The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians

Excerpt: ...two litigants, free from the word of deceit, skilled in the methods of the council chamber, who discovereth the solution of a difficult question, Ameni. 1 He afterwards reigned as Amenemhāt II. 2 Titles of Ameni repeated. The Autobiography of Thetha This inscription is cut in hieroglyphs upon a large rectangular slab of limestone now preserved in the British Museum (No. 100). It belongs to the period of the eleventh dynasty, when texts of the kind are very rare, and was made in the reign of Uahānkh, or Antef. It reads: Thetha, the servant in truth of the Horus Uahānkh, the King of the South, the King of the North, the son of Rā, Antef, the doer of beneficent acts, living like Rā for ever, beloved by him from the bottom of his heart, holder of the chief place in the house of his lord, the great noble of his heart, who knoweth the matters of the heart of his lord, who attendeth him in all his goings, one in heart with His Majesty in very truth, the leader of the great men of the house of the king, the bearer of the royal seal in the seat of confidential affairs, keeping close the counsel of his lord more than the chiefs, who maketh to rejoice the Horus (i.e. the king) through what he wisheth, the favourite of his Lord, beloved by him as the mouth of the seal, the president of the place of confidential affairs, whom his lord loveth, the mouth of the seal, the chief after the king, the vassal, saith: I was the beloved one of his Lord, I was he with whom 138 he was well pleased all day and every day. I passed a long period of my life that is years, under the Majesty of my Lord, the Horus, Uahānkh, the King of the South and North, the son of the Sun, Antef. Behold, this country was subject unto him in the south as far as Thes, and in the north as far as Abtu of Then (Abydos of This). Behold, I was in the position of body servant of his, and was an actual chief under him. He magnified me, and he made my position to be one of...