The Cavern deities of the underworld were ancient Egyptian minor deities charged with punishing the damned souls by beheading and devouring them.Hart 1986, pp. 62–3.

Description and partition

The Egyptians believed that in the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...

, the

Duat The Duat ( egy, dwꜣt, Egyptological pronunciation "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. It has been ...

, there were at least twelve caves and caverns inhabited by terrible deities and supernatural creatures that would feed on the souls of the wicked. Several funerary papyri – in addition to the wall

decorations Decoration may refer to: * Decorative arts * A house painter and decorator's craft * An act or object intended to increase the beauty of a person, room, etc. * An award that is a token of recognition to the recipient intended for wearing Other ...

of some tombs in the

Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings ( ar, وادي الملوك ; Late Coptic: ), also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings ( ar, وادي أبوا الملوك ), is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th ...

and the southern hall of the

Osireion __NOTOC__ The Osirion or Osireion is an ancient megalithic structure located at Abydos, to the rear of the Mortuary Temple of Seti I. Its original purpose is unknown. It is an integral part of Seti I's funeral complex and is possibly built to ...

at Abydos – list these deities involved in the extermination (usually by beheading) of the enemies of the sun-god Ra and of his daughter

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 ...

, goddess of

truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...

and

justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

.Wilkinson 2003, p. 80. In particular, these creatures are systematically listed in the "Spell of the Twelve Caves" known from a papyrus (Cairo 24742) dating back to the reign of

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...

Amenhotep II Amenhotep II (sometimes called ''Amenophis II'' and meaning '' Amun is Satisfied'') was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few milit ...

(c. 1427–1401 BC) of the 18th Dynasty. The first seven caverns contained groups of three mummiform and three anthropomorphic deities, two male and one female in each triad. From the 8th to the 20th cavern, one would find divinities in variable numbers: in the 8th, for example, there were seven groups along with individual divinities, and at least twenty of them in the 9th. It is normal to find, next to the lists of names and positions of these other gods – beneath their representations – columns of offers prescribed for them too, along with the beneficent deeds that the dead would achieve. Once pacified, in fact, these deities could facilitate the free movement in the hereafter, providing nourishment and light in the darkness. File:Fragments of Funerary Papyrus of Amduat MET vs28.3.112.jpg, Scenes of otherworldly punishment from a papyrus of

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 ...

(

21st Dynasty The Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXI, alternatively 21st Dynasty or Dynasty 21) is usually classified as the first Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, lasting from 1077 BC to 943 BC. History After the r ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Deities of the first eleven caves (Hart)

The tomb (

KV2 Tomb KV2, found in the Valley of the Kings, is the tomb of Ramesses IV, and is located low down in the main valley, between KV7 and KV1. It has been open since antiquity and contains a large amount of graffiti. Contemporary plans of the tomb T ...

) of Pharaoh

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 Amenhe ...

(c. 1155–1149 BC) in the Valley of the Kings, and the Book of the Dead, list the cavern deities hereafter selected by the British egyptologist George Hart:

Deities in the 10th cavern (Wilkinson)

In particular, the Egyptologist Richard H. Wilkinson thus grouped the deities and the supernatural creatures residing in the 10th cave, along with their beneficent deeds once the deceased successfully tamed them: File:Book of the Dead of Hori, about 1969-945 BC, New Kingdom, Dynasty 21, papyrus section 4 - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08665.JPG, Book of the Dead of Hori: supernatural creatures guarding the netherworld.

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. File:奈斯曼《亡灵书》.jpg, The deceased and the underworld monsters, from a Book of the Dead (N 3096).

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. File:Nectanebo I demons relief.JPG,

Nectanebo I Nectanebo I ( Egyptian: ; grc-gre, Νεκτάνεβις ; died 361/60 BCE) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, founder of the last native dynasty of Egypt, the 30th. Name Nectanebo's Egyptian personal name was Nḫt-nb.f, which means "the stron ...

(c. 379–361 BC) adoring underworld demons.

The Archaeological Civic Museum (MCA) of Bologna The Archaeological Civic Museum of Bologna ( it, Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna) is located in the fifteenth-century Palazzo Galvani building at Via dell'Archiginnasio 2 postal code 40124 Bologna, once known as ''the Hospital of Death''. F ...

References

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