XI. Legal Documents.—The first legal document written in Egypt was the will of Rā, in which he bequeathed all his property and the inheritance of the throne of Egypt to his first-born son Horus. Tradition asserted that this Will was preserved in the Library of the Sun-god in Heliopolis. The inscriptions contain many allusions to the Laws of Egypt, but no document containing any connected statement of them has come down to us. In the great inscription of Heruemheb, the last king of the eighteenth dynasty, a large number of good laws are given, but it must be confessed that as a whole the administration of the Law in many parts of Egypt must always have been very lax. Texts relating to bequests, endowments, grants of land, &c., are very difficult to translate, because it is well-nigh impossible to find equivalents for Egyptian legal terms. In the British Museum are two documents in hieratic that were drawn up in connection with prosecutions which the Government of Egypt undertook of certain thieves who had broken into some of the royal tombs at Thebes and robbed them, and of certain other thieves who had robbed the royal treasury and made away with a large amount of silver (Nos. 10,221, 10,052, 10,053, and 10,054). Equally interesting is the roll that describes the prosecution of certain highly placed officials and relations of Rameses III who had conspired against him and wanted to kill him. Several of the conspirators were compelled to commit suicide. The text is written in hieratic on papyrus, and is preserved in the Royal Museum, Leyden.
XII. Historical Romances.—Examples of these are the narrative of the capture of the town of Joppa in Palestine by an officer of Thothmes III, and the history of the dispute that broke out between Seqenenrā, King of Upper Egypt, and Āapepi, King of Avaris in the Delta. These are written in hieratic and are preserved in the British Museum, in Harris Papyrus 500, and Sallier No. 1 (10,185).
XIII. Mathematics.—The chief source of our knowledge of the Mathematics of the Egyptians is the Rhind Papyrus in the British Museum (No. 10,057), which was written before 1700 B.C., probably during the reign of one of the Hyksos kings. The papyrus contains a number of simple arithmetical examples and several geometrical problems. The workings out of these prove that the Egyptian spared himself no trouble in making his calculations, and that he worked out both his arithmetical examples and problems in the most cumbrous and laborious way possible. He never studied mathematics in order to make progress in his knowledge of the science, but simply for purely practical everyday work; as long as his knowledge enabled him to obtain results which he knew from experience were substantially correct he was content.
EDITIONS OF EGYPTIAN TEXTS, TRANSLATIONS, &c.
Amélineau, E.—Morale Égyptien. Paris, 1892. 8vo.
Bergmann, E.—Das Buch vom Durchwandeln der Ewigkeit. Vienna, 1877.
Birch, S.—Egyptian Texts from the Coffin of Amamu. London, 1886.
Egyptian Hieratic Papyrus of Rameses III. London, 1876.
Breasted, J.H.—Ancient Records—Egypt. Chicago, 1906.
Brugsch, H.—Sieben Jahre der Hungersnoth. Leipzig, 1891.
Inscriptio Rosettana. Berlin, 1851.
Neue Weltordnung. Berlin, 1881.
Reise nach der grossen Oase. Leipzig, 1878.
Rhind's zwei Bilingue Papyri. Leipzig, 1865.
Shai an Sinsin. Berlin, 1851.
Budge, E.A. Wallis.—Book of the Dead, Egyptian Texts,
Translation and Vocabulary, 2nd ed. London, 1909.
Papyrus of Ani. London, 1913.
Papyri of Hunefer, Anhai, Netchemet, Kersher, and Nu. London, 1899.
Hieratic Papyri. Texts and translations. London, 1910.
Book of Opening the Mouth, Liturgy of Funerary Offerings,
The Book of Am-Tuat, The Book of Gates. London, 1906-1909.
Legends of the Gods. London, 1912.
Annals of Nubian Kings. London, 1912.
Greenfield Papyrus. 1912.
De Horrack, P.J.—Les Lamentations d'Isis. Paris, 1866.
Erman, A.—Gespräch eines Lebensmüden. Berlin, 1896.
Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar. Berlin, 1890.
Gardiner, A.H.—Egyptian Hieratic Texts, Part I. Leipzig, 1911.
The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage. Leipzig, 1909.
Die Erzählung des Sinuhe. Leipzig, 1904.
Die Klagen des Bauern. Leipzig, 1908.
Grébaut, E.—Hymne à Ammon-Rā. Paris, 1874.
Griffith, F. Ll.—Stories of the High Priests of Memphis. Oxford, 1900.
Golenischeff, W.—Die Metternichstele. Leipzig, 1877.
Le Conte du Naufragé. Cairo, 1912.
Les Papyrus Hiératiques. St. Petersburg, 1913.
Joachim, H.—Papyros Ebers. Berlin, 1890.
Lefébure, E.—Le Mythe Osirien. Paris, 1874.
Traduction comparée des Hymnes. Paris, 1868.
Legrain, G.—Livre des Transformations. Paris, 1890.
Lieblein, J.—Le livre Égyptien, Que mon nom. Leipzig, 1895.
Maspero, G.—Contes Populaires. Paris, 1912.
Une enquête judiciaire. Paris, 1872.
Études Égyptiennes. Tomm. I, II. Paris, 1883.
Du Genre Épistolaire. Paris, 1872.
Hymne au Nil. Paris, 1868, and Cairo, 1912.
Inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqarah. Paris, 1894.
Mémoire sur quelques Papyrus. Paris, 1875.
Les Mémoires de Sinouhit. Cairo, 1908.
Möller, G.—Die beiden Totenpapyrus Rhind. Leipzig, 1913.
Moret, A.—Le Rituel du Culte Divin. Paris, 1902.
Müller, W.M.—Die Liebespoesie der alten Ägypter. Leipzig, 1899.
Naville, E.—Das Aegyptische Todtenbuch. Berlin, 1886.
La Litanie du Soleil. Leipzig, 1875.
Papyrus Funéraires de la XXIe dynastie. Paris, 1912.
Textes relatifs an Mythe Horus. Geneva, 1870.
Schack-schackenburg, H.—Das Buch von den zwei Wegen. Leipzig, 1903.
Schäfer, H.—Die Aethiopische Königinschrift. Leipzig, 1901.
Ein Bruchstück altägyptischer Annalen. Berlin, 1902.
Schiaparelli.—Libro dei Funerali. Turin, 1882.
Spiegelberg, W.—Der Sagenkreis des Königs Petubastis. Leipzig, 1910.
Das Demotische Totenbuch. Leipzig, 1910.
Der Papyrus Libbey. Strassburg, 1907.
Rechnungen aus der Zeit Setis I. Strassburg, 1896.
Virey, Ph.—Études sur le Papyrus Prisse. Paris, 1887.
Vogelsang, F.—Die Klagen des Bauern. Leipzig, 1913.
Wiedemann, A.—Hieratische Texte aus den Museen zu Berlin
und Paris. Leipzig, 1879.
Magie und Zauberei. Leipzig, 1905.
Die Unterhaltung's Litteratur der alten Aegypter. Leipzig, 1902.