The Athanasi Papyri - a literary 'library' of the late Middle Kingdom?

In 1837 the Greek Egyptian Athanasi put on sale a collection including the following group of literary manuscripts dating to the late Middle Kingdom, about 1800 BC, and mainly later acquired by Richard Lepsius for the Egyptian Museum, Berlin:

• papyrus with copy of the Tale of Sanehat (Sinuhe), now Berlin 3022
• papyrus with copy of the Tale of Khuninpu ('Eloquent Peasant'), now Berlin 3023
• papyrus with sole surviving copy of the Dialogue of a Man with his Soul, and with part of a narrative involving a herdsman, now Berlin 3024
• papyrus with copy of the Tale of Khuninpu ('Eloquent Peasant'), now Berlin 3025

Fragments of the first two became separated in the early modern history of the manuscripts, and entered the Amherst collection; they are now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Papyrus Amherst 3 contains a didactic literary composition, perhaps from the same group.

Without any archaeological context, it is impossible to determine what other items might have been in the same find. Nevertheless, the four-to-five manuscripts may well represent a single group deposited in a late Middle Kingdom burial. The most likely place for the discovery of such a group at that date is Thebes (Luxor).

References

• Parkinson 2001

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