There exist a few other texts which are often treated as part of the Middle Egyptian literary corpus, though their compositional date is uncertain, and they cannot be assigned to the categories of narrative, teaching or discourse. The most important of these are the compositions preserved on Eighteenth Dynasty fragments of papyrus now kept in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (Caminos 1956), several of which describe pleasurable hunting excursions into the marshes, a favorite elite pastime and the Egyptian version of the ‘‘pastoral idyll.’’ It is likely that the fragments preserve two distinct compositions on this theme. The first composition, Pleasures of Fishing and Fowling, is a lyrical composition, spoken by a retainer to his lord, fondly recalling ‘‘a happy day, when we go down to the countryside’’ (section A, page 2, line 1). The text vividly describes several types of hunt, as well as the offerings to the gods that followed their success. The mention of the Fayum, and the style of the language suggest a compositional date in the late Middle Kingdom. The second composition, the Account of the Sporting King, presents a royal trip to the marshes (cf. Baines 2003a: 35-42), but is more formal in tone, with courtiers ceremonially addressing the king (who is named as Amenemhet II) and investing him with hunting weapons and items of regalia. The actions of the hunting expedition are extensively linked to divine and mythological symbolism, and the overall effect is of a literary recording of an elaborate royal ritual, perhaps somewhat reminiscent of the court masques popular in early modern Europe. A third composition preserved in the Moscow literary fragments seems to contain the remains of a mythological narrative, but it is too damaged to make out the plot, and its composition has been dated on lexicographical grounds to the Eighteenth Dynasty (Quirke 2004: 206).
World History
