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The burial ceremonies of Tut-Ankh-Amon seem to have followed quite traditional lines. In his tomb, we see the royal coffin in a shrine placed on a sledge drawn by high court officials. His successor Ay is represented performing the ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth of the deceased king as a new Osiris, then Tut-Ankh-Amon appears before Nut, the Goddess of the sky; and finally, the king, followed by his Ka, embraces the statue of Osiris, He at the Head of the west. To the left of these scenes is a list of divinities from the First Division of the Book of What Is in the Netherworld. The Second and Sixth Divisions from the same composition are represented in the exterior of Shrine III.
The four walls of Tut-Ankh-Amon's tomb
Although there is no detailed contemporary description of any funerary ceremonies, the sequence of certain rites may be fairly well-established from the Egyptian texts. Thus, the story of Sinuhet mentions the embalming, the funerary process, and the ceremonies at the entrance of the tomb:
Remember thou the day of burial, the passing into beatitude; when the night shall be devoted to thee with oils and with bandages, the handiwork of Tait. There is a procession to be made for thee on the day thou art reunited with the earth: thy mummy case of good, with head of lapis lazuli, a heaven above thee; the while that thou art placed upon the hearse, and oxen drag thee. Then shall musicians await thy coming, and the dance of the Muu be performed at the door of thy tomb. The words of offering shall be pronounced on thy behalf, and victims slaughtered at the door of thy stele.
A still more detailed description appears on a stele:
A goodly burial arrives in peace, thy seventy days having been fulfilled in thy place of embalming. Thou art placed on the bier and art drawn by bulls without blemish, the road being besprinkled with milk until thou reachest the door of thy tomb. The children of thy children, united, of one accord, weep with loving hearts. Opened is thy mouth by the lector, and thy purification is made by the Sem-priest. Horus adjusts for thee thy mouth and opens for thee thy eyes and ears., thy flesh and thy bones being perfect in all that appertains to thee. There are recited for thee spells and glorifications. There is made for thee an Offering which the King gives, thy own true heart being with thee, thy breast that thou didst have upon earth. Thou comest in thy former shape, even as on the day wherein thou wast born. There is brought to thee the son thou lovest, the courtiers making obeisance. Thou enterest into the land given of the King, into the sepulcher of the West. There are performed rites for thee as for those of yore; the Muu come to thee in jubilation.
There may be some confusion as to the reference to 'Osiris.' The current 'Osiris', King Tut-Ankh-Amon' simply means the deceased King Tut-Ankh-Amon. In life and death and Egyptian king followed the pattern of the Gods. At his accession, he was the young Horus who had to perform the burial ceremonies for his predecessor, his 'father Osiris.' to avenge him and restore order in the Two Lands. When he died, he was metaphorically killed' by the powers of darkness, the archenemy Seth. Mourned by Horus, his son or successor, and by his relatives who personified Isis, Nephthys, and Anubis, he was brought to his tomb as 'Osiris' and by appropriate common people, and every dead person became an 'Osiris' after death.
The following is how the Egyptians conducted their mournings and their funerals:
On the death in any house of a man of consequence, forthwith the women of the family plaster their heads, and sometimes even their faces, with mud; and then, leaving the body indoors, go forth and wander through the city, with their dress fastened by a band, and their bosoms bare, beating themselves as they walk. All the female relations join them and do the same. The men similarly do the same, beating their breasts separately. When these ceremonies are over, the body is carried away to be embalmed.
There are a set of men in Egypt who practice the art of embalming, and make it their proper business. These persons, when a body is brought to them, show the bearers various models of corpses, made in wood, and painted to resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be after Osiris, the second sort is inferior to the first and less costly; the third is the cheapest of all. All this the embalmers explain, and then ask in which way it is wished that the corpse should be prepared. The bearers tell them, and having concluded their bargain, take their departure, while the embalmers, left to themselves, proceed to their task.
The mode of embalming, according to the most perfect process, is the following: They take first a crooked piece of iron, and with it draws out the brain through the nostrils, thus getting rid of a portion, while the skull is cleaned of the rest by rinsing with drugs Next, they cut the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone, and take out the whole contents frequently with an infusion of pounded aromatics. After this, they fill the cavity with the purest bruised myrrh, with cassia, and every other sort of spice except frankincense, and sew up the opening. Then the body is placed in natron for seventy days, and covered entirely over.
After the expiration of that space of time, which must not be exceeded, the body is washed, and wrapped round, from head to foot, with bandages of fine linen cloth, smeared over with gum, which is used generally by the Egyptians in the place of glue, and in this state, it is given back to the relations, who enclose it in a wooden case which they have had made for the purpose, shaped into the figure of a man. Then fastening the case, they place it in a sepulchral chamber, upright against the wall. Such is the most costly way of embalming the dead for those who could afford one of the three methods available to common folks or even moderately well-off folks. Poor families who could not afford any of these methods resorted to burial with little or no ceremony.
The extracted viscera, which were identified with the four sons of Horus - Imesty, Hapy, Dua-mutef, and Kebeh-senuf were placed in four canopic jars. These were under the protection of four Goddesses: Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Selkit.
King Tut was treated much differently, as were other royals. Tut's viscera were packed into four gold coffins which were placed standing into the canopic chest.
The four canopic jars from Tut-Ankh-Amon's tomb which held his viscera
On the lid of each coffin is an inscription which reads:
Words spoken by Isis: I close my arms over that which is in me, I protect Imesty who is in me, Imesty, Osiris King Neb-Kheperu-Re, justified before the Great God.
Words spoken by Nephthys: I embrace with my arms that which is in me, I protect Hapy of Osiris, King Neb-Kheperu-Re, justified before the Great God.
Words spoken by Neith: I encircle with my arms that which is in me, I protect Dua-mutef who is in me, Dua-mutef, Osiris King Neb-Kheperu-Re, justified before the Great God.
Words spoken by Selkit: My two arms are on what is in me. I protect Kebeh-senuf who is in me, Kebeh-senuf, Osiris King Neb-Kheperu-Re, the justified one.
On the inside of the lid of each coffin, a corresponding Goddess is represented spreading her wings over the packet of viscera. It is clear that the coffins themselves were believed to be the personifications of the four Goddesses.
The canopic chest is a block of alabaster having the shape of a typical Egyptian shrine standing upon a wooden sledge. The shrine is decorated with symbols of Osiris and Isis. When the roof of the alabaster shrine was removed, the four gold coffins containing Tut's viscera were found in four cylindrical holes covered by human-headed lids, finely sculptured in alabaster in the likeness of the kind. The alabaster shrine was in a large gilt wooden chest, shrine-shaped, under a canopy supported by four corner posts, the whole some six and a half feet in height, placed upon a massive sledge.The cornice of the wooden shrine, as well as that of the canopy, is surmounted with brilliantly inlaid cobra heads; the faces of the wooden shrine are protected by the Goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Neigh, and Selkit.
Images of Osiris (L) and Isis (R) .. drawing by Mark Hasselriis
For a bit of explanation ... Imesty represents the liver, Hapy the lungs, Dua-mutef the stomach, and Kebeh-senuf the intestines. The corresponding Goddesses are, respectively Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Selkit. (In the Nineteenth Dynasty, after Tut's time, the lids of the jars depict the four divinities with the heads of a man, a baboon, a dog, and a hawk.)
The heart was left in its place in the body, and on the chest of the deceased was placed a so-called 'heart scarab,' a beetle made of stone, with engraving on its underside. This 'heart scarab' had a peculiar shape ... it was a large black beetle fixed on a golden tablet. On the scarab was a phoenix; an incrustation of multicolored glass. The phoenix, "He who comes to life through himself,' is the symbol of rebirth. "I enter as a hawk, I come out as a phoenix in the morning,' says the deceased in the Book of the Dead, which we shall explore later in this blog series.
The 'heart scarab' ... housed in King Tut's collection at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo
The text of the inscription on the bottom of King Tut's 'heart beetle' is as follows:
O my heart of my mother, O my heart of my mother! O my breast of my upgrowing, O my breast of my upgrowing! Stand not forth against me as witness, confront me not in the assembly of judgment, incline thou not against me in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance. Thou art my Ka that is in my body, the Khnum who prospereth my limbs.
When Tut was placed in his coffin, he was placed between the arms of his mother Nut.
This depicts how King Tut was placed in his coffin. Note the Goddess Nut's wings enfold his actual body.
The sky Goddess Nut, the personification of the vault of heaven, appears already in the oldest Egyptian religious literature, the Pyramid Texts. By night, the dead sun in his night barge travels inside the body of the Goddess of the night sky; by day, in his barge of the morning, he is carried by the current of the celestial river that flows from east to west on the body of the Goddess Nut. as the sun God at night was entombed in the vault of heaven. At an early date, Nut became the symbol of the grave, of the coffin. Thus, we read in the Pyramid Texts as follows:
Thou art given to thy mother Nut in her name Coffin;
She embraces thee, in her name Sarcophagus;
Thou comest up to her in her name Sepulcher.
In another text, she is likened to a bed in which the deceased sleeps, to be awakened into new life ... as follows:
A Great One fell asleep on his mother Nut.
Thy Mother Tait dresses thee.
She carries thee up toward heaven in this her name Kite.
The discovered one, the one she found, her son, her Horus!
Thy Horus is here, O Isis, take his arm to Re, to the horizon!
Note that Kite is another name for Isis, also known as The Great Mother
The actual Goddess Nut pectoral image that was on Tut's body ... on display at the Egypt Museum of Cairo.
In an even later text, the four sides of the coffin are personified as Isis, Nephthys, Horus, and Thoth; the floor is Geb, the earth God, and the lid is the sky Goddess Nut. In this way, the dead in his coffin was encompassed by the personifications of the whole cosmos, and death itself was but a transitory state leading to new life, to another birth.
In normal funerary services, after the seventy days had elapsed (and if the family could afford it) the body was put in the coffin, as I earlier stated. The deceased, with all his furniture, was transported across the river to the western bank to the burial place which was already prepared there. The crossing of the river, frequently depicted on the walls of private tombs was likened to the pilgrimage to Abydos and some of the sacred sites, such as Busiris and Memphis.
The next stage of the journey was by land, from the bank of the river to the tomb, representing the return of the dead Osiris to his Lower Egyptian capitals Pe and Dep. The bier was dragged by red oxen, since red was the national color of Lower Egypt, and the attending priests and relatives represented the mourning population of the northern capitals.
At the entrance of the grave a group of mummers, with conical headdresses reminiscent of the crowns worn by Gods and kings, enacted a ritual called "Dancing of the People of Pe.' Then, at the entrance of the tomb, the ceremony of the opening of the mouth and the eyes was performed on the mummy by a group of priests, the acting priest personifying Horus, 'the beloved son' of Osiris. This ceremony lasted for four days.
First, the mummy was fumigated, then ritually washed, A bull was slaughtered and its heart and foreleg were presented to the deceased. Then the mouth and two eyes of the mummy were touched with special instruments and finally, offerings were made to the deceased.
We unfortunately know little of the ceremonies of attending a royal burial. We do not know, for instance, what ceremonies were executed in the mortuary temple built by every king on the left bank. In all probability, it was there that the opening of the mouth and eyes was performed on the statue of the dead king. Then the royal bier was conveyed by high officials to the Valley of the Kings, there to be secretly deposited.
There remain many, many tombs as yet undiscovered.
Thus the dead one comes as Osiris into his tomb, where a cycle of transformation will begin: the dead God will be born again, and Osiris will appear as a new Re, a new sun God. In the royal tomb this transformation of a dead God into a new Sun, and of a king identified with him, is described in the great religious compositions. In the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amon, where the wall decorations are very poor, all the religious texts are engraved on the four gilt shrines which cover the sarcophagus of the king.
These inscriptions are long and tedious. To be honest, I doubt that I'm going to present them in their entirety. My intention is not to reprint the entire book in this blog series! I may just give a few samples to show how involved the hieroglyphics were ... but first I do want to explore the Book of the Dead and the Book of the Divine Cow.
The shrines in these two books represent the first and the last stages of transformation: the birth of the sun God out of the watery Abyss, and his exaltation and ascension into heaven on the back of the Divine Cow. This was the journey Tut-Ankh-Amon expected to take, as did his ancestors and others who came after him.
We shall tackle those two books in the next blog post about King Tut's shrines.
Darkmum
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