Teaching of Ptahhotep

2003 University College London, 23 стр.
The Teaching is set at court, with the highest official ('vizier' in Egyptological translation), a man named Ptahhotep, requesting retirement from the king. The official paints a bleak picture of old age,evidently to convince the king that retirement is necessary, and asks that he be replaced in office by his son as 'staff of old age', a term also found in a late Middle Kingdom legal document to denote a son taking the office of his father, presumably on condition that he continues to support the father (UC 32037). This term, the Middle Egyptian syntax and the late Middle Kingdom date of the two earliest surviving manuscript copies, point to a Twelfth Dynasty date of composition.
The king consents to the request of Ptahhotep, with the observation that the young cannot be born with wisdom - by implication they need the experience given by advanced age. The Teaching presents then both a positive and the dramatised negative aspects of growing old in ancient Egyptian society. Background information for Middle Kingdom compositions Transliteration after Devaud 1916, using the copy on Papyrus Prisse as principal source. The section divisions here are those suggested by the red highlighting in Papyrus Prisse: after each section number are given the corresponding line-numbers in Papyrus Prisse.