Writings from Ancient Egypt
SynopsisPlot
The fascination that Ancient Egypt holds in our minds has many sources, but at the heart of it lie hieroglyphics. This extraordinary writing system was for many years seen as the ultimate puzzle, before finally being cracked in the 1820s. Preserved carved in stone or inked on papyri, hieroglyphic writings give a unique insight into an awe-inspiring but also deeply mysterious culture. For this collection, Toby Wilkinson has translated a rich selection of pieces, ranging from accounts of battles to hymns to stories to royal proclamations
Story
About this book
Writings from Ancient Egypt is a collection of hieroglyphic texts translated into modern English by Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson. The material spans more than two thousand years of Egyptian civilization and covers a wide range of forms: battle accounts, royal proclamations, hymns, songs, satires, mortuary spells, obelisk inscriptions, and tales of shipwreck and wonder. Some of these pieces appear in a general anthology for the first time in this edition.
Hieroglyphic writing was carved into stone on tombs and temple walls, painted on coffins and statues, or written in ink on papyrus scrolls. For centuries the script was unreadable to modern scholars, until it was finally decoded in the 1820s. The texts collected here offer a direct view into how ancient Egyptians recorded war, religion, governance, daily advice, and storytelling. One selection includes counsel from a pharaoh to his son. Another preserves a first-hand description of a natural disaster.
Wilkinson provides an introduction alongside the translations. The collection moves between public and private registers, from formal inscriptions meant to last forever to personal and literary texts that circulated on fragile papyrus. Together, these writings show how central the written word was to Egyptian culture and statecraft.
