Customer Reviews

Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms

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Having read a number of books in recent months on Egpyt, Canaan, and Israel, I decided that I needed to go to the source to see for myself what the many partially quoted Egyptian texts actually say. Miriam Lichtheim's "Ancient Egyptian Literature - Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms" was my starting point.

The customer reviews recommended it - and what other customers have to say about a book is usually an important factor as to whether I will buy it. In this case, I was cautious and only bought the first volume. I enjoyed it immensely.

Professor Lichtheim's aim was to provide an up-to-date translation of a representative selection of Egyptian Literature, and in preparing these she states that she has made full use of existing translations and studies. I found her introductory survey on the development of Egyptian literature and her detailed explanation and notes of each text to be most useful in helping me understand what I was reading.

This first volume includes translations of about 50 texts dating from the 5th dynasty of the Old Kingdom to the 14th Dynasty of the Middle kingdom - which covers the period c 2450BCE to c 1650BCE. The texts include tomb inscriptions, selected "Utterances" from the Pyramid texts, Didactic Instructions, Songs and Hymns, as well as three amusing and interesting prose tales - The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, ThreeTales of Wonder, and The Story of Sinuhe.

The Didactic literature is also very interesting, generally being instructions from kings to sons on how to properly rule the kingdom after his death. But they also include such texts as "The Dispute between a Man and his Ba", "The Eloquent Peasant", "The Satire of the Trades", and the much (partially) quoted and often misquoted "Admonitions of Ipuwer".

The book was worth buying for the this last item alone, since this text has often been described as providing textual evidence of events leading up to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. According to Professor Lichtheim, the only surviving text is on a 19th Dynasty Payprus comprising 17 pages of about 14 lines with lacunae in various places, and she provides the complete translation of all that is still legible. In her explanation of the text, she discusses at some length whether the text is "a direct response to a calamity" or an "historical romance". Her conclusion is that "The Admonitions of Ipuwer has not only no bearing whatever on the long past First Intermediate Period, it also does not derive from any other historical situation" She believes it to be "the last, fullest, most exaggerated, and hence least successful composition of the theme 'order versus chaos'" Even if you have already decided that Ipuwer IS describing events leading to the Exodus, it is worth buying this book to read the translation of the full text by a scholar who has provided a most cogent explanation of its provenance

I know this is going to be one of those books which I shall read time and time again. I thoroughly recommend it to other readers, and I certainly intend to obtain Volumes II and III.

When I was learning to read Middle Egyptian, it was Lichtheim who kept me on track. She has a wonderful gift for translation. Her translations, while very close to literal, somehow manage to carry the atmosphere of the original without sounding as bizarre as a literal translation would.

This is an excellent corpus of translations from an authoritative hand, including from simple "funeral" and "biographical" inscriptions from the Old Kingdom upto nice and good renderings of all the major "tales" and "stories" from the MIddle Kingdom: The Tale of Sinuhe, The Dialogue between a Man and His Soul, the Tale of Kheops and the magicians, and many other paramount titles of the ancient Egyptian literature dated to the aforesaid periods. Each piece contains an introductory notes with the "history" of the documents and end-notes full of interesting comments as for the translation's details and plenty of bilbiography. Most recommended, both for the beginners and the trained readers.

Miriam Lichtheim's "Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 1" is a very good translation of a wide range of texts from Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt. It contains a representative sampling of Pyramid and Coffin texts, monumental inscriptions, didactic and wisdom literature,including the famous "Dispute Between a Man and His Ba", a few hymns, and prose selections, including "The Story of Sinuhe", "Three Wonder Tales", and "The Shipwrecked Sailor". For me the clincher in deciding to purchase this particular volume over its competitors was Ms. Lichtheim's decision to leave the words "ka", "ba", and selected other terms untranslated rather than giving anachronistic, supposed modern equivalents, to these complex words, as other recent translators have done. There are, additionally, excellent introductions and notes.

Great! Lichtheim takes care to present interested translations from a variety of different genres. She offers a short but elucidating introduction and offers helpful footnotes after every work presented. As I've said, the translations themselves are very readable, and, where appropriate, poetic. This is a great model of what anthologies should be.

While still useful, Miriam Lichtheim's three volume work suffers from the dogmas, biases and ideologies of Miriam Lichtheim .
The sad fact is that Lichtheim was educated and drenched in perhaps the grossest form of arrogant German Eurocentrism.
Lichtheim seemed to cling to the old Hegelian worldview, which placed black African peoples outside of human history. For Lichtheim all signs of civilizations found in ancient Africa "proper" was the result of either Asian, Semitic or even European "invaders" or immigrants "filtering in" from the "East". For Lichtheim, Hegel was right. Civilization and humanity originated in Asia. Asia was the Mother of All.
In his Introduction to the 2006 Edition of Volume 1, Loprieno writes that Lichtheim placed "...Egypt within a literary tradition shared with the world of Western Asia...."
We hasten to add that this failed attempt by L:ichtheim to force ancient black African(ancient Egyptian) literature into the "Western Asia" "literary tradition" is indeed an intellectual fraud.
Especially since we know that "ancient Egyptian"(ancient Negro African) literature is the oldest writings on earth!
Lichtheim's translations and commentaries reflect her dogmas and her ideologies.

Today we know that dogma is false. Civilization and humanity originated in Africa. Africa is the Mother of All!

Ancient Egyptian art depicts numerous examples of the king dancing in religious ceremonies.
The ancient Negro Africans (ancient Egyptians) used dance in much the same way dance is still used almost everywhere in Black Africa today.

On page 27, Lichtheim translates the well-known part of Harkhuf's mission to Yam. King Neferkare is anxious to have the dwarf at court to dance the dance of the God.
This seems to indicate profound religious and cultural connections between "ancient Egypt" and the heart of Africa. Especially since we know that the king had many priestly duties and that he was a God /priest on earth with a celestial mandate.
In most African cultures today a God or Goddess has certain specific dances. For example, the Yoruba God Shango has special dances.
Lichtheim's translation and commentary ignores the undeniable Black African religious and cultural realities reflected in those passages. Here we have the virtual triumph of ideology, racial chauvinism and dogma over scholarship.

In her translation of the Mereneptah Stela (p.75 Volume 2 Lichtheim writes, "Seth turned his back upon their chief"(the Libyans). In her notes on this passage (p78) she writes:"The god Seth was viewed as the protector of the foreign peoples to the east and west of Egypt....". There is a lot of information packed into that short sentence. Set was the God of foreigners: Europeans and Semites!
Remember Seth was usually associated with evil and instability by the "ancient Egyptians.
The God of both the Egyptians and the Nubians was Horus.
If Lichtheim's aim was to educate and spread knowledge to her least sophisticated readers we wonder why she said nothing about the texts from the Tomb of Seti 1st, Merenptah and Ramses 3rd (Book of Gates) where it is clearly written that both the ancient Egyptians and the Nubian-Sudanese(nehasu) were to be have the God Horus
protect their souls in Tuat. While both the Europeans (tamaho) and the Semites(amou) were to have their souls beaten or hammered by the Lion head goddess Sekhmet.

Here again we see the "ancient Egyptians" never confused themselves with Semites or Europeans.

Anyone who can read the text in the original or even a good translation can begin to understand that "ancient Egypt" was as African as Nubia or Yam or Wa wat, Punt or Kush.. Remember that the mythologies and religious thinking of the Egyptians and the Nubians form one long continuum over time and space.
While the Egyptians and the Nubians often fought each other they never forgot their common origins in the heart of Africa.
Again the ancient Negro African peoples we call "ancient Egyptians" tell us who they were. We know that the ancient Egyptians did not eat with the Hebrews-it was considered a great sin. Gen. 43:32.
Herodotus tells us that neither an Egyptian woman nor man would kiss a Greek on the mouth.
If a Greek touched a knife the Egyptian would consider the knife "unclean" and would never use it again. Incidentally we find this same way of thinking among many traditional African cultures.

Throughout her 3 volumes Lichtheim does everything possible to obscure deny or ignore the Black Negro African reality of "ancient Egypt" and its cultural and ethnic origins.

In volume 3 Lichtheim continues to sing the same old song. The "egyptianized kings of Nubia restored the royal power of a single dynasty over most of the country'.
To the dismay of Ms. Lichtheim, her "ancient Egypt" and her "Nubia" were part of the same Nile Valley cultural complex-the same black African cultural universe.
Until the very end Miriam Lichtheim remained locked in her eurocentric intellectual prison.
The three volumes must be read with caution and an appreciation of the strong cultural, ethnic and racial biases of the late Ms. Lichtheim