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Egyptian Guides To The Underworld / Afterlife (Book Of The Dead, Etc.)

EnolaGaia

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I'm surprised to find we don't seem to have a thread dedicated to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, so I'm starting one to contain these posts. They describe discovery and analysis of the earliest known version of the Book of Two Ways (generally considered the precursor to the Book of the Dead).

An Afterlife So Perilous, You Needed a Guidebook

Archaeologists unearthed the remains of a 4,000-year-old “Book of Two Ways” — a guide to the Egyptian underworld, and the earliest copy of the first illustrated book.

When it comes to difficult travel, no journey outside New York City’s subway system rivals the ones described in “The Book of Two Ways,” a mystical road map to the ancient Egyptian afterlife.

This users’ guide, a precursor to the corpus of Egyptian funerary texts known as “The Book of the Dead,” depicted two zigzagging paths by which, scholars long ago concluded, the soul, having left the body of the departed, could navigate the spiritual obstacle course of the Underworld and reach Rostau — the realm of Osiris, the god of death, who was himself dead. If you were lucky enough to get the go-ahead from Osiris’ divine tribunal, you would become an immortal god.

“The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with life in all its forms,” Rita Lucarelli, an Egyptology curator at the University of California, Berkeley, said. “Death for them was a new life.”

The two journeys were a kind of purgatorial odyssey reminiscent of Dungeons & Dragons: extraordinarily arduous, and so fraught with peril that they necessitated mortuary guidebooks like “The Book of Two Ways” to accompany a person’s spirit and ensure its safe passage. (The “two ways” refer to the options a soul had for navigating the Underworld: one by land, the other by water.) Among other annoyances, the deceased had to contend with demons, scorching fire and armed doorkeepers, who protected the dead body of Osiris against gods bent on preventing his rebirth, according to Harco Willems, an Egyptologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Success in the afterlife required an aptitude for arcane theology, a command of potent resurrection spells and incantations and a knowledge of the names not just of Underworld doorkeepers but also of door bolts and floorboards.

In a new study published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Dr. Willems detailed how a team of researchers under his direction unearthed the remains of a 4,000-year-old “Book of Two Ways” — the earliest known copy of the first illustrated book. In 2012 they reopened a long-abandoned burial shaft in the cliff-side necropolis of Deir el-Bersha, a Coptic village midway between Cairo and Luxor on the eastern side of the Nile. The site was the main cemetery for the region’s governors, or monarchs, during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, roughly 2055 to 1650 B.C.E., and boasts many elaborately decorated tombs. ...

SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/...oks-egypt-underworld.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

See Also:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/soul-map-0012694
 
Here are the bibliographic particulars and abstract of the published research article ...

A Fragment of an Early Book of Two Ways on the Coffin of Ankh from Dayr al-Barshā (B4B)
Harco Willems
First Published September 24, 2019 Research Article
https://doi.org/10.1177/0307513319856848

Abstract
Remains of the early Middle Kingdom coffin of a lady called Ankh (B4B) contain parts of the earliest now known version of the Book of Two Ways. The fragment published here retains parts of CT spells 1128 and 1130. The article discusses the problems involved in the publication of this particular source, and in reading the incised hieratic signs of this source. Also, the article places the version of source B4B within the context of the editorial development of the Book of Two Ways.

SOURCE: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0307513319856848?journalCode=egaa&
 
Would it be correct to call TBOTD an early grimmoire? I have a copy but haven't really tried to use or even understand it yet.
 
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Would it be correct to call TBOTD an early grimmoire? I have a copy but haven't really tried to use or even understand it yet.

Personally, I'd say, "No - unless you're dead and already engrossed in the afterlife."

Although TBOTD contains a number of spells / incantations, they are all (AFAIK) specific to equipping the deceased for the afterlife journey / quest or invoking things with respect to the deceased and his / her journey.

My understanding is that TBOTD isn't a cookbook / guidebook for proactive magic in the world of the living.
 
"No - unless you're dead and already engrossed in the afterlife."
Describes me to a tee.... in the sense of I have no friends left and tomorrow is a whole new deal.

Although TBOTD contains a number of spells / incantations, they are all (AFAIK) specific to equipping the deceased for the afterlife journey / quest or invoking things with respect to the deceased and his / her journey.

My understanding is that TBOTD isn't a cookbook / guidebook for proactive magic in the world of the living.
Yeah I think that's probably right. The Youtube woo brigade have, as usual, missed the entire point.

I found some insight into the way the people of that ancient culture interacted with their existence and the paradigm of Maát, which is a mind-inversion compared to the square prison of the western frame. It's hard work.
 
A papyrus containing Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead has been discovered among new finds at Saqqara.
13-foot-long 'Book of the Dead' scroll found in burial shaft in Egypt

A funerary temple belonging to Queen Nearit has been discovered in the ancient Egyptian burial ground Saqqara next to the pyramid of her husband, pharaoh Teti, who ruled Egypt from around 2323 B.C. to 2291 B.C. ...

Near the pyramid, the team of Egyptian archaeologists also found a series of burial shafts containing the remains of people who lived during the 18th and 19th dynasties of Egypt (1550 B.C. - 1186 B.C.) ... So far, the team has uncovered more than 50 wooden coffins in these shafts, along with a wide array of objects. ...

One of the most fascinating objects found in the burial shafts is a 13-foot-long (4 meters) papyrus that contains Chapter 17 of the "Book of the Dead," a manuscript that ancient Egyptians used to help guide the deceased through the afterlife. The name of the papyrus's owner, Pwkhaef, is written on it; that same name was also found on one of the wooden coffins and on four shabti figurines meant to serve the deceased in the afterlife.

Though scientists are currently analyzing the text, other copies of Chapter 17 contain a series of questions and answers — a cheat sheet of sorts for people trying to navigate the afterlife. Whether the newly found copy of Chapter 17 has the same question-and-answer format remains to be seen.

SOURCE: https://www.livescience.com/queen-temple-book-of-dead-found-egypt.html
 
I like the Egyptians, they loved life so much they wanted to take it with them.
They loved life in Kemet; they were very afraid of dying in a foreign land and having their bodies left there.
 
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A lot of ancient Egyptian magic was apotropaic; to "ward off the blows of fate". Regular life in ancient Egypt could be hazardous; there were all kinds of dangerous creatures around, and childbirth and other things were dangerous too, though Egyptian medicine was probably better than medicine during the US Civil War. Practical magic was often effected by through the use and manipulation of wax figures or images. Ritual sympathetic magic, including smashing jars inscribed with the names of the enemies of Egypt also occurred. It is difficult to put one into the mindset of an ancient Egyptian, or any ancient really; it's the same problem that reenactors have when trying to re-create the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rames...portant component in Ancient Egyptian culture.
 
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I LOVE this series from Romer --it really takes you back.. Here is the first part:
 
"Book of the Dead" found with the dead.

Archaeologists excavating a 3,500-year-old cemetery have discovered an ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead" filled with spells to guide the deceased in the afterlife.

The scroll, which was revealed as part of a presentation of the latest archaeological finds from the Tuna al-Gebel cemetery in central Egypt, is estimated to be 43 to 49 feet long. Such scrolls were a common component of burials in ancient Egypt, and their incantations were a form of supernatural "travel insurance", according to Sara Cole, an assistant curator in the Antiquities Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, speaking to The New York Times.


An early examination of the scroll found in Tuna al-Gebel revealed a mention of the "Book of the Dead," the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement on October 15 translated from Arabic.

The scroll was not the only treasure found at the site, which was established during the New Kingdom dating back to circa 1550 to 1070 BCE. Archaeologists found mummies, thought to belong to high-ranking officials, some of which were still in their ornate stone sarcophagi in good state of preservation, per Live Science. This includes the mummy of Ta-de-Isa, the daughter of a high priest, Live Science reported.

The find also uncovered rare canopic jars made of alabaster, used to store spiritually important organs during mummification, and "thousands" of amulets, per the statement.

Canopic jars


Canopic jars found alongside the mummy. (Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

Finding a copy of the "Book of the Dead" is not that uncommon. But it is "very rare" to find one still in the grave where it was buried, Foy Scalf, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago, told Live Science in an email.

https://www.sciencealert.com/3500-y...uide-the-dead-uncovered-with-egyptian-mummies
 
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