Papyrus Anastasi I

Papyrus Anastasi I (officially designated papyrus British Museum 10247) is an ancient Egyptian papyrus containing a satirical text used for the training of scribes during the Ramesside Period. One scribe, an army scribe, Hori, writes to his fellow scribe, Amenemope, in such a way as to ridicule the irresponsible and second-rate nature of Amenemope's work.

The letter gives examples of what a scribe was supposed to be able to deal with: calculating the number of rations which have to be doled out to a certain number of soldiers digging a lake or the quantity of bricks needed to erect a ramp of given dimensions [Dieter Arnold "The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture", I.B.Tauris 2002, p.40] , assessing the number of men needed to move an obelisk or erect a statue, organizing the supply of provisions for an army. In a long section Hori discusses the geography of the Mediterranean coast as far north as the Lebanon and the troubles which might beset a traveller there.

This papyrus is important to historians and Bible scholars above all for the information it supplies about towns in Syria and Canaan during the New Kingdom [Kitchen 2000, p.530.]

References

*Alan H. Gardiner "Egyptian Hieratic Texts - Series I: Literary Texts of the New Kingdom", Part I, Leipzig 1911
*K. A. Kitchen, "Ramesside Inscriptions", Blackwell 2000

Links

* [http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/anastasi_i.htm] Gardiner's translation of Papyrus Anastasi I