Tomb biography is the most characteristic genre of ancient Egyptian writing, which is known from the Old Kingdom to the establishment of Christianity. The article investigates why it was in Ancient Egypt that this genre first became widespread. In the “pre-axial” religions, the mortuary cult was usually provided by the deceased’s relatives and only for a relatively short time; then, his “personal identity” was sort of “dissolved” in his distant descendants’ commemoration of their entire “community of the dead.” Hence, there was no need in tomb biographies:  the closest descendants were generally obliged to perform the cult regardless of the deceased’s merits and achievements –  simply by virtue of kinship solidarity customs. And then, having dissolved in the “community of the dead” the “soul” no longer needed a personal cult, and therefore there was no need to preserve any detailed memories of that deceased. A unique feature of the ancient Egyptian religion was the belief in the possibility of eternal “individualized” existence of one of a man’s “souls” – his “Double (kA)”, who continued to stay “on earth” thanks to tomb stone architecture and sculpture. However, the Double’s prosperity also depended on the everlasting preservation of the deceased’s memorials and performance of mortuary cult for him – that which the relatives of the deceased were not able to guarantee: personal mortuary cults of non-royal persons rarely lasted in Egypt for more than a century. One could therefore only hope for reverence for this deceased from the entire Egyptian society, as the latter was considered eternal. And this could only be prompted by the “good memory” of the deceased’s virtues and accomplishments, which only tomb biographies could pass on to distant descendants. Thus, the hope for the eternal “individual” survival of the Double, obtained due to stone monuments, forced the Egyptians to speak out about their relationships not only with relatives and colleagues, but with all of mankind (in its ancient Egyptian understanding), thereby giving rise to the world oldest written discourse on morality and sociality with a great many participants.