This text is widely considered the greatest of all Middle Kingdom literary compositions. It was also revered by the ancient Egyptians themselves, surviving in five Middle Kingdom papyri, two New Kingdom papyri, and twenty-five New Kingdom ostraca, all in hieratic. None of these preserves the full story, and many are only fragments. The texts presented here are the five Middle Kingdom copies:

B — pBerlin 3022 and pAmherst n–q

The beginning of the story is lost (to R 5), but the papyrus otherwise preserves the full text, including a colophon at the end (without the scribe's name). It has the best Middle Kingdom version of the tale but is not always the most reliable of the copies. Parkinson 2012, CD folder “Pap. Berlin P. 3022 The Tale of Sinuhe B.”

La — pUCL 32106C

A fragment of six columns (R 24–32 = B 1–8): Collier and Quirke 2004, 35 and CD file “UC32106B-b.”

H — pUCL 32773

A fragment of four columns (B 103–10). Gardiner 1916, 177–78, and Koch 1990, 45–46 (vertical arragement reconstructed).

BA — papyrus in the Museum of Natural History, Buenos Aires A fragment of eleven columns (B 251–57). Rosenvasser 1934.

R — pRamesseum A (Berlin 10499), verso

This is the only copy written completely in horizontal lines, and the only one that preserves the beginning of the story; the end is lost. It has a number of additions not found in earlier manuscripts, which were also reproduced in some New Kingdom copies. The recto is inscribed with a copy of the Eloquent Peasant (Text 5). Gardiner 1909, with addition in Koch 1990, 39–41.

B can be dated to the period of the coregency between Senwosret III and Amenemhat III (ca. 1859–1840 BC: see pp. 115, 229, and 238); La, H, and BA are roughly contemporary with one another, and with B; and R dates to the first part of Dyn. XIII or slightly earlier. The story is set in the reign of Senwosret I (ca. 1961–1917 BC), beginning with the death of his father and coregent, Amenemhat I (ca. 1952 BC), and is at least as old as the early reign of Amenemhat III.