This article is aimed at intermediate students of Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs who are looking for something exciting to read, and at beginners who are wondering where their studies might lead them.
The document known as Papyrus Westcar (catalogue number P Berlin 3033) preserves a collection of stories often referred to as Tales of Wonder, King Cheops and the Magicians, or similar. The narrative is set in the Old Kingdom in the court of King Khufu (or Cheops), the second pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty, around the middle of the third millennium BCE. The papyrus itself was written about 1000 years later than this, in the Hyksos period, The language is classical Middle Egyptian; being written on papyrus, the script is hieratic, but printed editions of the text present it in hieroglyphs. The stories make a great choice of reading for intermediate or advanced students of Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs.
What is Papyrus Westcar about?
Papyrus Westcar originally told at least five linked stories, but the first is lost (apart from some closing words) and the second has gaps due to damage to the papyrus.
The narrative is structured as a series of stories within a larger framing story. In the framing story, King Khufu's sons are trying to entertain him. First, each son tells a story from the past:
Story 1: A story set in the reign of the pharaoh Djoser (only the very end survives)
Story 2: The wax crocodile
Story 3: The boating party, the lost turquoise pendant and the parting of the waters
Prince Hordedef then moves the story into the present by bringing a real live magician (Djedi) to the court:
Story 4: Djedi visits the court of Khufu and demonstrates his magical skills by reattaching animals' severed heads to their bodies, bringing them back to life. After performing his wonders, Djedi foretells the birth of the first three pharaohs of the next dynasty. Djedi is sent off with his reward and the narrative moves into the future and tells:
Story 5: The story of the birth of the three children of Reddedet (the three pharaohs).
Why read Papyrus Westcar?
First and foremost, Westcar is entertaining and interesting to read. It conjures up a very human (if in some places rather sleazy) image of bored kings looking for fun, and features, inter alia, a back-talking concubine, an unfaithful wife, decapitated geese and a wax model of a crocodile that turns into the real thing. It's of great interest to students of Egyptian history and society, not to mention magic.
From a language-learning perspective, Westcar can be an exciting progression for intermediate students. Beginners' Middle Egyptian textbooks often focus on inscriptions such as offering formulae, and these short(ish) inscriptions are indeed a logical place to start. They are formulaic, which means they follow a set order and reuse variants on the same phrases. This builds and reinforces learning and gives a real sense of progress: once you've read a few offering formulae, you can read other similar inscriptions more or less fluently, just recognising variations in wording and substituting in the names and titles of the individuals mentioned.
However, as your knowledge of the language develops, you will probably want to widen your experience of different text types and, in the process, your working vocabulary and understanding of Egyptian grammar. This is where narratives like Westcar come in. If you've mainly focused on inscriptions, Westcar will take you out of your comfort zone, introducing new vocabulary and presenting you with verbal forms that may be unfamiliar. Although these aspects of Westcar may stretch you, repeated passages within the narrative will help build your confidence and consolidate your learning, much like the formulae of the offering formulae. For example: the same events are sometimes recounted more than once within the narrative (e.g. the loss of the turquoise pendant is described by the story's narrator, then retold within the story by Pharaoh looking for advice from a priest), and similar lists of offerings are given in appreciation to the narrators of stories. Shorter standard phrases such as 'Then the majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Khufu, justified, said ...' , 'Then X stood up to speak and said ...' provide useful flags that signal the structure of the story.
Which learners of Egyptian hieroglyphs is Westcar suitable for?
Westcar is often read on undergraduate Egyptology courses, generally after completing an initial language course. Students who have successfully worked their way through a textbook such as Allen's Middle Egyptian could attempt Westcar independently with help from resources such as the excellent (and free) hieroglyphic text, transliteration and translation of Mark-Jan Nederhof available online in the St Andrews Corpus. If you're thinking of reading the wax crocodile story, you can use my flashcards/ game to practise key vocabulary. I'll be adding activities for the other stories in the future.
Those earlier in their learning (e.g. students who have an understanding of non-verbal sentences and some - but not necessarily all - verbal forms) will find that Westcar contains some challenging constructions; such students may nevertheless be able to attempt it as guided/ supported reading in a class or seminar setting.