Osiris and the Egyptian resurrection:

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Cornell University Library

Preface

The Chapters printed in these volumes are the result of a study undertaken with the object of attempting to discover the source of the fundamental beliefs of the indigenous Religion of Ancient Egypt, to trace their development through a period of some two score centuries, and to ascertain what were the foreign influences which first modified Egyptian beliefs, then checked their growth, and finally overthrew them. There is no doubt that the beliefs examined herein are of indigenous origin, Nilotic or Sudini in the broadest signification of the word, and I have endeavoured to explain those which cannot be elucidated in any other way, by the evidence which is afforded by the Religions of the modern peoples who live on the great rivers of East, West, and Central Africa. The central figure of the ancient Egyptian Religion was Osiris, and the chief fundamentals of his cult were the belief in his divinity, death, resurrection, and absolute control of the destinies of the bodies and souls of men. The central point of each Osirian's Religion was his hope of resurrection in a transformed body and of immortality, which could only be realized by him through the death and resurrection of Osiris. I have therefore made Osiris, and the beliefs which grew up under his cult, the central consideration of this enquiry, and have grouped about the history of the god the facts in modern African Religions which are similar and which I consider to be cognate to the old beliefs. The general argument of the book is indicated in the following paragraphs.

The materials now available for the enquiry may be divided roughly into two main classes : — i. The Magical, Religious, and Mythological Texts written by native Egyptians for Egyptians. 2. Accounts of the Magic, Religion, Mythology, and Gods of Ancient Egypt written by Greek and Roman historians and philosophers, e.g., Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, Apuleius, and others.

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for the use and information of their countrymen. An examination of the statements on the ancient Religion of Egypt found in the works of the above-mentioned and other classical writers, carried on side by side with a study of the Egyptian texts, convinced me that the information supplied by them was wholly unsuitable for the solution of the numerous problems which confront the student of the ancient - Egyptian Religion at every turn. The reason of this is not far to seek. The works of classical writers on Egypt and her Religion contain much extremely valuable information, some of which is supported by the native Egyptian texts. On the other hand, there are incorporated with such information many fantastic theories and imaginings which are not only unsupported, but are absolutely contradicted by the facts drawn from the Egyptian monuments ; Herodotus and others wrote down, no doubt, accurately enough, so far as they understood it, what they were told by Egyptian priests and by their well-educated friends in Egypt, but it is quite clear, by the construction which they put upon much of the information which they received, that they did not really understand the rudimentary principles of the Egyptian Religion, or its primitive cults, or the nature of their symbolism. There is no 'evidence in their works that they knew of or even suspected, the existence in it of the all-embracing beliefs in the power of the great ancestral spirit, and in the resurrection of men in general and their immortality, which are the chief characteristics of the Egyptian Religion. And these writers had no knowledge of the details of the cult of Osiris, and of his history, such as we now possess (thanks to the religious texts of the Vlth dynasty), because they could not read the native literature of Egypt. They can hardly be blamed for this, because it is certain that very few of the Egyptian priests took the trouble to read and study it, and to arrange systematically the facts of their Religion which were to be derived from their ancient writings. The confusion and contradictions which appear in the religious texts written under the XXth and following dynasties prove beyond all doubt that the knowledge of the early dynastic Religion of Egypt possessed by the priests in general after, let us sav

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1 200 B.C., was extremely vague and uncertain. Such being the case, the information which they could impart to cultivated and enquiring foreigners is almost useless of itself for historical investigations. Moreover, the character of the Religion of Egypt changed entirely under the New Empire. Its spiritualities became buried under a mass of beliefs which were purely magical in character, and men in general relied for salvation upon spells, incantations, magical figures, and amulets ; only the wise few clung to the beliefs of their ancestors. When Herodotus visited Egypt the knowledge of the Religion of the Ancient and Middle Empires had practically died out.

The general untrustworthiness of the information about the Egyptian Religion supplied by classical writers being thus evident, it is clear that, if we wish to gain exact knowledge about the subject, we must seek for it in the study of the native literature, which is comparatively large and full. A cursory examination of it leads us to hope that we shall find in it all the material we need for the purposes of our enquiry, but a fuller investigation of its contents produces at first a feeling somewhat akin to disappointment. For we find that in no portion of it does there exist a text which is not associated with magic, that no text contains a connected statement of the purely religious beliefs which we know the Egyptians certainly possessed, that on many vital points no text supplies any direct information whatsoever ; and finally, that there is in Egyptian no word for " religion " in our sense of the word. After a still further examination, however, the feeling of disappointment vanishes, for if the facts supplied by texts of one period be compared with those afforded by texts of another, it becomes clear that they are all intimately related. The writers of them all assumed the existence of the same beliefs in their readers, and also a knowledge of the essentials of the native Religion of Ancient Egypt, which were understood and were received generally. Thus if we compare the contents of works of the post-Saite Period, e.g., The Book of Breathings, The Lamentations of I sis and Nephthys, The Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys, The Book of Making the

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Spirit of Osiris, The Book of Traversing Eternity, with those of the works of the New, Middle, and Ancient Empires, e.g., the various Recensions of the Book of the Dead, The Book Am-Tuat, The Book of Gates, The Book of Opening the Mouth, The Book of Funerary Ceremonies, and The Book of the Two Ways, we find that the fundamental beliefs in them all are the same, and that the object of one and all was the same, namely, to procure the resurrection and immortality of the persons on whose behalf they were written and recited. In each and all of these a knowledge of the same facts is assumed by the writers to be possessed by the readers, and their acceptance by the readers is regarded as beyond question. In spite of all the popular developments of religious magic which flooded the old Religion of Egypt after the downfall of the New Empire, and the introduction of foreign gods, and the growth of the cults of local tree-gods, phallic gods, etc., the essentials of the indigenous Religion of the country remained unchanged from the time of the early dynasties to the end of the Graeco- Roman Period.

Of the Egyptian works mentioned above the most important for the purpose of an enquiry into the Religion of Ancient Egypt is the Book " Per-em-hru," commonly known as the Book of the Dead. In the oldest form of It with which we are acquainted, namely, that which was in use under the Vth and Vlth dynasties, it consists of a long series of spells, and incantations, and rhythmical formulae, etc., which were recited by the priests, probably at regular intervals during the year, for the benefit of the dead. This form is generally known as the " Heliopolitan Recension," because it was the work of the priests of Anu, or Heliopolis, who added to the indigenous sections of it a number of texts in which was promulgated their own particular worship, namely, that of the Sun-god Ra. Each spell and incantation was believed to produce a specific result, but what that result was is not always defined, and the variant titles of some spells prove that the Egyptian priests were not always certain what was the exact result which the recital of the spells would produce. Mixed with these spells are short texts which show that so far back as 3400 b.c. the

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Egyptians possessed conceptions of truth, justice, and righteousness. According to these the life everlasting in heaven, in the kingdom of Osiris, could only be attained by those who had lived righteous lives upon earth, and who had been declared to be speakers of the truth in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. The Egyptians set truth-speaking above all other virtues, and in the Great Judgment which took place in the Hall of Osiris the man who had spoken the truth on earth triumphed. Osiris himself was declared by Thoth and by the Great Jury of the gods who tried him to be " Truth-Speaker," Maa Kkeru, and the soul of the man after whose name these words could be written with the authority of Osiris was sure of eternal life and bliss.

Under the Xlth and XHth dynasties these spells and texts were copied on to sarcophagi and coffins, e.g., the coffin of Amamu and the coffins from Barshah, and a title was given to each, as, for example, " Chapter of not dying a second time," which generally indicated the object with which the spell was recited. Sometimes a Rubric was added which described the effect which would be produced if the recital of the spell were accompanied by the performance of certain ceremonies. Each spell was complete in itself and the spells and Chapters taken together composed the Book of the Dead. Under the XVHIth dynasty an attempt was made to group them together according to their subject matter, and it became the fashion to add to the Chapters vignettes, which were first of all traced in outline in black ink, and were in later times painted in brilliant colours. The idea underlying the addition of the vignettes is not clear, but it seems to have been magical. Under the XVIIIth dynasty it became customary to preface the Chapters and vignettes by a large scene in which was depicted the Weighing of the Heart in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. Such scenes form one of the principal characteristics of the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead. Down to the end of the XlXth dynasty the Book of the Dead was regarded generally as the final authority on Egyptian psychology and eschatology as understood by the priests of the cult of Osiris. Under the XXth dynasty the priests of xii Preface

Amen-Ra succeeded in forcing their god into a position in the Other World which was Httle inferior to that of Osiris, and this action is reflected in funerary papyri which were written at Thebes under the XXth and XX 1st dynasties. With the downfall of the rule of the priests of Amen-Ra at Thebes Osiris regained his old position of absolute and supreme power in the Other World, and in copies of the Saite Recension of the Book of the Dead written between 600 b.c. and 100 B.C. the special claim of kingship of all the gods of the Other World put forward by the priests of Amen-Ra for their god does not appear.

The above facts show that the Book of the Dead existed in an organized and written form during the greater part of the Dynastic Period, and to it we must have recourse if we would understand the Religion of the Egyptians during that time. We might reasonably expect that it would supply us with all the information we require about the Egyptian Religion, and in such a form that there could be no doubt about its meaning. Unfortunately, such is not the case, for however carefully we study the various Recensions, and collate papyri, and arrange the facts available, we find that many gaps still exist in our knowledge, and that our ignorance of the exact meanings of many words makes it impossible to arrive at definite conclusions in many cases. Moreover, we find that such information as we have is not always understood in the same way by all Egyptologists, and that the deductions which they make from the same texts frequently differ in character, and are sometimes wholly contradictory. When, in connection with my official work, I began to enquire into the Religion of Egypt I found that some authorities thought that it was full of the spiritual and metaphysical conceptions which characterize the Religions of some hio-hly civilized modern nations, and was highly philosophical in its nature. Others thought that it consisted of a series of crude and savage beliefs which found expression in disgusting ceremonies, and cannibalistic orgies, and licentious rites, similar to those which are performed at the present day among the Negroes and Negroid peoples in the Southern and Western Sildan. Others

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regarded it as a kind of solar cult based upon beliefs which were originally derived from Asia, but which were so corrupted and overlaid with native additions as to be unrecognizable. Others, again, considered it to be wholly phallic in character, and there were yet others who thought that it was nothing but a system of Black Magic, and undeserving of the name of a Religion.

When I had considered these views in detail it seemed to me that their authors must have described the Religion of Egypt from different standpoints, and that their conilicting opinions had been based upon some aspects of it, without due attention having been given to others. It was quite obvious that all these opinions could not be right at the same time, and that the only course left for the enquirer to pursue under the circumstances was to examine them one by one, and to compare them with facts derived exclusively from ancient Egyptian texts. The principal texts available at that time (1883) were the published copies of the papyri of Nebseni, Qenna, Neb-qet and Sutimes, the texts from coffins at Berlin, the Turin Papyrus, the Book of Opening the Mouth, the Book of Gates, and the first portion of the text of Unas. In the years which followed editions of many magic, religious, and liturgical papyri appeared, and before the close of last century the material available for an enquiry into the character of the Egyptian Religion was abundant. In fact, the student was then able to compare for the first time the contents of the Heliopolitan, Theban, and Saite Recensions of the Book of the Dead with those of several other cognate funerary works which, though belonging to a later period, are of great value.

The examination of this material occupied much time, but the more it was worked the clearer it became that many of the theories current as to the Egyptian Religion were wrong. The facts derived from the texts, when arranged, proved beyond all doubt that the indio-enous Religion of ancient Egypt was unlike any of the Asiatic Religions with which it had been compared, and that all its fundamentals remained unchanged throughout the Dynastic Period. Moreover, the evidence xiv Preface

of the tomb-deposits of the Predynastic, Archaic, and early Dynastic Periods which, thanks to the excavations of tombs made at Abydos, Nakadah, Ballis, and other parts of Upper Egypt, had become available, proved that the religious beliefs of the people who had made these tombs were substantially the same in all three Periods. And it became clear that the general character of the Religion of the dynastic Egyptians was identical with that of the Religion of the primitive Egyptians. In other words, the facts derived from the papyri, sarcophagi, coffins, stelae, etc., were supported in a remarkable manner by the testimony of early tomb-deposits. The evidence derived from the Egyptian texts also supplied information about several beliefs and characteristics of the Religion in all periods. It showed inter alia that the Egyptians believed in the existence of God Almighty, and that His behests were performed by a number of " gods," or as we might say, emanations, or angels ; that magical rites and ceremonies of all kinds were closely associated with beliefs of a highly spiritual character ; that the religion was not phallic, although the importance of the organs of generation, male and female, was greatly emphasized in connection with the worship of such "gods" as Menu and Amen; that birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles, trees, stones, etc., were venerated because they were believed to form the habitations of " gods " and spirits at certain times and under certain circumstances ; that amulets of all kinds were worn by the Egyptians, when living, and were laid on the bodies of the dead because it was thought that the benevolent, indwelling spirits would protect them from the spirits of evil ; that sacrifice was of vital importance, both for the living and the dead, and was regarded as worship of the highest kind ; that the natures of material objects were transmuted into spirit entities when they were laid upon consecrated altars, etc. There is no need to refer here to the doctrines of reward and punishment resurrection and immortality, for the existence of these among the Egyptians was demonstrated by E. de Roug6 in i860, and again by P. Pierret in 1881.

All these characteristics seemed to indicate that the Egyptian Religion was of African rather than Asiatic

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origin, as many had supposed, but the chief obstacle to the acceptance of this view was the fact that the rehgious Hterature of Egypt contains numerous hymns to the Sun-god under his various forms, e.g., Temu, Ra, Horus, and Khepera, and frequent allusions to a heaven in which Ra is the King and Lord of all the Gods. It is well known that the cult of Ra, under one phase or another, was the form of Religion accepted by the Pharaohs, and the priesthood, and a limited aristocracy, from the middle of the Vth dynasty onwards. And as each king, beginning with Assa, delighted to call himself " son of Ra," and regarded himself as an incarnation of Ra, this is not to be wondered at. On the other hand, there is no evidence that the great bulk of the people of Egypt adopted the cult of Ra, and many Chapters of the Book of the Dead prove that the Moon-god was their favourite object of worship. Many African peoples, especially those who live in the great forests and on the Nile, Congo, Niger, and other great rivers, not only regard the Sun with indifference, but with positive dislike ; on the other hand, the Moon and its spirit are venerated devoutly. Proofs of this fact are found in the writings of many travellers, whose works are quoted in their proper place in this book. Taking into consideration all the information available on the subject, it is tolerably clear that the cult of the Sun-god was introduced into Egypt by the priests of Heliopolis, under the Vth dynasty, when they assumed the rule of the country and began to nominate their favourite warriors to the throne of Egypt. These astute theologians, either by force or persuasion, succeeded in making the official classes and priesthood believe that all the indigenous great gods were forms of Ra, and so secured his supremacy. Meanwhile, the bulk of the people clung to their ancient cult of the Moon, and to their sacred beasts and birds, etc., and worshipped the spirits which dwelt in them, wholly undisturbed by the spread of the foreign and official cult of the Sun-god, which appealed so strongly to the great mixture of peoples in the Eastern Delta, and in the desert to the east and north-east of Egypt. It seems to me, then, that the existence of the cult of Ra in Egypt xvi Preface

does not affect the enquiry into the indigenous Religion of Egypt in any way.

During the years 1890-93, I was engaged officially in preparing for publication the volume which the Trustees of the British Museum issued with the second edition of their Facsimile of the Papyrus of Am, and in the three following years I prepared privately the edition of The Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead which appeared, with an English translation and an Egyptian-English Vocabulary, in three volumes in 1897. The writing of the Introductions brought me face to face with the difficulty of explaining the belief in the existence of the Dual Soul, and the extraordinary ideas as to its functions and capabilities which underlie the Chapters of the Heart (XXVI-XXXb), and the Chapters of Transformations (LXXVI ff.), and ancient Egyptian psychology and eschatology in general. None of the existing works on the Egyptian Religion explained the difficulties, but a perusal of the articles which Professor Maspero had contributed to the Revue des Religions (torn. XII, p. 123 ff. ; tom. XV, p. 159 ff. ; and torn. XIX, p. I ff.) showed that this eminent Egyptologist had battled with the same difficulties, and that he, like myself, was disposed to explain them by references to the beliefs of modern African peoples in the Sudan and West Africa. Moreover, the writings of the late E. Lef6bure and of Professor Wiedemann, of Bonn, contained evidence that they shared the same view.

Early in the summer of 1897 my official duties led me to Marawi, in the Dongola Province of the Egyptian Slid^n, and I took up my abode in the neighbouring village of Shibbah to be near the excavations which were carried out that year at Gebel Barkal. Durinothe months I lived there I came into contact with shekhs and " fikis " {i.e., religious teachers) and many kinds of natives, and from them I learned much about Sudani beliefs and religion. The information I gained confirmed and supplemented the reports on such matters which I had heard in Egypt on several occasions from Egyptians who had lived in the Sudan under the rule of Isma'il P^shi, and I found that it explained many of the beliefs which are enshrined in the Book of the Dead

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During subsequent visits to the Sudan I became convinced that a satisfactory explanation of the ancient Egyptian ReHgion could only be obtained from the Religions of the Sudan, more especially those of the peoples who lived in the isolated districts in the south ahd west of that region, where European influence was limited, and where native beliefs and religious ceremonials still possessed life and meaning. I then began to read systematically the books of all the great travellers in the Sfldan, beginning with the Travels of Ibn Batutah, and ending with recent publications like Mr. Ward's Voice from the Congo. The notes made in the course of this reading formed a large mass of material which seemed to me to be of great value for the comparative study of the Egyptian and Sudani Religions, and they illustrated in a remarkable manner the similarity of ancient Egyptian and modern African religious beliefs. It may be objected that the modern beliefs and superstitions of the Sudan and Congo-land and Dahomey are survivals of ancient Egyptian religious views and opinions, but the objection seems to me to possess no validity. The oldest and best form of the Egyptian Religion died more than 3,000 years ago, and many of the most illuminating facts for comparative and illustrative purposes are derived from the Religions of peoples who live in parts of Africa into which Egyptian influence never penetrated. The power of the Egyptians reached no farther than the northern end of the " Island" of Meroe, and it was not truly effective beyond Napata, the modern Marawi, near the foot of the Fourth Cataract. Modern Sudani beliefs are identical with those of ancient Egypt, because the Egyptians were Africans and the modern peoples of the Sudan are Africans. And making allowance for differences in natural circumstances and geographical position, ancient and modern Nilotic peoples give outward expression to their beliefs in the same way.

Having arranged my notes and extracts from the works of travellers, it became apparent that it was hopeless to expect to print them all as they stood, for the result would be an unwieldy and unreadable notebook. The general evidence derived from the Religion xviii Preface

of Ancient Egypt showed that all the great fundamental beliefs centred in Osiris and his cult, and I therefore decided to attempt to write the history of the god and of his principal forms, to describe the salient points of his worship, and to illustrate the beliefs which were crystallized in it with the facts collected in Egypt and the Sudan, and those derived from narratives of travellers in those countries. With the cult of Osiris was bound up all that was best in the civilization of Egypt during the Dynastic Period. It weaned the primitive Egyptians from cannibalism and from cruel and barbarous customs, it taught them to respect human life and to regard man as the image of God, and his dead body as a sacred thing, it induced them to devote themselves to agricultural labours, and it improved their morality. Above all, it transformed them from nomad hunters and thieves into a settled people with a god, a priesthood, and a worship, and taught them to believe in divine incarnation, and gave them a hope of resurrection and immortality, and of an existence in heaven, which, they were taught, could only be attained by those who had lived righteous lives upon earth, and through the mercy of Osiris.

The Egyptian texts now available enable us to trace the history of the cult of Osiris from the Archaic to the Roman Period with tolerable completeness, but its beginning is hopelessly lost in obscurity. Osiris was, I believe, an African, though not necessarily a Nilotic, god, and the birthplace of his cult seems to have been Upper Egypt. The exact meaning of his name is uncertain, for that of "Seat-maker," which is suo-o-ested by the Pyramid Texts, is hardly convincino- ; it is better to admit the fact at once and to say that its meaning is unknown. As regards the seat of his worship in Upper Egypt, it is quite certain that a shrine of the god existed at Abydos under the 1st dynasty. At first sight it seems as if he was merely a deified king who had lived and reigned in the immediate neighbourhood of that town. Early in the Dynastic Period his priests cleverly succeeded in incorporatingin his worship all that was best in the local cults and the ideals of morality, justice, and righteousness which

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they grouped about it appealed quickly to the people all over Egypt. The spread of the cult was rapid, both in Upper Egypt and in the Delta, because no other cult offered to its adherents the hope of the resurrection and immortality. Among the tribes of Egypt in general the cult of Osiris took the place of the cult of ancestral spirits, which was universal in the Nile Valley in primitive times, but the people lost nothing by the exchange, for Osiris became the divine ancestor of them all. His human nature, they thought, enabled him to understand the needs, troubles, and griefs of men, and to listen sympathetically to their prayers, and his divine nature gave him powers to help them in this world and in the next, which no other Ancestor-god ever possessed. Osiris, the divine Ancestor, became the Father of the souls of the Egyptians, and the symbol of their hope of resurrection and immortality.

The early religious texts of Egypt prove beyond all doubt that the Egyptians, in common with many peoples in other parts of the world, when in a primitive state of civilization, were cannibals in the Predynastic Period, and that, like many of the Nilotic tribes of the present day, they ate the bodies of enemies slain m battle as a matter of course. Before the coming of the cult of Osiris they must have eaten their own dead, as many modern tribes do, and there is reason to think; that, even after they had learned to know Osiris, the natural liking for human flesh, which is common to most African peoples, asserted itself in times when food was scarce and during famines. The disposal of the bodies of the dead must always have been a matter of difficulty in Egypt, for land suitable for purposes of agriculture was far too valuable to the living to be given up to the dead. The bodies of kings, chiefs, nobles, and rich men were always buried, sometimes in tombs hewn in the rocks, and sometimes in the sandy soil on the edge of the desert, and at one time it must have been thought that they were the only members of the population who would enjoy a future existence. The bodies of the bulk of the people were either laid in extremely shallow graves, from which they would be dragged easily by the dogs, and by the wolves, foxes, and jackals of the desert,

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or were thrown out boldly into the desert (or into "the bush " as they say in the Southern SMan at the present day) to be eaten by the leopards, hyenas, lynxes, etc.