Published: Léfébure, Tombeau de Sety Ie, pt. iii, pls. 15-18 (Annales du Musée Ouimet, ix).
Translated: Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 62. (For a description of the tomb of Sety I see the [Notes on Legend xi]).
This story is sculptured on the walls of a side-chamber off one of the inner halls of the tomb of Sety I (room xii of the guide-books). On one of the walls is a representation of a cow standing under the star-sprinkled vault of heaven. This is Nut, the sky-goddess; she is raised on the uplifted hands of the god Shu, and each leg is supported by two gods; planets, and Boats of the Sun travel across her body. The connection between this representation and the legend is quite uncertain.
The tale occurs only in this one place, but every excavator hopes that he may one day find a tomb with a complete copy of the story sculptured on the walls.
Published: Pleyte and Rossi, Papyrus de Turin, pls. 31, 77, 131-138.
Translated: Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians; p. 54.
This tale is found in a hieratic papyrus of the xxth dynasty (about 1200-1100 B.C.). It is written on both sides; the handwriting on one side differs from the handwriting on the other, showing that it is the work of two scribes. The writing is in black ink with occasional sentences in red. Hieratic is the running hand, derived from the hieroglyphs; the earliest example occurs in the first dynasty; it was superseded by demotic in the latest period of Egyptian history.
This papyrus is not quite complete, but the part containing the legend is fortunately uninjured. The text consists of magical formulae against the bites of serpents. In healing by magic, the magician recited an event in the career of some deity in which the god suffered from the same malady as the human patient then seeking relief. The words which cured the divine patient would also cure the human invalid. The same idea prevails in the legend of the Scorpions of Isis.