R. B. Parkinson

Although I live about two blocks from the largest museum of Egyptian antiquities on the West Coast, I know little to nothing about ancient Egypt. I picked up this anthology of Middle Kingdom literature to remedy that defect. Parkinson, a scholar in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, translates and provides commentary on these 13 short works of literature, with genres ranging from moral tales, dialogues exploring various moral and spiritual crises, and teachings of show more wisdom that remind me of biblical proverbs. Unlike many edited anthologies, his commentary was just as vivid and interesting as the texts themselves.

Parkinson explains that the literature in this book comes from a time of cultural unease:

The Middle Kingdom was preceded by a period of less centralized power, when the country was divided, and its literature remained very aware of the dangers of civil unrest and the chaos of the interregnum. (5)

That being true, the literature in this book also attempts to uphold the cultural beliefs and structures of an early Egypt, such as the divinity of the king and the moral order of the cosmos.

Its literature is, in modern terms … didactic. The poems are generally unromantic in all senses of the word, but they are not impersonal or abstract; they have an intimate mode of address and deal with personal themes, being concerned with the human heart. Man’s ethical life is their central concern, and not the cultivation of subjectivity, or personal emotions such as romantic life. (9)

But there is always an edge. For example, “The Teaching of King Amenemhat” is a Hamlet-like text, in which an assassinated king visits his son in a vision and advises him not to trust his advisors as he did. While this text firmly holds to the divinity of the Egyptian king, it also alludes to the anomie of regicide. Another text, “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant,” is narrated by a peasant who was robbed and left destitute by an official until the king himself rights the situation. Yes, justice is served in the end; but in the meantime, life is unfair, and the powerful abuse their privileges. These texts are emblematic of many others in this anthology that walk a fine line between skepticism and chaos on the one hand, and upholding the divinely sanctioned social order on the other.

I would recommend this anthology to someone unexposed to Egyptian literature. Parkinson includes a chronology and detailed bibliography for anyone wishing to go further. (Too bad most of the works in the bibliography are in German and French!) For me the fun was in seeing parallels with biblical literature, even particular idioms that sound familiar from the Hebrew Bible. Parkinson continually laments that we know so little about each text and so many of them are only partially extant, but the fact we have anything this old at all amazes me. show less

Is there such a thing as the first lesbian? Or the first queer pick up line? Is that an ancient painting of two friends or two lovers? Parkinson takes us back to our very early history and all the way up to current events by showing us gay history; the kind we know and the kind we didn't know. It's everything from how the ”Greek gay society” really worked to the evidence of Leonardo da Vinci's possible homosexuality.

It was such an interesting read, it was over before I knew it. Some of show more it was facts I already knew or had heard of but it was such a nice thing to read about history that has to do with me for once. I'm so tired of cishet history; I want queer history more than anything. And whilst this book only briefs through most of the facts it brings up, it was such a joy to have a history book about queers. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't buy it instead of borrowing it, but this might be one of those books I'll spend a lot of money on even though I've already read it. It feels like an important thing to keep in my bookshelf. show less

Compared to other surviving fiction at the time of this story's "publication" and earlier, The Eloquent Peasant caters to a sensational ethos reminiscent of modern stories. It's not just a statement of laws and law philosophy, or a two-dimensional tale of morals between mythical figures, but it's the first of the universal theme of the wronged person standing up for their rights. While I didn't find it entertaining or easy to read in terms of flow, I do appreciate that it is the first to show more tackle such a familiar plot from almost 4000 years in the future (the book's origin might be around 1859-1840 BCE). Unfortunately, much of the story is lost. There were nine speeches but most are missing. However, the loss reads like a montage and jumps through time like a movie transition, so it works as a modern short story. show less

Because the museum I work in has a number of papyrus manuscripts, I felt the need to learn more about papyrus and the plant-to-writing-medium transformation. In answering my questions about what Cyperus papyrus is, and how it becomes a writing medium, this book earns five stars. In six hours (the time it took to read this slim book), you'll know everything you need to know about what papyrus is (a fresh-water marsh reed), how papyrus turns from reed to a glueless writing medium, plus many show more interesting facts about scribes, ink, linen, origin of the word, etc. Do you know how to 'erase' papyri documents? Or that probably only 0.3 to 5% of ancient Egyptians could read?

Read this book and you'll be able to decode when the colours black and red are used on Egyptian papyri (red was used for "highlighting phrases and marking distinctions" but was otherwise regarded as a very inauspicious colour--villains' names are written in red). And you'll meet Thoth, the ibis-headed god of knowledge, associated with the moon as lunar movements was the key to calculating time in ancient Egypt.

Is it a book for the layman? No. Is it a book for all lovers of Egyptian and ancient history? Absolutely. As well as anyone curious about the world's earliest writing medium (paper, invented by the Chinese, only replaced papyrus after the 8th century). I would recommend it for any adult interested in mummies, Egyptology, manuscripts, pens, ostraca, ancient gods, etc.... show less