A pleasure trip comes to a halt
At Khufu’s court, Prince Baufra recalls a marvel from the reign of Sneferu. The earlier king is restless. Nothing in his palace offers the diversion he wants, so the lector priest Djadjaemankh proposes a boat trip with a crew of young women. Elaborate oars and revealing net garments turn the excursion into a spectacle arranged for the king. For a time, the movement, landscape, and rowing please him.
Then a woman loses the ornament from her hair into the lake. She stops rowing, and the rhythm of her companions breaks down with her. Sneferu offers another ornament. She refuses the exchange: she wants the particular thing she has lost. A small possession now holds up an entertainment organized by the most powerful person present. The story gives her insistence direct speech and makes it the problem that ordinary royal generosity cannot solve.
Source: Egyptian Tales, First Series: Tales of the Magicians · Tales of the Magicians, Baufra’s Tale, pp. 16–18
The recovery
Sneferu summons the priest and repeats the conversation. Djadjaemankh speaks his effective words and folds one part of the lake’s water over the other. The exposed bottom reveals the ornament resting on a potsherd. He retrieves it and returns it to its owner, then speaks again to restore the water. The pleasure outing resumes, and the priest receives rewards.
The miracle is carefully reversible. The lake is neither destroyed nor permanently drained; its arrangement changes long enough to recover one object. Petrie’s historical rendering calls the material malachite, whereas UCL identifies a turquoise fish pendant. The essential narrative distinction is firmer than that difference in translation: a substitute offered by the ruler cannot replace the woman’s own treasured possession. Djadjaemankh succeeds by taking that distinction seriously.
Sources: Egyptian Tales, First Series: Tales of the Magicians; Museum: House of Life — appreciating the single object · Baufra’s Tale, pp. 18–22; UCL, “Appreciation of the single object”
A wonder told about the past
Back in the framing court, Khufu orders offerings for the dead Sneferu and the learned priest. Baufra has presented an earlier reign as an occasion for present admiration and commemoration. This completed episode belongs to a larger cycle whose physical manuscript is incomplete at its outer ends. Its Old Kingdom royal names do not date the surviving copy to the Old Kingdom.
The passage also balances unequal power with an unexpectedly successful demand from below. That is an interpretation of the episode, rather than evidence that ordinary palace workers could routinely dictate terms to kings. Its particular achievement is literary: a modest loss creates a difficulty that wealth cannot settle, and learned speech supplies the solution.
Sources: Egyptian Tales, First Series: Tales of the Magicians; Egyptian Literary Compositions: Tales at the court of king Khufu · Baufra’s Tale, closing offerings; UCL, “Tales at the court of king Khufu”
- Period / witness
- Second Intermediate Period surviving copy; fictional reign of Sneferu.
- Recording context
- Papyrus Berlin 3033 (Westcar), surviving Second Intermediate Period manuscript, approximately seventeenth–sixteenth centuries BCE; stories set in the much earlier Old Kingdom.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
Explore time & place →Read the sources
These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
Egyptian Tales, First Series: Tales of the Magicians ↗
W. M. Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) · 1895; second edition 1899; ebook updated 2016
Edition & rights noteMuseum: House of Life — appreciating the single object ↗
Digital Egypt for Universities · Undated educational page; consulted 2026
Edition & rights noteEgyptian Literary Compositions: Tales at the court of king Khufu ↗
Digital Egypt for Universities · Undated educational page; consulted 2026
Edition & rights note