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the universe appeared to be governed by an eternal cosmic order (ma’at) within which everything had its rightful place. Even human life, whose principal phases of birth, youth, parenthood, old age and death were compressed into a lifespan of about thirty-five years, was an integral part of this cosmic order.
The Book of the Dead grew out of a long tradition of funerary texts, the first examples of which are known as the Pyramid Texts because they were written on the walls of the burial chambers in the pyramids of the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom – the earliest known example was discovered in the Pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara and dates from around 2345 BC. The purpose of the Pyramid Texts was to help the deceased pharaoh take his place among the gods, and to this end they included hymns, prayers and magical spells to ward off the dangers encountered in the afterlife.
The title ‘Book of the Dead’ was first coined in 1842 by Richard Lepsius, the German Egyptologist, but it has been suggested that a more appropriate title would be ‘Spells for Coming Forth by Day’, for its purpose was to enable the deceased to emerge safely from the tomb in a perfected, spiritualized form. Nowadays the term ‘Book of the Dead’ usually refers to the entire corpus of almost 200 chapters or spells, from which a selection was made for inclusion in individual papyri.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the individual human being was a compound of several elements – the kheperu, meaning modes or manifestations of human existence – which disintegrated at death.
The disintegration of these diverse elements was prevented through the mummification of the body, a process by which the deceased was transformed into a divine or spiritual form known as the sah.
When the mummy was placed in the tomb it was believed to enter the Duat or Netherworld, where it underwent two ceremonial rituals: the ‘weighing of the heart’ and the ‘opening of the mouth’.
The opening of the mouth was of great importance since it enabled the deceased to recite the hymns and prayers written on the papyrus. It also enabled them to address by name the gods it would encounter in the Duat and respond correctly to their questioning.
If the deceased followed the instructions on the papyrus and recited its hymns and spells, they would become an akh (a blessed spirit) and, leaving the mummy in the tomb, they would join the gods Osiris and Ra.
THE CHAPTER OF CHANGING INTO A BENNU. Saith Osiris, the scribe Ani, triumphant in peace: ‘I came into being from unformed matter, I created myself in the image of the god Khepera, and I grew in the form of plants. I am hidden in the likeness of the Tortoise. I am formed out of the atoms of all the gods. I am the yesterday of the four [quarters of the world], and I am the seven uraei which came into existence in the East, the mighty one who illumineth the nations by his body. He is god in the likeness of Set; and Thoth dwelleth in the midst of them by judgment of the dweller in Sekhem and of
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PLATES 31–32 Across these plates is shown the Hall of Double Right and Truth, wherein Ani has to address severally the forty-two gods, who are seated in a row in the middle of the hall. At each end is a door: that on the right is called ‘Neb-Maat-heri-tep-retui-f’ and that on the left ‘Neb-pehti-thesu-menment’. On the centre of the roof, which is crowned with a series of uraei and feathers emblematic of Maat, is a seated deity with hands extended, the right over the eye of Horus and the left over a pool. On the right, at the end of the hall (Plate 32), are four small vignettes in which are
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The sistrum and menat were emblems of Thuthu’s rank as a Chantress of Amun. (ed.)
Ra was the pre-eminent solar deity of the ancient Egyptians since the earliest times. He was later combined with the sun god Horus as Ra-Horakhty (‘Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons’), and also with Amun, the ‘king of the gods’, as Amun-Ra. Usually Ra is depicted in human form, sometimes with the head of a falcon, sometimes without. (ed.)
The god Khepera is a phase of the night-sun, at the twelfth hour of the night, when he ‘becomes’ the rising sun.
The goddess Nut represented the sky, and perhaps also the exact place where the sun rose.
Manu is the name given to the mountains on the western bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, wherein was situated the chief site of rock-hewn tombs.
Maat, ‘daughter of the Sun, and queen of the gods’, is the personification of righteousness, truth and justice.
‘Horus of the two horizons’ is the day-sun from his rising in the eastern horizon to his setting in the western horizon. The word ka means ‘image’ (and is often equated with the life-force). The deceased is always identified with Osiris, or the sun which has set. As the sun sets in the West and rises again in the East, so the dead man is laid in his tomb on the western bank of the Nile.
Thoth was the scribe of the gods and the personification of divine intelligence. His wife was the goddess Maat. (ed.)
The enemy of Ra was darkness and night, or any cloud that obscured the light of the sun.
Apep, the serpent, personifies darkness, which Horus or the rising sun must conquer before he can reappear in the East.
Osiris, the night sun, was the son of Ra, and the father and son of Horus. He is always represented as a mummy holding in his hands the sceptre, crook and flail.
Both Busiris [Tattu or Tettet] and Abydos [Abtu] claimed to be the resting place of the body of Osiris.
A name of Osiris when his scattered limbs had been brought together and built up again into a body by Isis and Nephthys. The name means ‘lord of entirety’.
Seker is a form of the night sun.
Akert, Ta-sert, Neter-khert and Tuat (or Duat) are all names of the underworld, the realm of which Osiris was the prince. (ed.)
An or Ani, a name or form of Ra, the sun god.
Ammit has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, the forelegs of a lion and the head of a crocodile. She devoured the dead whose hearts tipped the scales unfavourably. (ed.)
The four gods of the cardinal points, Mestha, Hapi, Tuamautef, and Qebhsennuf.
Mestha, Hapi, Tuamautef, Qebhsennuf, the gods of the cardinal points.
The god of Tettetu [or Tattu], or Busiris, a town that was believed to contain the body of Osiris.
Greek writers called this bird the phoenix, and the Egyptians considered it to be the soul of both the sun-god Ra and Osiris. (ed.)
The utchat or wedjat (the symbolic ‘eye of Horus’) was a protection against evil. (ed.).
Shu was the son of Ra and Hathor and the twin brother of Tefnut. He typified the sunlight, and separated the earth from the sky, which he established and supported.
Osiris is also called An-maut-f.
The god Seker was a form of the night-sun, like Ptah, Osiris and Tanen.
The Tet represents four pillars, i.e. the four quarters of heaven, or the whole universe. As a religious emblem it symbolizes the god Osiris.
Annu – one of the oldest cities and cult centres of ancient Egypt, often referred to by its Greek name of Heliopolis (‘City of the Sun’). Annu is frequently mentioned in the Book of the Dead. According to Budge, the body of Osiris ‘reposed in Annu’ and the deceased made their way to Annu ‘where souls were joined unto bodies...and the blessed dead lived on celestial food for ever’.
Anubis – the jackal-headed god who, having helped Isis embalm the body of Osiris after he had been killed and dismembered by Set, is associated with the mummification of the deceased. As protector of the deceased during the journey to the afterlife, he is depicted in several scenes in the Book of the Dead, including the rituals of the ‘opening of the mouth’ and the ‘weighing of the heart’.
Apep – the enemy of Ra, the sun-god. Frequently depicted as a giant serpent, Apep represents darkness, clouds, or anything else that has the potential to obscure the sun on its daily journey across the sky. He was also said to battle against the sun-god at night...
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ba – the soul or spirit, which enters each individual with the breath of life. When the physical body dies, the ba is able to move freely between the Netherworld and the world of the living. In the Book of th...
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bennu bird – said to be the soul of the sun-god Ra, having created itself from a fire burning in the temple of Ra. According to another myth, the bennu ...
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eye of Horus (also known as the utchat or wedjat) – Horus lost an eye during a fight with Set, but later regained it. Because his eye was retrieved, it became a symbol of healing and protection.
Hathor – frequently depicted in the form of a cow with the solar disk between her horns, she was the goddess of love and beauty. In Thebes she was seen as a goddess of the dead and, as such, is depicted emerging from the mountain of Manu in the final vignette in the Book of the Dead of Ani.
Horus – son of Isis and Osiris; after Osiris had been killed by Set, Horus avenged his father by defeating Set and reclaiming his father’s throne. (See also eye of Horus, Sons of Horus).
Isis – daughter of the sky-goddess Nut and the earth-god Geb; Isis was both sister and wife of Osiris, and the mother of his son Horus. Isis was the principal goddess of the Egyptian pantheon, revered as protector of both the living and the ...
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ka – the life-force or spirit. Like the ba, the ka lived on after the death of the physical body, but it remained in the tomb with the mummy of the deceased and did...
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Khepera – a form of the sun-god Ra. Khepera is frequently depicted as a scarab-headed figure because his rolling of the sun around its orbit echoed the way in which the scarab or dung beetle rolls a ball of dung containing its eggs, hiding it in a hole in the earth; when the eggs hatch, the newborn scarabs emerge from their hole. Khepera is particularly associated with the rising s...
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Nephthys – daughter of sky-goddess Nut and the earth-god Geb, and sister to Isis, Osiris, and Set.
Nut – the sky-goddess, mother of Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, and Set.
Osiris – son of the sky-goddess Nut and the earth-god Geb, Osiris was brother and husband of Isis, and father of Horus. As lord and ruler of the Duat or Netherworld, he is the protector and guide of the dead. He is frequently portrayed holding a crook and flail and wearing the atef crown, all three of which are symbols of kingship. He is sometimes depicted with green skin, a reminder that he was also a god of vegetation and fertility.
