Guidebook to the Ancient Egyptian afterlife

In ancient Egypt, the end of life marked the start of a challenging journey – one that could be smoothed using the spells compiled in a Book of the Dead. Rob Attar explores how these books were used to ensure a speedy and successful path through the next world.

Wearing clean clothes and white sandals, you stand in a long hall supported by columns. On a throne at the far end of the room you see the figure of Osiris, the god of the underworld. You are surrounded by 42 gods, terrifying mummified figures including the Swallower of shades, the Bone-breaker and the Eater of entrails.

In front of you is the god Thoth in the form of a baboon. He sits atop a pair of scales that will very shortly decide your eternal fate. This is judgment day and, should you fail the test, you will experience the agonising second death. But you show no fear because you are a possessor of the Book of the Dead – a tome that contains within its texts the secrets to surviving the afterlife.

You turn to the first of the gods and begin to speak: “O Far-strider who came forth from Heliopolis, I have done no falsehood.” Then you turn to the second: “O Fire-embracer who came forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed...”

Coming forth by day

For ancient Egyptians, life on earth could be very short, so the rituals surrounding death were an integral part of their culture. Many of the best-known relics from Egypt – pyramids, tombs and mummies – reveal the time and resources that the people of the Nile were prepared to spend to ensure a successful afterlife. Spells or formulae that could aid your path through the next world first appeared on the walls of pyramids during the Egyptian Fifth Dynasty, around 2350 BC. Some 400 years later, in the time of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, these Pyramid Texts evolved into Coffin Texts that were inscribed on coffins, tomb walls and, sometimes, sheets of papyrus.

Egypt’s sunken mysteries

There is still time to catch the Egypt’s Sunken Mysteries exhibition before it leaves the Institut du monde arabe in Paris for the British Museum in London, writes David Tresilian

For the past three months the Institut du Monde arabe in Paris has been hosting Osiris, Egypt’s Sunken Mysteries, an exhibition of finds made by marine archaeologist Franck Goddio off Egypt’s northern coast in the remains of the ancient cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canope. The exhibition closes at the end of January and then makes its way to the British Museum in May, giving visitors to the French capital a few final weeks to catch it before its new incarnation in London.

A pair of vast stone statues parked outside the Institut on the left bank of the Seine give a taste of what is to be found within. Discovered during Goddio’s excavations of Thonis-Heracleion, submerged since the 8th century CE beneath the waves of the Gulf of Aboukir east of Alexandria, these colossal statues of a king and queen made in the Ptolemaic period once stood in the Temple of Amun in the ancient city. Together with a fragmented stele of the pharaoh Ptolemy VIII dating to 118 to 116 BCE they have now found the new function of ushering visitors towards the Sunken Mysteries exhibition.

Opened by French president François Hollande and Egyptian Minister of Culture Mamdouh Eldamaty in September (reported in Al-Ahram Weekly by Nevine El-Aref on 17 September), the exhibition presents objects found by Goddio and his team in the remains of the underwater cities as well as items from various Egyptian museums exhibited for the first time in France.

Egyptian statuettes of Osiris: Production unveiled by neutrons and laser

Jan 30, 2015 by Inês Crespo

The world's museums exhibit collections of precious artefacts from thousands of years ago. Very often it is the case that not much is known about how those ancient artefacts were created. There is a number of limitations to investigate them as traditional sampling techniques risk damaging the materials. In the search for non-invasive methods, a group of scientists have combined three different techniques to analyse copper alloy figurines. They wanted to know how the figurines were crafted, their composition, and how they are deteriorating.

The figurines were provided by the Egyptian Museum of Florence in Italy. While the year they were created is unknown, we know that the first figurine was brought from Egypt to Italy by the Schiaparelli archaeological expeditions in the 19th century, and the other two figurines were donated to the museum by a noble family in 1868 and 1848. They represent Osiris, the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead, with arms and legs bound to the body by mummy bandages, and holding the traditional insignias of kingship: the crook and flail.

An innovative analytical approach

To look inside the figurines, the group conducted high resolution neutron tomography at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, time of flight neutron diffraction at the ISIS neutron source in the UK, and performed laser induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS) measurements. Thanks to the NMI3 Access programme their travel and subsistence expenses to Germany were covered.

Courtesy of Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry

Thanks to this new approach, these artefacts could be characterised like never before. Even though the figurines are originating from different areas in Egypt the results show that they were all crafted with similar core materials, same alloy compositions, and with a similar method for preparation of the casting mould. The latter was executed starting from forming and firing an earthy core. The wax model for casting was then sculptured on this earthenware core, and eventually the mould was completed with the application of the mantle and the final firing.

This innovative analytical approach proved very successful to analyse ancient artefacts with the big advantage of not being invasive for the artefacts under study. This combination of techniques will be applied to investigate other bronze statuettes of the Egyptian Museum of Florence.

Source: http://phys.org/news/2015-01-egyptian-statuettes-osiris-production-unveiled.html

Osiris tomb discovered in Luxor

A symbolic tomb of the god Osiris has been discovered at Al-Gorna on Luxor’s west bank

By Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 4 Jan 2015

A Spanish-Italian archaeological mission has discovered a complete symbolic tomb of the god Osiris with multiple shafts and chambers at Al-Gorna necropolis on Luxor’s west bank.
Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty told Ahram Online that the discovery is important because the newly discovered tomb is a small version of the design of the Osirion found in Abydos in the Upper Egypt city of Sohag.

Abdel Hakim Karar, head of Antiquities of Upper Egypt, explains that the newly discovered tomb can be dated to the 25th Dynasty and consists of a large hall supported with five pillars. Its northern wall has a hall with a rock-hewn staircase that leads down to a funerary complex where an Osiris statue is found in the core of a vaulted chapel.

To the west of the chapel, said Karar, a funerary hall is found decorated with a relief depicting ancient Egyptian gods holding knives in order to protect the dead.

At the opposite side of the Osiris statue is another staircase leading to a nine metre deep shaft that leads to another chamber that has a seven metre deep shaft with two rooms full of debris.

María Milagros Álvarez Sosa, head of the mission, said that part of the tomb was initially discovered by archaeologist Philippe Virey in the 1880s and some attempts were made to sketch out the main structure in the 20th century. However, it was not until recently that the full extent of the structure was discovered through excavation.

The funerary complex will continue to be explored and the chambers cleared of debris in the autumn of this year.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/119421/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Osiris-tomb-discovered-in-Luxor.aspx

New discoveries at Luxor

By Rany Mostafa:

Tomb of “divine wife of God Amun” unearthed in Luxor

CAIRO: The tomb of “the divine wife of God Amun,” an ancient Egyptian title given only to royal wives, has been discovered at the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramses II in the west bank of Luxor, according to Abdel-Hakim Karar, director of the Upper Egypt Antiquities Department, Thursday.

“The tomb is relatively small with a stone door leading to a 5-meter shaft and a burial chamber, where funerary equipments, offerings and 20 well-preserved statuettes were found,” Karar told The Cairo Post Thursday.

The statuettes, found by the tomb’s entrance, bore the name of  “Karomama” and hieroglyphic inscriptions describe her as “the earthly spouse of the god Amun,” and we believe she may have been the wife of the 22nd Dynasty’s Pharaoh Osorkon II (872B.C–837B.C.,) said Karar.

The discovery was made by French-Egyptian mission led by Christian Leblanc, a French archaeologist, who has been excavating in the mortuary temple and the tomb of Ramses II since 1980s.

“The new discovery may not be spectacular from the artistic point of view, but due to the scarcity of Karomama’s artifacts that have been discovered so far, it is definitely a significant find as it sheds more light on her life,” Leblanc was quoted by the Pharaoh Magazine Thursday.

Museum Pieces - A Worshipper Kneeling Before the God Anubis

Photocredit: Walters Art Museum

A Worshipper Kneeling Before the God Anubis

A bronze statuette of the anthropomorphic god Anubis facing a kneeling worshipper. He has the head of a jackal and the body of a human male. The piece has been cast in three sections and then joined. The eyes of Anubis are inlaid with gold and there are traces of gilding on the shoulders, wrists, ankles, neck, wig, and ears. The gilding was delicately applied to the eyes, eyebrows and muzzle, but in other areas it appears to have been applied in a more careless fashion. The piece is well preserved in general but there is a break on the lower back corner of the base and there is some green and bright blue corrosion on the lower side of the base. 

A hieroglyphic inscription runs around the main base, the base of the Anubis figure and along the back pillar of the worshiper, identifying the dedicant as one Wdja-Hor-resnet, son of Ankh-pa-khered, who is asking for the blessings of the god Anubis. The figure of Anubis is in a striding position with his proper left leg advanced. His proper right arm hangs at his side and the right hand is clenched into a fist with the thumb protruding. The proper left arm is raised and bent at the elbow and there is a drilled hole in the hand for the insertion of an object. Earlier photographs of this piece in Darresy's "Statues de Divinités," show that the missing object was a "was" scepter. He wears a tripartite wig, "shendyt" kilt with deep pleats and a striated belt. A broad collar, armlets and bracelets are incised and gilded. Anklets are suggested by the gilding around the ankles but they are not incised. The musculature of the limbs and the torso is clearly defined. The ears of the god are large and the inner detailing has been carefully modeled. The muzzle comes to a delicate point, accentuating the skillfully modeled eyes, sweeping brows, nose and mouth. 

There are two cobras at the feet of the deity facing the worshipper. The proper right cobra wears the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the left cobra wears the White Crown of Upper Egypt. The head of the left cobra is raised slightly higher than that of the right. A worshipper kneels before the god with his back against an inscribed pillar which is pyramidal at the top. He kneels with both knees down on a flat rectangular base, which is attached to the larger main base below. He extends his hands to the god palms down. He wears a "shendyt" kilt, but the pleats are not carved with the same precision that is seen on the kilt of the god. The bent knees are squared off unnaturally and the legs blend together below the kilt. He has an inscribed broad collar. He also wears a skull cap, the front line of which is clearly marked across his brow. The face is round with full cheeks and no definition of the chin. The ears are large and set high. The eyes are natural and do not have cosmetic brows. The nose is straight and the mouth is small with slightly pursed lips. The overall surface of the worshipper is pitted whereas the figure of Anubis has a high polish.

[Translation] May Anubis, give life, health, long life and great and good old age to Wdja-Hor-resnet, son of Ankh-pa-khered, whose mother is Ta-gemiw(t), who is born (made) of the Mistress of the house, Hy-inty for Pen-pa-djew./ May Anubis give life to Wdje-hor-resnet, son of Ankh-pa-khered./ May Anubis, who is before the place of the divine booth, give life, health, strength, a long life, and a great old age and happiness to the son of Ankh-pa-khered, whose mother is Ta-gemiw(t), who is Mistress of the House, Hy-inty for Pen-pa-djew.

Acquired by Henry Walters, 1930

PERIOD: ca. 747-525 BCE (Third Intermediate Period-Late Period, 25th-26th dynasty)

MEDIUM: bronze with gilt, gold inlay

ACCESSION NUMBER: 54.400

MEASUREMENTS: H: 8 3/16 x W: 5 11/16 x D: 2 1/16 in. (20.8 x 14.4 x 5.3 cm)

Read more about Anubis...

Museum Pieces - Vase dedicated to Osiris

Vase dedicated to Osiris

This vessel of red terracotta was found in the tomb of king Djer of the 1st Dynasty at Abydos; it dates from the Ramesside Period and its shape, that of the hieroglyph for 'heart', is very striking. In the centre a mummiform figure of the god Osiris, squatting on a platform, is shown. He wears the white crown, and holds the sign for 'life' (ankh) on his knees. The vertical inscriptions on either side of the god give the names and titles of the two members of the Abydos priesthood who dedicated this vase to Osiris.

Photocredit: The Global Egyptian Museum

Present location: BRUSSELS
Inventory number: E.0579
Dating: 19TH DYNASTY
Archaeological Site: UMM EL-GA`AB/UMM EL-QA`AB
Category: VASE
Material: POTTERY
Technique: FORMED BY HAND; ENGRAVED; ENGRAVED
Height: 34 cm

Translation:

High priest of Osiris, Sawypaankh
Osiris, lord of the necropolis
Godsfather, priest of Osiris and scribe of the army, Wenennefer.

Bibliography:

L. Speleers, Recueil des inscriptions égyptiennes des Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire à Bruxelles, Bruxelles 1923, 60 nº 251
L. Limme, in Schrijfkunst uit het Oude Egypte - Écritures de l'Égypte ancienne, Bruxelles 1992, 34-35


The tomb of "Osiris"

It is sometimes difficult for us to completely comprehend the great antiquity of Egypt. Consider the fact that by Egypt's 12th Dynasty, some of the tombs of the 1st Dynasty (and earlier) kings of Egypt at Abydos were already over one thousand years old. Yet the Egyptians of that later period in the Middle Kingdom knew that Umm el Ga'ab held the gravesites of Egypt's first kings and thus, they believed, of Osiris himself. These Egyptians investigated this necropolis around the 11th Dynasty, and though we do not know what sort of evidence they used to make their selection, chose the Tomb of Djer as that of Osiris.

At first, the attention given to the tomb was limited, though we see some limited dedications such as an offering table attributable to the 11th Dynasty king Montuhotep III, and a stela fragment we believe may have been contributed by Amenemhet II. However, by the 13th Dynasty, actually as Egypt sank into the Second Intermediate Period, the site began to receive monumental attention, and even as early as the end of the 12th Dynasty, many Egyptians desired to be buried at Umm el Ga'ab. Those who could not be buried there at least wanted to leave some memorial at the site, from a simple votive stela to a full scale cenotaph tomb.

So predominant was the desire to build in this area that eventually, a King Wagaf who presumably was the founder of the 13th Dynasty, erected four stelae in order to mark the sacred area, which was the key part of the wadi leading towards the Tomb of Djer (now the Tomb of Osiris). These stelae, of which one was preserved and placed in the Egyptian Antiquity Museum in Cairo, warned against trespassing and any attempt to build in the area under penalty of death by burning. Hence, we know that people were encroaching on the sacred ground itself with their building projects. Many people came to watch an enactment of a play surrounding Osiris which is referred to as the "Passion Play", and while visiting for this purpose, attempted to obtain preferable lots of land.

From this point onward, the "Tomb of Osiris" grew in importance. Hence, King Khendjer, who ruled soon after King Wagaf, adorned the tomb with the fine basalt image of the recumbent god discovered by Emile Amelineau and Neferhotep I, who was Khendjer's fourth successor to the throne and a fairly prominent ruler for the 13th Dynasty, usurped the four Stelae erected by King Wagaf. He also left behind a sandstone stela that was unearthed by Auguste Mariette near the entrance of the Osiris temple. It describes how Neferhotep I went to the Temple of Re-Atum at Iunu (Heliopolis) to research the correct forms due to Osiris, and afterwards, made renovations deemed necessary and exhorted the Osiris priesthood to maintain them.

The popularity of Umm el Ga'ab and the "Tomb of Osiris" continued into Egypt's late antiquity, only ending with the Persian invasion, though some offerings continued to be placed here even as late as the Roman period.

Sources:
http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/detail.aspx?id=133
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/djertomb.htm

More mysteries of Tutankhamun

The mystery of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun continues to fascinate Egyptologists as a new controversy reveals, writes Nevine El-Aref

This week the ancient Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun is in the limelight once again, with the image of his golden mask decorated with precious stones featuring in many international magazines and newspapers.

However, the current interest in the boy king is not because of his treasured funerary collection, his lineage, or the causes behind his early death, but instead because of the way in which he was mummified.

According to a study carried out by professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (AUC) Salima Ikram, Tutankhamun was unusually embalmed by priests of the god Amun in an attempt to quash the religious revolution carried out by his father and predecessor the monotheistic king Akhnaten.

The latter had called for the worship of only one deity, the sun god Aten, and the abandonment of the ancient Egyptians’ other gods.

When Akhnaten’s son Tutankhamun came to the throne, he returned Egypt to its traditional religion of worshipping a diverse set of deities at the top of which was the god Amun.
To ensure that this conversion continued after Tutankhamun’s death and to abort any further religious revolution, Ikram suggests in her paper that the priests mummified Tutankhamun’s corpse in an unusual way to make him appear as Osiris, the god of the afterlife and the land of Egypt.

King Tut's Mummified Erect Penis May Point to Ancient Religious Struggle

By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor   |   January 02, 2014

Egypt's King Tutankhamun was embalmed in an unusual way, including having his penis mummified at a 90-degree angle, in an effort to combat a religious revolution unleashed by his father, a new study suggests.

The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire.

These anomalies have received both scholarly and media attention in recent years, and a new paper in the journal Études et Travaux by Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo, proposes a reason why they, and other Tutankhamun burial anomalies, exist.

The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies  were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.

One Mummy, Many Coffins: Egyptians Intended to Transform Deceased from Human to Deity

Aug. 23, 2013 — The Egyptian elite was buried in a coffin placed inside another coffin -- in ensembles of up to eight coffins. This was intended to ensure the transformation of the deceased from human to deity, according to Anders Bettum, Egyptologist.

"Boxes and other forms of containers are technologies that arise at given points of time in various cultures. Everybody knows the ancient Egyptian practice of mummifying their dead. What is perhaps less known is that they placed the mummies inside layer upon layer of coffins," says Anders Bettum, Egyptologist at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo.

A similar idea can be found with Russian dolls, Chinese boxes and even Norwegian poetry traditions.

"The Egyptian coffin sets are based on the same principle that we can observe with Chinese boxes and Russian nested matryoshka dolls, where objects are nested inside each other to constitute a complete ensemble," he says.

Ancient Egyptian history encompasses a period of nearly three thousand years, up to the Roman conquest in the year 30 BCE. Today, museums all over the world possess mummies or coffins that have contained mummies of more or less prominent men and women.

The child king Tutankhamun (1334-24 BCE) was buried in as many as eight coffins, according to Bettum.

"For men and women who were members of the ancient Egyptian elite at that time, three or four coffins were not unusual," he adds.

Museum Pieces - Statue of Antinous

Antinous/Osiris

From Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa, Pecile (1736 excavations)
Period of Hadrian131-138 AD
White marble
Height 241 cm.
cat. 22795.
The Vatican Museum

Statue of the divinity Antinous/Osiris in white marble, signifying Upper Egypt. The statues of the Serapeum of the Canopus demonstrate how the emperor Hadrian had deified his favourite Antinous, who drowned precisely in the canal called the Canopus which linked Alexandria to the main branch of the Nile, through his assimilation with Osiris, the god who dies and is reborn, in his turn already associated by the Ptolomies with Serapis, Alexandrian divinity of salvation.


About Antinous:

Antinous was born to a Greek family in Bithynion-Claudiopolis, in the Roman province of Bithynia in what is now north-west Turkey. One version is that Antinous joined the entourage of the Emperor when Hadrian passed through Bithynia in about 124, and soon became his beloved companion who accompanied him on his many journeys through the empire. Another version has it that Hadrian had the empire searched for the most beautiful youth, and chose Antinous. Although some have suggested the two might have had a romantic relationship, it is uncertain if this was true.

In October 130, according to Hadrian, cited by Dio Cassius, "Antinous was drowned in the Nilus". (D.C. 69.11) It is not known for certain whether his death was the result of accident, suicide, murder, or (voluntary) religious sacrifice, but the last is best supported by the surviving evidence.

At Antinous's death the emperor decreed his deification, and the 2nd century Christian writer Tatian mentions a belief that his likeness was placed over the face of the Moon, though this may be exaggerated due to his anti-pagan polemical style.

Museum Pieces - Painted wooden figure of Osiris

From the tomb of Anhai, Akhmin, Egypt

Late New Kingdom, around 1090 BC

Standing on a plinth in which was hidden Anhai's Book of the Dead

From the Nineteenth Dynasty (about 1295-1186 BC), figures of Osiris were included in the tombs of the wealthy. The body or the plinth was often hollow, and contained the tomb owner's Book of the Dead, the series of spells which were an essential guide to reaching the Afterlife safely. When the Book of the Dead was first produced, it was placed in the coffin with the mummy of the deceased. It was later concealed within a figure of Osiris, whose protection was thereby ensured.

This statue belonging to Anhai shows Osiris in his usual mummified state, wearing the characteristic atef crown, rather like the royal white crown, but with an ostrich feather on either side. He holds the crook and flail of kingship, identifying him as ruler of the dead. Instead of being shown swathed in white bandages, his upper body is covered with a brightly patterned fabric.

C.A.R. Andrews, Egyptian mummies (London, The British Museum Press, 1984)

Museum and Photocredit: The British Museum

Source: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/p/painted_wooden_figure_of_osi-1.aspx

Out of the sea

Jenny Jobbins looks at the regional myths that ancient Egyptians associated with the creation of the world and finds an uncanny parallel with what science teaches us today


The Egyptians believed that the various ramifications of the sun god — Horus, the rising sun; Ra and Ra-Harakhte, the full sun; and Osiris, the setting sun — governed their lives and the lives of all living animals and plants. But how did they explain the creation of that world?
Their theory of creation depended on where — and, to some extent, when — they lived, and was woven around the cults of the different regional divinities. The main cult centres were in Hermopolis, Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes.
To some extent there were common factors in these regional myths. In the beginning was chaos, envisaged as a vast ocean called Nu. From these waters rose a primaeval land mound, the pyramid-shaped benben, and at the same time life emerged from the benben’s rich, alluvial soil.

THE ENNEAD OF HELIOPOLIS: If you were born during the Old Kingdom in the area around Heliopolis, just to the northeast of modern Cairo, you would have grown up in the midst of a spiritually and politically charged atmosphere in the shade of the temple at the centre of the cult of Ra-Harakhte. Only one remnant remains today of this temple, Egypt’s first known temple to the sun god: the obelisk of Senusert I.
The people of Heliopolis (ancient Iwnw) attributed the creation to Atum, a deity who was associated with the sun-god Ra. Atum was the first god: he created himself, emerging on the primaeval mound from the water, Nu. According to the Heliopolitan myth, Atum single-handedly created his progeny, each with an element linked to the physical world. First he sneezed the air god with the onomatopoeic name of Shu, and spat out Shu’s sister, Tefnut. Shu and Tefnut were the parents of Geb, the Earth god, and Nut, the sky goddess. Despite being separated by their father, Shu, Geb and Nut nevertheless produced Isis, goddess of motherhood; Osiris, god of vegetation and resurrection; Set, god of the desert and of storms; and the protector goddess Nephtys. These nine gods, the family of the omnipotent Atum, formed the Ennead of Heliopolis. The hierarchy was perpetuated through the Pyramid Texts, which accompanied the deceased pharaoh and instructed him on how to conduct himself on his passage to the afterlife.
Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, and Anubis, son of Set and Nephtys, were the offspring of the last four members of the original Ennead.

Abydos: Egyptian Tombs & Cult of Osiris

by Owen Jarus


Located in Upper Egypt about six miles (10 km) from the Nile River, the site of Abydos played a pivotal role in ancient Egyptian religious life.

The earliest kings of Egypt, including those from the first dynasty of Egypt’s history (3000-2890 B.C.), appear to have been buried at Abydos. Their tombs and funerary enclosures may have been a first step on an ancient architectural journey that would see the Great Pyramids constructed centuries later.

In later times, Abydos would become a cult center for Osiris, god of the underworld. A temple dedicated to him flourished at Abydos, and every year a great procession was held that would see an image of Osiris carried from his temple to a tomb the Egyptians believed to be his (it actually belonged to a first dynasty king named Djer), and back, to great fanfare.

"There's a really neat reference on some of the Middle Kingdom (4,000 to 3,600 years ago) material to hearing the sound of jubilation," archaeologist Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner told LiveScience in an interview on new discoveries at the site. Her team excavates in an area the ancient Egyptians called the “Terrace of the Great God,” which contains a series of private and royal chapels that were built lining this processional route.

Archaeologist Josef Wegner, in an article written in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2001) estimates that Abydos covers about 5 square miles (8 square km). He notes that while many discoveries have been made, much of the site is still unexplored. “The greater part of the site, however, remains concealed beneath the sand, a fact recognized in the Arabic name of the modern town: Arabah el-Madfunah (‘the buried Arabah’).”

Seth, God of Conflict

(Set, Suty, Sutekh) Son of Geb and Nut, Seth is a God of physical vigor and voracious sexual appetite in open conflict with social order and emotional bonds. While there are important contexts in which Seth’s activity is positive, most notably in his defense of the boat of Re against the attacks of Apophis, the great symbol of entropy, he is most well known as the murderer of his brother Osiris and for unsuccessfully vying for worldly sovereignty against Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris and the embodiment of legitimacy and civilization. In the conflict with Horus, Seth represents the principle that might makes right, as well as all the wild elements of human nature that resist civilization. Especially in his animal guises, or as the God of storms, Seth embodies the points at which nature itself comes into conflict with the human world, resisting domestication, or the points at which humans seek justification for their exploitation of nature, as in myths which sanctify the use of animal flesh in sacred contexts by identifying the animals in question with Seth or his followers. Seth’s positive aspects come to be expressed less and less over the course of Egyptian history, especially after the 20th dynasty, when a reaction against the foreign Hyksos dynasty who had taken Seth as their patron seems to have caused a precipitous decline in Seth’s cult. Whatever role contingent historical factors may have played in this fall from favor, it is also clearly to be attributed to the increasing centrality of the Osirian mythos in Egyptian culture, and perhaps as well as to the smaller accomodation afforded the wild, undisciplined aspects of life in an increasingly orderly and legalistic society. 

At his most positive, Seth represents vigor and strength, but in a form which would ruthlessly displace the weaker were it not kept in check. This force is constructive when channeled against either entropy itself (Apophis) or some other brute elemental force like the sea, subdued by Seth in a fragmentary myth. A candid recognition of Seth’s change in status can be seen in the so-called ‘Memphite Theology’, in which it is recounted that Geb, judging between Horus and Seth, initially resolves their conflict by dividing the nation, making Seth king of Upper (Southern) Egypt, “the place in which he was born,” and Horus king of Lower (Northern) Egypt, “the place in which his father was drowned,” but, as the text goes on to explain, “then it seemed wrong to Geb that the portion of Horus was like the portion of Seth. So Geb gave to Horus his [Horus'] inheritance, for he [Horus] is the son of the firstborn son,” (Lichtheim vol. 1, 52) thus awarding Horus sovereignty over the totality of a unified Egypt. Seth is a God to whom Egyptians, whether kings or commoners, had recourse, however, in war or in illness, life-or-death struggles where physical strength and combat prowess would be decisive. He occurs as well in certain images of balance and totality, such as in images of coronation or of the sma tawy, the ‘uniting of the (two) lands’, in which Seth represents Upper Egypt and Horus represents Lower Egypt, although there is a tendency later to replace Seth with Thoth in these contexts as Seth falls into disfavor.

Horus, The Hawk-headed God

(Sometimes Heru, or in compounds Hor-, Har-, Her-) Among the most ubiquitous of Egyptian Gods, Horus embodies kingship, victory, righteousness, and civilization. Horus is depicted either as a hawk-headed man or as a hawk, probably a peregrine falcon, except when he is depicted as a child (Harpocrates) in which case he is depicted anthropomorphically. From the earliest period, the king of Egypt was identified to some degree with Horus, and each pharaoh bore a ‘Horus name’ to which was later added a ‘Golden Horus name’. The Eye of Horus, known as the ‘Sound Eye’ or wedjat, from the word w-dj- (cf. Wadjet), meaning healthy, flourishing, or prosperous, or, as a verb, to proceed or attain, ranks as one of the most important and recognizable symbols in Egyptian religion. The typical consort of Horus is the Goddess Hathor, whose name means ‘House of Horus’. (In magical contexts, however, Tabithet and/or similar Goddesses may be his consort.)

The two primary aspects of Horus from which the rest can be derived—not as an historical matter, but for conceptual purposes—are Haroeris and Harsiese. The former is the Hellenized phonetic rendering of the name Hor-Wer, ‘Horus the Elder’ or ‘Horus the Great’, the latter the phonetic rendering of Hor-sa-Ise, ‘Horus son of Isis‘. Haroeris is conceived as the sky, with the sun and the moon as his right and left eyes respectively, but we may regard forms of Horus which strongly emphasize his solar aspect (often expressed by fusion with Re, on which see below) as pertaining generally to this side of his character. This aspect of Horus is relatively autonomous in relation to the Osirian mythos and may represent the form of Horus worshiped in the earliest period before he was fully incorporated into the Osirian narrative, if indeed there ever was such a time. The purpose of drawing such a distinction is not to make this claim, but simply to facilitate the analysis of the many aspects in which Horus is manifest. Harsiese, by contrast, is the son of Isis and Osiris, who, with his mother’s help, vindicates his father (hence he is called Harendotes, from the Egyptian Hor-nedj-atef[-f], ‘Horus-savior-of-[his]-father’) and is awarded the cosmic sovereignty after a lengthy conflict with his uncle Seth. This conflict, in which Horus receives constant assistance from Isis, is fought on many levels—magical, juridical, cosmic, medical—and is, aside from the conflict between Re and Apophis, the principal symbol of conflict as such in Egyptian religious thought. When Egypt’s pharaoh strives against enemies foreign or domestic, it is as Horus against Seth; when a person suffers from an illness or from the poison of a snake or scorpion, the spells which are applied identify the sufferer with Horus and the forces against which s/he strives with Seth. Animal products offered up to the Gods, because of the violence involved in their production, are linked to the recovery of the Eye of Horus stolen by Seth in the form of a wild animal (paradigmatically an oryx). When Horus and Seth fight, Horus receives an injury to his eye, Seth to his testicles (see, e.g., BD spell 99, “O Ferryman, bring me this which was brought to Horus for his eye, which was brought to Seth for his testicles.”)

Abydos: Life and Death at the Dawn of Egyptian Civilization

by John Galvin

Evidence shows that human sacrifice helped populate the royal city of the dead.

King Aha, "The Fighter," was not killed while unifying the Nile's two warring kingdoms, nor while building the capital of Memphis. No, one legend has it that the first ruler of a united Egypt was killed in a hunting accident after a reign of 62 years, unceremoniously trampled to death by a rampaging hippopotamus. News of his demise brought a separate, special terror to his staff. For many, the honor of serving the king in life would lead to the more dubious distinction of serving the king in death.
 
On the day of Aha's burial a solemn procession made its way through the sacred precincts of Abydos, royal necropolis of Egypt's first kings. Led by priests in flowing white gowns, the funeral retinue included the royal family, vizier, treasurer, administrators, trade and tax officers, and Aha's successor, Djer. Just beyond the town's gates the procession stopped at a monumental structure with imposing brick walls surrounding an open plaza. Inside the walls the priests waded through a cloud of incense to a small chapel, where they performed cryptic rites to seal Aha's immortality.
 
Outside, situated around the enclosure's walls, were six open graves. In a final act of devotion, or coercion, six people were poisoned and buried along with wine and food to take into the afterlife. One was a child of just four or five, perhaps the king's beloved son or daughter, who was expensively furnished with ivory bracelets and tiny lapis beads.
 
The procession then walked westward into the setting sun, crossing sand dunes and moving up a dry riverbed to a remote cemetery at the base of a high desert plateau. Here Aha's three-chambered tomb was stockpiled with provisions for a lavish life in eternity. There were large cuts of ox meat, freshly killed waterbirds, loaves of bread, cheese, dried figs, jars of beer, and dozens of wine vessels, each bearing Aha's official seal. Beside his tomb more than 30 graves were laid out in three neat rows. As the ceremony climaxed, several lions were slain and placed in a separate burial pit. As Aha's body was lowered into a brick-lined burial chamber, a select group of loyal courtiers and servants also took poison and joined their king in the next world.
 

Isis: Sister, Wife and Mother

A Goddess of enormous popularity within Egypt, Isis is also alone among the Gods of Egypt in having achieved widespread international popularity in antiquity, her worship extending to the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire and even beyond. The name Isis comes from an Egyptian word meaning ‘throne’, and she is characteristically depicted as a woman bearing the sign of a throne on her head. In later times, however, it is very common for her to bear the solar disk with cow’s horns and uraeus cobra, a crown classically belonging to Hathor, but which becomes as characteristic of Isis as the crown which is peculiar to her. (Strictly speaking, Hathor’s crown associates Isis with the wider defense of the cosmic order (Re), beyond her strict focus on the defense of the mortal (Osiris).) Also typical of Isis, although not restricted to her, is the vulture headdress which belongs strictly speaking to Nekhbet, but which is appropriate to any Goddess strongly linked to Upper Egypt. Her own avian identification, however, is with the black kite or kestrel, in which form she may be depicted. She is also frequently depicted in human form but for a pair of outstretched wings extending along the line of her arms. Isis is associated as well with the scorpion; a group of seven of them, who are even individually named, escort her and Horus in a spell to treat a scorpion’s sting (no. 90 in Borghouts). Among the most popular amulets in Egypt was the tyet, which is associated with Isis. The amulet, sometimes known as the ‘Isis knot’, has the form of a vaguely human-shaped knot and is colored red or carved from a red stone to embody the power of her menstrual blood, as we read in BD spell 156, which charges the amulet with the words, “Thou hast thy blood, Isis; thou hast thy power, Isis; thou hast thy magic, Isis.” In Graeco-Roman statuary, Isiac priestesses are depicted with a knot of this shape in their robes.

Religion in the Lives of the Ancient Egyptians

by Emily Teeter & Douglas J. Brewer

Because the role of religion in Euro-American culture differs so greatly from that in ancient Egypt, it is difficult to fully appreciate its significance in everyday Egyptian life. In Egypt, religion and life were so interwoven that it would have been impossible to be agnostic. Astronomy, medicine, geography, agriculture, art, and civil law--virtually every aspect of Egyptian culture and civilization--were manifestations of religious beliefs.

Most aspects of Egyptian religion can be traced to the people's observation of the environment. Fundamental was the love of sunlight, the solar cycle and the comfort brought by the regular rhythms of nature, and the agricultural cycle surrounding the rise and fall of the Nile. Egyptian theology attempted, above all else, to explain these cosmic phenomena, incomprehensible to humans, by means of a series of understandable metaphors based upon natural cycles and understandable experiences. Hence, the movement of the sun across the sky was represented by images of the sun in his celestial boat crossing the vault of heaven or of the sun flying over the sky in the form of a scarab beetle. Similarly, the concept of death was transformed from the cessation of life into a mirror image of life wherein the deceased had the same material requirements and desires.

Origins and nature of the gods

It is almost impossible to enumerate the gods of the Egyptians, for individual deities could temporarily merge with each other to form syncretistic gods (Amun-Re, Re-Harakhty, Ptah-Sokar, etc.) who combined elements of the individual gods. A single god might also splinter into a multiplicity of forms (Amun-em-Opet, Amun-Ka-Mutef, Amun of Ipet-swt), each of whom had an independent cult and role. Unlike the gods of the Graeco-Roman world, most Egyptian gods had no definite attributes. For example, Amun, one of the most prominent deities of the New Kingdom and Late Period, is vaguely referred to in secondary literature as the "state god" because his powers were so widespread and encompassing as to be indefinable.

To a great extent, gods were patterned after humans--they were born, some died (and were reborn), and they fought amongst themselves. Yet as much as the gods' behavior resembled human behavior, they were immortal and always superior to humans.

Osiris, God of Mortality

Osiris is the God of mortality and of the mortal being as mortal, hence in the ultimate stages of the development of Egyptian theology, any deceased individual is identified with Osiris, as is reflected by the use of ‘Osiris N.’ to refer to the deceased in the collections of afterlife literature known as the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, where the conventional ‘N.’ of the translators represents the insertion of the name of the person on whose behalf the copy of the text was produced. This identification bridges gender, males and females alike being referred to as ‘Osiris’ in this context, albeit occasionally Hathor replaced Osiris as the vehicle of divine identification for the female deceased; and the Osirian identification apparently bridged species as well, since as animals who received funerary rites, such as the Apis bull, could be ‘Osirianized’ as well. Osiris is depicted anthropomorphically, virtually always mummiform, holding the crook and flail, symbols of royalty, and the atef crown, which resembles the ‘white crown’ of Upper Egypt but with two plumes on either side. The skin color of Osiris is generally green, symbolizing vegetative life and renewal. No single convincing interpretation of the name ‘Osiris’ has come forward (for the various hypotheses, see J. G. Griffiths, “Osiris,” in Helck and Otto), but the Os- component is written with the same sign – a throne, with the meaning ‘seat’ or ‘place’ – as the Is- component in the name Isis, while the -ir component is written with an eye, as the verb ‘to make’, hence the wordplay of PT utterance 684: “the King will take his place as Osiris,” or “make his seat like Osiris.” A connection to the word wsr, ‘mighty’, has also been suggested. The most characteristic epithet of Osiris is wn-nfr, or ‘Onnophris’, meaning ‘Enduring in well-being/the good’.