Among the present, rather scant collection of Old Kingdom hieratic documents, the Abusir papyri undoubtedly occupy a very prominent position. At a first sight, these fragmentary records of the Abusir pyramid temple administration and economy might seem without appeal. However, their meaning, especially for ancient Egyptian history, is invaluable. Moreover, the intriguing circumstances of their initial discovery in Neferirkare’s pyramid temple in 1893, and the tricks which fate played upon them make the Abusir papyri an apt subject for a thrilling tale. Eventually, the Abusir papyri ended up in museums in London, Berlin, Paris and also, of course, in Cairo. Nearly a century later, further sets of papyri revealed at Abusir, a small collection found in the pyramid temple of Khentkaus II and a larger one in Raneferef’s pyramid temple, were added to the set discovered in Neferirkare’s pyramid temple. The edition of all these sets of the Abusir papyri we owe to the decades long work of the French scholar Paule Posener-Kriéger.
Now, after their publication, the Abusir papyri represent a major source of our knowledge about the organization of royal funerary cults in the Old Kingdom pyramid complexes. They inform us about the structure of the funerary priesthood and its division into five basic groups, the so-called phylai, they reveal some of the rosters of priestly duties, religious festivals celebrated in the pyramid complexes, inventory lists of the internal furnishings and equipment of the pyramid complexes and their regular controls, etc. Of particular importance are accounting documents, records on the supplies of various products, royal decrees granting provisions to the different categories of priests and other documents helping us understand the complex redistribution system of that time.
