From the Old Kingdom on, officials carved accounts of their lives on tomb walls and stelae. They are called autobiographies, though they follow conventions as fixed as those of the offering formula. Their grammar is the jw + sḏm.n=f of jw sḏm.n=f in Narrative, line after line.
Key idea
A set phrase of many autobiographies: jw rdj.n=j t n ḥqr ḥbs n ḥꜣy "I gave bread to the hungry and clothes to the naked". Others: ḏd.n=j mꜣꜥt jr.n=j mꜣꜥt "I spoke what is right and did what is right". These are ideal statements of a good life, not personal confessions.
Why it works
A tomb was a public place. Visitors were asked to read the offering formula aloud for the owner, and the owner's claim to deserve it was his life lived by maat, right order. So he set down the deeds that maat required: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, speaking truly, harming no one. Because every good official claimed the same virtues, the same phrases recur from tomb to tomb. Some autobiographies add real events too, such as journeys and royal favors; Harkhuf of Aswan, for example, describes his expeditions to the south.
| Egyptian | Word for word | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| rdj.n=j t n ḥqr | I gave bread to (the) hungry | I gave bread to the hungry |
| ḥbs n ḥꜣy | clothing to (the) naked | (and) clothes to the naked |
| ḏd.n=j mꜣꜥt | I said maat | I spoke what is right |
| jr.n=j mꜣꜥt | I did maat | I did what is right |
Worked example: Read the line
Translate jw rdj.n=j t n ḥqr ḥbs n ḥꜣy.
- jw introduces a statement; rdj.n=j "I gave".
- t n ḥqr "bread to the hungry"; the verb is not repeated for the second pair: ḥbs n ḥꜣy "clothes to the naked".
- ḥqr and ḥꜣy are adjectives used as nouns: "the hungry one", "the naked one".
Answer: "I gave bread to the hungry and clothes to the naked."
Worked example: Parse a verb
What form is jr.n=j in jr.n=j mꜣꜥt?
- The eye jr: the stem of jrj "do".
- .n then =j: the sḏm.n=f, completed action.
Answer: The sḏm.n=f of jrj: "I did".
Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt (1906) translated many of these texts; his version of Harkhuf's lines reads "I gave bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked". The wording is old-fashioned in places, but the phrase is the one you have just read.
Common mistake
Reading these lines as personal confessions or as a diary. They are partly an ideal portrait, the life every official was expected to have led, written in the phrases everyone used. That does not make them false; it means they tell us first what Egyptians valued. Check: if the same sentence appears in other tombs, read it as a convention.