Papyrus Queen’s College Recto
The manuscript which is the topic of this chapter contains the first literary text in abnormal hieratic, a script used mainly for documentary texts in the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasties. As far as it is preserved and comprehensible, the plot seems to revolve around a court proceeding between two priests at the Heliopolitan temple of Atum-Re-Harakhty. The text contains oaths by the sun-god, as well as an interesting dialogue between a king called Usermaatre and the chief god of Heliopolis. The story ends with a verdict, declaring one of the priests ‘not guilty’ and his opponent the opposite. One of the main characters is the prince of Heliopolis-Athribis called Hem-na-nefi, a pseudonym for one of the several Twenty-fifth Dynasty holders of this title in the 12th and 13th Lower Egyptian nomes named Bak-en-na-nefu. The text's style and rhetoric suggest it is at least a semi-literary juridical narrative.