Inventory number

Drawing description

The manuscript’s visual representation describes a specific segment of the Sun-god Re’s nocturnal journey through the Twelfth Hour of the night. The treatise’s visual model does not resemble the prototype established that decorates the 18th Dynasty royal burial chambers in the Valley of the Kings. The scribe focuses on the Twelfth Hour’s middle register to represent the deceased’s desire to be reborn in the Solar-Osirian unity, re-arranging the scenes and replacing the cosmographical texts. Consequently, some deities are missing from these episodes (deities 846-848, 851-855, 861-868 and 874-882). The treatise’s palimpsest consists of a single horizontal register presenting Re, in his nocturnal shape as a ram-headed deity, travelling on the solar barque through the last netherworld region. From the manuscript’s left-hand side, the author presents a small vignette with Osiris' funerary barque, whilst Isis attends to the deceased’s mummy. Mounted on the barque’s prow is a disc, providing a solar counterpoint to the otherwise predominantly Osirian scene. Isis’ appearance on top of Osiris' mummified form alludes to post-mortem creation, by which Isis begat the dead god’s son and heir. This representation is usually paired with the funerary barque of the falcon-headed god Horus of the Duat: we can see this boat’s prow and solar disc on the manuscript’s broken left margin. The second vignette presents a male figure (presumably the deceased himself) with his arms raised in the position of the dwA-praise. He is standing behind three bA-birds as the intended recipient of their praise. The third vignette reinforces the first, presenting three sarcophagi surmounted by human-headed bA-birds with a recumbent male mummy resting within each. The scribe also places three shade-signs behind these birds. In the manuscript’s centre, to complete Re’s rejuvenation process, four gods and four goddesses tow the solar barque through the entire body of the life-regenerating serpent anx-nTr.w, (Life of the gods) represented here with mutilation signs as Re’s nemesis, the serpent Apophis. On the manuscript’s far right-hand side, we see the accomplishment of this deed: a beetle, being the Sun-god’s renewed form, exits the Netherworld. The beetle known as Khepri travels through the outstretched arms of the air-god Shu in order to be reborn as the sun disk at dawn.