As a long time foreign correspondent, I've worked in lots of places, but nowhere is important

to the world as China.

I'm Jane Perlaz, former Beijing Bureau Chief for the New York Times.

Join me on my new podcast, Face Off, US versus China,

where I'll take you behind the scenes in the tumultuous US-China relationship.

Find face-off wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Egyptian history podcast.

Episode 44, the shipwrecked sailor,

in which we recount one of the most enduring literary pieces ever composed by an Egyptian scribe.

Part adventure tale, part myth, and part philosophical treatisey.

The shipwrecked sailor is a complex tale,

deserving its own episode. The year is approximately 1868 bCE.

This episode is self-contained, dealing with one topic and one topic only.

It is not certain exactly when the shipwrecked sailor was composed, but it was sometime in the middle kingdom.

The narrator also goes out of his way to avoid naming any king, any individual, or any reference point that would give the story a date in history or myth.

This is intentional. The story is closer to an adventure tale than a historical account, and it is not

intended to reflect any particular period. It is meant to be eternal, relevant to any age and to any people.

This sets it apart from the three or four stories we have encountered so far.

The tale of Kufu and the Magicians, for instance, was set in the reign of Kufu.

It retroactively foretold the rise of the Fifth Dynasty,

and justified their assumption of power after the fourth came to its end.

Then there's the tale of Sinhue which gives an account of the beginning of the 12th

dynasty with the murder of a Menom Hart the first and the succession of his son to power.

...