The Westcar Papyrus, dated to the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt (1782 - c.

1570
BCE), but most likely written during the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE), contains some of
the most interesting tales from ancient Egypt. The papyrus takes its name from the man who
first acquired it, Henry Westcar, who purchased the piece c. 1824 CE. Westcar never disclosed
how he came into possession of the scroll nor where, and so no one knows in what context it
was found or its original location.

The scroll was later purchased or otherwise acquired by the Egyptologist Karl Lepsius c. 1839
CE, who understood only parts of it, and then was finally translated into German in 1890 CE by
Adolf Erman. Erman's translation then became the standard on which later scholars would rely.
It was Erman who first called the stories in the papyrus 'fairy tales,' and that definition has stuck.
It is also apt in that the four stories the papyrus contains all revolve around magical and
fantastic events.

There were originally five stories in the manuscript but the first is missing (and, according to
some scholars, so is the conclusion of the papyrus). It is assumed that the work began with
some kind of invitation by Khufu to his sons to tell stories about great wonders of the past or
perhaps it was a competition among the sons to tell the best kind of story. This is, of course,
speculation as no internal evidence in the texts suggests its beginning.

Based on the concluding lines of the first story, it told of some great wonder that happened in
the time of King Djoser (c. 2670 BCE) and most likely involved his architect Imhotep (c.
2667-2600 BCE). The section of the tale which is preserved is a set piece which also appears in
the next two stories in which Khufu approves of the tale told and decrees an elaborate sacrifice
be made to the people in the story.

The Wax Crocodile

The second tale is usually translated as The Marvel Which Happened in the Time of King
Nebka. Nebka is a mysterious figure in ancient Egyptian history who may have reigned in the
3rd Dynasty (c. 2670-2613 BCE). Egyptologists still cannot agree on who he was or when he
ruled. Many consider him synonymous with an early king named Sanakht who may have
founded the 3rd Dynasty, but this is disputed. Other scholars place Nebka toward the end of the
3rd Dynasty, just before Huni, the last to rule before the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

The Westcar Papyrus is one of the few documents from ancient Egypt to mention Nebka. His
placement in the work, following Djoser, makes sense if he were the ruler who preceded Huni
but not if he was the founder of the 3rd Dynasty.

This tale is told by Khafre (Khufu's successor) and is usually translated as The Wax Crocodile.
In the story, Nebka is on his way to the Temple of Ptah at Memphis and stops at the home of a
priest and scribe named Webaoner. Webaoner's wife notices a handsome youth in the king's
entourage and sends him a gift, and he responds by asking to spend some time with her in the
pavilion on the estate's grounds. The wife orders the caretaker to prepare the pavilion for them,
and they spend the day there drinking, feasting, and having sex. Afterwards, the youth goes and
bathes in the nearby lake.

The next morning, the caretaker feels it his duty to tell his master of what had happened, and
Webaoner calls for his chest of magic herbs and spells and creates a wax crocodile. He tells the
caretaker to cast it into the lake behind the youth the next time he bathes there. Later that day,
the wife again summons the caretaker to prepare the pavilion for herself and her lover and,
when they are done, the youth goes down to the lake for a bath. The caretaker drops the wax
crocodile into the water and it instantly becomes a live creature over twelve feet long who grabs
the young man in its jaws and vanishes beneath the surface.

Nebka stays at the estate for seven days until, just as he is ready to depart, Webaoner tells him
he must see for himself what has happened. He brings the king to the lake and calls out to the
crocodile to bring the youth back. The crocodile appears with the young man in his mouth and
drops him on the shore. Nebka is startled by the creature, but Webaoner reaches down and
touches it and it becomes a wax figure again. He then tells Nebka about the affair between the
youth and his wife and Nebka says to the crocodile, "Take what belongs to you!" Webaoner
touches the crocodile again, and it comes back to life, grabs the youth, and leaps into the water.
Nebka then orders that the adulterous wife be burned at the stake and, afterwards, has her
ashes thrown in the river.

When Khafre finishes his tale, Khufu declares it good and orders sacrifice made in the honor of
Nebka and Webaoner.

Sneferu & the Green Jewel

Khufu's son Bauefre speaks next, telling a story about king Sneferu (c. 2613-2589 BCE),
Khufu's father. In the tale, Sneferu is depressed and has been wandering around his palace
looking for some diversion to lighten his mood. His chief priest, Djadjaemonkh, suggests, "Let
Your Majesty proceed to the lake of the palace and equip for yourself a boat with all the beauties
who are in your palace chamber. The heart of Your Majesty shall be refreshed at the sight of
their rowing as they row up and down."

Sneferu is delighted at this suggestion and issues his command:

Let there be brought to me twenty oars made of ebony, fitted with gold, with the butts of
sandalwood fitted with electrum. Let there be brought to me twenty women, the most
beautiful in form, with firm breasts, with hair well braided, not having opened up to give
birth. Let there be brought to me twenty nets, and let these nets be given to these women
when they have taken off their clothes.

When all this is done, Sneferu goes out on the lake with the women and "the heart of His
Majesty was pleased at the sight of their rowing" until one of them loses a fish-shaped jewel
from her hair and stops rowing. The other women stop as well and Sneferu asks what the
matter is. The woman tells him how she has just lost her jewel and he says it is no matter, he
will give her another. The woman ways, "I prefer what is mine to another" and so the king
summons Djadjaemonkh, who is on the boat, and tells him the problem.

Djadjaemonkh then recites a magic spell and parts the water, placing "one side of the water of
the lake upon the other" and retrieves the jewel. Just as Moses will later do with the Red Sea in
the famous story from Exodus, once the jewel is returned to the woman, Djadjaemonkh allows
the waters to fall back into place. Sneferu is pleased and rewards the priest and goes on
enjoying his day on the lake. When the story concludes, Khufu again orders that sacrifices be
made to Sneferu and Djadjaemonkh.

Khufu & the Magician

The prince Hardedef now stands up and says to Khufu, "You have heard examples of the skill of
those who have passed away, but there one cannot know truth from falsehood. But there is with
Your Majesty, in your own time, one who is not known to you." He then tells his father about a
magician named Djedi who is over 100 years old, eats 500 loaves, a shoulder of meat, drinks
100 jugs of beer and knows how to reattach a head which has been severed from a body and
make the person live again as well as perform other miracles and wonders. Hardedef also
claims that Djedi knows the number of shrines of the enclosure of Thoth, something Khufu has
been interested in finding out. Khufu is intrigued and sends Hardedef to fetch this man.

Hardedef finds Djedi and requests he return with him to the palace. The story details the trip
with Djedi's family and his request for a boat for his books, and they finally arrive at the palace.
Khufu is anxious to see the feat of reattaching a head which has been severed and sends for a
prisoner to be brought, but Djedi says he cannot perform this on a human being because it is
against the will of the gods. A goose is brought instead and its head cut off. The body is placed
on one side of the hall and the head on the other and the two move toward each other, the
goose's body waddling headless and the head cackling until they join again and the goose is
whole. This same is then done with a waterfowl and an ox.

Khufu is well pleased and then says how he has heard that Djedi knows the number of shrines
in the enclosure of Thoth, but Djedi claims he does not, he only knows where they are kept.
When Khufu asks him to bring them, he says he cannot because it is written that only the eldest
son of Reddedet will be able to bring them. When Khufu asks who Reddedet is, he is told that
she will bear three sons who will hold high office in the land and replace Khufu's line. Khufu is
upset to hear that his own sons will not inherit the throne but is assured that they will rule and,
only after one of his sons (Khafre) and then his son (Menkaure), will the son of Reddedet come
to the throne.

Unlike the earlier tales, this one does not end with the set piece of the king commanding
sacrifices but rather with him setting Djedi up with an allowance and a place to live with
Hardedef. The story prepares a reader for the last of the five in which the sons of Reddedet will
be born.

Khufu and the Magician is often cited by scholars (such as Barbara Watterson) as depicting the
king as callous and insensitive. It has also been claimed that the Westcar Papyrus may have
influenced the later view (famously expressed by Herodotus) that Khufu was a cruel monarch
and despised by the people. Nothing in the text would indicate this kind of conclusion. Khufu
calls for the prisoner to be brought because he expects Djedi will be able to reattach the
severed head and, even if he should fail, the man would be executed anyway. How certain
scholars have concluded that the story presents Khufu poorly is unclear since the prisoner
episode is the reason most often cited.

The Birth of the Kings

The last story has no narrator and is given in the third person. It tells the tale of the magical birth
of the first three kings of the 5th Dynasty: Userkaf, Sahure, and Kakai. Reddedet, wife of a
priest of Ra, goes into a difficult labor, and the god Ra, hearing it, sends Isis, Nephthys,
Meskhenet, Heket, and Khnum to help her. These deities transform themselves into dancing
girls and musicians and go to the home where they find Reddedet's husband, Rewosre, upset
over his wife's condition. They ask him if they can help since they know about childbirth, and he
tells them to proceed.
The story then details the births of the three kings and is thought to depict actual childbirth in
ancient Egypt and the role of midwives: "they entered into the presence of Reddedet. Then they
locked the room on her and on themselves. Isis placed herself in front of her, Nephthys behind
her, and Heket hastened the childbirth." Isis speaks to the child, and it is born, washed, and
umbilical cord cut; he is then placed on a cushion. The births of the next two boys are described
in the same way only each time Isis gives the boys their name with a slightly different spell.

After the children are all born safely the goddesses emerge from the room and Rewosre thanks
them and offers them a sack of grain for making beer. The deities leave when Isis suddenly says
to the others, "What is this, that we are returning without performing a marvel for these
children?" and so they fashion three royal crowns and put them in the sack of grain. They then
cause a huge storm to blow up as an excuse and return to the house, asking if they can leave
the grain there so it will not get wet. They say they will retrieve it on their journey back, and the
sack is placed in a locked room.

Reddedet recovers from the births after 14 days and calls for her maidservant to see if the
house is purified and prepared for a feast. The maid says that everything is ready except the
beer because there is no grain in the house except what Rewosre gave to the musicians and
dancing girls who helped with the births. Reddedet tells her to use it and Rewosre will replace
the bag before the girls return.

When the maid goes into the room, though, she hears music and the sounds of dancing and
celebration coming from nowhere and runs to tell Reddedet. When the lady of the house goes to
the room, she discovers the sounds are coming from the sack of grain and there are three royal
crowns inside for her sons. She is overjoyed at their good fortune and tells her husband, but
they lock the sack up in a chest and seal it in a room in fear that Khufu might learn of the future
kings and not be pleased.

A few days later, Reddedet has an argument with her maid and beats her. The girl is upset and
runs out of the house after yelling that she will go to the king and tell him what is in the chest
and what it means. She is on her way when she passes by her brother, another servant in the
house, who is threshing flax. When he asks her where she is going in such a state, she tells him
the whole story. The brother is outraged that she would treat her mistress in this way, betraying
her trust, and beats her with a whip of flax. The girl runs to the river to get a drink of water but is
seized by a crocodile and eaten.

The brother goes to tell Reddedet the news and finds her sitting sadly. When he asks what is
wrong, she tells him about how she had a fight with his sister who has gone off to denounce her
to the king. The brother assures her all will be well because his sister has been taken by a
crocodile, and at this point, the story ends.

It was originally thought that the manuscript broke off after this scene, since the scroll is divided
into sections and, just as the beginning is missing, so the conclusion was thought to be.
According to a number of scholars, however (Lichtheim, Verner, and Lepper among them), the
manuscript is complete as it stands save for the obvious loss of the first story. The manuscript
concludes leaving the reader with the understanding that the secret of the three boys who will
grow up to become rulers of Egypt, ending Khufu's line, will remain safe with their mother and
the 5th Dynasty will continue the glory of Egypt.

The Ebers Papyrus

The Ebers Papyrus is written in hieratic Egyptian writing and represents the most extensive and
best-preserved record of ancient Egyptian medicine known.

An ancient Egyptian medical papyrus of herbal knowledge combining herbal remedies with
magic spells. Among the oldest and most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt.

The scroll contains some 700 magical formulas and folk remedies. It contains many incantations
meant to turn away disease-causing demons and there is also evidence of a long tradition of
empiricism.

The papyrus contains a “treatise on the heart”. It notes that the heart is the centre of the blood
supply, with vessels attached for every member of the body.

The Egyptians seem to have known little about the kidneys and made the heart the meeting
point of a number of vessels which carried all the fluids of the body—blood, tears, urine and
semen.

Mental disorders are detailed in a chapter of the papyrus called the Book of Hearts. Disorders
such as depression and dementia are covered. The descriptions of these disorders suggest that
Egyptians conceived of mental and physical diseases in much the same way.

The papyrus contains chapters on contraception, diagnosis of pregnancy and other

gynecological matters, intestinal disease and parasites, eye and skin problems, dentistry and
the surgical treatment of abscesses and tumors, bone-setting, and burns.

Ancient Egyptian physician of the 18th Dynasty (ca. 1550-1292 BC), clothed in clean white linen
and a wig, as became the dignity of his status, is confronted with a patient having symptoms of
lockjaw (described in an ancient scroll now known as the Edwin Smith papyrus).

With sure, sympathetic hands, the physician treats the patient, who is supported by a “brick
chair.” Directions for treatment appear on the scroll held by his assistant.

Specially trained priests observe prescribed magico-religious rites. Egyptian medicine occupied
a dominant position in the world of the ancients for 2500 years.

The “channel theory” was prevalent at the time of writing of the Ebers papyrus; it suggested that
unimpeded flow of bodily fluids is a prerequisite for good health. It may be considered a
precursor of ancient Greek humeral pathology and the subsequently established theory of the
four humors, providing a historical connection between Ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and
medieval medicine. It dates to the New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, around 1550 BC. Now in the
University Library, Leipzig.

Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead prevails in both popular culture and current scholarship as one of the
most famous aspects of ancient Egyptian culture. This funerary text provides some of the most
vivid and enduring images from the ancient world – there are few who have not heard some
version of the Book of the Dead’s afterlife mythology. Familiar scenes – like a scale weighing a
heart of the deceased against a feather or the eternal destruction of a soul by a deity composed
of animal parts – originate from the Book of the Dead. With such impressive narratives, it is
clear why Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife are so thoroughly ingrained in our collective
memory. But despite the Book of the Dead’s lasting fame, it is often misunderstood or
purposefully romanticized for the sake of an exhilarating story, as in the cultural phenomenon of
The Mummy in 1999. So what is the Book of the Dead, how was it significant to Egyptians in the
past and how do Egyptologists use this important resource today?
“The Chapters/Book of Going Forth By Day” is the official translation of the title given to a
collection of papyrus rolls on the same subject known commonly as the Book of the Dead.
Though the word “book” brings to mind a story or text written by a singular author and reprinted
repeatedly in the same form, these texts have multiple authors and each version has its own
variations. These texts served as a guide for the dead to use on their journeys to the afterlife.
Each was prepared by scribes for burials, with varying quality depending on the scribe’s skill,
and some were prepared with blank spaces to later fill in the name of the dead. In addition to
the long-form papyrus versions of the Book of the Dead, spells and passages from the text were
recorded other places – on tomb walls, mummy wrappings and even inside King Tut’s golden
mask.
The Book of the Dead first appeared in the New Kingdom, but the text evolved from a long
tradition of magical funerary writing. The oldest of these writings, the Pyramid Texts, were
available exclusively to Egyptian royalty. As religious beliefs on the afterlife changed, copies of
the Coffin Texts – an adapted version of the Pyramid Texts – were written on coffins and
included in the tombs of non-royals, such as wealthy Egyptians and elites. By the New
Kingdom, the afterlife was understood as accessible to all who could afford their own Book of
the Dead, a handy guidebook providing the spells necessary for the perilous, confusing and
elaborate trials faced to earn eternal life among the gods.

The gods Osiris, associated with resurrection, and Re, associated with the sun, star in the Book
of the Dead. Forty-two additional gods appear to judge and test the newly departed. Although
the text itself varies in content and order, the narrative is generally divided into four main
sections: the deceased enters the underworld and regains the physical abilities of the living, the
deceased is resurrected and joins Re to rise as the sun each day, the deceased travels across
the sky before judgement in the underworld by a panel of gods and, finally – assuming the soul
hasn’t been destroyed – the deceased joins the gods. To progress through the complex
challenges in these stages, the dead must speak the right names and spells at the right time
and respond with the right answers to the gods’ questions. In one interesting and curious case,
the deceased must name various parts of a sentient doorway before passing. Luckily, the Book
of the Dead conveniently holds all the required information.
These texts were certainly important to ancient Egyptians, and now they constitute one of the
most important resources for Egyptologists hoping to understand the Egyptian religion and
afterlife. In addition to explicitly describing the afterlife and the roles of the gods, the Book of the
Dead also gives insight into important concepts like the ka and ba, aspects of the soul believed
to live on after death. The ka needed a physical form to return to in order to exist, and so the
Book of the Dead helps us to understand the importance of the well-known Egyptian practice of
mummification. Similarly, the Book of the Dead also contains spells for preserving specific parts
of the body and the spell for the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, a ritual performed before the
mummy was sealed in its tomb, often depicted in tomb decoration. The Book of the Dead
reveals central aspects of the ancient Egyptians’ belief system, and, like many topics in
Egyptology, our theories are constantly changing, growing and adapting with every new
translation of this text.