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Descrizione raffigurazione

The manuscript’s visual representation describes the Sun-god Re’s nocturnal journey through the last three hours 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 arranges the scenes without following the treatise’s standard protocol and presents the episodes according to his discretion. In addition, he replaces the cosmographical text with horror-vacui (fear of empty spaces: the filling of the entire surface of a space with details) generic captions of the deities. Therefore, several deities are missing from these scenes (deities 773-774, 804-805 and 810-816 in the Eleventh Hour and deities 825-833, 845-846, 852-853, 856, 865-868, 877-882, 884, 889-891, 893, 897 and 905-907 in the Twelfth Hour). The treatise’s structure consists of three horizontal registers presenting Re, in his nocturnal shape as a ram-headed deity, travelling on the solar boat through the last three netherworld regions. In the top register from left to the right, the first scene presents three rams, most likely from the Book of the Dead chapter 148, around a double ibis-headed god. The following scenes show two goddesses riding snakes and bringing Re’s bidding in the sky to fruition, and Atum emerging from a winged serpent. In the last scene, ten worshipers, characterised by the typical adoration gesture with raised hands, praise the Great God. In the middle register, from left to the right, in order to complete Re’s rejuvenation process, eight gods and seven goddesses tow the solar barque through the entire body of the life-regenerating serpent anx-nTr.w (Life of the gods). On the register’s far right-hand side, we see the accomplishment of this deed: a beetle known as Khepri, the Sun-god in his renewed form, exits the Netherworld by travelling through the (here missing) outstretched arms of the air-god Shu to be reborn as the sun disk at dawn. In the bottom register, from left to the right, the first scene presents the Netherworld’s merciful feature in which Horus’ hypostasis uses magic spells to assist three drowned corpses. This scene shows how the divine intervention of Horus can intercede for those who do not have the required funeral ritual arrangements as they have died an unfortunate or violent death or their bodies are missing or have drowned (like Osiris). The following two scenes present the Netherworld’s apotropaic features where (the here missing) Horus’ hypostasis orders the destruction and annihilation of the hostile forces that interfere with establishing the natural order (Cfr. the Maat principle). Three goddesses with fire-spitting snakes on their shoulders punish Re’s nemesis Apophis and brighten the Netherworld’s darkness, while two knife-wielding lion-headed goddesses slaughter Re’s enemies over their fire-pits. The following episodes present three rowers of the solar barque, and seven worshippers adoring and praising sSm-iwf (Image of the flesh), the corpse of Osiris who is restricted into the boundaries of the Netherworld.