Current Research in Egyptology 2009: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Symposium

The tenth annual Current Research in Egyptology conference was held at the University of Liverpool in January 2009 and welcomed Egyptology graduates from all over the world. This volume is a compilation of some of the papers that were given at the conference, that show the diverse nature of current research in Egyptology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Jan 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781842175613

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Introduction

The tenth Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) symposium took place at the University of Liverpool between the 7th and 9th January 2009. Bringing together 130 postgraduate and graduate students, lecturers and Egyptological enthusiasts, 45 papers and a number of posters were presented in the usual friendly and relaxed atmosphere that has become typical and unique to CRE.

The conference would not have been possible without the hard work, time and support of so many individuals and institutions. We should firstly like to express our heartfelt thanks to The School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, The University of Liverpool Graduate School, the Higher Education Academy and the Garstang Museum for their financial support and providing the venues for the conference. We thank all those publishers who donated and were represented at the conference, namely Archaeopress, Oxbow Books, Peeters of Leuven, Rutherford Press and Shire Publications. For assistance on sourcing finance, and general advice we should like to thank Prof. Bruce Gibson, Prof. Tom Harrison, Dr Steven Snape and Lyn Hughes of the Higher Education Academy, and special thanks go to Vicky Gashe and Jackie Finch who gave us the benefit of their experience in organising and financing the previous CRE conference in Manchester.

In the organisation of the conference we owe a great debt of gratitude to our colleague, Cordula Werschkun, whose hard work and problem-solving skills were invaluable, and to all those (too numerous to name individually) who gave of their time to ensure the smooth-running of the event. We should also like to say a big thank you to Trillion Attwood for organising the conference meal, and to the Ego Restaurant for providing such fantastic hospitality.

The conference would not have been the success it undoubtedly was without the support of all those who participated, both as speakers and as visitors, and, in this regard, we would like to express our gratitude to the former organisers of the previous nine conferences who chaired sessions or sent words of encouragement. We thank you all sincerely for your presence in making it such an enjoyable and rewarding event.

Prior to the conference a number of ideas and suggestions were put forward regarding the CRE website, resulting in a few changes this year. Peter Robinson has dedicated a number of years to the upkeep of this facility and done a wonderful job and we should like to take this opportunity of thanking him for all his hard work and expertise. The mantle has now passed to Nicholas Wernick, an enthusiastic Egyptologist with a wealth of experience in website design and development.

We should like to express our gratitude to our keynote speaker, Emeritus Professor Kenneth Kitchen, and all those experts who gave of their time to peer-review the papers submitted for this volume and for their ongoing advice and recommendations.

This volume would not have been possible without the staff at Oxbow Books, in particular, Clare Litt and Val Lamb, who have had to cope with an inundation of emails on typesetting, formatting and corrections. Our sincere thanks go to them, and to Esme Hammerle who has coped with the initial Mac versus PC chaos! In the editing of this volume, care has been taken to preserve the individual styles and characteristics of the various authors, whilst at the same time maintaining consistency. The editors would like to thank you all for your co-operation.

Finally, we send our best wishes to the hosts of CREXI in Leiden. It is the first time the conference has moved outside the U.K. and demonstrates the close ties that the conference has forged between the different schools and departments within the Egyptological community at home and abroad. We wish CRE and all those involved the best of luck for the future and for the next successful ten years.

Judith Corbelli, Dan Boatright and Claire Malleson

November 2009

Crossing of the Lake Ritual

Eltayeb Abbas

Introduction

The representations on the walls of private tombs of the Old Kingdom include a ritualised crossing of a lake as a stage in the deceased's funeral procession from his house to the burial place. This crossing was accompanied by recitations of s w texts. The deceased's journey over the Lake of Knives in the New Kingdom Book of the Dead and Sun Hymns was also accompanied by recitations of ritual texts. The Lake of Knives was one of the places which the deceased as the sun god Re had to cross in his journey to the hereafter. Pictorial and textual evidence will be presented to show how the crossing of the lake in the Old Kingdom private tombs and in the Old and Middle Kingdoms texts can be related to the deceased's crossing over the Lake of Knives. This paper also investigates how the crossing of the lake can be compared with the crossing of the sun god Re over the waters of the sky, and how the recitations which accompanied the crossing of the lake mediate the deceased's passage over water.

Pictorial Evidence from Old Kingdom Private Tombs

Pictorial evidence comes from Old Kingdom Mastaba D 62 of the vizier Ptahhotep I at Saqqara. The deceased's funeral procession is depicted on the western wall of the pillared hall (Lepsius 1849–1856, pl. 101). In the middle register on this wall, a boat is depicted with a man designated as wt putting his hand on a shrine, while his second hand lies flat on his knee. Behind this man stands a helmsman. Above the two men is a text which reads:

In peace in peace before Osiris

In the front of the boat there is a man raising his right hand in recitation, and beneath him there are two men and two women depicted beating their chests. This gesture is called hnw and can be used for jubilation and praising of a god and mourning (Dominicus 1994, 61–5). Here it is not a sign of happiness, but a sign of grief for the loss of a deceased (Assmann & Bommas 2002, 14). hnw was accompanied by recitations of a lector priest, most probably the priest above the seated women and men as shown in Fig. 1.

The lower register shows on the left hand side, a helmsman, a seated woman, most probably symbolising a kite, and an embalmer. At the prow of a boat a man designated as hrj- bt is shown putting his hand on his chest in hnw gesture. A woman beside him is designated as a kite (drt). A label in front of them reads s w ‘performing s w’. It is important here to note that the crossing is accompanied by recitations of s w.

Another instance is found in the tomb of In-Snefru-Ishetef at Dahshur (Fig. 2). A scene on the upper register shows a boat with a shrine being towed across water (De Morgan 1903, pl. 22). The shrine most probably houses a statue of the deceased. At the prow of the boat sits a ‘kite’ or a ‘mourner’ (drt), two undesignated men, and a lector priest with containers holding his equipment. The second drt sits at the back of the boat near the helmsman. At the bottom, a boat seems to sail or rest on sand. Above the boat there is a label reading:

Figure 1. Crossing the lake from the Mastaba of the vizier Ptahhotep I (After Lepsius 1842–1845, pl. 101).

Crossing of the Wrt-boat

A ‘kite’ is represented facing a priest, who stands in a canopy and reads from a papyrus roll. There is also a ‘kite’ sitting at the back of the boat with a man designated as an embalmer (wt). The text accompanying the scene reads:

Conducting a ritual in water by the lector priest Iimeh

The rest of the scene shows three men towing a boat, offerings being presented and figures of men slaughtering an ox (Wilson 1944, 208).

Figure 2. The funeral procession of In-Snefru-Ishetef at Dahshur (Drawn by Wilson 1944, pl XIV from De Morgan 1903, pl. 22).

Figure 3. The funeral procession of Hetepherakhti (After Mohr 1943, pl.1).

In the second register in the first corridor on the north wall of the tomb chapel of Hetepherakhti, a shrine with a statue of the deceased is shown being transported to the tomb on a papyrus boat (Mohr 1943, 37–38). At the back of the same boat sits a man without designation, and a woman designated as a ‘kite’ (drt) (Fig. 3). At the front of the boat sits a lector priest and an undesignated man. The text above this scene reads:

Sailing and conducting ritual by the lector priest

In all these scenes the physical crossing and the recitations run together and the aim of both is to mediate the deceased's passage to another state, the state of being an 3 .

Textual Evidence from the Old Kingdom Private Tombs

Crossing the lake as a stage in the funeral procession occurs in the tomb of the vizier Ptahhotep I from Saqqara:

Going down to his house of eternity in very great peace,

That he might be provisioned before Anubis-Foremost-of-the-Necropolis,

After an invocation offering is brought to him on the top of the tomb,

After the lake was crossed, after he has been made an 3 by the lector priest (Sethe 1933, 189, lines 4–6).

According to the inscriptions on the false doors of Ptahhotep I, Wilson (1944, 209) states that ‘it is possible to argue that there were successive acts; crossing the water, landing on the west bank, entering the necropolis and finally the burial’. What is explicit is that during crossing the water, there was a ritual conducted for the deceased.

On the false door of the tomb of Tepemankh at Saqqara, crossing the lake is described as:

Going out to the top of the mountain of the west after crossing the lake,

During making into an 3 by the lector priest,

And the rite was carried out for him by the embalmer before Anubis (Sethe 1933, 190, lines 8–9).

The inscription states that the deceased reached the west after he had crossed a lake. The crossing was accompanied by a fully equipped ritual, conducted for him by a lector priest. The inscription maintains the acts of the lector priest by relating that:

A procession to his tomb of the west,

After rowing him in the wrt-boat,

And a fully equipped ritual had been conducted for him,

According to the writing of the craft of the lector priest (Sethe 1933, 190, lines 12–13).

On the right inner jamb of the false door of the Mastaba of Neferseshemre at Saqqara, crossing a Firmament ( ) and traversing a lake occur.

Crossing the Firmament in very great peace.

Going out to the top of the mountain of the necropolis.

His hand is grasped by his fathers [and…] Lord of jm3 .

An invocation offering (is brought) for him,

On the roof of the tomb in his house of eternity,

When he has reached [a very good old age before Osiris].

Going down to his house of eternity in very great peace,

That he might be venerated before Anubis-Foremost- of-the-Necropolis, Lord-of-Sacred Land,

After an invocation offering has been brought [for him] on the top of the tomb,

After traversing the lake,

After he has been made into an 3 by the lector priest (Kanawati 1998, 35–6, pl. 58).

Crossing the lake takes place while the deceased is made into an 3 . In other words, a lector priest was reading or reciting texts while the crossing of the water was in process. Wilson (1944) concludes that:

‘There was a great deal of physical, ritual, and religious activity necessary to make the deceased a blessed and fully effective immortal. Priestly ritual and utterance are involved in this s beautifying’ (Wilson 1944, 210).

s w texts included liturgies recited in the night before burial and at the day of funeral, and their aim is to mediate the deceased's passage to become an 3 , and to pass the place of passage safely (Assmann 2008, 26–31).

Pyramid Texts Evidence

Crossing of the Lake occurs in Pyramid Text spell 603 and reads:

Raise yourself my father! Raise for yourself your head, and assemble for yourself your limbs.

Raise yourself with your legs so that your heart will lead you.

Your messengers have run, your heralds have hastened,

And your report has come for you in the horizon.

Anubis has come to meet you.

The Contented One has given you his hand.

The gods have rejoiced, and Ho[rus's followers] have celebrated.

‘An akh has come in its status of being an akh,’ says the Dual Ennead,

When he has crossed the lake and has traversed the Duat (Allen 1984, 680).

The spell starts with a call for the deceased to raise himself up, which refers to the common goal of all rituals, aimed at the activation of the deceased from the embalming process to the mortuary offerings. It is a wakeup call intended to awaken the deceased from his unconscious state, and alludes to the fact that he is undergoing the resurrection ritual (Assmann 2005, 332). The deceased will gain his ability of movement, and mediate his passage with the recitation of these texts and crossing the lake which comes at the end.

In the Pyramid Texts raising oneself up and uniting the limbs is often connected with an invitation to receive offerings, especially libation offerings. They consist of a series of interrelated and complicated rituals, and sometimes it is not explicit which ritual comes first. The aim of these rituals is to mediate the deceased's passage to become an 3 , which allows him to escape the realm of death and join the realm of 3 w (Assmann 2005, 332).

The evidence discussed above comes from Old Kingdom royal and private tombs, and in both, the crossing of the lake is closely associated with becoming an 3 , mediated by a lector priest who recites liturgies from a papyrus roll. Crossing a lake, whether this lake is given a name or not, lies in a resurrection ritual context in which libation offerings are presented to a deceased.

Finally libation is envisaged as a lake, and the deceased should cross over it. This is reinforced by some Old Kingdom libation basins which were decorated with boats crossing over water. For instance, on one of the offering tables from Abydos, there is a depiction of four boats carved on the narrow step of the offering basin, which indicates that these basins were used as replacements for the lakes and rivers over which the deceased can travel to the Netherworld (Hölzl 2002, 67).

Figure 4. Offering table Louvre E 25369 (After Mostafa 1982, pl. XXXI).

Another instance is also found on the offering table of the Ankh Wedjes now in the Louvre Museum (Louvre E 25369) (Fig. 4). This offering table consists of three basins with lotus flowers carved into the stepped inner sides of the basins. The decoration on the longitudinal exteriors shows the deceased sitting in a boat being offered ducks while sailing is in progress (Hölzl 2005, 313–314).

In the Pyramid Texts the lake is called the Great Lake, and the deceased has to avoid its dangers. It is also a passage which leads to the 3 w.

O this N beware of this Great Lake which (leads) to the 3 w,

This water course which (leads) to the dead,

Beware of those people of the house of -pf,

Terrible-Opponents in this their name of ‘female opponents’,

Let them not to take your hand towards the House of -pf,

It is dangerous, it is painful, it is nasty (?), and it is foul-smelling (Allen, 1984, 691–692; Assmann & Bommas 2002, 339; Assmann 2005, 143).

Middle Kingdom Evidence

Crossing a lake occurs in Coffin Text spell 62, which reads:

I cause that you make manifestations with the dwj.t bird (?).

I cause that you cross the ptrwj (?) and cross the lake,

And traverse the sea (in) sandals,

As you had done on land.

You will rule the river with the heron,

And no opponent will be against you at the district of water.

I cause that you progress with a sounding-pole of 40 cubits,

Of planted wood of cedar of Byblos, as you stand in the Barque of Re,

And you have crossed the Lake of .

You will be vindicated (on) the day of judgment,

In the tribunal of the Lord of Suffering.

A liturgy of Hacking up the Earth will be recited for you,

And the enemy who comes at night will be driven off for you (De Buck 1935, vol. I, 266h–268).

This spell occurs only on the outer coffin of Amenemhat, nomarch of el-Bersha. The text was recorded five times on the coffin, which was published in de Buck's edition as B10C. Willems dates the coffin to the end of the reign of Sesostris I and the beginning of the reign of Amenemhat II (Willems 1988, 74–75). Coffin Texts spell 62 is a liturgy by itself (Assmann 1996, 18–19; Assmann & Bommas 2002, 39; Assmann 2005, 270). It is a speech by Horus to his father Osiris, containing three mortuary liturgies to be recited in the context of a wake (Assmann & Bommas 2002, 40–41). This long speech of Horus to his deceased father resembles the speech of the goddess Neith to Merenptah as recorded on the lid of his sarcophagus (Assmann 1972, 47–73, 115–139). The spell belongs to the s w texts and is aimed at the restoration of the deceased's social and physical aspects. It begins with an address of Horus to Osiris describing the ritual acts carried out by the son for his father.

Greetings to you, my father Osiris

Behold, I have come, I am Horus.

I will open your mouth with Ptah,

I will spiritualize you with Thoth (De Buck 1935, 265a-d).

Horus will carry out the Opening of the Mouth ritual for his father and he will make him an 3 with Thoth. Horus causes his father to make manifestations with the bird, and to cross the lake. After passing safely through the mummification and becoming an 3 , the deceased will have the ability of free movement over water (Assmann 1996, 5–10). By means of crossing the water, the deceased will mediate his passage and escape the realm of death, become an 3 , and steer the barque of Re. The next verses show the roles of the deceased in the sun boat. The deceased will stand at the prow of the sun barque measuring the water level, as he did in his daily life (Assmann 2005, 274).

The lake is also described as the Great Lake, and the deceased has to avoid its dangers. Coffin Text spell 67 reads:

O this N, beware of the Great Lake

As for death, you will escape it.

And you will avoid the route to him

They shall not drag you off to the house of -pf,

And they shall not make opposition to you,

In their name of Opponents (De Buck 1935, 284e–285a).

The deceased's journey starts with a warning against crossing the Great Lake. Coffin Text spells 62 and 67 form parts of the jj-thb-wr Liturgy. In this liturgy, the warning against crossing the Great Lake might refer to the deceased's return into his tomb, while he is already in the world of the dead, to partake of the offerings presented to him in his tomb. The jj-thb-wr Liturgy was recited in the morning before sunrise at the conclusion of the night rituals (Assmann & Bommas 2002, 133). The consumption of the deceased's offerings is envisaged as travelling across the sky and joining the barque of Re (Assmann 2005, 336–337).

New Kingdom Evidence

In New Kingdom private tombs, particularly in the Ramesside tombs, the crossing to the west is described as ‘the Great Ferry’. For instance, in TT 133 the boat which carries the coffin is equated with the Great Ferry which the deceased uses for the transition from the realm of death to the underworld (Barthelmess 1992, 19). The text in TT 133 reads:

Fare across, Great Ferry of the West.

Come! Fare in peace across to the West.

I gave bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and clothing to the naked (Barthelmess 1992, 19).

Here the deceased says that he has given bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty, which are required for his safe passage to the west. The deceased, before giving this food stuff to the hungry, was in the pre-liminal or marginal stage of the rites of passage, as characterised by Van Gennep (Van Gennep 1975, 10) and which separates the marginal and post-liminal stages. By providing the hungry and thirsty with food and drink, the deceased mediates his passage to the west and leaves the marginal state and enters the post-liminal, the state of being an 3 which comes after his crossing to the west (Franke 2006, 106–107).

It seems reasonable to equate a boat carrying a statue of a deceased with the Neshmet-Barque of Osiris. In TT 347 the deceased's barque is that of Osiris. The statue of the deceased, priests and mourners are shown on the boat, while Isis and Nephthys are depicted at the foot and the head of the deceased (Barthelmess 1992, 20). This depiction of the boat reminds us of the Old Kingdom tomb representations of a boat crossing a lake mentioned above, where an embalmer, kites, and lector priests are depicted in a boat traversing a lake. So, crossing to the West in the New Kingdom private tombs might be described as a ceremonial or symbolic crossing just as it was in the Old Kingdom. The text describing crossing to the West in TT 347 reads:

Speech of the pilot at the prow of the neshmet-Barque,

To the west, tow (your boat) to the west,

The Town of the Righteous, That-which-in front-of-its-Lord, the city of Amun.

He (Amun) has given it over to NN, the mourning land of your Silent One,

wnf.wj st m hnw=s

How the place (the tomb) rejoices at it!

Hathor, Mistress of the West, the Protector of the Western Side,

She [who prepares a place] for every Righteous,

May she take NN in her embrace (Barthelmess 1992, 20–21).

Crossing to the West is envisaged as a transition or a passage into a sphere of security and divine presence that is only granted to the righteous. It is not a mere physical transfer of a corpse from one place to another, but rather a ritual procession (Assmann 2005, 304–305). As a result, the crossing over a lake or over a river is not connected with the geographical location of the necropolis as it might be thought, Saqqara in the Old Kingdom and the West of Thebes in the New Kingdom, but with the ritual enacted on the day of traversing the lake.

Crossing the Lake of Knives

When the barque of the sun god Re crosses the Lake of Knives, it is said that the barque is in hnw.

The day bark is in jubilation and celebration, and the land is in festival.

The gods are greeting the one whose soul dwells in his two fledglings.

He arrives in peace to the Beautiful West,

After he has crossed the Lake of Knives,

According to the movement of its waves safely (completely) (Naville 1886, pl. XVIII, lines 3–7).

In the Old Kingdom the family and relatives receive the funeral procession of the deceased in lamentation, and the Book of the Dead Sun Hymn mentioned above alludes to the same situation. Here the gods gather and greet the sun god Re in his barque when he crosses the Lake of Knives. It is the barque that carries the image of Re, with whom the deceased is identified. The aim of the deceased's crossing the lake in the Old Kingdom private tombs was to reach the west, which is the same destination of the barque of Re's journey over the Lake of Knives.

In his journey over the Lake of Knives, Re was threatened by the snake of the primeval waters Apep, who tried hard to stop the solar barque proceeding through the . In the Book of the Dead Chapter 15, the journey of the sun god Re over the Lake of Knives is described as:

Adoration to your face;

Maat