ABSTRACT
Since the time of A. H. Gardiner’s study of the Admonitions of Ipuwer in 1909,2 there has been a general consensus among scholars that the work was written in, or at least refl ects, the First Intermediate Period in Egypt.3 However, the general observations made by Gardiner himself relating to the problem of dating certainly do not inspire a fi rm conclusion on the matter. It will be of some value, therefore, to summarize his remarks at the very outset.4 He records that only a single copy is extant, Papyrus Leyden 344 recto, which was found at Memphis. The papyrus itself is not earlier than the Nineteenth Dynasty, although there are suffi ciently strong indications that the scribe used a manuscript of which the history of transmission may go back to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. This conclusion is based on the presence of archaisms in palaeography and orthography. The language, on the other hand, is charac teristic of literary documents of the Middle Kingdom. In particular Gardiner cites points of contact with the Lebensmüde, The
Instructions of Ammenemes I, and a text on a writing-board in the British Museum, which he dates to the time of Sesostris II (Lament of Kha‛-kheperre‛-sonbe).5
