THE Ancient Egyptians were genuine writers, Sl1lrting from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom and the late period; they wrote religious texts like the ‘Pyramids Text’ which covers the entire walls of the chamber of Ounas pyramid from the Old Kingdom, dramatic plays like ‘The Drama of Horus and Seth’ on tile walls of Edfu temple, and novel-like literature of which the most famous one is “The Adventures of Sanhbat (or Senohy)” from the middle kingdom. The renowned Egyptologist, Flinders Petriel, had published a collection of Egyptian stories’ from different Pharaonic periods under the title of “Egyptian Tales” and one of these tales is the “Adventures of Sanehat”, which we will introduce in this article.
It seems that it is based on a true story of a stepbrother of the King Senusert from the 12th dynasty, Middle Kingdom. Sanehat introduces himself at the beginning of the text as follows: “The hereditary prince, royal seal-bearer, confidential friend, judge, keeper of the gate of the foreigners, true and beloved royal acquaintance, the royal follower Sanehat.”
The name Sanehat means “son of the sycamore”, probably from his having been born, or living, at a place where a celebrat¬ed sacred sycamore was a common tree in ancient, as well as, in modem Egypt.
Sanehat lived at the time of the King Amenemhat I, the founder of the 12th dynasty. In his story he witnessed and expressed the death of King Amenemhat as follows: In the 30th year, the month Paophi, the seventh day, the god entered his horizon, the King Sehotepabra flew up to heaven and joined the sun’s disc, the follower of the god met his maker. The palace was silenced, and in mourning, the great gates were closed, the courtiers crouching on the ground, the people in hushed mourning.”
It seems after the death of the king, that Sanehat was afraid that his elder brother Senusert (Usertesen in the translation of Petriel) might see him as a rival and, try to slay him, so Sanehat flew to Syria. He describes this as follows: “His majesty had sent a great army with the nobles to the land of the Temehu (Lybia), his son and heir, the good god king Usertesen as their leader. Now he was returning, and had brought away living captives and all kinds of cattle without end. The councilors of the palace had sent to the west to let the king know the matter that had come to pass in the inner hall. The messenger was to meet him on the road, and reach him at the time of evening: the matter was urgent. ‘A hawk had soared with his followers’. Thus said be, not to let the army know of it even if the royal sons who commanded in that army send a message, he was not to speak to a single one of them. But I was standing near, and heard his voice while fie was speaking. I turned about in running to seek a place to hide me, and I threw myself between two bushes, to wait while they should pass by.”
The art of writing was crucial to the Egyptians; besides using it for many com¬mon purposes. They were creative story¬tellers and very talented poetic writers.
As we can see, Egypt is not only the cra¬dle of civilization but of art too, with all forms known to humanity until the present time; from architecture to design, drawing, painting, sculpting, singing, dancing, writ¬ing, and theatre.
