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Free template · from the film The Feather

42 Lines for Leaders

In the Papyrus of Ani, painted around 1250 BCE, the dead answer forty-two judges with forty-two lines. Here they are, rewritten for anyone who holds power, with a blank page to write your own.

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What the forty-two lines were

Egyptians believed that after death the heart was weighed against the feather of Ma'at, the goddess of truth, justice and balance. Before the scale, the dead spoke a line to each of forty-two judges, and every line was a refusal: I have not. A life was measured by what it would not do.

The lines were never one fixed code. They varied from tomb to tomb, and scrolls were sold ready-written, with a blank left for the buyer's name. This page is the opposite. There is nothing to buy, only a blank to fill.

In each pair below, the first line is our modern reading, not a translation. The line in italics is E. A. Wallis Budge's 1898 translation of the Papyrus of Ani.

The forty-two, for leaders

  1. I have not done wrong and called it policy."I have not committed sin."
  2. I have not taken by force what belongs to the people."I have not committed robbery with violence."
  3. I have not stolen public money."I have not stolen."
  4. I have not ordered a killing to keep power."I have not slain men and women."
  5. I have not diverted the food meant for the hungry."I have not stolen grain."
  6. I have not pocketed what was given for the common good."I have not purloined offerings."
  7. I have not looted what belongs to the nation."I have not stolen the property of God."
  8. I have not lied to the people I serve."I have not uttered lies."
  9. I have not let my circle feast while others went short."I have not carried away food."
  10. I have not insulted the people I was chosen to serve."I have not uttered curses."
  11. I have not broken faith with those who trusted me."I have not committed adultery."
  12. I have made no one weep through cruelty or neglect."I have made none to weep."
  13. I have not let resentment make my decisions."I have not eaten the heart."
  14. I have not turned the state against a citizen."I have not attacked any man."
  15. I have not governed by deception."I am not a man of deceit."
  16. I have not taken land from those who farm it."I have not stolen cultivated land."
  17. I have not spied on my own people."I have not been an eavesdropper."
  18. I have not smeared my opponents."I have not slandered anyone."
  19. I have not punished anyone out of anger."I have not been angry without just cause."
  20. I have not used my position to exploit anyone sexually."I have not debauched the wife of any man."
  21. I have not protected those who abuse the power I gave them."I have not debauched the wives of other men."
  22. I have not let myself be bought."I have not polluted myself."
  23. I have not ruled by fear."I have terrorized none."
  24. I have not placed myself above the law."I have not transgressed the law."
  25. I have not answered criticism with rage."I have not been angry."
  26. I have not silenced those who told me the truth."I have not shut my ears to the words of truth."
  27. I have not mocked what my people hold sacred."I have not blasphemed."
  28. I have not sent soldiers against my own people."I am not a man of violence."
  29. I have not divided people in order to rule them."I have not been a stirrer up of strife."
  30. I have not made a nation's decisions in haste."I have not acted with undue haste."
  31. I have not meddled in what was not mine to decide."I have not pried into other's matters."
  32. I have not buried the truth under speeches."I have not multiplied my words in speaking."
  33. I have not harmed the weak to please the strong."I have wronged none, I have done no evil."
  34. I have not plotted to seize power outside the law."I have not worked witchcraft against the king."
  35. I have not cut off what my neighbours need to live."I have never stopped the flow of water of a neighbor."
  36. I have not shouted down those who disagree with me."I have never raised my voice."
  37. I have not treated power as mine by right."I have not cursed God."
  38. I have not believed the office made me better than others."I have not acted with arrogance."
  39. I have not spent what was set aside for the next generation."I have not stolen the bread of the gods."
  40. I have not erased the memory of those who served before me."I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the spirits of the dead."
  41. I have not taken bread from a child, nor scorned the place I come from."I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city."
  42. I have not wasted the common wealth entrusted to me."I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god."

kemetleads.com/42-lines · Italic lines: E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead (1898), Papyrus of Ani, public domain. Modern readings © KemetLeads, free to print, share and adapt with credit (CC BY 4.0).

Write your own forty-two

Page 2 of the PDF is blank: forty-two numbered lines, each starting I have not. Write each line as a promise specific enough to be weighed against: not "I am honest", but "I have not hidden the budget from the people it belongs to". Keep it where you will read it again.

It works for a head of state, and it works for the small kingdom you already run: a team, a business, a classroom, a family.

Sources and use

Italic lines: E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead: The Chapter of Coming Forth by Day (1898), translating the Papyrus of Ani (British Museum EA 10470), public domain; list as reproduced in Wikipedia's article on Maat. On the ready-written scrolls with a blank for the name, see the Book of the Dead. The modern readings are KemetLeads' own, free to print, share and adapt with credit under CC BY 4.0. Corrections are welcome at admin@kemetleads.com.