Inscriptional and textual evidence indicates that there were several ancient Egyptian institutions associated with storing documentation. Among them were the ‘House of Life’ (pr anx), ‘House of Books’ (pr mDAt), and ‘Hall of Written Documentation’ (xA n sSw) – the latter serving as an archive for official state-related documents.
The role of the House of Life
One of the more intriguing of these foundations was the House of Life, a structure often alluded to in Egyptian texts, but a designation that remains difficult to define. Little is known about the House of Life’s physical layout or the organisation of its personnel. It has traditionally been referred to as an institution aligned with kingship in which papyrus texts were stored, and where scribes and scholars consulted, copied, interpreted, and worked with religious compositions and other documents, including some that may have related to medicine.
There are some suggestions that the House of Life functioned as a ‘school’ or training centre, but the evidence is not clear. However, considering the academic nature of the House of Life, and its function as a repository of knowledge, the documents that were being consulted and composed may have been used indirectly in a teaching capacity. It is also possible that personnel from the House of Life could have trained their own apprentices, utilising such texts.
