Egyptian scribe1/11/2024 ( Sergey /Adobe Stock) Ancient Egyptian Letters Revealing Daily Life Many ancient Egyptian letters have been found at Deir el-Medina, a New Kingdom village populated by artisans who worked on the tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. The site only really began to be excavated at the same time as Howard Carter was discovering the Tomb of King Tutankhamun (1922) and it is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. This was an ancient Egyptian village that was populated by artisans and craft persons and their families who worked on the tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings during the New Kingdom period (1550-1080 BC). Deborah Sweeney, an Egyptologist at the University of Oxford, studied three letters that were found at Deir-el-Medina. These ancient Egyptian letters demonstrate the nature of friendship at the time and also that the people of the past were like us in many ways.ĭr. She found that the letter-writers showed anger, frustration, and bitterness. An expert has studied three letters written by ancient Egyptians and made some interesting discoveries. Our own subjective views of what we do, our jobs, our careers, our goals, are reflected back to us in the words of the ancient scribe elevating his own profession at the expense of every other.Written records allow us to really understand ancient people. Besides the obvious importance of the document for the insight it provides on life and work in ancient Egypt, the scribe Nebmare-Nahkt's praise of the scribe reminds a modern reader that there is no fundamental difference between the people of the past and those of the present. The understanding and activism of a modern reader may perhaps despise the obvious inequality between the different occupations as the scribe presents them but the author's tone is so absurdly self-important and egotistical that it makes the Papyrus Lansing an extremely entertaining read. Propaganda at its finest, one cannot help laughing at the egocentric ways of the scribe. At the end of the section we are told, “Be a scribe! And be spared from soldiering!.You are safe from torments. He is told: `Quick, forward, valiant soldier! Win for yourself a good name!' He does not know what he is about. The Papyrus Lansing goes on to describe the different scenarios involving the soldier, all of them ending in death, as in, “The enemy comes, surrounds him with missiles, and life recedes from him. Although it may seem one may become rich or prosperous by being a soldier, the author states that, actually, the soldier has a better chance of dying before receiving any riches. Nebmare-nakh, the proud scribe, goes further on the details of joining the military. The papyrus is written from the bureaucrat's perspective, and it is due to its' highly subjective view on the various professions that one enjoys reading it today. Through these very biased descriptions one gets at least a glimpse of what it was like to live as a farmer, merchant or soldier in ancient Egypt. The document begins with the admonition “Apply yourself to this noble profession” and then goes on to describe unfavorably the different professions Egyptians may go into other than that of the scribe. More importantly, for a modern reader and, perhaps, an ancient one, the Papyrus Lansing also offers insight into the daily life of the ancient Egyptians. It was written by the scribe Nebmare-nakht to his younger apprentice Wenemdiamun and is a document which praises the profession of a scribe while denouncing other trades. The Papyrus Lansing is an ancient Egyptian document that dates to the reign of the Pharaoh Senusret III (also known as Sesostris III, and, arguably, the legendary Sesostris written of by Herodotus) the 5th ruler of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt from 1878-1839 BCE.
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