"The only extant copy of the work, preserved on the Papyrus Leiden 344, dates to the New Kingdom (circa 1570-1069 BCE). The manuscript is considered the last extant example of the 'national disaster' genre, so popular in the Middle Kingdom, in which chaos reigns and order has been forgotten, traditional roles and respect for that order are discarded, and death and destruction are imminent."
"Didactic literature, by definition, teaches a reader an important lesson. The didactic writings of the Middle Kingdom routinely stressed the theme of order vs. chaos because they were playing off the memory of the First Intermediate Period of Egypt (2181-2040 BCE), which preceded it, when there was no central Egyptian government and regional governors maintained their own rules and values."
The Admonitions of Ipuwer is a Middle Kingdom composition known from a New Kingdom copy on Papyrus Leiden 344. The work exemplifies the 'national disaster' genre by depicting societal collapse where chaos replaces order and traditional roles break down. The text functions as didactic wisdom literature, contrasting order and chaos and advocating the necessity of a strong central government to maintain peace. Middle Kingdom didactic writings drew on the memory of the First Intermediate Period and modeled cultural values on Old Kingdom structures. Such compositions often take the form of advice from elders, kings, or sages to successors to reinforce social norms and state authority.
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