Society for the Promotion of the Egyptian Museum Berlin

Ancient Library

Room 2.11: Documents from Egypt and the Ancient world

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  Papryus of Sinuhe

  The Biography of Sinuhe

  Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, ca. 1800 BC
  Papyrus
  Thebes (?)
  Height 21 cm, length 490 cm
  Inv.-No. P 3022 The fictitious autobiography of the official Sinuhe (at the beginning of the 2. Millennium B.C.) was the most popular story in ancient Egypt. Its style and contents was used as an example for writing students so that there exist many mostly incomplete copies of the text written on ostraca (limestone sherds). The Berlin script is written on papyrus in hieratic (a script form of hieroglyphs) und contains the complete story.
  Sinuhe escapes from Egypt to Palestine after Ammenemes I is killed. He fears that having served under the Queen he might be suspected of conspiracy. After many years of travel, he finally settles near Biblos and marries the daughter of a local ruler. There he accumulates great wealth and respect but still at the end of his life he wishes to return to Egypt and to be buried there. This request is finally granted to him by the new king Sesostris I and Sinuhe returns to Egypt.
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  Fairytales on the Papyrus Westcar

  Fairytales on the Papyrus Westcar

  End of the 17th century BC
  Length 1,58m
  Inv.-No. P 3033 The tales written on this papyrus pretend to take place in the court of king Cheops of the 4th Dynasty. They tell of the astounding deeds of the magician Djedi who is able to reconnect the severed heads of geese to their body. However the end of the text ( and by far the largest part) contains a political-literary message which is meant to explain the transfer of power from rulers of the 4th o the 5th Dynasty: the magician predicts the birth of triplets which have been fathered by the sun god Ra himself and which will rule Egypt in the future.
  
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  'The Persians' by Timotheos of Milet (greek)

  The Persians of Timotheus of Miletus (Greek)

  Ptolemaic, 4th century BC
  Papyrus
  Abusir
  Height 18,5 cm, length 111 cm
  Inv.-No. P 9875 One of the oldest Greek papyri from Egypt with part of a play called 'The Persians' was found in a wooden coffin in a tomb at Abusir in 1902. The poet, musician writer Timotheus of Miletus (450 - 360 B.C.) was famous - and controversial - in his own time as an exponent of the so-called 'New Music' with the invention of the 11 string kithara and with a taste for epic themes such as the Persian defeat at Salamis which he expounds at great length. At the end of his story stand an appeal to the god and a blessing for cities in which his poem is declaimed.