this article under
special headings. In addition there should be mentioned the abundant
explanatory inscriptions attached to wall-scenes as a secondary element
in those compositions. As early as the Middle Kingdom, papyri are found
containing classified lists of words, titles, names of cities, &c., and
of nomes with their capitals, festivals, deities and sacred things,
calendars, &c.

To a great extent the standard works in all classes date from an early
age, not later than the Middle Kingdom, and subsequent works of religion
and learning like the later additions were largely written in the same
style. Several books of proverbs or "instructions" were put in
circulation during the Middle Kingdom. Kagemni and Ptahhotp of the Old
Kingdom were nominally or really the instructors in manners: King
Amenemhe I. laid down the principles of conduct in government for his
son Senwosri I., preaching on the text of beneficence rewarded by
treachery; Kheti points out in detail to his schoolboy son Pepi the
advantages enjoyed by scribes and the miseries of all other careers.
Some of these books are known only in copies of the New Kingdom. The
instructions of Ani to his son Khenshotp are of later date. In demotic
the most notable of such works is a papyrus of the first century A.D. at
Leiden.

A number of Egyptian tales are known, dating from the Middle Kingdom and
later. Some are so sober and realistic as to make it doubtful whether
they are not true biographies and narratives of actual events. Such are
the story of Sinuhi, a fugitive to Syria in the reign of Sesostris
[Senwosri] I., and perhaps the narrative of Unamun of his expedition in
quest of cedar wood for the bark of the Theban Ammon in the XXIst
Dynasty. Others are highly imaginative or with miraculous incidents,
like the story of the Predestined Prince and the story of the Two
Brothers, which begins with a pleasing picture of the industrious
farmer, and, in demotic of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, two stories
of the learned Sethon Khamois, son of Rameses II. and high priest of
Ptah, with his rather tragical experiences at the hands of magicians.
The stories of the Middle Kingdom were in choice diction, large portions
of them being rhetorical or poetical compositions attributed to the
principal characters. The story of Sinuhi is of this description and was
much read during the New Kingdom. Another, of the Eloquent Peasant whose
ass had been stolen, was only a framework t