Urkunden der 18. Dynastie

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A page containing part of the autobiography of Ahmose, son of Ebana about when he fought against the Hyksos

Urkunden der 18. Dynastie is a collection of Egyptian documents in Egyptian hieroglyphs printed in German. It began in 1906 under the editorship of Kurt Heinrich Sethe; a second editon appeared in 1961. Urkunden der 18. Dynastie is the fourth part in the series Urkunden des Ægyptischen Altertums, and translates as Documents from the 18th Dynasty. It is usually called Urkunden IV and cited as Urk. IV in scholarly literature.

Sethe's contribution to Urkunden IV, 16 fascicles at 1226 pages of handwritten hieroglyphic texts, is the longest part in the Urkunden series, and contains all the records of the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt through most of the the reign of Thutmosis III. This was later followed in 1955–1958 by fascicles 17–22 by Hans Wolfgang Helck, who completed the series through the reigns of Amenhotep II to that of Horemheb. Helck also translated all of the Egyptian texts into German, which was published separately. An English translation of the German translations of fascicles 17–19 is published as Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty by Barbara Cumming.

[edit] Fascicles

Urkunden IV is divided into 22 heften (fascicles).

1: Time of the Hyksos and their earliest successors

2: Time of Kings Thutmosis I and II

3: Beginning of The Government of Thutmosis III and the Birth of Hatshepsut

4: Time of Hatshepsut

5: Time of Hatshepsut

6: Contemporary with Hatshepsut

7: Contemporary with Hatshepsut

8: Time of Thutmosis III

9-10: Time of Thutmosis III

11: Time of Thutmosis III

12: Time of Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II

13-16: Time of Thutmosis III

17: Historische Inschriften Thutmosis’ III. und Amenophis’ II.

18: Biographische Inschriften von Zeitgenossen Thutmosis’ III. und Amenophis’ II.

19: Historische Inschriften Thutmosis’ IV. und biographische Inschriften seiner Zeitgenossen

20: Historische Inschriften Amenophis’ III.

21: Inschriften von Zeitgenossen Amenophis’ III.

22: Inschriften Amenophis III. bis Haremheb und ihrer Zeitgenossen

[edit] Availability

All of the Urkunden series has been out of print for a very long time, and since the number of people who can read Egyptian is quite small, not many were printed. Obtaining a print version of any one of the four bound volumes of Urkunden IV can be quite expensive. However, since fascicles 1–16 are in the public domain, Urkunden IV, as well as the other volumes of Urkunden des Ægyptischen Altertums, are available online free of cost at numerous libraries.