Book of Dead

BRITISH MUSEUM.
The Book of the Dead
WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS.
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES.

1920.
PRICE ONE SHILLINGAKr

[All Rights Reserved.]
Y
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
The Title.
" Book of the Dead " is the title now commonly given to the
great collection of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian
scribes composed for the benefit of the dead. These consist of
spells and incantations, hymns and litanies, magical formulae
and names, words of power and prayers, and they are found
cut or painted on walls of pyramids and tombs, and painted
on coffins and sarcophagi and rolls of papyri. The title " Book
of the Dead " is somewhat unsatisfactory and misleading, for
the texts neither form a connected work nor belong to one
period they are misceUaneous in character, and tell us nothing
;
about the lives and works of the dead with whom they were
buried. Moreover, the Egyptians possessed many funerary
works that might rightly be called " Books of the Dead," but
Jione of them bore a name that could be translated by the title
" Book of the Dead." This title was given to the great collec-
tion of funerary texts in the first quarter of the nineteenth
•century by the pioneer Egyptologists, who possessed no exact
knowledge of their contents. They were familiar with the rolls
of papyrus inscribed in the hieroglyphic and the hieratic
character, for copies of several had been published,^ but the
texts in them were short and fragmentary. The publication of
-the Facsimile^ of the Papyrus of Peta-Amen-neb-nest-taui^ by
'
See Journal de Trhoux, June, 1704 Caylus, Antiq. Egypt.
;
torn. I, plate 21 ; Denon, Travels, plates 136 and 137 and Description ;
de I'Egypte, torn. II, plate 64 ff.
« Copie Figur/e d'un Rouleau de Papyrus trouv^ d Thês dans un

tombeau des Rois. Paris, XIII-1805. This papyrus is nearly 30 feet
in length and was brought to Strassburg by a paymaster in Napoleon's
Army in Egypt called Poussielgue, who sold it to M. Cadet.
272
GIFT
2 THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
M. Cadet in 1805 made a long hieroglyphic text and numerous-
coloured vignettes available for study, and the French Egypto-
logists described it as a copy of the " Rituel Funeraire " of the
ancient Egyptians. Among these was Champollion le Jeune,
but later, on his return from Egypt, he and others called it
" Le Livre des Morts," " The Book of the Dead," " Das Todten-
buch," etc. These titles are merely translations of the name

given by the Egyptian tomb-robbers to every roll ofinscribed
papyrus which they found with mummies, namely, " Kitab
al-Mayyit," " Book of the dead man," or " Kitab al-Mayyitun,"
" Book of the dead " (plur.). These men knew nothing of the
contents of such a roll, and all they meant to say was that it
was "a dead man's book," and that it was found in his coffin
with him.
II.
The Preservation of the Mummified Body in the Tomr

BY Thoth.
The objects found in the graves of the predynastic Egyptians,
i.e., vessels of food, flint knives and other weapons, etc., prove
that these early dwellers in the Nile Valley believed in some
kind of a future existence. But as the art of writing was
unknown to them their graves contain no inscriptions, and we
can only infer from texts of the dynastic period what their ideas
about the Other World were. It is clear that they did not
consider it of great importance to preserve the dead body in as
complete and perfect state as possible, for in many of their
graves the heads, hands and feet have been found severed from
the trunks and lying at some distance from them. On the other
hand, the dynastic Egyptians, either as the result of a difference
under the influence of invaders who had
in religious belief, or
settled in their country, attached supreme importance to the
preservation and integrity of the dead body, and they adopted
every means known to them to prevent its dismemberment and
decay. They cleansed it and embalmed it with drugs, spices and
balsams ; they anointed it with aromatic oils and preservative
fluids ; they swathed it in hundreds of yards of linen bandages ;
and then they sealed it up in a coffin or sarcophagus, which they

laid in a chamber hewn in the bowels of the mountain. All
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.
these things were done to protect the physical body against
damp, dry and decay, and against the attacks of moth,
rot
beetles, worms and wild animals. But these were not the only
enemies of the dead against which precautions had to be taken,
for both the mummified body and the spiritual elements which
had inhabited it upon earth had to be protected from a multitude
of devils and fiends, and from the powers of darkness generally.
These powers of evil had hideous and terrifying shapes and forms,
and their haunts were well known, for they infested the region
through which the road of the dead lay when passing from
this world to tlie Kingdom of Osiris. The " great gods " were
afraid of them, and were obliged to protect themselves by the
use of spells and magical names, and words of power, which were
composed and written down by Thoth.
in fact it was believed in very early
times in Egj^t that Ra the Sun-god
owed his continued existence to the
possession of a secretname with which
Thotli had provided him. And each
morning the sun was menaced
rising
by a fearful monster called Aapep,
which lay hidden under the
P î^ »
place of sunrise waiting to swallow up

the solar disk. It was impossible,
even for the Sun-god, to destroy this
" Great Devil," but by reciting each The Spearing of Aapep.
(From the Pa^rus of Nckhtu-Amcn.)
morning the powerful spell with which
Thoth had provided him he was able to paralyse all Aapep's
limbs and to rise upon this world. Since then the " great gods,"
even though benevolently disposed towards them, were not able
to deliver the dead from the devils that lived upon the " bodies,
souls, spirits, shadows and hearts of the dead," the Egyptians
decided to invoke the aid of Thoth on behalf of their dead and
to place them under the protection of his almighty spells.
Inspired by Thoth the theologians of ancient Egypt composed
a large number of funerary texts which were certainly in
general use under the IVth dynasty (about 3700 B.C.), and
were probably well known under the 1st dynasty, and through-
out the whole period of dynastic history Thoth was regarded
as the author of the " Book of the Dead."
III.
The Book Per-t em hru, or [The Chapters of] Coming

FORTH BY (or, INTO) THE DaY, COMMONLY CALLED
THE "Book of the Dead."
The and other texts which were written by
spells Thoth for
the benefit of the dead, and are directly connected with him,
were called, according to documents written under the Xlth
and XVIIIth dynasties, " Chapters of the Coming Forth by
(or, into) the Day,"
in the Papyrus of Nu
^ ^ ^ ^ ^/f
j
^'^ •
Mus. No. 10477) states that the text

(Brit.
^^^ rut)ric
of the work called " Per-t em hru," i.e., " Coming Forth (or,
into) the Day," was discovered by a high official in the founda-
tions of a shrine of the god Hennu during the reign of Semti,
or Hesepti, a king of the 1st dynasty. Another rubric in the
same papyrus says that the text was cut upon the alabaster
plinth of a statue of Menkaura (Mycerinus), a king of the
IVth dynasty, and that the letters were inlaid with lapis lazuli.
The plinth was found by Prince Herutataf, ^^ tziS Jj, a
son of King Khufu (Cheops), who

it off to his king and
carried
exhibited it as a " "
most wonderful thing. This composition
was greatly reverenced, for it " would make a man victorious
" upon earth and in the Other World it would ensure him a
;
" safe and free passage through the Tuat (Under World) ; it
" would allow him to go in and to go out, and to take at any
" time any form he pleased ; it would make his soul to flourish,
" and would prevent him from dying the [second] death." For
the deceased to receive the fuU benefit of this text it had to be
recited by a man " who was ceremonially pure, and who had
not eaten fish or meat, and had not consorted with
women."
On Xlth dynasty and on papyri of the XVIIIth
cofiins of the
dynasty we find two versions of the Per-t em hru, one long
and one short. As the title of the shorter version states that"
it is the " Chapters of the Per-t em hru in a single chapter," it
is clear that this work, even under the IVth dynasty, contained
many " Chapters," and that a much abbreviated form of the
work was also current at the same period. The rubric that
attributes the " finding " of the Chapter to Herutataf associates
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. 5
it with Khemenu, i.e., Hermopolis, and indicates that Thoth,

was its author.
the god of this city,
The work Per-t em hru received many additions in the
5 2
.:2
Si
i) op
•5^ d
a 6^
2 o lA
!2 >>
course of centuries, and at length, under the XVIIItli dynasty,

it contained about 190 distinct compositions, or " Chapters."
The original forms of many of these are to be found in the
"Pyramid Texts" the funerary compositions cut on this
(^.^.,
walls of the chambers and corridors of the pyramids of Kings

Unas, Teta, Pepi I Meri-Ra, Merenra and Pepi II at Sakkdrah),
which were written under the Vth and Vlth dynasties. The
forms which many other chapters had under the Xlth and
Xllth dynasties are well represented by the texts painted on
the coffins of Amamu, Sen, and Guatep in the British Museum
(Nos. 6654, 30839, 30841), but it is possible that both these and
the so-called " Pyramid Texts " all belonged to the work Per-t
EM HRU, and are extracts from it. The " Pyramid Texts " have
no illustrations, but a few of the texts on the cofhns of the
Xlth and Xllth dynasties have coloured vignettes, e.g., those
which refer to the region to be traversed by the deceased on
his way to the Other World, and the Islands of the Blessed or
the Elysian Fields. On the upper margins of the insides of such
coffins there are frequently given two or more rows of coloured
drawings of the offerings which under the Vth dynasty were
presented to the deceased or his statue during the celebration
of the service of " Opening the Mouth " and the performance
of the ceremonies of "The Liturgy of Funerary Offerings."
Under the XVIIIth dynasty, when the use of large rectangular
coffins and sarcophagi feU somewhat into disuse, the scribes
began to wTite collections of Chapters from the Per-t em hru
on roUs of papyri instead of on coffins. At first the texts were
written in hieroglyphs, the greater number of them being in
black ink, and an attempt was made to illustrate each text by a
vignette drawn in black outline. The finest known example of
such a codex is the Papyrus of Nebseni (Brit. Mus. No. 9900),
which is 77 feet 7J inches in length and i foot ij inches in
breadth. Early in the XVIIIth dynasty scribes began to write
the titles of the Chapters the rubrics, and the catchwords in
,
red ink and the text in black, and it became customary to

decorate the vignettes with colours, and to increase their size
and number. The oldest codex of this class is the Papyrus of
Nu (Brit. Mus. No. 10477) which is 65 feet 3J inches in length,
and I foot i| inches in breadth. This and many other rolls
were written by their owners for their own tombs, and in each
roll both text and vignettes were usually the work of the same
hand. Later, however, the scribe wrote the text only, and a
skilled artist was employed to add the coloured vignettes, for
which spaces were marked out and left blank by the scribe.
The finest example of this class of roll is the Papyrus of Ani
^1 I -Xw-^l* *•. xn
rn
• •
.-tcr
m
Vignette and text of the Tl.. i ^ wt ihe
-
jttHM^
Vignette and text ol the Theb.i;.

^
i;w.,., .;i ilic
Dead from the Papynis of Nu. Dead from the Papyrus of Ani.
[Brit. Mus., No. 10477.] XVI I Ith dynasty [Brit. Mus., No. 10470.] XVI 1 1 ih dynasty.
(Brit. Mus., No. 10470), which is yS feet in length and i foot
3 inches in breadth. In all papyri of this class the text is
c
written in hieroglyphs, but under the- XlXth and following
dynasties many papyii are written throughout in the hieratic
character these usually
; lack
vignettes, but have coloured
frontispieces.
Under the rule of the High
Priests of Amen many changes
were introduced into the contents
and the arrangement
of the papyri,
and vignettes of the
of the texts
Per-t em hru was altered. The
great confraternity of Amen-Ra,
the " King of the Gods," felt it to
be necessary to emphasize the
supremacy of their god, even in
the Kingdom of Osiris, and they
added many prayers, litanies and
h3nTins to the Sun-god to every
selection of the texts from the
Per-t em hru that was copied
on a roll of papyrus for funerary
purposes. The greater number of
the rolls of this period are short
and contain only a few Chapters,
e.g., the Papyrus of the Royal
Mother Netchemet (Brit. Mus.
No. 10541) and the Papyrus of
Queen Netchemet (Brit. Mus.
No. 10478). In some the text
is very defective and carelessly
written, but the coloured vignettes
are remarkable for their size and
beauty ; of this class of roll the
finest example is the Papyrus of
Vignette and Chapter of the Book Anhai (Brit. Mus. No. 10472).
of the Dead written in hieratic The most interesting of all the rolls
for Heru-em-heb.
[Brit. Mus., No. 10257.] that were written during the rule
XXVIth dynasty, or later.
the Priest- Kings over Upper
of
Egypt is the Papyrus of Princess Nesitanebtashru (Brit. Mus.
No. 10554), now commonly known as the " Greenfield Papyrus."
<I- "
a
a
1? ^
&
.£ ex uj
00
(^
1*
•c
X W
c^
C i
It is the longest and widest funerary papyrus^ known, for
it measures 123 feet by i foot 6J inches, and it contains
more Chapters, Hymns, Litanies, Adorations and Homages
to the gods than any other roll. The ^y Chapters from the
Per-t em hru which it contains prove the princess's devo-
tion to the cult of Osiris, and the Hymns to Amen-Ra show
that she was able to regard this god and Osiris not as rivals
but as two aspects of the same god. She believed that the
" hidden " creative power which was materialized in Amen was
only another form of the power of procreation, renewed birth
and resurrection which was typified by Osiris. The oldest
copies of the Per-t em hru which we have on papyrus contain
a few extracts from other ancient funerary works, such as the
" Book of Opening the Mouth," the " Liturgy of Funerary
Offerings," and the " Book of the Two Ways." But under the
rule of the Priest- Kings the scribes incorporated with the
Chapters of the Per-t em hru extracts from the " Book of Ami-
Tuat " and the " Book of Gates," and several of the vignettes
and texts that are found on the walls of the royal tombs of
Thebes.
One most remarkable texts written at this period is
of the
found in the Papyrus of Nesi-Khensu, which is now in the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This is really the copy of a con-
tract which is declared to have been made between Nesi-Khensu
and Amen-Ra, " the holy god, the lord of all the gods." As a
reward for the great piety of the queen, and her devotion to
the interests of Amen-Ra upon earth, the god undertakes to
make her a goddess in his kingdom, to provide her with an
estate there in perpetuity and a never-failing supply of offerings,
and happiness of heart, soul and body, and the [daily] recital
upon earth of the " Seventy Songs of Ra " for the benefit of her
soul in the Khert-Neter, or Under World. The contract was
drawTi up in a series of paragraphs in legal phraseology by the
priests of Amen, who beHeved they had the power of making
their god do as they pleased when they pleased.
Little is known of the history of the Per-t em hru after the
downfall of the priests of Amen, and during the period of the
rule of the Nubians, but under the kings of the XXVIth dynasty
* The longest papyrus in the world is Papyrus Harris No. i (Brit.

Mus. No. 9999) ; it measures 133 feet by i foot 4^ inches.
ISMS >l^
^Br^^J®'^^^^C»^^!^4^^;^gl)^'liro^l
i^f^^.^l3î3^{|\-î:^!l?il!r^H^^^^^!^
g^^-n¥î^êfeijir3w;^j¥^si-î''5i:
!SiiMiai^Sifiii^î;v]3i¥
l]i;^VviHlMi1i!BM5ilHW'.^l^.^
be. mBmmmm^^]
WMmm
^zt^mm-v
^muimwmA:.^
<\\\i\-Xu:]^M^.-\l
the Book enjoyed a great vogue. Many funerary rolls were
\\Titten both in hieroglyphs and hieratic, and were decorated
with vignettes drawn in black outline ; and about this time the
o <*,
o tx
^3
(U ON
•So
C CQ
began to write funerary texts in the demotic character.

scribes
But men no longer copied long selections from the Per-t em
HRU as they had done under the XVIIIth, XlXth and XXth
dynasties, partly because the religious views of the Egyptians

had undergone a great change, and partly because a number
of Books of the Dead of a more popular character had appeared.
The cult of Osiris was triumphant everywhere, and men pre-
ferred the hymns and litanies which dealt with his sufferings,
death and resurrection to the compositions in which the absolute
supremacy of Ra and
his solar cycle of gods
ix- ,
v 4-1
and goddesses was as-
sumed or proclaimed.
Thus, in the " Lamenta-
tions of Isis " and the
"Festival Songs of Isis
and Nephthys," and the

" Litanies of Seker,"
and the " Book of
Honouring Osiris," etc.,

the central figure is
/
Osiris, and he alone is
regarded as the giver

of everlasting life. The
dead were no longer
buried with large rolls
of papyrus filled with
Chapters of the Per-t
EM HRU laid in their
coffins, but with small :\^
sheets or strips of pa-

pyrus, on which were
inscribed the above
compositions, or the
shorter texts of the 1:
" Book of Breathings," A copy of a Book of the Dead entitled May my
"
name flourish
or the "Book of Tra-
[Brit. Mus., No. 10,304.]
1
Roman Period.
versing Eternity," or
the" Book of May my name flourish," or a part of the " Chapter
of the Last Judgment."
Ancient Egyptian tradition asserts that the Book Per-t
EM HRU was used eariy in the 1st dynasty, and the papyri and
coffins of the Roman Period afford evidence that the native
Egyptians still accepted all the essential beliefs and doctrines
contained in During the four thousand years of its existence
it.
many additions weremade to it, but nothing of importance

seems to have been taken away from it. In the space here
available it is impossible to describe in detail the various Recen-
sions of this work, viz., (i) the Heliopolitan, (2) the Theban and
its various forms, and (3) the Saite but it is proposed to
;
sketch briefly the main facts of the Egyptian Religion which

may be deduced from them generally, and especially from the
Theban Recension, and to indicate the contents of the principal
Chapters. No one papyrus can be cited as a final authority,
forno payprus contains all the Chapters, 190 in number, of the
Theban Recension, and in no two papyri are the selection and
sequence of the Chapters identical, or is the treatment of the
vignettes the same.
IV.
Thoth, the Author of the Book of the Dead.
Thoth, in Egyptian Tchehuti or Tehuti, "^ f ^ ^ r^ or
S v\ ^ J| , who has already been mentioned as the author
of the texts that form the Per-t em hru, or Book of the Dead,
was believed by the Egyptians to have been the heart and mind
of the Creator, who was in very early times in
Egypt called by the natives "Pautti," and by
"
foreigners " Ra." Thoth was also the " tongue
of the Creator, and he at all times voiced the will
of the great god, and spoke the words which com-
manded every being and thing in heaven and in
earth to come into existence. His words were
almighty and once uttered never remained without
Tehuti (Thoth). effect. He framed the laws by which heaven, earth
and all the heavenly bodies are maintained; he
ordered the courses of the sun, moon, and stars ; he invented
drawing and design and the arts, the letters of the alphabet and
the art of writing, and the science of mathematics. At a very
early period he was called the " scribe (or secretary) of the Great
Company of the Gods," and as he kept the celestial register
of the words and deeds of men, he

was regarded by many generations
of Egyptians as the "Recording
Angel." He was the inventor of
physical and moral Law and became
the personification of Justice and
;
as the Companies of the Gods of

Heaven, and Earth, and the Other
World appointed him to " weigh the
words and deeds " of men, and his
verdicts were unalterable, he became
more powerful in the Other World
than Osiris himself. Osiris owed his
triumph over Set in the Great Judg-
ment Hall Gods entirely to
of the
the skill of Thoth of the ** wise
mouth " as an Advocate, and to his
influence with the gods in heaven. Set, the Arch- Liar and god
of Evil.
And every follower of Osiris relied
upon the advocacy of Thoth to secure his acquittal on the Day
of Judgment, and to procure for him an everlasting habitation
in the Kingdom of Osiris.
V.
Thoth and Osiris.
The Egyptians were not satisfied with the mere possession of

the texts of Thoth,when their souls were being weighed in the
Great Scales in the Judgment Hall of Osiris, but they also
wished Thoth to act as their Advocate on this dread occasion
and to prove their innocence as he had proved that of Osiris
before the great gods in prehistoric times. According to a very
ancient Egyptian tradition, the god Osiris, who was originally
the god of the principle of the fertility of the Nile, became
incarnate on earth as the son of Geb, the Earth-god, and Nut,
the Sky-goddess. He had two and Nephthys, and
sisters, Isis
one brother, Set ; he married Isisand Set married Nephthys

Geb set Osiris on the throne of Egypt, and his rule was beneficent
and the nation was happy and prosperous. Set marked this
and became very jealous of his brother, and wished to slay him
so that he might seize his throne and take possession of Isis,
whose reputation as a devoted and loving wife and able manager
filled the country. By some means or other Set did contrive to
kill Osiris :according to one story he killed him by the side
of a canal at Netat, (I , near Abydos, and according
to another he caused him to be drowned. Isis, accompanied

by her sister Nephthys, went to Netat and rescued the body of
her lord, and the two sisters, with the help of Anpu, a son of
Ra the Sun-god, embalmed it. They then laid the body in a
tomb, and a sycamore tree grew round it and flourished over
the grave. A tradition which is found in the Pyramid Texts
states that before Osiris was laid in his tomb, his wife Isis,
by means of her magical powers, suc-
ceeded in restoring him to life temporarily,
and made him beget of her an heir, who
was called Horus. After the burial of
Osiris, Isis retreated to the marshes in
the Delta, and there she brought forth

Horus. In order to avoid the persecution
of Set, who on one occasion succeeded
in killing Horus by the sting of a scorpion,
she fled from place to place in the Delta,
and unhappy life for some
lived a very
years. But Thoth helped her in all her
difliculties and provided her with the
words of power which restored Horus to

life, and enabled her to pass unharmed
among the crocodiles and other evil

beasts that infested the waters of the
Horus of Edfu spearing the Delta at that time.
Crocodile (?) Set.
When Horus arrived at years of
maturity, he out to find Set and to wage war against
set
his father's murderer. At length they met and a fierce fight
ensued, and though Set was defeated before he was finally
hurled to the ground, he succeeded in tearing out the right eye
of Horus and keeping it. Even after this fight Set was able
to persecute Isis, and Horus was powerless to prevent it
until Thoth made Set give him the right eye of Horns which
he had carried off. Thoth then brought the eye to Horus,
and replaced it in his face, and restored sight to it by
spitting upon it. Horus then sought out the body of Osiris
in order to raise it up to life, and when he found it he
untied the bandages so that Osiris might move his limbs,
and rise up. Under the direction of Thoth Horus recited
a series of formulas as he presented offerings to Osiris, and
The Four Sons of Horus.
Mesta. HSpi. Tuamutcf. Qebhsennuf.
he and his sons and Anubis performed the ceremonies which

opened the mouth, and nostrils, and the eyes and the ears of
PMim\iiiiiniimiiiii\llllllllHllllli i im
iii'||||||iiii
Anubis standing by the bier of the dead.
D 2
Osiris. He embraced Osiris and so transferred to him his ka,
i.e., his own hving personality and virility, and gave him his
eye which Thoth had rescued from Set and had replaced
in his face. As soon as Osiris had eaten the eye of Horus he
became endowed with a soul and vital power, and recovered
thereby the complete use of all his mental faculties, which death
had suspended. Straightway he rose up from his bier and
became the Lord of the Dead and King of the Under World.
Osiris became the type and symbol of resurrection among
the Egyptians of all periods, because he was a god who had
been originally a mortal and had risen from the dead.
But before became King of the Under World he suffered
Osiris
further persecution from Set. Piecing together a number of
disconnected hints and brief statements in the texts, it seems
"
pretty clear either that Osiris appealed to the " Great Gods
to take notice that Set had murdered him, or that Set brought a
series of charges against Osiris. At all events the " Great Gods "
determined to investigate the matter. The Greater and the
Lesser Companies of the Gods assembled in the celestial Anu, or
Heliopolis, and ordered Osiris to stand up and defend himself
against the charges brought against him by Set. Isis and
Nephthys brought him before the gods, and Horus, " the
avenger of his father," came to watch the case on behalf of
his father, Osiris. Thoth appeared in the Hall of Judgment in
his official capacity as " scribe," i.e., secretary to the gods, and
the hearing of the evidence began. Set seems to have pleaded
his own cause, and to have repeated the charges which he had
made against Osiris. The defence of Osiris was undertaken by

Thoth, who proved to the gods that the charges brought against
Osiris by Set were unfounded, that the statements of Set were
lies, and that therefore Set was a liar. The gods accepted
Thoth's proof of the innocence of Osiris and the guilt of Set, and
ordered that Osiris was to be considered a Great God and to have
rule over the Kingdom of the Under World, and that Set was to
be punished. Thoth convinced them that Osiris was " maa

KHERU," ^^ I ^^' "^^"^ ^^ word,"
spoken the truth when he gave his evidence, and in texts of

i.e., that he had
all
periods Thoth is frequently described as S-maa kheru Asar,

1
1
^^ I V 9r AJ\'
^'^'' ^^ ^^^° proved Osiris to be '' true
of word." As for Set the Liar, he was seized by the ministers

of the Great Gods, who threw him down on his hands and face
and made Osiris mount upon his back as a mark of his victory
and superiority. After this Set was bound with cords hke a
beast for sacrifice, and in the presence of Thoth was hacked in
pieces.
Vf.
Osiris as Judge of the Dead and King of the Under

World.
When
Set was destroyed Osiris departed from this world to
the kingdom which the gods had given him and began to reign
over the dead. He was absohite king of this realm, just as Ra
the Sun-god was absolute king of the sky. This region of the
dead, or Dead-land, is called "Tat," ^=^^ ^» or " Tuat,"
^ ^^ ,—-, » ^"* where the Egyptians thought it was situated

is not quite clear. The oiiginal home was
of the cult of Osiris
in the Delta, in a city which in was called Tetu by
historic times
the Egyptians and Busiris by the Greeks, and it is reasonable
to assume that the Tuat, over which Osiris ruled, was situated
near this place. Wherever it was it was not underground, and
it was not originally in the sky or even on its confines but it ;
was located on the borders of the visible world, in the Outer

Darkness. The Tuat was not a place of happiness, judging from
the description of it in the Per-t em hru, or Book of the Dead.
When Ani the scribe arrived there he said, "
What is this to which
" have come ? There is neither water nor air here, its depth
I
" is unfathomable, it is as dark as the darkest night, and men

'*
wander about here helplessly. A man cannot live here and
" be satisfied, and he cannot gratify the cravings of affection "
(Chapter CLXXV). In the Tuat there was neither tree nor plants
forit was the " land where nothing grew " and in primitive ;
times was a region of destruction and death, a place where

it
the dead rotted and decayed, a place of abomination, and horror

and terror, and annihilation. But in very early times, certainly
in the Neolithic Period, the Egyptians believed in some kind of
a future and they dimly conceived that the attainment of
life,
that life might possibly depend upon the manner of life which
those who hoped to enjoy it led here. The Egyptians " hated
death and loved life," and when the belief gained ground among
them that Osiris, the God of the Dead, had himself risen from
the dead, and had been acquitted by the gods of heaven after
a searching trial, and had the power to " make men and women
to be born again," and " to renew life " because of his truth
and righteousness, they came to regard him as the Judge as
well as the God of the Dead. As time went on, and moral and
religious ideas developed among the Egyptians, it became
certain to them that only those who had satisfied Osiris as to
their truth-speaking and honest dealing upon earth could hope
for admission into his kingdom.
When the power of Osiris became predominant in the Under

World, and his fame as a just and righteous judge became well
established among the natives of Lower and Upper Egypt, it
was universally believed that after death all men would appear
before him in his dread Hall of Judgment to receive their
reward or their sentence of doom. The writers of the Pyramid
Texts, more than fifty-five centuries ago. dreamed of a time
when heaven and earth and men did not exist, when the gods
had not yet been born, when death had not been created,
a 0^ <=> D ^
D 'l^ o P==;i D P? =S= B ^^ o \ \ \
k
speech
P
(?),
I "111 -^SSTK'
cursing and rebellion were unknown.^
^""i "i^^'^ ^"g*^^-
But that
time was very remote, and long before the great fight took
place between Horns and Set, when the former lost his eye and
the latter was wounded in a vital part of his body. Meanwhile
death had come into the world, and since the religion of Osiris
gave man a hope of escape from death, and the promise of ever-
lasting life of the peculiar Hnd that appealed to the great mass
of the Egyptian people, the spread of the cult of Osiris and its
ultimate triumph over all forms of religion in Egypt were assured.
Under the early dynasties the priesthood of Anu (the On of
* Pyramid of Pepi I, 11. 664 and 662.

the Bible) strove to their Sun-god Ra pre-eminent in

make
Egypt, but the cult of this god never appealed to the people as
a whole. It was embraced by the Pharaohs, and their high
officials, and some of the nobles, and the
official priesthood, but the reward which
its doctrine offered was not popular with
the materialistic Egyptians. A life passed
in the Boat of Ra with the gods, being
arrayed in light and fed upon light, made
no appeal to the ordinary folk since Osiris
offered them as a reward a life in the Field
of Reeds, and the Field of Offerings of
Food, and the Field of the Grasshoppers,
and everlasting existence in a transmuted
and beatified body among the resurrected
bodies of father and mother, wife and
children, kinsfolk and friends.
But, as according to the cult of Ra, the
wicked, the rebels, and the blasphemers of
the Sun-god suffered swift and final punish-
ment, so also all those who had sinned
against the stem moral Law and
of Osiris,
Ra the Sun-god.
who had failed to satisfy its demands,
paid the penalty without delay. The Judgment of Ra was held
at sunrise, and the wicked were thrown into deep pits filled
with fire, and their bodies, souls, shadows and hearts were con-
sumed forthwith. The Judgment of Osiris took place near
Abydos, probably at midnight, and\'i decree of swift annihilation
was passed by him on the damned. Their heads were cut off by
the headsman of Osiris, who was called Shesmu, __

1\ ^^ »
and their bodies dismembered and destroyed in pits of fire.
There was no eternal punishment for men, for the wicked were
annihilated quickly and completely ; but inasmuch as Osiris sat
in judgment and doomed the wicked to destruction daily, the
inffiction of punishment never ceased.

VII.
The Judgment of Osiris.
The oldest religious texts suggest that the Egyptians always

associated the Last Judgment with the weighing of the heart
in a pair of scales, and in the illustrated papyri of the Book of
the Dead great prominence is always given to the vignettes in
which this weighing is being carried out. The heart, ah y*

was taken as the symbol of all the emotions, desires, and passions,
both good and evil, and out of it proceeded the issues of life.
It was intimately connected with the ka, ^ , i.e., the double
or personality of a man, and several short spells in the Book

Per-t em hru were composed to ensure its preservation (Chapters
XXVI-XXXb). The great Chapter of the Judgment of Osiris,
the CXXVth, is divided into three parts, which are sometimes
(as in the Papyrus of Ani) prefaced by a Hymn to Osiris. The
first part contains the following, which was said by the deceased
when he entered the Hall of Maati, in which Osiris sat in

judgment
" Homage to thee, O Great God, Lord of Maati,^ I have come
*'
to thee, O my Lord, that I may behold thy beneficence. I
" know thee, and I know thy name, and the names of the Forty-
" Two who live with thee in the Hall of Maati, who keep ward
" over sinners, and feed upon their blood on the day of estimating
" characters before Un-Nefer^ Behold, I have come to
. . .
" thee, and I have brought maat (i.e., truth, integrity) to thee.
" I have destroyed sin for thee. I have not sinned against men.
*'
have not oppressed [my] kinsfolk. I have done no wrong in
I
" the place of truth. I have not known worthless folk. I have
" not \\Tought evil. I have not defrauded the oppressed one
"of his. goods. I have not done the things that the gods
" abominate. I have not vilified a servant to his master. I
"have not caused pain. I have not let any man hunger. I
"have made no one to weep. I have not committed murder.
" I have not commanded any to commit murder for me. I have
" inflicted pain on no man. I have not defrauded the temples
1 I.e., Truth, or Law, in a double aspect.

2 A name of Osiris.
"of their oblations. I have not purloined the cakes of the
"gods. I have not stolen the offerings to the spirits (i.e., the
"dead). I have not committed fornication. I have not pol-
" luted myself in the holy places of the god of my city. I have
" not diminished from the bushel. I did not take from or add
" to the acre-measure. I did not encroach on the fields [of
"others]. I have not added to the weights of the scales. I

" have not misread the pointer of the scales. I have not taken
" milk from the mouths of children. I have not driven cattle
" from their pastures. I have not snared the birds of the gods.
" I have not caught fish with fish of their kind. I have not
" stopped water [when it should flow]. I have not cut the dam
" of a canal. I have not extinguished a fire when it should burn.
" I have not altered the times of the chosen meat offerings. I
" have not turned away the cattle [intended for] offerings. I
"have not repulsed the god at his appearances. I am pure.

" I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. . . ."
In the second part of Chapter CXXV Osiris is seen seated at

one end of the Hall of MaSti accompanied by the two goddesses
of Law and Truth, and the Forty-Two goda who are there to
assist Each of the Forty-Two gods represents one of the
him.
nomes of Egypt and has a symbolic name. When the deceased
had repeated the magical names of the doors of the Hall, he
entered it and saw these gods arranged in two rows, twenty-one
on each side of the Hall. At the end, near Osiris, were the
Great Scales, under the charge of Anpu (Anubis), and the
monster Amemit, the Eater of the Dead, i.e., of the hearts of
the kicked who were condemned in the Judgment of Osiris.
The deceased advanced along the Hall and, addressing each of the
Forty-Two gods by his name, declared that he had not com-
mitted a certain sin, thus :
" O Usekh-nemmit, comer forth from Anu, I have not committed

sin.
" O Fenti, comer forth from Khemenu, I have not robbed.
" O Neha-hau, comer forth from Re-stau, I have not killed men.
" O Neba, comer forth in retreating, I have not plundered the
property of God.
" O Set-qesu, comer forth from Hensu, I have not lied.
" O Uammti, comer forth from Khebt, I have not defiled any
man's wife.
" O Maa-anuf, comer forth from Per-Menu, I have not defiled
myself.
*'
O Tem-Sep, comer forth from Tetu, I have not cursed the king.
*'
O Nefer-Tem, comer forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have not acted
deceitfully I have not committed wickedness.
;
*'
O Nekhen, comer forth from Heqat, I have not turned a deaf
ear to the words of the Law (or Truth)."
The names of most of the Forty-Two gods are not ancient,

but were invented by the priests probably about the same time
as the names in the Book of Him that is in the Tuat and
the Book of Gates, i.e., between the Xllth and the XVIIIth
dynasties. Their artificial character is shown by their mean-
ings. Thus Usekh-nemmit means "He of the long strides " ;
Fenti means " He of the Nose " Neha-hau means " Stinking-;
members " Set-qesu means ;

" Breaker of bones," etc. The
early Egyptologists called the second part of the CXXVth
Chapter the "Negative Confession," and it is generally known
by this somewhat inexact title to this day.
In the third part of the CXXVth Chapter comes the address
which the deceased made to the gods after he had declared his
innocence of the sins enumerated before the Forty-Two gods.
He says :
" Homage to you, O ye gods who dwell in your Hall
*'
of Maati. I know you and I know your names. Let me not
^'
fall under your slaughtering knives. Bring not my wickedness
" to the notice of the god whose followers ye are. Let not the
" affair [of my judgment] come under your jurisdiction. Speak
"''ye the Law (or truth) concerning me before Neb-er-tcher,^
"for I performed the Law (or, truth) in Ta-mera {i.e., Egypt).
"'
I have not blasphemed the God. No affair of mine came under
^'
the notice of the king in his day. Homage to you, O ye who
" are in your Hall of Maati, who have no lies in your bodies,
"'who live on truth, who eat truth before Horus, the dweller
"in his disk, deliver ye me from Babai- who liveth upon the
'"
entrails of the mighty ones on the day of the Great Reckoning
^'
(Apt a at, (]
°
fl^^^ ^ )• Behold me ! I have come
' I.e., the " Lord to the uttermost Hmit of everything," or God.
'
J^^'^.'^^'^^ ^H r^ ' ^® ^^ according to one legend the
firstborn son of Osiris.

" to you without sin, without deceit (?), without evil, without
" false testimony have not done an [evil] thing. I live upon
(?) I
'*
truth and I feed upon truth. I have performed the behests
"of men, and the things that satisfy the gods.^ I have pro-
" pitiated the God [by doing] His will. I have given bread to the
" hungry, water to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, and a boat
**
him that needed one. I have made holy offerings to the
to
"-
gods, and sepulchral offerings to the beatified dead. Be ye
" then my saviours, be ye my protectors, and make no accusa-
" tion against me before the Great God. I am pure of mouth,
" and clean of hands therefore it hath been said by those who
;
" saw me, * Come in peace, come in peace.' "

The deceased then addresses Osiris, and says, " Hail, thou
"who art exalted upon thy standard, thou Lord of the Atefu
"Crown, whose name is *Lord of Winds,' save me from thy
" Messengers (or Assessors) with uncovered faces, who bring
" charges of evil and make shortcomings plain, because I have
"performed the Law (or Truth) for the Lord of the Law (or
"Truth). I have purified myself with washings in water, my
" back hath been cleansed with salt, and my inner parts are in
"the Pool of Truth. There is not a member of mine that

" lacketh truth." From the lines that follow the above in the
Papyrus of Nu it seems as though the judgment of the deceased
by the Forty-Two gods v\^s preliminary to the final judgment
of Osiris. At all events, after questioning him about the per-
formance of certain ceremonies, they invited him to enter the
Hall of Maati, but when he was about to do so the porter, and
the door-bolts, and the various parts of the door and its frame,
and the floor, refused to permit him to enter until he had repeated
their magical names. When he had pronounced these correctly
the porter took him in and presented him to Maau (?)-Taui, who
was Thoth himself. When asked by him why he had come the
deceased answered, " have come that report may be made of
I
me." Then Thoth said, " What is thy condition ? " And
the deceased replied, " I am purified from evil things, I am free
" from the wickedness of those who lived in my days I am not ;
" one of them." On Thoth said, " Thou shalt be reported.

this
" [Tell me :] Who is he whose roof is fire, whose walls are living
•
I.e., I have kept the Moral and Divine Law.
C/2 o
^ o
" serpents, and whose floor is a stream of water ? Wlio is

*'
he ? "
The deceased ha\dng repUed " Osiris," Thoth then
led him forward to the god Osiris, who received him, and pro-
mised that subsistence should be provided for him from the
Eye of Ra.
In great papyri of the Book of the Dead such as those of
Nebseni, Nu, Ani, Hunefer, etc., the Last Judgment, or the
*'
Great Reckoning," is made the most prominent scene in the
whole work, and the vignette in which it is depicted is several
feet long. The most complete form of it is given in the Papyrus
of Ani, and may At one end of the Hall of
be thus described :
Maati Osiris is on a throne withm a shrine made in the.

seated
form of a funerary coffer behind him stand Isis and Nephthys.
;
Along one side of the Hall are seated the gods Harmachis,
Tem, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Isis and Nephthys, Horus, Hathor,
Hu and Saa, who are to serve as the divine jury these formed ;
the " Great Company of the Gods " of Ami (Heliopolis). By

these stands the Great Balance, and on its pillar sits the dog-
headed ape Astes, or Astenu, the associate of Thoth. The
pointer of the Balance is in the charge of Anpu. Behind Anpu
are Thoth the scribe of the gods, and the monster Amemit, with
the head of a crocodile, the forepaws and shoulders of a lion,
and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus the duty of the last- ;
named was to eat up the hearts that were light in the balance.
On the other side of the Balance Ani, accompanied by his wife,
is seen standing uith head bent low in adoration, and between
him and the Balance stand the two goddesses who nurse and
rear children, Meskhenet and Rennet, Ani's
form of soul, in the
a man-headed hawk, a portion of his body, and his luck Shai.
Since the heart was considered to be the seat of all will, emotion,
feeling, reason and intelHgence, Ani's heart, "O*, is seen in
one pan of the Balance, and in the other is the feather, [J,
symbolic of truth and righteousness. Whilst his heart was in

the Balance Ani, repeating the words of Chapter of the XXXb
Book of the Dead, addressed it, saying, " My heart of my
'*
mother My heart of my mother
! My heart of my being ! !
"Make no stand against me when testifying, thrust me not

" back before the Tchatchaut {i.e., the overseers of Osiris), and
" make no failure in respect of me before the Master of the
PL.
" Balance. Thou art my Ka, the dweller in my body, uniting (?)
*'
and strengthening my
members. Thou shalt come forth to
**
the happiness to which we advance. Make not my name to
" stink with the officers [of Osiris] who made men, utter no lie
" against me before the Great God, the Lord of Amentt."
Then Thoth, the Judge of Truth, of the Great Company of

the Gods who are in the presence of Osiris, saith to the gods,
" Hearken ye to this word In very truth the heart of Osiris
:
" hath been weighed, and his soul hath borne testimony con-
" ceming him ; according to the Great Balance his case is
**
tnith {i.e., just). No wickedness hath been found in him. He
" did not filch offerings from the temples. He did not act
"crookedly, and he did not vilify folk when he was on earth.'*
And Company of the
the Great Gods say to Thoth, who
dwelleth Khemenu (Hermopolis)
in " This that cometh :
"forth from thy mouth of truth is confirmed (?) The Osiris,

" the scribe Ani, true of voice, hath testified. He hath not
" sinned and [his name] doth not stink before us Amemit ;
" {i.e., the Eater of the Dead) shall not have the mastery over
" him. Let there be given unto him offerings of food and an
"appearance before Osiris, and an abiding homestead in the
" Field of Offerings as unto the Followers of Horus.*'
Thus the gods have declared that Ani is "true of voice,'*

as was Osiris, and they have called Ani " Osiris," because in his
purity of word and deed he resembled that god. In all the
copies of the Book Dead the deceased is always called
of the
" Osiris," and as it
was always assumed that those for whom
they were written would be found innocent when weighed in
the Great Balance, the words " true of voice," which were
equivalent in meaning to " innocent and acquitted," were always
written after their names. It may be noted in passing that
when Ani's heart was weighed against Truth, the beam of the
Great Balance remained perfectly horizontal. This suggests that
the gods did not expect the heart of the deceased to " kick the
beam," but were quite satisfied if it exactly counterbalanced
Truth. They demanded the fulfilment of the Law and nothing
more, and were content to bestow immortality upon the man
on whom Thoth 's verdict was " he hath done no evil," -/u.
ji %*•
In accordance with the command of the gods Ani passes
from the Great Balance to the end of the Hall of Maati where
Osiris is seated,and as he approaches the god Horus, the son of
Isis, takes him by the hand and leads him forward, and standing
before his father Osiris says, " I have come to thee, Un-Nefer,^
" I have brought to thee the Osiris Ani. His heart is righteous
" [and] hath come forth from the Balance. It hath no sin
"before any god or any goddess. Thoth hath set down his
"judgment in writing, and the Company of the Gods have
*'
declared on his behalf that [his] evidence is very true. Let
*'
there be given unto him of the bread and beer which appear
" before Osiris. Let him be like the Followers of Horus for
" ever " Next we see Ani kneeling in adoration before Osiris,
!
and he says, " Behold, I am in thy presence, O Lord of Amentt.

" There is no sin in my body. I have not uttered a lie know-
*'ingly. [I have] no duplicity (?) Grant that I may be like

*'
the favoured (or rewarded) ones who are in thy train." Under
favour of Osiris Ani then became a sdhu, R V^ Q O' ^^

" spirit-body," and in this form passed into the Kingdom of
Osiris.
VIII.
The Kingdom of Osiris.
According to the Book of Gates and the other " Guides " to
the Egyptian Under World, the Kingdom of Osiris formed the
Sixth Division of the Tuat ; in very early times it was situated
in the Western Delta, but Xllth dynasty theologians
after the
placed it near Abydos in Upper Egypt, and before the close
of the Dynastic Period the Tuat of Osiris had absorbed the
Under World of every nome of Egypt. When the soul in its
beatified or spirit body arrived there, the ministers of Osiris
took it homestead or place of abode which had been
to the
allotted to it by the command of Osiris, and there it began its
new existence. The large vignette to the CXth Chapter shows
us exactly what manner of place the abode of the blessed was.
The country was fiat and the fields wêre intersected by canals
'
I.e., the " Beneficent Bîng," a title of Osiris.
of running \\'ater in which there were " no fish and no w'orms "
(i.e., water snakes). In one part of it were several small
islands, and on one of them Osiris was supposed to dwell with
his saints. It was called the "Island of Truth," and the ferry-
man of Osiris would not convey to it any soul that had not been
declared " true of word " by Thoth, Osiris and the Great Gods
at the " Great Reckoning." The portion of the Kingdom of
Osiris depicted in the large Books of the Dead represents in
many respects a typical Egj^^tian farm, and we see the deceased
engaged in ploughing and reaping and driving the oxen that
are treading out the com. He was introduced into the Sekhet
Heteput (a section of the Sekhet Aaru, i.e., "Field of Reeds,"
or the " Elysian Fields ") by Thoth, and there he found the souls
of his ancestors, who were joined to the Company of the Gods.
One comer of this region was specially set apart for the dwelling
place of the dakhu, i.e,, beatified souls, or spirit-souls, who were
said to be seven cubits in height, and to reap wheat or barley
which grew to a height of three cubits. Near this spot were
moored two boats that were always ready for the use of the
denizens of that region ; they appear to Jiave been " spirit
boats," %,e,, boats which moved of themselves and carried the
beatified wheresoever they wanted to go without any trouble
or fatigue on their part.
How the beatified passed their time in the Kingdom of
Osiris may be seen from the pictures cut on the alabaster sarco-
phagus of Seti I, now preserved in Sir John Soane's Museum in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here we see them occupied in producing
the celestial food on which they and the god lived. Some are
tending the wheat plants as they grow, and others are reaping
the ripe grain. In the texts that accompany these scenes the
ears of wheat are said to be the " members of Osiris," and the
wheat plant is called the mant plant. Osiris was the Wheat-god
and also the personification of Madt (i.e., Truth), and the
beatified- lived upon the body of their god and ate him daily,
and the substance of him was the " Bread of Everlastingness,"
which is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. The beatified are
described as " Those who have offered up incense to the gods,
" and whose kau (i.e., doubles, or persons) have been washed
"clean. They have been reckoned up and they are madt (i.e.,
.
'*
Truth) in the presence of the Great God who destroyeth sin."
Osiris says to them, " Ye are truth of truth ; rest in peace."
And of them he says, " They were doers of truth whilst they were
" upon earth, they did battle for their god, and they shall be
" called to the enjoyment of the Land of the House of Life with
" Truth. Their truth shall be reckoned to them in the presence

" of the Great God who destroyeth sin." Then addressing them
again Osiris says, " Ye are beings of Truth, O ye Truths. Take
"ye your rest because of what ye have done, becoming even
" as those who are in my following, and who direct the House
" of Him whose Soul is holy. Ye shall live there even as they
" live, and ye shall have dominion over the cool waters of your
" land. I command that ye have your being to the limit [of
" that land] \nth Truth and without sin." In these passages
vrehave the two conceptions of Osiris well illustrated. As the
Wheat-god he would satisfy those who \\ished for a purely
material, agricultural heaven, where hunger would be unknown
and where the blessed would be able to satisfy every physical
desire and want daily and as the God of Truth, of whom the
;
spiritually minded hoped to become the counterpart, he would

be their hope, and consolation, and the image of the Eternal
God.
IX
A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE " DoORS " OR CHAPTERS OF

THE Book of the Dead.
All the great papyri of the Book of the Dead begin with a
Hymn to Ra, who from the period of the IVth dynasty was the
" King of the Gods " of Egypt. His cult was finally " estab-
lished " under the Vth dynasty when the king of Egypt began
to call himself in official documents and monuments " Son of the
Sun," ^^ Sa R(i. This Hymn is supposed to be sung by

the deceased, who says :
" to thee, O Ra, at thy beauteous rising. Thou risest,

Homage
thou thou shinest, thou shincst at the dawn. Thou art King
risest ;
of the Gods, and the Maati goddesses embrace thee. The Company of
the Gods praise thee at sunrise and at sunset. Thou sailest over the
heights of heaven and thy heart is glad. Thy Morning Boat meeteth
thy Evening Boat with fair winds. Thy father is the Sky-god and thy
mother is the Sky-goddess, and thou art Horus of the Eastern and
Western skies. O thou Only One, O thou Perfect One, O
. . .
thou who art eternal, who art never weak, whom no mighty one can
abase none hath dominion over the things which appertain to thee.
;
Homage to thee in thy characters of Horus, Tem, and Khepera, thou

Great Hawk, who makest man to rejoice by thy beautiful face. When
thou risest men and women live. Thou renewest thy youth, and dost
where thou wast yesterday. O Divine Youth,
set thyself in the place
who comprehend thee. Thou art the lord
art self-created, I cannot
of heaven and earth, and didst create beings celestial and beings
terrestrial. Thou art the God One, who earnest into being in the
beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth, and man, thou didst
make the sky and the celestial river Hep thou didst make the waters
;
and didst give life unto all that therein is. Thou hast knit together the
mountains, thou hast made mankind and the beasts of the field to come
into being, and hast made the heavens and the earth. The fiend Nak
is overthrown, his arms are cut off. O thou Divine Youth, thou heir
of everlastingness, self-begotten and self-born. One, Might, of myriad
forms and aspects, Prince of An {i.e., On), Lord of Eternity, Everlasting
Ruler, the Company of the Gods rejoice in thee. As thou risest thou
growest greater :thy rays are upon all faces. Thou art unknowable,
and no tongue can describe thy similitude thou existest alone.
;
Millions of years have passed over the world, I cannot tell the number
of those through which thou hast passed. Thou journey est through
spaces [requiring] milHons of years [to pass over] in one little moment
of time, and then thou settest and dost make an end of the hours."
The subject matter of the above extract is treated at greater

length in Chapter XV, which contains a long Hymn to Ra at his
rising, Amen-Ra, or Ra united to other solar
or gods, e.g., Horus
and Khepera, and a short Hymn to Ra at his setting. In the
latter the welcome which Ra receives from the dwellers in
Amentt (i.e., the Hidden Place, like the Greek " Hades ") is
emphasized thus :
" All the beatified dead (Aakhu) in the Tuat receive him in the
horizon of Amentt. They shout praises of him in his form of Tem
[i.e.,the setting sun). Thou didst rise and put on strength, and thou
settest, a living being, and thy glories are in Amentt. The gods of
Amentt rejoice in thy beauties (or beneficence). The hidden ones
worship thee, the aged ones bring thee offerings and protect thee. The
Souls of Amentt cry out, and when they meet thy Majesty (Life,
Strength. Health be to thee !) they shout Hail Hail '
!The lords
!
'
of the mansions of the Tuat stretch out their hands to thee from their
abodes, and they cry to thee, and they follow in thy bright train, and
the hearts of the lords of the Tuat rejoice when thou sendest thy light
into Amentt. Their eyes follow thee, they press forward to see thee,
and their hearts rejoice at the sight of thy face. Thou hearkenest to
the petitions of those who are in their tombs, thou dispellest their help-
lessness and drivest away evil from them. Thou givest breath to their
nostrils. Thou art greatly feared, thy form is majestic, and very
greatly art thou beloved by those who dwell in the Other World."
The Introductory Hymn to Ra is followed by a Hymn to

Osiris, in which the deceased says :
" Glory be to thee, O Osiris Un-Nefer, thou great god in Abtu

(Abydos),King of Eternity, Lord of Everlastingness, God whose
existence is millions of years, eldest son of Nut, begotten by Geb, the
Ancestor-Chief, Lord of the Crowns of the South and the North, Lord
of the High White Crown. Thou art the Governor of gods and of men
and hast received the sceptre, the whip, and the rank of thy Divine
Fathers. Let thy heart in Amentt be content, for thy son Horus
is seated upon thy throne. Thou art Lord of Tetu (Busiris) and
Governor of Abtu (Abydos). Thou makest fertile the Two Lands {i.e.,
all Egypt) by [thy] true word before the Lord to the Uttermost Limit.
. . Thy power is widespread, and great is the terror of thy name

.
*
Osiris.' Thou endurest for all eternity in thy name of Un-Nefer '
'
{i.e.. Beneficent Being). Homage to thee. King of kings. Lord of

lords. Governor of governors, who from the womb of the Sky-goddess
hast ruled the World and the Under World. Thy hmbs are as silver-
gold, thy hand is blue hke lapis-lazuli, and the space on either side of
thee is of the colour of turquoise (or emerald). Thou god An of
milhons of years, thy body is all-pervading, O dweller in the Land of
HoUness, thy face is beautiful. The gods come before thee
. . .
bowing low. They hold thee in fear. They withdraw and retreat
when they see the awfulness of Ra upon thee the [thought] of the ;
conquests of thy Majesty is in their hearts. Life is with thee.

" Let me follow thy Majesty as when I was on earth, let my soul be
summoned, and let it be found near the Lords of Truth. I have come
to the City of God, the region that is eternally old, with my soul {ba),
double (Aa) and spirit-soul {(iakhu), to be a dweller in this land. Its
God is the Lord of Truth ...
he giveth old age to him that
worketh Truth, and honour to his followers, and at the last abundant
equipment for the tomb, and burial in the Land of Holiness. I have
come unto thee, my hands hold Truth, and there is no falsehood in my
heart. . Thou hast set Truth before thee I know on what
. . ;
thou livest. I have committed no sin in this land, and I have defrauded
no man of his possessions." (Chapter CLXXXIII.)
was recited by the priest who accompanied the

Chapter I
mummy tomb and performed the burial ceremonies

to the
there. In it the priest (kher Jieh) assumed the character of
Thoth and promised the deceased to do for him all that he had
done for Osiris in days of old. Chapter Ib gave the sdhu, or
"spirit-body," power to enter the Tuat immediately after the
burial of the material body, and delivered it from the Nine
Worms that lived on the dead. Chapters H-IV are short spells
written to give the deceased power to revisit the earth, to join the
gods, and to travel about the sky. Chapters V and VI provided
for the performance of agricultural labours in the Other World.
The text of Chapter VI was cut on figures made of stone, wood,
etc. (ushabtiu), which were placed in the tomb, and wfeen the
deceased recited it these figures became alive and did everything
he wished. The shabti figure, t^l^'t ^. J T ^ ' *^^^ ^^^ place
of the human funerary sacrifice which was common all over
Egypt before the general adoption of the cult of Osiris under the
Xllth dynasty. About 700 ushabtiu figures were found in the
tomb of Seti I, and many of them are in the British Museum.
Chapter VII is a spell to destroy the Great Serpent Aapep,
T^ )Mh , the Arch-enemy of Horus the Elder, Ra, Osiris,
Horus son of Isis, and of every follower of Osiris. Chapters VIII

and IX secured a passage for the deceased through the Tuat,
and Chapters X and XI gave him power over the enemies he
met there. Chapters XII and XIII gave him great freedom
of movement in the Kingdom of Osiris. Chapter XIV is a
prayer in which Osiris is entreated to put away aay feeling of
dissatisfaction that he may have for the deceased, who says,
*'
Wash away my sins. Lord of Truth destroy my transgressions,
;
" wickedness and iniquity, O God of Truth. May this god be at

*'
peace with me. Destroy the things that are obstacles between
" us. Give me peace, and remove aU dissatisfaction from thy
" heart in respect of me."
Chapter XVhas several forms, and each of them contains
Hymns to Ra, which were sung daily in the morning and
The holy Ape-gods singing hymns The Jackal-gods and the Hawk-gods
of praise to Ra at sunrise. hymns of praise to Ra at sunset.
singing
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD 37
evening ; specimen paragraphs are given above (pp. 33, 34).

Chapter XVI is only a vignette that illustrates Chapter XV,
Chapter XVII is a very important chapter, for it contains state-

ments of divine doctrine as understood by the priests of Heliopolis.
The opening words are, " I am Tem in rising. I am the Only One.
" I came into being in Nu (the Sky). I am Ra, who rose in
" primeval time, ruler of what he had made." Following this
comes the question, " Who is this ? " and the answer is, " It is
" Ra who rose in the city of Hensu, in primeval time, crowned as
The Sun-god Ra, in the form of the "Great Cat," silting by the side of the Persea
Tree of Anu, and cutting off the head (»f .\aix'p, the god of darkness and evil.
" king. He existed on the heiglit of the Dweller in Khemenu

" (i.e., Thoth of Hermopolis) before the pillars that support the
" sky were made." Chapter XVIII contains the Addresses to
Thoth, who is entreated to make the deceased to be declared
innocent before the gods of Heliopolis, Busiris, Latopolis, Mendes,
Abydos, etc. These addresses formed a very powerful spell
which was used by Horus, and when he recited it four times all
his enemies wereoverthrown and cut to pieces. Chapters XIX
and XX are variant forms of Chapter XVIII. Chapters XXI-
XXIII secured the help of Thoth in "opening the mouth " of
the deceased, whereby he obtained the power to breathe and
think and drink and eat. Thoth recited spells over the gods
whilst Ptah untied the bandages and Shu forced open their
mouths with an iron (?) knife. Chapter XXIV gave to the
deceased a knowledge of the " words of power " (^ LJ ^^^ |'
fiekau) which were used by the great god Tem-Khepera, and

Chapter XXV restored to him his memory. Five chapters,
XXVI-XXX, contain prayers and spells whereby the deceased
obtained power over his heart and gained absolute possession
of it. The most popular prayer is that of Chapter XXXb
(see above, p. 4) which, according to its rubric, was "found,"
i.e., edited, by Herutataf, the son of the great Cheops, about
3600 B.C. This prayer was still in use in the early years of the
Christian Era. In the Papyrus of Nu it is associated with
Chapter LXIV, and the earliest form of it was probably in
existence under the 1st dynasty.
Chapters XXXI-XLII
were written to deliver the deceased
from the Great Crocodile Sui, and the Serpents Rerek and
Seksek, and the Lynx with its deadly claws, and the Beetle
Apshait, and the terrible Merti snake-goddesses, and a group of
three particularly venomous serpents, and Aapep a personifica-
tion of Set the god of evil, and the Eater of the Ass, and a series
of beings who lived by slaughtering the souls of the dead. In
Chapter XLII every member of the deceased is put under the
protection of, or identified with, a god or goddess, e.g., the hair
with Nu, the face with Aten (i.e., the solar disk), the eyes with
Hathor, and the deceased exclaims triumphantly, " There is no

member of my body which is not the member of a god."
Chapter XLIII. A spell to prevent the decapitation of the
deceased, who assumes in it the character of Osiris the Lord of
Eternity. Chapter XLIV. An
ancient and mighty speU, the
recital of which prevented the deceased from dying a second
time. Chapters XLV and XLVI preserved the mummy of the
deceased from decay, and Chapter XLVII prevented the removal
of his seat or throne. Chapter L enabled the deceased to avoid
the block of execution of the god Shesmu. Chapters LI-LIII
provided the deceased with pure food and clean water from the
table of the gods ; he lived upon what they lived upon, and so
became one with them. Chapters LIV-LXII gave the deceased
power to obtain cool water from the Celestial Nile and the springs
of waters of heaven, and being identified with Shu, the god of
light and air, he was enabled to pass over all the earth at will.
His life was that of the Egg of the " Great Cackler," and the
goddess Sesheta buUt a house for him in the Celestial Anu, or
Heliopolis.
The Chapter LXIII enabled the deceased to avoid
recital of
drinking boiling water in the Tuat. The water in some of its
pools was cool and refreshing to those who were speakers of the
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. 3^
truth, but it turned into boiling water and scalded the \vicked
when they tried to drink of it. Chapter LXIV is an epitome of
the whole Book of the Dead, and it formed a " great and divine
protection " for the deceased. The text is of a 'mystical
character and suggests that the deceased could, through its
recital, either absorb tlie gods into his being, or become himself
absorbed by them. Its rubric orders abstention from meats,
fish and women on the part of those who were to recite it.
Chapter LXV gave the deceased victory over all his enemies,
and Chapters LXVI and LXVII gave him access to the Boat of
Ra. Chapters LXVIII-LXX procured him complete freedom of
motion in heaven and on earth. Chapter LXXI is a series of
addresses to the Seven Spirits who punished the wicked in the
Kingdom of and Chapter LXXII aided the deceased to be
Osiris,
reborn in the Mesqet Chamber. The Mesqet was originally a
bull's skin in which the deceased was wrapped. Chapter
LXXIII is the same as Chapter IX. Chapters LXXIV and
LXXV secured a passage for the deceased in the Henu Boat of
Seker the Death-god, and Chapter LXXVI brought to his help
the praying mantis which guided him through the " bush " to
the House of Osiris. By the recital of Chapters LXXVII-
LXXXVIII, "Chapters of Transformations," the
i.e., the
deceased was enabled to assume at will the forms of (i) the
Golden Hawk, (2) the Divine Hawk, (3) the Great Self-created
The soul visiting the mummified Ixnly in the tomb. The bird-goddess at the head
is Isis, and that at the feet is Nephthys.
God, (4) the Light-god or the Robe of Nu, (5) the Pure Lily,
(6) the Son Benu Bird, (8) the Heron, (9) the
of Ptah, (7) the
Soul of Ra, (10) the Swallow, (11) the Sata or Earth-serpent,
(12) the Crocodile. Chapter LXXXIX brought the soul (ba)
of the deceased to his body in the Tuat, and Chapter XC pre-
served him from mutilation and attacks of the god who " cut
off heads and slit foreheads." Chapters XCI and XCII pre-
vented Hie soul of the deceased from being shut in the tomb.
Chapter XCIII is a spell very difficult to understand. Chapters
XCIV and XCV provided the deceased with the books of Thoth
and the power of this god, and enabled him to take his place as
the scribe of Osiris. Chapters XCVI and XCVII also placed
him under the protection of Thoth. The recital of Chapter
XCVI 1 1 provided the deceased with a boat in which to sail over
the northern heavens, and a ladder by which to ascend to heaven.
Chapters XCIX-CIII gave him the use of the magical boat, the
mystic name of each part of which he was obliged to know, and
helped him to enter the Boat of Ra and to be with Hathor.
The Bebait, or mantis, led him to the great gods (Chapter CIV),
and the Uatch amulet from the neck of Ra provided his double
(ka) and his heart-soul (ba) with offerings (Chapters CV, CVI).
Chapters CVII-CIX made him favourably known to the spirits
of the East and West, and the gods of the Mountain of Sunrise.
In this region lived the terrible Serpent-god Ami-hem-f he was
;
30 cubits (50 feet) long. In the East the deceased saw the
Morning Star, and the Two Sycamores, from between which the
Sun-god appeared daily, and found the entrance to the Sekhet
Aaru or Elysian Fields. Chapter CX and its vignette of
the Elysian Fields have already been described (see p. 31).
Chapters CXI and CXII describe how Horus lost the sight of his
eye temporarily through looking at Set under the form of a black
pig, and Chapter CXI II refers to the legend of the drowning of
Horus and the recovery of his body by Sebek the Crocodile-god.

Chapter CXIV enabled the deceased to absorb the wisdom of
Thoth and his Eight gods. Chapters CXV-CXXII made him
lord of the Tuats of Memphis and HeliopoHs, and supplied him
with food, and Chapter CXXIII enabled him to identifyTiimself
with Thoth. Chapters CXXIV and CXXV, which treat of the
Judgment, have already been described. Chapter CXXVI con-
tains a prayer to the Four Holy Apes, Chapter CXXVI I a
hymn to the gods of the " Circles " in the Tuat, and Chapter
CXXVIII a hymn to Osiris. Chapters CXXX and CXXXI
secured for the deceased the use of the Boats of Sunrise and
Sunset, and Chapter CXXXII enabled him to return to earth
and visit the house he had lived in. Chapters CXXXIII (or
CXXXIX)-CXXXVI resemble in contents Chapter CXXXI.
Chapter CXXXVII describes a series of magical ceremonies
that were to be performed for the deceased daily in order to make
him become a ** living soul for ever." The formulae are said
to
to have been composed under the IVth dynasty. Chapter
CXXXVII I refers to the ceremony of reconstituting Osiris, and
Chapters CXL-CXLII deal with the setting up of twelve altars,
and the making of offerings to all the gods and to the various
forms of Osiris. Chapter CXLIII consists of a series of vignettes,
in three of which solar boats are represented.
Chapters CXLIV and CXLVII deal witli the Seven Great
Halls (Ant) of the Kingdom The gate of each Hall
of Osiris.
was guarded by a porter, a watchman, and a messenger the first ;
kept the door, the second looked out for the arrival of visitors,
and the third took their names to Osiris. No one could enter a
Hall without repeating the name of it, of the porter, of the
watchman, and of the messenger. According to a late tradition
the Gates of the Kingdom of Osiris were twenty-one in number
(Chapters CXLV and CXLVI), and each had a magical name, and
each was guarded by one or two gods, whose names had to
be repeated by the deceased before he could pass. Chapter
CXLVIII names of the Seven
supplied the deceased with the
Cows and on which the " gods " were supposed to
their Bull
feed. Chapters CXLIX and CL give the names of the Fourteen
Aats, or districts, of the Kingdom of Osiris. Chapter CLIa and
CLIb give a picture of the mummy chamber and the magical
texts that were necessary for the protection of both the chamber
and the mummy in it. Chapter CLII provided a house for the
deceased in the Celestial Anu, and Chapter CLIIIa and CLIIIb
enabled his soul to avoid capture in the net of the snarer of
souls. CLIV is an address to Osiris in which the
Chapter
deceased says, " I shall not decay, nor rot, nor putrefy, nor
" become worms, nor see corruption. I shall have my being,
**
I shall live, I shall flourish, I shall rise up in peace." Chapters
CLV-CLXVII are speUs which were engraved on the amulets
U» n, O, |, "^1 ^^, etc., giving the deceased the protec-
tion of Ra, Osiris, Isis, Horns, and 6ther gods. The remaining
Chapters (CLXVIII-CXC) are of a miscellaneous character, and
few of them are found in more than one or two papyri of the
Book of the Dead. A few contain hymns that are not older
than the XVIIIth dynasty, and one is an extract from the text
on the Pyramid of Unas (Hnes 379-399). The most interesting

is, perhaps. Chapter CLXXV, which describes the Tuat as
airless, waterless, and lightless. In this chapter the deceased is
assured of immortailty in the words, " Thou shalt live for
millions of millions of years, a life of millions of years."
E. A. Wallis Budge.
Department of Egyptian and Assyrian

Antiquities, British Museum.
April 15, IQ20.
43
NOTE.
The Trustees of the British Museum have published :
1. Coloured facsimile of the Papyrus of Hunefer, XlXth

dynasty, with hieroglyphic transcript and translation.
II plates, large folio.
2. Coloured facsimile of the Papyrus of Anhai, XXIst

dynasty, with hieroglyphic transcript and translation,
8 plates, large folio.
3. Collotype reproduction of the Papyrus of Queen

Netchemet, XXIst dynasty, with hieroglyphic tran-
script and translation. 12 plates, large folio.
4. Coloured reproduction of the hieratic text of the Book

of Breathings, with hierogl)T)hic transcript and trans-
lation. With 2 collotypes of the vignettes, large
folio.
5. Hieroglyphic transcript of the Papyrus of Nu, with one

collotype plate.
Nos. 7-5 are bound in one volume, price £^2 los,
6. Collotype reproduction of the Papyrus of Queen Nesi-

ta-nebt-ashru, with full descriptions of the vignettes,
translations, and introduction, containing several
illustrations, and 116 plates of hieratic text. Large
4to. Price £2 los.
;n'^'
Harrison & Sons,
TrtnUrs in Ordinary to His Majesty,
St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 2.

LOAN DEPT.
or
, ,he last date
stamped below,
General Library .
T-n9lA-60m-lO,'65
(F7

Book of Dead

Uploaded by

Book of Dead

Uploaded by

BRITISH MUSEUM.

The Book of the Dead

WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS.

PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES.

PRICE ONE SHILLINGAKr

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

de I'Egypte, torn. II, plate 64 ff.

« Copie Figur/e d'un Rouleau de Papyrus trouv^ d Th^es dans un

buch," etc. These titles are merely translations of the name

The Preservation of the Mummified Body in the Tomr

and then they sealed it up in a coffin or sarcophagus, which they

place of sunrise waiting to swallow up

The Book Per-t em hru, or [The Chapters of] Coming

(or, into) the Day,"

Mus. No. 10477) states that the text

The plinth was found by Prince Herutataf, ^^ tziS Jj, a

son of King Khufu (Cheops), who

it with Khemenu, i.e., Hermopolis, and indicates that Thoth,

course of centuries, and at length, under the XVIIItli dynasty,

walls of the chambers and corridors of the pyramids of Kings

red ink and the text in black, and it became customary to

Vignette and text ol the Theb.i;.

(Brit. Mus., No. 10470), which is yS feet in length and i foot

3 inches in breadth. In all papyri of this class the text is

* The longest papyrus in the world is Papyrus Harris No. i (Brit.

began to write funerary texts in the demotic character.

dynasties, partly because the religious views of the Egyptians

and Nephthys," and the

Honouring Osiris," etc.,

regarded as the giver

sheets or strips of pa-

many additions weremade to it, but nothing of importance

sketch briefly the main facts of the Egyptian Religion which

Thoth, the Author of the Book of the Dead.

Thoth, in Egyptian Tchehuti or Tehuti, "^ f ^ ^ r^ or

S v\ ^ J| , who has already been mentioned as the author

of the words and deeds of men, he

as the Companies of the Gods of

Thoth and Osiris.

The Egyptians were not satisfied with the mere possession of

one brother, Set ; he married Isisand Set married Nephthys

of a canal at Netat, (I , near Abydos, and according

to another he caused him to be drowned. Isis, accompanied

the Delta, and there she brought forth

words of power which restored Horus to

among the crocodiles and other evil

The Four Sons of Horus.

Mesta. HSpi. Tuamutcf. Qebhsennuf.

he and his sons and Anubis performed the ceremonies which

Anubis standing by the bier of the dead.

made against Osiris. The defence of Osiris was undertaken by

be punished. Thoth convinced them that Osiris was " maa

spoken the truth when he gave his evidence, and in texts of

periods Thoth is frequently described as S-maa kheru Asar,

of word." As for Set the Liar, he was seized by the ministers

Osiris as Judge of the Dead and King of the Under

dead, or Dead-land, is called "Tat," ^=^^ ^» or " Tuat,"

^ ^^ ,—-, » ^"* where the Egyptians thought it was situated

was located on the borders of the visible world, in the Outer

" is unfathomable, it is as dark as the darkest night, and men

times was a region of destruction and death, a place where

the dead rotted and decayed, a place of abomination, and horror

When the power of Osiris became predominant in the Under

* Pyramid of Pepi I, 11. 664 and 662.

the Bible) strove to their Sun-god Ra pre-eminent in

the headsman of Osiris, who was called Shesmu, __

and their bodies dismembered and destroyed in pits of fire.

inffiction of punishment never ceased.

The Judgment of Osiris.

The oldest religious texts suggest that the Egyptians always

which this weighing is being carried out. The heart, ah y*

It was intimately connected with the ka, ^ , i.e., the double

or personality of a man, and several short spells in the Book

when he entered the Hall of Maati, in which Osiris sat in

1 I.e., Truth, or Law, in a double aspect.

"of their oblations. I have not purloined the cakes of the