Receptions of a Middle Egyptian Poem: A Textual and Material Study of The Teaching of Amenemhat in the New Kingdom

Geoga, Margaret

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Year:: 2020
Contributor:: Geoga, Margaret (creator); Allen, James P. (Advisor); Parkinson, Richard B. (Reader); Depuydt, Leo (Reader); Haynes, Kenneth (Reader); Brown University. Department of Egyptology and Assyriology (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: History of Literature; Jauss, Hans Robert; Manuscripts; Reader-response criticism; Amenemhet I, King of Egypt, -1962 B.C.; Egyptian literature; Wisdom literature; Egyptian language--Writing, Hieroglyphic; Egyptian language--Grammar; Papyri, Hieratic; Egyptian language--Writing, Hieratic; Paleography; Transmission of texts; Criticism, Textual; New Kingdom (Egypt); Material Philology; New Philology; Sesostris I, King of Egypt; Reception Studies
Extent:: xi, 302 p.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26300/0s88-sv86

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Abstract:: This dissertation examines how the ancient Egyptian poem The Teaching of Amenemhat was transmitted and received by its many readers throughout the New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1069 BCE). The poem is narrated by the murdered pharaoh Amenemhat I, who describes his assassination and advises his son about how to be king. Amenemhat is unique in both its dark subject matter and its surviving copies: nearly 250 manuscripts, more than almost any other Egyptian literary text, survive today on ostraca, writing boards, papyri, and tomb walls. This dissertation focuses on Amenemhat’s ancient Egyptian readers, asking who they were, in what contexts they read the poem, and how they may have interpreted it. The dissertation uses a combination of reception theory, material philology, and textual criticism to examine a selection of manuscripts, analyzing each witness’s textual and material features for what they suggest about the identity of the copyist and how they interacted with the poem. It also considers how external factors—such as political, social, and cultural history and the copyist’s familiarity with other literary works—could have impacted their encounter with Amenemhat. The dissertation opens with a discussion of its theoretical foundations and methodology, before moving on to its two main chapters, the first of which presents a selection of manuscripts from the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1550-1092 BCE) and the second a selection from the Ramesside period (ca. 1292-1069 BCE). The selected Eighteenth-Dynasty manuscripts include three graffiti, two writing boards, five ostraca, and one papyrus. Analysis of these manuscripts suggests that the poem played an important role in the formation and presentation of scribal identities, largely through its usage in scribal education. The Ramesside chapter examines four ostraca and one papyrus in detail, as well as approximately 150 ostraca in overview. Textual and material analysis of the Ramesside manuscripts suggests that interpretations of certain parts of the poem changed over the course of the New Kingdom. The dissertation argues that shifts in the reception of Amenemhat were influenced by the period’s increasing diglossia and expanding literary repertoires, as well as the poem’s growing importance in scribal self-fashioning.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2020

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Geoga, Margaret, "Receptions of a Middle Egyptian Poem: A Textual and Material Study of The Teaching of Amenemhat in the New Kingdom" (2020). Egyptology and Assyriology Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.26300/0s88-sv86

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Egyptology and Assyriology Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Egyptology and Assyriology department.
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