Satire of the Trades / Teaching of Khety
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 4). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Spread only
Date or witness: Composed in the Middle Kingdom (approximately 2055–1650 BCE); numerous New Kingdom copies, including 19th–20th dynasties
Region: Egypt
Workbook date-sort bounds: 2055 BCE to 1077 BCE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
A father sells the merits of being a scribe by depicting other jobs as filthy, painful and miserable. Dozens of copies on papyrus, writing boards and ostraca show transmission, including inherited copying mistakes.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
Numerous copies on ostraca, boards and papyri establish substantial circulation.
What remains uncertain
The identified mechanism is scribal training; material cheapness alone does not make it grassroots, and the text valorizes scribes over manual occupations.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria