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Life Sucks for the Egyptian Damned
Mar. 24th, 2005 02:57 pmI went to a very good lecture last Saturday as part of the monthly ARCE (American Research Center in Egyptology)free lecture series. The topic of this was the disposition of the Damned in Egyptian mythology.
This information occurs in two places, The Book of The Dead and the later Books of the Underworld. In the Book of the dead, we have the scene where the recently deceased person's heart is placed on the scales, held by Osiris, with the feather known as Maat, which stands for Moral standards, (not justice, as some people often think) and the balance is checked. Hearts that are lighter than the feather are returned to the deceased, and they take their place in the Field of Reeds as the Blessed Dead. Hearrts that fall heavier are eaten by the monster Ahmet, who has the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a Lion, and the rear end of a Hippo. She exists solely for this purpose, from what we've been able to fathom. From here, the Book of the Dead is done with the matter.
The Books of the Underworld, mostly dating from the Middle and Late Kingdom tombs of kings, deal with the travel of Ra through the underworld when night falls. For Egyptians, every night was a new trial, and it was possible that the sun might not rise again the next day. In this work, Ra is joined with Osiris, which is often thought of as an aspect of the sun, and they visit all three registers of the underworld, though mostly staying in the middle register.
The Higher register is where the field of Reeds lies, and this is the home to all who have passed the scales test or died ffrom drowning. (Those who Drown are automatically considered Blessed Dead -- Our lecturer refused to speculate on this, but I think it's because the Nile was sacred, so they were washed clean in their passage to the afterlife.) The Lower Register is where the damned are taken to be tortured and eventually annihilated.
Annihilation is the worst fate possible for a dying egyptian. First, the damned are stripped, suspended upside down, and bound. Then, they are decapitated. They are flogged or tortured in various other ways, and eventually burned in fire. This repeats until they are utterly destroyed. It's interesting that the Egyptians had no punishments relating to cold or ice. They were definitely familiar with it, both from travels and from the tempratures outside the Nile valley, which gets quite cold at times in the winter.
One more interesting thing was related in the Books of the Underworld. Upon Death, Egyptians had a duty to perform before facing the scales. They were to recite the Negative Catalog, where they listed all the bad, taboo things they hadn't done, starting with murder and theft, moving to sexual taboos, and then on to other issues.
It was an interesting lecture. The lecturer was very verbal, and even though I couldn't see the slides she was projecting, I got a lot out of it. One last hing. The Egyptian word for cat is Miw. i find that more intrinsically descriptive than the word Cat for such a creature.
Next Month's lecture is a pictoral history of tourism in Egypt in the ninteen hundreds. I'll miss it, as I'm planning on attending CMA, but that's okay, as I'd miss a lot of the meat of the presentation anyway.
This information occurs in two places, The Book of The Dead and the later Books of the Underworld. In the Book of the dead, we have the scene where the recently deceased person's heart is placed on the scales, held by Osiris, with the feather known as Maat, which stands for Moral standards, (not justice, as some people often think) and the balance is checked. Hearts that are lighter than the feather are returned to the deceased, and they take their place in the Field of Reeds as the Blessed Dead. Hearrts that fall heavier are eaten by the monster Ahmet, who has the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a Lion, and the rear end of a Hippo. She exists solely for this purpose, from what we've been able to fathom. From here, the Book of the Dead is done with the matter.
The Books of the Underworld, mostly dating from the Middle and Late Kingdom tombs of kings, deal with the travel of Ra through the underworld when night falls. For Egyptians, every night was a new trial, and it was possible that the sun might not rise again the next day. In this work, Ra is joined with Osiris, which is often thought of as an aspect of the sun, and they visit all three registers of the underworld, though mostly staying in the middle register.
The Higher register is where the field of Reeds lies, and this is the home to all who have passed the scales test or died ffrom drowning. (Those who Drown are automatically considered Blessed Dead -- Our lecturer refused to speculate on this, but I think it's because the Nile was sacred, so they were washed clean in their passage to the afterlife.) The Lower Register is where the damned are taken to be tortured and eventually annihilated.
Annihilation is the worst fate possible for a dying egyptian. First, the damned are stripped, suspended upside down, and bound. Then, they are decapitated. They are flogged or tortured in various other ways, and eventually burned in fire. This repeats until they are utterly destroyed. It's interesting that the Egyptians had no punishments relating to cold or ice. They were definitely familiar with it, both from travels and from the tempratures outside the Nile valley, which gets quite cold at times in the winter.
One more interesting thing was related in the Books of the Underworld. Upon Death, Egyptians had a duty to perform before facing the scales. They were to recite the Negative Catalog, where they listed all the bad, taboo things they hadn't done, starting with murder and theft, moving to sexual taboos, and then on to other issues.
It was an interesting lecture. The lecturer was very verbal, and even though I couldn't see the slides she was projecting, I got a lot out of it. One last hing. The Egyptian word for cat is Miw. i find that more intrinsically descriptive than the word Cat for such a creature.
Next Month's lecture is a pictoral history of tourism in Egypt in the ninteen hundreds. I'll miss it, as I'm planning on attending CMA, but that's okay, as I'd miss a lot of the meat of the presentation anyway.
