2

piece of poetry in the literature of the world.1 The seventeenth chapter is not less remarkable. It consists, as Bunsen says, "of short and obscure ejaculations, and of glosses and commentaries upon this text;" "of an original sacred hymn, interspersed with such glosses or scholia as must have been collected by a vast number of interpreters. This is identical with saying that the record was at that time no longer intelligible. Yet the text of the whole chapter is written, not only in the Turin papyrus, but on the coffin of the eleventh dynasty. Add to this that the text thus confounded in every verse with its glosses is written so confusedly, both on the coffin and in the papyrus, that the scholia are jumbled into wrong spaces.. Suppose a psalm of the Hebrew text to have been copied on a royal monument with a whole catena of commentaries and glossaries, but copied uno tenore, without distinction of text and notes. Such exactly is the state of the Egyptian record." Since Bunsen wrote, considerable light has been thrown upon the chapter. M. de Rougé has translated the chapter, after having carefully collated all the manuscripts accessible to him, and has learnedly commented upon both the original texts and the glosses.3 Lepsius has

....

1 M. Léfébure has published a critical edition, with a translation and commentary.

2 66

Egypt's Place in Universal History," Vol. V. pp. 89, 90.

3 "Etudes sur la Rituel Funéraire des anciens Egyptiens," 1860.

greatly added to our knowledge by publishing two texts of the chapter copied from coffins of the ancient empire, with his learned annotations. The whole of the chapter is important, but the most interesting portion is the beginning of it, which may be thus translated: "I am Tmu, who have made heaven, and have created all the things which are; and I exist alone, rising out of Nu. I am Ra with his diadem, when he began the kingdom which he made." The gloss asks, "What is this?" and the answer is, that "Ra began to exercise his sovereignty when as yet there was no firmament, and when he was on the height of Amchemun, for then he established the children of inertness upon the height of Am-chemun." The meaning of this is, that there was a time of chaos when no distinction as yet existed between earth and sky. But the kingdom of Ra was already established, and in his reign the firmament was raised, and certain personages, called the children of inertness, were established (as gods, according to one reading) on the height of Am-chemun, where Ra himself had resided before.

2

1 "Aelteste Texte des Todtenbuchs," 1867.

2 "Fils de la révolte," according to M. de Rougé. There are two words which are sometimes confounded, even in Egyptian texts, beshet and betesh. They may be etymologically connected by metathesis (the first is even sometimes written shebet), for both mean "stretch out ;" the former, however, in active opposition, the second in helplessness. Betesh has some of the meanings of the Hebrew messavit, desiit; hence desidia, interpellatio operis.

Chemun is the Egyptian name of Hermopolis, but it also signifies the number Eight. The "children of inertness" are the elementary forces of nature, which according to Egyptian ideas were eight in number. These elements, born out of chaos or inertness, henceforth became active, and were made to rule the world under Rā as the demiurgus.'

--

The text proceeds "I am the great God, selfexistent;" but a longer recension adds, "that is to say the Water, that is to say Nu, the father of the gods." According to a gloss, the self-existent god is Ra Nu, the father of the gods, and other glosses speak of Ra as "creating his name as lord of all the gods, or as producing his limbs, which become the gods who are in his company." Besides this cosmology, the chapter contains a number of interesting details on the mythology and on the symbolism which is connected with it; as, for instance, that the ithyphallic god Amesi is Horus, the avenger of his father, and that the two feathers upon his head are the twin sisters Isis and Nephthys.2

The sixty-fourth chapter is scarcely less interesting; but in spite of the excellent labours of M. Guyesse, who has carefully edited and translated several recensions of it, much remains to be done before it can be

1 See the excellent article of M. Naville in the Zeitschrift, 1874, p. 57.

2 There are other glosses at variance with this interpretation.

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made thoroughly intelligible, not only to the public at large, but to professional scholars. Tradition, as represented by the rubrics of the chapter, assigned the discovery of this document either to the time of king Menkaura, according to some manuscripts, or to that of king Septi of the first dynasty. The chapter is twice copied on the sarcophagus of the queen of the eleventh dynasty, and in one of the copies king Septi's name is given; the other copy follows the tradition in favour of king Menkaura, though the scribe has blundered about the name, and inserted that of Mentuhotep, which is the royal name to which the coffin itself belongs. The 130th chapter is also said to have been found in the palace of king Septi. It is very doubtful whether these traditions rest upon any authentic basis.

Other Sacred Books.

As the Book of the Dead is the most ancient, so it is undoubtedly the most important of the sacred books of the Egyptians. Other works are interesting to the archaeologist, and require to be studied by those who desire to have minute and accurate knowledge of the entire mythology, but they are extremely wearisome and repulsive to all whose aim extends beyond mere erudition. I am not now referring to hymns and other private compositions (found in papyri or on the walls of tombs and temples), some of which I shall have

public and, if I

Those which are

occasion to speak of in the next Lecture, but to the books which were evidently recognized as having may say so, canonical authority. best known have reference to the passage of the sun through the twelve hours of the night. That part of the world which is below the earth and visited by the sun after his setting, is called the Tuat. The bark of the sun is represented as proceeding over a river called the Uranes, through fields cultivated by the departed. The whole space is divided into twelve parts, separated by gates. The "Book of that which is in the Tuat" contains a short description of these twelve divisions, their names, the names of the hours of the night, of the gates and of the gods belonging to each locality, and it states the advantages to be derived from a knowledge of these names, and also from the due observance upon earth by the living of the rites due to the departed. It is said, for instance, that if these rites are conducted em ser maat, "with the strict accuracy of Law," the honours paid to him on earth are transmitted to him in the lower world. If he knows the names of the gods he encounters, no harm will come to him. The papyri which contain this composition are always illustrated; the text is indeed in great part simply descriptive of the picture to which it refers.

Very similar in its nature is the composition which covers the beautiful alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I.,