THE PRECEPTS OF LIFE

BY

AMEN-EM-APT, THE SON OF KA-NEKHT,

DESCRIBED BY

E. A. WALLIS BUDGE.

The Egyptian literary composition which I have called «The Instruction of Life", i. e. the teaching which will instruct a man how to guide his actions with sense and discretion during his career, official or otherwise, is found written in the hieratic character on a papyrus in the British Museum bearing the number 10474. The papyrus is 12 feet 1/2 inch in length and 9 1/2 inches in breadth, and is mounted under glass in seven sheets. The obverse is occupied by twenty-eight columns of hieratic text. Columns 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12-14 contain 19 lines each; cols. 5, 9, 11, and 26 contain 20 lines each; cols. 10, 15, 21, and 25 contain 21 lines each; cols. 16, 17, 20, 22-24 contain 22 lines each; cols. 18 and 19 contain 23 lines each; cols. 3 and 27 contain 18 lines each; and col. 28. contains one line. The whole text, including the name of the scribe, contains 550 lines. The handwriting is comparatively small, and in places where the scribe crowded his words together, is not very clear; but usually the characters are well formed and easily legible, and to me they suggest that the papyrus was written under the XXIInd dynasty, or a little later. On the reverse is written in hieratic characters a copy of a Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days. It fills twelve columns of text, and each column when com

pleted enumerated 30 days. The opening lines of cols. I, ÎI and IV are mutilated. The year here represented is the primitive year of 360 days; the seasons are three in number and each contains four months. The epagomenal days are not mentioned. Each day in this Calendar, as also in that given by the papyrus Sallier IV (1), is divided into three parts, each containing presumably eight hours. A lucky part is indicated by and an unlucky one by ; the former sign is always in black ink and the latter in red ink. Sometimes in Sallier IV the sign seems to be used as an equivalent of 4, e. g. Paophi 4 but it does not occur in the British Museum papyrus 10474. The two Calendars do not agree in their verdicts as to certain days and parts of days, as may be seen from the transcripts which I have published (2). In connection with such tables of lucky and unlucky days I venture to put on record the fact that in the modern popular Calendars which are in use among the fallahin I have seen long passages which agree substantially with parts of the Calendar given in papyrus No. 10474. The modern Calendars are printed in Arabic and belong to the class which in England is represented by Old Moore's Almanack".

The hieratic text of the « Instruction of Life" is divided into thirty houses" or sections, which vary in length and are numbered from I to XXX. The opening lines of Col. I. read:

(1) See BIRCH, Select Papyri, pl. CXLIV ƒƒ; CHABAS, Le Calendrier, Chalon-sur-Saône, 1863.

(2) See Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, London, 1910, pl. XVII, For a facsimile of the Calendar see plates 31 and 32.

(11) -~-~~

(12) J¦

Which may be rendered freely thus:

(1) Here beginneth the Book of Instruction of Life (2) the teaching of health and safety,

(3) the precepts of men of proved integrity,

(4) the rules (or regulations) of the nobles.

They will teach a man :

(5) to know how to answer adequately and suitably the man who addresseth him, [and]

(6) to take back a report to him that hath sent him on the mis

sion.

(7) They will make him to enter in upon the path of life, [and] (8) keep him in health and safety upon earth,

(9) [and] make his heart to go up upon its throne, (10) [and] make him to steer away from evil (or, the evil man), (11) and deliver him from the mouth of the labouring classes, (12) [and] make him to be extolled in the mouth of men and women of knowledge.

The remainder of col. I and the first ten lines of col. II are occupied by a statement of the offices which were held by Amen-em-åpt « the son of Ka-nekht",

RECUEIL CHAMPOLLION.

28

Precepts here described. They show that he was a very important official in connection with the harvesting and storage of the crops of grain

:

(16) ell 5 - - } ↑ =

n s

of the grain offerings of all the gods, and his duties made him a great personage in Teni, Nifu-ur, Åp (Akhmîm ?), and he was overseer of the funerary buildings in Amentt, Sent and Abydos. The allotment or letting of farms to the people was also in his hands: “✦e 4 +

Then follows a string of titles, but it is not clear whether they belong to Amen-em-ȧpt or to his father Ka-nekht. At all events one of them was president of the secret things of Menu in Kamutf and inspector of the cattle of this god.

The Precepts of Amen-em-åpt begin in col. III, and they open with these words :