Past Perfect: On a Mission from God

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It’s not easy being a messenger of the gods. Consider, for example, the trials of the ancient Egyptian Wenamun. Around 1100 B.C., Wenamun, a high-ranking official at the Temple of Amun at Karnak, undertook a holy mission to Phoenicia to purchase lumber for the ceremonial barge of the god Amun. Egyptian priests and temple officials had been obtaining supplies from Phoenicia for generations, but Wenamun’s journey was complicated by a shifting political landscape: The once mighty Egyptian empire was entering a period of economic and military decline. Many of the territories formerly controlled by Egypt had become small independent states. As Wenamun traveled from Egypt to the Levantine coastal city of Dor to Byblos in Phoenicia, he was plagued with financial woes, uncooperative government officials and hostile locals. When our long-suffering temple official finally returned to his native land, he set down a lively and picaresque narrative of his misadventures. Preserved on a tattered fragment of 3,000-year-old papyrus, Wenamun’s chronicle provides one of the few informal, first-person accounts of life in this period. It also offers readers a rare and haunting glimpse of a powerful empire in its autumnal years.—Ed.

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Wenamun, the Senior of the Forecourt of the House of Amun, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, set out to fetch the woodwork for the great and august barque of Amun-Re, King of the Gods…Ne-su-Ba-neb-Ded [the Nile Delta’s de facto ruler, whose capital was Tanis] and Ta-net-Amun [his wife] sent me off with the ship captain Mengebnet, and I embarked on the great Syrian sea [the Mediterranean]…

I reached Dor, a town of the Tjeker [one of the Sea Peoples], and Beder, its prince, had 50 loaves of bread, one jug of wine, and one leg of beef brought to me. And a man of my ship ran away and stole one vessel of gold, amounting to 5 deben [a deben is a little over three ounces], four jars of silver, amounting to 20 deben, and a sack of 11 deben of silver.

I got up in the morning, and I went to the place where the Prince was, and I said to him: “I have been robbed in your harbor. Now you are the prince of this land, and you are its investigator who should look for my silver. Now about this silver—it belongs to Amun-Re, King of the Gods, the Lord of the Lands…”

And he said to me: “Whether you are important or whether you are eminent—look here, I do not recognize this accusation which you have made to me!…Now about the thief who robbed you—he belongs to you! He belongs to your ship! Spend a few days here visiting me, so that I may look for him.”

I spent nine days moored in his harbor, and I went to call on him, and I said to him: “Look, you have not found my silver. Just let me go with the ship captains and with those who go to sea!” But he said to me: “Be quiet!

[The papyrus here is badly damaged; when the story resumes, Wenamun is in Tyre.] I went out of Tyre at the break of dawn [perhaps on a ship of] Zakar-Baal, the Prince of Byblos…I found 30 deben of silver in it, and I seized upon it. And I said to the Tjeker: “I have seized upon your silver, and it will stay with me until you find my silver or the thief who stole it! Even though you have not stolen, I shall take it…” So they went away, and I enjoyed my triumph in a tent on the shore of the sea, in the harbor of Byblos. And I hid Amun-of-the-Road [an idol of the god], and I put his property inside him.

And the Prince of Byblos sent to me, saying: “Get out of my harbor!” And I sent to him, saying: “Where should I go to?…If you have a ship to carry me, have me taken to Egypt again!” So I spent twenty-nine days in his harbor, while he spent the time sending to me every day to say: “Get out of my harbor!”…

[Zakar-Baal] sent and brought me up…and I found him sitting in his upper room, with his back turned to a window, so that the waves of the great Syrian sea broke against the back of his head.

So I said to him: “May Amun favor you!” But he said to me “How long, up to today, since you came from the place where Amun is?” So I said to him: “Five months and one day up to now.” And he said to me: “Well, you’re truthful! Where is the letter of Amun which should be in your hand? Where is the dispatch of the High Priest of Amun which should be in your hand?” And I told him: “I gave them to Ne-su-Ba-neb-Ded and Ta-net-Amun.”

He was very, very angry, and he said to me: “Now see—neither letters nor dispatches are in your hand!…On what business have you come?” So I told him: “I have come after the woodwork for the great and august barque of Amun-Re, King of the Gods…”

So he said to me: “If the ruler of Egypt were the lord of mine, and I were his servant also, he would not have to send silver and gold, saying: ‘Carry out the 042commission of Amun!’ There would be no carrying of a royal-gift, such as they used to do for my father. As for me—me also—I am not your servant! I am not the servant of him who sent you either!…What are these silly trips which they have had you make?”

And I said to him: “That’s not true! What I am on are no ‘silly trips’ at all! There is no ship upon the River which does not belong to Amun! The sea is his, and the Lebanon is his, of which you say: ‘It is mine!’…Why, he spoke—Amun-Re, King of the Gods—and said to Heri-Hor, my master: ‘Send me forth!’ So he had me come, carrying this great god. But see, you have made this great god spend these twenty-nine days moored in your harbor, although you did not know it…You are stationed here to carry on the commerce of the Lebanon with Amun, its lord…You are the servant of Amun!…Have your secretary brought to me, so that I may send him to Ne-su-Ba-neb-Ded and Ta-net-Amun, the officers whom Amun put in the north of his land, and they will have all kinds of things sent…”

So he entrusted my letter to his messenger, and he loaded in the keel, the bow-post, the stern-post, along with four other hewn timbers—seven in all—and he had them taken to Egypt. And in the first month of the second season his messenger who had gone to Egypt came back to me in Syria. And Ne-su-Ba-neb-Ded and Ta-net-Amun sent: 4 jars and 1 kak-men of gold; 5 jars of silver; 10 pieces of clothing in royal linen; 10 kherd of good Upper Egyptian linen; 500 rolls of finished papyrus; 500 cowhides; 500 ropes; 20 sacks of lentils; and 30 baskets of fish. And [Ta-net-Amun] sent to me personally: 5 pieces of clothing in good Upper Egyptian linen; 5 kherd of good Upper Egyptian linen; 1 sack of lentils; and 5 baskets of fish.

And the Prince was glad, and he detailed three hundred men and three hundred cattle, and he put supervisors at their head, to have them cut down the timber. So they cut them down, and they spent the second season lying there.

In the third month of the third season they dragged them to the shore of the sea, and the Prince came out and stood by them. And he…said to me: “See, the commission which my fathers carried out formerly, I have carried it out also, even though you have not done for me what your fathers would have done for me, and you too should have done!”

But I said to him: “Shouldn’t you rejoice and have a stela made for yourself and say on it: ‘Amun-Re, King of the Gods, sent to me Amun-of-the-Road, his messenger—life, prosperity, health!—and Wenamun, his human messenger, after the woodwork for the great and august barque of Amun-Re, King of the Gods. I cut it down. I loaded it in. I provided it with my ships and my crews. I caused them to reach Egypt, in order to ask fifty years of life from Amun for myself, over and above my fate.’”

And he said to me: “This which you have said to me is a great testimony of words!” So I said to him: “As for the many things which you have said to me, if I reach the place where the High Priest of Amun is and he sees how you have carried out this commission, it is your carrying out of this commission which will draw out something for you.”

And I went to the shore of the sea, to the place where the timber was lying, and I spied eleven ships belonging to the Tjeker coming in from the sea, in order to say: “Arrest him! Don’t let a ship of his go to the land of Egypt!” Then I sat down and wept. And the letter scribe of the Prince came out to me, and he said to me: “What’s the matter with you?” And I said to him: “Haven’t you seen the birds go down to Egypt a second time? Look at them—how they travel to the cool pools! But how long shall I be left here! Now don’t you see those who are coming again to arrest me?”

So he went and told it to the Prince. And the Prince began to weep because of the words which were said to him, for they were painful. And he sent out to me his letter 043scribe, and he brought to me two jugs of wine and one ram. And he sent to me Ta-net-Not, an Egyptian singer who was with him, saying: “Sing to him! Don’t let his heart take on cares!”

When morning came, he…said to the Tjeker: “What have you come for?” And they said to him: “We have come after the blasted ships which you are sending to Egypt with our opponents!” But he said to them: “I cannot arrest the messenger of Amun inside my land. Let me send him away, and you go after him to arrest him.”

So he loaded me in, and he sent me away from there at the harbor of the sea. And the wind cast me on the land of Alashiya [Cyprus]. And they of the town came out against me to kill me, but I forced my way through them to the place where Heteb, the princess of the town, was. I met her as she was going out of one house of hers and going into another of hers.

So I greeted her, and I said to the people who were standing near her: “Isn’t there one of you who understands Egyptian?” And one of them said: “I understand it.” So I said to him: “Tell my lady that I have heard, as far away as Thebes, the place where Amun is, that injustice is done in every town but justice is done in the land of Alashiya. Yet injustice is done here every day!” And she said: “Why, what do you mean by saying it?” So I told her: “If the sea is stormy and the wind casts me on the land where you are, you should not let them take me in charge to kill me. For I am a messenger of Amun…”

So she had the people summoned, and they stood there. And she said to me: “Spend the night…” [Here the text breaks off.]

From James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 25–29.

It’s not easy being a messenger of the gods. Consider, for example, the trials of the ancient Egyptian Wenamun. Around 1100 B.C., Wenamun, a high-ranking official at the Temple of Amun at Karnak, undertook a holy mission to Phoenicia to purchase lumber for the ceremonial barge of the god Amun. Egyptian priests and temple officials had been obtaining supplies from Phoenicia for generations, but Wenamun’s journey was complicated by a shifting political landscape: The once mighty Egyptian empire was entering a period of economic and military decline. Many of the territories formerly controlled by Egypt had become small independent […]