The Book of the Dead | Page 4

contains more Chapters, Hymns, Litanies, Adorations and Homages to the gods than any other roll. The 87 Chapters from the PER-T EM HRU which it contains prove the princess's devotion to the cult of Osiris, and the Hymns to Amen-Ra show that she was able to regard this god and Osiris not as rivals but as two aspects of the same god. She believed that the "hidden" creative power which was materialized in Amen was only another form of the power of procreation, renewed birth and resurrection which was typified by Osiris. The oldest copies of the PER-T EM HRU which we have on papyrus contain a few extracts from other ancient funerary works, such as the "Book of Opening the Mouth," the "Liturgy of Funerary Offerings," and the "Book of the Two Ways." But under the rule of the Priest-Kings the scribes incorporated with the

Chapters
of the PER-T EM HRU extracts from the "Book of Ami-Tuat" and the "Book of Gates," and several of the vignettes and texts that are found on the walls of the royal tombs of Thebes.
One of the most remarkable texts written at this period is found in the Papyrus of Nesi-Khensu, which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This is really the copy of a contract which is declared to have been made between Nesi-Khensu and Amen-Ra, "the holy god, the lord of all the gods." As a reward for the great piety of the queen, and her devotion to the interests of Amen-Ra upon earth, the god undertakes to make her a goddess in his kingdom, to provide her with an estate there in perpetuity and a never-failing supply of offerings, and happiness of heart, soul and body, and the [daily] recital upon earth of the "Seventy Songs of Ra" for the benefit of her soul in the Khert-Neter, or Under World. The contract was drawn up in a series of paragraphs in legal phraseology by the priests of Amen, who believed they had the power of making their god do as they pleased when they pleased.
Little is known of the history of the PER-T EM HRU after the downfall of the priests of Amen, and during the period of the rule of the Nubians, but under the kings of the XXVIth dynasty the Book enjoyed a great vogue. Many funerary rolls were written both in hieroglyphs and hieratic, and were decorated with vignettes drawn in black outline; and about this time the scribes began to write funerary texts in the demotic character. But men no longer copied long selections from the PER-T EM HRU as they had done under the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth dynasties, partly because the religious views of the Egyptians had undergone a great change, and partly because a number of Books of the Dead of a more popular character had appeared. The cult of Osiris was triumphant everywhere, and men preferred the hymns and litanies which dealt with his sufferings, death and resurrection to the compositions in which the absolute supremacy of Ra and his solar cycle of gods and goddesses was assumed or proclaimed. Thus, in the "Lamentations of Isis" and the "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys," and the "Litanies of Seker," and the "Book of Honouring Osiris," etc., the central figure is Osiris, and he alone is regarded as the giver of everlasting life. The dead were no longer buried with large rolls of papyrus filled with Chapters of the PER-T EM HRU laid in their coffins, but with small sheets or strips of papyrus, on which were inscribed the above compositions, or the shorter texts of the "Book of Breathings," or the "Book of Traversing Eternity," or the "Book of May my name flourish," or a part of the "Chapter of the Last Judgment."
Ancient Egyptian tradition asserts that the Book PER-T EM HRU was used early in the Ist dynasty, and the papyri and coffins of the Roman Period afford evidence that the native Egyptians still accepted all the essential beliefs and doctrines contained in it. During the four thousand years of its existence many additions were made to it, but nothing of importance seems to have been taken away from it. In the space here available it is impossible to describe in detail the various Recensions of this work, viz., (1) the Heliopolitan, (2) the Theban and its various forms, and (3) the Sa?te; but it is proposed to sketch briefly the main facts of the Egyptian Religion which may be deduced from them generally, and especially from the Theban Recension, and to indicate the contents of the principal Chapters. No one papyrus can be cited as a final authority, for no payprus contains all the Chapters, 190 in number, of the Theban Recension, and in no two papyri are the selection