THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
The Papyrus of Ani
by
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE
Late keeper of Assyrian and Egyptian Antiquities
in the British Museum
[1895]
THE GODS OF THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
The following are the principal gods and goddesses mentioned in the pyramid
texts and in the later versions of the Book of the Dead:--
Nu represents the primeval watery mass from which all the gods were evolved,
and upon which floats the bark of "millions of years" containing the sun. This
god's chief titles are " Father of the gods," and begetter of the great company
of the gods,". He is depicted in the form of a seated deity having upon his head
disk and plumes.
Nut the female principle of Nu; she is depicted with the head of a snake surmounted
by a disk, or with the head of a cat.
Ptah was associated with the god Khnemu in carrying out at the Creation the
mandates of Thoth the divine intelligence; his name means the "opener," and he
was identified by the Greeks with {Greek H!'faistos}, and by the Latins with Vulcan.
He was worshipped at a very early date in Memphis, which is called in Egyptian
texts "The House of the Ka of Ptah,", and according to Herodotus his temple there
was founded by Mena or Menes. He is called the "exceedingly great god, the beginning
of being," "the father of fathers and power of powers," and "he created his form,
and gave birth to his body, and established unending and unvarying right and truth
upon the earth." As a solar god he is called "Ptah, the Disk of heaven, who illumineth
the world by the fire of his eyes,"; and in the Book of the Dead he is said to
have "opened" the mouth of the deceased with the tool with which he opened the
mouths of the gods. He is depicted in the form of a mummy standing upon maat and
in his hands he holds a sceptre on the top of which are the emblems of power,
life, and stability; from the back of his neck hangs the menat (see p. 1, note
2). Ptah formed at Memphis the chief member of the triad Ptah-Sekhet and Nefer-Tmu.
In many texts the god Ptah is often joined to the god Seker whose individual
attributes it is not easy to describe; Seker is the Egyptian name of the incarnation
of the Apis bull at Memphis. That Seker was a solar god is quite clear, but whether
he "closed" the day or the night is not certain. Originally his festival was celebrated
in the evening, wherefrom it appears that he represented some form of the night
sun; but in later times the ceremony of drawing the image of the god Seker in
the hennu boat round the sanctuary was performed in the morning at dawn, and thus,
united with Ptah, he became the closer of the night and the opener of the day.
He is depicted as a mummied body with the head of a hawk, and he sometimes holds
in his hands emblems of power, sovereignty, and rule.
Another form of Ptah was Ptah-Seker-Ausar wherein the creator of the world,
the sun, and Osiris as the god of the dead, were represented. A large number of
fance figures of this triune god are found in graves, and specimens exist in
all museums. He is represented as a dwarf standing upon a crocodile, and having
a scarabs upon his head; the scarab is the emblem of the new life into which
the deceased is about to break, the crocodile is the emblem of the darkness of
death which has been overcome. According to some the element of Ptah in the triad
is the personification of the period of incubation which follows death and precedes
the entry into eternal life, and the symbols with which he is accompanied explain
the character attributed to this god.
The god Ptah is also united with the gods Hapi, Nu and Tanen when he represents
various phases of primeval matter.
Khnemu worked with Ptah in carrying out the work of creation ordered by Thoth,
and is therefore one of the oldest divinities of Egypt; his name means, "to mould,"
"to model." His connexion with the primeval water caused him to be regarded as
the chief god of the inundation and lord of the cataract at Elephantine. He dwelt
in Annu, but he was lord of Elephantine, and "the builder of men, the maker of
the gods, and the father from the beginning."
Elsewhere he is said to be ari enti-s qemam unenet sa xeperu tef Maker of things
which are, creator of what shall be, the beginning of beings, father tefu ma ma
of fathers, and mother of mothers.
He supported the heaven upon its four pillars in the beginning, and earth,
air, sea, and sky are his handiwork. He is depicted in the form of a man having
a ram's head and horns surmounted by plumes, ur with disks, etc.; in one hand
be holds the sceptre and in the other the emblem of life. Occasionally he is hawk-headed,
and in one representation he holds the emblem of water, in each hand. On a late
bas-relief at Philwe find him seated at a potter's table upon which stands a
human being whom he has just fashioned.
Khepera was a form of the rising sun, and was both a type of matter which is
on the point of passing from inertness into life, and also of the dead body which
is about to burst forth into a new life in a glorified form. He is depicted in
the form of a man having a beetle for a head, and this insect was his type and
emblem among ancient nations, because it was believed to be self-begotten and
self-produced; to this notion we owe the myriads of beetles or scarabs which are
found in tombs of all ages in Egypt, and also in the Greek islands and settlements
in the Mediterranean, and in Phnicia, Syria, and elsewhere. The seat of the god
Khepera was in the boat of the sun, and the pictures which present us with this
fact only illustrate an idea which is as old, at least, as the pyramid of Unas,
for in this monument it is said of the king:- ap-f em apt xenen-f em xeper em
nest sut He flieth like a bird, he alighteth like a beetle upon the empty throne
amt uaa-k Ra in thy boat, O Ra.
In the XVIIIth dynasty Queen Hatshepset declared herself to be "the creator
of things which came into being like Khepera", and in later times the scribes
were exceedingly fond of playing upon the word used as a noun, adjective, verb
and proper name.
Tum or Atemu i.e., "the closer," was the great god of Annu, and the head of
the great company of the gods of that place. It would seem that he usurped the
position of Ra in Egyptian mythology, or at any rate that the priests of Annu
succeeded in causing their local god, either separately or joined with Ra, to
be accepted as the leader of the divine group. He represented the evening or night
sun, and as such he is called in the XVth chapter of the Book of the Dead "divine
god," "self-created," "maker of the gods," "creator of men," who stretched out
the heavens," "the lightener of the tuat with his two eyes," etc.'
The "cool breezes of the north wind," for which every dead man prayed, were
supposed to proceed from him. He is, as M. Lefure has pointed out, always depicted
in the form of a man; he wears the crowns and holds both the sceptre and emblem
of life On a mummy case at Turin he is depicted in the boat of the Sun, in company
with the god Khepera; between them are the beetle and sun's disk In later times
the Egyptians called the feminine form of Tmu Temt.
Ra was the name given to the sun by the Egyptians in a remote antiquity, but
the meaning of the word, or the attribute which they ascribed to the sun by it,
is unknown. Ra was the invisible emblem of God, and was regarded as the god of
this earth, to whom offerings and sacrifices were made daily; and when he appeared
above the horizon at the creation, time began. In the pyramid texts the soul of
the deceased makes its way to where Ra is in heaven, and Ra is entreated to give
it a place in the "bark of millions of years" wherein he sails over the sky. The
Egyptians attributed to the sun a morning and an evening boat, and in these the
god sat accompanied by Khepera and Tmu, his own forms in the morning and evening
respectively. In his daily course he vanquished night and darkness, and mist and
cloud disappeared from before his rays; subsequently the Egyptians invented the
moral conception of the sun, representing the victory of right over wrong and
of truth over falsehood. From a natural point of view the sun was synonymous with
movement, and hence typified the life of man; and the setting of the one typified
the death of the other. Usually Ra is depicted in human form, sometimes with the
head of a hawk, and sometimes without, As early as the time of the pyramid texts
we find Ra united with Tmu to form the chief god of Annu, and at the same period
a female counterpart Rat was assigned to him.
Shu, the second member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the firstborn
son of Ra, Ra-Tmu, or Tum, by the goddess Hathor, the sky, and was the twin brother
of Tefnut. He typified the light, he lifted up the sky, Nut, from the earth, Seb,
and placed it upon the steps which were in Khemennu.
He is usually depicted in the form of a man, who wears upon his head a feather
or feathers and holds in his hand the sceptre. At other times he appears in the
form of a man with upraised arms; on his head he has the emblem ###, and he is
often accompanied by the four pillars of heaven, i.e., the cardinal points. Among
the many fance amulets which are found in tombs are two which have reference
to Shu: the little models of steps typify the steps upon which Shu rested the
sky in Khemennu; and the crouching figure of a god supporting the sun's disk symbolizes
his act of raising the sun's disk into the space between sky and earth at the
time when he separated Nut from Seb.
Tefnut, the third member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the daughter
of Ra, Ra-Tmu, or Tmu, and twin-sister of Shu; she represented in one form moisture,
and in another aspect she seems to personify the power of sunlight. She is depicted
in the form of a woman, usually with the head of a lioness surmounted by a disk
or urs, or both; in fance, however, the twin brother and sister have each
a lion's head. In the pyramid texts they play a curious part, Shu being supposed
to carry away hunger from the deceased, and Tefnut his thirst.
Seb or Qeb, the fourth member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the son
of Shu, husband of Nut, and by her father of Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys.
Originally he was the god of the earth, and is called both the father of the gods,
and the "erpa (i.e., the tribal, hereditary head) of the gods." He is depicted
in human form, sometimes with a crown upon his head and sceptre I in his right
hand; and sometimes he has upon his head a goose, which bird was sacred to him.
In many places he is called the "great cackler" and he was supposed to have laid
the egg from which the world sprang. Already in the pyramid texts he has become
a god of the dead by virtue of representing the earth wherein the deceased was
laid.
Ausar or Osiris, the sixth member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the
son of Seb and Nut, and the husband of his sister Isis, the father of "Horus,
the son of Isis," and the brother of Set and Nephthys. The version of his sufferings
and death by Plutarch has been already described (see p. xlviii.). Whatever may
have been the foundation of the legend, it is pretty certain that his character
as a god of the dead was well defined long before the versions of the pyramid
texts known to us were written, and the only important change which took place
in the views of the Egyptians concerning him in later days was the ascription
to him of the attributes which in the early dynasties were regarded as belonging
only to Ra or to Ra-Tmu. Originally Osiris was a form of the sun-god, and, speaking
generally, he may be said to have represented the sun after he had set, and as
such was the emblem of the motionless dead; later texts identify him with the
moon. The Egyptians asserted that he was the father of the gods who had given
him birth, and, as he was the god both of yesterday and of to-day, he became the
type of eternal existence and the symbol of immortality; as such he usurped not
only the attributes of Ra, but those of every other god, and at length he was
both the god of the dead and the god of the living. As judge of the dead he was
believed to exercise functions similar to those attributed to God. Alone among
all the many gods of Egypt, Osiris was chosen as the type of what the deceased
hoped to become when, his body having been mummified in the prescribed way, and
ceremonies proper to the occasion having been performed and the prayers said,
his glorified body should enter into his presence in heaven; to him as "lord of
eternity," by which title as judge of the dead he was commonly addressed, the
deceased appealed to make his flesh to germinate and to save his body from decay.
The various forms in which Osiris is depicted are too numerous to be described
here, but generally speaking he is represented in the form of a mummy wearing
a crown and holding in his hands the emblems of sovereignty and power. A very
complete series of illustrations of the forms of Osiris is given by Lanzone in
his Dizionario, tavv. 258-299. The ceremonies connected with the celebration of
the events of the sufferings, the death and the resurrection of Osiris occupied
a very prominent part in the religious observances of the Egyptians, and it seems
as if in the month of Choiak a representation of them took place in various temples
in Egypt; the text of a minute description of them has been published by M. Loret
in Recueil de Travaux, tom. iii., p. 43 ff, and succeeding volumes. A perusal
of this work explains the signification of many of the ceremonies connected with
the burial of the dead, the use of amulets, and certain parts of the funeral ritual;
and the work in this form being of a late date proves that the doctrine of immortality,
gained through the god who was "lord of the heavens and of the earth, of the underworld
and of the waters, of the mountains, and of all which the sun goeth round in his
course," had remained unchanged for at least four thousand years of its existence.
Auset or Isis, the seventh member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the
wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus; her woes have been described both by Egyptian
and Greek writers. Her commonest names are "the great goddess, the divine mother,
the mistress of charms or enchantments"; in later times she is called the "mother
of the gods," and the "living one." She is usually depicted in the form of a woman,
with a head-dress in the shape of a seat, the hieroglyphic for which forms her
name. The animal sacred to her was the cow, hence she sometimes wears upon her
head the horns of that animal accompanied by plumes and feathers. In one aspect
she is identified with the goddess Selk or Serq, and she then has upon her head
a scorpion, the emblem of that goddess; in another aspect she is united to the
star Sothis, and then a star is added to her crown. She is, however, most commonly
represented as the mother suckling her child Horus, and figures of her in this
aspect, in bronze and fance, exist in thousands. As a nature goddess she is
seen standing in the boat of the sun, and she was probably the deity of the dawn.
Heru or Horus, the sun-god, was originally a totally distinct god from Horus,
the son of Osiris and Isis, but from the earliest times it seems that the two
gods were confounded, and that the attributes of the one were ascribed to the
other; the fight which Horus the sun-god waged against night and darkness was
also at a very early period identified with the combat between Horus, the son
of Isis, and his brother Set. The visible emblem of the sun-god was at a very
early date the hawk is, which was probably the first living thing worshipped by
the early Egyptians; already in the pyramid texts the hawk on a standard is used
indiscriminately with ### to represent the word "god." The principal forms of
Horus the sun-god, which probably represent the sun at various periods of the
day and night, are:--Heru-ur ({Greek A?rwh`rei), "Horus the Great"; Heru-merti,
"Horus of the two eyes," i.e., of the sun and moon; Heru-nub, "the golden Horus";
Heru-khent-khat; Heru-khent-an-maa, "Horus dwelling in blindness"; Heru-khuti,
"Horus of the two horizons," the type of which on earth was the Sphinx; Heru-sam-taui,
"Horus the uniter of the north and south"; Heru-hekenu, " Horus of Heken"; and
Heru-behutet, "Horus of Behutet." The cippi of Horus, which became so common at
a late period in Egypt, seem to unite the idea of the physical and moral conceptions
of Horus the sun-god and of Horus the son of Osiris and Isis.
Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, appears in Egyptian texts usually as Heru-p-khart,
" Horus the child," who afterwards became the "avenger of his father Osiris,"
and occupied his throne, as we are told in many places in the Book of the Dead.
In the pyramid texts the deceased is identified with Heru-p-khart, and a reference
is made to the fact that the god is always represented with a finger in his mouth.
The curious legend which Plutarch relates concerning Harpocrates and the cause
of his lameness' is probably based upon the passage in the history of Osiris and
Isis given in a hymn to Osiris of the XVIIIth dynasty.
Set or Sutekh the eighth member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the
son of Seb and Nut, and the husband of his sister Nephthys. The worship of this
god is exceedingly old, and in the pyramid texts we find that be is often mentioned
with Horus and the other gods of the Heliopolitan company in terms of reverence.
He was also believed to perform friendly offices for the deceased, and to be a
god of the Sekhet-Aaru, or abode of the blessed dead. He is usually depicted in
human form with the head of an animal which has not yet been identified; in later
times the head of the ass was confounded with it, but the figures of the god in
bronze which are preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere prove beyond a
doubt that the head of Set is that of an animal unknown to us. In the early dynasties
he was a beneficent god, and one whose favour was sought after by the living and
by the dead, and so late as the XIXth dynasty kings delighted to call themselves
"beloved of Set." About the XXIInd dynasty, however, it became the fashion to
regard the god as the origin of all evil, and his statues and images were so effectually
destroyed that only a few which escaped by accident have come down to us. Originally
Set, or Sut, represented the natural night and was the opposite of Horus; that
Horus and Set were opposite aspects or forms of the same god is proved by the
figure given by Lanzone (Dizionario, tav. 37, No. 2), where we see the head of
Set and the head of Horus upon one body. The natural opposition of the day and
night was at an early period confounded with the battle which took place between
Horus, the son of Isis, and Set, wherein Isis intervened, and it seems that the
moral idea of the battle of right against wrong became attached to the latter
combat, which was undertaken by Horus to avenge his father's murder by Set.
Nebt-het or Nephthys the last member of the company of the gods of Annu, was
the daughter of Seb and Nut, the sister of Osiris and Isis, and the sister and
wife of Set. When the sun rose at the creation out of the primeval waters, Nephthys
occupied a place in his boat with Isis and other deities; as a nature goddess
she either represents the day before sunrise or after sunset, but no portion of
the night. She is depicted in the form of a woman, having upon her head the hieroglyphics
which form her name, "lady of the house". A legend preserved by Plutarch makes
her the mother of Anpu or Anubis by Osiris. In Egyptian texts Anpu is called the
son of Ra. In religious texts Nephthys is made to be the companion of Isis in
all her troubles, and her grief for her brother's death is as great as that of
his wife.
Anpu, or Anubis, the son of Osiris or Ra, sometimes by Isis and sometimes by
Nephthys, seems to represent as a nature god either the darkest part of the twilight
or the earliest dawn. He is depicted either in human form with a jackal's head,
or as a jackal. In the legend of Osiris and Isis, Anubis played a prominent part
in connexion with the dead body of Osiris, and in papyri we see him standing as
a guard and protector of the deceased lying upon the bier; in the judgment scene
he is found as the guard of the balance, the pointer of which he watches with
great diligence. He became the recognized god of the sepulchral chamber, and eventually
presided over the whole of the "funeral Mountain." He is always regarded as the
messenger of Osiris.
Another form of Anubis was the god Ap-uat, the ### of the pyramid texts, or
"Opener of the ways," who also was depicted in the form of a jackal; and the two
gods are often confounded. On sepulchral steland other monuments two jackals
are frequently depicted; one of these represents Anubis, and the other Ap-uat,
and they probably have some connexion with the northern and southern parts of
the funereal world. According to M. Maspero, the god Anubis led the souls of the
dead to the Elysian Fields in the Great Oasis.
Among the primeval gods are two, Hu and Saa who are seen in the boat of the
sun at the creation. They are the children of Tmu or Tmu-Ra, but the exact part
which they play as nature gods has not yet, it seems, been satisfactorily made
out. The first mention of them in the pyramid texts records their subjugation
by the deceased, but in the Theban Book of the Dead they appear among the company
of the gods who are present when the soul of the deceased is being weighed in
the balance.
Tehuti or Thoth represented the divine intelligence which at creation uttered
the words that were carried into effect by Ptah and Khnemu. He was self produced,
and was the great god of the earth, air, sea and sky; and he united in himself
the attributes of many gods. He was the scribe of the gods, and, as such, he was
regarded as the inventor of all the arts and sciences known to the Egyptians;
some of his titles are "lord of writing," "master of papyrus," "maker of the palette
and the ink-jar," "the mighty speaker," "the sweet tongued"; and the words and
compositions which he recited on behalf of the deceased preserved the latter from
the influence of hostile powers and made him invincible in the "other world."
He was the god of right and truth, wherein he lived, and whereby he established
the world and all that is in it. As the chronologer of heaven and earth, he became
the god of the moon; and as the reckoner of time, he obtained his name Tehuti,
i.e., "the measurer"; in these capacities he had the power to grant life for millions
of years to the deceased. When the great combat took place between Horus, the
son of Isis, and Set, Thoth was present as judge, and he gave to Isis the cow's
head in the place of her own which was cut off by Horus in his rage at her interference;
having reference to this fact he is called Ap-rehui, "The judge of the two combatants."
One of the Egyptian names for the ibis was Tekh, and the similarity of the sound
of this word to that of Tehu, the name of the moon as a measurer of time, probably
led the Egyptians to depict the god in the form of an ibis, notwithstanding the
fact that the dog-headed ape was generally considered to be the animal sacred
to him. It has been thought that there were two gods called Thoth, one being a
form of Shu; but the attributes belonging to each have not yet been satisfactorily
defined. In the monuments and papyri Thoth appears in the form of a man with the
head of an ibis, which is sometimes surmounted by the crown ###, or ###, or ###,
or by disk and horns ###, or ###, and he holds in his left hand the sceptre ###
and in the right {the ankh} ###; sometimes he is depicted holding his ink-jar
and the crescent moon, and sometimes he appears in the form of an ape holding
a palette full of writing-reeds.' Thoth is mentioned in the pyramid texts as the
brother of Osiris, but whether he is the same Thoth who is called the "Lord of
Khemennu" and the "Scribe of the gods" is doubtful.
Maat, the wife of Thoth, was the daughter of Ra, and a very ancient goddess;
she seems to have assisted Ptah and Khnemu in carrying out rightly the work of
creation ordered by Thoth. There is no one word which will exactly describe the
Egyptian conception of Maat both from a physical and from a moral point of view;
but the fundamental idea of the word is " straight," and from the Egyptian texts
it is clear that maat meant right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous,
just, steadfast, unalterable, etc. Thus already in the Prisse papyrus it is said,
"Great is maat, the mighty and unalterable, and it hath never been broken since
the time of Osiris," and Ptah-hetep counsels his listener to "make maat, or right
and truth, to germinate." The just, upright, and straight man is maat and in a
book of moral precepts it is said, "God will judge the right (maa) ###. Maat,
the goddess of the unalterable laws of heaven, and the daughter of Ra, is depicted
in female form, with the feather emblematic of maat, on her head, or with the
feather alone for a head, and the sceptre in one hand, and {an ankh} in the other.
In the judgment scene two Maat goddesses appear; one probably is the personification
of physical law, and the other of moral rectitude.
Het-heru, or Hathor the "house of Horus," was the goddess of the sky wherein
Horus the sun-god rose and set. Subsequently a great number of goddesses of the
same name were developed from her, and these were identified with Isis, Neith,
Iusaset, and many other goddesses whose attributes they absorbed. A group of seven
Hathors is also mentioned, and these appear to have partaken of the nature of
good fairies. In one form Hathor was the goddess of love, beauty, happiness;
and the Greeks identified her with their own Aphrodite. She is often depicted
in the form of a woman having disk and horns upon her head, and at times she has
the head of a lion surmounted by a urs. Often she has the form of a cow--the
animal sacred to her--and in this form she appears as the goddess of the tomb
or Ta-sertet, and she provides meat and drink for the deceased.
Meht-urt is the personification of that part of the sky wherein the sun rises,
and also of that part of it in which he takes his daily course; she is depicted
in the form of a cow, along the body of which the two barks of the sun are seen
sailing. Already in the pyramid texts we find the attribute of judge ascribed
to Meh-urt, and down to a very late date the judgment of the deceased in the hall
of double Maat in the presence of Thoth and the other gods was believed to take
place in the abode of Meh-urt.
Net or Neith, "the divine mother, the lady of heaven, the mistress of the gods,"
was one of the most ancient deities of Egypt, and in the pyramid texts she appears
as the mother of Sebek. Like Meh-urt she personifies the place in the sky where
the sun rises. In one form she was the goddess of the loom and shuttle, and also
of the chase; in this aspect she was identified by the Greeks with Athene. She
is depicted in the form of a woman, having upon her head the shuttle or arrows,
or she wears the crown and holds arrows, a bow, and a sceptre in her left hand;
she also appears in the form of a cow.
Sekhet was in Memphis the wife of Ptah, and the mother of Nefer-Tmu and of
I-em-hetep. She was the personification of the burning heat of the sun, and as
such was the destroyer of the enemies of Ra and Osiris. When Ra determined to
punish mankind with death, because they scoffed at him, he sent Sekhet, his "eye,"
to perform the work of vengeance; illustrative of this aspect of her is a figure
wherein she is depicted with the sun's eye for a head. Usually she has the head
of a lion surmounted by the sun's disk, round which is a urs; and she generally
holds a sceptre, but sometimes a knife.
Bast, according to one legend, was the mother of Nefer-Tmu. She was the personification
of the gentle and fructifying heat of the sun, as opposed to that personified
by Sekhet. The cat was sacred to Bast, and the goddess is usually depicted cat-headed.
The most famous seat of her worship was the city of Bubastis, the modern Tell
Basta, in the Delta.
Nefer-Tmu was the son either of Sekhet or Bast, and he personified some form
of the sun's heat. He is usually depicted in the form of a man, with a cluster
of lotus flowers upon his head, but sometimes he has the head of a lion; in the
little fance figures of him which are so common, he stands upon the back of
a lion. He no doubt represents the sun-god in the legend which made him to burst
forth from a lotus, for in the pyramid of Unas the king is said to xaa em, Nefer-Tmu
em sessen er sert Ra Rise like Nefer-Tmu from the lotus (lily) to the nostrils
of Ra," and to "come forth on the horizon every day."
Neheb-ka is the name of a goddess who is usually represented with the head
of a serpent, and with whom the deceased identifies himself.
Sebak a form of Horus the sun-god, must be distinguished from Sebak the companion
of Set, the opponent of Osiris; of each of these gods the crocodile was the sacred
animal, and for this reason probably the gods themselves were confounded. Sebak-Ra,
the lord of Ombos, is usually depicted in human form with the head of a crocodile,
surmounted by ###, ###, or ###, or ###.
Amsu or Amsi is one of the most ancient gods of Egypt. He personified the power
of generation, or the reproductive force of nature; he was the "father of his
own mother," and was identified with "Horus the mighty," or with Horus the avenger
of his father Un-nefer or Osiris. The Greeks identified him with the god Pan,
and called the chief city where his worship was celebrated Khenimis, after one
of his names. He is depicted usually in the form of a man standing upon; and he
has upon his head the plumes and holds the flail in his right hand, which is raised
above his shoulder.
Neb-er-tcher, a name which originally implied the "god of the universe," but
which was subsequently given to Osiris, and indicated the god after the completed
reconstruction of his body, which had been hacked to pieces by Set.
Un-nefer a name of Osiris in his capacity of god and judge of the dead in the
underworld. Some make these words to mean the "good being," and others the "beautiful
hare."
Astennu a name given to the god Thoth.
Mert or Mer-sekert the lover of silence," is a name of Isis or Hathor as goddess
of the underworld. She is depicted in the form of a woman, having a disk and horns
upon her head.
Serq or Selk is a form of the goddess Isis. She is usually depicted in the
form of a woman, with a scorpion upon her head; occasionally she appears as a
scorpion with a woman's head surmounted by disk and horns.
Ta-urt, the Thoueris of the Greeks, was identified as the wife of Set or Typhon;
she is also known under the names Apt and Sheput. Her common titles are "mistress
of the gods and "bearer of the gods". She is depicted in the form of a hippopotamus
standing on her hind legs, with distended paunch and hanging breasts, and one
of her forefeet rests upon ###; sometimes she has the head of a woman, but she
always wears the disk, horns, and plumes.
Uatchit was a form of Hathor, and was identified with the appearance of the
sky in the north when the sun rose. She is either depicted in the form of a woman,
having upon her head the crown of the north and a sceptre, around which a serpent
is twined, or as a winged urs wearing the crown of the north.
Beb, Bebti, Baba, or Babu, mentioned three times in the Book of the Dead, is
the "firstborn son of Osiris," and seems to be one of the gods of generation.
Hapi is the name of the great god of the Nile who was worshipped in Egypt under
two forms, i.e., "Hapi of the South," and "Hapi of the North,"; the papyrus was
the emblem of the one, and the lotus of the other. From the earliest times the
Nile was regarded by the Egyptians as the source of all the prosperity of Egypt,
and it was honoured as being the type of the life-giving waters out of the midst
of which sprang the gods and all created things. In turn it was identified with
all the gods of Egypt, new or old, and its influence was so great upon the minds
of the Egyptians that from the earliest days they depicted to themselves a material
heaven wherein the Isles of the Blest were laved by the waters of the Nile, and
the approach to which was by the way of its stream as it flowed to the north.
Others again lived in imagination on the banks of the heavenly Nile, whereon they
built cities; and it seems as if the Egyptians never succeeded in conceiving a
heaven without a Nile and canals. The Nile is depicted in the form of a man, who
wears upon his head a clump of papyrus or lotus flowers; his breasts are those
of a woman, indicating fertility. Lanzone reproduces an interesting scene in which
the north and south Nile gods are tying a papyrus and a lotus stalk around the
emblem of union to indicate the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt, and this emblem
is found cut upon the thrones of the kings of Egypt to indicate their sovereignty
over the regions traversed by the South and North Niles. It has already been said
that Hapi was identified with all the gods in turn, and it follows as a matter
of course that the attributes of each were ascribed to him; in one respect, however
he is different from them all, for of him it is written an mehu en aner tut her
uah set sexet aarat He cannot be sculptured in stone; in the images on which men
place crowns and ur an qemuh entuf an baka an xerpu tuf an he is not made manifest;
service cannot be rendered nor offerings made to him; not [1. Dizionario, tav.
198.] seset-tu em setau an rex-tu bu entuf an can he be drawn from [his] mystery;
not can be known the place where he is; not qem tephet anu. is he found in the
painted shrine.
Here the scribe gave to the Nile the attributes of the great and unknown God
its Maker.
In the pyramid texts we find a group of four gods with whom the deceased is
closely connected in the "other world"; these are the four "children of Horus"
whose names are given in the following order:--Hapi, Tua-mautef, Amset and Qebhsennuf.
The deceased is called their "father." His two arms were identified with Hapi
and Tuamautef, and his two legs with Amset and Qebhsennuf; and when he entered
into the Sekhet-Aaru they accompanied him as guides, and went in with him two
on each side. They took away all hunger and thirst from him, they gave him life
in heaven and protected it when given, and they brought to him from the Lake of
Khemta the boat of the Eye of Khnemu. In one passage they are called the "four
Khu's of Horus", and originally they represented the four pillars which supported
the sky or Horus. Each was supposed to be lord of one of the quarters of the world,
and finally became the god of one of the cardinal points. Hapi represented the
north, Tuamautef the east, Amset the south, and Qebhsennuf the west. In the XVIIIth
dynasty the Egyptians originated the custom of embalming the intestines of the
body separately, and they placed them in four jars, each of which was devoted
to the protection of one of the children of Horus, i.e., to the care of one of
the gods of the four cardinal points. The god of the north protected the small
viscer the god of the east the heart and lungs, the god of the south the stomach
and large intestines, and the god of the west the liver and gall-bladder. With
these four gods four goddesses were associated, viz., Nephthys, Neith, Isis, and
Selk or Serq.
Connected with the god Horus are a number of mythological beings called Heru
shesu (or shemsu, as some read it), who appear already in the pyramid of Unas
in connection with Horus and Set in the ceremony of purifying and "opening the
mouth"; and in the pyramid of Pepi I. it is they who wash the king and who recite
for him the "Chapter of those who come forth," and the "[Chapter of] those who
ascend."
In the judgment scene in the Book of the Dead, grouped round the pan of the
balance which contains the heart of the deceased (see Plate III.), are three beings
in human form, who bear the names Shai, Renenet, and Meskhenet.
Shai is the personification of destiny, and Renenet fortune; these names are
usually found coupled. Shai and Renenet are said to be in the hands of Thoth,
the divine intelligence of the gods; and Rameses II. boasts that he himself is
"lord of Shai and creator of Renenet." Shai was originally the deity who "decreed"
what should happen to a man, and Renenet, as may be seen from the pyramid texts,
was the goddess of plenty, good fortune, and the like; subsequently no distinction
was made between these deities and the abstract ideas which they represented.
In the papyrus of Ani, Shai stands by himself near the pillar of the Balance,
and Renenet is accompanied by Meskhenet, who appears to be the personification
of all the conceptions underlying Shai and Renenet and something else besides.
In the story of the children of Ra, as related in the Westcar papyrus, we find
the goddess Meskhenet mentioned with Isis, Nephthys, Heqet, and the god Khnemu
as assisting at the birth of children.
Disguised in female forms, the four goddesses go to the house of Ra-user, and,
professing to have a knowledge of the art of midwifery, they are admitted to the
chamber where the child is about to be born; Isis stands before the woman, Nephthys
behind her, and Heqet accelerates the birth. When the child is born Meskhenet
comes and looking upon him says, "A king; he shall rule throughout this land.
May Khnemu give health and strength to his body." The word meskhenet is as old
as the pyramid times, and seems then to have had the meaning of luck, destiny,
etc.
The god Amen, his wife Mut and their associate Khonsu have nothing whatever
to do with the Book of the Dead; but Amen, the first member of this great Theban
triad, must be mentioned with the other gods, because he was usually identified
with one or more of them. The name Amen means the "hidden one," and the founding
of the first shrine of the god recorded in history took place at Thebes during
the XIIth dynasty; from that time until the close of the XVIIth dynasty, Amen
was the chief god of Thebes and nothing more. When, however, the last kings of
the XVIIth dynasty had succeeded in expelling the so-called Hyksos and had delivered
the country from the yoke of the foreigner, their god assumed an importance hitherto
unknown, and his priests endeavoured to make his worship the first in the land.
But Amen was never regarded throughout the entire country as its chief god, although
his votaries called him the king of the gods. The conception which the Thebans
had of their god as a god of the underworld was modified when they identified
him with Ra and called him "Amen-Ra"; and, speaking generally, in the time of
the XVIIIth dynasty and onwards the god became the personification of the mysterious
creating and sustaining power of the universe, which in a material form was typified
by the sun. By degrees all the attributes of the old gods of Egypt were ascribed
to him, and the titles which among western nations are given to God were added
to those pantheistic epithets which Amen had usurped. The following extracts from
a fine hymn[3] will set forth the views of the priesthood of Amen-Ra concerning
their god.
"Adoration to thee, O Amen-Ra, the bull in Annu, the ruler of all the gods,
the beautiful and beloved god who givest life by means of every kind of food and
fine cattle.
"Hail to thee, O Amen-Ra, lord of the world's throne, thou dweller in Thebes,
thou bull of thy mother that livest in thy field, that extendest thy journeys
in the land of the south, thou lord of those who dwell in the west, thou governor
of Punt, thou king of heaven and sovereign of the earth, thou lord of things that
exist, thou stablisher of creation, thou supporter of the universe. Thou art one
in thine attributes among the gods, thou beautiful bull of the company of the
gods, thou chief of all the gods, lord of Maat, father of the gods, creator of
men, maker of beasts and cattle, lord of all that existeth, maker of the staff
of life, creator of the herbs which give life to beasts and cattle . . . . . .
. . Thou art the creator of things celestial and terrestrial, thou illuminest
the universe . . . . . . . The gods cast themselves at thy feet when they perceive
thee . . . . . Hymns of praise to thee, O father of the gods, who hast spread
out the heavens and laid down the earth . . . . . thou master of eternity and
of everlastingness. . . . . . . . Hail to thee, O Ra, lord of Maat, thou who -art
hidden in thy shrine, lord of the gods. Thou art Khepera in thy bark, and when
thou sendest forth the word the gods come into being. Thou art Tmu, the maker
of beings which have reason, and, however many be their forms, thou givest them
life, and thou dost distinguish the shape and stature of each from his neighbour.
Thou hearest the prayer of the afflicted, and thou art gracious unto him that
crieth unto thee; thou deliverest the feeble one from the oppressor, and thou
judgest between the strong and the weak . . . . . The Nile riseth at thy will.
. . . Thou only form, the maker of all that is, One only, the creator of all that
shall be. Mankind hath come forth from thine eyes, the gods have come into being
at thy word, thou makest the herbs for the use of beasts and cattle, and the staff
of life for the need of man. Thou givest life to the fish of the stream and to
the fowl of the air, and breath unto the germ in the egg; thou givest life unto
the grasshopper, and thou makest to live the wild fowl and things that creep and
things that fly and everything that belongeth thereunto. Thou providest food for
the rats in the holes and for the birds that sit among the branches . . . . .
. thou One, thou only One whose arms are many. All men and all creatures adore
thee, and praises come unto thee from the height of heaven, from earth's widest
space, and from the deepest depths of the sea . . . . . . . . thou One, thou only
One who hast no second . . . . . .whose names are manifold and innumerable."
We have seen above that among other titles the god Amen was called the "only
One", but the addition of the words "who hast no second" is remarkable as showing
that the Egyptians had already conceived the existence of a god who had no like
or equal, which they hesitated not to proclaim side by side with their descriptions
of his manifestations. Looking at the Egyptian words in their simple meaning,
it is pretty certain that when the Egyptians declared that their god was One and
that he had no second, they had the same ideas as the Jews and Muhammadans when
they proclaimed their God to be "One" and alone. It has been urged that the Egyptians
never advanced to pure monotheism because they never succeeded in freeing themselves
from the belief in the existence of other gods, but when they say that a god has
"no second," even though they mention other "gods," it is quite evident that like
the Jews, they conceived him to be an entirely different being from the existences
which, for the want of a better word, or because these possessed superhuman attributes,
they named "gods."
The powers of darkness or evil.
The gods above enumerated represent the powers who were the guides and protectors
and givers of life and happiness to the deceased in the new life, but from the
earliest times it is clear that the Egyptians imagined the existence of other
powers who offered opposition to the dead, and who are called in many places his
"enemies." Like so many of the ancient gods, these powers were originally certain
forces of nature, which were believed to be opposed to those which were regarded
as beneficient to man, as for example darkness to light, and night to day; with
darkness and night were also associated the powers which contributed in any way
to obscure the light of the sun or to prevent his shining. But since the deceased
was identified with Horus, or Ra, and his accompanying gods, the enemies of the
one became the enemies of the other, and the welfare of the one was the welfare
of the other. When the Egyptians personified the beneficent powers of nature,
that is say, their gods, they usually gave to them human forms and conceived them
in their own images; but when they personified the opposing powers they gave to
them the shapes of noxious animals and reptiles, such as snakes and scorpions.
As time went on, the moral ideas of good and right were attributed to the former,
and evil and wickedness to the latter. The first personifications of light and
darkness were Horus and Set, and in the combat--the prototype of the subsequent
legends of Marduk and Tiamat, Bel and the Dragon, St. George and the Dragon, and
many others--which took place between them, the former was always the victor.
But, though the deceased was identified with Horus or Ra, the victory which the
god gained over Set only benefited the spiritual body which dwelt in heaven, and
did not preserve the natural body which lay in the tomb. The principal enemy of
the natural body was the worm, and from the earliest times it seems that a huge
worm or serpent was chosen by the Egyptians as the type of the powers which were
hostile to the dead and also of the foe against whom the Sun-god fought. Already
in the pyramid of Unas a long section of the text contains nothing but formul
the recital of which was intended to protect the deceased from various kinds of
snakes and worms. These are exceedingly ancient, indeed, they may safely be said
to form one of the oldest parts of the funeral literature of the Egyptians, and
we find from the later editions of the Book of the Dead and certain Coptic works
that the dread of the serpent as the emblem of physical and moral evil existed
among the Egyptians in all generations, and that, as will be seen later, the belief
in a limbo filled with snakes swayed their minds long after they had been converted
to Christianity.
The charms against serpents in the pyramid texts of the Vth and VIth dynasties
have their equivalents in the XXXIst and XXXIIIrd Chapters of the Book of the
Dead, which are found on coffins of the XIth and XIIth dynasties; and in the XVIIIth
dynasty we find vignettes in which the deceased is depicted in the act of spearing
a crocodile and of slaughtering serpents. In the Theban and Sae versions are
several small chapters the recital of which drove away reptiles; and of these
the most important is the XXXIXth Chapter, which preserved the deceased from the
attack of the great serpent Apef or Apep, who is depicted with knives stuck in
his folds. In the period of the later dynasties a service was performed daily
in the temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes to deliver the Sun-god from the assault of
this fiend and on each occasion it was accompanied by a ceremony in which a waxen
figure of Apep was burnt in the fire; as the wax melted, so the power of Apep
was destroyed. Another name of Apep was Nak, who was pierced by the lance of th
eye of Horus and made to vomit what he had swallowed.
The Devourer of the Dead
The judgment scene in the Theban edition of the Book of the Dead reveal the
belief in the existence of a tri-formed monster, part crocodile, part lion, and
part hippopotamus, whom the Egyptians called Am-mit, i.e., "the eater of
the Dead," and who lived in Amenta; her place is by the side of the scales wherein
the heart is weighed, and it is clear that such hearts as failed to balance the
feather of Maat were devoured by her. In one papyrus she is depicted crouching
by the side of a lake. Other types of evil were the insect Apshai, confounded
in later times with the tortoise, which dies as Ra lives; the crocodile Sebak,
who afterwards became identified with Ra; the hippopotamus, the ass, etc.
The devils of the underworld.
The pyramid texts afford scanty information about the fiends and devils with
which the later Egyptians peopled certain parts of the Tuat, wherein the night
sun pursued his course, and where the souls of the dead dwelt; for this we must
turn to the composition entitled the " Book of what is in the Tuat," several copies
of which have come down to us inscribed upon tombs, coffins, and papyri of the
XVIIIth and following dynasties. The Tuat was divided into twelve parts, corresponding
to the twelve hours of the night; and this Book professed to afford to the deceased
the means whereby he might pass through them successfully. In one of these divisions,
which was under the rule of the god Seker, the entrance was guarded by a serpent
on four legs with a human head, and within were a serpent with three heads, scorpions,
vipers, and winged monsters of terrifying aspect; a vast desert place was their
abode, and seemingly the darkness was so thick there that it might be felt. In
other divisions we find serpents spitting fire, lions, crocodile-headed gods,
a serpent that devours the dead, a huge crocodile, and many other reptiles of
divers shapes and forms.
From the descriptions which accompany the scenes, it is evident that the Tuat
was regarded by the Egyptians of the XVIIIth dynasty from a moral as well as from
a physical point of view. Apep, the emblem of evil, was here punished and overcome,
and here dwelt the souls of the wicked and the righteous, who received their punishments
or rewards, meted out to them by the decree of Ra and his company of gods. The
chief instruments of punishment employed by the gods were fire and beasts which
devoured the souls and bodies of the enemies of Ra; and we may see from the literature
of the Copts, or Egyptians who had embraced Christianity, how long the belief
in a hell of fire and torturing fiends survived. Thus in the Life of Abba Shenuti,
a man is told that the " executioners of Amenti will not show compassion upon
thy wretched sol," and in the history of Pisentios, a Bishop of Coptos in the
seventh century of our era, we have a series of details which reflect the Tuat
of the ancient Egyptians in a remarkable manner. The bishop having taken up his
abode in a tomb filled with mummies, causes one of them to tell his history. After
saying that his parents were Greeks who worshipped Poseidon, he states that when
he was dying already the avenging angels came about him with iron knives and goads
as sharp as spears, which they thrust into his sides, while they gnashed their
teeth at him; when he opened his eyes, he saw death in all its manifold forms
round about him; and at that moment angels without mercy came and dragged his
wretched soul from his body, and tying it to the form of a black horse they bore
it away to Amenta. Next, he was delivered over to merciless tormentors, who tortured
him in a place where there were multitudes of savage beasts; and, when he had
been cast into the place of outer darkness, he saw a ditch more than two hundred
feet deep filled with reptiles, each of which had seven heads, and all their bodies
were covered as it were with scorpions. Here also were serpents, the very sight
of which terrified the beholder, and to one of them which had teeth like iron
stakes was the wretched man given to be devoured; for five days in each week the
serpent crushed him with his teeth, but on the Saturday and Sunday there was respite.
Another picture of the torments of Hades is given in the Martyrdom of Macarius
of Antioch, wherein the saint, having restored to life a man who had been dead
six hours, learned that when he was about to die he was surrounded by fiends,
some of whom had the faces of dragons, others of lions, others of crocodiles,
and others of bears. They tore his soul from his body with great violence, and
they fled with it over a mighty river of fire, in which they plunged it to a depth
of four hundred cubits; then they took it out and set it before the judge of Truth.
After hearing the sentence of the judge the fiends took it to a place of outer
darkness where no light came, and they cast it into the cold where there was gnashing
of teeth. There it beheld a snake which never slept, with a head like that of
a crocodile, and which was surrounded by reptiles which cast souls before it to
be devoured, when the snake's mouth was full it allowed the other reptiles to
eat, and though they rent the soul in pieces it did not die. After this the soul
was carried into Amenta for ever. The martyr Macarius suffered in the reign of
Diocletian, and the MS. from which the above extract is taken was copied in the
year of the Martyrs 634 = A.D. 918. Thus, the old heathen ideas of the Egyptian
Tuat were applied to the construction of the Coptic Hell.
