Pyramid texts
From Encyclopaedia Aegyptiaca
The Pyramid Texts are the oldest surviving corpus of religious texts from Ancient Egypt, with the earliest example dating from the end of the 5th Dynasty, in the pyramid of Unas.
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[edit] History and Content of the Texts
The texts consist of 759 chapters or "utterances", though no one example contains a complete version. They comprise the earliest theological corpus of the Egyptian religion, and also one of the least corrupted [1].
The origins of the texts remain obscure, but include elements of earlier religious compositions alongside other elements that are near contemporary with the first inscriptions of the texts.[2]
The texts themselves deal with the Pharaohs assent to the celestial realm by means of travel (barques, ladders, flight etc.) and by enlisting the aid of the gods by commanding them. It also deals with the role and nature of the Pharaoh in the afterlife, amongst the gods, and also contain many spoken invocations, or spells.
The texts were inscribed on the stone walls of the burial chamber, and were purely textual, without any visual additions.
[edit] Religious Purpose and Application
The Pyramid Texts were used exclusively in Royal funerary contexts, inscribed in the burial chambers of the Old Kingdom Royal pyramids of the 5th and 6th Dynasties.[3] Their primarily objective was to aid the deceased Pharaoh in his safe passage to the celestial realm, providing him with invocations to repeat to be able to command certain gods and spirits to ensure his safe passage, as well as an appropriate role in the celestial realm itself, that is to say, in the barque of Ra, and serving only him, with the deceased Pharaoh being above the other gods. [4]
The Pyramid Texts are drawn heavily upon to form the basis of the Coffin Texts in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, and the so-called Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom, though their function was considerably different, being used in private burials, and with much greater prominence put on Osiris. [5]
[edit] Vision of the Afterlife
The vision of the afterlife presented in the Pyramid Texts is clearly celestial, taking place in a heavenly realm in the sky, amongst the stars, alongside the Sun God, whom, along with the deceased himself, is the most prominent character.[6]
The concept of an underworld is much less important than in the successor texts, though the Pyramid texts do introduce us to Osiris, and his name first occurs here. However the focus of the deceased is squarely upon the sky and his reunion with Ra in the solar barque. Unlike the later Book of the Dead, there is no emphasis on judgement in the texts.
[edit] The "Cannibal Hymn"
The so-called "Cannibal Hymn" or "Cannibal Spell" (Chapters 273-274) is found in only two cases, in the pyramids of Unas and Teti [7]. It is particularly archaic in character, and dissappears from later compositions, indicating that it may have been felt inconsistent with the relationship between the Pharaoh and the gods by this time.[8]
Despite this, these utterances have achieved infamy in modern western culture, and are often associated with human sacrifice, though scholarly opinion tends to regard the text as reflecting the various bull cults, [9] which are extremely well attested, and whose association with both Pharaoh and the celestial realm as a source of power in rejuvenation is well known, and amply demonstrated by events such as as the sed festival, already well established by the Early Dynastic Period, [10] and whose central theme was of rejuvenating the vitality and power of the Pharaoh, and including his walking (or perhaps running) in procession with a sacred bull.
[edit] Discovery and Translation
The Pyramid Texts were first discovered in 1881 by Gaston Maspero, in the burial chamber of the pyramid of Unas. The first partial publication came the following year, in Maspero began an incredibly ambitious programme of publishing the texts and translations from each of the Saqqara pyramids. Originally published piecemeal, they were collected into the Inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqarah in 1894.[11]
In 1910, Kurt Heinrich Sethe first organised the texts into the chapters in two volumes, along with an additional two volume commentary. The chapters are in fact clearly indicated in the original inscriptions [12] but it was only now this found it's way into Egyptological publications, and this has remained the main method of presentation ever since. As late as 1969, Faulkner refers to Sethe's work as an "indispensable source" [13] and Lichtheim also refers to him in her translation of selected chapters in Ancient Egyptian Literature.
[edit] Modern Translations
Several translations of the Pyramid Texts are currently available, the most recent being by James Allen, published by the Society of Biblical Literature. The older (1969) version by R O Faulkner is, however, still the standard work. First published by Oxford University Press, it was later reprinted by Aris and Phillips of Warminster (1984), and is now primarily distributed by Oxbow Books of Oxford. Facsimile works of older (copyright expired) translations are now sold on-line, but these works are now regarded by most as out-of-date, though may be of historical interest in studying the development of modern understanding of Egyptian texts.
A french translations of Sethe's work appeared in 1923 by Speelers, though it wasn't until 1952 that an English translation was produced by Mercer.
Falkner's translation of 1969 is itself built on Sethe's work, though incorporates many revisions that Sethe himself proposed in his errata and addenda, as well as many of Faulkners own interpretations and observations.
[edit] Bibliography
- Eyre, C (2002), The Cannibal Hymn: A Cultural and Literary Study, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool
- Faulkner, R O (1969), The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Oxford University Press, Oxford (Aris & Phillips 1984 reprint)
- Lichtheim, M (1975), Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles
- Montet, P (1964), Eternal Egypt: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt From Earliest Times to Conquest by Alexander the Great, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London.
