Loyalist Instruction
also known as the Loyalist Teaching
Loyalty to the reigning king is not merely dutiful but existential, because the king is the source of every subject's prosperity, memory, and even breath.
- loyalty to the king treated as near-religious devotion
- the king credited with control over the Nile flood
- royal favor tied directly to a good burial
- a prototype for a royalist subgenre of instruction literature
First preserved on the biographical stela of the treasury official Sehetepibre at Abydos, and later expanded and copied in New Kingdom school papyri, this text urges readers to worship the king as a living god who guarantees the Nile flood, protects against enemies, and rewards loyal service with honor in life and burial after death. It became the prototype for a distinct strand of sebayt literature focused narrowly on royalist devotion rather than general ethical conduct.
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