Teaching for King Merykara

Synopsis

The Teaching for King Merykara, alt. Instruction Addressed to King Merikare, is a literary composition in Middle Egyptian, the classical phase of the Egyptian language, probably of Middle Kingdom date (2025–1700 BC). In this sebayt the author has a First Intermediate Period king of Egypt possibly named Kheti address his son, the future king Merykara, advising him on how to be a good king, and how to avoid evil. Merykara is the name of a king of the 9th or 10th Dynasty, the line or lines of kings who ruled northern Egypt during a period of division, the First Intermediate Period (about 2150–2025 BC). Perhaps this allowed the author of this composition greater freedom in describing the limits of royal authority than might have been possible in referring to kings of a unified Egypt; the Teaching for King Merykara is effectively a treatise on kingship in the form of a royal testament, the first of this genre. Similar works were created later in the Hellenistic and Islamic world and, in the speculum regum, had a parallel in medieval Europe. Like similar later "royal testaments" one of its functions may have been the legitimization of the ruling king.

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Book