Noted author and Egyptologist Bill Manley renders into approachable
modern English for the first time the oldest surviving statement of
philosophy from the ancient world: the thirty-seven teachings and twelve
conclusions of The Teaching of Ptahhatp, vizier, or chief minister, to
the Old Kingdom pharaoh Izezi (2390-2350 BCE). Manley's expert
commentary elucidates Ptahhatp's profound yet practical philosophy,
which covers such topics as ambition, fame, confrontation, sex, and
wisdom, and offers a unique window onto ancient Egyptian life and
society.
The Teaching of Ptahhatp ought to begin the list of the world's
classics of philosophy, yet it has been largely forgotten since its
rediscovery in the nineteenth century. Manley's new translation corrects
this oversight, making accessible for the first time the Old Kingdom
vizier Ptahhatp's concise, helpful insights into the human condition.
New translations of two further texts--The Dialogue Between a Man and
His Soul, in which a man asks himself, "What is the point of living?,"
and Why Things Happen, the oldest surviving account of creation from
anywhere in the world--demonstrate how Ptahhatp's philosophy was founded
in ancient Egyptian beliefs about truth and reality. Manley introduces
the vizier and the world within which he operated, as well as the
significance of the "oldest book of the world," preserved in a scroll
now known as the Papyrus Prisse in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
Together these works by Ptahhatp provide a new perspective on the
Pyramid Age and overturn traditional stereotypes about the origins of
Western philosophy.
