Tale of Woe

[1] Like the other two Vladimir Goleniščev papyri, the papyrus was discovered in 1890 at al-Hiba, Egypt and is currently held at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

[2] However, due to its complex reading, vocabulary, and intelligibility, it was for many years regarded as "hopelessly obscure" and was not published until the 1961 editio princeps (first edition) of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Korostovtsev.

The papyrus tells the story of a God's father of Heliopolis, Wermai, the son of Huy, who, having been expelled from his city, found refuge in the great Oasis.

According to the papyrus, he has a conflict, involving grain, with a somewhat obscure opponent, designated as "the master" (nb), and his staff (isty).

In 1962 G. Fecht published the theory that the story was in fact a roman à clef, containing veiled references to the suppression of Amenhotep (High Priest of Amun) by the Viceroy of Nubia Pinehesy, with the name Wermai interpreted as a wordplay on a similar-sounding pontifical title.