Harper's Song
The Poem in the Tomb of Antuf
Since no one has ever returned from death to describe it, the living should set aside tomb-building anxiety and take pleasure in life while it lasts.
- skepticism about the efficacy of tomb cult and funerary ritual
- no one has returned from death to report on it
- carpe diem counsel sung at funerary banquets
- a rare skeptical current within Egyptian religious literature
A skeptical lyric inscribed for a harper to sing at funerary banquets, traditionally said to originate in the Middle Kingdom tomb of a King Intef, though its earliest surviving copy is in the Saqqara tomb of the priest Paatenemheb, c. 1350 BC, with a further Ramesside copy on Papyrus Harris 500. Unlike conventional funerary texts confident of an afterlife, the song doubts openly that tombs and their rites guarantee anything, since none of the dead have returned to confirm it, and counsels the living to follow their hearts and enjoy food, perfume, and music before death claims them too, part of a small but striking current of skepticism within Egyptian religious literature.
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