Literature

=__**LITERATURE:**__ =




 * __Range of literary forms:__** hymns to the gods, mythological and magical texts, and an extensive collection of mortuary texts. The range of secular literature includes stories; instructive literature, known as wisdom texts; poems; biographical and historical texts; and scientific treatises, including mathematical and medical texts. Notable also are the many legal, administrative, and economic texts and private documents such as letters, although not actually literature.

The oldest literature preserved, the Pyramid Texts, are mortuary texts carved inside the pyramids of kings and queens of the later part of the Old Kingdom; they were designed to ensure the dead ruler's rightful place in the afterlife. These texts incorporate mythology, hymns to the gods, and daily offering rituals. Many autobiographical inscriptions from private tombs recount the deceased's participation in historical events.
 * __Old Kingdom:__**

Following the breakdown of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts were appropriated by private individuals; supplemented with new incantations, these texts were painted on coffins, from which the name Coffin Texts is derived. Private individuals also continued to have their tombs inscribed with autobiographical texts, which often recounted their exploits during this time of political unrest. To this First Intermediate period (c. 2255-2035 BC) are attributed various laments over the chaotic state of affairs.
 * __Intermediate period:__**

In addition to Coffin Texts, Middle Kingdom religious literature comprises numerous hymns to the king and various deities including a long hymn to the Nile and ritual texts. Private autobiographies containing historical information continued to be inscribed, and rulers began setting up stelae (stone slabs) on which their important deeds were recorded. From both the First Intermediate period and the Middle Kingdom come instructional texts, each written in the name of a reigning king, telling his son and successor how various specific historic events influenced the kingship and how the son should profit by the father's mistakes. Among the stories composed during the Middle Kingdom are The Story of Sinuhe, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, and The Story of King Khufu and the Magicians. The earliest preserved medical and mathematical papyri also date from this period. New Kingdom mortuary texts, especially one called the Book of the Dead, were written on papyrus for inclusion in tombs. Among the most famous hymns from the period are those from the reign of Akhenaton dedicated to the sun god as sole deity. King Kamose (reigned about 1576-1570 BC), at the end of the Second Intermediate period (1720-1570 BC), recorded the early stages of driving the Hyksos out of Egypt (1600 BC). After the early New Kingdom, the number of such royal historical inscriptions increased greatly, while private autobiographical texts gave way to religious texts. Thutmose III recorded his various wars in Syria both on a freestanding stela (called the Poetical Stela) and on the walls of the temple at El-Karnak. Late New Kingdom rulers, especially Ramses II and Ramses III, also left extensive records of their military exploits. The instructive texts, now directed at lower ranks in the bureaucracy, were no longer based on the assumption that right thinking and just action automatically lead to wordly success, but instead counsel contemplation and endurance.
 * __Middle Kingdom:__**
 * __New kingdom:__**

Late Period:__** From the subsequent centuries, into the Greco-Roman era, examples from the full range of Egyptian literary forms are known; these include new religious compositions, private and royal historical records, instructions, stories, and scientific treatises such as medical, mathematical, and astronomical papyri.Stories were written in this period about the adventures of various magicians, as was a cycle recounting the exploits of a legendary king, Petubastis. One largely mythological tale consists of a series of animal fables. Contacts with contemporary Greek literature are evident both in the epic cycle and the fables, in Egyptian texts (including prophetic literature) translated into Greek, and in a range of magical texts known in both Greek and Egyptian.
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__**Storytelling:**__
====Along with myths, Mesopotamian literary works include epics, folktales, prayers, hymns, proverbs, personal letters, and fables. ====


The finest literary work from ancient Mesopotamia is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Originally recited aloud, this towering work was probably recorded on clay tablets around 2000 B.C., more than one thousand years before the Iliad and the Odyssey were recorded in writing. Gilgamesh is a long narrative poem that describes the deeds of a hero in his quest for identity and the meaning of life. Part man and part god, Gilgamesh deals with such universal themes as the meaning of friendship; fear of sickness, death, and the forces of evil; and the search for immortality




The cylinder seal, in the image above, is shown with a sample of what the image carved on the seal looks like when rolled out onto clay. Here, the sun god journeys by water in a fantastic vessel. Another deity, who forms the prow of the boat poles it along as the sun god steers. Also traveling with the sun god is a human-headed lion, which has been tied to the prow. Floating in the air above the lion are a plow, a spouted vase with a handle, and two objects, one of which is perhaps a bag of seed. Behind the boat stands a figure representing the goddess of vegetation. She is characterized by ears of grain, which grow from her robe while she holds a flowering branch. The exact meaning of this scene is not known. It suggests a journey indicating the relationship of the life-giving rays of the sun to the growth of vegetation and healthy crops. This seal is typical of the thousands of cylinder seals discovered at ancient Mesopotamian sites. Pictures on seals sometimes illustrate the mythic traditions that were part of this great civilization's literary heritage.

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