ons of broken
earthen-ware pots were also used for practising writing upon, and in the
Ptolemaic and Roman Periods lists of goods, and business letters, and
the receipts given by the tax-gatherers, were written upon potsherds. In
still later times, when skin or parchment was as expensive as papyrus,
the Copts, or Egyptian Christians, used slices of limestone and
potsherds for drafts of portions of the Scriptures and letters in much
the same way as did their ancestors.

A roll of papyrus when not in use was kept in shape by a string or piece
of papyrus cord, which was tied in a bow; sometimes, especially in the
case of legal documents, a clay seal bearing the owner's name was
stamped on the cord. Valuable rolls were kept in wooden cases or "book
boxes," which were deposited in a chamber or "house" set apart for the
purpose, which was commonly called the "house of books," _i.e._ the
library. Having now described the principal writing materials used by
the ancient Egyptians, we may pass on to consider briefly the various
classes of Egyptian Literature that have come down to us.

CHAPTER II

THE PYRAMID TEXTS

"Pyramid Texts" is the name now commonly given to the long hieroglyphic
inscriptions that are cut upon the walls of the chambers and corridors
of five pyramids at Sakkarah. The oldest of them was built for Unas, a
king of the fifth dynasty, and the four others were built for Teta, Pepi
I, Merenra, and Pepi II, kings of the sixth dynasty. According to the
calculation of Dr. Brugsch, they were all built between 3300 and 3150
B.C., but more recent theories assign them to a period about 700 years
later. These Texts represent the oldest religious literature known to
us, for they contain beliefs, dogmas, and ideas that must be thousands
of years older than the period of the sixth dynasty when the bulk of
them was drafted for the use of the masons who cut them inside the
pyramids. It is probable that certain sections of them were composed by
the priests for the benefit of the dead in very primitive times in
Egypt, when the art of writing was unknown, and that they were repeated
each time a king died. They were first learned by heart by the funerary
priests, and then handed on from mouth to mouth, generation after
generation, and at length after the Egyptians had learned to write, and
there was danger of their being forgotten, they were committed to
writin