von Lieven, “The Soul of the Sun Permeates the Whole World.” Sun Cult and Religious Astronomy in...

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2. “The soul of the sun permeates the whole world.”

Sun cult and Religious Astronomy in Ancient Egypt

Alexandra von Lieven, Freie Universität Berlin

SUMMARy: In Ancient Egypt, the cult of the sun was of major importance from the earliest periods until the very end of Paganism. The solar god under different names and forms was perceived as the creator and highest deity in the pantheon. Other gods could be identified with him to mark their increased rank and importance via ‘solarization’. His cult comprised both highly esoteric forms of worship executed within the temples by priests and popular practices available to the whole of the population. While the latter as well as the everyday temple rituals were more or less identical for all Egyptian deities, some of the more esoteric rites were specific to the solar cult.

If one was to start a poll among the public on the most widely known facts about Ancient Egyptian Religion, there would probably be two stereotyp-ical answers apart from the afterlife beliefs: the animal cults on the one hand and the particular worship of the sun on the other.1 Both even come together in the scarab, as the dung-beetle was believed to be the morning shape of the sun god. His dung ball reminded the Egyptians of the sun itself. The freshly hatched beetles’ mysterious appearance from the ball without any visible birth further enhanced this resemblance and helped to make the beetle one of the most important symbols of Egyptian culture.

This example already highlights some of the basic principles of Egyptian speculative thinking. Nature was carefully observed, things visible on earth were often set into relation with phenomena in the sky and vice versa; all observable phenomena are potential expressions of the divine.

Naturally, the sun is such a phenomenon par excellence, especially in a country with a geographical position like Egypt. So it is not too diffi-cult to see the reasons for the prominence of the solar cult in particular. Possible evidence for its existence as early as Pre- and Protohistory is not

1 For a monographic study on the latter see Quirke 2001.

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unequivocal, but it seems plausible enough. A case in point is the famous depiction of a hawk crossing over a pair of wings in a boat on the comb of King Wadji (1st dynasty, ca. 2900 B.C.). It seems quite sure that the wings depict the sky and that the hawk is a deity, but one can only guess based on later practice that it is the sun god (cf. e.g. Emery 1961, p. 248, Fig. 146; Roeder 1996). Equally, some predynastic pictures might contain solar symbolism which, however, cannot be interpreted securely unless it is self-evident. Later periods demonstrate only too well that things need not be self-evident. In fact, symbols from later periods which are explained by texts are often given explanations completely different from a modern observer’s expectations.

What is secure at any rate is the inclusion of the name of the sun god “Re” as a theophorous element in the name of the second king of the 2nd dy-nasty, Neb-Re “The Lord is Re” or maybe rather Neb(–i)–Re “My Lord is Re”, ca. 2800–2785 B.C.2

This cult gains prominence from the 4th and increasingly from the 5th dy-nasty onwards (2550–2325 B.C.). In this period it becomes customary for the king to be called “Son of Re”, an epithet that later becomes a fixed el-ement in the royal titulature connected to a special name of its own. As such it becomes one of the five titles affixed to one of the five names every king had from the early Middle Kingdom (around 2000 B.C.) onwards.3

A literary text known as Papyrus Westcar elaborates this historical fact into a veritable birth legend: allegedly, the first three kings of the 5th dynasty were physically sons of the sun god, who sired them with the wife of his high priest in a city by the name of Sachebu.4 Their birth is helped by the gods, while a probable attempt on their lives by the reigning king Kheops, to whom their birth has been prophesied, is successfully averted. Without being able to go into too much detail, the parallels to the Christmas story of the canonical as well as apocryphal evangelia is striking. Unfortunate-ly, it must remain open whether the text reflects genuine contemporary propaganda of the 5th dynasty or whether it is just a fairy-tale explanation

2 On this early phase see Kahl 2007.3 The other titles are “King of Upper and Lower Egypt”, “(He of) The Two Ladies”, “Horus”

and “Golden Horus (i.e. The One of Ombos = Seth)”.4 Edition: Blackman 1988, pp. 8–17, pls. 6–12; for a translation see Lichtheim 1973, pp. 217–222.


of historical facts from the past in a review by the 17th dynasty (around 1600 B.C.), when the text was written.

At any rate, it is the 5th dynasty that builds monumental sun temples in Abusir, each of which contained a gigantic obelisk at its centre.5 Even more impressive than the architecture is its relief decoration, which unfortunately is highly fragmented today. Apart from scenes from the cult and the Sed Festival, a royal jubilee to be celebrated after a reign of 30 years, the dec-oration of the so-called “Chamber of the Universe” in the sun temple of Niuserre is of particular importance (Edel, Wenig 1974). This is a room which was completely decorated with depictions of animals and their be-haviour within the course of the year. The animals mate and have their young, they eat and are eaten and all of this is shown with the precision of a biology book. Apparently, the pictures intend to praise the beneficial influence of the sun on the earth.

To every sun temple belonged the model of a large sun boat built in stone. In accordance with the usual mode of transport in real life, the Egyptians also posited for the sun and other heavenly bodies that they would cruise about the sky in ships, like humans on the earthly Nile. It logically fol-lows that the sky and the primeval ocean Nun surrounding it were also ascribed a watery nature.

From the Middle Kingdom (around 1950 B.C.) onwards, a syncretistic solarising of other gods by calling them NN-Re is attested. This tendency increases over the course of history until every male main deity of a city or village can take on this role. One of these solarized local gods is the The-ban Amun-Re, who profits from the political importance of Thebes from the New Kingdom (1500 B.C.) onwards at the latest. Thereby he becomes the main imperial deity, a position the importance of which is only dimin-ished by the rise of Isis and Serapis in the Greco-Roman period. The latter also occasionally takes on a solar aspect as Zeus-Helios-Serapis.6

Amun-Re’s power was, however, temporarily suspended in the New Kingdom for approximately two decades. In the so-called Amarna period (1350–1330 B.C.), King Amenhotep IV (“Amun is Content”) proclaimed

5 Arnold 1994, pp. 241–242 with further literature.6 Zeus-Helios is of course the interpretatio graeca of the Egyptian Amun-Re.

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a new solar deity called Aton, changed his own name into Akhenaton (“Efficient for Aton”), left Thebes for his newly-founded capital Amarna (Akhetaton “Horizon of Aton”) and prosecuted the cult of Amun. This epi-sode in the history of religion has made a great impression on the scholarly as well as the popular mind as the “first monotheism of history”.7 More fitting, however, would be “first totalitarian regime of history”, because Akhenaton’s presumed monotheism not only accepted only one deity, but moreover only one way to religious well-being for every citizen – himself.8

This is not the place to review Amarna ideology in extenso. In relation to sun worship, only a short look at the god Aton (ıtn) is in order. His name means “Disk” and when used absolutely, it is most often preceded by the definite article. By the way, the word iten (ıtn) “disk” as a word, not a name, can mean any round celestial body in Egyptian, be it the sun, the moon or the planets. There is even a feminine form itenet (ıtn.t) “female disk” which designates Sirius (von Lieven 2001). As for Aton, the name existed already before Akhenaton as an epithet of the sun god Re. The word Re (Rcw) literally means “Sun”. Therefore, Re also has occasionally been pre-fixed since the New Kingdom and quite often in late sources with the mas-culine definite article as Pa Re, Pre (P –Rcw). This indicates a very literal understanding of the name as the real celestial entity. Akhenaton, however, made Aton into a distinct deity by itself, which was soon no longer repre-sented as a hawk-headed man like Re, but as a veritable disk. In contrast to the traditional solar disks before and after, Aton also had rays ending in hands which held signs of life to the king’s nose or otherwise interacted with him. Apart from this, “Aton” was only an abbreviation of his name. His full name was written like a royal name in two cartouches:

“(Re-Harakhte (later changed into “The Horizontal Ruler”) lives, who rejoices in the horizon)|(in his name as light which is in the disk)|”.

The name of Re was occasionally, but only rarely, written in cartouche as well to highlight his function as king of the gods. His iconography was very diverse. He was imagined as a human being, an animal or a human with an

7 For a good overview over the reception history see Montserrat 2000.8 Critical comments on this are rare in the literature. See mainly Hornung 1995.


animal head. Apart from scarab and hawk, cat, ram and bull are also im-portant forms. Each shape had its particular function. Thereby the scarab was the morning shape, the ram the night form. A four-headed ram, how-ever, could also signify high noon. As “Great tom-cat”, Re killed his snake-shaped adversary Apopis. The sacred bull Mnevis was the particular sacred animal in Iunu, Egypt’s most important centre of sun worship, therefore called Heliopolis by the Greeks. Apart from these prominent shapes, there was a plethora of other possibilities. For example it was thought that the sun aged within the course of a day from a baby to a senile old man (Fig. 1) or that it changed its animal shape every hour or two. The latter concept gave rise to the astrological concept of the Dodekaoros in Greco-Roman time, which again via several intermediate stations became the so-called Far-eastern Zodiac (von Lieven in print). Other sources know of even more forms. The so-called Litany of the Sun, the original title of which is “Book of Venerating Re in the West”, even lists 75 different shapes of the sun god with their respective names in text and pictures (Fig. 2, Hornung 1975/1976).

Fig. 1: The sky goddess Nut arching over twelve boats containing different shapes of the sun god from child to old man. Ceiling of the New year’s hall in the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu (2nd–1st century B.C.). (after Maspero 1895, p. 89)

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Fig. 2: 14 of the 75 shapes of the sun god from the Litany of the Sun in the tomb of Thut-mosis III (18th dynasty, 1486–1425 B.C.). (after Bucher 1932, Pl. XXVI)

All of these forms had their own names like Khepri for the scarab morning form or Atum for the human night form, but apart from that, the sun god also had one secret name containing all his power. This name was so secret that not even his mother knew it. According to a myth which is preserved in a historiola of a magical spell, the goddess Isis nastily tricked Re into tell-ing her this name. When the god had grown old and started to slaver she took a bit of the earth on which his spittle had fallen. Out of it she formed a snake which she placed on the route he took daily. As expected, he got bitten and suffered terribly from the pain. The price he had to pay for his healing was to tell her that secret name. After several useless attempts to get off the hook without divulging his secret, he finally had to give in.9

With Re’s ageing, this myth contains an element which is of some impor-tance, namely the idea that gods are born, age and eventually die as well. In Re’s case this can be connected both to his daily course and to a complete

9 Pleyte, Rossi 1869–1876, pls. XXXI, LXXVII; Gardiner 1935, pp. 116–118, pls. 64–65; Roeder 1915, pp. 138–141; Borghouts 1978, pp. 51–55.


year. Moreover, there is also a pseudo-historical dimension, which has the gods reign on earth as kings before the first human rulers. In this perspec-tive, the sun god, who also is the creator, is the first king of Egypt. There-fore it was customary to state in the event of extraordinary incidents that such things had not happened “since the time of Re”.

As for the creation, there were many divergent concepts of this, but the sun god Re or Atum had an important function in most of them.

According to the so-called Heliopolitan cosmogony, Atum appeared as first deity on the primeval hill. In his loneliness, he started to masturbate, thereby somehow impregnating himself. As his children he sneezed and spat out the first couple of gods – Shu, the god of air and light and his sis-ter, the fiery lion goddess Tefnut. In Egyptian, these names are related by word play to the verbs denoting their way of creation, ishesh (ıšš) “sneeze” und tefen (tfn) “spit”. This first couple then starts normal sexual procrea-tion by siring Geb, the god of the earth and Nut, the goddess of the sky. In turn, they have offspring of their own, namely Osiris, Horus the Elder, Seth, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris becomes king of Egypt and marries Isis, while Seth marries Nephthys. Subsequently, Seth kills Osiris and becomes king himself, but Isis posthumously conceives a son Horus, who later fights Seth and regains the kingship. Seth is instead given a place in the solar boat as a helping force against Apopis. This is, however, just one version of a story which existed in many variants.10 Another creation story, preserved in the Neith cosmogony of Esna11 instead sees the androgynous goddess Neith as creatrix who bears the god Re without a father. From the solar child’s laughing and crying issue gods and humans. From his heart, the moon god Thot emerges.

Other myths elaborate on the subject of the aged and weakened sun god. The Book of the Heavenly Cow (Hornung 1991) tells of a human rebellion against the age-worn sun god. As punishment, he sent his daughter, the bloodthirsty Sun’s Eye, to destroy them. But immediately after she went, Re takes pity on mankind and decides to save it. This he achieved by deceit.

10 In fact the whole myth is rarely given in detail, therefore the diverse facts have to be gath-ered from different sources and hints.

11 Esna 206, translated by Sauneron 1962, pp. 253–271.

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He had beer brewed and coloured red with some mineral, thereby giving it the appearance of blood. This brew is then tipped out on the morning of the planned execution. It covers the ground by three hand-widths and the result is as intended:

“Now, this goddess came early in the morning and found this country flooded. Her face grew beautiful thereby and she drank – this was agreeable in her heart! Drunken she arrived and could not recognize the humans any more”.

Nevertheless, the god lost trust in humanity and Re leaves the earth to re-tire on the back of the heavenly cow.

The myth of the rebellion of humanity is also attested in several vari-ants.12 It conveniently provides the explanation for the sub-optimal state of the universe. It is not the creator’s fault, but humanity itself is to blame. Accordingly, the Lord of All, i.e. Atum says in Coffin Text spell 1130:

“I have done four good deeds within the gate of the horizon. I created the four winds, so that everybody in his time can breathe. This is one of them. I created the Great Flood, so that the poor man is as powerful as the rich man. This is one of them. I created every hu-man like his fellow, I have not commanded anyone to do injustice, it is their hearts which have destroyed what I said. This is one of them. I have made their hearts in such a way as not to forget the West (i.e. the realm of the dead), because of the desire to let offerings be given to the gods of the nomes. This is one of them.” (De Buck 1961, pp. 462–464; Backes 2005, pp. 119–120)

If one takes a broader perspective and asks which other astronomical phe-nomena were of particular importance in Ancient Egyptian religion, it is striking how little relevance was accorded the planets. They do figure in the Classical Sky Picture, a list-like astronomical depiction attested from the Middle Kingdom to the Roman Period,13 but apart from that they hardly ever appear, let alone play any role in a more practically oriented religion as recipients of a cult. This only changes in the Late Period when the zodiac is introduced from Mesopotamia and as a result horoscopic astrology starts its triumph in Egypt (Quack in print). But even then, the

12 Apart from the texts cited by Hornung there are some recently published papyrus frag-ments, see Smith 2000.

13 Neugebauer, Parker 1969, pls. 1–28; for fragments of a Roman period papyrus copy clearly reproducing a Middle Kingdom model see Osing, Rosati 1998, pp. 81–82, 92–94, pls. 8, 12.


prominence of the planets remains limited to the narrower astrological-astronomical context.

The Egyptian names for the planets stay more or less constant in the older periods, while in the Late Period a few changes occur (Neugebauer, Parker 1969, pp. 175–182). The Egyptian name for Jupiter in particular alternates already in the earlier times between several more or less similar sounding forms. This insecurity might be due to the high old age – probably the 3rd millennium B.C. – of the models from which the attested versions of the Classical Sky Picture derive. Jupiter’s name oscillates between Hor tash taui (Hr.w t š t .wı) “Horus who delimits the two lands”, Hor wepesh taui (Hr.w wpš t .wı) “Horus who enlightens the two lands” (probably the best and therefore original reading), Hor sheta taui (Hr.w št t .wı) “Horus the secret one of the two lands” or Hor wep sheta (Hr.w wpi� št ) “Horus who opens the secret” and so on, until in the Late Period it has turned into Hor pa shuti (Hr.w p šwtı) “Horus the merchant”. Saturn, on the other hand, is always called “Horus the bull (of the sky)”. Mars is called “Horizontic Horus” in the older periods and later “Horus the Red”. Because of their association with Horus these three are depicted as hawk-headed. Mercury, in Egyptian Sebegu, a word of unknown meaning, is a form of Seth and is accordingly depicted with the head of the Seth-animal (an unidentified animal) in some sources. Others substitute a hawk’s head here as well or leave the picture out completely, as Seth is a deity of rather dubious repu-tation because of his murder of Osiris. Venus is traditionally depicted as the benu-bird (phoenix) and is sometimes named accordingly. Alternative-ly, it is called “Cruising (star)”. Later, it is called “Morning god” and can sometimes be shown as double-headed, to emphasize its double character as Evening and Morning Star.

In contrast to the planets, the moon (Derchain 1962, pp. 17–68) and the so-called decans were of major importance. Unlike the sun, the moon never was very popular under its own name Iakh ( Ich) “moon” (Fig. 3). In-stead there were different gods who had more or less strong lunar aspects. By far the most prominent one of them is ibis-headed Thot, who was also responsible for the art of writing in all its expressions, including wisdom and scholarship as well as calculating. As vezir and deputy, his relationship with Re is particularly close. The astronomical reason for this is, of course,

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Fig. 3: The star-studded sky goddess Nut swallows the sun and bears the moon. She is surrounded by 24 goddesses of the hours, to the right those of the day, each holding a little sun disk, to the left those of the night, each holding a little star. Interior of the lid from the coffin of Peftjauneith (26th dynasty, around 664–525 B.C.). On the bottom of the coffin trough, there is a more conven-tional picture of the Goddess of the West. (after Maspero 1895, p. 86, for good colour photos of the coffin, which is now in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden; see Raven 1992, pp. 60–62)

that the moon shines at night in-stead of the sun. Alternatively, the moon can even be understood as the nocturnal sun. This latter con-cept surely is the background for the nocturnal mystical union be-tween Re and Osiris celebrated in the Netherworld Books. The iden-tification of the moon with Osi-ris mainly derives from its waning which is understood as the latter’s murder and dismemberment by Seth. Accordingly, the reconstitu-tion of Osiris’s corpse is the moon’s waxing. Similarly, the relation be-tween the moon and Horus or rath-er his eye is to be explained. The eye of Horus is stolen and damaged by Seth, but afterwards recovered and healed (usually by Thot). Less clear is the connection with the god Khonsu, wo seems to have a some-what violent nature according to


some sources.14 Presumably, the sickle moon serves as his weapon. These and some other gods, who can occasionally exhibit lunar traits, had promi-nent cults, some even in the most important cities of Egypt.

A specifically Egyptian concept are the decans, 36 constellations whose risings and settings were used for time-keeping (Quack 2003). These con-stellations do not readily correspond to any modern constellations and have not yet been identified conclusively. Their Greek designation “decan” stems from the fact that every ten days a new one rises anew, while anoth-er becomes invisible for approximately 70 days under the horizon. There-fore, there always are 29 decans visible at any one time. Each one in turn culminates or “works”, as the Egyptian term is, for a certain period during its visibility phase. Accordingly, the Egyptian designation for the decans is “Workers”. The seven invisible decans, on the other hand, are temporar-ily “dead” and act as butcher-demons and divine messengers during this phase (von Lieven 2000, pp. 46–55).

The structure of the decan calendar correlates with the ideal calendar of 360 days made up of 36 ten-day weeks. Additionally, there are the five so-called epagomenal days, additional days “on the year”, as they are described in Egyptian. Thereby one arrives at the ideal solar calendar of 365 days. For lack of a leap year every fourth year the ideal year and the real year were not in accordance with each other. When eventually such a leap year was introduced with the decree of Canopus in 238 B.C., it did not gain much acceptance in practice (Pfeiffer 2004, pp. 131–144, 249–257).

In fact, the epagomenal days would have been fatal anyway for the ac-curacy of the decan calendars. All these problems which give modern his-torians of astronomy a headache when dealing with the Egyptian material did not prevent these concepts from gaining great popularity at a practical religious level. In particular the demonic and dangerous character of the decans, which is particularly enshrined in their ophiomorphous form, ex-cited the fantasy of the ancient theologians. In the ophiomorphous form the decans are shown as snakes with arms and legs or wings and as lion-headed humans. In their hands they hold wine jars, whose contents serve to pacify the Dangerous Goddess, the lady of the decans, a form of the

14 A skin disease, probably leprosy, is even called “Massacre of Khonsu”.

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Sun’s Eye. The whole group is therefore sometimes shown on the sides of the Goddess’ throne. Smaller and less luxurious versions show only one or two decan figures in the same position. In the form of single figure fayence amulets, snake-shaped decans holding tiny jars are attested by the hundreds. These amulets were part of everyday apparel and were worn especially by women and children to ward off the illnesses meted out by the Goddess.

Of particular importance in relation to the decans are Sothis and Orion (Krauss 1997, pp. 146–206). The constellation Orion itself was at least partly made up of decans, as the latter’s names – “Upper arm of Orion”, “Lower arm of Orion” etc. – suggest. Sothis, whose name Sepedet (Spt.t) means

“The pointed one”, was itself a decan. It originally consisted of three stars (α, δ and ε Canis maioris to be precise), the most important of which was Sirius at the upper tip. Later the two other stars lost more and more of their importance, until finally the Greco-Roman authors simply equated Sothis with Sirius. Sothis and Orion could also be understood as astral forms of Isis and Osiris respectively.

Sothis was of fundamental importance for Egyptian culture as its he-liacic rising coincided with the start of the annual Nile flood, which was vital for the agricultural cycle. Consequently the Egyptians believed the two phenomena to be causally linked with each other. They scrupulously observed the cycle of Sothis. Its heliacic rising, i.e. its first rising immedi-ately before sunrise, was called “Hathor in the hair of Re” and identified with a fire-spitting cobra on the god’s brow. This is the astronomical-the-ological background for the well-known uraeus snake as a royal symbol. In this function, Sothis is identified with Tefnut or Hathor and other god-desses thought to be the daughter of Re. Apparently the bright star also reminded the Egyptians of an eye. Therefore all these goddesses can be given the standard epithet “Sun’s Eye”. It is important to note that thus the “Sun’s Eye” is not the sun itself, but Sothis, i.e. essentially Sirius. The same is true for the already-mentioned designation Itenet (ıtn.t) “Female disk” and even Rat (Rc.t) “Female Sun”. Both do not denote a female so-lar deity, but Sothis. This becomes evident beyond doubt in texts speak-ing about the rising of the male and female sun together, sometimes even mentioning the Nile flood as well (von Lieven 2001). As nobody will se-riously think there actually were two suns shining over Ancient Egypt,


the only possible conclusion, corroborated by a wealth of other evidence, is that it is just a figurative designation which emphatically praises the splendour of Sirius.15 The same figurative use is attested for the king as well, who can be called “Re among rulers” or “Dazzling disk”, without re-ally being the sun.

The opposite of these gods of the southern hemisphere is the Big Dipper in the northern hemisphere which was understood to be the astral form of Seth or at least his foreleg (von Lieven 2000, pp. 24–29). The latter was believed to have been cut off as a punishment. Then it was set into the sky where it is chained to a gigantic flint knife and guarded by the hippopota-mus goddess Ipet, herself another constellation. This had a clear purpose as it can be read in an inscription in the temple of Esna:16

“Isis as hippopotamus is the one who binds the foreleg to the northern sky to prevent it from sinking down into the Netherworld. It is under her guard as Ipet in the sky. She will not loosen her arm from it for eternity and everlastingness.”

Finally, the Ikhemusekiu (ı:hm.w-ski�.w) “Imperishable” and Ikhemuweredju (ı:hm.w-wrč.w) “Unfatigueable” stars need to be mentioned (Krauss 1997, pp. 86–145). At least the former are probably to be identified with the cir-cumpolar stars. While they did not enjoy a cult of their own, they were thought to be the towing crew of the solar boat and as such they often fig-ure in texts and pictures.

The already mentioned Classical Sky Picture, the oldest attestation of which dates around 1800 B.C., shows most of these celestial phenome-na – the planets, Sothis, Orion and the decans as well as the constellations of the northern hemisphere – some of which cannot be identified securely. It mentions the number of stars in a constellation, and it also gives the name of a guarding deity for each astral phenomenon. In this respect it is quite in-teresting that the ruling deity of “Horizontic Horus” Mars is the sun god Re. On the one hand this shows the hierarchy between sun and planets – the

15 To put this designation into perspective it is important to note that Sirius is in fact as much as 22 times brighter than the sun, but because of its seemingly much smaller size to the human eye this is not so obvious.

16 Esna 400: Sauneron 1969, p. 3, for a depiction compare the folding plate after p. 16 (Esna 409), von Lieven 2000, pp. 20–21.

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sun is himself a god, while the planets are just avatars of other deities. On the other hand this helps to elucidate the curious fact that a planet can be called “Horizontic Horus” (Harakhte), when this name – typically in the combination Re-Harakhte – is a standard designation for the morning form of the sun as a hawk-headed man.

The correlation of gods and phenomena of nature via lists, which is first attested in the Classical Sky Picture, is also well documented for other fields, regardless of whether the phenomena in question are animals, plants, meteorological features or minerals (von Lieven 2004). Thus the Book of the Celestial Cow states in a chapter on the soul-powers (Ba) of the gods:

“The soul of Shu is the air, … the soul of Darkness17 is the night, … the souls of Sobek are the crocodiles, … but the soul of Re permeates the whole universe.” (Hornung 1991, pp. 26–27, 47).

Another pictorial composition apparently depicts the paranatellonta, i.e. the stars that rise together with the sun (Quack 1999, pp. 212–223). This composition, known as “Embalming Hall of Osiris”, consists of two regis-ters (Fig. 4). In the centre of the upper one are shown the two solar boats known as the Morning and Evening Boat. On the right in the eastern ho-rizon is the Morning Boat with hawk-headed Re in it, on the left in the western horizon is the Evening Boat with fully anthropomorphic Atum in it. They are adored by the king (or in some private tombs the deceased) who by standing in the boats also takes part in the solar cycle. To the right and left of this central part there are four sub-registers, each containing 12 gods per side. On the left side are the gods of the southern hemisphere, on the right those of the northern. Each row contains, according to its re-spective label, from bottom to top: “The gods that come out in front of the boat’s prow in the southern/northern sky”, “The gods that accompany Re in the southern/northern sky”, “All the gods, that flash up in the southern/northern sky” and finally “The gods that follow Re in the southern/north-ern sky”. The altogether 24 iconographically not further differentiated di-vine figures are to stand in as generic star gods for the totality of stars in the sky. The fact that it is 24 derives from the way they are arranged in

17 Personified Darkness (Keku) is a primeval god.


Fig. 4: The Embalming Hall of Osiris on the ceiling of the rear transverse hall in the Osireion at Abydos (19th dynasty, around 1300 B.C.). (after Frankfort 1933, Pl. LXXIV)

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groups of three, which implies plurality. However, a hint at the number of hours in a full day is surely intended as well.

In the lower register Osiris is shown in a shrine in the process of re-awakening on his funerary bier, while Horus holds the hieroglyph for life to his nose. To the right and left there are again groups of deities standing in four sub-registers each. To the right there are 16, to the left 20. Although their individual names and iconography do not fit any of the known de-can families, the sum of 36 deities altogether makes a link with the decans almost inevitable.

The whole picture emblematically sums up major elements of Religious Astronomy as well as of Egyptian theology in general: day and night, wor-ship of Re and Osiris and their respective astral retinue. Furthermore, Osi-ris’s astronomical main correlate Orion as lord of the decans and the moon as the nightly equivalent of Re could well have been read into the figure of Osiris awakening without any need to explicitly state it in an inscription.

The astronomical character of the picture is not only evident from the unequivocal inscriptions in the solar register, but also from its position on the ceiling in the Osireion at Abydos, right next to two other relevant texts, namely the Book of the Night and the Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars.18

The latter belong to the category of so-called cosmographies, which again can be differentiated into Books of the Netherworld and Books of the Sky.19 These are a corpus of canonical texts dealing in detail with the course of the sun. The Netherworld Books only treat the 12 hours of the night, when the sun travels through the apparently subterranean Netherworld. The most important Netherworld Books are the Amduat (“That which is in the Neth-erworld”) (Figs. 5, 6), the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns and the Book of the Earth. The first two of these segment the nightly journey of the sun into 12 hour-regions separated from each other by heavily guarded gates. The same segmentation is also used by the Book of Day and Night, which together with the Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars makes up the

18 Frankfort 1933, pls. LXXIV–LXXXV (the Embalming Hall is on pls. LXXIV–LXXV).19 Hornung 1997 with a list of the respective editions; Hornung 1989 (collection of trans-

lations, unfortunately without the Books of the Sky); on those see now Roulin 1996; von Lieven 2007; Müller-Roth 2008.


Fig. 5: The ram-shaped sun god in his boat during the 11th hour of the night, Amduat in the tomb of Thutmosis III (18th dynasty, 1486–1425 B.C.). (after Bucher 1932, Pl. X)

46 Pandanus ’10

Fig. 6: The scarab-shaped sun god rising from the underworld again at the end of the 12th hour of the night, Amduat in the tomb of Amenhotep II (18th dynasty, 1425–1397 B.C.). (after Bucher 1932, Pl. XL)


Books of the Sky. These have as their most prominent feature a large figure of the sky goddess Nut spanning the whole text zone. Probably the Book of Day and Night is one single composition, but the night part is attested much more often. All the names of these books, by the way, are only mod-ern nicknames for lack of any authentic titles. The only exception to this is, to an extent, the Amduat, and most importantly, the Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars.20

The Fundamentals is also different from the rest in that it does not only treat of the course of the sun during a full day, but also elaborates in detail on the interaction between the sun and the decans. Therefore, only the first chapter with the course of the sun is illustrated by a picture of Nut, while other unillustrated chapters on the decans, the moon and perhaps even the planets follow. Moreover, the solar chapter is quite realistic in comparison with the imaginary worlds conjured by other cosmographies. This is not true of the lunar and planetary chapters, however, as these unfortunately belong to those texts from Ancient Egypt which are the most difficult to understand. This might partly be due to text-critical trouble and especially to the sorry state of preservation of all sources for these passages, but it is certainly also a result of the strong layer of mythology applied to the as-tronomical observations in these parts.

All of these texts are only positively attested from the New Kingdom on-wards, but there is good evidence to posit their original composition as early as the 3rd millennium B.C. for historic-linguistic reasons (Baumann 1998). This question is very controversial within scholarship, and so is the ques-tion of their original function and use. While one position concludes from their preserved attestation in royal tombs and on other funerary equipment that they are “royal funerary texts” only intended to assure the kings post-humous well-being,21 others meticulously analyze the contents of the texts and compare them with other material. This position could demonstrate from a good deal of evidence that in fact these cosmographies are part of

20 Until recently, the Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars was also only known under a modern nickname, namely “Book of Nut”. The Amduat is a bit problematic, as the same designation is also attested for some compositions of vaguely related content, but with much difference in the details.

21 Thus especially Hornung.

48 Pandanus ’10

the priestly sciences, the knowledge of which provided an essential legiti-mation to officiate in the cult.22 As the king is the priest par excellence, he also had to be informed par excellence about the state and mechanics of the universe. This is why in the New Kingdom the royal tomb was deco-rated with such texts, which surely the ruler had already studied during his lifetime. The texts in question express this by claiming themselves to be “useful on earth and in the necropolis”. Thus the text of the 12th hour in the Short Version of the Amduat states: “It is useful for whoever knows it on earth, in heaven and in the earth.”

That this knowledge was not only useful but also strictly exclusive to specially legitimated persons is evident from several facts. For example, one of the favourite words in these books is “secret”. The end-title of said Short Version of the Amduat calls it “The rare book, the secret script on the Netherworld, which is not known to anybody but few”. Many sources amply prove that both priests and the king had to undergo initiation before assuming their office, an act called “introduction to the deity”. Unfortunate-ly, these sources rarely go into more detail about what the initiation really was about (Quack 2002b). That it did in fact comprise secret cosmographi-cal knowledge can, however, safely be assumed. A major witness for this is a text known within Egyptology as “The King as Sun Priest” (Assmann 1970). It is attested in several temples of different rulers, which shows its canonical character. It says:

“King NN knows the secret speech, spoken by the eastern souls when they jubilate for Re, when he is rising in the horizon. … He knows their shapes … He knows the birth of Re and his transformation in the flood, he knows yonder secret gate, from which the great god emerges, he knows the one in the Morning Boat, the great idol in the Evening Boat.”

The way this knowledge was achieved by the king through a vision can for-tunately be gleaned from a report on his coronation by king Thutmosis III:

“He threw open for me the gates of heaven, he opened for me the doors of his horizon. I flew up to heaven as a divine hawk to see his heavenly secret idol, to worship his Majesty. … I saw the transformations of the Horizontic One on his hidden paths in the sky. Re himself

22 Thus e.g. Assmann, Baines and Wente. See most recently von Lieven 2002 with bibliog-raphy.


installed me. I was distinguished with the crowns, which are on his head, his uraeus snake took her place on my head. … I was furnished with all his efficiency, I was saturated with the knowledge of the gods, like Horus when he became conscious, at the house of my fa-ther Amun-Re.” 23

Apparently the sun cult was an exemplary trove of esoteric theological speculation and secret knowledge, as otherwise only the cult of Osiris. The practical application of this knowledge of the transformations of the sun can be seen in the title of the Litany of the Sun:

“Beginning of the Book of venerating Re in the West, worshipping the Joined One24 in the West. This book is to be recited while this is done with frit on the ground at midnight. This means to justify Re in the west against his enemies. It is efficient for a man on earth and it is efficient for him when he has “landed” (i.e. when he has died).”

Frit is a blue colour and has to be finely ground. It would be a matter of testing whether one can draw with it on stone pavements as with a piece of limestone on the street. Alternatively, it is possible that frit powder was strewn into figures as is done with Tibetan mandalas to this day. At any rate it is noteworthy that the Egyptian text does not use the usual word for writing and drawing, but rather diffusely uses the verb “to do”. A strewn picture would also have the advantage of not being dependent on the ex-istence of a stone pavement but would also work with a floor of compacted mud.25 Apart from that, it would easily be possible to erase the pictures at the end of the ritual quickly and without a trace, something that would not be possible with the scratching method. As the Litany of the Sun as a supposed “funerary text” has not been taken seriously as an actual ritual, there never seem to have been attempts at a test performance. Like many other ritual descriptions from Ancient Egypt, this seems to be a promis-ing avenue for “experimental philology”.

23 Urkunden IV 159,11–160,7; translation: Sethe 1914, pp. 176–177; Quack, 2002b, pp. 99–100.24 Meaning the joined nocturnal form of Re and Osiris.25 In this respect it needs to be borne in mind that stone pavings were rare in Ancient Egypt

and even in temples there often were none originally. Many stone pavements in temples today suggesting otherwise have in fact only been installed in the 20th century A.D. to facilitate access for tourists!

50 Pandanus ’10

Possible evidence for the strewing method as well as further details add-ing to the picture of such rituals comes from a spell that is concerned with passing gates in the cult of Osiris. In funerary adaptation it found its way as spell 144 into the Book of the Dead. The speaker identifies himself with the crew of the sun boat which traverses the realm of Osiris in the Neth-erworld without having difficulties of passage. Again, pictures of the gates and their keepers have to be drawn. The directions for use at the end of the spell read:

“Recite above this picture which is drawn, drawn with Nubian ochre. The second crew of the sun boat, offer food, fowl and incense to them. This means to feed an Efficient One (Akh) and to make him powerful among these gods. This means he will not be repelled and not be hindered at the gates of the Netherworld. you should perform it above a picture of this Efficient One, so that he can reach each of these gates which are drawn. Speak above each of these gates which are drawn. Offer to each of them: a bull’s foreleg, heart and ribs of a red bull, 4 bowls of blood from the twitching heart, 16 loaves of white bread, 8 loaves of offering bread, 16 cakes, 8 loaves of Khenef-bread, 8 loaves of Hebnenet-bread, 8 jugs of beer, 8 bowls of groats, 4 clay bowls filled with the milk of a white cow, fresh herbs and fresh oil, ointment, eye-paint and finest oil, incense on the flame. Recite while each picture is effaced(!), after this prescription has been acted upon during the course of the fourth hour of day. Guard yourself well against noon in the sky! you shall use this book without letting anybody see it.”26

Interestingly, here the figures are indeed effaced. Moreover, in the temple of Ramses II at Abydos, this spell with its pictures is inscribed immediately next to the Litany of the Sun and its figures on the wall (Mariette 1880, pls. 14–17, Abdelrahiem 2006). I would expect that the 75 figures of the sun god addressed in the first part of the Litany of the Sun also each received such a more or less elaborate offering, even if the text does not explicitly state this. While the Book of the Dead spell 144 serves the benefit of the officiant himself or the deceased, for whom he does the ritual, in the Lit-any of the Sun clearly Re himself is the beneficiary. The acts of the priest are intended to justify the god against his enemies and thereby guarantee the unproblematic continuation of the solar course.

According to Egyptian conceptions this was a dire need as Re was subject to specific dangers at special times during the day, which vary according to

26 Text: Lapp 1997, pl. 76; translation: Hornung 1979, pp. 280–281; Eschweiler 1994, pp. 134–135.


the different sources. Some interesting information about this is provided by the so-called “Spells for knowing the Souls”, a distinctive group of spells attested in a Coffin Text and a later Book of the Dead version. The “Spell for Knowing the Souls of the West” (Book of the Dead spell 108) describes the daily danger for Re thus:

“But then, at the time of evening, he (i.e. Apopis) will turn his eyes against Re. Then the boat stands still and great confusion occurs among its crew. He will slurp up one cubit and three hand-widths of water, but then Seth will thrust his spear of ore into him and will make him regurgitate everything which he has swallowed.”27

But why is it not enough to overcome the snake Apopis by force? Why does the Litany of the Sun speak of “justifying”, as if it had to be established in court who is right and who is wrong in this cosmic battle?

In fact the whole story here is much more complex than the majority of sources in their brevity would lead one to believe. There was indeed once in the mythical past a lawsuit over who rightfully owned the sacred city of Heliopolis, as is hinted at in the “Spell for Knowing the Souls of Heliopolis”. And in fact Apopis is not just some deluded demon, but in a somewhat bizarre manner no less than the brother of the sun god himself! Accord-ing to one creation account, he came into being when the navel-string of new-born Re was cut and thrown into the primeval water, where it im-mediately transformed itself into a gigantic snake (Quack 2006). This em-barrassing fact is passed over in silence in most of the sources on purpose. The Egyptians never quite liked to speak about unpleasant truths or at least tried to cover them up by euphemistic expressions.

According to the “Spell for Knowing the Souls of the West”, Apopis is a full 30 cubits long, which approximately equates to 15.60 m. According to the Amduat he would even be longer, as there he is said to fill a com-plete sandbank of 440 cubits or 228.80 m with his curled-up body (Fig. 7). Without the help of Seth and Isis, Re would be in some difficulty. As of course the existence of the whole cosmos and consequently of humanity depends on the correct course of the sun, it was a duty for the Egyptians to ritually help the sun god as much as possible.

27 Sethe u. Gen. 1924, pp. 73–99, 43*–52* (esp. 46*–47*); Hornung 1979, p. 207.

52 Pandanus ’10

Fig. 7: The solar boat is almost dwarfed by the 440-cubits-long Apopis, who already has been fettered and had six knives pierce his body. 7th hour of the night, Amduat in the tomb of Amenhotep II (18th dynasty, 1425–1397 B.C.). (after Bucher 1932, Pl. XXXIV)


Apart from the Litany of the Sun, which just seeks to strengthen the sun god, other rituals have the express aim of destroying Apopis. Two such texts are preserved in Papyrus Bremner-Rhind, the “Book of throwing down Apopis, enemy of Re, enemy of (Wenennefer28)|, may he live, be safe and sound, justified, which is performed as daily act in the house of Amun-Re, lord of the throne of the two lands, the first of Luxor every day” and “The names of Apopis which do not exist.”29

The latter also belongs to the field of magically avoiding potentially bad things. Moreover it exemplifies well the dilemma that on the one hand to completely destroy somebody you also have to destroy his names, while on the other hand you need to know these very names to gain power over the being to be destroyed. The same motif had already occurred in relation to the secret name of Re. In this case, the list of names was written com-pletely in red, a common means of emphasizing titles and subscriptions, but also to mark out negative things. On the contrary, in the title line of the first Apopis Book which is otherwise also written in red, the names of the good gods Re and Wenennefer are written in black.

Both texts explain in detail how to produce figures of Apopis out of red wax in the shape of “a snake whose tail is in its mouth, with down-turned face and with a knife engraved on his back ‘Apopis, the fallen one, the crim-inal’”. His retinue should be modelled in wax as well. Then they are to be mistreated in every possible way reminiscent of voodoo magic and finally they are to be burnt. A copy of the list of names written on a new slip of papyrus is also to be burnt. It is self-evident, why there are no archaeologi-cal remains of such figures. Nevertheless, the text clearly states that this ritual was to be performed daily, which is only logical in view of the daily renewed danger. What should not be overlooked, by the way, is the politi-cal dimension of such execration rituals, as enemies of Pharaoh – foreign ones as well as Egyptian ones – were named and thus destroyed alongside the enemies of the sun god.

Of course the cult of the sun did not only consist of execration rituals. For the most part the worship of the sun will have taken the same form as

28 A name of Osiris.29 Edition: Faulkner 1933; translation: Faulkner 1937, Faulkner 1938.

54 Pandanus ’10

for other gods, namely offerings of food, clothing, make-up and jewellery, as is described in the Daily Temple Ritual and the Offering Ritual.30 These rituals consisted of a fixed sequence of fumigations and libations, while in between the god received a full menu of different food and drinks, until finally he was clothed, anointed and his eyes painted. All these rites were performed in the innermost part of the temples on statuettes made of pre-cious metals without any public audience. The statuettes were usually about one cubit, i.e. 52 cm high. Only under the reign of Akhenaton were food offerings performed in open courts, as Aton’s only “idol” was the real sun in the sky. Accordingly, there were no rites of clothing and suchlike at all.

Another rite performed in the sun temples every morning was the greet-ing of the rising sun by the solar monkeys. The Egyptians’ keen observa-tion of nature had led them to notice that at sunrise the baboons started to screech excitedly. They concluded that this must be a pious greeting of the god in a secret language – in fact, the secret speech mentioned in the

“King as Sun Priest” is precisely that. Hymns mention that the king as well as private adorants become a part of the jubilating group of monkeys. For example a high official says about himself in prayer “I have joined the ju-bilating monkeys, I am one of them” (de Meulenaere 1967–68, pp. 2–4, pl. I). That this monkey screeching was indeed imitated by priests in the cult is proven by the Book of the Temple, a handbook of the Egyptians on how an ideal temple should be built and run. One of the three main sections is concerned with the temple staff, from the highest-ranking priest down to the last handmaid in the temple kitchen. In the entry on the head teacher it is also prescribed which styles of singing he has to teach the priests-in-training. Among them figures the song technique “screeching”. The word used is indeed the same as the one used for the noise made by the jubilating baboons and this surely is not by chance (Quack 2002a, pp. 161, 163–164).

Apparently, the official cult of the sun god possessed many facets. Apart from that it also played an important part in the personal piety of the nor-mal population. These people did not know the esoteric texts and rituals, but they will surely have known their local variant of the basic myths. The

30 Once complete edition of the daily ritual: Moret 1902 (in dire need of updating), a com-plete study of the offering ritual (Tacke 2002) is unfortunately still unpublished.


visible rising and setting of the sun and its beneficial activity also was of great importance to them. For the lowest strata of society sources unfor-tunately are lacking, but for the middle class, for whom a good number of monuments are available, one can see that the sun god is often vener-ated on stelae or in tombs. On pyramidia different forms of the god such as Khepri, Re and Atum are a favourite decoration on the different sides,31 while a kneeling figure of the tomb owner in a niche with raised hands worships the real sun in the sky.

Hymns also deal with the effects of the sun on the earth:

“you have taken your shape as Re to illuminate the Two Lands for that which you created as a plan of your heart when you were alone. … you created mankind, small and large animals, all that came into being and all that exists. Every face looks at its companion, they jubilate because of you, they exult because of your Ka,32 they worship you according to the way you created them, they kiss the earth for you because you created them, they speak to you with their mouth, glorifying you with ‘Praise, praise’! Be greeted, you who has created all this! The nobility and the people worship you, for you jump the animals of the desert, they un-derstand how you take a lot of trouble with them.” (Bakir 1943; Assmann 1975, pp. 208–209)

Further evidence for the popularity of the god Re comes from the number of personal names with his name as a theophorous element.33 For kings it is more or less obligatory in at least one of their names, usually the throne name. This also holds true for all the foreign rulers including the Hyksos, who were maligned by later Egyptian propaganda as supposedly “ruling without Re”. But Re-names are popular in all walks of society, as far as can be seen. While kings’ names often contain a political programme, private names usually contain a statement about its owner’s relation to the deity in question. Thus, kings have throne names like Neb-hepet-Re “The lord of the rudder is Re” (Menthuhotep II) or User-maat-Re “Strong is the truth of Re” (Ramses II), while non-royal persons are called Ramses (i.e. Re-mesi-su) “Re has born him”, Re-hotep “Re is content” or Meri-Re “Beloved of Re”.

The cult of the sun in Egypt only ends with the end of Pagan religion after the triumph of Christianity. The preceding phase of strong Hellenization,

31 Rammant-Peeters 1983 (exemplarily Doc. 6, pls. IV–V).32 The life force.33 Ranke 1977, pp. 82–86; Lüddeckens 2000 (private personal names); von Beckerath 1999

(royal names).

56 Pandanus ’10

on the other hand, did not diminish it in any respect, even though Egyp-tian Re sometimes is fused now with Greek Helios. A particularly striking example for this is an architrave where a bust of Helios with a halo of rays looks down from the winged sun disk, which traditionally was depicted above doorways (Beck, Bol, Bückling 2005, pp. 616–617, Cat. 31.195).

The vitality as well as the appeal of Egyptian religion in general and sun worship in particular is demonstrated in an exemplary way by an inter-esting textual example. In the 5th century A.D. the Roman author Martia-nus Capella wrote his rhetorical manual De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae (Dick 1969, p. 74; Stahl, Johnson 1977, p. 59). In the first part he presents an extensive allegory, the marriage of Mercury and Philology, from which the book also got its title. Although the gods involved mainly derive from Greco-Roman mythology, nevertheless there are a not insignificant number of references to Egyptian religious concepts to be noted. For example, while ascending to heaven, Philology sees the solar boat with some animals of the Dodekaoros (II 183). In view of the divine light she lauds the sun god with a hymn containing not only the Latin Sol, but also 12 other names, four of which are directly Egyptian – Serapis, Osiris, Horus und Ammon34 – and a fifth – Typhon – is only explicable via Egyptian mythology. Behind Ty-phon hides, of course, the Egyptian Seth as helper of the sun. After this an-other name follows, the mysterious presentation of which is very reminis-cent of the true and secret name of Re in Egyptian tradition. Philology says:

“Hail to you, true face of the gods, idol of the father, your number is 608 and the letters of your name form the sacred name and the sign of the spirit”.

This slightly esoteric praise is to be explained by the fact that each letter of the Greek alphabet also has a numerical value. Thus, behind the num-ber 608 the word φρη is hidden, which again forms a word play with φρήν

“spirit, mental capacity”. The word φρη of course is nothing else but an aspi-rated Greek rendition of the Egyptian Pre, i.e. the name of the sun god Re with the definite masculine article, as is usual in the Late Period. So, for the Roman rhetorician of Late Antiquity Martianus Capella, the true name of the sun god was not the Greek Helios or Latin Sol, but the Egyptian P(h)re!

34 I.e. Amun.


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