“The Story of Sinuhe” (c. -1855) was one of the most popular tales of Ancient Egypt. It was copied and recopied for some 750 years, which, if longevity is anything to go by, puts it on a level with Dante, Marco Polo or the Quest for the Holy Grail. Its sort of Egyptian became a model for schoolboys – we know because we have some of their homework copies, like the one pictured above. As far as we know, Sinuhe was never a real person.
Setting: Egypt, Palestine and Syria in the time of Senusret I (-1965 to -1920) – in the time of Jacob according to traditional Bible chronology.
Themes: Order and chaos, Egyptian and foreign, mercy, faith in the king.
Our story: Sinuhe is the servant of Neferu and her children. She is the daughter of Amenemhat I (-1985 to -1955), the commoner who founded the 12th Dynasty. When he dies, Sinuhe flees. We are never sure why. In another story the king is stabbed to death in his sleep by his bodyguards. According to historians there was considerable opposition to his rule. At his death Egypt could easily sink into civil war. Sinuhe runs and runs and runs till he reaches Retjenu (Palestine).
There is never a warrant for Sinuhe’s arrest. Nor does Egypt sink into civil war – Senusret I, Amenemhat’s son and Neferu’s brother and (yes) husband, loses no time in taking power.
In time Sinuhe settles in what is now Syria:
It was a good land, called Rush.
There were figs in it, and grapes: it had more wine than water.
Much was its honey and many its olive-trees, with every kind of fruit on its trees.
There was barley there, and emmer [wheat], with no limit of all kinds of herds.
In exile he has a family and herds and becomes a trusted military commander. And has the first duel recorded in literature.
But he feels out of place:
Who can fasten a papyrus [stalk] to a mountain?
Even worse, he is getting old and is afraid of being buried far from home:
Whichever god fated this flight, may you become content and put me home.
which is one of the earliest examples of a non-royal Egyptian talking directly to the gods.
His prayer is answered: a letter arrives from the king asking him to come back! He is afraid but returns.
When he appears before the king:
I found His Incarnation on the great seat, in a thickness of electrum [of silver and gold].
At that I wound up stretched out on my belly and lost consciousness in his presence.
That god was addressing me in delight, but I was like a man possessed by darkness,
my ba [part of the soul] gone, my limbs feeble.
My heart – not it was in my body, that I might know life from death.
Sinuhe finally says:
Look, I am in your presence, and life is yours: let Your Incarnation do as he likes.
Even the queen fears for his life, begging the king for mercy.
– Abagond, +2023.
See also:
520
Abagond 
Sinuhe is one of the only texts that essentially alludes to differences in the people of Kemet. Sinuhe ponders why she’s been brought to the hill-land which I presume is in the Levant and it is written
“It is as if a slight of the god,
As a Delta-man seeing himself in Abu Or a marsh-man in the Land of the bow”
It underscores modern ideal that during the 12th Dynasty it was understood that Northern Egypt had been settled by foreigners to the point where the Delta man is out of place in Upper Egypt and Nubia.
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