shards used as writing material), they, and those of their teachers who retained something of their youth, were adding a series of love songs to the other side. At least that practice is what one finds in Egypt, and the Egyptian love songs are closer in language and mentality to the Bible’s than any others in the ancient Near East. The collection of love songs on Papyrus Chester Beatty I stands alongside a document praising Pharaoh Ramses V (an example of bureaucratic literature) and a record of