There is no true autobiography in the ancient world, if we mean ‘‘the retrospective interpretation of the author’s own life’’ (Greenstein 1995: 2421). But there are texts that seem autobiographical in the sense that there is a first-person narrator who tells of his or her own life. Nearly all autobiographies were written by a scribe commissioned by the subject, and not by the subject himself or herself, who is usually but not always a public figure. Like modern autobiographies they do not necessarily reflect a historical account of the life; the goal is usually to project a positive self-image for the public or the gods.
The autobiography is the oldest genre in Egypt, and was an exceptionally consistent genre from the Old Kingdom to the late period (Lichtheim 1988). Autobiographies are found in four places: in necropolises, or cemeteries, in temples, on roadsides, and on sarcophagi, or caskets, and they contain two kinds of material: self-portraits full of epithets, and narrative passages about the owner’s life (Perdu 1995: 2243-7). The narrative is in the first-person singular, of variable length depending on space and the subject’s importance, and is addressed to ‘‘all you who pass by.’’ The autobiographies in the necropolis or temple, usually on stelae or statues, were always done to make a request of passersby for an offering of food. It was important to list the rank and epithets of the deceased in order to make the deceased important enough to be thought a sufficient intercessor once the gifts were given. Autobiographies along desert routes or in quarries, on the other hand, were the equivalent of a non-royal person’s triumphal stela, and represented only the event of the owner’s passing by. On sarcophagi the purpose of the praise of the owner was to ‘‘act as advocate for the deceased before the god of the dead’’ (Perdu 1995: 2246). Important autobiographies include those of Nekhebu of the sixth dynasty, those of Amenemhet and Khnumhotep II during the Middle Kingdom, and the Ptolemaic period inscription of Taimhotep, the wife of the high priest at Memphis. The inscription of Weni of the sixth dynasty recounts a career that spanned three kings and includes his expeditions against the Sand Dwellers. In the New Kingdom the tomb of Ahmose, a ship’s captain, tells of battles against the Hyksos. Such autobiographies may be considered a genre somewhere between literature and historiography (Gnirs 1996: 191).
Autobiographical compositions in Mesopotamia claim to have appeared originally on stone monuments, are written in the first person under the pseudonym of a royal personage, and often carry a moral message (Goodnick Westenholz 1997: 16-24). The most important examples include the Sargon birth legend, the legend of Naram-Sin, and autobiographies attributed to Assurbanipal and Sennacherib, perhaps Hammurabi’s prologue to his code of laws, and the inscription of Adad-guppi, the mother of Nabonidus. Some Akkadian prophecies have been connected to this genre (Longman 1991).
In Syria we have the Akkadian inscription of King Idrimi on his statue and the inscriptions of Azatiwada, a regional governor. These last were written on the gates and dressed stones in five places, twice in Luwian hieroglyphic and three times in West Semitic alphabetic characters. The only fully preserved version is in Phoenician (Greenstein 1995).
World History
