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Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts
The literature that makes up the ancient Egyptian funerary texts is a collection of religious documents that were used in ancient Egypt, usually to help the spirit of the concerned person to be preserved in the afterlife. They evolved over time, beginning with the Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom through the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom and into several books, most famously the Book of the Dead, in the New Kingdom and later times. Old Kingdom The funerary texts of the Old Kingdom were initially reserved for the king only. Towards the end of the period, the texts appeared in the tombs of royal wives. Middle Kingdom These are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period. Nearly half of the spells in the Coffin Texts derive from those in the Pyramid Texts. New Kingdom *Book of the Dead *Amduat *Spell of the Twelve Caves *The Book of Gates *Book of the Netherworld *Book of Caverns *Book of the Earth *Litany o ...
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Book Of Caverns
The Book of Caverns is an important ancient Egyptian netherworld book of the New Kingdom.Hornung (1999) p.83 Like all other netherworld books, it is also attested on the inside of kings’ tombs for the benefit of the deceased. It describes the journey of the sun god Ra through the six caverns of the underworld, focusing on the interaction between the sun god and the inhabitants of the netherworld, including rewards for the righteous and punishments for the enemies of the worldly order, those who fail their judgment in the afterlife. The Book of Caverns is one of the best sources of information about the Egyptian concept of hell. The Book of Caverns originated in the 13th century BC in the Ramesside Period. The earliest known version of this work is on the left hand wall of the Osireion in Abydos. Later it appears in the tomb of Ramesses IV in the Valley of the Kings. This appearance was already recorded by the founding father of Egyptology Jean François Champollion in hi ...
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Book Of Traversing Eternity
The Book of Traversing Eternity is an ancient Egyptian funerary text used primarily in the Roman period of Egyptian history (30 BC – AD 390). The earliest known copies date to the preceding Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC), making it most likely that the book was composed at that time.Hornung, Erik (1999). ''The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife'', Cornell University Press, pp. 151–152 The book describes the deceased soul as visiting temples in Egypt and participating in the cycle of periodic religious rituals, particularly those related to the funerary god Osiris. Some scholars have seen the book's content as a description of the Duat, similar to the "underworld books" from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC). Others, such as Jan Assmann, have argued that the book describes the deceased as joining with the religious community of the living. Erik Hornung says that in the ''Book of Traversing Eternity'' "the realm of the dead was brought into this life, and this other ...
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Books Of Breathing
The Books of Breathing ( ar, كتاب التنفس, Kitab al-Tanafus) are several late ancient Egyptian funerary texts, intended to enable deceased people to continue to exist in the afterlife. The earliest known copy dates to about 350 BC.Hornung 1999, pp. 23–25 Other copies come from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history, as late as the second century AD. It is a simplified form of the Book of the Dead. The books were originally named ''The Letter for Breathing Which Isis Made for Her Brother Osiris'', ''The First Letter for Breathing'', and ''The Second Letter for Breathing''. They appear in many varying copies, and scholars have often confused them with each other. Their titles use the word "breathing" as a metaphorical term for all the aspects of life that the deceased hoped to experience again in the afterlife. The texts exhort various Egyptian gods to accept the deceased into their company. Some of the papyri that Joseph Smith said to use to translate the ...
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Book Of The Heavenly Cow
The ''Book of the Heavenly Cow'' ( ar, كتاب البقرة السماوية '), or the ''Book of the Cow of Heaven'', is an Ancient Egyptian text thought to have originated during the Amarna Period and, in part, describes the reasons for the imperfect state of the world in terms of humankind's rebellion against the supreme sun god, Ra. Divine punishment was inflicted through the goddess Hathor, with the survivors suffering through separation from Ra, who now resided in the sky on the back of Nut, the heavenly cow. With this "fall", suffering and death came into the world, along with a fracture in the original unity of creation. The supreme god now changes into many heavenly bodies, creates the "Fields of Paradise" for the blessed dead, perhaps appoints Geb as his heir, hands over the rule of humankind to Osiris (Thoth ruling the night sky as his deputy), with Shu and the Heh gods now supporting the sky goddess Nut. Though the text is recorded in the New Kingdom period, ...
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Book Of The Night
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a ...
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Book Of The Day
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's '' Physics'' is ...
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Book Of Nut
The ''Book of Nut'' (original title: ''The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars'') is a collection of ancient Egyptian astronomical texts, also covering various mythological subjects. These texts focus on the cycles of the stars of the decans, the movements of the moon, the sun, and the planets, on the sundials, and related matters. This title was given to the book because of the depiction of the sky goddess Nut arching over the earth in some copies of the text. She is supported by the god of the air Shu. Texts in the ''Book of Nut'' include material from different periods of Egyptian history. The original name of the book, ''The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars'', was discovered by Alexandra von Lieven in one of the manuscript fragments and published in 2007. One of the major themes of the ''Book of Nut'' is the concept of sunrise as the mythological rebirth. Texts There are nine different copies of the book and they have various dates. Three copies are found on ...
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Ramesses IV
Heqamaatre Setepenamun Ramesses IV (also written Ramses or Rameses) was the third pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. He was the second son of Ramesses III and became crown prince when his elder brother Amenherkhepshef died aged 15A. J. Peden, The Reign of Ramesses IV, Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1994. in 1164 BC, when Ramesses was only 12 years old.A. J. Peden, The Reign of Ramesses IV, Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1994. His promotion to crown prince: is suggested by his appearance (suitably entitled) in a scene of the festival of Min at the Ramesses III temple at Karnak, which may have been completed by Year 22 f his father's reign (the date is mentioned in the poem inscribed there)A. J. Peden, The Reign of Ramesses IV, Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1994. As his father's chosen successor, the prince employed three distinctive titles: "Hereditary Prince", "Royal scribe" and "Generalissimo." The latter two titles are mentioned in a text at the temple of Amenhotep III ...
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Nut (goddess)
Nut ( egy, Nwt, cop, Ⲛⲉ), also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the Earth, or as a cow. She was depicted wearing the water-pot sign (nw) that identifies her. Names The pronunciation of ancient Egyptian is uncertain because vowels were long omitted from its writing, although her name often includes the unpronounced determinative hieroglyph for "sky". Her name ', itself also meaning "Sky", is usually transcribed as "Nut" but also sometimes appears in older sources as Nunut, Nent, and Nuit.Budge, ''An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary'' (1920)p. 350 She also appears in the hieroglyphic record by a number of epithets, not all of which are understood. Goddess of the sky Nut is a daughter of Shu and Tefnut. Her brother and husband is Geb. She had four children Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthyst ...
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Amarna Period
The Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the later half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten ('Horizon of the Aten') in what is now Amarna. It was marked by the reign of Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC) in order to reflect the dramatic change of Egypt's polytheistic religion into one where the sun disc Aten was worshipped over all other gods. The Egyptian pantheon was restored under Akhenaten's successor, Tutankhamun. Religious developments Akhenaten instigated the earliest verified expression of a form of monotheism, although the origins of a pure monotheism are the subject of continuing debate within the academic community. Some state that Akhenaten restored monotheism while others point out that he merely suppressed a dominant solar cult by the assertion of another, while never completely abandoning several other traditional deities. Scholars believe that Akhe ...
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Litany Of Re
The Litany of Re (or more fully "''Book of Praying to Re in the West, Praying to the United One in the West''") is an important ancient Egyptian funerary text of the New Kingdom.Hornung (1999) p.136 Like many funerary texts, it was written on the inside of the tomb for reference by the deceased. Unlike other funerary texts, however, it was reserved only for pharaohs or very favored nobility. It is a two-part composition that in the first part invokes the sun, Ra, in 75 different forms. The second part is a series of prayers in which the pharaoh assumes parts of nature and deities, but mostly of the sun god. Developed in the Eighteenth Dynasty, it also praises the king for his union with the sun god, as well as other deities. The text was used in the entrance of most tombs from the time of Seti I, though we first know of it from the burial chamber of Thutmose III and the tomb of his vizier A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranki ...
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