THE WORDS OF AHIQAR “ Aramaic Proverbs and Precepts “
The text is preserved as the more recent writing on eleven sheets of palimpsest papyrus of the late fifth century B.C. recovered by German excavators from the debris of Elephantine, Upper Egypt, in the years 1906-7. The first four papyri, with a total of five columns, contain the story of Ahiqar, which is in the first person; the remaining seven, with a total of nine columns, contain Ahiqar’s sayings. The composition of the work may antedate the preserved copy by as much as a century. The action of the narrative centers about the court of the Assyrian kings Sennacherib ( 704-681) and...
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