No imagined worlds, no imagined achievements : Veracity Statements in Twelfth Dynasty auto/biographies with military-like topic
Abstract
The study explores the link between veracity statements and military, policing or expedition topics in Middle Kingdom auto/biographies, specifically those appearing on stelae. The statements of the general Nesmontu, commander-in-chief of the city-regiment Khusobek, the assistant seal-bearer Sahathor and overseer of recruits and general Mentuhotep are analyzed in detail and placed in the context of veracity statements in the Middle Kingdom expedition accounts at Hatnub, on the Sinai and in Wadi Hammamat, as well as of the - for the Middle Kingdom unique - veracity statement in the Great Semna Stela of Senusret III.
In terms of the search for the origin of the truthfulness claim in these texts, it seems likely that both royal and private auto/biographical texts may have derived their inspiration for truthfulness claims from private and semi-official expedition reports set up outside the Egyptian Nile Valley. The inclusion of the veracity statements to both may have been guided by a similar motivation: while the owners of the private stelae address an audience on a site distant from the areas where their military exploits have taken place, the king addresses not only his immediate successor, but speaks (or wishes to speak) to a long future line of kings, to future generations unimaginably distant in time.