The Duat ( egy,
dwꜣt,
Egyptological pronunciation
Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...
"do-aht", cop, ⲧⲏ, also appearing as ''Tuat'', ''Tuaut'' or ''Akert'', ''Amenthes'', ''Amenti'', or ''Neter-khertet'') is the
realm of the dead in ancient
Egyptian mythology
Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world around them. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyp ...
. It has been represented in hieroglyphs as a star-in-circle: 𓇽. The
god
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
Osiris
Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...
was believed to be the lord of the underworld. He was the first mummy as depicted in the
Osiris myth and he personified rebirth and life after death. The underworld was also the residence of various other gods along with Osiris.
The geography of the ''Duat'' is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew: There are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, but there were also fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron, and trees of turquoise. In the ''Book of Two Ways'' (a
Coffin Text
The Coffin Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period. They are partially derived from the earlier Pyramid Texts, reserved for royal use only, but contain substantial ...
) there is even a map-like image of the ''Duat''.
[
]
Resident souls, gods, and demons
The ''Duat'' was also a residence for various gods, including Osiris, Anubis
Anubis (; grc, Ἄνουβις), also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian () is the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depict ...
, Thoth
Thoth (; from grc-koi, Θώθ ''Thṓth'', borrowed from cop, Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ ''Thōout'', Egyptian: ', the reflex of " eis like the Ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or ...
, Horus, Hathor
Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sk ...
, and Maat
Maat or Maʽat ( Egyptian:
mꜣꜥt /ˈmuʀʕat/, Coptic: ⲙⲉⲓ) refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Ma'at was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regul ...
, who all appear to the dead soul as it makes its way toward judgement. In spite of the many demon-like inhabitants of the ''Duat'', it is not equivalent to the conceptions of Hell in the Abrahamic religions
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Jewish tradition ...
, in which souls are condemned with fiery torment. The absolute punishment for the wicked, in ancient Egyptian thought, was the denial of an afterlife to the deceased, ceasing to exist in the intellectual form ( Ancient Egyptian: ꜣḫ; Egypt. Pron.: Akh). The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but rather acted as directed by the gods, to provide the various ordeals that the deceased had to face.[
]
Underworld route of the sun
The ''Duat'' was the region through which the sun god Ra traveled from west to east each night, and it was where he battled Apep, who embodied the primordial chaos which the sun had to defeat in order to rise each morning and bring order back to the earth. It was also the place where people's souls went after death for judgment, though that was not the full extent of the afterlife.[ Burial chambers formed touching-points between the mundane world and the ''Duat''. As such, the west bank of the Nile was associated with the dead and funeral barges would mimic the sun god Ra's journey through the sky during the day. The ''Akh'' (the conscious part of the soul) could use tombs to travel back and forth from the ''Duat''.
][
Each night the sun god Ra travelled through the Duat, bringing revivification to the dead as their main benefit. Ra travelled under the world upon his Atet barge from west to east; on the course of the underground journey, he was transformed from his aged ]Atum
Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology.
Name
Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to c ...
form into his young Khepri form – the new dawning sun. The role of the dead king, worshiped as a god, was also central to the mythology surrounding the concept of Duat, often depicted as being identical with Ra.[
Along with the sun god the dead king travelled through the Duat, the Kingdom of Osiris, using the special knowledge he was supposed to possess, which was recorded in the Coffin Texts, that served as a guide to the hereafter not just for the king but for all deceased. According to the '']Amduat
The Amduat ( egy, jmj dwꜣt, literally "That Which Is In the Afterworld", also translated as "Text of the Hidden Chamber Which is in the Underworld" and "Book of What is in the Underworld"; ar, كتاب الآخرة, Kitab al-Akhira) is an imp ...
'', the underworld consists of twelve regions signifying the twelve hours of the sun god's journey through it, battling Apep in order to bring order back to the earth in the morning; as his rays illuminated the Duat during the journey, they revived the dead who occupied the underworld and let them enjoy life after death during that hour of the night when they were in the presence of the sun god, after which they resumed their sleep, waiting for the god's return the following night.[
]
Place of the dead
The rest of the dead journeyed through the various parts of the Duat to be judged, but not to be unified with the sun god like the dead king. If the deceased was successfully able to pass various demons and challenges, then he or she would reach the ''weighing of the heart''. In this ritual, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis
Anubis (; grc, Ἄνουβις), also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian () is the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depict ...
against the feather of Maat
Maat or Maʽat ( Egyptian:
mꜣꜥt /ˈmuʀʕat/, Coptic: ⲙⲉⲓ) refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Ma'at was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regul ...
, which represents truth and justice.
Any heart that is heavier than the feather failed the test, and was rejected and eaten by Ammit
Ammit (; egy, ꜥm-mwt, "devourer of the dead";Erman, Adolf; Grapow, Hermann (1926-1961) ''Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache'', Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, volume 1, page 184.9 also rendered Ammut or Ahemait) was a goddess in ancient Egyptian ...
, the devourer of souls, as these people were denied existence after death in the Duat. The souls that were lighter than the feather would pass this most important test, and would be allowed to travel toward Aaru __NOTOC__
In ancient Egyptian mythology, Aaru (; egy, jꜣrw "Reeds, rushes"), known also as '' sḫt-jꜣrw'' or the Field of Reeds, is the heavenly paradise where Osiris rules. It has been described as the '' ka'' (a part of the soul) o ...
, the "Field of Rushes", an ideal version of the world they knew of, in which they would plough, sow, and harvest abundant crops.[
]
Sources
What is known of the ''Duat'' derives principally from funerary texts such as the ''Book of Gates
The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom. It narrates the passage of a newly deceased soul into the next world, corresponding to the journey of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night ...
'', the ''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 ...
'', the Coffin Texts, the ''Amduat
The Amduat ( egy, jmj dwꜣt, literally "That Which Is In the Afterworld", also translated as "Text of the Hidden Chamber Which is in the Underworld" and "Book of What is in the Underworld"; ar, كتاب الآخرة, Kitab al-Akhira) is an imp ...
'',[ and the '' Book of the Dead''.][ Each of these documents fulfilled a different purpose and give a different conception of the ''Duat'', and different texts could be inconsistent with one another. Surviving texts differ in age and origin, and there likely was never a single uniform conception of the ''Duat'', as is the case of many theological concepts in ancient Egypt.][
The '' Book of the Dead'' and Coffin Texts were prepared as guidebooks through the ''Duat''s dangerous landscape and to a life as an ''ꜣḫ'' for people who had recently died. Emphasized in some of these texts are mounds and caverns, inhabited by gods, demons, or supernatural animals, which threatened the deceased along their journey. The purpose of the books is not to lay out a geography, but to describe a succession of rites of passage which the dead would have to pass to reach eternal life.][
]
In popular culture
* The Duat appears as a major location in Rick Riordan
Richard Russell Riordan Junior (; born June 5, 1964) is an American author, best known for writing the ''Percy Jackson & the Olympians'' series. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million co ...
's ''The Kane Chronicles
''The Kane Chronicles'' is a trilogy of adventure and Egyptian mythological fiction books written by American author Rick Riordan. The series is set in the same universe as Riordan's other franchises, '' Camp Half-Blood Chronicles'' and '' Mag ...
'' series.
* The Duat reveals in ''The Crown of Ptolemy
The Crown of Ptolemy is the third and last book in the ''Percy Jackson and the Olympians'' and '' The Kane Chronicles'' crossover series. It was released in the back of the paperback version of ''The House of Hades'' on March 31, 2015, and later a ...
'' to have connections to the Mist from Riordan's '' Camp Half-Blood Chronicles'' series.
* The Duat appears as a secret level in the video game ''Spelunky 2
''Spelunky 2'' is a 2020 platform video game developed by Mossmouth and BlitWorks. It is the sequel to '' Spelunky'' (2008) and was released for PlayStation 4 and Windows in September 2020, for Nintendo Switch in August 2021, and for Xbox One and ...
''.
* In ''Assassin's Creed Origins
''Assassin's Creed Origins'' is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the tenth major installment in the ''Assassin's Creed'' series, following 2015's ''Assassin's Creed Syndicate''. ...
'', the Duat is an important aspect of the game with the main character, Bayek, entering it multiple times.
* The Duat makes an appearance in the episode "Asylum
Asylum may refer to:
Types of asylum
* Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome
* Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute
* Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea
...
" of the Disney+
Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned and operated by the Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television se ...
series '' Moon Knight'' (2022) as the place where Marc Spector and his alter Steven Grant are being guided by the Egyptian goddess Taweret
In Ancient Egyptian religion, Taweret (also spelled Taurt, Tuat, Tuart, Ta-weret, Tawaret, Twert and Taueret, and in Greek, Θουέρις – Thouéris, Thoeris, Taouris and Toeris) is the protective ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth and ...
in the afterlife after being killed by Arthur Harrow
Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...
.
See also
* Aaru __NOTOC__
In ancient Egyptian mythology, Aaru (; egy, jꜣrw "Reeds, rushes"), known also as '' sḫt-jꜣrw'' or the Field of Reeds, is the heavenly paradise where Osiris rules. It has been described as the '' ka'' (a part of the soul) o ...
* Lake of fire
References
External links
*
{{hell
*
Afterlife places
ca:Llista de personatges de la mitologia egípcia#D