Westcar Papyrus

The Westcar Papyrus (inventory-designation: P. Berlin 3033) is an ancient Egyptian text containing five stories about miracles performed by priests and magicians. In the text, each of these tales are told at the royal court of Pharaoh Cheops (4th dynasty) by his sons. The story in the papyrus is usually rendered in English as "King Cheops and the Magicians" and "The Tale of King Cheops' Court". In German, in which the text of the Westcar Papyrus was first translated, it is rendered as Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar ("the fairy tales of Papyrus Westcar").

The surviving material of the Westcar Papyrus consists of twelve columns written in hieratic script. Miriam Lichtheim dates the document to the Hyksos period (18th to 16th century BC) and states that it is written in classical Middle Egyptian.Linguist and Egyptologist Verena Lepper thinks it may be possible that the Westcar Papyrus had already been written during the 13th dynasty. The papyrus has been used by historians as a literary resource for reconstituting the history of the 4th dynasty.

The papyrus is now on display under low-light conditions in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.

In 1823 or 1824, a British adventurer, Henry Westcar, apparently discovered the papyrus during travels in Egypt. For unknown reasons he didn't note the exact circumstances under which he obtained the artifact.

In 1838 or 1839, German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius claimed to have received the papyrus from Westcar's niece. As Lepsius was able to read some signs of Hieratic, he recognized some of the royal cartouche names of the kings and dated the text to the old kingdom.

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