Quotations from Egyptian and other ancient texts have been made more accessible to nonscholars by omitting symbols such as brackets and parentheses, and by a certain freedom of rendering, when the meaning of the literal translation is not immediately apparent to a modern reader. I believe I can claim, however, that I have not altered the basic sense of the texts. Those who want to check up on me can refer to the following sources.
The indispensable three-volume work of Miriam Lichtheim (see Additional Reading) has translations of many of the texts I have cited, including the Annals of Thutmose III and the Kadesh battle text of Ramses II. The new, revised edition of The Literature of Ancient Egypt, edited by W. K. Simpson, includes much of the same material.
Unfortunately, there is no equivalent up-to-date source for historical texts. James H. Breasted’s Ancient Records of Egypt, in five volumes, has never been supplanted, and although individual texts have been studied and revised it remains a basic reference work. It was reprinted by the University of Illinois in 2001. A selection of Egyptian literary and historical texts can be found in the translations by John A. Wilson, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard (Princeton, 3rd ed., 1969). This invaluable source also contains translations of Hittite texts by Albrecht Goetze, including the Hittite version of the treaty with Ramses II and Ankhesenamon’s letters to Shubilulliuma. Certain of the Amarna letters are translated by W. F. Albright. A recent, complete translation of the Amarna letters is that of William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
The great Aton hymn is taken directly from Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933, hence the poetic language. Apparently he felt it was appropriate for a hymn, and it does make the parallels with the King James version of the Psalm more obvious. A more recent translation is that of William Murnane, Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt, Scholars Press, 1995, pp. 113 ff. Murnane’s excellent volume contains up-to-date translations of the restoration stela of Tutankhamon and other documents of the period, including Harmhab’s Karnak stela. The triumphant hymn to Amon is also from Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience.
There are a number of editions of Manetho. The one I use is the Loeb Classical Library version.
The stories of Sekenenre and the crocodiles and the Kamose stela can be found in Simpson’s useful volume (see Additional Reading). More recent translations of some texts have appeared in articles in such journals as the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, as well as in journals in languages other than English. I leave it to advanced and/or obsessed students to track them down.