This dissertation considers the use of ancient Egyptian curse and blessing formulae, their conceptual setting and transmission.
The first chapter summarizes the current state of research on the formulae It also specifies the concepts of curse and blessing in an ancient Egyptian perspective, and presents the modern and ancient Egyptian terminology The final section describes the source material
The second chapter deals with the scribe and his world, outlining the ideological fundament of his world-view, Maat, defined as world order As a total concept. Maat pervades everything in Egyptian life and thought, including the use of curse and blessing formulae The formulae in content and function relate to the teaching instructions, the moral profiles of the private autobiographies and the Negative Confessions of Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead, all of which manifest the socio-ethical demands of Maat The ideal man was the man of Maat, the silent man His opposite was the man of chaos, the heated man The silent man had access to a potential of transformations and identifications with or without mythic key scenarios. The keyword was hprw. This potential had an argumental function when the silent man pronounced the formulae. The last section of the chapter discusses some of the hprw options.
The third chapter delineates the form, content and fiinction of the curse and blessing formulae, which are also visualized in a communication model A number of bipartite structures are represented mostly conditional and relating to future time. The first parts as well as the second parts are egocentric m character, and their content is discussed the purpose of the formulae is the preservation.