The laus urbis is a lyrical form which is only known from New Kingdom Miscellanies and ostraca (Lichtheim 1980b; Verhoeven 2004; Ragazzoli 2008). It appears in two varieties which are different in both form and content, and which can be compared to some degree with sub-genres or motifs in the Love Songs. The rather descriptive ‘‘Praises of the City’’ are usually part of fictitious letters. While the city itself is sometimes metaphorically referred to as a young girl (P. Sallier IV vso. 2,4 [Gardiner 1937: 90]), these ‘‘Praises’’ are generally reminiscent of praises in the Love Songs describing the beloved’s beauty. The other type, known as ‘‘Longing for the City,’’ tends to be part of fictive prayers and sometimes resembles the ‘‘love as a disease’’-motif of the Love Songs (compare e. g. the ‘‘Longing for Memphis’’ in P. Anastasti IV 4,11-5,5: ‘‘No task can I accomplish since my heart is sundered from its place. [... ] My heart is not in my body, evil has seized all my limbs.’’ [Caminos 1954: 150] with love song 7 of group C of P. Chester Beatty I: ‘‘Illness has invaded me, my limbs have grown heavy, and I barely sense my own body’’ [Fox 1985: 55]). The ‘‘Praises of a City’’ contain grandiose descriptions of Memphis in Lower Egypt or Piramesse in the Eastern Delta and emphasize the appeal of these places for people throughout the whole country. Descriptions of architecture and landscape alternate with detailed renderings of festival-scenes, as well as lists of charming products which are presented and consumed on such occasions. Because this variant of the laus urbis is, in the Miscellanies, frequently interlinked with kings’ eulogies, the ‘‘Praises of the City’’ are also interpreted as another expression of praise of the ruler. More difficult is the interpretation of the ‘‘Longing for a City’’ variant, whose theme is the apparently unwanted separation from a (home) city. The fact that its main formal feature as a prayer localizes the text in the field of personal piety is hardly an adequate explanation because this only represents the religious flipside of the phenomenon, which was described above as being an individualized society. The second variant of the laus urbis praises provincial hometowns either of stay-at-home individuals or of dislocated people who, plagued by homesick alienation, are at a loss in the hustle and bustle which clouds the senses, especially in the Delta residence. These voices represent, therefore, those social categories of foreigners who, in precisely the sense of the Teachings of Amenemope or Anii, are always left out in a town which is foreign to them, regardless of whether they are entirely ignored or receive benevolent treatment. The cultural tension inherent in the very coexistence of both types of the laus urbis is, however, paradigmatic insofar as it offers the discrepancy between the mode of life of the Delta residence and other cities as an interpretative model for the perception of any kind of regional and cultural difference inside Egypt (Bommas 2003). A sense of foreignness in the face of one’s own culture obviously has become a standard phenomenon in the New Kingdom.
World History
