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History of the Library: group of books from el-Hibeh

The Russian Egyptologist Wladimir Golenischeff acquired a group of Third Intermediate Period papyri said to have been found together in a pottery jar at el-Hibeh. They are now preserved in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow:

  1. sole copy of Tale of Wenamun
  2. sole copy of Literary Letter of Lament
  3. best-preserved surviving copy of the wordlist now known as the 'Onomasticon of Amenemope'

It is not recorded whether the find was made in the town, or in the cemeteries of el-Hibeh. The site marked the Residence of the Libyan generals who ruled Upper Egypt under the Twenty-first Dynasty (1070-945 BC).


 

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