The Abusir Papyri are the oldest body of papyri at present known. it was discovered at the funerary temple of Neferirkara Kakai at Abusir. Though fragmentary, their importance to Egyptology lies in furnishing the earliest examples of the hieratic script and giving informations for the administration of a Pyramid temple. But they had fallen into the hands of many museums and only a few fragments had been published till 1968. In this year all these important documents were fully published by P. Posener-Kriéger and J. L. de Cenival, Hieratic Papyri in the British Musenm, 5th series: The Abu Sir Papyri, London 1968. So now we can study these documents for the first time. In this article I treated of the date of these papyri, their contents and their significance to Egyptological studies.
As for the date of the papyri, comparing the clear dates (those of Isesi and Teti), other dates without the name of the reigning pharaoh (ranging from the 2nd “numbering of the cattle” to the 21st), and the cartouches of pharaohs without dates, we can deduce that the highest date of the papyri is the year 3 or 5 under Isesi and the lowest is the year 2 or 12 under Teti. But because of the close similarities in the script and the small number of the cartouches of Unas and Teti, I suppose that the most of the papyri should be ascribed to a relatively short period, that is, to the reign of Isesi.
As for the contents of the papyri, they consist of four types of documents, 1) duty-tables (the compilation of the every day allotment of the tasks of each member of the temple staff on duty), 2) inventories (charaterized by the records of inspections on the change of phylae), 3) accounts (of most varied classes registering income and expenses of the temple), and 4) the other documents) including a copy of a letter, a permit, rituals, and many unclassified fragments).
I think duty-tables are the most interesting of these four types of documents because of its uniqueness, and examined from four points of view what kind of informations we could expect to derive from them. Firstly we have the oldest record of the practise of “Stundenpriesterschaft” (rotation-system in religious services of the temple staff divided into phylae) in these duty-tables. I suppose that this system had been introduced from royal labour-system into funerary temples for management of its economy and spread over other temples. Secondly we can reconstruct the organization of the temple staff from their titles, and thirdly gather informations on their duties, especially the priests called hm-ntr and hntj-š. Lastly, concerning the reform of the organization of funerary temples under Nyuserra, I think there is some possibility that hntjw-š were introduced by this reform.
In short, by studying personal names, their titles and their duties recorded in duty-tables, we can make out the kind of their services and the forms of its performance. This will be a important step to reconstruct the actual operation of the administrative system of funerary temples and to approach many unsolved problems concerning the state-structure under the Old Kingdom.
