Reverse and obverse sides of Narmer Palette

Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the king Narmer. On one side the king is depicted with the White crown of Upper (southern) Egypt and the other side depicts the king wearing the Red Crown of Lower (northern) Egypt. Along with the Scorpion Macehead and the Narmer Maceheads, also found together in the “Main Deposit” at Hierakonpolis, the Narmer palette provides one of the earliest known depictions of an Egyptian king, who is shown using many of the classic conventions of Egyptian art that must already have been formalized by the time of the palette’s creation. The Egyptologist Bob Brier has referred to the Narmer Palette as “the first historical document in the world”.

The palette, which has survived five millennia in almost perfect condition, was discovered by British archeologists James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green in what they called the main deposit in the temple of Horus at Hierakonpolis during the dig season of 1897–1898. Also found at this dig were the Narmer Macehead and the Scorpion Macehead. The exact place and circumstances of these finds were not recorded very clearly by Quibell and Green. In fact, Green’s report placed the palette in a different layer one or two yards away from the deposit, which is considered to be more accurate on the basis of the original excavation notes. It has been suggested that these objects were royal donations made to the temple. Hierakonpolis was the ancient capital of Upper Egypt during the pre-dynastic Naqada III phase of Egyptian history.

Palettes were typically used for grinding cosmetics, but this palette is too large and heavy (and elaborate) to have been created for personal use, and was likely a ritual or votive object, specifically made for donation to, or use in, a temple. One theory put forward was that it was used to grind cosmetics to adorn the statues of the gods.

The Narmer Palette is part of the permanent collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Description

It is a large (63 cm), shield-shaped, ceremonial palette, carved from a single piece of flat, soft green siltstone. The stone has often been wrongly identified in the past as being slate or schist. Slate is layered and prone to flaking, and schist is a metamorphic rock containing large, randomly-distributed mineral grains. Both are unlike the finely-grained, hard, flake-resistant siltstone, whose source is from a well-attested quarry that has been used since pre-dynastic times at Wadi Hammamat. This material was used extensively during the pre-dynastic period for creating such palettes, and also was used as a source for Old Kingdom statuary. A statue of the 2nd dynasty pharaoh Khasekhemwy, found in the same complex as the Narmer Palette at Hierakonopolis, also was made of this material.

Both sides of the palette are decorated, carved in raised relief. At the top of both sides of the palette are the central serekhs bearing the rebus symbols n’r (catfish) and mr (chisel) inside, being the phonetic representation of Narmer’s name. The serekh on each side are flanked by a pair of bovine heads with highly curved horns, thought to represent the cow goddess Bat, who was the patron deity of the seventh nome of Upper Egypt, and was also the deification of the cosmos and the Milky Way within Egyptian mythology during the pre-dynastic and Old Kingdom periods of Ancient Egyptian history.

Obverse side

Below the bovine heads thought to represent the cow goddess Bat, who was the patron deity of the seventh nome of Upper Egypt, flanking the serekh of Narmer. Below that is what appears to be a procession, with Narmer depicted at almost the full height of the register (a traditional artistic representation emphasizing his importance) shown wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt whose symbol was the papyrus. He holds a mace and a flail, two traditional symbols of kingship. To his right are the hieroglyphic symbols for his name, though not contained within a serekh. Behind him is his sandal bearer, whose name may be represented by the rosette appearing adjacent to his head, and a second rectangular symbol that has no clear interpretation but which has been suggested may represent a town or citadel. Immediately in front of the pharaoh is a long-haired man, accompanied by a pair of hieroglyphs that have been interpreted as his name: Tshet (this assumes that these symbols had the same phonetic value used in later hieroglyphic writing). Before this man are four standard bearers, holding aloft an animal skin, a dog, and two falcons. At the far-right of this scene are ten decapitated corpses, possibly the victims of Narmer’s conquest. Above them are the symbols for a ship, a falcon, and a harpoon, which has been interpreted as representing the names of the towns that were conquered.

Below the procession, two men are holding ropes tied to the outstretched, intertwining necks of two serpopards confronting each other, mythical felines with bodies of leopards—or more likely lionesses, given that there are no spots indicated—and snakelike necks. The circle formed by their exaggeratedly curving necks is the central part of the palette, which is where the cosmetics would be ground. These animals have been considered an additional symbol for the unification of Egypt, but it is a unique image in Egyptian art and there is nothing to suggest that either animal represents an identifiable part of Egypt, although each had lioness war goddesses as protectors and the intertwined necks may represent the unification of the state. Similar images of such mythical animals are known from other contemporaneous cultures, and there are other examples of late-predynastic objects (including other palettes and knife handles) which borrow similar elements from Mesopotamian iconography.

At the bottom of the palette a bovine image is seen knocking down the walls of a city while trampling on a fallen foe. Because of the lowered head in the image, this is interpreted as a presentation of the king vanquishing his foes, “Bull of his Mother” being a common epithet given to Egyptian kings as the son of the patron cow goddess. This posture of a bovine has the meaning of “force” in later hieroglyphics.

Reverse side

Repeating the format from the other side, two human-faced bovine heads, thought to represent the patron cow goddess Bat, flank the serekhs, uncharacteristically shown in full frontal view. This frontal display of the cows is atypical in ancient Egyptian art except for representations of this goddess and Hathor (who often appears in this view also). Some authors suggest that the images represent the vigor of the king as pair of bulls.

A large picture in the center of the palette depicts Narmer wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt whose symbol was the flowering lotus, and wielding a mace. To his left is a man bearing the king’s sandals, again flanked by a rosette symbol. To the right of the king is a kneeling prisoner, who is about to be struck by the king. A pair of symbols appear next to his head, perhaps indicating his name, or indicating the region where he was from. Above the prisoner is a falcon, representing Horus, perched above a set of papyrus flowers, the symbol of Lower Egypt. In his talons he holds a rope-like object which appears to be attached to the nose of a man’s head that also emerges from the papyrus flowers, perhaps indicating that he is drawing life from the head. The papyrus has often been interpreted as referring to the marshes of the Nile Delta region in Lower Egypt, or that the battle happened in a marshy area, or even that each papyrus flower represents the number 1,000, indicating that 6,000 enemies were subdued in the battle.

Below the king’s feet is a third section, depicting two naked, bearded men. They are either running, or are meant to be seen as sprawling dead upon the ground. Appearing to the left of the head of each man is a hieroglyphic sign, the first a walled town, the second a type of knot, likely indicating the name of a defeated town.

Scholarly debate on the palette

The palette has raised considerable scholarly debate over the years. In general the arguments fall into one of two camps: scholars who believe that the palette is a record of actual events, and other academics who argue that it is an object designed to establish the mythology of united rule over Upper and Lower Egypt by the king. It had been thought that the palette either depicted the unification of Lower Egypt by the king of Upper Egypt, or recorded a recent military success over the Libyans, or the last stronghold of a Lower Egyptian dynasty based in Buto. More recently scholars such as Nicholas Millet have argued that the palette does not represent a historical event (such as the unification of Egypt), but instead represents the events of the year in which the object was dedicated to the temple. Whitney Davis has suggested that the iconography on this and other pre-dynastic palettes has more to do with establishing the king as a visual metaphor of the conquering hunter, caught in the moment of delivering a mortal blow to his enemies. John Baines has suggested that the events portrayed are “tokens of royal achievement” from the past, and that “the chief purpose of the piece is not to record an event but to assert that the king dominates the ordered world in the name of the gods and has defeated internal, and especially external, forces of disorder.

Palette location-Egyptian Museum, Cairo

The Narmer Palette resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and is one of the initial exhibits that visitors see when entering the museum. It has the Journal d’Entree number JE32169 and the Catalogue Génèral number CG14716.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five element, which is Ren (name), Ba (individual personality), Ka (life force), Sheut (shadow), and Ib (heart).

Ba is one of the important part of the human soul, that makes an individual unique, similar to the notion of ‘personality’ or ‘the person’s individuality’. Egyptian believed that, the ‘Ba’ as an aspect of a soul would live after the body died, and it is sometimes depicted as a human-headed bird flying out of the tomb to join with the ‘Ka’ in the afterlife.

In Egyptian art, the Ba always portrayed as a human-headed bird, usually a human-headed falcon. Ba also often depicted as a winged figure, the Ba-bird, an emblem of the ascension of the soul after death.

Atef is the specific feathered white crown of the Egyptian Deity Osiris. It combines the Hedjet, the crown of Upper Egypt, with red Ostrich feathers for the Osiris cult. The Atef crown identifies Osiris in ancient Egyptian painting. Osiris wears the Atef crown as a symbol of the ruler of the underworld. The tall bulbous white piece in the center of the crown is between two ostrich feathers. The feathers represent truth, justice, morality, and balance. The Atef crown is similar, save for the feathers, to the plain white crown (Hedjet) used in the Predynastic Period and later as a symbol for pharaonic Upper Egypt.

Article Source: Wikipedia.org

The Pschent, pronounced /pskεnt/ (from the Greek transliteration ψχεντ), was the name of the Double Crown of Ancient Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as sekhemti, the Two Powerful Ones. It combined the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt and the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt.

The Pschent represented the pharaoh’s power over all of unified Egypt. It bore two animal emblems: An Egyptian cobra, known as the uraeus, ready to strike, which symbolized the Lower Egyptian goddess Wadjet, and an Egyptian vulture representing the Upper Egyptian tutelary goddess Nekhbet. These were fastened to the front of the Pschent and referred to as the Two Ladies. Later, the vulture head sometimes was replaced by a second cobra.

History

The invention of the Pschent is generally attributed to the First Dynasty pharaoh Den, but the first one to wear a Double Crown may have been Djet: a rock inscription shows his Horus wearing it.

The king list on the Palermo stone, which begins with the names of Lower Egyptian pharaohs (nowadays thought to have been mythological demi-gods[citation needed]), shown wearing the Red Crown, marks the unification of the country by giving the Pschent to all First Dynasty and later pharaohs. The Cairo fragment, on the other hand, shows these prehistoric rulers wearing the Pschent.

Archaeology

As is the case with the Deshret and the Hedjet Crowns, no Pschent has survived. It is known only from statuary, depictions, and inscriptions.

Mythology

Among the deities sometimes depicted wearing the Double Crown are Horus and Atum, both representing the pharaoh or having a special relationship to the pharaoh.

Article Source: Wikipedia.org

The Uraeus is a symbol for the goddess Wadjet, one of the earliest of Egyptian deities, who often was depicted as a cobra. The center of her cult was in Per-Wadjet, later called Buto by the Greeks. She became the patroness of the Nile Delta and the protector of all of Lower Egypt, so her image was worn by the pharaohs as a head ornament, first as the body of Wadjet atop the head or as a crown encircling the head, always remaining in effect part of their crown, indicating her protection and as a claim over the land. The pharaoh was recognized only by wearing the uraeus, which conveyed legitimacy to the ruler. There is evidence for this tradition even in the Old Kingdom during the third millennium B.C. Several goddesses associated with, or being considered aspects of Wadjet are depicted wearing the uraeus also.

At the time of the unification of Egypt, the image of Nekhbet, who was represented as a white vulture and held the same position as the patron of Upper Egypt, joined the image of Wadjet on the Uraeus that would encircle the crown of the pharaohs who ruled the unified Egypt. The importance of their separate cults kept them from becoming merged as with so many Egyptian deities. Together they were known as The Two Ladies, who became the joint protectors and patrons of the unified Egypt.

Later, the pharaohs were seen as a manifestation of the sun-god Re, and so it also was believed that the Uraeus protected them by spitting fire on their enemies from the fiery eye of the goddess. In some mythological works, the eyes of Ra are said to be uraei. Wadjets existed long before the rise of this cult when they originated as the eye of Wadjet as cobra and are the name of the symbols also called the Eye of the Moon, Eye of Hathor, the Eye of Horus, and the Eye of Ra—depending upon the dates of the references to the symbols.

As the Uraeus was seen as a royal symbol, Horus and Set also were depicted wearing one. In early mythology, Horus would have been the name given to any king as part of the many titles taken, being identified as the son of the goddess. According to the later mythology of Re, the first uraeus was said to have been created by the goddess Isis who formed it from the dust of the earth and the spittle of the then current sun deity. In this version of the mythology, the uraeus was the instrument with which Isis gained the throne of Egypt for Osiris. Isis is associated with, and may be considered an aspect of Wadjet.

Another name for this is the term “Totaf” found also in the Bible.

Golden Uraeus of Senusret II

In 1919, after only a half-hour excavation, the Qufti worker Hosni Ibrahim held in his hands the solid gold Golden Uraeus of Senusret II. It had been decided to make a (follow-up) complete clearance of the El-Lahun Pyramid’s rooms, at Saqqara. The start in the rock-cut offering chamber, leading from the tomb, on the south, immediately revealed in the turnover of the six inches of debris, the Golden Uraeus, crown ornament.

Prior to the 1922 find of Tutankhamun’s tomb, this Golden Uraeus was the only ornament ever known to be worn by an entombed pharaoh and it was thought that it was passed to the next pharaoh.

The Golden Uraeus is of solid gold, 6.7 cm, black eyes of granite, a snake head of deep “ultramarine” lapis lazuli, the flared cobra hood of dark carnelian inlays, and also inlays of turquoise. For mounting on the pharaoh’s crown, two loops in the rear-supporting tail of the cobra, provide the attachment points.

Uraeus as a hieroglyph

Beside the Uraeus being used as an ornament for statuary or as an adornment on the pharaoh, it also was used for jewellery and in amulets. However another important use is as the hieroglyph.

• For Uraeus ornament as a mummy grave example, See: Djedptahiufankh, “High Priest” of 21st Dynasty, Shoshenq I.

The simplest hieroglyph is the “Cobra” (the Uraeus), however there are subcategories, referring to: a goddess, a priestess, the goddess Menhit, the shrine of the goddess (àter), the goddess Isis, and lastly goddess: (Cobra (uraeus) at base of deity (ntr)).

The Rosetta Stone uses the plural of the last example, “3 x “god flag” with Cobra at each base of flag”. The story of the Rosetta Stone has the king (the priests of the king), listing his reasons for being honored, and in return, “The Gods and Goddesses (plural)” reward him. The last (2/3) of the Rosetta Stone relates how he will be honored, including erecting the Rosetta Stone, for all to read.

Another example of the hieroglyph usage, is as adornments upon the hieroglyph for “shrine”, and also for buildings.

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History

The earliest depiction of the nemes, along with a uraeus, is the ivory label of Den from the 1st Dynasty. It was worn throughout history by pharaohs resident in Egypt. The Nemes was mainly used in the third dynasty.

Symbol of rank

Being a symbol of power or might, the sekhem was frequently incorporated into various names, such as the king’s name, Sekhemkhet, and Sekhmet, the lioness-goddess, whose name means ’she who is powerful”.

After the 3rd Dynasty, the sekhem appeared in the royal names of the pharaohs, and later in the titles of queens and princesses as well. When the king held a sekhem-scepter in his right hand, he would usually hold a mace or censer in the left.

From the earliest times, viziers and other officials of important rank held the sekhem, symbolizing the individual’s successful life and prestigious position. Such officials were often portrayed holding the scepter in the course of performing their duties. If they held the scepter in their right hand, they would usually hold a staff in the left hand. The classic Egyptian funerary statue depicted the deceased with a staff in one hand, and the sekhem in the other. As a scepter of office, a pair of eyes were carved on the upper part of the staff.

Word “sekhem”: Power

The Egyptian language word S-kh-m is the word for power. A procession of a woman with a boquet of flowers, followed by a harpist, from Medamud illustrates the use of the word: “…(from) the gods, Power (of the) Harp-Music….”

Religious symbolism

Osiris was often called “the Great Sekhem” or “Foremost of Powers”. Hence, the sekhem was often used as a symbol of the underworld deity. This probably led to the scepter also becoming an emblem of Anubis. The sekhem-scepter was sacred to Anubis in the temple of Hu (known as the “Enclosure of the Sekhem” (hwt-shm)). Anubis is frequently depicted in his manifestation of a reclining dog with the sekhem-scepter behind him. In such depictions, the scepter is often portrayed with an elongated head. The scepter was also associated with Khentimentiu (Chief of the Westerners), another deity who was especially associated with the royal cemetery. In this type of iconographic representation, the sekhem is often given two eyes, which were carved or painted on the scepter’s upper part as a symbol indicating that it was the manifestation of divine power.

The sekhem was also utilized in temple and mortuary offering rituals. The officiant who presented the offerings often held it. In such cases the scepter was held in the right hand and was waved four or five times over the offerings while ritual recitations were being made. A gilded sekhem scepter was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. On the back of this scepter were carved five registers depicting a slaughtered bull, which may indicate that the scepter was waved five times over the offering. We are also told that, when consecrating offerings, the king used two sekhem-scepters; one for Seth, and another for Horus. Elsewhere, Horus and Seth appear as “the Two Sekhems” (shmwy).

A late variant of this type of scepter hieroglyph sometimes represented the sistrum, a musical rattle that was sacred to Hathor and was carried by her priestesses. The sistrum had a metal loop with jingles mounted on a cow-goddess faced handle.

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Deshret, from ancient Egyptian, was the formal name for the Red Crown of (Lower Egypt) and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet, the fertile Nile river basin. The end has a curly wire on it, that represents the proboscis of a honey bee. Deshret or DSRT also represents the insect known as the honeybee. When combined with the Hedjet (White Crown) of Upper Egypt, it forms the Pschent (Double Crown).

The Red Crown in Egyptian language hieroglyphs eventually was used as the vertical letter ‘n’ . The original language “n” hieroglyph from the Predynastic Period, and the Old Kingdom was the horizontal letter n, (N-water ripple (n hieroglyph)).

Significance

In mythology, the earth deity Geb, original ruler of Egypt, invested Horus with the rule over Lower Egypt. The Egyptian pharaohs, who saw themselves as successors of Horus, wore it to symbolize their authority over Lower Egypt.

Other deities wore the deshret too, or were identified with it, such as the protective serpent goddess Wadjet and the creator-goddess of Sais, Neith, who often is shown wearing the Red Crown.

The Red Crown would later be combined with the White Crown of Upper Egypt to form the Double Crown, symbolizing the rule over the whole country, “The Two Lands” as the Egyptians expressed it.

As concerns deshret, the Red Land which comprised the deserts and foreign lands surrounding Egypt, Seth was its lord.  It was considered a region of chaos, without law and full of dangers.

Records of the Red Crown

No Red Crown has survived, and it is unknown how it was constructed and what materials were used. Copper, reeds, cloth, and leather have been suggested, but this is purely speculative.

The Red Crown frequently is mentioned in texts and depicted in reliefs and statues. An early example is the depiction of the victorious pharaoh of the South[citation needed] wearing the deshret on the Narmer Palette. A label from the reign of Djer records a royal visit to the shrine of the Deshret which may have been located at Buto in the Nile delta.

The fact that no crown has ever been found buried with any of the pharaohs, even in relatively intact tombs, might suggest that it was past from one regent to the next, much as in present day monarchies.

Vertical “n”, the Red Crown

The original letter “n” in Egyptian language hieroglyphs, was the horizontal water ripple, N-water ripple (n hieroglyph). It was used as the phonogram for ‘n’, as well as the preposition, “to”, “for”; (many prepositions can be commonly used for any other, dependent on context). Eventually, a vetical ‘n’ was introduced into the language, probably for a dual reason, the beauty, or significance of the actual ‘crown of a pharaoh’, (note: it makes up one form of the word-phrase “Behold!” with the ‘reed’ hieroglyph), and the fact that the hieroglyph was in a vertical form, thus satisfying the purpose of creating the vertical hieroglyph. In running lines of text, transition to next words, or parts of sentence structures, can lie in the hieroglyph blocks, at beginning, middle, or end. The horizontal ‘n’ easily can be at the top, middle, or bottom of a block, leaving the remaining block space for the rest of the block. The vertical ‘n’ simply allows for two other possibilities.

A vertical ‘n’ can be used for emphasis reasons as one possibility. It could be a segue form, or could introduce, or end lines of text. The second use would simply be the complexity of the story being told, and the use of either the vertical or horizontal, as a simpler means to write with flexibility in the choice of completing, starting, or transitioning hieroglyphic blocks of text.

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Ib (heart)

The most important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the Ib (jb), or heart. The Ib  or metaphysical heart was believed to be a drop from the heart of the mother of a child at conception. Archaeological findings portrayed it as a person who is weighed by the goddess Maàt after death.

To Ancient Egyptians, it was the heart and not the brain that was the seat of emotion and thought, including the will and intentions. In Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was conceived as proceeding at death to the future world, where it gave evidence for, or against, its possessor. It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and the deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. If the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, it was immediately consumed by the monster Ammit. This is evidenced by the many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word ib, Awt-ib: happiness (literally, wideness of heart), Xak-ib: estranged (literally, truncated of heart). This word was transcribed by Wallis Budge as ‘Ab’.

Sheut (shadow)

A person’s shadow, Sheut (šwt in Egyptian), was always present. It was believed that a person could not exist without a shadow, nor a shadow without a person, therefore, Egyptians surmised that a shadow contained something of the person it represents. For this reason statues of people and deities were sometimes referred to as their shadows.

The shadow was represented graphically as a small human figure painted completely black as well, as a figure of death, or servant of Anubis.

Ren (name)

As a part of the soul, a person’s ren (rn ‘name’) was given to them at birth and the Egyptians believed that it would live for as long as that name was spoken, which explains why efforts were made to protect it and the practice of placing it in numerous writings. For example, part of the Book of Breathings, a derivative of the Book of the Dead, was a means to ensure the survival of the name. A cartouche (magical rope) often was used to surround the name and protect it. Conversely, the names of deceased enemies of the state, such as Akhenaten, were hacked out of monuments in a form of damnatio memoriae. Sometimes, however, they were removed in order to make room for the economical insertion of the name of a successor, without having to build another monument. The greater the number of places a name was used, the greater the possibility it would survive to be read and spoken.

Ba (individual personality)

The ‘Ba’ (b3) is in some regards the closest to the contemporary Western religious notion of a soul, but it also was everything that makes an individual unique, similar to the notion of ‘personality’. (In this sense, inanimate objects could also have a ‘Ba’, a unique character, and indeed Old Kingdom pyramids often were called the ‘Ba’ of their owner). Like a soul, the ‘Ba’ is an aspect of a person that the Egyptians believed would live after the body died, and it is sometimes depicted as a human-headed bird flying out of the tomb to join with the ‘Ka’ in the afterlife.

In the Coffin Texts one form of the Ba that comes into existence after death is corporeal, eating, drinking and copulating. Louis Zabkar argued that the Ba is not part of the person but the person himself unlike the soul in Greek, or late Judaic or Christian thought. The idea of a purely immaterial existence was so foreign to Egyptian thought that when Christianity spread in Egypt they borrowed the Greek word “psyche” to describe the concept of soul and not Ba. Zabkar concludes that so peculiar was the concept of Ba to Ancient Egyptian thought that it ought not to be translated but instead the concept be footnoted or parenthetically explained as one of the modes of existence for a person.

In another mode of existence the Ba of the deceased is depicted in the Book of Going Forth by Day returning to the mummy and participating in life outside the tomb in non-corporeal form, echoing the solar theology of Re uniting with Osiris each night.

The word ‘bau’ (b3w), plural of the word ba meant something similar to ‘impressiveness’, ‘power’, and ‘reputation’, particularly of a deity. When a deity intervened in human affairs, it was said that the ‘Bau’ of the deity were at work [Borghouts 1982]. In this regard, the ruler was regarded as a ‘Ba’ of a deity, or one deity was believed to be the ‘Ba’ of another.

Ka (life force)

The Ka (k3) was the Egyptian concept of spiritual essence, that which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the ka left the body. The Egyptians believed that Khnum created the bodies of children on a potter’s wheel and inserted them into their mothers’ bodies. Depending on the region, Egyptians believed that Heket or Meskhenet was the creator of each person’s Ka, breathing it into them at the instant of their birth as the part of their soul that made them be alive. This resembles the concept of spirit in other religions.

The Egyptians also believed that the ka was sustained through food and drink. For this reason food and drink offerings were presented to the dead, although it was the kau (k3w) within the offerings (also known as kau) that was consumed, not the physical aspect. The ka was often represented in Egyptian iconography as a second image of the king, leading earlier works to attempt to translate ka as double.

Akh

The Akh (3ḫ meaning ‘(magically) effective one’), was a concept of the dead that varied over the long history of ancient Egyptian belief.

It was associated with thought, but not as an action of the mind; rather, it was intellect as a living entity. The Akh also played a role in the afterlife. Following the death of the Khat, the Ba and Ka were reunited to reanimate the Akh. The reanimation of the Akh was only possible if the proper funeral rites were executed and followed by constant offerings. The ritual was termed: se-akh ‘to make (a dead person) into an (living) akh. In this sense, it even developed into a sort of ghost or roaming ‘dead being’ (when the tomb was not in order any more) during the Ramesside Period. An Akh could do either harm or well to persons still living, depending on the circumstances, causing e.g. nightmares, feelings of guilt, sickness, etc. It could be evoked by prayers or written letters left in the tomb’s offering chapel also in order to help living family members, e.g. by intervening in disputes, by making an appeal to other dead persons or deities with any authority to influence things on earth for the better, but also to inflict punishments.

The separation of Akh and the unification of Ka and Ba were brought about after death by having the proper offerings made and knowing the proper, efficacious spell, but there was an attendant risk of dying again. Egyptian funerary literature (such as the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead) were intended to aid the deceased in “not dying a second time” and becoming an akh.

Relationships

Ancient Egyptians believed that death occurs when a person’s ka leaves the body. Ceremonies conducted by priests after death, including the “opening of the mouth (wp r)”, aimed not only to restore a person’s physical abilities in death, but also to release a Ba’s attachment to the body. This allowed the Ba to be united with the Ka in the afterlife, creating an entity known as an “Akh” (3ḫ, meaning “effective one”).

According to Friedrich Junge, Giacomo Borioni proposes in his work “Der Ka aus religionswissenschaftlicher Sicht” that the Ka was the self of a human being.

Egyptians conceived of an afterlife as quite similar to normal physical existence — but with a difference. The model for this new existence was the journey of the sun. At night the sun descended into the Duat (the underworld). Eventually the sun meets the body of the mummified Osiris. Osiris and the sun, re-energized by each other, rise to new life for another day. For the deceased, their body and their tomb were their personal Osiris and a personal Duat. For this reason they are often addressed as “Osiris”. For this process to work, some sort of bodily preservation was required, to allow the Ba to return during the night, and to rise to new life in the morning. However, the complete Akhu were also thought to appear as stars. Until the Late Period, non-royal Egyptians did not expect to unite with the sun deity, it being reserved for the royals.

The Book of the Dead, the collection of spells which aided a person in the afterlife existence, had the Egyptian name of the Book of going forth by day. They helped people avoid the perils of the afterlife and also aided their existence, containing spells to assure “not dying a second time in the underworld”, and to “grant memory always” to a person.

The tomb of Paheri, an Eighteenth dynasty nomarch of Nekhen, has an eloquent description of this existence, and is translated by James P. Allen as:

Your life happening again, without your ba being kept away from your divine corpse, with your ba being together with the akh … You shall emerge each day and return each evening. A lamp will be lit for you in the night until the sunlight shines forth on your breast. You shall be told: “Welcome, welcome, into this your house of the living!”

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The earliest appearance of this work is in the left hand wall of the Osireion in Abydos. It first appears in the Valley of the Kings, in the tomb of Ramesses IV, in place of Amduat, where it was recorded by Champollion in his letters for Egypt.

The book has no ancient title, and is not divided in the hours of the night as other Ancient Egyptian funerary texts are.

The Book of Caverns originated in the Ramessid Period. The book is known to be an underworld book that speaks of the deceased who fail their judgment in the afterlife, and also the rewards of those who pass the judgments. The Book of Caverns is one of the best sources to date that gives us the best view of the Egyptian concept of Hell.  The Book of Caverns is divided into two halves, six sections, by the ram headed sun god, and each half is divided into three other parts. The first half explains how the sun god invokes beings and groups of gods. The other half is a descriptive text of the earlier books. The Book of Caverns is much more literary that other funerary books, such as The Book of Gates, from the New Kingdom. The books does not have as many pictures than the other books, but instead it is much more descriptive and lengthy. The book describes the journey and tasks Re must go through to eventually end up in the Light. Re, the ram headed sun god, must take souls through the after life journey through many caverns guarded by gods and goddesses. Each cavern has its own task and if the soul does not pass then is it sent to nonexistence. If the soul is condemned to nonexistence then they are beheaded and their hearts are ripped out of their chests.

Section 1

Section 1 of the book describes Re as the ram headed sun god and his mission is to enter the darkness in order to defend and care for Osiris. Then Re has to direct the entities; here the snakes of the first cavern guard the cavern entrance. Re must greet Osiris with his hand extended to him; Osiris is sitting on his shrine surrounded by the serpents. Osiris’s enemies are below him beheaded; this is the Egyptian concept of Hell, where the entities of humans go if they belong there. Osiris and Re then condemn them all to nonexistence.

Section 2

In Section 2 Re must reach various gods and goddesses who are guarded by various serpents. Then once he reaches Osiris they souls are once again sent to nonexistence. Nonexistence is known as the Place of Annihilation where the souls are punished by guards with knives.

Section 3 through 6

Section 3 through Section 6 is about the damned and their punishment. The damned are shown on ovals in the walls of the caverns, hence the book is called The Book of Caverns. In the caverns the gods lay also making sure each and every soul continues to serve their punishment. For the first time ever the book talks about women being in nonexistence. In all other books dealing with the afterlife of souls, none state anything about women in hell. Women were always thought to have been pure, and could never have the option of being damned to hell.

As all the souls are trapped for eternity in hell, Osiris is down there with him. However a sun disc protects him and serpents surround him. Since he is protected he is able to continue the process. Osiris has two sons’ names Anubis and Horus. Anubis is a god with the head of a jackal he is the god of mummification and the path of the dead. Horus is the falcon headed god who is in charge of the living Pharaoh and also law, war, young men, and light.

Ramessid Period

The Ramessid Period took place during 1295-1069BC (19th and 20th Dynasty), which is still part of the New Kingdom age. Pharaoh Rameses II is known for its length due to his many construction projects and confrontation with the Hittite Empire. During the 19th Dynasty Egypt’s power was threatened by the Hittite Empire from Syria aka Palestine and then later by the Libyan tribes, known as the “Sea People”. However in the 20th Dynasty it was a time of social unrest, due to the extremely powerful High Priests of Amun.

Origination

The first known almost complete version of The Book of Caverns that only has its upper register damaged was located in the Osireion. The Osireion was built at a considerably lower level than the foundations of temple Seti. It was first discovered by archaeologists Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray who were excavating the site in 1902 through 1903. The Osireion was built with enormous 60-ton granite columns and is made up with a very different architectural style than to Seti’s temple being more like the Old Kingdom temples. The Book of Caverns was found directly across from the Book of Gates within the entrance passage on the left wall. The Book of Gates was located near the Book of Caverns because it also deals with death. The Book of Gates is an Ancient Egyptian sacred text that dates back to the New Kingdom Dynasty also. The book is about the journey of the deceased soul into the next world. The soul passes through a variety of ‘gates’ during different stages in their journey. If a soul does not make it through a gate it will suffer torment in the lake of fire, but if it makes it through them all it will pass unharmed. Both of the books are based upon funerary text of the New Kingdom, however they did not show up until the 19th Dynasty and were not in any of the tombs within the Valley of the Kings however except for Pharaoh Ramesses IV.

Ramesses IV was the first to use one of the earliest passages from the Book of Caverns, rather than the traditional Amduat passages. Ramesses VI was the first to use the entire version of the book in his tomb, in the Osireion, with the Book of Gates in the front of the tomb. The passages of the book were written all over the walls of the tomb completely covering it in text. Ramesses the VII went even further and had passages not only written on the walls but the ceilings also, and in the sarcophagus chamber. Ramesses the VII was the first to ever have a completed covered tomb in every room with The Book of Caverns. After his tomb, Ramesses the VII, every future tomb to be created had used The Book of Caverns completely also.

History

Jean Francios Champollion first wrote about the book from the tomb of Ramesses VI providing some translations. Scholars however were not interested in the book at the time, until about a century later, when the second complete version of the book was discovered in the Osireion. In 1933 Henri Frankfort tired to write the first complete translation of the book with the help of Adriaan de Buck. Unfortunately it was not translated completely into English until 1941. He also translated the text in the tomb of Ramesses VI in 1954.

Article Source: Wikipedia.org