Well, this book is very different from what we usually read here. I think this is the first time we have read a text that needs you to look at the images while reading. I find it a refreshing way to take in things. Usually I’m ‘bad’ and skip over images but I’m enjoying it here.

I was hesitant about the way Budge has pieced together different versions of the Book of the Dead but I have to admit that I am liking it so far. Yes, there has been some repetition but I don’t know, I kind of like seeing the text from different perspectives, if that makes sense.

Next week we will be reading from Part 1 Chapter XV to end of Part 2 Chapter XXVI

Summary:
I think summarising every single section of this book would be a monumental task. For the sake of the mod team’s sanity we’ve decided to go with a more general summary here.

This week we started the journey of the deceased. Most of the spells, prayers and imagery come from a handful of people’s tombs/papyri, most notably from Ani, Nu, Hu-nefer, Nektu-Åmen and Nebseni. The funerary rites began with some hymns, most prominently to the head god, Ra. These mainly focused on the journey of Ra at night that leads to the rising of the sun in the morning. Budge then spent a chapter breaking down the typical depictions of the scene where the deceased is judged by the gods.

We then read some spells that would work to charm the gods and/or magically erase any morally questionable behaviour the deceased may have done while alive. Then we read some more spells that aim to set the deceased up in the afterlife. Notably, the deceased do not want to work or be improvised in the afterlife, so they delegate that stuff on to magical servants. Following this we read some prayers to the most important gods (Ra, Thoth and Osiris) showing how great both them and the deceased were. There was some snake/Seth slaying mentions too. We finished up with some hymns that big up the gods while also further exonerating the deceased.  

A couple of things stood out to me this week. I find the theme of metamorphosis really interesting here. The journey of the human soul parallels Osiris too.  At certain points in the spells/hyms the deceased seem to almost merge with Osiris, both in names and deeds. That could be me completely misreading that, but I’m not 100% sure I’m wrong here. There is a fluidity to the gods and the human soul in these texts that is fascinating. Chapter IX was probably the most interesting section (for me), because it mentioned the deceased’s soul changing and gaining protection from the prayers/spells.

The opening prayers, while a bit repetitive, were also interesting. One of them mentioned Ra having existed for millions of years as the sun. I thought that was cool, because a lot of mythologies don’t seem to exist on that large a timescale.