Pyramids & Hieroglyphs Podcast

“Let your heart not sink!

Follow your heart and your happiness.

Do your things on earth as your heart commands!

When that day of mourning comes to you,

The weary-hearted hears not their mourning,

Wailing saves no man from the pit!”

Harper’s Song of Intef

This is Cattle of Ra Audio Editions, where we delve into the textual sources of Ancient Egypt. In this case, the Ancient Egyptian Harper’s Songs: poetry written to mourn the deceased and invite the living to seize the day, with a genre name derived from the usual depiction of a blind harper on the tomb wall next to them, and the fact that they were, in fact, songs accompanied by a harp.

One of the most common misconceptions about Ancient Egypt is the notion that they were “obsessed with death,” never enjoying life’s pleasures, looking down on their earthly existence, while remaining fixated on the afterlife, but - as always with Ancient Egyptian culture - the reality was a lot more complex.

And it is through these Harper’s Songs that we are granted a rare and deeply personal glimpse into the inner cultural logic of the Ancient Egyptian, painting a far more nuanced image of their social discourse than we could ever glean from official inscriptions and monuments alone. While they frequently feature an ode to life and its fleeting beauty, with an outspoken carpe diem philosophy, they also harbor profound passages of anxiety and doubt. Spanning the entire history of Ancient Egypt, these Harper’s Songs turned into a startling and innovative genre in the Middle Kingdom, after the upheaval of the First Intermediate Period, when they became deeply skeptical and almost radical in their challenge to common mortuary beliefs, sparking fierce rebuttals in the New Kingdom versions, presenting a personal and unfiltered view on how to live life and the perceived imminence of death.

Egyptologist and author of the seminal work on Ancient Egyptian literature Miriam Lichtheim argues that this was a genre that was not bound to ceremony and ritualistic revival (like the Book of the Dead and its necessary spells to overcome death) but a free, imaginative treatise on mortality itself that “can hold mutually incompatible answers about the afterlife and how to approach it,”

In her introduction to these songs, she writes:

“Carved on tomb walls and on mortuary stelae, Harper’s Songs are part of the mortuary repertoire, albeit a very special part. Their theme was death. But they were reflections on death, and not ritual texts required in the ceremonies of burial and revivification. Hence their authors were free to pursue the theme of death in an imaginative way. Their main approach was to sing a praise of death and of the tomb, and to reassure the owner of the tomb about his fate. But their freedom from ritual requirements produced an unexpected and startling innovation: a song that lamented the passing of life and urged enjoyment of life while it lasts! This song, the famous Harper’s Song from the Tomb of King Intef, went so far as to cast doubt on the reality of the afterlife and on the usefulness of tombs. Once this note of hedonism coupled with skepticism had been sounded, it continued to occupy the minds and to be reflected both in Harpers’ Songs and in other compositions — notably in the Dispute between a Man and His Ba, in which the ba voices precisely the same opinion.Songs and hymns were functional compositions, designed to serve in a particular setting. At the same time they could become literature in the narrow sense of writings transmitted on papyrus and appreciated as works of imaginative art. This was the fate of the Harper’s Song from the Tomb of King Intef, and of some of the hymns to gods and kings. In some cases, notably in the Hymn to the Nile, the literary character is so dominant that one may doubt whether it ever had a cultic function.”

Miriam Lichtheim

The most famous of these songs is a text from the tomb of Intef, and it contains the most pessimistic and anxious text about the Ancient Egyptian afterlife we have to date, going as far as to doubt the existence of eternal life and the usefulness of tombs.This Harper’s song of Intef is preserved in two New Kingdom copies: The Ramesside Papyrus Harris 500 (= P. British Museum 10060); and the tomb wall of Paatenemheb at Saqqara (now in Leiden), which dates from the reign of Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten). The Saqqara version, which is incomplete, is written above the heads of a group of four musicians led by a blind harpist (The song’s introductory line states that it reproduces a song inscribed in the tomb of King Intef, a name that was borne by a number of kings of the Eleventh and of the Seventeenth Dynasties). Because both versions reproduce a genuinely Middle Egyptian text, scholars agree that an original text, carved in a royal tomb of the Middle Kingdom, existed.

The Song from the Tomb of King Intef

He is happy, this good prince! Death is a kindly fate.

A generation passes,

Another stays,

Since the time of the ancestors.

The gods who were before rest in their tombs.

Blessed nobles, too, are buried in their tombs.

(Yet) those who built tombs,

Their places are gone,

What has become of them?

I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hardedef,

Whose sayings are recited whole.

What of their places?

Their walls have crumbled,

Their places are gone,

As though they had never been!

What made the Intef Song so startling and considered almost radical is its skepticism: the song openly questions the reality of the afterlife and the effectiveness of tomb-building to obtain immortality. In fact, his lines are so cynical and biting that they could almost be considered a satire, since he is mocking the sage Imhotep, who famously built the step pyramid, and then the father of Ancient Egyptian philosophy, Hardedef, who, in his then-famous instructions to his infant son from the Old Kingdom, advised people to build a stable home, marry wisely, and, crucially, invest deeply in their tombs.

Hardedef famously wrote, “Prepare your place in the West... the house of death is for life!” He argued that a well-furnished tomb and a properly funded funerary priest were the only ways to guarantee eternal remembrance, and this song directly questions this most ancient of wisdoms, while also cleverly hinting at the fact that only his writing stood the test of time and made him immortal, not his tomb.

It was this skepticism that injected a note of discord into a class of songs that had been designed to praise and reassure. In fact, nowhere is this dichotomy between official religious practice and actual personal experience more felt than in these early songs.

The Harper’s Song continues:

None comes from there,

To tell of their state,

To tell of their needs,

To calm our hearts,

Until we go where they have gone!

Hence rejoice in your heart!

Forgetfulness profits you

Follow your heart as long as you live!

Put myrrh on your head,

Dress in fine linen,

Anoint yourself with oils fit for a god.

Heap up your joys,

Let your heart not sink!

Follow your heart and your happiness.

Do your things on earth as your heart commands!

When that day of mourning comes to you,

The weary-hearted hears not their mourning,

Wailing saves no man from the pit!

Refrain (1): Make holiday,

Refrain (2): Make holiday,Do not weary of it!Lo, none is allowed to take his goods with him,Lo, none who departs comes back again!

The phrase “make holiday” ( ir hrw nfr), which the singer of the Intef Song addresses to the audience, was a popular figure of speech to express all sorts of forms of hedonistic enjoyments, and a term employed in situations of daily life as well as in reference to death and the afterlife. It is also important to note that funerary banquets were held in the cemeteries on feast days, so in a way the Harper’s Song was also speaking to the living. It is thus quite possible that Harper’s Songs were sung at such funerary banquets, as a memento mori and to remind the living to seize the day and make the most of life.

However, the tension and incongruity betw…

Ma’at represented the ideal state of the universe established at the dawn of creation—a vast, delicate equilibrium binding spacetime together—it was also understood as a personal duty. In the Ancient Egyptian genre of Sebayt (Wisdom Literature), the abstract, divine principle of Ma’at was systematically translated into concrete human actions and everyday social duties.

Nowhere is this practical grounding more elegantly preserved than in the Maxims (also called Teachings or instructions) of Ptahhotep. A foundational work of Middle Kingdom wisdom literature, attributed to the visionary city mayor and vizier under King Isesi, this text functions as an ethical handbook for navigating life.

The Maxims of Ptahhotep use practical, everyday rules to ground the abstract cosmic principle of Ma’at in human behavior. These are specific instructions within the narrative framework of a father (Ptahhotep) talking to his son, and they emphasize values like intellectual humility, fair leadership through active listening, restraint in speech, and the enduring nature of justice over short-lived deception. There is also a great emphasis on the fact that by aligning personal actions with these ethical guidelines, individuals participate in maintaining social harmony and cosmic balance, all encapsulated in the notion of Ma’at. The Ancient Egyptians argued throughout their wisdom literature that life’s true meaning and path to immortality was to be found in taking one’s proper place in the ordered cosmos and in helping preserve Ma’at against chaos through one’s own actions and conduct.

Ethics & Social Conduct

Ptahhotep’s instructions to his son also address various virtues that are necessary to live a life of right social conduct in accordance with Ma’at, which is invoked as the ideal state of the universe and society established at creation.

In the Instructions of Ptahhotep, we also learn about a very specific way of living within the principles of Ma’at:

Maat is good, and its worth is lasting. It has not been disturbed since the day of its creation, whereas he who transgresses its ordinances is punished. (…) It lies as a path in front even of him who knows nothing.

To walk this path is presented as requiring the development of specific personal virtues: intellectual humility, active listening, radical emotional restraint, and an unshakeable trust in divine providence.

The most explicit invocation of this for justice and ethical conduct occurs in Maxim 5, where Ptahhotep addresses leaders and citizens alike on the nature of true justice. He writes:

“Great is justice, lasting in effect, unchallenged since the time of Osiris... In the end it is justice that lasts”

By using the words for justice and Ma’at interchangeably, Ptahhotep frames moral rectitude not as a shifting human invention or a social contract, but as an eternal law of nature. He warns that while baseness, cheating, or greed might secure rapid riches, crime never successfully lands its wares in the end. Because Ma’at is the foundational bedrock of creation, any deviation from it is structurally unsustainable. Acting justly is the only way to ensure permanence, leaving behind a stable inheritance and a righteous name for future generations.

The Heart, Measure & Humility as Guiding Principles Towards Ma’at

According to Ptahhotep, the meaning of life is to live gracefully, balanced, and happy within the divine order. Be humble, do not let greed consume you, treat others with fairness, and take time to cultivate a glad heart. By doing so, you fulfill your duty to both humanity and the gods.

The human capacity for such a just and fulfilled life was believed to reside in the heart, not the mind:

Follow your heart as long as you live.

Do not make a loss on what is said,

do not subtract time from following the heart.

Harming its time is an offense to the Ka (soul aspect).

Do not deflect the moment of every day

beyond establishing your heart.

As things happen, follow (your) heart.

There is no profit in things if it is stifled.

To the Egyptians, the heart was the seat of consciousness, free will, and moral truth. It was also the organ weighed against the feather of Ma’at in the afterlife judgment, deciding the final admission to eternal life. Ptahhotep references the heart constantly as the mechanism for maintaining this balance (“His heart controls his tongue...”). A healthy soul is one where the heart serves as a calm “governor” over raw impulses. When the heart controls the tongue, a person speaks only truth, bringing order to their environment.

If the heart was the center of Ma’at, the belly was viewed as the physical place where chaotic passions and destructive greed lived (“The trusted man who does not vent his belly’s speech, he will himself become a leader.” / “He who obeys his belly belongs to the enemy.”) This “belly’s speech” refers to raw, unfiltered emotional outbursts representing Isfet (chaos) and the destructive opposite of Ma’at.

By subduing the impulses of the belly, a person was believed to remain within the balance and order of Ma’at; This restraint also had to extend to one’s ambitions, as detailed in the contrast between divine providence and human manipulation. Ptahhotep warns:

“Do not scheme against people, God punishes accordingly... People’s schemes do not prevail, God’s command is what prevails; Live then in the midst of peace, what they give comes by itself.”

Plotting, robbing, or aggressively hoarding wealth through trickery were considered violent disruptions of the universal balance, and greed was often exposed as fundamentally counterproductive: the man who schemes to trap wealth only winds up snaring himself in his own cleverness.

Because the word Ma’at also contained the notion of “measure,” or “balance,” ethical behavior was required to translate into measured action externally with an acute awareness of boundaries:

“The antechamber has a rule, all behavior is by measure; It is the god who gives advancement, he who uses elbows is not helped.”

To navigate an antechamber, a court, or a community “by measure” means knowing one’s exact place, respecting the space of others, and refusing to aggressively shove competitors aside.

Ma’at is, at its core, a principle of personal and social equilibrium, and Ptahhotep outlines a strict psychological protocol tailoring the response to the social standing of one’s opponent.

When confronting a superior in action, he advises:

“Fold your arms, bend your back... To flout him will not make him agree with you.”

When facing an equal, he notes:

“You will make your worth exceed his by silence, while he is speaking evilly.”

Finally, when encountering a poor man who is not an equal, he warns:

“Do not attack him because he is weak, let him alone, he will confute himself... Wretched is he who injures a poor man.”

To stay anchored to this principle of restraint and measured conduct, an individual must first cultivate absolute intellectual humility:

Do not be proud on account of your knowledge, but discuss with the ignorant as with the wise. The limits of art cannot be delivered; there is no artist whose talent is fulfilled. Fine words are more sought after than greenstone, but can be found with the women at the grindstone.

To uphold Ma’at, an ethical person must remain an active, humble listener across all levels of society and claiming to possess absolute knowledge only obstructs this. This commitment to active listening and self-governance becomes particularly vital during moments of interpersonal conflict. Ptahhotep reminds his son that wisdom and “good speech” (speech that reflects cosmic truth) are powerful and universal.

Ptahhotep teaches that words possess immense power and that a wise person listens deeply before speaking calmly, which prevents social conflict and preserves harmony. The text advises leaders and individuals to avoid arrogance (which is portrayed as a violation of Ma’at), treat petitioners with patience, and judge arguments on their actual merit rather than the social status o…