The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians
by E. A. Wallis Budge

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Title: The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians

Author: E. A. Wallis Budge

Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15932]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EGYPTIAN LITERATURE ***

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THE

LITERATURE

OF THE

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

BY

E.A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., LITT.D.

_Sometime Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Tyrwhitt_
_Hebrew Scholar; Keeper of the Department of Egyptian_
_and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum_

1914

LONDON
J.M. DENT & SONS LIMITED
Aldine House, Bedford Street, W.C.

[Frontispiece:
The Elysian Fields of the Egyptians according to the Papyrus of Ani.
1. Ani adoring the gods of Sekhet-Aaru.
2. Ani reaping in the Other World.
3. Ani ploughing in the Other World.
4. The abode of the perfect spirits, and the magical boats.]

PREFACE

This little book is intended to serve as an elementary introduction to
the study of Egyptian Literature. Its object is to present a short
series of specimens of Egyptian compositions, which represent all the
great periods of literary activity in Egypt under the Pharaohs, to all
who are interested in the study of the mental development of ancient
nations. It is not addressed to the Egyptological specialist, to whom,
as a matter of course, its contents are well known, and therefore its
pages are not loaded with elaborate notes and copious references. It
represents, I believe, the first attempt made to place before the public
a summary of the principal contents of Egyptian Literature in a handy
and popular form.

The specimens of native Egypt