Two observations on the Tales of The Contendings of Horus and Seth and Truth and Falsehood.

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

Trabajos de Egiptología

Isefet Ediciones

Lugar: Madrid/Tenerife; Año: 2007 vol. 4

1695-4750

The Contendings of Horus and Seth (Papyrus Chester Beatty I) and The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood (Papyrus Chester Beatty II) –which can be included among the most significant texts of the ancient Egyptian literature of New Kingdom times– show a notorious set of common characteristics. Two topics related to the remarkable proximity between these texts are considered here. On the one hand, the plot of both texts can be clearly connected with the main sequences of the myth that gathers the gods Osiris, Isis, Seth and Horus, and the distance between these different literary “realizations” of the myth can be associated to the “différences de degré” recognized by Claude Levi-Strauss in his analysis of the relations between myth (mythe) and tale (conte). On the other hand, a specific feature of the content of both texts is taken into consideration: the quest of judicial solutions for the conflicts in which the main characters are opposing each other. In this sense, it is suggested that two different kinds of judicial procedures are present both in The Contendings and in Truth and Falsehood, which can be related to the importance of kinship and state “logics” in the internal organization of these texts as well as in the structuration of Ancient Egyptian society.