Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt

A State of the Art

Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

This paper provides an overview of the idea of narrative as it has been applied in Egyptology.
A question of this size is doomed to be reduced to a series of impressionistic observations
based on partial case studies, but, in acknowledging this, such ideas serve as a point of entry
into research that covers the wide scope of narrative in this discipline. This paper touches
on the way Egyptian sources engage with narrative structures then moves to the more epis-
temologically-charged question of how narrative is employed in Egyptological literature.

1 What is a narrative?
In German the term Narrativ is often used to refer to what we in English call metanarratives,
in other words, a way of writing or recounting that defines or attempts to justify historical
epochs, civilisations, as well as civil movements or ideas.1 However, it can also relate to the
broader English term narrative, which takes in any textual/oral material with narrative struc-
ture, the process of narration, and so on, what is otherwise in German called Erzählen.2 Since
this paper engages with several of these facets, my use of the term narrative follows the
broader Anglophone conceptualisation. The degree of intellectual engagement with narra-
tive(s) and its concomitant prominence in contemporary cultural, social and historical schol-
arship throughout the 20th Century has justified the identification of not one but several nar-
rative turns3 and has brought with it some interesting consequences. In the humanities (par-
ticularly from the 1960s to the 1980s), it may be in part responsible for a growing awareness
of “objectivity”, via the formalisation of narrative-based research methods, and conversely
in social and cultural studies (from the 1980s to the 2000s) it has catalysed an increased
“subjectivity” linked to a more contextual approach and to the recognition of subjective ex-
perience.4 The inflation of narrative as a term for a wide range of domains of experience and
expression has motivated narratologists to more actively distinguish between literal and met

1 Particularly J. F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Theory and History of
Literature 10, Manchester 1984, xxiv.
2 A. Saupe/F. Wiedemann, Narration und Narratologie. Erzähltheorien in der Geschichtswissenschaft, Ver-
sion: 1.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte (2015).
3 See, for instance, M. Hyvärinen, Revisiting the narrative turns, in: Life Writing 7/1 (2010), 69.
4 M. Andrews/S. D. Sclater/M. Rustin/C. Squire/A. Treacher, Introduction, in: M. Andrews/S. D. Sclater/C.
Squire/A. Treacher (eds.), Lines of Narrative: Psychosocial Perspectives, Routledge Studies in Memory
and Narrative, London 2000, 1–2.
40 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

aphorical uses of the term.5 Narrative has been engaged with from an Egyptological perspec-
tive most recently in both volumes of Hubert Roeder’s Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkul-
turen.6

2 What constitutes a narrative?

A narrative is a means of communication that is constituted of a series of events or phenom-
ena that are arranged in a consecutive manner.7 A narrator (who could also be a protagonist)
describes the changes over time that occur in a situation that is being experienced by (a)
protagonist(s); such changes can be schematised with reference to causal relations, which
take the form of a plot.8 In order for this structuring to occur, the person narrating must have
a certain degree of distance from the event in question, which we could call historical con-
sciousness. The narrator also requires narrative competence9 in order to take their perception
of the series of events, select the salient details and from them construct a narrative, be it real
or fictional in nature. According to the genre chosen by the narrator, the form used to do this
may differ greatly.10

3 When do we start narrating?

The ability to describe events consecutively is developed by humans commonly at about five
years of age (in some contexts from about three years), on the grounds that the awareness of
goals and plans is underdeveloped in most children under five.11 The change in this awareness
and the consequent ability to relate complete narratives, what Wolfgang Raible calls the shift
from “chronologische Aufzählung” to “strukturiertes Erzählen”12 is, however, only fully de-
veloped by children of about nine years of age and in the developmental stage follows con-
ventional paths, as studies of children from a number of languages and cultures indicate.13
Truly developed, complex narrative structure, which takes into consideration the relative im

5 M.-L. Ryan, Toward a Definition of Narrative, in: D. Herman (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Narrative,
Cambridge 2007, 22.
6 H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen I. Der Fall Ägypten, Ägyptologie und Kulturwis-
senschaft I, Munich 2009 and H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen II. Eine Archäologie
der narrativen Sinnbildung, Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft II, Munich 2018.
7 H. Roeder, Erzählen im Alten Ägypten. Vorüberlegungen zu einer Erzähltheorie zwischen Literaturwis-
senschaft und Altertumswissenschaften, in: H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen I. Der
Fall Ägypten, Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft I, Munich 2009, 18, defines this as “eine Redeart [...]
mit ‘linearen Folgen’”.
8 H. Roeder, Erzählen I, 20; W. Raible, Aggregatzustände des Erzählens: la narration dans tous ses états,
in: H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen I. Der Fall Ägypten, Ägyptologie und Kultur-
wissenschaft I, Munich 2009, 64–65.
9 J. Straub, Telling Stories, Making History: Toward a Narrative Psychology of the Historical Construction
of Meaning, in: J. Straub (ed.), Narration Identity and Historical Consciousness, New York 2005, 81.
10 For Egyptological approaches to genre, see C. Di Biase-Dyson, Foreigners and Egyptians in the Late
Egyptian Stories. Linguistic, Literary and Historical Perspectives, PdÄ 32, Leiden 2013, 50–55; H.
Simon, “Textaufgaben” – Kulturwissenschaftliche Konzepte in Anwendung auf die Literatur der
Ramessidenzeit, BSAK 14, Hamburg 2013.
11 R. Berman/D. Slobin, Relating Events in Narrative. A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study, Hillsdale
N.J. 1994, 66.
12 W. Raible, Aggregatzustände, 55.
13 R. Berman/D. Slobin, Relating Events, 71.
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 41

portance of the events and weaves narrative and descriptive elements together, is frequently
not demonstrated until humans become adults.14

4 Why do we narrate?
From a bio-cognitive perspective, it has been argued that we narrate in order to engage with
historical and cultural phenomena of the present or the past. The narrative imagination has
indeed been argued by Mark Turner to be “the fundamental instrument of thought”.15 The
pervasiveness of narration that this comment implies16 – that it is indeed a human necessity
to transmit this information in a narrative way – provides ample explanation for the dramatic
influence of the narrative turn on such fields as psychotherapy.17 It also explains the predom-
inance, almost taken-for-grantedness, of theories of history that put narrativity (and their con-
comitant literary tropes) front and centre, such as those of Frank Ankersmit and Hayden
White.18 To put it simply, because we expect narrative, we see it and apply it everywhere,
whether a narrative is strongly structured towards leading the reader in a specific direction or
not.19 This can extend to cultural expressions as gimmicky as emoji stories, whose layout of
pictograms motivates the reader to interpret a narrative structure (fig. 1).
Even when only the most basic and partial details of events are available, humans gravi-
tate towards establishing relationships of intentionality and cause-and-effect, which reflect
inherent image schemas (such as forward motion)20 and our awareness of the natural consec-
utiveness of events.21 Given these reflections, we must be aware that any academic endeavour

14 R. Bermann/D. Slobin, Relating Events, 75, and, following their experiment, W. Raible, Aggregatzu-
stände.
15 M. Turner, The Literary Mind. The Origins of Thought and Language, New York 1996, 4–5.
16 R. Barthes, An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative, transl. by L. Duisit, in: New Literary
History 6/2, On Narrative and Narratives (1975), 237, is perhaps most eloquent on this subject: “There
are countless forms of narratives in the world [...] Moreover, in this infinite variety of forms, it is present
at all times, in all places, in all societies [...] there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people
without narrative”. R. Zymner, Vom Erzählen zur Erzählliteratur. Konstrukte zwischen Körper und Kul-
tur, in: H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen II. Eine Archäologie der narrativen Sinn-
bildung, Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft II, Munich 2018, 29, discusses the applicability of the term
“Allerweltsredetätigkeit” to the practice of narration for this very reason.
17 L. E. Angus/J. McLeod (eds.), The Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy: Practice, Theory and Re-
search, London 2003.
18 F. R. Ankersmit, Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of the Historian’s Language, Den Haag 1983;
F. R. Ankersmit, The Dilemma of Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Philosophy of History, in: History and
Theory 25/4 – Beiheft 25: Knowing and Telling History: The Anglo-Saxon Debate (1986), 1–27 and H.
White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Baltimore 1973; H.
White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Baltimore 1978; H. White, Figural Realism:
Studies in the Mimesis Effect, Baltimore 1999.
19 See H. Roeder, Erzählen im Alten Ägypten, 18.
20 B. Hampe, Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction, in: B. Hampe/J. Grady (eds.), From
Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics Research 29, Ber-
lin/New York 2005, 1, defines image schemas, amongst other things, as “directly meaningful (‘experien-
tial’/‘embodied’), preconceptual structures, which arise from, or are grounded in, human recurrent bodily
movements through space, perceptual interactions, and ways of manipulating objects”.
21 M. Horváth/K. Mellmann (eds.), Die biologisch-kognitiven Grundlagen narrativer Motivierung, Poeto-
genesis – Studien zur empirischen Anthropologie der Literatur 10, Münster 2016; also R. Zymner, Vom
Erzählen.
42 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

dealing with past (or even present) civilisations may be driven by latent and uninterrogated
thought processes.

5 Some research aims

It is very likely that we will never be able to free ourselves from this need to narrate and this
tendency to see narrative everywhere. Exactly for this reason, it is necessary to reflect more
on our practice as historians, philologists, archaeologists, and so on and in so doing, gain
insight into the constraints of our own academic thought processes and develop practices that
are more reflexive. One means of doing so is to find ways to theorise on the ways in which
ancient and modern peoples “frame” their own environment in their writings and other cul-
tural output. The concept of “framing”,22 as Robert M. Entman explains, is a cognitive and
communicative process involving the communicator, the text, the receiver and the culture
that
“essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a
perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way
as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evalua-
tion, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.”23
I would like to suggest that by trying to understand what the culture considered to be salient
we can better reconstruct what their narratives were representing and what function their
narratives were supposed to have. Moreover, from an epistemological perspective, I posit
that what Egyptologists consider to be salient at particular times moreover affects their en-
gagement with Egyptological cultural material and makes for an interesting footnote in the
history of science.
For the purpose of this paper, I would like to draw on a few case studies to illustrate
different ways in which narrative is used to frame experience. Firstly, I will consider how
narrative techniques were employed by ancient Egyptians to present their version of experi-
enced events and secondly, I will look at how narrative techniques are used by Egyptologists
over time to understand and explain variation and change of specific phenomena in the Egyp-
tian cultural record. In this way, I hope to outline, in a partial way, the role of narrative in
Egyptian culture and in our discipline.

6 Egyptian narratives
6.1 Egyptian narratives I: Myths
My first case study of the framing potential of narrative in Egyptian cultural material consid-
ers early myths, since the dispute around their very existence at specific times rests on their
ability (or not) to conform to narrative norms. Jan Assmann, extending the ideas of Siegfried
Schott on Mythenbildung,24 proposes that myths emerged only fully in the New Kingdom,

22 For framing in sociology, see E. Goffmann, Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behaviour, New
Brunswick/London 1967; in linguistics, see C. J. Fillmore, Frames and the semantics of understanding,
Quaderni di Semantica 6/2 (1985), 222–253.
23 R. Entman, Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm, in: Journal of Communication 43/4
(1993), 52; italics original.
24 S. Schott, Spuren der Mythenbildung, in: ZÄS 78 (1942), 1–27.
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 43

since texts developed before this time that concern themselves with deities (such as the Pyr-
amid Texts) have no narrative coherence,25 they are in no way fixed in space and time,26 and
the constellations of gods within them are not developed.27 This provocative argument is
more nuanced than it seems at first sight: Assmann argues that the myth itself, or “genotext”,
can exist (and be expressed via any kind of cultural expression) without it being produced in
narrative form as a myth (the “phenotext”, or mythical statement). Thus, in the case of the
latter, which one could call the “narrow” definition of myth, the Pyramid Texts are not myths
– they are spells for rituals.28 In any case, several scholars,29 such as John Baines,30 Jürgen
Zeidler,31 Harco Willems32 and Katja Goebs,33 dispute the claim of the necessity of narrativity
for myth. For them, Assmann’s point of reference is skewed, trying to fit earlier sources for
myths into a Procrustean bed of a narrative paradigm it does not need.34 Baines attempts in
his rebuttal to establish how myths are to be defined in the first place:
“The simplest definition of a myth is that it is a sacred or central narrative […] I do
not, however, follow Assmann’s requirement that a myth have an Aristotelian begin-
ning, middle, and end […] Egyptian narratives as a whole contain leaps and changes
of focus, and myths need not be different; since they belong in a world where most
things are possible, they may exhibit this characteristic more strongly.”35
In other words, as Goebs stipulates; “If narrativity is not one of the features displayed in the
early sources, then it was probably not required”,36 a comment which ties in well to our idea
of framing being based on saliency. Zeidler takes another argumentative route altogether and
argues that some Pyramid Texts (356, 359 and 477), when considered from a structuralist
narratological perspective, do outline a mythical plot sequence,37 but Assmann has recently
countered some of these arguments by claiming that what many see as mythical sequences

25 J. Assmann, Die Verborgenheit des Mythos in Ägypten, in: GM 25 (1977), 9.

26 J. Assmann, in: GM 25 (1977), 21.
27 J. Assmann, in: GM 25 (1977), 10–15.
28 J. Assmann, in: GM 25 (1977); J. Assmann, Frühformen oder Vorstufen des Osirismythos? Rituelle und
narrative Logik in den Pyramidentexten, in: H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen II.
Eine Archäologie der narrativen Sinnbildung, Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft II, Munich 2018; also
J. Zeidler, Zur Frage der Spätentstehung des Mythos in Ägypten, in: GM 132 (1993), 87.
29 S. Bickel, La cosmogonie égyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire, OBO 134, Fribourg/Göttingen 1994, 267,
given her focus on cosmogony in the Coffin Texts, chooses not to comment on the dispute concerning the
origin of the myths she discusses.
30 J. Baines, Egyptian Myth and Discourse: Myth, Gods, and the Early Written and Iconographic Record,
in: JNES 50/2 (1991), 81–105.
31 J. Zeidler, in: GM 132 (1993), 85–109.
32 H. Willems, The Coffin of Heqata (Cairo JdE 36418): A Case Study of Egyptian Funerary Culture of the
Early Middle Kingdom, OLA 70, Leuven 1996, 8–14.
33 K. Goebs, A Functional Approach to Egyptian Myth and Mythemes, in: JANER 2/1 (2002), 27–59.
34 See, for instance, J. Baines, in: JNES 50/2 (1991), 101 and J. Zeidler, in: GM 132 (1993), 88.
35 J. Baines, in: JNES 50/2 (1991), 94.
36 K. Goebs, in: JANER 2/1 (2002), 33.
37 J. Zeidler, in: GM 132 (1993).
44 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

are rather ritual sequences.38 Later studies by Harold Hayes39 and Antonio Morales40 have
focused on the kinds of functions that such rituals, reconsidered in an oral and performative
framework as operative recitations, may have feasibly had.41 One might nevertheless ques-
tion what rituals themselves are intended to represent or even reconstruct if not some kind of
underlying cultural narrative or, indeed, another kind of non-textual narrative practice. Wil-
lems concisely and convincingly sums up the matter, stating that the alleged necessity to
connect myths with a narrative structure:
“is a problem only as long as narrativity is understood in a very narrow sense as a
characteristic of written stories. If we widen our scope so as to include the oral circuit
– which, by the very nature of things, leaves no traces behind – the argument from
silence becomes much less formidable.”42
In any case, as a number of scholars argue, the absence of narrative structure by no means
implies that other meaningful structures (relating, amongst other things, to mythology, cos-
mology, or cultic practice) are absent: Goebs considers, for instance, the specific “functions”
that govern the various forms that the mythemes within the Pyramid Texts may adopt.43
Martin Pehal focuses on the kinds of “constellations” of deities (using the terminology of
Assmann) depicted in the corpus and argues that “configurational coherence” – as distinct
from “narrative coherence” – is present in the corpus.44 We may also reconsider the frame-
work of what myths need to be, taking into account, as Jennifer Hellum suggests, that the
very architectural setting of texts like the Pyramid Texts may contribute to the constitution
of the myth itself,45 given that the selection and layout of the Pyramid Texts in the funerary

38 J. Assmann, Frühformen.
39 H. Hays, The Organization of the Pyramid Texts: Typology and Disposition I, PdÄ 31/1, Leiden/Boston
2012, 251, posits the following theory: “[t]he Pyramid Texts were not composed to decorate the walls of
the tombs in which they are first attested. They were adapted to that use from texts prepared to be recited
in religious performances.”
40 A. Morales, The Transmission of the Pyramid Texts into the Middle Kingdom: Philological Aspects of a
Continuous Tradition in Egyptian Mortuary Literature, PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania
2013, 809 and 820, argues that the Pyramid Texts should be seen as “ritual texts with indirect mythical
references, i.e. as monumentalized speech acts rather than mythical records”.
41 The redaction processes of the Pyramid Texts in antiquity, which included changes to textual structure far
more than content criticism, is additionally more indicative of changes to ritual than to mythological dis-
course, as argued by A. Morales, Transmission of the Pyramid Texts, 838.
42 H. Willems, Heqata, 13, drawing on Baines, in: JNES 50/2 (1991). See also J. Baines, Prehistories of
Literature: Performance, Fiction, Myth, in: G. Moers (ed.), Definitely: Egyptian Literature. Proceedings
of the Symposion “Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms”, Los Angeles, March 24–26, 1995,
LingAeg – StudMon 2, Göttingen 1999, 17–41.
43 K. Goebs, in: JANER 2/1 (2002), 58. A mytheme, according to C. Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology,
New York 1963, 211, is a constituent unit of myth formed of “bundles of relations” that gain meaning by
being grouped with other mythemes.
44 M. Pehal, Interpreting Egyptian Narratives. A Structural Analysis of the Tale of the Two Brothers, the
Anat Myth, the Osirian Cycle and the Astarte Papyrus, Prague 2010, 39.
45 J. Hellum, Toward an Understanding of the Use of Myth in the Pyramid Texts, in: SAK 43 (2014), 126.
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 45

chamber of each pharaoh is discernably different.46 Whether or not we accept this idea,47 our
approach to the text in its architectural context will always return to narrative: as James Al-
len’s masterful article Reading a Pyramid reveals, because the architecture of the pyramid
chambers mimics cosmic geography, the location of the texts in each context vouchsafes us
great insight into the ritual sequence, guaranteeing the dead pharaoh safe passage out of the
tomb/underworld to the sky.48

6.2 Egyptian narratives II: Reports

Another region of Egyptian storytelling that can wreak havoc on our narratological expecta-
tions is in that meta-genre Egyptologists call historical inscriptions,49 which, perhaps, given
the loaded implications of the term “historical”,50 should be vouchsafed a more fitting de-
nomination. Lutz Popko makes a case for for historiographical texts,51 but I (and perhaps

46 J. Hellum, in: SAK 43 (2014), 127–128. Hellum concludes that “The differences in textual content and
number of texts point to the probability of a new corpus being assembled and, in some instances, written
for each king”, which may imply, though it is not explicitly said, that the corpus was originally formulated
to be written on the walls of funerary chambers. Indeed, J. P. Allen, Reading a Pyramid, in: C. Berger/G.
Clerc/N. Grimal (eds.), Hommage à Jean Leclant I, BdÉ 106/1, Cairo 1994, 7, suggests a date of compo-
sition of the corpus that predates the redaction work undertaken to orient the spells on the walls of the
pyramid chambers: the layout of the earliest known corpus, in the pyramid of Unas, “shows that Unis’s
editor was not always able to preserve the physical integrity of a complete sequence of spells and may
have had to omit some spells from the corpus as well”. The idea of a compositional process divorced from
the decoration of the tombs is, as briefly mentioned above (Fn. 39), most clearly enunciated by H. Hays,
Organization of the Pyramid Texts I, 251–252.
47 D. Stewart, The Myth of Osiris in the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, PhD dissertation, Monash Uni-
versity 2014, 18, argues that this theory does not sufficiently take mythical quality of the texts themselves
into consideration.
48 J. P. Allen, Reading a Pyramid, 24–28.
49 K. Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Heft 1–16, Urkunden des Ägyptischen Altertums – IV. Abteilung,
Leipzig 1906–1909; W. Helck, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Heft 17–22, Urkunden des Ägyptischen Al-
tertums – IV. Abteilung, Berlin 1955–1958; K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Bio-
graphical, 8 Volumes, Oxford 1969–1990.
50 C. J. Eyre, Is Egyptian historical literature “historical” or “literary”?, in: A. Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyp-
tian Literature. History and Forms, PdÄ 10, Leiden 1996, 417, argues that “history is the format for a
literary-ideological argument, and not a neutral presentation of factual events.” This fairly reflects the
enormously influential argument of E. Hornung, Geschichte als Fest. Zwei Vorträge zum Geschichtsbild
der frühen Menschheit. Vom Geschichtsbild der alten Ägypter, Libelli CCXLVI, Darmstadt 1966, 14,
who outlined the tension between the cyclical, typical framework of history (driven by specific roles being
assumed by people and things) and singular instances. However, J. Assmann, Stein und Zeit. Mensch und
Gesellschaft im alten Ägypten, Munich 2003, 237 and 290 argues for a changing awareness of history in
Egypt and is therefore of the opinion, that “Geschichte” and “Fest” stand in opposition to each other.
From a more prosaic position, I would furthermore add that the term “historical” should be avoided in
relation to the genre, as any text from the past is by definition “historical”.
51 L. Popko, Untersuchungen zur Geschichtsschreibung der Ahmosiden- und Thutmosidenzeit: „… damit
man von seinen Taten noch in Millionen von Jahren sprechen wird“, Wahrnehmungen und Spuren
Altägyptens 2, Würzburg 2006, 18, following J. Assmann, Die Erzählbarkeit der Welt. Bedingungen für
die Entstehung von Geschichte im alten Orient, in: J. Rüsen/M. Gottlob/A. Mittag (eds.), Die Vielfalt der
Kulturen, Erinnerung, Geschichte, Identität 4, Frankfurt 1998, 382.
46 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

other Anglophone scholars, whose disciplinary engagement with the term is somewhat dif-
ferent to that of German academics52) would argue that the ancient frame of history-writing
and the modern are not similar enough to warrant being grouped together, a point to which I
will return shortly. I would thus propose a more medially-driven term which also makes ref-
erence to genre, such as reports in a monumental context, to be differentiated, for instance,
from rhetorical texts in a monumental context.
Though some sub-genres of these monumental texts follow a quite stringent chronologi-
cal structure (the Annals of Thutmosis III, for instance, or the Kadesh Inscriptions of
Ramesses II), there is often more complexity to these sources than meets the eye. We have,
in short, to deal with two problems: the Egyptian idea of legacy versus the academic preoc-
cupation with sequentiality.
Firstly, there is the problem of continuity in a storytelling tradition that is constrained by
the requirement to not only match but also supersede what came before,53 which frequently
led to the copying of earlier inscriptions that were then supplemented by recounts of more
recent feats.54 Many scholars have argued, for example, that the monumental inscriptions of
Ramesses III were slavishly copied from the reliefs of Ramesses II.55 However, new studies
of the reliefs and toponyms have led Dan’el Kahn to propose that many of the events depicted
were original and may thus have depicted actual historical events.56 However convincing
such reconsiderations of the historicity of the material may be, we are still confronted by the
fact that the Egyptian means of narration does not reflect our own. If scribes are drawing on
archival material from previous reigns to cobble together “narratives” of the present pharaoh,
then the frame of their narration is squared clearly on the pharaoh’s maintenance of mꜢꜤ.t in
perpetuity via the enactment and repetition of a series of feats,57 no matter how exact their

52 F. Hartog/M. Werner, History, in: B. Cassin (ed.), Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical

Lexicon, Princeton/Oxford 2014, 448, explain that the term “Historiographie” in German is used in a way
almost synonymous with “History” in English. Studies of the theory and methodology of historical writing
are better covered by the terms “Geschichtswissenschaften” or “Historik”, which correspond to the
English term “Historiography”.
53 See, for instance, P. Vernus, Essai sur la conscience de l’histoire dans l’Egypte pharaonique, Paris 1995
and contributions to J. Tait (ed.), Never Had the Like Occurred: Egypt’s View of Its Past, Encounters
with Ancient Egypt, London 2003.
54 C. Maderna-Sieben, Das Erzählen im Ko(n)text historischer Inschriften des Neuen Reiches, in: H. Roeder
(ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen I. Der Fall Ägypten, Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft I,
Munich 2009, 175.
55 See, amongst others, W. Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend
v. Chr., ÄA 5, Wiesbaden 1971; R. Stadelmann, Die Abwehr der Seevölker unter Ramses III., in:
Saeculum 19 (1968); C. F. Nims, Ramesseum Sources of Medinet Habu Reliefs, in: J. H. Johnson/E. F.
Wente (eds.), Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes, SAOC 39, Chicago 1976, 169–175 and L. H. Lesko,
The Wars of Ramses III, in: Serapis 6 (1980), 83–84.
56 D. Kahn, Who is Meddling in Egypt’s Affairs? The Identity of the Asiatics in the Elephantine Stele of
Sethnakhte and the Historicity of the Medinet Habu Asiatic War Reliefs, in: JAEI 2/1 (2010), 14–23. D.
Kahn, The Historical Background of a Topographical List of Ramesses III, in: R. Landgráfová/J. Myná-
řová (eds.), Rich and Great. Studies in Honour of Anthony J. Spalinger on the Occasion of his 70th Feast
of Thoth, Prague 2016, 165, argues, that this is evident from the fact that many of the toponyms, on the
Southern Gate of Medinet Habu, for instance, are original.
57 J. Assmann, Ma’at. Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im alten Ägypten, Munich 2006; E. Teeter, The
Presentation of Maat. Ritual and Legitimacy in Ancient Egypt, SAOC 57, Chicago 1997.
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 47

knowledge of historical facts may have been.58 It is for this reason that I shy away from seeing
these texts as historiographical.
Secondly, there is the question of the inherent importance of sequential storytelling in the
monumental genres. In other words, is the representation of consecutive events always the
predominant concern? In some genres of monumental texts, the answer is likely to be yes: a
logical sequence of events is portrayed in king lists and annals, for instance, but with refer-
ence to specific examples which served an ideological purpose, not necessarily with the intent
of being exhaustive.59 In royal historical monuments, the answer may be even more nuanced.
On the stela of Seti I from the Ptah temple in Karnak that relates the events of his first cam-
paign,60 the crisis of the narrative is entirely glossed over and is implied only by the reaction
of the king.61 Texts describing the campaigns of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, on the other
hand, interweave “orientation, evaluation and events with rhetoric that achieves an ideologi-
cal argument”.62 In other words, the story is not the main focus. Moreover, the sequentiality
that can be perceived in the text is “of a logical sort and not formalised with narrative con-
structions”.63
In private biographical monuments, such as the biography of Amenemheb Mahu in The-
ban Tomb 85, there is also more focus on the salient than on the consecutive: specifically the
enumeration of the individual’s heroic deeds, which forms a degree of thematic continuity
around specific life events,64 but which does not necessarily follow the expected narrative
sequence.65 Until this was ascertained, much ink had already been spilled in trying to press
the events into a logical sequence.66 In these cases we can perceive something similar to early
myths: a fundamental background structure that does not have to be transmuted to the kinds
of sequential connections that modern academics expect.

58 L. Popko, Geschichtsschreibung, 136, has argued that the Egyptian awareness of their own past was sig-
nificantly greater than what has heretofore been argued, contra A. McDowell, Awareness of the Past in
Deir el-Medîna, in: R. J. Demarée/A. Egberts (eds.), Village Voices. Proceedings of the Symposium
“Texts from Deir el-Medîna and their Interpretation”, Leiden, May 31–June 1, 1991, CNWS Publications
13, Leiden 1992, 103–105. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that McDowell’s argument pertains ex-
clusively to the inhabitants of Deir el-Medina and not to the Egyptian populace in general.
59 L. Popko, Geschichtsschreibung, 156–162.
60 K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions I, 40–41.
61 C. Maderna-Sieben, Erzählen, 177.
62 T. J. Gillen, Narrative, Rhetoric and the Historical Inscriptions of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, PhD
dissertation, Macquarie University, Sydney 2009, 122–123.
63 T. J. Gillen, Narrative, 230.
64 See “Handlungsbiographie” and “Ereignisbiographie” in A. M. Gnirs, Die ägyptische Autobiographie, in:
A. Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature. History and Forms, PdÄ 10, Leiden 1996, 204.
65 C. Di Biase-Dyson, Amenemheb’s Excellent Adventure in Syria: New Insights from Discourse Analysis
and Toponymics, in: G. Neunert/A. Verbovsek/K. Gabler/C. Jones (eds.), Text: Wissen – Wirkung –
Wahrnehmung. Beiträge des vierten Münchner Arbeitskreises Junge Aegyptologie (MAJA 4), GOF
IV/59, Wiesbaden 2015, 134–138.
66 See especially J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt II. Historical Documents from the Earliest Times
to the Persian Conquest, Chicago 1906; R. O. Faulkner, The Euphrates Campaign of Tuthmosis III, in:
JEA 32 (1946), 39–42; A. H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica I: Text, Oxford 1947; W. Helck,
Beziehungen; D. B. Redford, The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III, Culture and History of the
Ancient Near East 16, Leiden 2003.
48 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

6.3 Egyptian narratives III: Stories

Like myths, narrative literature appeared late in the Egyptian cultural tradition. It was first
encoded in writing (from what we can decry from the sources) only after the Old Kingdom,
perhaps – but not necessarily – in some kind of evolutionary relationship with autobiograph-
ical texts that graced the walls of a number of Old Kingdom tombs.67 The scholar may be
justified in thinking that here at least, in the realm of stories, the Egyptians bound events
together in a similar way to which our modern brains are accustomed – and in many ways
they would be right.
Indeed, authors often availed themselves of sentence elements that established indubita-
ble sequential relationships: temporal adverbs (like m-ḫt), consecutive particles (such as ꜤḥꜤ.n
and wn.jn) and consecutive verbal forms (like sḏm.jn and sḏm.ḫr),68 and also particles to
interrupt the sequence in order to provide background or setting information (such as jsṯ).69
This being said, there are places in some stories in which the temporal connections are unu-
sual. For instance, in the Tale of Sinuhe, the hero flees Egypt without a real motive being
given, which gives a certain degree of discontinuity to the plot. Several scholars have at-
tempted to account for this behaviour,70 but fundamentally the idea is that Sinuhe has to leave
for the purposes of the plot: psychological motivation71 is unnecessary, and most probably
also unlikely, in the face of compositional motivation, a force on the narrative driven by the
narrative schema at the base of a given genre.72
There are also moments in the Tale of Wenamun in which the narrator, who is also the
protagonist, relates events about which the protagonist could have had no knowledge, be-
cause he was not present at the time.73 Such events include the conversation between the chief

67 J. Assmann, Schrift, Tod und Identität. Das Grab als Vorschule der Literatur im alten Ägypten, in: A.
Assmann/J. Assmann/C. Hardmeier (eds.), Schrift und Gedächtnis. Archäologie der literarischen Kom-
munikation I, München 1983, 64–93; A. Loprieno, Topos und Mimesis: zum Ausländer in der ägyptischen
Literatur, ÄA 48, Wiesbaden 1988, 86. For a dissenting view, see S. Quirke, Review: A. Loprieno, Topos
und Mimesis: zum Ausländer in der ägyptischen Literatur, ÄA 48, Wiesbaden 1988, in: DE 16 (1990),
93. See also J. Baines, Prehistories, who argues for an oral basis of Egyptian literature.
68 A. M. Gnirs, Autobiographie, 203; C. Maderna-Sieben, Erzählen, 178.
69 D. P. Silverman, Clauses in Middle Egyptian, in: G. Englund/P. J. Frandsen (eds.), Crossroad: Chaos or
the Beginning of a New Paradigm. Papers from the Conference on Egyptian Grammar, Helsingør 28–30
May 1986, Copenhagen 1986, 333; T. Ritter, Semantische Diskursstrukturen, erläutert am Beispiel des
narrativen Texttyps, in: L. Gestermann/H. Sternberg-El Hotabi (eds.), Per aspera ad astra. Wolfgang
Schenkel zum neunundfünfzigsten Geburtstag, Kassel 1995, 158–159; A. Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian. A
Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge 1995, 152–153.
70 S. Purdy, Sinuhe and the Question of Literary Types, in: ZÄS 104 (1977), 112–127; J. Baines, Interpreting
Sinuhe, in: JEA 68 (1982), 31–44; A. Verbovsek, „Er soll sich nicht fürchten …!“. Zur Bedeutung und
Funktion von Angst in der Erzählung des Sinuhe, in: D. Kessler/R. Schulz/M. Ullmann/A. Verbovsek/S.
Wimmer (eds.), Texte – Theben – Tonfragmente. Festschrift für Günter Burkard, ÄAT 76, Wiesbaden
2009, 421–433.
71 J. Culpeper, Language and Characterisation. People in Plays and Other Texts, Harlow 2001, 9 calls this
humanising characterisation, see also C. Di Biase-Dyson, Foreigners, 12–14.
72 See especially M. Martínez, Motivierung, in: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft II, Ber-
lin/Boston 2000, 644.
73 See also B. U. Schipper, Das Erzählen im kulturellen Diskurs – zur Pragmatik des Papyrus Moscow 120
(die Geschichte des Wenamun), in: H. Roeder (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen I. Der Fall
Ägypten, Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft I, Munich 2009, 207.
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 49

of Byblos, Tjekerbaal, and his page, which convinces Tjekerbaal to finally agree to see Wen-
amun. We can conclude from this that there are simply more important things than the classic
“narrative” sequence: here too it is compositional motivation that takes precedence over
causal motivation in the narrated sequence of events. This being said, since many (if not all)
of the twists in Wenamun’s fate are caused by the god Amun (and perhaps also other gods),
another driving force may also be what Martinez calls final motivation, a kind of causal mo-
tivation catalysed by a deity.74 These case studies, however, should not shock us – the par-
tiality of representation they exemplify is endemic to human storytelling. As Hayden White
observes:
“A history is, as Ankersmit puts it, less like a picture intended to resemble the objects
of which it speaks or a model ‘tied to the past by certain translation rules’ than ‘a
complex linguistic structure specifically built for the purpose of showing a part of the
past’.”75
In sum, when it comes to analysing narrative in ancient Egyptian sources, it pays to be aware
of a range of influences on a classic narrative sequence. The logic of the narrative is not
always what we think. Here, framing can help us theorise about the matter: What the Egyp-
tians considered to be worth portraying influenced not only their choice of phenomena to
represent, but also their means of arranging these phenomena in a sequence. Ritual sequence,
the preservation of universal order, the presentation of heroic deeds and the highlighting of
elements crucial to the plot in a narrative seem to have been elements of such salience to the
Egyptians that they at times overrode or replaced things that modern scholars would have
expected in their stead.

7 Egyptological Narratives
If we move from Egyptian narratives to Egyptological ones we can note that Egyptologists,
notorious for being inward-looking and isolationist in their approach to cultural material,76
have concomitantly (and conversely) developed a tendency to follow dominant cultural turns,
from New Historicism to Processual Archaeology, the linguistic turn, the narrative turn, the
visual turn, formal, functional and historical linguistics, but also structuralism, poststructur-
alism, postcolonialism, the gender debate, and so on. This situation should urge us to not only
take personal, biological and cultural frames into consideration in our research: we must
moreover reflect on the decisive weight of epistemological ones.
By means of illustration I draw on a specific case demonstrating the pervasive influence
of poststructuralism on humanistic disciplines, including Egyptology. Egyptologists, like
many humanists of postmodern and postcolonial times, have become (perhaps rightly) sus-
picious of “macrohistory”.77 Perhaps it is too teleological, in other words, too goal-oriented,

74 M. Martínez, Motivierung, 644. This idea of providence as a main motivator in the narrative is supported
by the grammatical animacy granted the god Amun in Wenamun, see C. Di Biase-Dyson, Foreigners,
285–288; also B. U. Schipper, Erzählen, 207–208.
75 H. White, Figural Realism, 6, citing F. R. Ankersmit, Dilemma.
76 J. C. Moreno García, Recent Developments in the Social and Economic History of Ancient Egypt, in:
JANEH 1/2 (2014).
77 Amongst many others, B. J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, London 1989; N. Grimal,
A History of Ancient Egypt, Malden, MA/London 1992.
50 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

perhaps it draws too much on later periods for the purpose of sketching the “long stretch”
and becomes anachronistic. Some of these criticisms are well-aimed. What has occurred,
whether as a result of this criticism or not,78 is that humanistic scholarship, and Egyptology
with it, has almost universally directed its attention to stories on a smaller scale,79 to personal
narratives or “microhistories”.80 Books that cover the whole history of Ancient Egypt,
whether in monograph form81 or in collected volumes of contributions by experts in specific
periods,82 are popular in their focus. The discipline thus lacks modern but scholarly grand
narratives that weave historical elements together in a highly source-critical manner.83

7.1 New History/ies

So we follow the trends. Egyptologists seem to prefer writing about the history of epochs to
the longue durée, writing books about single periods or single pharaohs.84 There is an in-
creased interest, perhaps in part thanks to the influence of postcolonial history, on the history
of Nubia and the desert regions,85 as well as on peoples until recently considered by Egyp

78 The restricted time allocated to academics for research and the preference given to short-term projects
may also be considered to be contributing factors.
79 M. Hyvärinen, in: Life Writing 7/1 (2010), 77.
80 J. C. Moreno García, Microhistory, in: W. Grajetzki/W. Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyp-
tology, Los Angeles 2018, 1, defines microhistory somewhat narrowly as “the lives, activities, and
cultural values of common people, rarely evoked in official sources”, although the importance of such an
approach for the documentation of Egyptian history, to “give voice to the voiceless” (J. C. Moreno García,
Microhistory, 12) is indisputable. Compare with J. Galtung, Macro-History as Metaphor for Biography:
An Essay on Macro and Micro History, in: Biography 13/4 (1990), 283–299, who declares microhistory
to focus on “the individual”, which is the broader scope we shall apply here. For cases of microhistory in
Egyptology, see, amongst others, P. Vernus, Affaires et scandales sous les Ramsès: La crise des valeurs
dans l’Égypte du Nouvel Empire, Paris 1993; L. Meskell, Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class,
etcetera in Ancient Egypt, Oxford 1999; K. Donker van Heel, Mrs. Naunakhte and family: The women
of Ramesside Deir al-Medina, Cairo/New York 2016.
81 Amongst others, H. A. Schlögl, Geschichte und Kultur von der Frühzeit bis zu Kleopatra, Munich 2006;
T. Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, London 2010; M. Bommas, Das alte Ägypten, Ge-
schichte Kompakt, Darmstadt 2011; S. Kubisch, Das alte Ägypten. Von 4000 v. Chr. bis 30 v. Chr.,
Wiesbaden 2017.
82 R. Schulz/M. Seidel (eds.), Ägypten. Die Welt der Pharaonen, Cologne 1997; I. Shaw (ed.), The Oxford
History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford 2000.
83 To test this theory, I consulted the Online Egyptological Bibliography (oeb.griffith.ox.ac.uk) and searched
for books comprehensively depicting the history of Egypt in monograph form. Using the keywords “His-
tory of Egypt” I found monographs only from 1837–1989 and with the keyword “Egyptian History” (with
the exception of a text from 2010 that is popular in its scope) I found monographs from 1840–1963. In
other words, if the OEB is anything to go by, macrohistory is to all intents and purposes dead in Egyptol-
ogy. The pioneering work of J. C. Moreno García, in: JANEH 1/2 (2014) and elsewhere on economic
history in diachronic perspective, seems to be turning the situation around for the better.
84 By way of example, K. A. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant. The Life and Times of Ramesses II, Warminster
1982; P. der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, HÄB 26, Hildesheim 1987; P. Grandet,
Ramsès III: Histoire d’un règne, Bibliothèque de l’Égypte Ancienne, Paris 1993; C. Obsomer, Sésostris
Ier: étude chronologique et historique du règne, Brussels 1995; D. O’Connor/E. H. Cline (eds.), Amen-
hotep III. Perspectives on his Reign, Ann Arbor 1998; C. Barbotin, Ahmosis et le début de la XVIIIe
dynastie, Les grands pharaons, Paris 2008 (pars pro toto for the series Les grands pharaons).
85 For instance, J. C. Darnell/D. Darnell, Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert I
Gebel Tjauti Rock Inscriptions 1–45 and Wadi el-Hôl Rock Inscriptions 1–45, OIP 119, Chicago 2002;
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 51

tologists to have been the “losers” of key historical battles involving the Egyptians.86 Eco-
nomic history has given renewed attention to agents of all classes.87 Gender(ed) history has
provoked a focus on the lived experience of women88 and prompted a thematisation of ho-
mosexuality.89 Recently there have also been concerted efforts to interact with historical the-
ories, as seen in Martin Fitzenreiter’s collected volume Das Ereignis in 200990 and the found-
ing of the Journal of Egyptian History by Thomas Schneider in 2008. In this climate, attempts
have been forged to critically engage with the very foundations of Egyptological history writ-
ing, such as dynasties, kingdoms and intermediate periods.

7.2 Dynasty – Kingdom – Intermediate Period

The Egyptians’ awareness of their own past stands at odds with what was later recorded in
Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, the first Egyptian history stricto sensu.91 The king lists and Palermo
Stone are sequential but not periodised and the Turin King List groups its kings along geo-
graphical, rather than strictly dynastic lines,92 whereas the Manethonian periodisation of An-
cient Egyptian history, which is much more influential on subsequent Egyptological history
writing, can be described as follows:
“In ihrem zyklischen Aufbau und ihrem Wechsel von Blüte- und Zwischenzeiten
wirkt die ägyptische Geschichte geradezu wie ein Kunstwerk.”93
This “artistic” quality, this suspicious symmetry of the Egyptian epochs, is addressed and
problematised by Thomas Schneider:
“[T]he Manethonian dynastic grid and conventional periodization […] of Egyptian
history are a stranglehold. The very fact that no other attempts at periodizing Egyptian
history exist and that the description of cultural phenomena has been conducted more
often than not along these preset framelines is an outspoken proof to the fact that this
view can indeed be seen as a compulsion.”94

L. Török, Between Two Worlds: The Frontier Region Between Ancient Nubia and Egypt, 3700 BC–AD
500, PdÄ 29, Leiden 2009; A. Lohwasser, Aspekte der napatanischen Gesellschaft. Archäologisches In-
ventar und funeräre Praxis im Friedhof von Sanam – Perspektiven einer kulturhistorischen Interpretation,
Vienna 2012.
86 L. D. Morenz, Ereignis Reichseinigung und der Fall Buto. Inszenierungen von Deutungshoheit der Sieger
und – verlorene – Perspektiven der Verlierer, in: M. Fitzenreiter (ed.), Das Ereignis. Geschichtsschreibung
zwischen Vorfall und Befund, IBAES 10, London 2009, 199–209.
87 J. C. Moreno García, in: JANEH 1/2 (2014).
88 G. Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, London 1993 and for an excellent overview, D. Sweeney, Sex and
Gender, in: E. Frood/W. Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles 2011.
89 R. Parkinson, ‘Homosexual’ Desire and Middle Kingdom Literature, in: JEA 81 (1995), 57–76.
90 M. Fitzenreiter (ed.), Das Ereignis. Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Vorfall und Befund, IBAES 10, Lon-
don 2009.
91 J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkultu-
ren, Munich 1992, 167.
92 J. Málek, La division de l’histoire d’Égypte et l’égyptologie moderne, in: BSFE 138 (1997), 6–17.
93 J. Assmann, Ägypten: Eine Sinngeschichte, Munich/Vienna 1996, 33.
94 T. Schneider, Periodizing Egyptian History: Manetho, Convention, and Beyond, in: K.-P. Adam (ed.),
Historiographie in der Antike, BZAW 373, Berlin 2008, 186.
52 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

His proposed solution is as follows:

“[T]he dynastic grid taken over from Manetho can serve only as an (all but indispen-
sable) framework for chronological orientation, not as an indicator of historical un-
derstanding […] It is only by reassessing the significance of a multiplicity of criteria
– such as the evolution of society, the distribution of power, the interplay of beliefs,
the fate of literary genres, the production of art, the use of oracles, or the development
of prices (to name haphazardly some of them) – that the historian can hope to arrive
at a more reliable conceptualization of the territory of the Egyptian past.”95
Donald Redford, writing much earlier, but almost anticipating this epistemological crisis,
suggests a nomenclature more in line with “pharaonic” ideas, proposing to replace “King-
doms” and “Intermediate Periods” with geographical nominations like “Memphite” and
“Herakleopolitan” periods, or with political nominations like “Hyksos domination”.96 The
problem with this more emic strategy, of course, is that it is incomplete and narrow in scope,
not to mention haphazard in its focus, as the criteria for these categories remains undefined.
Whether Egyptology will ever free itself of its classical shackles is thus a moot point, but it
is hoped that the manner of describing epochs will over time at least become more considered.

7.3 Other narratives

Egyptological academic output, whether it is explicitly tied to chronology or not, in any case
is not reflexive enough about its compulsion to approach primary sources from a narrativising
perspective. Often fascinating and in their narrow focus achieving a heretofore impossible
depth of insight, we should at least countenance the possibility that we may be seeking chron-
ological and causal connections where they may otherwise be lacking, simply because nar-
rative is our default toolkit by which we analyse source material. Does all material from the
past need a narrative?
As things stand today, any kind of object, animate being or phenomenon is by default (for
the most part) framed by a narrative structure. Objects and monuments are typologised or
subjected to object histories,97 despite the continuing irritation of archaising tendencies,98

95 T. Schneider, Periodizing, 194.

96 D. Redford, Egyptology and History, in: K. Weeks (ed.), Egyptology and the Social Sciences. Five
Studies, Cairo 1979, 16–17.
97 For ceramic typology most famously D. Arnold/J. D. Bourriau, An Introduction to Ancient Egyptian
Pottery, SDAIK 17, Mainz 1993. For object histories A. Verbovsek, Die sogenannten Hyksosmonumente:
eine archäologische Standortbestimmung, GOF IV/46, Wiesbaden 2006 (so-called Hyksos monuments in
Avaris); B. Magen, Steinerne Palimpseste: zur Wiederverwendung von Statuen durch Ramses II. und
seine Nachfolger, Wiesbaden 2011 (usurped statues of Ramesses II and his successors); B. Gilli, How to
Build a Capital. The Second Life of Pre-Ramesside Materials in Pi-Ramesses, in: H. Franzmeier/T.
Rehren/R. Schulz (eds.), Mit archäologischen Schichten Geschichte schreiben. Festschrift für Edgar B.
Pusch zum 70. Geburtstag, Forschungen in der Ramses-Stadt 10, Hildesheim 2016, 139–175 (reused
statues and monuments in Piramesse). L. Meskell, Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt. Material Biographies
Past and Present, Oxford/New York 2004, 40, 57–58, discusses the theoretical implications of taxonomy
in general and object biography in particular.
98 Archaising trends appear in a variety of epochs in the course of Egyptian history, as studies of cultural
artefacts of various periods have shown: the Middle Kingdom (D. P. Silverman/W. K. Simpson/J. Wegner
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 53

tombs and pictorial representations are likewise typologised,99 and can also inspire use-life
histories,100 bodies are analysed for the sake of anthropological and pathological “biog-
raphies”,101 names catalyse historical studies,102 scripts engender theories of palaeographic
change103 and texts help us to identify language phases (fundamentally based on morphosyn-
tactic change but also semantic, lexical and orthographic change),104 as well as genre history
and text transmission.105 This being said, great measures are also being taken to give detail
and nuance to the span of historical progress and divert attention away from chronology. In
this context one might mention, amongst other new directions, a focus on social and cultural
contexts of object studies106 and the consideration of idiolects and dialects in language stud-
ies.107

[eds.], Archaism and Innovation: Studies in the Culture of Middle Kingdom Egypt, New Haven/Phil-
adelphia 2009), New Kingdom (J. Tait [ed.], Egypt’s View) and Late Period (B. von Bothmer, Egyptian
Sculpture of the Late Period: 700 B.C. to A.D. 100, Brooklyn 1960; P. der Manuelian, Living in the
Past. Studies in Archaism of the Egyptian Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, London/New York 1994).
99 For an example of tomb typology, G. A. Reisner, A History of the Giza Necropolis I, Cambridge, MA
1942; art typology, for instance, N. Cherpion, Mastabas et hypogées d’ancien Émpire. Le problème de
la datation, Connaissance de l’Egypte ancienne, Brussels 1989.
100 For use-life see, for instance, D. Polz/U. Rummel/I. Eichner/T. Beckh, Topographical Archaeology in
Dra’ Abu el-Naga. Three Thousand Years of Cultural History, in: MDAIK 68, 2012, 115–134.
101 M. Schultz, Paläobiographik, in: G. Jüttermann (ed.) Biographische Diagnostik, Lengerich 2011, 222–
236.
102 H. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen II: Einleitung, Form und Inhalt der Namen, Geschichte der
Namen, Vergleiche mit anderen Namen, Nachträge und Zusätze zu Band I, Umschreibungslisten,
Glückstadt 1952. For an update of the work of Ranke, see M. Thirion, Notes d’onomastique. Contribu-
tion à une révision du Ranke PN, 1–11e série, in: RdÉ 31–56 (1979–2006); for new approaches to
onomastics, see Y. Gourdon/Å. Engsheden (eds.), Études d’onomastique égyptienne. Méthodologie et
nouvelles approches, RAPH 38, Cairo 2016. For a recent discussion of diachronic change in personal
names see G. Vittmann, Personal Names: Structures and Patterns, in: E. Frood/W. Wendrich (eds.),
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles 2012; for a discussion of their role in cultural expres-
sion, see G. Vittmann, Personal Names: Function and Significance, in: E. Frood/W. Wendrich (eds.),
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles 2013.
103 G. Möller, Hieratische Paläographie. Die aegyptische Buchschrift in ihrer Entwicklung von der fünften
Dynastie bis zur römischen Kaiserzeit, 3 Volumes, Leipzig 1909–1936. U. Verhoeven, Untersuchun-
gen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift, OLA 99, Leuven 2001, 272, however, emphasises the use of pa-
laeography for dating only as a last point of reference, due to the degree of variability of scribal hands.
In U. Verhoeven, Stand und Aufgaben der Erforschung des Hieratischen und der Kursivhieroglyphen,
in: U. Verhoeven (ed.), Ägyptologische „Binsen“-Weisheiten I–II. Neue Forschungen und Methoden
der Hieratistik, Mainz/Stuttgart 2015, she gives an excellent overview of the state of the field, covering,
amongst other things, the monolithic nature of chronologically-based terminology, like Middle Hieratic
(p. 25), various scholars’ models for the development of hieratic script (pp. 39–48) and the limitations
of Georg Möller’s work, given the small number of sources used (p. 49).
104 A. Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian; J. P. Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language. An Historical Study,
Cambridge 2013.
105 A. Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature. History and Forms, PdÄ 10, Leiden 1996.
106 Most recently G. Miniaci/J. C. Moreno García/S. Quirke/A. Stauder (eds.), The Arts of Making in
Ancient Egypt. Voices, Images, and Objects of Material Producers 2000–1550 BC, Leiden 2018.
107 D. Sweeney, Idiolects in The Late Ramesside Letters, in: LingAeg 4 (1994), 275–324; J. Winand,
Dialects in Pre-Coptic Egyptian, with a Special Attention to Late Egyptian, in: LingAeg 23 (2015),
229–269.
54 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

7.4 Language “Phases”

Egyptologists commonly compartmentalise the Ancient Egyptian language into a variety of
phases that are nominally linked to specific chronological periods in their grammars, even if
there is a tacit acknowledgement that such distinctions are entirely misleading.108 “Middle
Egyptian” is, for this reason, often represented as “Classical Egyptian”.109 Despite this fact,
it is further categorised into morphologically, but also chronologically-driven subcategories,
such as “Neo-Mittelägyptisch”110 or “Spätmittelägyptisch”,111 as a means of categorising the
forms that Middle Egyptian takes from the New Kingdom to the Graeco-Roman Period.112
The appropriateness of such labels has been convincingly called into question by Pascal Ver-
nus, since texts from later periods using earlier phases of the language do not exclusively use
Middle Egyptian.113 To turn our focus from the diachronic to the synchronic dimension,
namely, the use of Middle Egyptian in the Middle Kingdom, does the label “Middle Egyp-
tian” even represent anything specific enough to take in all texts of this period? Genre, reg-
ister, perhaps even dialect and sociolect can wreak havoc on the carefully constrained cate-
gories of our grammars.114 The use of the term “Neuägyptizismen” for features present in
Middle Egyptian documentary texts,115 identified by such things as allegedly “younger”

108 The fuzziness of linguistic categories is seen particularly in diglossia, namely, cases in which educated
people mastered a number of registers which may have in certain periods transcended what we now
call “language phases”. K. Jansen-Winkeln, Diglossie und Zweisprachigkeit im alten Ägypten, in:
WZKM 85 (1995), 114 sees this as being a factor only of written language, which P. Vernus, Tradi-
tional Egyptian I (Dynamics), J. Stauder-Porchet/A. Stauder/ W. Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia
of Egyptology, Los Angeles 2016, 13, calls into question. A discussion of the problem with regard to
literary texts is provided in A. Loprieno, Linguistic Variety and Egyptian Literature, in: A. Loprieno
(ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature. History and Forms, PdÄ 10, Leiden 1996, 515–529; P. Vernus,
Langue litteraire et diglossie, in: A. Loprieno (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature. History and Forms,
PdÄ 10, Leiden 1996, 555–564; G. Moers/K. Widmaier/A. Giewekemeyer/A. Lümers/R. Ernst (eds.),
Dating Egyptian Literary Texts, LingAeg – StudMon 11, Hamburg 2013.
109 A. Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, xii.
110 F. Junge, Sprachstufen und Sprachgeschichte, in: Akten des 22. Deutschen Orientalistentages Tübingen
1983, ZDMG Supplement VI, Stuttgart 1985, 29.
111 F. Junge, Sprachstufen, 27–28 uses “Spätmittelägyptisch” to refer to a type of Middle Egyptian used in
the 18th Dynasty and “Neo-Mittelägyptisch” to refer to the “Zweitsprache” developed on the basis of
Middle Egyptian after the New Kingdom. K. Jansen-Winkeln, in: WZKM 85 (1995), 86 somewhat
confusingly uses “Spätmittelägyptisch” to refer to the latter.
112 F. Junge, Sprachstufen, Abb. 3, shows a change from Middle and Late Egyptian that fits roughly on a
register-based scale from theological, state and literary to mundane, though his actual argument does
not make a case for such stingent categories. In any case, K. Jansen-Winkeln, in: WZKM 85 (1995),
92, 110–112, 114 shows that these register-based distinctions can be unreliable and argues instead for
a more fluid degree of diglossia, and later (as argued also by F. Junge, Sprachstufen), “bilingualism”.
113 P. Vernus, Traditional Egyptian, 9.
114 F. Junge, Sprachstufen, 24, shows clearly that all examples “sind alle Realisierungen des zur Zeit des
MR gültigen Systems; an ihnen ist nichts ‘frühneuägyptisch’ – sie sind allenfalls etwas, was der Be-
trachter im Nachhinein als dem Neuägyptischen entsprechend erkennt.”
115 B. Kroeber, Die Neuägyptizismen vor der Amarnazeit. Studien zur Entwicklung der ägyptischen Spra-
che vom Mittleren zum Neuen Reich, PhD dissertation, Tübingen 1970; also K. Jansen-Winkeln, in:
WZKM 85 (1995), 87–88; M. Brose, Grammatik der dokumentarischen Texte des Mittleren Reiches,
LingAeg – StudMon 13, Hamburg 2014, 8.
 Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 55

demonstrative pronouns (such as pꜢ, as compared to pn), is a case in point.116 The term
“Neuägyptizismen”, with its chronological implications, underplays the more prescient
forces driving the use of these forms, namely, those of genre and register (specifically, in
many cases, the respective proximity to spoken register). In the letters of Heqanakht from the
11th Dynasty, for instance, we see on the whole a clear preference for secular Middle Egyp-
tian, but nevertheless also a series of forms missing from the Middle Egyptian of literary
texts, such as more colloquial, demonstrative pronouns pꜢ/tꜢ/nꜢ, concomitant with a number
of grammatical forms present predominantly in texts of the Old Kingdom, such as the poste-
rior/prospective sḏm(.w)⸗f, instead of the future form favoured in literary texts, the subjunc-
tive sḏm⸗f. 117
Perhaps, therefore, we need to distance ourselves from a periodisation of grammatical
forms and give preference to register-driven categories like Vernus’ “Égyptien de tradition”
or “Traditional Egyptian”.118 Orly Goldwasser’s “written as if spoken” category,119 though
tantalising, is problematic, since even texts purporting to have oral sources show significant
signs of redaction.120 Perhaps “vernacular” Egyptian, or Goldwasser’s “Low Dialect” is the
most appropriate?121 We should also take more note of the fact that, as Karl Jansen-Winkeln
points out, the degree of informality in a text is highly dependent on the degree of freedom
with which the text was composed and on the content of what is being said, even within one
and the same text.122 We must also consider the contribution of dialectal features to what we
have until recently seen as features of chronolect.123 We can see, therefore, that a too acute

116 A recent study of the use of demonstrative pronouns and other linguistic elements in diachronic per-
spective is to be found in M. Zöller-Engelhardt, Sprachwandelprozesse im Ägyptischen. Eine funktio-
nal typologische Analyse vom Alt- zum Neuägyptischen, ÄA 72, Wiesbaden 2016.
117 J. P. Allen, The Heqanakht Papyri, Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedi-
tion XXVII, New York 2002, 86–101.
118 P. Vernus, Traditional Egyptian I; Å. Engsheden, Traditional Egyptian II (Ptolemaic, Roman), in: J.
Stauder-Porchet/A. Stauder/W. Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles
2016. Vernus distinguishes between “productive” and “reproductive Égyptien de tradition”. This being
said, use of the term “Égyptien de tradition” does not imply that earlier forms are used in later periods
to fulfil the same kinds of functions as heretofore. For instance, B. Backes, Der „Papyrus Schmitt“
(Berlin P. 3057). Ein funeräres Ritualbuch der ägyptischen Spätzeit, Ägyptische und Orientalische Pa-
pyri und Handschriften des Ägyptischen Museums und Papyrussammlung Berlin 4, Berlin 2016, 87,
Fn. 87, argues that the Late Period Papyrus Schmitt, which, amongst other things, reproduces some
texts from the Pyramid Texts corpus, employs cases of sḏm.n⸗f for the subjunctive form. We could
perhaps attribute such a feature to a reanalysis of special subjunctive endings, like that of the verb mꜢꜢ
“to see” as mꜢn.
119 O. Goldwasser, On the Choice of Registers: Studies on the Grammar of Papyrus Anastasi I, in: S. I.
Groll (ed.), Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim I, Jerusalem 1990, 207.
120 K. Jansen-Winkeln, in: WZKM 85 (1995), 108; J. Winand, in: LingAeg 23 (2015), 256.
121 O. Goldwasser, “Low” and “High” Dialects in Ramesside Egyptian, in: S. Grunert/I. Hafemann (eds.),
Textcorpus und Wörterbuch. Aspekte zur aegyptischen Lexicographie, PdÄ 14, Leiden 1999.
122 K. Jansen-Winkeln, in: WZKM 85 (1995), 94–95, also 99–100, where the role of emotion on register
is illustrated with examples. O. Goldwasser, “Low” and “High” Dialects, 326, adds that the use of what
she calls “Low Dialect” can also be used for ideological purposes.
123 J. Winand, in: LingAeg 23 (2015), 233–240 provides an enlightening outline of the state of the art. For
a case study potentially dialect-inflected Egyptian used during the Middle Kingdom, see J. P. Allen,
The Heqanakht Papyri, Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition 27, New
York 2002, 101, who argues that certain features of Heqanakht’s prose reflect a Memphitic dialect.
56 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

focus on temporal factors, placing the text within some “narrative” of language history, can
blind us to the more subtle intricacies of a text.

8 Concluding
Narrative is, in short, a central component of both the culture of Ancient Egypt and the epis-
temology and methodology of Egyptology. This cannot be disputed, nor can it be challenged
on the basis of alternative approaches. This contribution seeks merely to reinforce, firstly,
that the use of narrative (or its avoidance) is tied to cultural or epistemological frameworks
and is therefore not to be taken at face value, and secondly, that other, parallel means of
observing cultural phenomena should also be considered. It also provides a quick and very
partial overview of the sheer weight of case studies that Ancient Egyptian sources and Egyp-
tological research have to contribute to the study of narrative, particularly because the culture
and its output demonstrate a constant subsistence between dynamism and stasis, between
evolution and tradition. Given this fact, it is perhaps even more necessary that the narratives
we compose about the culture be treated as reflexively as possible.

Figures
Fig. 1: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Photo-Flash-LES-MISERABLES-Told-Through-
Emoticons-20130104 (15.11.2018).

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Narratives by Ancient Egyptians and of Ancient Egypt 63

Fig. 1: Emoji version of Les Misérables.