Egyptian religious poetry

§2 EGYPTIAN RELIGIOUS POETRY

There is no doubt that poetry of every kind existed in the early periods, but it was not until the vith dynasty that a true poem is recorded. This is the Triumph-song of the army, which the successful general, Uni, caused to be inscribed on his tombstone. The poem was composed in honour of a victorious campaign against the Sand-dwellers, ic. the Bedawin of Northern Sinai, and is the first of that splendid series of Triumphsongs which is so marked a feature of Egyptian poetry. In the vth dynasty there occurs one of the few records of a folksong, of the kind which was probably common enough among the peasants, but of which less than half a dozen have survived. Religious poetry is first recorded in the vith dynasty, when the first five kings of that dynasty—Wenis, Tety, Pepy, Meren-Ré, Nefer-ka-R é—inscribed the walls of the burial-chambers in their pyramids with the prayers, hymns and spells used in the ritual of divine worship and of the ceremonies belonging to the death and burial of the divine king. These inscriptions are now known as the Pyramid Texts, and are the first religious texts of any length in the world. In spite of their extreme antiquity they appear suddenly without any sign of development, yet they also appear to have been copied from some much more ancient source, some primitive ritual of which these Texts are only excerpts. The deities mentioned throughout are only those with whom the Pharaoh was connected; the Sun-god called either Atum or Ré, and Osiris identified with the King, are the principal gods, while Nephthys and Nut are the chief goddesses.

These texts must have been handed down orally for many of them reappear on the coffins of the xiith dynasty, though so far no written examples have been found between the two periods. The destruction wrought by the Hyksos was far reaching and thorough, but in spite of the ruin of the monu-