Everything about Papyrus Harris I totally explained
Papyrus Harris I is also known as the
Great Harris Papyrus and (less accurately) simply the
Harris Papyrus (though there are a number of other papyri in the Harris collection). Its technical designation is
Papyrus British Museum 9999. At 41 metres long, it's the longest
papyrus ever found in
Egypt. It is also "the longest known papyrus from Egypt, with some 1,500 lines of text." It was found in a tomb near
Medinet Habu, across the
Nile river from
Luxor, Egypt, and purchased by collector
Anthony Charles Harris (1790–1869) in 1855; it entered the collection of the
British Museum in 1872.
The
hieratic text of the papyrus consists of a list of temple endowments and a brief summary of the entire reign of
king Ramesses III of the
Twentieth dynasty of Egypt.
Its historical section mentions that
Setnakhte, Ramesses III's father and predecessor, restored order and stability to Egypt after a time of internal civil conflict. Ramesses III himself reorganized the state bureaucracy and the army. He fought wars against the
Peoples of the Sea and claims to have subdued them and made them subjects of Egypt. The Edomites too were subjugated. In the west he stopped the incursions of the Libyans and
Meshwesh and settled them in the western Nile delta. His economic activities included the digging of a great well at Ayan, an expedition to
Punt, an ill defined region in the Horn of Africa, the importation of copper from Atika, and an expedition to the
Sinai peninsula which returned with precious stones. Improving the quality of life of the ordinary Egyptian he'd trees planted for shade, he protected women so they might go freely wherever they wanted, and, when Egypt was at peace, its foreign mercenaries lived with their families in garrison towns. Overall, he was convinced of having greatly bettered the lot of all inhabitants of Egypt, natives or foreigners.
The text itself was composed during the reign of
Ramesses IV, Ramesses III's son and successor.
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