Ancient Egyptian Literature - Literary Genres and Subjects - Private Letters, Model Letters, and Epistles

Private Letters, Model Letters, and Epistles

The ancient Egyptian model letters and epistles are grouped into a single literary genre. Papyrus rolls sealed with mud stamps were used for long-distance letters, while ostraca were frequently used to write shorter, non-confidential letters sent to recipients located nearby. Letters of royal or official correspondence, originally written in hieratic, were sometimes given the exalted status of being inscribed on stone in hieroglyphs. The various texts written by schoolboys on wooden writing boards include model letters. Private letters could be used as epistolary model letters for schoolboys to copy, including letters written by their teachers or their families. However, these models were rarely featured in educational manuscripts; instead fictional letters found in numerous manuscripts were used. The common epistolary formula used in these model letters was "The official A. saith to the scribe B".

The oldest-known private letters on papyrus were found in a funerary temple dating to the reign of Djedkare-Izezi (r. 2414–2375 BC) of the Fifth dynasty. More letters are dated to the Sixth dynasty, when the epistle subgenre began. The educational text Book of Kemit, dated to the Eleventh dynasty, contains a list of epistolary greetings and a narrative with an ending in letter form and suitable terminology for use in commemorative biographies. Other letters of the early Middle Kingdom have also been found to use epistolary formulas similar to the Book of Kemit. The Heqanakht papyri, written by a gentleman farmer, date to the Eleventh dynasty and represent some of the lengthiest private letters known to have been written in ancient Egypt.

During the late Middle Kingdom, greater standardization of the epistolary formula can be seen, for example in a series of model letters taken from dispatches sent to the Semna fortress of Nubia during the reign of Amenemhat III (r. 1860–1814 BC). Epistles were also written during all three dynasties of the New Kingdom. While letters to the dead had been written since the Old Kingdom, the writing of petition letters in epistolary form to deities began in the Ramesside Period, becoming very popular during the Persian and Ptolemaic periods.

The epistolary Satirical Letter of Papyrus Anastasi I written during the Nineteenth dynasty was a pedagogical and didactic text copied on numerous ostraca by schoolboys. Wente describes the versatility of this epistle, which contained "...proper greetings with wishes for this life and the next, the rhetoric composition, interpretation of aphorisms in wisdom literature, application of mathematics to engineering problems and the calculation of supplies for an army, and the geography of western Asia". Moreover, Wente calls this a "...polemical tractate" that counsels against the rote, mechanical learning of terms for places, professions, and things; for example, it is not acceptable to know just the place names of western Asia, but also important details about its topography and routes. To enhance the teaching, the text employs sarcasm and irony.