The letter is based on an actual letter from Egypt written in the reign of Amenemhet IV, about 1790 BCE.  The original letter was written in hieratic on a small piece of papyrus, folded and sealed for sending.

In these pages, we will be using hieroglyphs instead of hieratic, and not all of the letter will be shown.  There will be quite enough vocabulary and grammar for you anyway!  What you will see is directly quoted from the original so you can be sure it is real Egyptian.

Unlike previous pages in the Little Egyptian Reading Book, the writing will be in the most natural direction for written Egyptian - from right to left.  I hope this will not confuse you; however that is the way the Egyptians preferred to write things.

A Reminder:  For best viewing you should use Netscape Navigator 3 or later, and use a screen size of at least 800X600.  You will also need to have the transliteration font installed.