Папирус Уэсткар: Древнеегипетские истории о волшебстве и дворе Хуфу

Ancient Egyptian text

The Westcar Papyrus (inventory designation: P. Berlin 3033) is an ancient Egyptian text containing five stories about miracles performed by priests and magicians. In the papyrus text, each of these tales are told at the royal court of king Khufu (Cheops) (Fourth Dynasty, 26th century BCE) by his sons. The story in the papyrus usually is rendered in English as, "King Cheops and the Magicians" and "The Tale of King Cheops' Court". In German, into which the text of the Westcar Papyrus was first translated, it is rendered as Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar ("the fairy tales of Papyrus Westcar"). Linguist and Egyptologist de thinks it is possible that the Westcar Papyrus was written during the Thirteenth Dynasty. The papyrus has been used by historians as 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 1886, German Egyptologist Adolf Erman purchased 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 fourth and fifth stories are written in present tense. The unknown author moves 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 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. 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 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. Since, in the Westcar Papyrus, Rededjet is connected with the role of 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.