The Egyptian Book of the dead

The text of this chapter handed down by the Turin papyrus and those which agree with it contains nothing very difficult for a translator, but on being compared with the older copies it is found to consist of a collection of small fragments of the older text put together without any regard to their original order or context. And about three-quarters of the old chapter are suppressed in the new recension.

The editors of the fine papyrus of Sutimes in their notes upon this chapter remark, that in the Turin text the sentences are in quite a different order from that of their papyrus, “On peut y voir,” they say, “l’effet de lectures et de transcriptions en rebours du sens, par des scribes ayant mal compris les éditions en colonnes rétrogrades.”

This is, curiously enough, the very fault of the papyrus of Sutimes itself, which is here wrong from beginning to end,[98] though probably derived from an excellent original. It begins with the “Isle of Corn and Barley,” and jumbles together quite incoherent sentences.

The oldest copy of the chapter yet discovered is that of the Tomb of Chā-em-hait, at Thebes, and by a strange fatality it has been published in such a form that in order to read it correctly, we must begin with what is printed as line 11 and finish with line 1. We have it also in a very incomplete condition. We miss the first eighteen lines contained in the papyrus of Nebseni and the last words of every line.

The papyrus of Nebseni is the only complete text we have, and here as well as elsewhere it is extremely incorrect. Some parts are so corrupt that a translation must necessarily be dependent upon conjectural emendations which can have no genuine claim upon the reader’s confidence. We must be content with waiting till better authorities are discovered.

The Gardens of Hotepit and Aarru are the Paradise, Elysian Fields and Islands of the Blessed of the Egyptian imagination.[99] They were supposed to be situated in the neighbourhood of the rising Sun, but certain features were apparently suggested by the islets of the Delta.

The usual meaning of the word Ḥotepit, ,[100] when written according to the orthography of the Pyramid Texts, is oblations, offerings. This, however, is only a derived meaning. The word really only expresses a predicate of the things offered, as putting together, uniting, reconciling; Ḥotep might signify Rest, or Peace; very appropriate names for such a garden. is the name of a god who dwells here.[101] There is also a goddess here called Ḥotepit , mentioned in the Pyramid inscription of Pepi I (line 423), as mother of the great Scarab: and the same name is given to Hathor in the temple of Dendera. The name of Ḥotep (with different determinatives[102]) belongs to one of the islands of this blissful place.

The Pyramid Texts furnish some interesting information not contained in the Book of the Dead. We are told that the approach to the Garden is over the Lake of Putrata (see chapter 40, note 1), that there is a great lake (? that of Konsit) in the middle of the Garden of Ḥotepit, upon which the great gods alight, and that the Achmiu Sekiu, the starry deities who never set, there feed the departed from the wood of life ( lignum vitæ) “upon which they themselves live, in order that he too may live.” Shu and Tefnut are mentioned as divinities of this place. But perhaps the most remarkable fact is that Horus had enemies even here, who, however, were annihilated by the divine weapons at the disposal of the departed worthy, who was led there in order that “he might sit among the stars in heaven.”

And here it was that the beatified personage sat upon his throne of steel, which was decorated in front with faces of the lion-god Maaḥes, the feet of it being the hoofs of the great Bull Sma-urà, and extended his hand to the coming generation of men (the ), whilst the gods approached him in submissive attitude, and made offerings to him. It was, perhaps, from these offerings that the Garden derived its name.

It takes its name from a plant ȧarru (later, , B.M. 551; , Ag, Chapter 17; ,[103] Ba, Chapter 110, by phonetic dissimilation of rr into nr). The usual form in later times is , but we find even shorter forms in , B.M. 32, and . The determinative of a reptile, indicates a creeping, climbing, twining plant, such as the convolvulus, hop, or vine.[104]

1.Rise in Hotepit, or (later on) Hotep, is the name of one of the localities. The word as I have often said, has the sense of rising up, coming to light, making an appearance, and like the Greek φαίνομαι is especially applicable to the appearance of daybreak, or the rise of the heavenly bodies.

3. This, of course, sounds like nonsense, but so does the original as it has come down to us. The papyrus of Ani, which reads , forces the sense of day upon the sign , which in the sense of turn would have been far more intelligible. There was the ‘Portion of Sutu,’ and the ‘Portion of Horus,’ each being half the world, topographically, or half the twenty-four hours as regards time.

I suspect that ‘day’ is a faulty interpretation of the ambiguous , and that the true sense of the passage is that Sutu is satisfied with the share which comes to his turn, and thereupon delivers Horus from imprisonment in the lower world. The perplexity, or ignorance of the copyists is seen in the very next words. One has ‘he who is in Merit,’ others ‘he who is in my mouth,’ and two ‘he who is in the egg,’ if this be the sense of the very questionable group , which looks like a mistake for , a well known title of Anubis.

5.His papyrus. So the word meḥit, which occurs in the rubric of Chapter 134, has hitherto been translated. But the vases or , as determinatives, rather imply ‘inkstand’ or ‘palette for holding colour.’ In this place it is the writing itself and not the material, paper, ink or inkstand, which is meant. And from the entire context Thoth is the god who is spoken of.

8.Let my arteries be made fast, and let me have the enjoyment of the Breeze, or that I may have enjoyment. The oldest meaning of the word artery, ἀρτηρία, in Hippocrates, Aristotle and the earlier Latin writers is wind-pipe, and, in the plural, air-ducts. But, even when the word was also applied to what we call arteries, these were supposed to convey air whilst the veins conveyed blood. “Sanguis per venas in omne corpus diffunditur et spiritus per arterias” is the classic doctrine in Cicero (de Natura Deorum, 2, 55). Pliny says (Nat. Hist., XI, 89), “arteriae carent sensu: nam et sanguine.” This error is corrected by Galen, who has a treatise on the question “Whether Blood is naturally (κὰτα φύσιν) contained in the arteries?” The error of the ancients arose from the arteries always being found empty after death. The blood flowing from a wound inflicted upon them was inferred to have been intruded into them by the rupture of the veins. The Egyptian doctrine of the ‘arteries’ (Coptic ϩⲁⲛⲙⲟⲩⲧ) in the head, by means of which air is conveyed to all parts of the person, was first found by M. Chabas in the Berlin Medical papyrus. The passage of the Book of the Dead on which this note is written is no doubt the earliest allusion to the doctrine.

9.Hesit [the Cow-goddess] , , , is one of the many names of Isis or Hathor. She is represented as suckling her son Horus (see picture in Lanzone, p. 844), and it is this which characterizes her and from which she derives her name. She is asked on the Louvre tablet (c. 14) for “the white liquor which the glorified ones love.” This is distinctly called ‘milk’ on the Florentine tablet 2567, and vases of her milk are mentioned (Dümichen, Resultate, 27, 6) in the inscriptions of Dendera. A picture of her given in Dümichen’s Historische Inschriften (II, 32) identifies her with Hathor, and calls her “divine mother, mistress of heaven and sovereign of the gods,” while others call her “the divine mother and fair nurse.”

There can be no doubt about the right reading of the name which is Ḥesit; the is written in so many texts (see Pepi, I, 306, Amamu, 21, 1, Lepsius, Auswahl, IX, and the form at Philae), that there is no reason for confounding the name with that of ḥetemit. We must therefore attach no importance to this latter name when applied in the vignette of the Turin Todtenbuch to one of the divine abodes which bears the name of the goddess, and is written exactly like it.

, , is a word of very rare occurrence. Birch and Naville understood it of the netting, and Brugsch, of the pluming of birds. Both meanings may be disputed, but whatever Shu did, was done to birds, and these are said to be given to the deceased.

13.He is in heaven. The reading to which Brugsch at one time attached much importance, has turned out to be one of the many blunders of the text of Sutimes. But the true reading is not without its difficulties. If is taken as equivalent to we have a strange anticipation of a change in language of which the “enigmatical” texts of the royal tombs[105] give the first intimation, but which first becomes conspicuous in the demotic period. In a previous passage we have , where Nebseni has . But the important preposition had already dropped out of the earlier text of Chāemhait. The demonstrative particle which occurs in both places may be rendered ‘there [he is],’ ‘le voilà.’

14.I salute the stream of T’eserit: a corrupt passage like so many others in this chapter. The first word ‘salute’ is rare but correct and well attested. The proper name is but one of the contradictory readings. It has, however, the advantage of being a real name and suitable to the passage, being that of a goddess mentioned in connection with the next abode. T’eserit is a name corresponding to the classical Ἀγλαιαv or Clara.[106] In the texts of the Royal Tombs she is named as goddess in Cher-āba. And here[107] she is depicted as the goddess with long or flowing locks (εὐπλόκαμος) and armed with horns. She is one of the forms of Isis or Hathor.