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A group (or groups) of books from Ramesside Egypt

In the 1820s the Sallier and Anastasi collections acquired literary manuscripts linked by the names of the copyists and by the contents to one another and to the cemeteries of Memphis at Saqqara. The papyrus of Madame D'Orbiney seems to belong to the same group. These are now preserved in the British Museum.

  1. Papyrus Anastasi 1, a copy of the 'Satirical Letter' (British Museum ESA 10247)
  2. Papyrus Anastasi 2, didactic excerpts and hymns ('Late Egyptian Miscellanies') (British Museum ESA 10243)
  3. Papyrus Anastasi 3, didactic excerpts and hymns ('Late Egyptian Miscellanies') (British Museum ESA 10246)
  4. Papyrus Anastasi 4, didactic excerpts and hymns ('Late Egyptian Miscellanies') (British Museum ESA 10249)
  5. Papyrus Anastasi 5, didactic excerpts and hymns ('Late Egyptian Miscellanies') (British Museum ESA 10244)
  6. Papyrus Anastasi 6, didactic excerpts and hymns ('Late Egyptian Miscellanies') (British Museum ESA 10245)
  7. Papyrus Anastasi 7, copy of the Hymn to the Nile flood (British Museum ESA 10222)
  8. Papyrus Anastasi 8, copy of formal letter (British Museum ESA 10248)
  9. Papyrus Anastasi 9, copy of formal letter (British Museum ESA 10248)
  10. Papyrus D'Orbiney, sole copy of the 'Tale of the Two Brothers' (British Museum ESA 10183)
  11. Papyrus Sallier 1, copy of Teaching of king Amenemhat I, and sole copy of the Tale of the Quarrel of Seqenenra Taa and Apepi (British Museum ESA 10185)
  12. Papyrus Sallier 2, copy of Teaching of king Amenemhat I, Teaching of Khety, and Hymn to the Nile flood (British Museum ESA 10182)
  13. Papyrus Sallier 3, copy of the Battle of Qadesh (British Museum ESA 10181)
  14. Papyrus Sallier 4, on one side a 'Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days', on the other side didactic excerpts and hymns ('Late Egyptian Miscellanies') (British Museum ESA 10184)

Without further information on the archaeological context of the find or finds, it is not now possible to determine whether these manuscripts all came from a single burial, or other context. At the date of the copies, about 1200 BC, daily life objects were generally no longer included in burials; therefore it is possible that the papyri were deposited in some other manner, perhaps in a pottery jar buried in a dry place for safe-keeping (the means by which the Tomb Robbery Papyri a century later were preserved).

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