New Copies of Old Classics: Early Manuscripts of Khakheperreseneb and The Instruction of a Man for His Son

Abstract

The article publishes a set of three previously unknown writing boards from the Carnarvon and Carter excavations in the lower Asasif area at Thebes in the period 1908–13. Dated on palaeographical grounds to the Second Intermediate Period, they constitute the earliest manuscripts identified so far of two classical literary compositions: Khakheperreseneb and The Instruction of a Man for His Son. The extant text is transcribed and translated, with a brief philological commentary, and it is hypothesised that another literary passage found on two of the boards, in three copies, is the otherwise unattested continuation of Khakheperreseneb.