Sources, Volume II
The Gift of the Nile
How to weigh the evidence for this room, where to read the texts, and what survives for each of its four bays.
How to read the evidence
Evidence for the temple theologies, mortuary corpora, and regional cults of ancient Egypt should be read in a hierarchy: dated and provenanced primary objects first; critically edited literary or ritual texts second; ancient reception and interpretation third; modern synthesis last.
Read the texts online
Further reading
- Allen, James P. Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts. Yale Egyptological Seminar, 1988.
- Allen, James P. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.
- Assmann, Jan. Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Cornell University Press, 2005.
- Faulkner, Raymond O. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. 3 vols. Aris & Phillips, 1973– 1978.
- Faulkner, Raymond O. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. British Museum Press, 1985.
- Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 vols. University of California Press, 1973– 1980.
- Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Simpson, William Kelly, ed. The Literature of Ancient Egypt. 3rd edition. Yale University Press, 2003.
- Te Velde, Herman. Seth, God of Confusion. Brill, 1967.
- Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 2003.
The Cosmogonies
What survives
- Pyramid Texts
- Old Kingdom mortuary utterances preserved in royal pyramids; their ritual setting must not be generalized without argument.
- Coffin Texts
- Middle Kingdom mortuary spells on coffins, including compositions that develop older royal materials.
- Book of Going Forth by Day
- A variable corpus rather than one fixed book; manuscript spell selection and vignettes matter.
- Temple inscriptions
- Ptolemaic and Roman temples preserve rich theology and ritual, often in deliberately archaizing language.
- Archaeology and iconography
- Cult statues, votives, animal burials, temple plans, and provenance constrain literary reconstruction.
- Greek and Roman authors
- Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and others document reception and contemporary practice but require chronological and cultural control.
- Pyramid Texts
- Allusive ritual utterances rather than a continuous creation epic.
- Memphite Theology
- The Shabaka Stone preserves a debated late copy of a composition presenting Ptah’s creative intellect and speech.
- Ptolemaic temple inscriptions
- Late but exceptionally detailed local theological systems.
Entry by entry (12)
- Atum §1.1 Atum's cosmogony is preserved chiefly in the Pyramid Texts (notably Spells 527, 600), the Coffin Texts (Spell 80, the great speech of Shu), and the Bremner-Rhind papyrus (a Late Period magical text that preserves a long first-person creation speech of Atum-Ra).
- Geb §1.2 Geb appears throughout the Pyramid and Coffin Texts; the parting-of-the-sky narrative is depicted graphically in many tombs and funerary papyri, where Shu is shown standing with arms upraised, holding Nut aloft above the supine Geb.
- Nun §1.3 Nun is attested from the Pyramid Texts onward and is part of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad — the eight primordial powers of the Hermopolitan cosmogony, four male-female pairs, of which Nun and his consort Naunet represent the primal waters.
- Nut §1.4 The story of Nut's five children and the five extra days is preserved in Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride 12, and reflects an actual feature of the Egyptian civil calendar — a 360-day calendar of twelve thirty-day months, supplemented by five "days upon the year" inserted at the end.
- Ptah §1.5 The stone itself is a basalt slab prepared in the reign of Pharaoh Shabaka (c. 716– 702 BCE), but it presents itself as a copy of a worm-eaten older papyrus that the king ordered to be preserved; the scholarly consensus has long debated how old the underlying composition is, with proposed dates ranging from the Old Kingdom (which the stone itself claims) to the New Kingdom or even the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty itself.
- Shu §1.6 Shu's principal extant text is the great speech preserved in Coffin Text Spell 80, in which Atum addresses Shu as his eldest son and explains the creator's purpose; the speech is one of the more philosophical passages in Egyptian religious literature.
- Tefnut §1.7 The Myth of the Wandering Goddess (variously called the Tale of the Eye of Ra or the Tale of the Distant One) is preserved in fragmentary form in a Demotic papyrus from Tebtunis (1st–2nd c. CE), with parallel versions inscribed at Philae and elsewhere.
- Amun §1.8 The principal sources are the hymns to Amun in the Boulaq Papyrus (Cairo, 18th Dynasty), the Leiden Hymn (Papyrus Leiden I 350, late 19th Dynasty), and the inscriptions on the walls of Karnak itself.
- Ra §1.9 The Destruction of Mankind is preserved on the walls of several New Kingdom royal tombs (notably Seti I's), where it forms part of the Book of the Heavenly Cow; the theft-of-the-name myth is preserved in Papyrus Turin 1993 and parallel copies.
- The Hermopolitan Ogdoad §1.10 The Ogdoad is attested from the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts onward and is treated systematically in Coffin Texts Spell 76 and the Hermopolitan theological compositions preserved on the walls of the temple of Hibis (Kharga Oasis, Persian period) and the Edfu and Esna temple texts of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.
- Hu §1.11 Hu (Egyptian Ḥw) appears already in the Pyramid Texts (notably Spells 251, 254, 309) as one of the powers seized by the ascended king and recurs throughout the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead.
- Sia §1.12 We tell it here as a continuous narrative — drawing principally upon Plutarch, with supplements from the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, the Great Hymn to Osiris, and the so-called Contendings of Horus and Set — but the reader should bear in mind that no single Egyptian source presents it as the connected story we shall give.
The Osirian Cycle
What survives
- Pyramid Texts
- Old Kingdom mortuary utterances preserved in royal pyramids; their ritual setting must not be generalized without argument.
- Coffin Texts
- Middle Kingdom mortuary spells on coffins, including compositions that develop older royal materials.
- Book of Going Forth by Day
- A variable corpus rather than one fixed book; manuscript spell selection and vignettes matter.
- Temple inscriptions
- Ptolemaic and Roman temples preserve rich theology and ritual, often in deliberately archaizing language.
- Archaeology and iconography
- Cult statues, votives, animal burials, temple plans, and provenance constrain literary reconstruction.
- Greek and Roman authors
- Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and others document reception and contemporary practice but require chronological and cultural control.
- Pyramid and Coffin Texts
- Early ritual witnesses to Osiris, Horus, Seth, and the vindication of the dead.
- Abydos evidence
- Festival, royal, and archaeological records anchor Osiris in major cult practice.
- Plutarch
- A philosophically framed imperial-period synthesis that must not overwrite Egyptian variants.
Entry by entry (12)
- Osiris §2.1 The Osiris narrative as given above is principally Plutarch's, in De Iside et Osiride 12–20, supplemented by hints in the Pyramid Texts (especially the Cannibal Hymn, Spell 273–274), the Coffin Texts, the Great Hymn to Osiris on the stela of Amenmose (18th Dynasty), the Contendings of Horus and Set (Papyrus Chester Beatty I, Ramesside), and the depiction of the weighing of the heart in countless copies of the Spells for Coming Forth by Day (the so-called Book of the Dead, especially Spell 125 and the accompanying vignette).
- Isis §2.2 Her principal sources include the Pyramid and Coffin Texts (her laments over Osiris); the Great Hymn to Osiris (which contains a long description of her labors); the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (Late Period, with two long Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys for liturgical use); the Metternich Stele (a great cippus of Horus, 4th c. BCE, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the longest extant version of the scorpion story); Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride; the Cyme aretalogy and parallels at Maroneia and Andros; and the eleventh book of Apuleius's Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass).
- Set §2.4 Set's mythology is preserved across the same range of sources as the rest of the Osirian cycle.
- Nephthys §2.5 The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys are preserved most fully in the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (British Museum, Late Period) and in a parallel Berlin manuscript; they were used liturgically in the Khoiak festival, when the death and resurrection of Osiris were enacted ritually.
- Anubis §2.6 Anubis's antiquity is attested by his appearance in some of the earliest Pyramid Texts, often in roles that the later tradition assigns to Osiris; the priority of Anubis over Osiris in the funerary sphere is the consensus of modern Egyptology.
- Apep §2.8 Apep is attested from at least the Middle Kingdom and continuously thereafter; the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus preserves the longest single composition devoted to him, while the underworld books inscribed in the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings (the Amduat, the Book of Gates) depict his attacks at length.
- Maat §2.9 Maat is among the most theologically central concepts in Egyptian religion, and her cult is attested from the Old Kingdom onward.
- Heka §2.11 Heka is attested from the Pyramid Texts onward, but his elevation to a fully personified deity is most clear in the Middle Kingdom and after; the Coffin Texts contain extended speeches by Heka.
- Sokar §2.12 Sokar is attested from the earliest period — his name appears already on Old Kingdom royal funerary monuments, and he is invoked throughout the Pyramid Texts.
- The Four Sons Of Horus §2.13 The Four Sons of Horus are attested from the Pyramid Texts (notably Spells 215, 552, 619) onward through the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, especially Spell 17 and the spells of the canopic equipment.
- Meskhenet §2.15 The dramatic narrative cited above is from the Westcar Papyrus (Berlin 3033, Middle Kingdom copy of an older tale), which preserves the prophecy of the Fifth Dynasty kings' birth and shows Meskhenet in her destiny-fixing function alongside Isis, Nephthys, Heqet, and the ram-god Khnum.
- Shai §2.16 He appears regularly in the weighing-of-the-heart vignettes alongside Meskhenet and Renenutet, and a long hymn to Shai is preserved on a stela from Deir el-Medina.
The Cities and the Sacred Animals
What survives
- Pyramid Texts
- Old Kingdom mortuary utterances preserved in royal pyramids; their ritual setting must not be generalized without argument.
- Coffin Texts
- Middle Kingdom mortuary spells on coffins, including compositions that develop older royal materials.
- Book of Going Forth by Day
- A variable corpus rather than one fixed book; manuscript spell selection and vignettes matter.
- Temple inscriptions
- Ptolemaic and Roman temples preserve rich theology and ritual, often in deliberately archaizing language.
- Archaeology and iconography
- Cult statues, votives, animal burials, temple plans, and provenance constrain literary reconstruction.
- Greek and Roman authors
- Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and others document reception and contemporary practice but require chronological and cultural control.
- Temple topography and inscriptions
- Cult place and local epithet are essential to interpreting a divine form.
- Animal cemeteries and osteology
- Material evidence distinguishes individual sacred animals from mass votive practice.
- Coins and classical descriptions
- Useful for late civic cult and reception, but subordinate to Egyptian context.
Entry by entry (12)
- Hathor §3.1 Hathor's cult is attested from the earliest dynasties; the great temple at Dendera, in its present Ptolemaic-Roman form, was built upon the foundations of much older sanctuaries, the earliest demonstrably from the Old Kingdom and possibly Predynastic.
- Khnum §3.3 Khnum's principal sanctuary was Elephantine, with a major secondary temple at Esna in Upper Egypt, where the Ptolemaic-Roman temple preserves an exceptionally elaborate hymnic theology of Khnum as universal creator.
- Montu §3.6 The great inscription of Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri, recording his reunification of Egypt, attributes the victory to Montu's strength.
- Neith §3.8 Neith's antiquity is exceptional; she is among the oldest documented Egyptian goddesses, with cult evidence from before unification.
- Sobek §3.11 Sobek's cult is attested from at least the Middle Kingdom and probably earlier; the Twelfth Dynasty pharaohs of the Fayyum (Amenemhat III in particular) were major patrons, and the great cemetery at Hawara contains the so-called Labyrinth that Herodotus described as exceeding the Pyramids in wonder.
- Aten §3.13 The Great Hymn to the Aten is preserved in Ay's tomb (Amarna Tomb 25), with shorter versions in other Amarna tombs.
- Apis §3.16 The Apis cult is among the best-documented Egyptian sacred-animal cults.
- Buchis §3.18 The Bucheum at Armant was excavated by Robert Mond and Oliver Myers in 1928–32, and the report published in 1934 (The Bucheum, 3 vols.) remains the standard treatment.
- Wosret §3.21 Wosret (Egyptian Wsr.t) is attested from the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, when she was the principal female deity of the Theban region and consort of the rising god Amun.
- Pakhet §3.23 Pakhet (Egyptian Pꜣḫt, 'she who tears') is attested chiefly through the Speos Artemidos temple at Beni Hasan, dedicated by Hatshepsut (Eighteenth Dynasty) and decorated by her and her successors.
- Sopdu §3.26 Sopdu (Egyptian Spdw) is attested from the Old Kingdom and was the principal god of the twentieth nome of Lower Egypt.
- Dedun §3.28 These were the deities to whom the ordinary Egyptian most often turned in private prayer: not the great Amun of the imperial temple, but the household Bes who guarded the cradle; not the cosmic Osiris of the funerary papyri, but the Imhotep whose hand had healed the sick.
The Protectors and the Sages
What survives
- Pyramid Texts
- Old Kingdom mortuary utterances preserved in royal pyramids; their ritual setting must not be generalized without argument.
- Coffin Texts
- Middle Kingdom mortuary spells on coffins, including compositions that develop older royal materials.
- Book of Going Forth by Day
- A variable corpus rather than one fixed book; manuscript spell selection and vignettes matter.
- Temple inscriptions
- Ptolemaic and Roman temples preserve rich theology and ritual, often in deliberately archaizing language.
- Archaeology and iconography
- Cult statues, votives, animal burials, temple plans, and provenance constrain literary reconstruction.
- Greek and Roman authors
- Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and others document reception and contemporary practice but require chronological and cultural control.
- Magical and medical papyri
- Ritual speech, ingredients, and invoked names reveal functional theology.
- Amulets and household objects
- Wear, findspot, and iconography document lived protective practice.
- Funerary equipment
- Canopic, coffin, and tomb contexts explain guardian groupings more securely than later summaries.
Entry by entry (12)
- Aker §4.1 His double-lion image is depicted in the Amduat (the New Kingdom underworld text inscribed in royal tombs) and in many funerary papyri.
- Anuket §4.2 Anuket's cult is attested from at least the Middle Kingdom; she is well documented in Nubian inscriptions also, where her cult extended south into Lower Nubia.
- Hapi §4.4 The Hymn to Hapi (Middle Kingdom Papyrus Sallier II and parallels) is one of the few extended hymnic texts from the Middle Kingdom; it celebrates the annual inundation's role in Egyptian survival.
- Heqet §4.5 Her role at birth is described in the New Kingdom Tale of King Cheops's Court (Westcar Papyrus), in which she and other goddesses appear in disguise to assist at the birth of the three royal children destined for the throne.
- Nefertum §4.7 Nefertum's cult is principally Memphite.
- Nekhbet §4.8 Nekhbet's cult at el-Kab is attested from the earliest dynasties; the rock-cut tombs of the local nomarchs at el-Kab preserve substantial Predynastic and early dynastic religious material.
- Serqet §4.10 Serqet's cult is attested from the Old Kingdom; her protective role over the canopic jar of the intestines (alongside Isis for the liver, Nephthys for the lungs, and Neith for the stomach) is canonical.
- Taweret §4.11 Taweret's iconography — the pregnant upright hippopotamus with leonine and crocodilian features — is attested from the Middle Kingdom and continues stably through the Roman period.
- Bata §4.13 The Tale of Two Brothers is preserved on Papyrus d'Orbiney (British Museum EA 10183), copied in the reign of Seti II (c. 1200 BCE); it is one of the most-translated and most-discussed works of New Kingdom literature.
- Imhotep §4.14 Imhotep's historical existence is securely attested by his surviving inscription on a base-statue of King Djoser at Saqqara, where he is named with his titles and the Step Pyramid is recorded as his work.
- Wadj-Wer §4.16 Wadj-wer (Egyptian Wꜣḏ-wr, 'the Great Green') is attested from the Old Kingdom, particularly in pyramid temple reliefs (Sahure, Userkaf, Pepi II) where he features in the offering processions of personified geographical entities.
- Petbe §4.17 Petbe (Egyptian Pꜣ-tbꜣ, 'he who returns' or 'the requiter') is attested principally from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, in popular bronzes, magical papyri, and Greek inscriptions of Egypt.