Contacts

Ancient Egypt Magazine

Issue Seven - June  / July 2001

Editor's Column

Welcome to the second volume of Ancient Egypt magazine! A reporter from a local paper once wrote: 'An ancient world is AE's newsbeat'. It sums up an important aspect not only of Ancient Egypt magazine (your magazine), but also of modern Egyptological investigations in general.

After a while, the distinction between the past and present blurs, and ancient people begin to speak directly to the modern world. No investigation can ever achieve absolute objectivity, and the voice given to the ancient Egyptians depends greatly, perhaps completely, on the perspective of the researcher. However, what enchants many people is the frequent similarity in thought between then and now.

This we are able to assess from the vast quantity of recorded material from Egypt over the millennia, which contains reflections of every aspect of modem life. The following piece, from the instruction of Any, written during the 18th Dynasty, would not be out of place on the etiquette page of The Times 'Do not enter the house of anyone, until he admits you and greets you; do not snoop around in his house, let your eye observe in silence.' (Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume II, 136). And, if you discover he has a taste for the ancient rid equivalent of pictures of green ladies or fake fur cushions, presumably contain your distaste until you are well If the premises. Alternatively, you could se his taste in kitsch retro artefacts.

'Do not control your wife in her house, when you know she is efficient; don't say to her: "Where is it? Get it!" when she has put it in the right place' (Lichtheim, 143).

On reading this, it seems that in or three thousand years of 'progress' have simply made more opportunities

for degree level sulking over who was last responsible for the car keys.

Some of these instructions have echoes in other times and places: 'Do not covet a poor man's goods, nor hunger for his bread; a poor man's goods are a block in the throat, it makes the gullet vomit.' (Lichtheim, 154.)

Experts in the language of ancient Egypt will argue over meanings and interpretations, and that is as it should be. The material has not changed, but the observers and commentators have. Learning has never been an easy process, as the edifying text popularly known as Be a Scribe shows: 'But though 1 beat you with every kind of stick, you do not listen. If 1 knew another way of doing it, 1 would do it for you, that you might listen. You are a person fit for writing, though you have not yet known a woman. Your heart discerns, your fingers are skilled, your mouth is apt for reciting' (Lichtheim, 169).

Curiously, however, in amongst the high minded thought of the Middle Kingdom text, The Instruction of Ptahhotep, some of the most useful and practical advice of all seems to have insinuated itself This exhortation has passed through the centuries, by strange and unknown means, to metamorphose into the Geordie song Cushie Butterfield, about a woman who liked the good things in life. Ptahhotep's original (in Geordie style) reads thus: 'If you take to wife a bonny lass, who is canny and known in the toon; if she is bit of a one and likes a bit, divvent reject her, let her eat, that way ye'll have a happy life' (trs. M. Bibby).

Good advice all round, I would say. And if you don't believe me, you can find an alternative version in Lichtheim, 73.

 Miriam  A Bibby

Back to Ancient Egypt Magazine - Issue Seven contents

Return to Home 

e- mail to: [email protected]

with questions or comments about Ancient Egypt Magazine.

or for sales, subscriptions, back numbers and advertising