Friday, March 20, 2015

Review of James Allen's "Middle Egyptian Literature"

     This book contains eight middle Egyptian texts presented in hieroglyphs, transliteration and translation. This work is perfect for the student who wants to take the knowledge of Ancient Egyptian that they have acquired from Dr. Allen's grammar and apply it to translating some full-length texts.

     The selected texts are:

  •      The Shipwrecked Sailor
  •      The Tale of Sinuhe
  •      The Loyalist Instruction (reign of Amenemhat III)
  •      Instructions of Kagemei's Father and Ptahhotep
  •      The Eloquent Peasant
  •      The Debate Between a Man and his Soul
  •      The Herdsman's Tale
  •      Hymns to Senwosret III


The translations also contain very helpful notes by Dr. Allen that reference grammar points in this book to the specific paragraph in the author's Middle Egyptian Grammar where they are explained.

I highly recommend this work to anyone who has learned ancient Egyptian and wants take the "next step" toward mastery of the language.

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