Chapter 43 (part 8)

, Asasîf el-bahrîyeh, or Asasif of the north, behind Dêr el-baharî, on the western bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes.] {p. xv} the oldest in the Book of the Dead; the former basing his opinion on the rubric' and the latter upon the evidence derived from the contents and character of the text; but Maspero, while admitting the great age of the chapter, does not attach any very great importance to the rubric as fixing any exact date for its composition.[1] Of Herutataf the finder of the block of stone, we know from later texts that he was considered to be a learned man, and that his speech was only with difficulty to be understood,[2] and we also know the prominent part which he took as a recognized man of letters in bringing to the court of his father Khufu the sage Tetteta.[3] It is then not improbable that Herutataf's character for learning may have suggested the connection of his name with the chapter, and possibly as its literary reviser; at all events as early as the period of the Middle Empire tradition associated him with it. [1. "On explique d'ordinaire cette indication comme une marque d'antiquité extrême; on part de ce principe que le Livre des Morts est de composition relativement moderne, et qu'un scribe égyptien, nommant un roi des premières dynasties memphites, ne pouvait entendre par là qu'un personnage d'époque très reculée. Cette explication ne me paraît pas être exacte. En premier lieu, le chapitre LXIV. se trouve déjà sur des monuments contemporains de la X e et de la XI e dynastie, et n'était certainement pas nouveau au moment où on écrivait les copies les plus vieilles que nous en ayons aujourd'hui. Lorsqu'on le rédigea sous sa forme actuelle, le règne de Mykérinos, et même celui d'Housapaiti, ne devaient pas soulever dans l'esprit des indigènes la sensation de l'archaïsme et du primitif: on avait pour rendre ces idées des expressions plus fortes, qui renvoyaient le lecteur au siècles des Serviteurs d'Horus , à la domination de Ra, aux âges où les dieux régnaient sur l'Égypte." Revue de l'Histoire des Religions , t. xv., p. 299. 2 Chabas, Voyage, p. 46; Wiedemann, Aegyptische Geschichte , p. 191. In the Brit. Mus. papyrus No. 10,060 (Harris 500), Herutataf is mentioned together with I-em-hetep as a well known author, and the writer of the dirge says, "I have heard the words of I-em-hetep and of Herutataf, whose many and varied writings are said and sung; but now where are their places?" The hieratic text is published with a hieroglyphic transcript by Maspero in Journal Asiatique , Sér. VII ième , t. xv., p. 404 ff., and Études Égyptiennes , t. i., p. 173; for English translations, see Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch. , vol. iii., p. 386, and Records of the Past , 1st ed., vol. iv., p. 117.