II. The Middle Kingdom, B.C. 3000 TO 1600
The Middle Kingdom, from the IXth to the XVIIth Dynasty, shows a great literary development. Historical records of some length are not uncommon. The funerary inscriptions descriptive of character and achievement are often remarkable.
Many papyri of this period have survived: the *Prisse Papyrus of 'Proverbs,' a papyrus discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie with the *'Hymn to Usertesen III.,' papyri at Berlin containing a *dialogue between a man and his soul, the *'Story of Sanehat,' the 'Story of the Sekhti,' and a very remarkable fragment of another story; besides the 'Westcar Papyrus of Tales' and at St. Petersburg the *'Shipwrecked Sailor.' The productions of this period were copied in later times; the royal *'Teaching of Amenemhat,' and the worldly *'Teaching of Dauf' as to the desirability of a scribe's career above any other trade or profession, exist only in late copies. Doubtless much of the later literature was copied from the texts of the Middle Kingdom. There are also *treatises extant on medicine and arithmetic. Portions of the Book of the Dead are found inscribed on tombs and sarcophagi.