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The Teaching of Ptahhatp, composed two millennia before the birth of Plato, is the oldest surviving statement of philosophy in the ancient world and the earliest witness to the power of the written word. It ought to begin the list of the worlds philosophy classics, yet it has been largely forgotten since it was rediscovered in the nineteenth century. Egyptologist Bill Manleys new translation corrects this oversight, rendering into approachable modern English for the first time Ptahhatps profound yet practical account of the meaning of life, written many centuries before the supposed dawn of western philosophy.