed head", which could be interpreted as an allusion to the Westcar Papyrus. pBerlin 3023 contains another reference that strengthens the idea that many ancient Egyptian writings were influenced by the Westcar Papyrus: column 232 contains the phrase "sleeping until dawn", which appears nearly word-for-word in the Westcar Papyrus.
A further descriptive example appears in The prophecy of Neferti. As in the Westcar Papyrus, a subaltern is addressed by a king as "my brother" and the king is depicted as being accostable and simple-minded. Furthermore, both stories talk about the same king, Sneferu. The Papyrus pAthen contains the phrase: "...for these are the wise who can move waters and make a river flow at their mere will and want...", which clearly refers to the wonder that the magicians Djadjaemankh and Dedi had performed in the Westcar story.
Since pAthen, pBerlin 3023 and The prophecy of Neferti use the same manner of speaking and quaint phrases, complete with numerous allusions to the wonders of Papyrus Westcar, Lepper and Lichtheim hold that Dedi, Ubaoner and Djadjaemankh must have been known to Egyptian authors for a long time.[4][9]
See also
- List of ancient Egyptian papyri
References
- ISBN 0-300-01482-1. Page 15.
- ISBN 0-8264-5637-5. p. 295–96.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Adolf Erman: Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar I. Einleitung und Commentar. In: Mitteilungen aus den Orientalischen Sammlungen. Heft V, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1890. page 10 – 12.
- ^ ISBN 3-447-05651-7, pp. 41–47, 103 & 308–310.
- ^ M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol.1, University of California Press 1973, p.215
- ISBN 3-447-05651-7, p. 15–17.
- ISBN 3-447-05651-7, p. 317–320.
- ISBN 3-447-05651-7, p. 17–21.
- ^ ISBN 0-520-02899-6, page 215 – 220.
- ISBN 3-447-05651-7, page 316–318.
- ^ Dietrich Wildung: Die Rolle ägyptischer Könige im Bewusstsein ihrer Nachwelt. Münchner ägyptologische Studien 17. Berlin 1969. page 159–161.
- ^ Friedrich Lange: Die Geschichten des Herodot, Band 1. S. 188–190.
- ^ ISBN 3-447-05651-7, page 121–123, 146–148 & 298–302.
- ISBN 80-7308-116-4, p. 192-98