Numero di inventario

Descrizione raffigurazione

The manuscript’s visual representation describes the Sun-god Re’s nocturnal journey through the Eleventh and Twelfth Hours of the night. The treatise’s visual model does not perfectly resemble the prototype established that decorates the 18th Dynasty royal burial chambers in the Valley of the Kings. Therefore, some deities are missing (deities 772-774, 804, 810-813, 815-816 in the Eleventh Hour and deities 822-827, 835-843, 846-853, 856-864, 866, 870-877, 894-897 and 903-907 in the Twelfth Hour). The treatise’s structure consists of three horizontal registers representing the solar barque travelling through the last two netherworld regions. On the manuscript’s left-hand side, corresponding to the Eleventh Hour, the top register’s first scenes show Atum emerging from a winged serpent, followed by two crowned serpents resembling Isis and Nephthys. The third episode, which is not well preserved, presents one goddess riding a snake and bringing Re’s bidding in the sky to fruition. The bottom register presents one of the Netherworld’s apotropaic features. Instead of Horus’ hypostasis, there is the two-headed deity apr.w-Hr-nb-D.t (He with equipped face, Lord of time) who orders the destruction and annihilation of the hostile forces that interfere with establishing the natural order (Cfr. the Maat principle). Here, the serpent st-HH.w (He who burns millions) and the double lion-headed fire-spitting goddess slaughter Re’s enemies over their fire-pits. In the manuscript’s centre, corresponding to the Twelfth Hour, the top register presents six goddesses with fire-spitting snakes on their shoulders, punishing Re’s nemesis Apophis and brightening the Netherworld’s darkness, while three worshippers, characterised by the typical adoration gesture with raised hands, praise the Great God. In the middle register, to complete Re’s rejuvenation process, five goddesses and four gods tow the solar barque through the entire body of the life-regenerating serpent anx-nTr.w (Life of the gods). On the register’s left-hand side, we see four rowers at the stern of the solar barque, while on the register’s far right-hand side we see the accomplishment of the rejuvenation process: a beetle, the Sun-god’s renewed form, going out of the Netherworld by travelling through the outstretched arms of the air-god Shu to be reborn as the sun disk at dawn. The bottom register presents two couples of primaeval deities with wAs sceptres alongside the serpent nsr-m-ir.t=f (He who burns with his eye). In the final scenes, five worshippers adore and praise sSm-iwf (Image of the Flesh), the corpse of Osiris who is restricted into the boundaries of the Netherworld. On the manuscript's right-hand side, the offering scene is fairly damaged but shows the deceased offering funerary supplies and making a libation in front of Re-Horakhty.