Story of Sinuhe
Exile can be survived and even prospered in, but only return to Egypt and burial at home resolves the story, because no foreign success outweighs a proper Egyptian death.
- exile and eventual homecoming
- Egyptian identity defined against the foreign
- proper burial as narrative resolution
- a school-text model of classical style
The best-loved narrative of Middle Kingdom Egypt: an official named Sinuhe flees to Canaan after overhearing news of a royal assassination, prospers among Semitic tribes as a warrior and chief, then spends his old age longing for Egypt until the king recalls him to a proper burial at home. The tale's classical Middle Egyptian style made it a model text copied in scribal schools for centuries after its composition.
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