The Literary Genre of Royal Eulogies: The Case of the "nTr nfr" Incipit on the Royal Stelae

The eulogy of the king is a well-represented and recognized literary genre that is regularly found on royal stelae. Studying royal eulogies beginning with nTr nfr, the perfect god, seems relevant to our understanding of Egyptian poetic and literary forms. We do not omit the study of the form where it can be found. The eulogy, in fact, occupies a fixed place in the texts and plays a key role in the affirmation of the king as nTr. First known as a sub-genre of the royal eulogy during the Middle Kingdom it was more regularly used during the New Kingdom; it has progressively been spread, sometimes appearing on the walls of the 19th Dynasty temples. It is a distinguishable text, with an official stamp and rigorous criteria, including the choice of vocabulary and the physical location of the eulogy on a stela. The vocabulary is quite specific and yet unique to each stela; each is a genre in itself. Beside the brightening of our knowledge on literary matter, the use of this form in the royal texts recalls known forms. This incipit brings to the foreground the particular position of the king. It has a diachronic influence that communicated for millennium the eternal supremacy of the pharaohs. The use of the incipit spans from royal decrees to frontier stelae, and reinforces the king's representation of authority, power, and to his divine status (nTr).