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Old 03-31-2004, 10:16 PM   #1
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Default Ipuwer papyrus, Leiden 344

Can someone give me some info on this particular document?

Is there a consensus as to the approximate date of it?

http://www.ohr.edu/yhiy/article.php/838

(take the web site with a grain of salt - I am just looking for a date.)


Thanks.
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Old 03-31-2004, 10:47 PM   #2
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Someone brings up the Ipuwer papyrus every six months or so.

Here's one old thread:

Ipuwer

Quoting my post there:

I did a Google search, and the papyrus appears to be real, but implications drawn from it may not be. E.g., it was a favorite of Velikovsky.

The most reasonable item I found was a reprint of an article about a medical doctor analysing the papyrus for evidence of early diseases, with this comment:

Quote:
But Marr's use of the Ipuwer papyrus as evidence that things like plagues actually occurred has irked at least one Egyptologist, who says the papyrus is an ethical guide, not a document of historical events.

"The point of these papyri is to show that when people act wrongly, disasters come upon the country," said James Tate, an associate curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. "They always end up with a new pharaoh coming who acts properly, who restores the country to righteousness and right order."
http://www.toxicmold.org/documents/0104.html
also this:

http://pages.ancientsites.com/~plagu..._Inca/who.html
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Old 04-01-2004, 01:57 AM   #3
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The Admonitions of I-pu-wer, as the document is called, is a text found from the New Kingdom in Egypt, which would ostensibly place it around 1500BCE, but the text has a number of indications that such a date is not indicative, that it was originally written long before and that what we have is a New Kingdom copy of that text. It is a political tract like others written either before or at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, such as the Teaching of King Amenemhat I, with which it shares a phrase in common. The text must be seen in the context of other such Egyptian documents, before one can start making comparisons with non-Egyptian literature. Beware of such comparisons.


spin
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Old 04-01-2004, 09:05 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally posted by David Gould

Can someone give me some info on this particular document?
As spin has pointed out, the dating of this copy may be c. 1500 (though J.B. Pritchard in ANET cites a date of 1350 - 1100 B.C.). Because the language and orthography are "Middle Egyptian", the original is thought to date c. 2300 - 2050 B.C. [ibid.]

For anyone following this, David Gould is correct in that the website he linked to should be taken with a (huge) grain of salt. Not only with regard to the implied dating, but also because they seem to have taken great liberties with translation and selective quoting. For example:
Quote:
From link:

2:5-6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere.
The translation I have doesn't say "plague". It says "dirt" and the surrounding context (conveniently omitted from the link quote) supports that reading:
Quote:
From ANET:
Why really, . . . dirt is throughout the land. There are really none (whose) clothes are white in these times.

Quote:
From link:
2:10 The river is blood.

2:10 Men shrink from tasting - human beings, and thirst after water.
This has been hacked to the point of deliberate deception. The actual passages (as translated by John A. Wilson) indicate that Egypt is being torn by war and civil insurrection with many casualties:

Quote:
From ANET:

Why really, many dead are buried in the river. The stream is a tomb, and the embalming-place has really become the stream.

Why really, the river is blood. If one drinks of it, one rejects it as human and thirsts for water.
Thus, far from any water being "turned to blood", the author is simply indicating that the Nile is being polluted by corpses.



Quote:
From link:

3:10-13 That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin.
This quote is misplaced and selectively quoted/translated so as to imply that the author is here referring strictly to the "water being blood". Yet, in actual fact, this passage comes later as a summation of several dilemmas that have been listed:

Quote:
From ANET:

Why really, Elephantine, the Thinite nome, and the [shrine] of Upper Egypt do not pay taxes because of [civil] war . . . What is the treasury without its revenues for? The heart of the king (must) indeed be glad when truth comes to him! But really, every foreign country [comes]! Such is our water! Such is our welfare! What can we do about it? Going to ruin!


Quote:
From link:

6:3 Forsooth, grain has perished on every side.

5:12 Forsooth, that has perished which was yesterday seen. The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax.
This is selectively quoted so as to imply that the crops of Egypt were smitten by God in a plague. However, another passage which was conveniently omitted states:

Quote:
From ANET:

Why really, the Nile is in flood, (but) no one plows for himself, (because) every man says: "We do not know what may happen throughout the land".
Thus, grain is in short supply because the civil strife has interrupted normal agriculture, not because the crops were "smitten".



Quote:
From link:

9:11 The land is without light.
This is total misdirection. The context of the actual passage is IPU-WER speaking to pharaoh and telling him that proper leadership is not being seen:

Quote:
From ANET:

(But) there is no pilot in their hour. Where is he today? Is he then sleeping? Behold, the glory thereof cannot be seen . . .
Thus, far from saying "the land is without light", this passage rather says that the glory of pharaoh is not being seen (or upheld).


The other quotes from the link are similarly misused, but the above examples should serve to expose their agenda. The best bet is to skip the website, find a decent (annotated) translation, and read the entire document for one's self.

[ANET = "Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament", James B. Pritchard, ed., Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton N.J.]

Amlodhi
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Old 04-01-2004, 09:25 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amlodhi
As spin has pointed out, the dating of this copy may be c. 1500 (though J.B. Pritchard in ANET cites a date of 1350 - 1100 B.C.). Because the language and orthography are "Middle Egyptian", the original is thought to date c. 2300 - 2050 B.C. [ibid.]
I'm only running on very distant memory, so 1500 was a ballpark figure but I thought it was an 18th dynasty copy, which means before 1300, but don't trust me... get a reputable academic source. Pritchard may of course be correct. I just have a conflicting memory of the info.


spin
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Old 04-03-2004, 03:47 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spin
I'm only running on very distant memory, so 1500 was a ballpark figure but I thought it was an 18th dynasty copy, which means before 1300, but don't trust me... get a reputable academic source. Pritchard may of course be correct. I just have a conflicting memory of the info.


spin
I dpn't know that much about this but I do have a reference to a John Van Seeters who dates the document to the end of the XIII dynasty.

John Van seeters. "A Date fror the 'Admonitions'" The journal of Egtyptian Archeology, L (1964) pp 13-23.
Cf. Pense III (Winter 1973) pp.36-37.

I have not actually read the journal but have just seen a reference to it and am not sure how accurate the reference is?

Thanks for the further information Amholdi. Very Interesting.
:notworthy

p.s. hope to get back to something on preterism at some stage , just too busy at the moment.

added in edit I think the XIII dynasty is the end of the middle kingdom (?) around 1788-1688 BCE (?)
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Old 04-03-2004, 07:12 AM   #7
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Ancient texts are full of these pissings and moanings about something or another, usually referred to as ‘laments’ as in The Lament of Inanna or the Lament of Ur, crops failing, animals dying, dead bodies piled up in mounds, type stuff, does this mean Sumer and Babylon got hit with the same plagues as Egypt?
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Old 04-03-2004, 07:40 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Marduk
Ancient texts are full of these pissings and moanings about something or another, usually referred to as ‘laments’ as in The Lament of Inanna or the Lament of Ur, crops failing, animals dying, dead bodies piled up in mounds, type stuff, does this mean Sumer and Babylon got hit with the same plagues as Egypt?
Yes. In the original version, Moses was triplets...
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