The Instruction of Ptah-hotep and the Instruction of Kegemni

But in spite of the fact that the Ancient Egyptians enjoy rather more popularity than their contemporaries, it is evident that the books which they wrote are closed books to those who do not have the glamour of vanished peoples and the fascination of mighty cities now made desolate, strong upon them.

Yet in the heterogeneous and pitiful flotsam that reluctant seas have washed to us piecemeal from a remote past, there are, as will be shown later, many things which, although proceeding from a culture and modes of thought as far removed from our own as they may well be Much ingenuity has been expended to show that Egyptian manners and customs, books, and other things, were "much the same" as our own, as though the supposed similarity reflected any credit either on them or on us. Except in customs which are common to all times and places, as drinking beer, writing love letters, making wills, going to school, and other things naturally expected, Egyptian life can show very few parallels to the life of today., are worth the reading. They do not require any special knowledge for their understanding, and of these are the translations in this book.

The following pages, which, although addressed to the "general reader," may yet be of some assistance to those especially interested in Egypt, give, among other matters, the place of the Instructions of Ptah-hotep and Ke’gemni in the "literature" of Egypt; their place—their