The Diary of Merer (also known as ''Papyrus

Jarf Jarf () is a village and the capital of Shekay District in Badakhshan Province, in north-eastern Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked ...

'') is the name for

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

logbooks written over 4,500 years ago by Merer, a middle ranking official with the title ''inspector'' (''sHD''). They are the oldest known papyri with text, dating to the 27th year of the reign of pharaoh

Khufu Khufu or Cheops was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period ( 26th century BC). Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having c ...

during the 4th dynasty. The text, written with ( hieratic)

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

s, mostly consists of lists of the daily activities of Merer and his crew. The most well preserved sections (''Papyrus Jarf A and B'') document the transportation of white

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

blocks from the Tura quarries to Giza by boat. Buried in front of man-made-caves that served to store the boats at

Wadi al-Jarf Wadi al-Jarf ( ar, وادي الجرف) is the present name for an area on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, south of Suez, that is the site of the oldest known artificial harbour in the world, developed about 4500 years ago. It is located at the mout ...

on the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

coast, the papyri were found and excavated in 2013 by a French mission under the direction of archaeologists Pierre Tallet of

Paris-Sorbonne University Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; french: Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV) was a public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universit ...

and Gregory Marouard. The Egyptian archaeologist

Zahi Hawass Zahi Abass Hawass ( ar, زاهي حواس; born May 28, 1947) is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Wes ...

describes the Diary of Merer as "the greatest discovery in Egypt in the 21st century." Parts of the papyri are exhibited at the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

Papyrus Jarf A and B

The most intact papyri describe several months of work with the transportation of limestone from quarries Tura North and Tura South to Giza in the 27th year of the reign of pharaoh

. Though the diary does not specify where the stones were to be used or for what purpose, given the diary may date to what is widely considered the very end of Khufu's reign, Tallet believes they were most likely for cladding the outside of the

Great Pyramid The Great Pyramid of Giza is the biggest Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ...

. About every ten days, two or three round trips were done, shipping perhaps 30 blocks of 2–3 tonnes each, amounting to 200 blocks per month. About forty boatmen worked under him. The period covered in the papyri extends from July to November. The entries in the logbooks are all arranged along the same line. At the top there is a heading naming the month and the season. Under that there is a horizontal line listing the days of the months. Under the entries for the days, there are always two vertical columns describing what happened on these days (Section B II): '' ay 1The director of 6 Idjeru casts for Heliopolis in a transport boat to bring us food from Heliopolis while the elite is in Tura'', ''Day 2 Inspector Merer spends the day with his troop hauling stones in Tura North; spending the night at Tura North.'' The diary also mentions the original name of the Great Pyramid: Akhet-Khufu, meaning "Horizon of Khufu". In addition to Merer, a few other people are mentioned in the fragments. The most important is

Ankhhaf Ankhhaf was an Egyptian prince and served as an overseer during the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu, who is thought to have been Ankhhaf's half-brother. One of Ankhaf's titles is also as a vizier, but it is unknown which pharaoh he would have held this ...

(half-brother of Pharaoh Khufu), known from other sources, who is believed to have been a prince and

vizier A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called '' katib'' (secretary), who was ...

under Khufu and/or Khafre. In the papyri he is called a ''nobleman'' (''

Iry-pat Iry-pat ( egy, jrj-pꜥt "member of the elite") was an ancient Egyptian ranking title, that is a title announcing a high position in the hierarchy of the country. Iry-pat was indeed the highest ranking title at the royal court, and only the mos ...

'') and ''overseer of Ra-shi-Khufu''. The latter place was the harbour at Giza where Tallet believes the casing stones were transported.

Papyrus Jarf C

Building a "double djadja" in the central DeltaProf. Pierre Tallet Keynote lecture: The papyrus of the pyramids’ builders

Papyrus Jarf D

Work for the Residence and the Valley Temple (?) of Khufu

Other papyri

Other logbooks (E and F) and associated accounts (G to L and other fragments) are much more fragmentary and their contents have yet to be deciphered and/or published.

References

Bibliography