Together with the Book of the Earth, it is included in the Ramesside Books of the Otherworld (i.e. from the Ramesside-razmses dynasty). Both did not replace the Book of Gates, although they usually appeared alongside it on the walls of tombs in the Theban Valley of the Kings. During the Ramesside times, the Book of Amduat also came back into favor.
The Book of Caves owes its name to the frequently used term kereret (cave, cave, duat dungeon). Its composition is divided into six caves, which correspond to six sets of symbolic figures and texts connected with them. There is no strict division into three registers here, because in some caves there are as many as five of them.
Egyptian Solar Cycle. Top the Journey of Solar Barge during the day, bottom the Journey of the Solar Barge at night (2020/21).
Summary
Now you'll admit that the adventures of a king identified with the sun god are fraught with danger, right? While reading the books, we are rooting for him to get out of trouble and rise in the sky in the morning, although in the back of our heads we know that it will happen anyway ;) On another occasion, I will publish an article on the blog about the book of the dead, also full of adventures, intended for practically everyone, i.e. people like us.
Finally, I will show you my diptych entitled The Egyptian Solar Cycle, inspired by the Books of the Underworld. I think that now, after reading the article, the meaning of this image is as clear to you as... the sun ;)
Of course, the closest reference to what was happening in the underground is The Journey of the Solar Barge at Night, full of monsters and otherworldly beings. However, it is obvious that without the daily part, the cycle is incomplete. It is similar in our lives, day and night are intertwined, sorrows are interwoven with joys. One thing is certain: everything passes, and after night comes day again.
Bibliography:
* Černy Jaroslav, Religia starożytnych Egipcjan, Warszawa 1974.
* Daumas François, Od Narmera do Kleopatry. Cywilizacja starożytnego Egiptu, Warszawa 1973.
* Lipińska Jadwiga, Marciniak Marek, Mitologia starożytnego Egiptu, Warszawa 2002.
* Niwiński Andrzej, Bóstwa, kulty i rytuały starożytnego Egiptu, Warszawa 2004.
* Niwiński Andrzej, Mity i symbole starożytnego Egiptu, Warszawa 2001.
* Niwiński Andrzej, Studies od the Illustrated Theban Papyri of the 11th and 10th centuries B.C., Freiburg 1989
*Tajemnice Papirusów, pod red. Jadwigi Lipińskiej, Wrocław 2005.
The Book of the Earth
The chthonic elements (related to the earth) that it contains caused this composition, located in the tomb of Ramesses VI, to be called the Book of the Earth. Its layout is similar to the Book of Caves, probably both of them were created in the same period. In both works there is no permanent division into three registers, and the leading element is the image of the solar disk, present in most scenes. Both have similar iconographic components
The Book of Caves. The snake Apophis (Nehaher) is visible in the center
Book of Caves,. You can see how many registers she had that made up the composition. Source: Wikipedia.
The Lake of Flames from the Book of Gates. Exaggeration of one of the scenes. Maybe some of you associate it with the title of one of my paintings entitled Lake of Flames (2023). There is also a fiery motif, but a volcano.
The Pillars of Geb, to which the souls of the damned dead were tied. A drawing of a scene from the 7th hour of the Book of Gates (20th dynasty)
The Book of Gates features an interesting variant of hell mentioned in the previous chapter, the Lake of Flames. It occurs in the 3rd and 6th hour. The defeat of Apophis takes place in the same interval, but it is not as dramatic as in Amduat. Atum stands in front of the demon and only says a spell to it:
You will walk upside down, you will not rise, you will be enchanted so that you will not find yourself.
And the mentioned monster appears in the 10th and 12th hour.
Fragment of a painting with the god Ptah, modeled on the Book of Gates. The Great God sailing on a barge surrounded by his entourage, the deities Hu and Sia. Certainly some of you have already noticed the similarity to my solar barges from the Egyptian Solar Cycle (2020/21)
The Book of Gates, 4th hour of the night.
The Book of Gates. A Drawing of one of the scenes. The gate lintel is visible, protected by fire-spitting snakes and a doorman staring at a knife.
Amduat, 7th hour of the night. At the bottom, gods with stars are visible.
From the left: The Book of Two Ways on the original painting on the sarcophagus from El Bashra and a diagram drawn on its basis, explaining the individual components.. source: https://the-bibliofile.com/the-book-of-two-ways-synopsis-chapter-by-chapter-summary/
Amduat, 4th hour of the night.
The Cave of Sokaris (Seker) from Amduat.
A Drawing of 2 hours of the Book of Gates. It shows three registers - the Nile framed by two banks - two halves of Egypt.
The adventures of the Sun in the Depths of the Duat, or about the
Books of the Underworld.
In this article I will talk about one of the most fascinating things in the heritage of ancient Egypt, the Egyptian Books. They meet the criteria of today's adventure literature rather than religious texts ;) I love them so much that my two paintings refer to them: Day and Night Journey of the Solar Barge (Egyptian Solar Cycle). But before I get to the point, a little introduction will be useful.
What exactly are we talking about?
The first books on topics related to the underworld appeared already in the Old Kingdom, but the heyday of this type of literature was the New Kingdom. Why? Beliefs in Egypt gradually became democratized, and the apogee of inclusivity occurred at that time. And while the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts were intended exclusively for the king, the later Book of the Dead was adapted for priests, higher dignitaries, and even common people.
They were depicted on the walls of tombs, sarcophagi and papyri, and the iconographic setting accompanied books only from the New Kingdom period, among others. to our heroines: The Books of the Underworld.
The Book of Two Ways
In El Bashra there are paintings depicting a kind of map of the afterlife and included in chapters 466 - 467 of the Sarcophagus Texts of the Middle Kingdom. In the New Kingdom, this map was adapted in funerary literature as the Book of Two Ways, containing both solar and Osiris-related elements.
It served the souls of deceased Egyptians as help in the depths of the afterlife. The Egyptian came here and found two winding roads separated by a lake of fire. One of them, the land route, led to Rosetau Land (Mouth of Passage), the other, the water route, led to Lake Rosetau. The entrances to both were defended by dangerous guards of the gates of the afterlife and many dangerous, fantastic creatures, monsters and deadly knives. The deceased needed the appropriate spells to overcome these obstacles and continue his journey.
The land of Rosetau was closely associated with Osiris, this was also the name of the necropolis in Memphis, considered to be the entrance to the underground kingdom.
The Books of the Underworld
They include books with imaginative names: the Book of Two Ways, the Book of Amduat, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caves and the Book of Earth. They were intended exclusively for the king, the only exception being the grave of the vizier Useramon from the 18th dynasty.
They have a uniform composition, are divided into 12 regions corresponding to the 12 hours of the night and three registers reflecting Egyptian geographical reality. The Nile flows in the middle, and on both sides there are two banks, which are the symbolic halves of the country, eastern and western. The exception is the Book of Caves, which sometimes contains as many as five registers.
In the Book of Amduat and the Book of Gates, a solar barge carrying the night form of the sun, Atum-Re, sails on the subterranean Nile. However, in the Book of Caves and the Book of the Earth, the barge motif was replaced by a solar disk. Even the crew disappeared, which, apart from the gods, included oarsmen, bodyguards, tugs and nameless figures helping the sun on its journey (who were generally the souls of the blessed).
The Duat was a land densely populated by the blessed and the damned, or enemies. The great god made daily inspections of both paradise and hell, which had diverse geographies. The river in the afterlife flowed along a semicircular path, and in its deepest place there was the Cave of Sokaris. There was not always enough water in the river and the barge had to be pulled along the sand with a rope.
The shape of the boat changes during the 12 hours of the night. In the 4th hour, she takes the form of a snake to slither through the sandy Cave of Sokaris. In the same region, the river also disappears completely and from then on, the boat pulls the souls of the dead through subsequent regions of the Duat, later the deceased king will join them.
The Book of Amduat, or
a book about what is in the afterlife.
It is found primarily in the tombs of rulers from the 18th dynasty (from Thutmose I to Tutankhamun). Its content concerns the journey of a great god in a barge through the underworld. The culmination of the book's action occurs in the 5th hour, when the sun descends to the depths of the underground, the Cave of Sokaris (Seker), to transform from an old man back into a child.
Amduat, 12th hour of the night. In the middle register, the serpent Apophis is visible, trying to prevent the Great God from rising at sunrise (the scarab is an incarnation of the morning sun Chepre). Fortunately, every night his actions ended in failure, because the sun rose :)
On both banks of the Nile, inhabitants of a specific region, various otherworldly beings, gods and blessed souls of the dead gather in groups. To the latter, the great god gives gifts in the form of clothes, food and drinks, and also saves the drowned. Hell with damned souls, punished by, among others, Horus of Dat, is always in the lower register, for example in the 11th hour. The great god is occasionally accompanied by a guard.
Symbols related to death and the birth of a new sun, as well as symbols of time run through the composition. In the 6th region the dead body of the great god is located, while in the 7th region the graves of all his aspects (Atum, Chepre, Re and Osiris) are located.
Each of the 12 regions is under the protection of a deity, and is also inhabited by other gods and evil and good demons with strange appearances and names, such as the goddess She-Who-Cuts-The-Dead and a group of demonic Slaughterers from the 5th hour. Also in the 5th hour, the form of Atum, existing before the creation of the world, the Eternal Atum, appears.
Horus from Dat (Duat) from 11th hour of Amduat
Apophis, the greatest enemy of the sun, appears in the 7th and 12th hour, in moments of accumulation of good. In the 7th region, where the demon has his permanent home, the revived great god is defended against him by Isis the Great Magic, the god Heka, and sometimes the dead.
However, in the 12th hour, when the sun rises, it is protected by a number of goddesses. Its birth was assisted by pairs of primeval deities from Hermopolis, Nu-Nunet and Hu-Huhet. Importantly, each hour - the Amduat region has its own name, in the case of the 3rd hour of the night - It-Who-Cuts-Souls.
The Book of Amduat was the most frequently presented book of the afterlife. Her most popular medium was papyrus.
Hellish "book of gates"
It is later than the Book of Amduat, as it dates from the time of Pharaoh Horemheb, the last ruler of the 18th dynasty, and was discovered in his tomb in the early 20th century. The name was given to the book by Gaston Maspero at the end of the 19th century. It comes from the images of gates located at the end of each of the 12 compartments - rooms guarded by fire-spitting snakes and a doorman with a knife.
It has numerous similarities with Amduat. The great god travels there through the underworld in his barge during the 12 hours of the night. There are also analogous motifs, such as fighting Apophis, rescuing the drowned or punishing sinners. It retains the tripartite division into registers, but also contains two uniform scenes that are the culmination points, the Judgment of Osiris from the 5th hour of the night and the Sunrise from the 12th hour. Moreover, the barge's crew was reduced in the Book of Gates to the deities Hu and Sia, the creative powers of the great god that he needs at dawn. Crowds of otherworldly beings have also been grouped here, and the large number of names present in the Book of Amduat limited. For example, there are no names of regions or hours of the night. In addition, the role of the sun god has been strengthened here.
It is no accident that at the very beginning there is a reminder of the myth of the Destruction of humanity. This was closely related to the political and religious situation in Egypt, during the reign of Horemheb, memories from the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten were still fresh. This myth, about the capture of conspirators against a great god, perfectly illustrated the defeat of the heretic king. After the so-called Amarna Period, the invisible aspect of the great god, associated with Amon, was more emphasized. The Book of Gates also featured it.
The great god begins his journey here by entering the so-called Western Mountain. There he receives an attribute - a ruler's crown, and his neck and head, the seats of creative powers, are ador30of the Memphis myth about the creation of the world. One aspect of the sun god is Horus of Dat, already known to us from the Book of Amduat.
Representatives of the four human races from the 5th hour of the Book of Gates.
The punishment of the damned runs throughout the book and appears at the very beginning. Moreover, the methods of punishment in the Book of Gates were so numerous and sophisticated that initially it was called the Book of Hell. Moreover, sinners did not have access to the Lake of Life and the Lake of Ureuses, located in the 4th compartment, because they were intended only for the blessed dead.
There are many interesting characters in the Book of Gates, such as the Eternal Atum - the "Old" deity from the 10th hour (referred to as He-Who-Came-Into-His-Cadaver), the executioner and the overseer called He-Who-Guides-Destruction (4th hour). ) and numerous deities and monsters.
Book of Caves (Book of Caverns)
In the Book of Caves, the topography of the afterlife changes, caves replace the river, and the sun barge essentially disappears from the repertoire. It only appears in the final scene. Instead, there is a solar disc, which accompanies most scenes in the heavenly Duat and is never present in the hell zone. Importantly, in the Book of Caves, despite the not very rigorous division into registers, hell is always in the lowest zone of subsequent caves. It is the greatest depth.
The main purpose of the sun was to reach the grave of Osiris, lying in the center of the afterlife (in the 3rd cave), to revive him with the warmth of the sun's rays, and with him all his forms. In the 6th cave there is a sunrise, actually the emergence of the solar disk from the Praocean Nu (nonexistence). As he travels, the great god speaks to the beings he encounters along the way, dwelling in caves and arranged in long lines. The motifs of reviving the dead and defeating sinners, known from earlier books, also appear here. And also the already familiar demon Apophis (Nehaher).
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