The Amduat in the Egypt Centre

Inspired by Kasia Szpakowska's talk for the Friends of the Egypt Centre last night, I thought I would introduce one or two artefacts in the Egypt Centre which may have Amduat influences. Kasia's talk was all about the Amduat, the ancient Egyptian afterlife book which shows the journey of the sun-god Re through the afterlife of the Duat. The earliest complete depiction known is from the tomb of Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BC). 

Unfortunately, we don't have any pure Amduat scenes in the Centre but during the Third Intermediate Period (1069-747 BC), Amduat scenes influenced the afterlife scenes shown in tombs, coffins and papyri. We do have some coffin fragments and a complete, coffin with Amduat influence.

So, here we have W648: It shows the sun-disk in the morning embracing the scarab. Very similar scenes are shown on New Kingdom copies of the Book of the Dead Spell 15, but there a female figure usually embraces the sun-disk. By the Third Intermediate Period, it is the male god Osiris with elements of Shu from the Book of Caverns who does the embracing. And, by this date, Osiris is more closely linked with the scarab. In Amduate texts it seems that Shu is the god who reaches towards the scarab.


And here is EC1053: a piece of cartonnage showing Re in his night boat (you can see the stars), waiting to be reborn. He is shown as a child in a red uterine disk. It isn't entirely Amduat but does echo the idea of Re travelling through the Duat to be reborn,

Here is my favourite character from the complete Third Intermediate Period coffin in the Egypt Centre showing 
Hepet-hor, She Who Embraces Horus. This divinity is almost inseparable from Osiris, guarding his judgement hall. She also tends to appear where Osiris and Re 'get together' in order to renew Re. She does appear on an Amduat Papyrus in the Nelson Atkin Museum of Art, Kansas City, where she holds up Osiris.


Then there is the mound scene on our coffin, not unlike the Amduat mound of Sokar with the snake and rebirth connotations. And, Sokar was very much associated with Osiris. 

While these examples are not entirely Amduat inspired, and several also have Book of the Dead or other Otherworld book influence, they also have some similarities with the Amduat. 

Any mis-attributions, mistakes etc. are of course mine, not Kasia's!

The Underworld, Anubis and the Greeks

The Egypt Centre has two shrouds from Deir el-Bahri dated to AD 220-270, the Roman Period. They do look a bit odd compared to typical pharaonic iconography. Indeed, early excavators wondered if they were Christian. Well you can see why with the cup, etc. (Added: They are in fact typically Egyptian for the date).

There is some general information about them here. However, today I wanted to concentrate on the depiction of Anubis in canine form with a key around his neck (he is shown twice in symmetry, near the bottom).

This key-carrying links him with the Greek god Aiakos, a judge of the dead. And indeed in Egyptian iconography, one of the roles of Anubis was as a judge of the deceased.

You can see him in his judge role on our 21st Dynasty coffin.

Anubis is sometimes given the title ‘he who is over the scales’ (Seeber 1976, 154) or, as early as the Pyramid Texts (DuQuesne 2005, 465), ‘assessor of hearts’ and ‘overseer of the tribunal’. His role as a judge and his epithet ‘assessor of hearts’ are discussed by Willems (1998). Prior to the 21st Dynasty, Thoth or Horus took the role as deity in charge of the weighing proceedings; during the 21st Dynasty, Anubis takes on this role.

On our shrouds, he has a key around his neck. Anubis with keys also occurs on magical gemstones of the later periods. They are keys to Hades, the Underworld. Many Egyptian texts speak of the afterlife as being celestial, or in the west, or even in some unspecified place, 'yonder'. But here we have the suggestion,  that the deceased lived in Hades; the Underworld. This idea of the afterlife as in the Underworld seems to show a Greek link; one could say it is very much un-Egyptian. Joanne Conman has written a convincing argument which suggests that the Egyptians certainly did not think of the deceased as inhabiting an Underworld, as such a realm did not exist for them, at least in earlier periods.

And, finally, as Terence DuQuesne (1991) explaines, Anubis, as a jackal is an archetypal gatekeeper. One would expect a post Egyptian gatekeeper to hold keys (earlier Egyptian ones are shown with knives).

Conman, J. 2009. It's About Time: Ancient Egyptian Cosmology. SAK, 31, 33-71.

DuQuesne, T. 1991, Jackal at the Shaman's Gate: A Study of Anubis Lord of Ro-Setawe, with the Conjuration to Chthonic Deities (PGM XXIII; pOxy 412). Thame: Darengo.

DuQuesne, T. 2005. The Jackal Divinities of Egypt I. Oxford Communications in Egyptology VI. Oxford: Darengo Publications.

Seeber, C. 1976. Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Totengerichts im Alten Ägypten. München: Deutscher Kunstverlag.

Willems, H. 1998. ‘Anubis as a Judge’, in Clarysse, W., Schoors, A and Willems, H. (eds.) Egyptian Religion the Last Thousand Years. Studies dedicated to the memory of Jan Quaegebeur. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 719–743.

Ammut- not such a bad girl?

Poor old Ammut, the Devourer, gets such a terrible press normally. She eats the hearts of the deceased who are bad people so that they don't get to go to 'heaven'. But was she really all bad?

You can see her on the steps of the throne of Osiris here (the b/w image is easier to make out). She has the head of a crocodile, the hind part of a hippopotamus and the middle part of a lion. Her teats show she is female. She also wears a modius, like Egyptian royal women. These picture are taken from out 21st Dynasty coffin (you can find out more about it here). She is waiting for the judgement from Osiris, does she get a nice tasty heart, or not?

However, there seems to have been more to her than simply a blood-crazed glutton of hearts. Strangely, perhaps, one of the beds in the tomb of Tutankhamun is in the shape of Ammut and he is called 'Beloved of Ammut'. Such beds in tombs would have been associated with resurrection.

Additionally, she often appears on 21st Dynasty coffins in scenes of Osiris' triumph over death, a scene that could also be said to be associated with resurrection.

Here she is on our coffin in the mound scene, where Osiris sits atop, reborn. Can you see her, front paws on steps? She is in the Amduat, the otherworld.

It seems however, that for the Egyptians, the destruction of enemies was necessary for rebirth, so Ammut is not so bad after all.

In some ways (her hippo links) she seems similar to Taweret, normally thought of as a good girl, but sometimes not so good (there is another tale there).

Twinkle toes!

Just repacking some of our cartonnage (although due to lack of space it seems more like I'm just moving them around). But, wanted to share a couple of really pretty Graeco Roman cartonnage foot coverings. You might have to look hard (click on the photos to enlarge them) as the interest (well for me) is in the detail.

First of all EC35, above. I've taken pictures of top and bottom. They show the top and bottom of the sandaled feet. Noticed that the toes on the left have little toe coverings, just like the mummies would have done.

Now, EC491, below, see the little stars in the background of the right. Presumably this is to show the Duat, the otherworld of the Egyptian dead.

For more Graeco-Roman items in our collection you can do an online search on our database, or click here for selected items.

Amduat scene

Been trying to find out a bit more about this scene. It's a fragment of a Third Intermediate Period coffin. I thought the scene was quite unusual.

It shows the sun-disc with arms embracing the scarab. On either side there is an ankh and the symbols for East and West. At the bottom is the hieroglyph showing the rising sun.

As far as I can tell this shows the last hour of the Amduat. The deceased (evoked by the scarab) travels through the Amduat to be reborn with the new sun. Liptay has written on this.

I only know of one other occurence on a coffin (a coffin from Budapest), does anyone know of more?

For more information see: http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/300-w648