Prophecy of Neferti
A kingdom in chaos will right itself only through a savior king whose arrival is foreordained, and the current king's rule can be read backward into that same prophecy.
- a prophecy composed after the fact to legitimate a new king
- chaos described as an inversion of the natural and social order
- kingship framed as fated rather than merely seized
- political propaganda disguised as court entertainment
A sage named Neferti, summoned to the Old Kingdom court of Sneferu for entertainment, foretells centuries of upheaval, foreign invasion, and inverted social order before predicting the rise of a king named Ameny, a play on Amenemhat, who will reunite Egypt and restore maat. Actually composed early in the reign of Amenemhat I to legitimate his new Twelfth Dynasty, the text is a vaticinium ex eventu, a prophecy written after the events it claims to foresee.
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