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Tag: Bennu Bird

November 11, 2014

Transformations of the Afterlife

“But the use of the horoscope is much older than the time of Alexander the Great, for to a Greek horoscope (published for the first time by Kenyon, Catalogue of Greek Papyri vol. i. p. 132 ff) in the British Museum is attached “an introductory letter from some master of the art of astrology to his pupil, named Hermon, urging him to be very exact and careful in his application of the laws which the ancient Egyptians, with their laborious devotion to the art, had discovered and handed down to posterity.”

Thus we have good reason for assigning the birthplace of the horoscope to Egypt. In connexion with the horoscope must be mentioned the “sphere” or “table” of Democritus as a means of making predictions as to life and death.

In a magical papyrus (footnotes for page 230 are missing from my edition, not included at the end of the text)  we are told to “ascertain in what month the sick man took to his bed, and the name he received at his birth.”

“Calculate the [course of] the moon, and see how many periods of thirty days have elapsed; then note in the table the number of days left over, and if the number comes in the upper part of the table, he will live, but if in the lower part, he will die.”

Egyptian Horoscope TableBoth from the religious and profane literature of Egypt we learn that the gods and man in the future life were able at will to assume the form of any animal, or bird, or plant, or living thing, which they pleased, and one of the greatest delights to which a man looked forward was the possession of that power.

This is proved by the fact that no less than twelve (footnote missing)  of the chapters of the Book of the Dead are devoted to providing the deceased with the words of power, the recital of which was necessary to enable him to transform himself into a “hawk of gold,” a “divine hawk,” “the governor of the sovereign princes,” “the god who giveth light in the darkness,” a lotus, the god Ptah, a bennu bird (i.e., phœnix), a heron, a “living soul,” a swallow, the serpent Sata, and a crocodile; and another chapter (footnote missing)  enabled him to transform himself into “whatever form he pleaseth.”

Armed with this power he could live in the water in the form of a crocodile, in the form of a serpent he could glide over the rocks and ground, in the form of the birds mentioned above he could fly through the air, and soar up and perch himself upon the bow of the boat of Râ, in the form of the lotus he had mastery over the plants of the field, and in the form of Ptah he became “more powerful than the lord of time, and shall gain the mastery over millions of years.”

The bennu bird, it will be remembered, was said to be the “soul of Râ,” and by assuming this form the deceased identified himself with Khepera, the great god of creation, and thus acquired the attributes of the soul of the Sun-god.

In the Elysian Fields he was able to assume any form and to swim and fly to any distance in any direction. It is noteworthy that no beast of the field or wild animal is mentioned as a type of his possible transformations into animals.”

E.A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic, London, 1901. Pp. 229-32.

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November 6, 2014

Vignettes From the Papyrus of Ani

soul_of_ani_visiting_his_body_in_the_bier

The soul of the scribe Ani visiting his mummified body 
as it lies on its bier in the tomb. 
(From the Papyrus of Ani, plate 17.)

“Many of the pictures or vignettes carry their own interpretations with them, e.g., the picture of the soul hovering over the dead body which lies beneath it on the bier at once suggests the reunion of the soul with the body; the picture of the deceased walking away from a “block of slaughter” and a knife dripping with blood suggests escape from a cruel death; the picture of a soul and spirit standing before an open door suggests that the soul has freedom to wander about at will; and the picture of the soul and the shadow in the act of passing out through the door of the tomb indicates clearly that these parts of man’s economy are not shut up in the tomb for all eternity.

Anubis with Ani

Anubis holding the mummy of the scribe Ani.

Anubis holding the mummy of the scribe Ani; 
by the door of the tomb stand the soul and spirit of the deceased 
in the form of a human-headed hawk and bennu bird respectively. 
(From the Papyrus of Ani, plate 16.)

But the ideas which prompted the painting of other vignettes are not so clear, e.g., those which accompany Chapters CLXII-CLXV in the late or Säite Recension of the Book of the Dead, although, fortunately, the rubrics to these chapters make their object clear.

Thus the picture which stands above Chapter CLXII. is that of a cow having upon her head horns, a disk, and two plumes, and from the rubric we learn that a figure of it was to be made in gold and fastened to the neck of the deceased, and that another, drawn upon new papyrus, was to be placed under his head.

If this be done “then shall abundant warmth be in him throughout, even like that which was in him when he was upon earth. And he shall become like a god in the underworld, and he shall never be turned back at any of the gates thereof.”

Ani Leaving the Tomb

Ani Passing Through the Door of His Tomb

The scribe Ani passing through the door of the tomb. 
Outside are his shadow and his soul in the form of a human-headed bird. 
(From the Papyrus of Ani, plate 18.)

The words of the chapter have great protective power (i.e., are a charm of the greatest importance) we are told, “for it was made by the cow for her son Râ when he was setting, and when his habitation was surrounded by a company of beings of fire.”

E.A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic, London, 1901. Pp. 113-6.

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October 27, 2014

Legend of the Destruction of Mankind

THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND.
The text containing the Legend of the Destruction of Mankind is written in hieroglyphs, and is found on the four walls of a small chamber which is entered from the “hall of columns” in the tomb of Seti I., which is situated on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes.

On the wall facing the door of this chamber is painted in red the figure of the large “Cow of Heaven.” The lower part of her belly is decorated with a series of thirteen stars, and immediately beneath it are the two Boats of Ra, called Semketet and Mantchet, or Sektet and Matet.

Each of her four legs is held in position by two gods, and the god Shu, with outstretched uplifted arms, supports her body. The Cow was published by Champollion, [Monuments, tom., iii., p. 245] without the text.

[ … ]

The legend takes us back to the time when the gods of Egypt went about in the country, and mingled with men and were thoroughly acquainted with their desires and needs. The king who reigned over Egypt was Ra, the Sun-god, who was not, however, the first of the Dynasty of Gods who ruled the land.

His predecessor on the throne was Hephaistos, who, according to Manetho, reigned 9000 years, whilst Ra reigned only 992 years; Panodorus makes his reign to have lasted less than 100 years.

Be this as it may, it seems that the “self-created and self-begotten” god Ra had been ruling over mankind for a very long time, for his subjects were murmuring against him, and they were complaining that he was old, that his bones were like silver, his body like gold, and his hair like lapis-lazuli.

When Ra heard these murmurings he ordered his bodyguard to summon all the gods who had been with him in the primeval World-ocean, and to bid them privately to assemble in the Great House, which can be no other than the famous temple of Heliopolis. This statement is interesting, for it proves that the legend is of Heliopolitan origin, like the cult of Ra itself, and that it does not belong, at least in so far as it applies to Ra, to the Predynastic Period.

When Ra entered the Great Temple, the gods made obeisance to him, and took up their positions on each side of him, and informed him that they awaited his words. Addressing Nu, the personification of the World-ocean, Ra bade them to take notice of the fact that the men and women whom his Eye had created were murmuring against him. He then asked them to consider the matter and to devise a plan of action for him, for he was unwilling to slay the rebels without hearing what his gods had to say.

In reply the gods advised Ra to send forth his Eye to destroy the blasphemers, for there was no eye on earth that could resist it, especially when it took the form of the goddess Hathor. Ra accepted their advice and sent forth his Eye in the form of Hathor to destroy them, and, though the rebels had fled to the mountains in fear, the Eye pursued them and overtook them and destroyed them.

Hathor rejoiced in her work of destruction, and on her return was praised by Ra, for what she had done. The slaughter of men began at Suten-henen (Herakleopolis), and during the night Hathor waded about in the blood of men. Ra asserted his intention of being master of the rebels, and this is probably referred to in the Book of the Dead, Chapter XVII., in which it is said that Ra rose as king for the first time in Suten-henen.

Osiris also was crowned at Suten-henen, and in this city lived the great Bennu bird, or Phoenix, and the “Crusher of Bones” mentioned in the Negative Confession.

E.A. Wallis Budge, Legends of the Gods: The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations, London, 1912. (No page numbers are given in my edition).

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