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66-626: The surviving material of the Westcar Papyrus consists of twelve columns written in hieratic script. Miriam Lichtheim dates the document to the Hyksos period (eighteenth to sixteenth century BC) and states that it is written in classical Middle Egyptian . Linguist and Egyptologist Verena Lepper thinks it is possible that the Westcar Papyrus was written during the Thirteenth Dynasty . The papyrus has been used by historians as

132-458: A broad uncial bookhand used for literary, scientific, and religious texts. These two forms can often be significantly different from one another. Letters, in particular, used very cursive forms for quick writing, often with large numbers of abbreviations for formulaic phrases, similar to shorthand . A highly cursive form of hieratic known as "Abnormal Hieratic" was used in the Theban area from

198-446: A fatuous fool, who is easily pleased with superficial entertainment and who is unable to resolve a dispute with a little rowing maid. Sneferu must go to the extent of having a priest solve the problem. With this narration and embarrassing depiction of a king, the author of Westcar dares to criticise the kings of Egypt as such and makes the third story a sort of satire . Lepper points out that the critiques are hidden cleverly throughout. It

264-426: A future king's mother, the parallels between the biographies of the two ladies has garnered special attention. The role of the maidservant is evaluated as being a key figure for a modern phrasing of indoctrinations about morality and betrayal. The maidservant wants to run her mistress down and is punished by destiny . Destiny is depicted here as a crocodile who snatches the traitor. The whole purpose would be to ensure

330-653: A literary resource for reconstituting the history of the Fourth Dynasty . The papyrus is now on display under low-light conditions in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin . In 1823 or 1824, British adventurer Henry Westcar apparently discovered the papyrus during travels in Egypt . For unknown reasons, he did not note the exact circumstances under which he obtained the artifact . In 1838 or 1839, German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius claimed to have received

396-409: A path to the water's edge where a crocodile catches her. The brother then goes to see Rededjet, who is crying over the loss of his sister. The brother starts to confess what has happened and at this point the papyrus story ends. Papyrus Westcar is of great interest to historians and Egyptologists since it is one of the oldest Egyptian documents that contains such complex text. Unfortunately, the name of

462-521: A priest explaining what he must do during a liturgy were also rubricated in missals and the other liturgical books, and the texts to be spoken aloud were in black. From this, "rubric" has a secondary denotation of an instruction in a text, regardless of how it is actually inscribed. This is the oldest recorded definition in English, found in 1375. Less formally, "rubrics" may refer to any liturgical action customarily performed, whether or not pursuant to

528-712: A re-unified Egypt. Hieratic has had influence on a number of other writing systems. The most obvious is that on Demotic , its direct descendant. Related to this are the Demotic signs of the Meroitic script and the borrowed Demotic characters used in the Coptic alphabet and Old Nubian . Outside of the Nile Valley, many of the signs used in the Byblos syllabary apparently were borrowed from Old Kingdom hieratic signs. It

594-424: A summoned crocodile. Caretaker and crocodile are playing the role of justice , whilst king Nebka plays the role of destiny . Lepper and Liechtheim evaluate the depiction of king Nebka as being fairly positive. A strict but lawful king was ideal for the people of the author's lifetime. In the third story king Sneferu becomes a victim of the author's courage to criticize the monarchy . The author depicts Sneferu as

660-432: A tax receipt. There are also some signs that are unique to hieratic, although Egyptologists have invented equivalent hieroglyphic forms for hieroglyphic transcriptions and typesetting. Several hieratic characters have diacritical additions so that similar signs could easily be distinguished. Hieratic is often present in any given period in two forms, a highly ligatured, cursive script used for administrative documents, and

726-400: A text detailing a miracle performed by a lector priest in the reign of king Djoser, possibly the famous Imhotep . The second story, told by Khafre , is set during the reign of one of Khufu's predecessors. King Nebka 's chief lector Ubaoner finds that his wife is having a love affair with a townsman of Memphis , and he fashions a crocodile in wax . Upon learning that his unfaithful wife

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792-419: A variety known as lapidary hieratic. These are particularly common on stelae from the twenty-second dynasty . During the late sixth dynasty , hieratic was sometimes incised into mud tablets with a stylus , similar to cuneiform . About five hundred of these tablets have been discovered in the governor's palace at Ayn Asil (Balat), and a single example was discovered from the site of Ayn al-Gazzarin, both in

858-452: A written instruction. The history, status, and authority of the content of rubrics are significant, and sometimes controversial, among liturgical scholars. In the past, some theologians distinguished between rubrics they considered of Divine origin and those merely of human origin. Rubrics were probably originally verbal, and then written in separate volumes. The earliest extant liturgical books do not contain them, but from references in texts of

924-416: Is a palimpsest ; the unknown ancient Egyptian author obviously tried but partially failed to wipe the older text off. The clean and calligraphical handwriting shows that the author was a highly educated professional. The first story, told by an unknown son of Khufu (possibly Djedefra ), is missing everything but the conclusion, in which Khufu orders blessed offerings to king Djoser . It seems to have been

990-454: Is a reused papyrus made of the plant Cyperus papyrus . The scroll of Westcar has been separated into three parts. During the life of Lepsius and Erman it was in two parts; it is not known when and why the scroll was separated into three fragments. The text written on the papyrus includes twelve columns in all. The first part contains on the recto (the front) columns one to three, the second part contains on its recto columns four and five and

1056-627: Is also known that early Hebrew used hieratic numerals . The Unicode standard considers hieratic characters to be font variants of the Egyptian hieroglyphs , and the two scripts have been unified. Hieroglyphs were added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2. Rubric A rubric is a word or section of text that is traditionally written or printed in red ink for emphasis. The word derives from

1122-566: Is also often used to distinguish words spoken by the celebrant and those by the congregation, or by other specific persons involved in the liturgy, e.g. those marrying. With the arrival of printing , other typographic effects such as italic type , bolded type, or different sizes of type were used to emphasize a section of text, and as printing in two colours is more expensive and time consuming, rubrication has tended to be reserved for sacred and liturgical books or luxury editions of other works. William Morris 's medievally inspired typography for

1188-410: Is covered by a glass pane. Part three was simply placed between two glass panes and was completely glued to them. The adhesive used for this has partially lost its transparency and a whitish haze has appeared. The edges of all three parts were left free for air circulation. Because of the paper lamination during the eighteenth century, all the papyrus fragments are partially damaged; at several spots

1254-400: Is meeting her lover, he casts a spell for the figurine to come to life upon contact with water, and sets his caretaker to throw it in the stream by which the townsman enters and leaves the lector's estate undiscovered. Upon catching the townsman, the crocodile takes him to the bottom of the lake, where they remain for seven days as the lector entertains the visiting pharaoh. When he tells Nebka

1320-508: Is not surprising, since the author had to be careful—the Westcar Papyrus was possibly made available for public entertainment, or at least, for public study. In the fourth story king Khufu is difficult to assess. On one hand he is depicted as ruthless: deciding to have a condemned prisoner decapitated to test the alleged magical powers of the magician Dedi. On the other hand, Khufu is depicted as inquisitive, reasonable and generous: he accepts Dedi's outrage and his offer of an alternative for

1386-528: Is the "mother of two kings". For a long time it had been thought that she may have borne Userkaf and Sahure, but new evidence shows that Sahure, at least, had a different mother (Queen Neferhetepes ). The implication from the Westcar Papyrus that the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty had been siblings, seems incorrect. Since, in the Westcar Papyrus , Rededjet is connected with the role of

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1452-628: The Dakhla Oasis . At the time the tablets were made, Dakhla was located far from centers of papyrus production. These tablets record inventories, name lists, accounts, and approximately fifty letters. Of the letters, many are internal letters that were circulated within the palace and the local settlement, but others were sent from other villages in the oasis to the governor. Hieratic script, unlike inscriptional and manuscript hieroglyphs , reads from right to left. Initially, hieratic could be written in either columns or horizontal lines, but after

1518-531: The Egyptian Book of the Dead , noncursive hieroglyphic script became largely restricted to monumental inscriptions. Around 650 BCE, the even more-cursive Demotic script developed from hieratic. Demotic arose in northern Egypt and replaced hieratic and the southern shorthand known as abnormal hieratic for most mundane writing, such as personal letters and mercantile documents. Hieratic continued to be used by

1584-651: The Kelmscott Press at the end of the 19th century included chapter titles and other accents in red, or rarely blue, ink, and was influential on small press art typography associated with the Arts and Crafts movement in both England and the United States , particularly the work of the Ashendene , Doves , and Roycroft Presses. Around 1900, rubrication was incorporated into a Red letter edition of

1650-468: The Latin rubrica , meaning red ochre or red chalk , and originates in medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or earlier. In these, red letters were used to highlight initial capitals (particularly of psalms ), section headings and names of religious significance, a practice known as rubrication , which was a separate stage in the production of a manuscript . Rubric can also mean

1716-516: The priestly class for religious texts and literature into the third century AD. Through most of its long history, hieratic was used for writing administrative documents, accounts, legal texts, and letters, as well as mathematical, medical, literary, and religious texts. During the Græco-Roman period, when Demotic, and later, Greek , had become the chief administrative script, hieratic was limited primarily to religious texts. In general, hieratic

1782-451: The twelfth dynasty (specifically during the reign of Amenemhat III ), horizontal writing became the standard. Hieratic is noted for its cursive nature and use of ligatures for a number of characters. Hieratic script also uses a much more standardized orthography than hieroglyphs; texts written in the latter often had to take into account extra-textual concerns, such as decorative uses and religious concerns that were not present in, say,

1848-682: The Greek for 'priestly writing' ( Koinē Greek : γράμματα ἱερατικά ) because at that time, for more than eight and a half centuries, hieratic had been used traditionally only for religious texts and literature. Hieratic can also be an adjective meaning 'of or associated with sacred persons or offices; sacerdotal '. Hieratic developed as a cursive form of hieroglyphic script in the Naqada III period of Ancient Egypt, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. Although handwritten printed hieroglyphs continued to be used in some formal situations, such as manuscripts of

1914-576: The King James Version of the Bible to distinguish the Dominical words, i.e., those spoken by Jesus Christ during His corporeal life on Earth, because that translation lacked quotation marks. Other versions of the Bible have since adopted the popular practice. A rubric is an explicit set of criteria used for assessing a particular type of work or performance and provides more details than

1980-481: The ancient Greek traditions of Herodotus and Diodorus , who described an exaggerated, negative character image of Khufu, ignoring the paradoxical (because positive) traditions the Egyptians always taught. But other Egyptologists such as Dietrich Wildung see Khufu's order as an act of mercy : the prisoner would have received his life back if Dedi had performed his magical trick. Wildung thinks that Dedi's refusal

2046-426: The author has been lost. The most recent translations and linguistic investigations by Miriam Lichtheim and Verena Lepper reveal interesting writing and spelling elements hidden in the text of the papyrus, which has led them to a new evaluation of the individual stories. The first story is lost due to damage to the papyrus. The preserved sentences merely reveal the main protagonist of the story, King Djoser. The name of

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2112-515: The beginning of a new dynasty by making the only danger disappear. The author of the Westcar Papyrus artfully creates some kind of happy ending . Since the first translations of the Westcar Papyrus, historians and Egyptologists have disputed whether the story was finished or unfinished. Earlier evaluations seemed to show an abrupt ending after the death of the traitorous maidservant. But more recently, linguistic investigations made by Verena Lepper and Miriam Liechtheim (especially by Lepper) strengthen

2178-442: The birth of the triplets and the beginning of a new dynasty. Lepper and Liechtheim both evaluate the story as some kind of narrated moral that deals with the theme of justice and what happens to traitors . Lepper points out, that the story of Rededjet might have been inspired by the historical figure of Khentkaus I , who lived and may have ruled at the end of the Fourth Dynasty . Among the titles discovered to have been given to her

2244-409: The character description of Djoser is impossible due to the great deterioration within his story. In the second story, king Nebka plays the key role. He is depicted as a strict, but lawful judge , who doesn't allow mischief and misbehaviour to occur. The adulterous wife of the story's hero is punished by being burnt alive and her secret lover, revealed thanks to the loyal caretaker, is eaten alive by

2310-403: The court, and upon Dedi's arrival he orders a goose, an undefined waterbird, and a bull beheaded. Dedi reattaches the heads. Khufu then questions him on his knowledge on the shrine of Thoth, and Dedi answers that he does not know the number of rooms, but he knows where they are. When Khufu asks for the wheres and hows, Dedi answers that he is not the one who can give Khufu access, but the first of

2376-415: The difficult birth. The three children are born, each described as strong and healthy, with limbs covered in gold and wearing headdresses of lapis lazuli . The maidservant of Rededjet later has an argument with her mistress, receives a beating and flees, vowing to tell king Khufu what had happened. But on the way, she meets her brother and tells the story to him. Displeased, he beats her, too, and sends her on

2442-419: The early 1860s and Lepsius' name does not appear in any lists or documents. Furthermore, Lepsius never made the text of the Westcar Papyrus public; he stored the papyrus at home in his attic , where it was found after his death. These inconsistencies have led to widespread speculation; many British historians speculate that Lepsius may have stolen the papyrus. In 1886, German Egyptologist Adolf Erman purchased

2508-561: The first millennium it appears that written versions existed. Full rubrics regarding matters such as vesture , appearance of the altar , timing of specific liturgies, and similar matters still may be published separately. In modern liturgical books, e.g. the Catholic Roman Missal , lengthy general rubrics, probably printed in black, pertain to such matters and preface the actual order of liturgies, which contain shorter, specific rubrics that still are usually rubricated. Red

2574-464: The hero, who is said to have performed the miracle, is completely lost, but Liechtheim and Lepper think it's possible that the Papyrus was talking about the famous architect and high lector priest, Imhotep. The second and third stories are written in a conspicuous, flowery, old-fashioned style, and the author has obviously tried to make them sound as if handed down from a long time ago, but fantastic at

2640-498: The idea that many ancient Egyptian writings were influenced by the Westcar Papyrus : column 232 contains the phrase "sleeping until dawn", which appears nearly word-for-word in the Westcar Papyrus . A further descriptive example appears in The prophecy of Neferti . As in the Westcar Papyrus, a subaltern is addressed by a king as "my brother" and the king is depicted as being accostable and simple-minded. Furthermore, both stories talk about

2706-484: The material is torn, distorted, and squashed. Some of the fibres are now lying over the inscription. All of the artifact shows large gaps and the rim of the scrolls is badly frayed. Because of the gaps, many parts of the text are now missing. The text itself is completely written in black iron gall ink and carbon black ink and divided by rubra into ten paragraphs. Between the neatly written sentences red traces of an older text are visible. It looks as if Papyrus Westcar

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2772-420: The palace lake. Sneferu orders twenty beautiful oars made, and gives the women nets to drape around them as they sail. However, one of the girls loses an amulet - a fish pendant made of turquoise so dear to her that she will not even accept a substitute from the royal treasury , and until it is returned to her neither she nor any of the other women will row. The king laments this, and the chief lector folds aside

2838-465: The papyrus from Lepsius' son and left it to the Museum of Berlin. As the hieratic signs were still insufficiently investigated and translated, the Westcar Papyrus was displayed as some kind of curiosity . Since Erman's first attempt at a complete translation in 1890, the Westcar Papyrus has been translated numerous times, resulting in different outcomes. The dating of the text also varies. Papyrus Westcar

2904-589: The papyrus from Westcar's niece. As Lepsius was able to read some signs of Hieratic , he recognized some of the royal cartouche names of the kings and dated the text to the Old Kingdom . There are inconsistencies about the true nature of the acquisition and the subsequent whereabouts of the Westcar Papyrus. Lepsius writes that the document was on display in the Oxford Bodleian Library , but public exhibitions have been documented there since

2970-414: The principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BCE until the rise of Demotic in the mid-first millennium BCE. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus . In the second century, the term hieratic was used for the first time by the Greek scholar Clement of Alexandria to describe this Ancient Egyptian writing system. The term derives from

3036-417: The prisoner, questions the circumstances and contents of Dedi's prophecy, and rewards the magician generously. The contradictory depiction of Khufu is an object of controversy among Egyptologists and historians to this day. Earlier Egyptologists and historians in particular, such as Adolf Erman , Kurt Heinrich Sethe , and Wolfgang Helck evaluated Khufu's character as heartless and sacrilegious . They lean on

3102-580: The reason may be some kind of spelling reform that occurred in the lifetime of the author, perhaps trying to fix the spelling rule for naming a deceased king, in order to show that even the future kings in the story were long since dead during his lifetime. For this reason Verena Lepper doubts that the Westcar stories are based on documents originating from the Old Kingdom. The fourth and fifth stories are written in present tense . The unknown author moves

3168-427: The red ink or paint used to make rubrics, or the pigment used to make it. Although red was most often used, other colours came into use from the late Middle Ages onwards, and the word rubric was used for these also. Medievalists can use patterns of rubrication to help identify textual traditions. Various figurative senses of the word have been extended from its original meaning. Usually these senses are used within

3234-430: The same king, Sneferu. The Papyrus pAthen contains the phrase: "...for these are the wise who can move waters and make a river flow at their mere will and want...", which clearly refers to the wonder that the magicians Djadjaemankh and Dedi had performed in the Westcar story. Since pAthen , pBerlin 3023 and The prophecy of Neferti use the same manner of speaking and quaint phrases, complete with numerous allusions to

3300-525: The same time. He uses quaint phrases and makes the heroes' acting stilted and ceremonious. The first three stories are written in past tense and all the kings are addressed with the salutation "justified" (Egyptian: m3ʕ ḫrw ), which was typical in Ancient Egypt when talking about a deceased king. The heroes are addressed in the second and third stories the same way. Curiously, all the kings are addressed with their birth name , notwithstanding that this

3366-435: The second half of the twentieth dynasty until the beginning of the twenty-sixth dynasty . It derives from the script of Upper Egyptian administrative documents and was used primarily for legal texts, land leases, letters, and other texts. This type of writing was superseded by Demotic—a Lower Egyptian scribal tradition—during the twenty-sixth dynasty, when Demotic was established as a standard administrative script throughout

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3432-450: The set phrase "under [whatever] rubric", for example, "under this rubric, [X is true]", or "[X was done] under the rubric of Y". Such senses include: "an authoritative rule"; "the title of a statute"; "something under which a thing is classed" ; "an explanatory or introductory commentary" ; "an established rule, tradition, or custom"; or "a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic assignments" . Instructions for

3498-402: The story of Dedi. The last section of the fourth story, in which the magician Dedi gives a prophecy to king Khufu, shifts to future tense for a short time, before shifting back to present tense again. This present tense is maintained until the end of the Westcar stories. Papyrus Westcar contains hidden allusions and puns to the characters of the kings Nebka, Sneferu, and Khufu. An evaluation of

3564-449: The story of the Westcar Papyrus . They also both talk about subalterns with magical powers similar to those of Dedi's. The Papyrus pBerlin 3023 contains the story, The Eloquent Peasant , in which the following phrase appears: "See, these are artists who create the existing anew, who even replace a severed head", which could be interpreted as an allusion to the Westcar Papyrus . pBerlin 3023 contains another reference that strengthens

3630-436: The story, and calls the crocodile up again, the king orders the crocodile to devour the townsman once and for all. Then he has the adulterous wife brought forth, set on fire, and thrown in the river. The third story, told by another son named Baufra , is set during the reign of his grandfather Sneferu . The king is bored and his chief lector Djadjaemankh advises him to gather twenty young women and use them to sail him around

3696-418: The tales of Papyrus Westcar inspired later authors to compose and write down similar tales. They refer to multiple, and somewhat later, ancient Egyptian writings in which magicians perform very similar magic tricks and make prophecies to a king. Descriptive examples are the papyri pAthen and The prophecy of Neferti . These novels show the popular theme of prophesying used during the Old Kingdom – just as in

3762-441: The theory that the Westcar text is definitely at an end after the story of the maidservant's death. Lepper points out that the crocodile sequence is repeated several times, like a kind of refrain , which is a typical element in similar stories and documents. Furthermore, Lepper argues that the papyrus has a lot of free space after the apparent ending, enough for another short story. Verena Lepper and Miriam Lichtheim postulate that

3828-401: The third part contains on the verso (the back) columns six to nine and on the recto, the final columns, ten to twelve. The papyrus textile is grainy, of greyish-yellowish colour and very fragile. Part one was fixed onto linen and placed between two glass panes. At five spots the papyrus was fixed to the glass with methyl cellulose . Part two was fixed to a cardboard and wooden plate and

3894-527: The three future kings in the womb of the woman Rededjet is. This is a prophecy detailing the beginnings of the Fifth Dynasty , starting with Userkaf . The final story breaks from the format and moves the focus to Rededjet giving birth to her three sons. Upon the day of her children's birth, Ra orders Isis , Nephthys , Meskhenet , Heket , and Khnum to aid her. They disguise themselves as musicians and hurry to Rededjet's house to help her with

3960-441: The timeline and also changes his mode of expression from "old-fashioned" into a contemporary form. He clearly distinguishes "long time passed" from "most recently" without cutting the timeline too quickly. The speech of Prince Hordjedef builds the decisive transition: Hordjedef is sick of hearing old, dusty tales that cannot be proven. He explains that a current wonder would be richer in content and more instructive, and so he brings up

4026-452: The water to allow the retrieval of the amulet, then folds the water back. The fourth story, told by Hordjedef , concerns a miracle set within Khufu's own reign. A townsman named Dedi apparently has the power to reattach a severed head onto an animal, to tame wild lions , and knows the number of secret rooms in the shrine of Thoth . Khufu, intrigued, sends his son to invite this wise man to

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4092-406: The wonders of Papyrus Westcar, Lepper and Lichtheim hold that Dedi, Ubaoner and Djadjaemankh must have been known to Egyptian authors for a long time. Hieratic Hieratic ( / h aɪ ə ˈ r æ t ɪ k / ; Ancient Greek : ἱερατικά , romanized :  hieratiká , lit.   'priestly') is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and

4158-585: Was an allusion to the respect Egyptians showed to human life. The ancient Egyptians were of the opinion that human life should not be misused for dark magic or similar evil things. Lepper and Liechtheim suspect that a difficult-to-assess depiction of Khufu was exactly what the author had planned. He wanted to create a mysterious character. The fifth and last story tells about the heroine Rededjet (also often read as Ruddedet ) and her difficult birth of three sons. The sun god Ra orders his companions Isis, Meskhenet, Hekhet, Nephthys, and Khnum to help Rededjet, to ensure

4224-420: Was much more important than hieroglyphs throughout Egypt's history, being the script used in daily life. It was also the writing system first taught to students, knowledge of hieroglyphs being limited to a small minority who were given additional training. It is often possible to detect errors in hieroglyphic texts that came about due to a misunderstanding of an original hieratic text. Most often, hieratic script

4290-445: Was unusual in the author's lifetime. While deceased kings were normally called by their birth name, living kings were called by their Horus name . King Khufu is nevertheless called by his birth name in the first three stories, yet in the fourth story, he is treated as being still alive and being the main actor. And even the future kings Userkaf , Sahure , and Neferirkare Kakai are called by their birth names. Verena Lepper thinks, that

4356-629: Was written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus , wood , stone , or pottery ostraca . During the Roman period, reed pens ( calami ) were also used. Thousands of limestone ostraca have been found at the site of Deir al-Madinah , revealing an intimate picture of the lives of common Egyptian workers. Besides papyrus, stone, ceramic shards, and wood, there are hieratic texts on leather rolls, although few have survived. There are also hieratic texts written on cloth, especially on linen used in mummification . There are some hieratic texts inscribed on stone,

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