The Cannibal Hymn is one of a group of related spells that appear only in the two earliest
pyramids with texts, those of Unas and Teti. The spells then drop out of the regular corpus.
What is particularly peculiar and unique about this hymn is the motive of cannibalism:
the king is not submissive to the gods, rather he threatens them and devours them: the gods are
hunted down, lassoed, bound, and slaughtered like wild cattle, that the king may devour their
substance, and especially their internal organs, like the heart where the intelligence had its seat,
in the belief that he might thus absorb and appropriate their qualities and powers.
The text known as the “Memphite Theology” was inscribed on a rectangular slab of black granite
during the reign of the 25th-Dynasty pharaoh Shabaka (ca. 715-701 B.C.) for erection in the
temple of Ptah in Memphis. The middle portion of the text has been almost completely
obliterated through later reuse as a millstone.
Shabaka’s dedicatory inscription indicates that the stone was carved to perpetuate the text of an
older document, written on worm-eaten papyrus or leather.
The text is a work of the Old Kingdom, considering the prominence of Memphis, and archaic
language that resembles that of the Pyramid Texts. The contents are following:
(1) Ptah is the king of Egypt and the unifier of the land.
(2) Memphis is the capital of Egypt and the hinge of Upper and Lower Egypt.
(3) Ptah is also the supreme god and the creator of the world.
And here I would like to share with you a passage from the text that gives us the clear picture
why this is one of the intellectually most sophisticated texts we have from Ancient Egypt.
The power of creative speech was most often associated with the god Ptah, the patron deity of
Memphis. The creation of the world was an act of “magic”. In ancient Egypt, magic meant
essentially the ability to make things happen by indirect means. Ptah’s act of creation is
connected to the two components – sj3 (perception) and hw (annunciation). Perception is the
ability to see what needs to be done, and annunciation is the power to make it happen through
speech. Ptah perceived the world in his heart and brought it about by announcing his perception.
This understanding of the creation as an act of perception and speech that lies behind the
Memphite theology is quite similar to the one that underlies the story of creation in the Bible:
God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light [annunciation].
God saw the light, that it was good [perception]. (Gen. I:3-4)
I would also like to point out that “every divine speech” (mdw.w ntr nb) mentioned in the text is
also an Ancient Egyptian name for the hieroglyphic writing, which to the Egyptian mind was a
means for capturing reality through symbols. That in effect means that all creation is a
hieroglyphic text of the creator’s original concept: the same intellectual principle has produced
everything.
Middle Egyptian was used as a spoken and written language from the Middle Kingdom to the
end of the Dynasty XVIII (2000-1300 BCE). This is the classical language of Egyptian literature,
conveyed in a variety of texts, classified according to four main genres:
(1) Funerary literature (Coffin texts) inscribed on the sarcophagi of the admininistrative
elite;
(2) Instructions i.e. wisdom texts normally addressed from a father to a son, which
conveyed the educational and professional expectations of Egyptian society. The most
renowned examples are the "Instructions of the Ptahhotep" and the "Instructions for
Merikare." Some of these moral texts, such as the "Admonitions of Ipu-Wer," are in fact
philosophical discussions on the state of the country taking as a point of departure the
political evolution from the Old to the Middle Kingdom, referred to as First Intermediate
Period.
(3) Tales which are narratives relating adventures of a specific hero and representing the
vehicle of individual, as opposed to societal concerns. The most famous specimens of this
genre are the "Tale of Sinuhe“, "Eloquent Peasant”, and the "Shipwrecked Sailor.“
(4) Hymns, poetical texts with religious contents, written in praise of a god or of the king.
Famous examples are provided by the "Hymn to the Nile“ and by the cycle of "Hymns to King
Sesostris“.
(a) New Egyptian (1300-700 BCE), the language of written records from the second part of the
New Kingdom. It primarily conveys the rich entertainment literature of Dynasty XIX, consisting
of wisdom and narrative texts, for example the "Tale of the Two Brothers," the "Tale of
Wenarnun,“ but also of some new literary genres, such as mythological tales or love poetry.
(b) Demotic (7th century BCE to 5th century CE), the language of administration and literature
during the Late Period. While grammatically closely akin to Late Egyptian, it differs from it
radically in its graphic system. Important texts in Demotic are the narrative cycles of Setne-
Khaemwase and the instructions of Papyrus Onkhsheshonqi.
(c) Coptic (1st century BCE to 18th century CE) is the language of Christian Egypt, written in a
variety of Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven Demotic signs to indicate Egyptian
phonemes absent from Greek. As a spoken, and gradually also as a written language, Coptic was
superseded by Arabic from the ninth century onward, but it survives to the present time as the
liturgical language of the Christian church of Egypt.