Ancient Egyptian Literature IV. New Kingdom: XVIIIth Dynasty.
The Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 31582 |
| Format | 16 x 24 |
| Détails | 464 p., 65 ill., paperback |
| Publication | Paris, 2025 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251456614 |
The Egypt of the pharaohs is not only monumental pyramids, majestic temples, or inviolate tombs. It has also bequeathed to us, by the very will of its scholars, a prodigious literature. Just as worthy of interest as its stone treasures, the works presented in the eight volumes of this Literature of Ancient Egypt bear witness to the richness of a long tradition and, often, to the originality and depth of a thought chiseled over the centuries. Funeral rituals, hymns and prayers, mythological tales, royal narratives, autobiographies, wisdom, fictional letters, etc., several of these texts have never been translated into French. All are accompanied by an updated bibliography and philological notes useful for their understanding.
The fourth volume of this anthology presents certain aspects of literature, in the broadest sense, from one of the most famous periods of ancient Egypt: the 18th Dynasty (c. 1540-1292 BCE). The reader will discover works from a variety of genres: mourning songs, hymns – including the Great Hymn to the Nile and the Great Hymn to the Aten –, chapters from the Book of the Dead and great funerary compositions. But also some autobiographies of the “great men” of this time such as Senenmut, the confidant of the queen-pharaoh Hatshepsut, Amenhotep son of Hapu, a close friend of the “sun king” Amenhotep III, or the governor Pahery who proclaimed, without false modesty: “my pen has made me a scholar.”
The Egypt of the pharaohs is not only monumental pyramids, majestic temples, or inviolate tombs. It has also bequeathed to us, by the very will of its scholars, a prodigious literature. Just as worthy of interest as its stone treasures, the works presented in the eight volumes of this Literature of Ancient Egypt bear witness to the richness of a long tradition and, often, to the originality and depth of a thought chiseled over the centuries. Funeral rituals, hymns and prayers, mythological tales, royal narratives, autobiographies, wisdom, fictional letters, etc., several of these texts have never been translated into French. All are accompanied by an updated bibliography and philological notes useful for their understanding.
The fourth volume of this anthology presents certain aspects of literature, in the broadest sense, from one of the most famous periods of ancient Egypt: the 18th Dynasty (c. 1540-1292 BCE). The reader will discover works from a variety of genres: mourning songs, hymns – including the Great Hymn to the Nile and the Great Hymn to the Aten –, chapters from the Book of the Dead and great funerary compositions. But also some autobiographies of the “great men” of this time such as Senenmut, the confidant of the queen-pharaoh Hatshepsut, Amenhotep son of Hapu, a close friend of the “sun king” Amenhotep III, or the governor Pahery who proclaimed, without false modesty: “my pen has made me a scholar.”