Papyrus Harris I is also known as The Great Harris Papyrus and (less accurately) simply The Harris Papyrus (though there are a number of other papyri in the Harris collection). Its technical designation is ''Papyrus British Museum EA 9999''. At 41 metres long, it is "the longest known

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

from

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, with some 1,500 lines of text." It was found in a tomb near Medinet Habu, across the

Nile river The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...

from Luxor, Egypt, and purchased by collector Anthony Charles Harris (1790–1869) in 1855; it entered the collection of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in 1872. Its

editio princeps In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...

is the 1876 "Facsimile of an Egyptian Hieratic papyrus of the reign of Ramses III" published by the British Museum.

Text

The

hieratic Hieratic (; ) is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BCE until the rise of Demotic in the mid-first millennium BCE ...

text of the papyrus consists of a list of temple endowments and a brief summary of the entire reign (1186–1155 BC) of

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Ramesses III Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New K ...

of the

Twentieth dynasty of Egypt The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XX, alternatively 20th Dynasty or Dynasty 20) is the third and last dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1189 BC to 1077 BC. The 19th and 20th Dynasties together constitut ...

. Ramesses III claims to have captured hundreds of thousands of foreign slaves: "I brought back in great numbers those that my sword has spared, with their hands tied behind their backs before my horses, and their wives and children in tens of thousands, and their livestock in hundreds of thousands. I imprisoned their leaders in fortresses bearing my name, and I added to them chief archers and tribal chiefs, branded and enslaved, tattooed with my name, their wives and children being treated in the same way." Its historical section mentions that Setnakhte, Ramesses III's father and predecessor, restored order and stability to Egypt after a time of internal civil conflict, expelling Asiatic followers of

Irsu Irsu (, "he who made himself"; alternatively Su) is the name used in Papyrus Harris I to designate a Shasu who became overlord of a group of local rulers nominally under Egyptian control, at a time of unrest between the Nineteenth and Twentie ...

. Ramesses III himself reorganized the state bureaucracy and the army. He fought wars against the

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...

and claims to have subdued them and made them subjects of Egypt. The

Edom Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...

ites too were subjugated. In the west, he stopped the incursions of the Libyans and Meshwesh and settled them in the western Nile delta. His economic activities included the digging of a great well at Ayan, an expedition to Punt, an ill-defined region in the Horn of Africa, the importation of copper from Atika, and an expedition to the

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Afri ...

which returned with precious stones. Improving the quality of life of the ordinary Egyptian he had trees planted for shade, he protected women so they might go freely wherever they wanted, and, when Egypt was at peace, its foreign mercenaries lived with their families in garrison towns. Overall, he was convinced of having greatly bettered the lot of all inhabitants of Egypt, natives or foreigners.Breasted, James Henry. 1906. ''Ancient Records of Egypt'', Chicago, Part Four, §§ 397 to 412 The text itself was composed during the reign of Ramesses IV, Ramesses III's son and successor.

Footnotes

References

*Erichsen, Wolja. 1933. ''Papyrus Harris I: hieroglyphische Transkription''. Bibliotheca aegyptiaca 5. Brussel: Fondation égyptologique reine Élisabeth *Grandet, Pierre. 1994. ''Le papyrus Harris I (BM 9999)''. 2 vols. Bibliothèque d'Étude 109/1–2. Cairo: Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire *Grandet, Pierre. 1999. ''Le papyrus Harris I: Glossaire''. Bibliothèque d'Étude 129. Cairo: Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire *Breasted, James Henry. 1906. '' Ancient Records of Egypt'', Chicago, Part Four, §§ 151 to 412

External links

British Museum webpage on the PapyrusBritish Museum webpage on a scene from the PapyrusAugust Eisenlohr's German edition of the Harris Papyrus at the Internet Archive
{{commonscat Extra-biblical references to Canaan Ancient Egyptian objects in the British Museum Papyri from ancient Egypt 2nd-millennium BC manuscripts Archaeological discoveries in Egypt 19th-century archaeological discoveries 12th-century BC literature

Text

See also

Footnotes

References

External links