History of the shipwrecked man

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The shipwrecked one (also called Shipwrecked Sailor , shipwrecked or Naufragé , rarer Papyrus Leningrad 1115 ) is an ancient Egyptian literary work that is usually assigned to the category of fairy tales . It is on a papyrus, the Papyrus Saint Petersburg in 1115.

Tradition and dating

The story is only recorded on a papyrus from the Middle Kingdom , the Papyrus Saint Petersburg 1115, which is a palimpsest . It was in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and was found there by Vladimir Golenischeff (1856 to 1947) at the end of the 19th century. The original location is unknown and it is not known how it got into the Ermitage collection.

It was written in hieratic , the cursive script of hieroglyphs , and is mostly translated into hieroglyphic by transcriptions . The language is Middle Egyptian , in a sense the classic language level of the ancient Egyptians; however, there are some places where it is not clear whether they are relic forms of the Old Kingdom that continued to be used during the beginning of the Middle Kingdom .

Most Egyptologists date the origin of the story to the Middle Kingdom, probably the 12th Dynasty .

The question of the completeness of the text is not fully clarified. Due to the lack of a heading and introduction, Simpson suspects that the papyrus was cut off before the first columns and that the original text had a more conventional beginning. But there is much to be said for "the completeness of the text itself, especially its coherence in terms of content and composition".

content

Depiction of a ship of an expedition to the land of Punt from the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (New Kingdom)

The story begins quite abruptly, without the familiar introduction, which is why it has already been assumed that the beginning with the first columns is missing. The actors remain nameless and are identified by their titles. A leader of a ship expedition ( ḥ3.tj-ˁ ) apparently returns unsuccessfully from a mission and fears the report to the king. A follower (šmsw) tries to comfort the prince by emphasizing the safe return to home and the completeness and integrity of the team. He then relates his own experience in which this was not guaranteed in order to make the expedition appear more emphatically as a success.

This is where the story begins in the story , a stylistic device also common in contemporary European fairy tales. The henchman tells of an expedition that was shipwrecked and which he was the only one to survive: he was on a large ship with 120 brave and capable men on the way to the royal mines. However, the ship was hit by a storm and shattered. The narrator was carried by a wave to the coast of an island while all of his comrades died. For three days and nights he lay alone and desperate on the island. Then he tried to find something to eat and found that everything needed was in abundance on the island. There was nothing that wasn't there. He made a burnt offering as thanks for the gods. Suddenly the rescued found himself facing the master of the island:

“Then I heard a thundering noise,
and I thought: this is the wave of the sea;
Trees splintered, the earth shook.
Then I revealed my face
and saw that it was a snake that was coming.
She was 30 cubits long and
her beard was more than two cubits.
Her limbs were covered with gold,
her eyebrows were made of real lapis lazuli,
and she was erect. "

- Shipwrecked 61–70

The snake asked the shipwrecked man how he got here: who brought you, who brought you, kid? and threatened him: If you hesitate to tell me who brought you to this island, I will see to it that you recognize yourself as ashes, become someone one has never seen. But when the scared man couldn't answer immediately, the snake didn't do anything to him, but instead dragged him into its home. Here he was able to answer and report on his situation. The snake finally reassured him: he should not be afraid that he had landed on the island of the Ka and prophesied that when he had spent four months on the island a ship would come and take him home.

The snake, in turn, reported its own fate: the story in the story in the story . She lived on the island with her brothers and children, a total of 75 snakes, plus his little daughter, who was his favorite of all. But one day a star fell on the island and everyone died in flames. She happened not to be there, but when she returned she realized that her entire family was dead and she was left in solitude on the island.

At the end of the story, the giant snake promised again that the shipwrecked man should return home. The shipwrecked man bowed to her and assured him that he would tell the king of her greatness and power and would send riches as a token of admiration. The snake laughed at him and said that it already had all these things, it was the prince of Punt . If the shipwrecked man came home, he couldn't come back because the island would sink into the sea. It turned out just as the snake had said: when the castaway was rescued, the island sank into the sea. He returned with many treasures that the serpent had given him and offered them to Pharaoh.

At the end of the narrative, the shipwrecked henchman (šmsw) tries to speak to the expedition leader (ḥ3.tj-ˁ) again:

“Now see me after I reached the country,
after seeing what I had experienced!
Do you listen to my [word]!
Because you see, hearing is good for people! "

- Shipwrecked 228-231

But his words are of no use. The expedition leader speaks once in the whole story, namely the final words:

“Don't take yourself too seriously, friend!
Who gives water to a bird
when the day comes, the morning of which it is slaughtered? "

- Shipwrecked 233-235

Interpretations

The story of the shipwrecked man has given rise to many different, sometimes contradicting, interpretations among Egyptologists , and their position within Egyptology could not be answered in a generally valid way, not least because of the poor source situation with only one surviving text witness.

Hartwig Altenmüller sees the story of the shipwrecked as a political writing of the 12th dynasty. Georges Posener already worked out a number of political works by this young dynasty in need of legitimation. According to this interpretation, the fate of the serpent is comparable to that of the lonely, decisive king. She remains alone with her fate, even though she has sufficient power and material goods. The serpent, on the other hand, can help the shipwrecked, just as the king cares for his loyal subjects. In return for the help provided, not material gifts but the proclamation of the “good name” are requested. In this respect, the story contains a call to loyalism and in this respect it must be considered a political script that promotes the king and kingship. Accordingly, the story would have to date to the early 12th dynasty, around the time of Sesostris I.

Wolfgang Helck has a completely different view . Although he also emphasizes the political character, he considers the story to be a text of the opposition: The primordial god himself (the snake) shows mercy and goodness towards the intruder into his secret realm; the king of the past forgave his followers for the loss of his ship - but one seeks in vain the king of the present for mercy and humanity. Thus, according to Helck, the text turns against the ruling dynasty. He also sees the fact that the story has only been handed down on a text witness and there is no other trace of it as an argument that, as an expression of a defeated party, it had no right to be passed on .

Dieter Kurth, on the other hand, sees the shipwrecked mainly as a work of entertainment: I understand the story of the shipwrecked as a literary work serving entertainment, which, with its artful structure and a skeptical punchline, reached educated readers and listeners of a time that was open to it, but which at the same time also reached alone was able to captivate a simpler audience with the colorfully portrayed experiences of the shipwrecked man.

Gustave Lefebvre recalls the voyages of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, which were dangerous and provided a narrative that invited fairy tale decorations. In doing so, he brings the story closer to the Odyssey and the story of Sindbad the Navigator.

Emma Brunner-Traut, on the other hand, does not consider the fairy tale to be an adventurous seafaring fairy tale as known from later cultures, but rather a story with an eschatological background. Accordingly, it testifies to a spiritualized conception of God, as it was around 2000 BC. Is own.

Possible connections to Near Eastern narratives

In the story of the shipwrecked man there are some elements without parallel in Egyptian literature: the nested text structure, the literal repetition of a narrative passage and two to three-fold repetition of sentences, the motif of the island and its vegetative abundance and the figure of the snake and hers Fate story.

Andrea Maria Gnirs sees an old Levantic myth tradition as the possible origin of these motifs , which began in the Ugarit of the 14th century BC. Led to the writing of the Baal cycle (see also Ugaritic religion ), the most important literary work of the late Bronze Age Syrian-Palestinian area. The Baal cycle is about Baal's victory over the sea god Jam , who was actually preferred by El as divine ruler.

Just the description of the paradise island can be seen as the quintessence of foreign exoticism and exclusivity, which contains luxury goods from all of Egypt's important import areas. The metaphorical description of how the ship “dies” when it goes down seems to be of Levantic origin and taken from sailor jargon. The mythical description of the island, above and below the water and which is therefore part of the ocean, suggests that it is the residence of the snake-shaped sea god. Stylistic features also indicate an origin from the Western Semitic culture. The verbatim resumption of a narrative passage and the two to threefold repetition of sentences are elementary poetic features of Ugaritic narrative literature, such as the "fear not" in the following speech of the snake:

“Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, little one, do not be afraid that you have come to me. See, it was God who made you live and brought you to this island of the Ka. "

The not final death of the snake also fits well into the picture of the Baal cycle, in which the sea god Yam reappears a little later as the classic enemy of Baal: the sea cannot be destroyed in the actual sense, but only forced to retreat. Furthermore, iconographic aspects of the snake seem to be mixed up with several gods from the Levant. The number of 75 snakes can be associated with the 70 sons of the Athiratu of the Ugaritic Baal cycle or the 77 or 88 sons in the Hittite myth of Elkunirsa Aschertu. The motif of the "youngest daughter" could allude to Yam's intimate relationship with Astarte (or Athtartu).

Even though the Baal cycle was written about 500 years later as the story of the shipwrecked man, it is made up of various narratives that were certainly passed on a lot earlier and thus there is the possibility of a direct connection between Syrian and Egyptian motifs during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (or during the Middle Bronze Age ), which also suggests the content and style of the shipwrecked man. This indicates that early forms of Western Semitic mythology came to Egypt and were received literarily even before the Hyksos rule in Egypt. In the New Kingdom in particular, stories of the weather gods from the Near East and Anatolia found their way into Egyptian literature, especially in the Astarte papyrus , the "Tale of Baal and Anat" and in the two-brother fairy tale .

imagery

The shipwrecked

The castaway, who is received and rewarded by his ruler with open arms, should move the prince to mercy towards the narrator. In the person of the shipwrecked there are many elements that the Egyptians regarded as ideal: love of home, respect for the family, fear of the gods and sacrifice to the gods.

The writing style

The story in the story in the story is a typical motif of Egyptian fairy tales, as is the cryptic ending. The other aspects that emerge - the expedition to a foreign country, the goods of the country, which were highly valued in Egypt - correspond to the Egyptian world. The frequent use of acha-n as an introduction (translatable as “And then”, “Then”) is a classic feature of Egyptian literature of the Middle Kingdom.

The island

The island has similarities to the fabulous land of Punt , which is believed to be on the coast of Eritrea . The gifts the shipwrecked man receives speak for it; and last but not least, the snake describes itself as Lord of Punt . On the other hand, the serpent's ability to speak, the abundance of the island and its sinking into the sea point to a mythical place; the snake also says that it is the island of the Ka. Since one only traveled to Punt again under Hatshepsut , the reference to Punt can perhaps also be interpreted as a reference to a mythical place.

The snake

  • The snake is identified as Re , not least because of its color . The 75 serpents are considered to be the forms of Re that are sung about in the litany of Re , and the young daughter is identified with Maat .
  • An interpretation as an astronomical metaphor is also conceivable.
  • A second interpretation, but recently superseded by the first, sees the snake as fate.

literature

Editions

  • Aylward Manley Blackman : Middle-Egyptian Stories (= Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca. (BAe) Volume 2). 1932, pp. 41-47.
  • Wladimir Golenischeff : Les papyrus hiératiques No. 1115, 1116 A and 1116 B de l'Ermitage impériale à St. Petersbourg. 1913.

Translations

  • Wolfgang Kosack : Berlin books on Egyptian literature 1–12. Part I. 1 - 6 / Part II. 7-12 (2 volumes). Parallel texts in hieroglyphics with introductions and translation. Christoph Brunner, Basel 2015, ISBN 978-3-906206-11-0 .
  • Miriam Lichtheim : Ancient Egyptian Literature. Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdom. University of California Press, 1973, pp. 211-215.
  • Richard B. Parkinson: The Tale of Sinuhe and other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 BC (= Oxford World's Classics ). Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1997, ISBN 0-19-814963-8 , pp. 89-101.

General literature

  • Günter Burkard , Heinz J. Thissen: Introduction to the ancient Egyptian literary history I. Old and Middle Kingdom. Lit, Münster / Hamburg / London 2003, pp. 141–148.
  • Wladimir Golenischeff: Le Conte du Naufragé. Transcrit e publié. Cairo 1912 ( openlibrary.org ).
  • Richard B. Parkinson: Poetry and Culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt. A dark side to perfection. 2002, pp. 182-192.
  • WW Simpson: Shipwrecked. In: Wolfgang Helck (Ed.): Lexicon of Egyptology. (LÄ) Volume V, Wiesbaden 1984, pp. 619-622.

Individual questions

  • Hartwig Altenmüller : The “story of the shipwrecked” - a call to loyalism? In: Hartwig Altenmüller, Renate Germer (Ed.): Miscellanea Aegyptologica. Wolfgang Helck on his 75th birthday. Archaeological Institute of the University of Hamburg, Hamburg 1989, pp. 7–21.
  • John Baines: Interpreting the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. (JEA) Vol. 76, 1990, pp. 55-72.
  • Aylward Manley Blackman: Notes on Certain Passages in Various Middle Egyptian Texts. In: JEA Volume 16, 1930, pp. 63-72.
  • Aylward Manley Blackman: Some Notes on the Story of Sinuhe and Other Egyptian Texts. In: JEA Vol. 22, 1936, pp. 35-44.
  • Günter Burkard: Considerations on the form of Egyptian literature. The story of the shipwrecked as a literary work of art (= Egypt and Old Testament. [ÄAT] 2). 1993.
  • Adolf Erman : The story of the shipwrecked . In: Adolf Erman, Georg Steindorff (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde , Volume 43. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1906. pp. 1–26 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )
  • John L. Foster: The “Shipwrecked Sailor”: Prose or Verse? (Postponing Clauses and Tense-neutral Clauses). In: Studies on Ancient Egyptian Culture. (SAK) Volume 15, 1988, pp. 69-109.
  • Mordechai Gilula: Shipwrecked Sailor, Lines 184-85. In: Studies in Honor of George r. Hughes (FS Hughes) (= Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization. [SAOC] Volume 39). 1976, pp. 75-82.
  • Wolfgang Helck : The “story of the shipwrecked” - a voice of the opposition? In: Jürgen Osing, Erland Kolding Nielsen (Ed.): The Heritage of Ancient Egypt (FS Iversen) (= CNI Publications. Volume 13). 1992, pp. 73-76.
  • Dieter Kurth: To the interpretation of the story of the shipwrecked. In: SAK Volume 14, 1987, pp. 167-179.
  • Antonio Loprieno : The Sign of Literature in the Shipwrecked Sailor. In: Ursula Verhoeven, Erhard Graefe (Hrsg.): Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (FS Derchain). (= Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. [OLA] Volume 39). 1991, pp. 209-217.
  • Gerald Moers : Fictitious worlds in Egyptian literature of the 2nd millennium BC Crossing borders, travel motifs and fictionality (= problems of Egyptology. Volume 19). 2001.
  • Maria Michaela Luiselli: Fictional Dialogues? On the interaction between God and man in ancient Egyptian literature. In: Göttinger Miscellen . [GM] Volume 206, 2005, pp. 39-47.
  • Eberhard Otto : The stories of the Sinuhe and the shipwrecked as "educational pieces". In: Journal for Egyptian Language and Antiquity. (ZÄS) Volume 93, 1966, pp. 100-111.
  • Kurt Sethe : Comments on the "History of the Shipwrecked" (following Erman's editing of this text in ÄZ. 43). In: Adolf Erman, Georg Steindorff (Hrsg.): Journal for Egyptian language and antiquity. Volume 44. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1907/08. Pp. 80–87 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

Web links

Footnotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c G. Burkard, HJ Thissen: Introduction to the ancient Egyptian literary history. Volume I, p. 148.
  2. ↑ The trend- setting and most widely used is AM Blackman: Middle Egyptian Stories. Brussels 1932. The shipwrecked p. 41–48.
  3. ^ WW Simpson: Shipwrecked. In: LÄ V. Sp. 619.
  4. ↑ This passage also makes it clear that the sea is also God, the concrete form of the Yam.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Le Conte du Naufragé (P. Hermitage 1115). 2010 from sothis-egypte.com, accessed March 7, 2017.
  2. ↑ Günter Burkard, Heinz J. Thissen: Introduction to the ancient Egyptian literary history I. Old and Middle Kingdom. 2003, p. 144.
  3. ^ A b Günter Burkard, Heinz J. Thissen: Introduction to the ancient Egyptian literary history I. Old and Middle Kingdom. 2003, p. 145.
  4. ↑ Dieter Kurth: To the interpretation of the story of the shipwrecked. In: SAK 14. 1987, p. 167.
  5. ↑ Hartwig Altenmüller: The "History of the Shipwrecked" - a call to loyalism? In: Hartwig Altenmüller, Renate Germer (Eds.): Miscellanea Aegyptologica (FS Helck). 1989, pp. 7-8.
  6. ↑ Georges Posener: Littérature et politique dans l'Egypte de la XIIe dynastie (= Bibliothèque de l'École des hautes études. Sciences historiques et philologiques. Volume 307). Paris 1956.
  7. ↑ Hartwig Altenmüller: The "History of the Shipwrecked" - a call to loyalism? In: Hartwig Altenmüller, Renate Germer (Eds.): Miscellanea Aegyptologica (FS Helck). 1989, pp. 20-21.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Helck: The “History of the Shipwrecked” - a voice of the opposition? In: Jürgen Osing, Erland Kolding Nielsen (Ed.): The Heritage of Ancient Egypt (FS Iversen) (= CNI Publications. Volume 13). 1992, pp. 75-76.
  9. ↑ Dieter Kurth: To the interpretation of the story of the shipwrecked. In: SAK 14, 1987 , p. 179.
  10. ↑ Dieter Kurth: To the interpretation of the story of the shipwrecked. P. 168 quoted: Gustave Lefebvre: Romans et contes. 1949, p. 31.
  11. ↑ D. Kurth: Interpretation of the story of the shipwrecked. P. 169 cited: Emma Brunner-Traut: Ancient Egyptian fairy tales. 1963, p. 253.
  12. ↑ Andrea Maria Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. In: Rainer Stadelmann , Heike Guksch, Daniel Polz (eds.): Stations. Contributions to the cultural history of Egypt. von Zabern, Mainz 1998, p. 199.
  13. ↑ Manfried Dietrich , Oswald Loretz : Myths and epics in Ugaritic language. In: Texts from the environment of the Old Testament. Volume III, Delivery 6, pp. 1091ff.
  14. ↑ AM Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 202ff.
  15. ↑ AM Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 204 f.
  16. ↑ AM Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 207 f.
  17. ↑ a b A. M. Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 204.
  18. ↑ AM Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 206.
  19. ↑ AM Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 207 and Francis Breyer: Egypt and Anatolien. Political, cultural and linguistic contacts between the Nile Valley and Asia Minor in the 2nd millennium BC Chr. Wien 2010, p. 470 ff.
  20. ↑ AM Gnirs: The Levantic origin of the snake god. Mainz 1998, p. 209.
  21. ^ Francis Breyer: Egypt and Anatolia. P. 466ff.
  22. ↑ Derchain-Urtel. In: SAK 1. 1974, pp. 83-104.