Numero di inventario

Descrizione raffigurazione

The manuscript’s visual representation describes the Sun-god Re's nocturnal journey through the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth 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. Therefore, several deities are missing from these episodes (deities 698, 699, 700, 737-745 in the Tenth Hour, deities 825-833 in the Twelfth Hour). The treatise's structure consists of two horizontal registers presenting excerpts of the deities from the last three netherworld regions. In the top register from left to right, the scribe presents the cow goddess Hathor with a crown of plumes, a wedjat-eye and a paddle, all as the deceased’s providers of offerings and rebirth. The following scene represents a vessel transporting the sun's hypostasis: the scribe uses this vignette intending to secure a place for the deceased in the solar barque next to Re. The third episode presents the theme of transformation in which the deceased overcomes the stillness of death by taking the forms of the two bA-birds depicted here. In New Kingdom inscriptions, the “living bA-soul” is one of the forms most often wished for by the deceased. Thus, the deceased asserts his identity as the bA-soul of Re, the creator Sun-god, and purifies himself in this eternal manifestation to be able to stand in the presence of Osiris. The following scene presents the healing of the Sun-god’s eyes: the left eye, mann.wy (The double-coiled), emerges from two snakes between two deities, one bearing the red crown and the other bearing the white crown (symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt), whilst the right eye, sdfy.t (The wrapped (staff?)), usually depicted as coming out from the top of the hieroglyphic sign for “god”, is not represented. This register’s last scene presents one of the Netherworld’s apotropaic features and depicts five goddesses riding snakes: their task is to bring Re’s bidding in the sky to fruition by guarding and protecting the Sun-god. In the bottom register, from left to right alongside the papyrus’ first etiquette, the scribe presents a snake coming out of a cave. Below this vignette, the scribe presents the Netherworld’s merciful feature in which Horus’ hypostasis (here absent) 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 scenes represent three goddesses with (fire-spitting) snakes on their shoulders, punishing Re’s nemesis Apophis and brightening the Netherworld’s darkness. This is followed by four rowers of the solar barque with solar disks instead of heads. This register’s last scene shows sSm-iwf (Image of the flesh), the corpse of Osiris who is restricted into the Netherworld's boundaries; above his mummy is the papyrus’ second etiquette. On the manuscript's right-hand side, between the two registers, the scribe presents a beetle (Khepri), the Sun-god in his renewed form. Here he exits the Netherworld by travelling through the outstretched arms of the air-god Shu to be reborn as the sun disk at dawn. On the manuscript's far right-hand side, the etiquette shows the deceased, Djedkhonsuiuefankh, offering funerary supplies and making a libation in front of Osiris.