Ancient Egyptian legends

by Margaret Alice Murray

XI. THE REGIONS OF NIGHT AND THICK DARKNESS

Published: Léfébure, Tombeau de Seti I. (Annales du Musée Guimet, ix).

Translated: Jéquier, Livre de ce qu'il y a dans l'Hadès; Budge, Egyptian Heaven and Hell.

The description of the Journey of Ra through the Other World is sculptured on the walls of the tomb of Seti I at Thebes. This is the great tomb discovered by Belzoni in October 1817. The length is 330 feet, and it consists of long corridors, pillared halls, and side-chambers, hewn out of the solid rock. The Book of Am Duat is sculptured on the walls of corridor iii, halls v, vi, and x, and side-chambers xi and xiii. Eleven hours only are given; the twelfth hour, though frequently found on papyri, is rare in sculpture.

There are two versions of the Sun's journey through the Duat. One was called by the Egyptians themselves the Book of that which is in the Other World (Am Duat); the other has no Egyptian name, but is now called the Book of Gates, for in it the gates are more important than the countries which they divide. (For a comparison of the two books, see Budge, Egyptian Heaven and Hell.) The Book of Gates is rarer than the Book of Am Duat, and is found sculptured on sarcophagi; the finest example being the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, now in the Soane Museum in London.

The Book of Am Duat is found both in papyri and on tomb walls, the earliest example of the latter being the tomb of Amenhotep II of the xviiith dynasty. It is a compilation by the theologians of that period; an attempt to combine into one homogeneous whole several distinct ideas of the next world and the life hereafter. The fourth and fifth countries of the Duat are obviously one complete kingdom, ruled by the god Sokar, the Memphite god of the dead. As Memphis was a very important religious centre, its god of the dead and his kingdom had to be included in the Duat of Ra, in spite of the fact that it was a waterless desert, and that it ended with the Morning Star. It was a region totally different from any other kingdom of the hereafter; no river ran through it; it was inhabited by neither gods nor spirits, but by enormous and horrible reptiles. The ingenuity of the compilers of this Book in turning the Boat of Ra into a serpent, which could dispense with the river and glide over the sand, is certainly remarkable.

Another Morning Star appears also in the tenth hour, and the breeze of morning seems to be felt by the goddesses in the eleventh hour, for they raise their hands to shelter their faces from it. Budge (Egyptian Heaven and Hell) suggests also that the Egyptians looked upon the red clouds of the dawn as being tinged with the reflection from the pits of flame. These indications of morning appearing in the wrong place point clearly to the fact of the book being a compilation, more or less clumsy.

The first hour seems to have been added in order to make a good introduction to the compilation. The last hour is evidently a compromise. The most ancient idea with regard to the sunrise was that the Sun was born anew every morning of the Sky-goddess Nut. This theory does not fit with the dogma of the Sun's nightly journey through the Other World in a Boat; therefore the last hour is represented as a dark and tortuous passage symbolising the womb of the goddess. The birth of the Sun was the most important event of the day to his worshippers, consequently the account of the last hour is found frequently on papyri, buried in the graves.

The Duat, or Other World, was generally supposed to be the region lying to the north of Egypt; the delta by the Egyptians of the South; the Mediterranean and its islands by the delta-people.

The Egyptians had an abridgment or summary of this long account of Ka's night-journey. It was always written on papyrus in vertical columns, with all the scenes and long speeches omitted. It gives the name of each gate and country and of the goddess of every hour; sometimes, though not always, the names of the gods who live in the different regions; and always the magical words of Ra to the inhabitants of each land. Felicitous results here and hereafter are promised to all who know the words and scenes thoroughly.