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55-566: Although the meaning of his name remains uncertain, the Egyptians in the Pyramid Texts linked his name to the anguished cry of Osiris to Isis 'Sy-k-ri' ('hurry to me'), or possibly skr, meaning "cleaning the mouth". In the underworld , Seker is strongly linked with two other gods, Ptah the Creator god and chief god of Memphis , and Osiris the god of the dead . In later periods, this connection

110-406: A downward sloping corridor, followed by a 'corridor-chamber' with three granite portcullises that guarded the entrance into the horizontal passage. The horizontal passage ends at the antechamber of the substructure and is guarded by a fourth granite portcullis. The antechamber connects to two further rooms, a room with three recesses for holding statues – called the serdab – to the east, and

165-487: A hawk-headed mummy holding an ankh, which does at least indirectly suggest the connection. Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts , dating to the late Old Kingdom . They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts . Written in Old Egyptian , the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterranean walls and sarcophagi of pyramids at Saqqara from

220-523: A powerful and sadistic Goa'uld who chose the role of the Devil rather than a god like the rest of his species. He is killed when the moon he uses as his own personal version of Hell is blown up, destroying Sokar's ship in orbit and Sokar himself. American technical death metal band Nile wrote the title track of their album “ Annihilation of the Wicked ” about the domain, occupation, and appearance of Seker. Curiously,

275-470: A satisfactory transit of the underworld. Despite this, the region of the underworld associated with Seker was seen as difficult, sandy terrain called the Imhet (also called Amhet , Ammahet , or Ammehet ; meaning 'filled up'). B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W Seker, possibly through his association with Ptah, has a connection with artisans . In

330-671: A sow eating her offspring so also is the King as the dawn sun. Utterance 217 describes the King in stellar form as being "swallowed up" at dawn with the other stars. The Cannibal Hymn represents a discrete episode (Utterances 273–274) in the anthology of ritual texts that make up the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom period. Appearing first in the Pyramid of Unas at the end of the Fifth Dynasty ,

385-581: Is considered to be the standard version of the texts. Samuel A. B. Mercer published a translation into English of Sethe's work in 1952. British Egyptologist Raymond O. Faulkner presented the texts in English in 1969 in The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts . Between 1926 and 1932, Gustave Jéquier conducted the first systematic investigations of Pepi II and his wives' pyramids – Neith , Iput II , and Wedjebetni . Jéquier also conducted

440-574: Is mentioned in The Journey of Ra : the myth used to explain what happens during the night when Ra travels through the Underworld. According to the myth, Seker rules the Fifth Kingdom of Night, which is called "Hidden", and is tasked with punishing the souls of evildoers by throwing them into a boiling lake. As part of the festivals in akhet, his followers wore strings of onions around their necks, showing

495-635: The Book of the Dead , he is said to fashion silver bowls and at Tanis a silver coffin of Sheshonq II has been discovered decorated with the iconography of Seker. Seker's cult centre was in Memphis, and festivals in his honor were held there on the 26th day of the fourth month of the akhet (spring) season. While these festivals took place, devotees would hoe and till the ground, and drive cattle, which suggests that Seker could have had agricultural aspects about him. Seker

550-513: The Coffin Texts as Spell 573. It was dropped by the time the Book of the Dead was being copied. Ancient Egyptian funerary texts B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W The literature that makes up the ancient Egyptian funerary texts is a collection of religious documents that were used in ancient Egypt , usually to help

605-536: The Kher-Heb (the chief lector priest), along with assistants, opening the eyes and mouth of the dead while reciting prayers and spells. Mourners were encouraged to cry out as special instruments were used to cut holes in the mouth. After the ceremony was complete, it was believed that the dead could eat, speak, breathe, and see in the afterlife. The Egyptian pyramids are made up of various corridors, tunnels, and rooms, each of which have differing significance and use during

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660-591: The Underworld aspect of him. Onions were used in embalming people - sometimes the skin, sometimes the entire onion. When just the skin was used, it would be placed on the eyes and inside the ears to mask the smell. Also, the god was depicted as assisting in various tasks such as digging ditches and canals. From the New Kingdom a similar festival was held in Thebes, which rivaled the great Opet Festival . Other events during

715-460: The "Legends and Lore" rulebooks. In this setting, Seker is described as the Egyptian lesser god of light and, among other details, he casts rays of light from his hands which destroy all undead. His Alignment is given as Neutral Good, and it is noted he protects Egyptian souls of the same Alignment after their death. No specific mention is made of the later triple persona, though his symbol is given as

770-545: The Cannibal Hymn preserves an early royal butchery ritual in which the deceased king – assisted by the god Shezmu – slaughters, cooks and eats the gods as sacrificial bulls, thereby incorporating in himself their divine powers in order that he might negotiate his passage into the Afterlife and guarantee his transformation as a celestial divinity ruling in the heavens. The style and format of the Cannibal Hymn are characteristic of

825-716: The New Kingdom (1550 BCE – 1070 BCE), Pyramid Texts were found on tombs of officials. French archaeologist and Egyptologist Gaston Maspero , director of the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo , arrived in Egypt in 1880. He chose a site in South Saqqara, a hill that had been mapped by the Prussian Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius in 1842, for his first archaeological dig. There, Maspero found

880-467: The Old Kingdom. It had a core built six steps high from roughly dressed limestone , encased in a layer of carefully cut fine white limestone. It had a base length of 57.75 m (189 ft) with an incline of 56° which gave the pyramid a height of 43 m (141 ft). The substructure was accessed through an entrance in the pavement of a chapel on the north face of the pyramid. The entry led into

935-507: The Old, Middle , and New Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt. During the Old Kingdom (2686 BCE – 2181 BCE), Pyramid Texts could be found in the pyramids of kings as well as three queens, named Wedjebten , Neith , and Iput . During the Middle Kingdom (2055 BCE – 1650 BCE), Pyramid Texts were not written in the pyramids of the pharaohs, but the traditions of the pyramid spells continued to be practiced. In

990-709: The Pharaoh himself. Kurt Sethe's first edition of the pyramid texts contained 714 distinct spells. Later additional spells were discovered, for a total of 759. No single edition includes all recorded spells. The following example of a spell comes from the pyramid of Unas. It was to be recited in the South Side Burial Chamber and Passage, and it was the Invocation to New Life. Utterance 213: Ho, Unis ! You have not gone away dead: you have gone away alive. Sit on Osiris 's chair, with your baton in your arm, and govern

1045-458: The Pyramid Texts were primarily concerned with enabling the transformation of the deceased into an akh (where those judged worthy could mix with the gods). The spells of the Pyramid Texts are divided into two broad categories: Sacerdotal texts and Personal texts. The sacerdotal texts are ritual in nature, and were conducted by the lector priest addressing the deceased in the second person. They consist of offering spells, short spells recited in

1100-444: The Pyramid Texts. Unas' sarcophagus was left without inscription. The king's royal titulary did not appear on the walls surrounding it, as it does in later pyramids. The west gable of the burial chamber is inscribed with protective spells; in later pyramids the gable was used for texts commending the king to Nut , and, from Pepi I onwards, also for Sakhu, or 'glorifications', for the transformation into an Akh. The other walls of

1155-452: The being of every god, Who eats their entrails When they come, their bodies full of magic From the Isle of Flame... But as the same spell also declares: May I be with you, you gods; May you be with me, you gods. May I live with you, you gods; May you live with me, you gods. I love you, you gods; May you love me, you gods. The Cannibal Hymn later reappeared in

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1210-505: The burial and ritual processes. Texts were written and recited by priests in a very particular order, often starting in the Valley Temple and finishing in the Coffin or Pyramid Room. The variety of offerings and rituals were also most likely recited in a particular order. The Valley Temple often contained an offering shrine, where rituals would be recited. Pyramid texts were found not only in

1265-554: The burial chamber are primarily dedicated to ritual texts. The north wall, along with the northern part of the east wall and passage, is dedicated to the Offering Ritual. Spatial considerations required that part of the ritual be inscribed on other walls, and likely explains the omission of the Insignia Ritual altogether from the pyramid. The Offering Ritual, from the 'initial libation' to the 'dedication of offerings', occupies

1320-461: The burial chamber with the ruler's sarcophagus to the west. The roofs of both the antechamber and burial chamber were gabled . With the exception of the walls immediately surrounding the sarcophagus, which were lined with alabaster and painted to resemble reed mats with a wood-frame enclosure, the remaining walls of the antechamber, burial chamber, and a section of the horizontal passage were covered with vertical columns of hieroglyphs that make up

1375-639: The end of the Fifth Dynasty , and throughout the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, and into the Eighth Dynasty of the First Intermediate Period . The oldest of the texts have been dated to c. 2400–2300 BCE. Unlike the later Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead , the Pyramid Texts were reserved only for the pharaoh and were not illustrated. The use and occurrence of Pyramid Texts changed between

1430-433: The excavations of Qakare Ibi 's pyramid. He later published the complete corpus of texts found in these five pyramids. Since 1958, expeditions under the directions of Jean-Philippe Lauer , Jean Sainte-Fare Garnot , and Jean Leclant have undertaken a major restoration project of the pyramids belonging to Teti, Pepi I, and Merenre I, as well as the pyramid of Unas. By 1999, the pyramid of Pepi had been opened to

1485-573: The festival including floating a statue of the god on a Henu barque, which was a boat with a high prow shaped like an oryx. In the film The Ten Commandments (1956), the Pharaoh Rameses II invokes the same deity to bring his deceased firstborn son back to life, while wearing a dark blue robe with a silver bow. In the show Stargate SG-1 , the Goa'uld villain Sokar is named after Seker. Sokar appears as

1540-404: The gods to help, even threatening them if they did not comply. It was common for the pyramid texts to be written in the first person, but not uncommon for texts to be later changed to the third person. Often this depended on who was reciting the texts and who they were recited for. Many of the texts include accomplishments of the pharaoh as well as the things they did for the Egyptian people during

1595-414: The gods. Examples of these rituals are the opening of the mouth ceremony , offering rituals, and insignia ritual. Both monetary and prayer-based offerings were made in the pyramids and were written in the pyramid texts in hopes of getting the pharaoh to a desirable afterlife. Rituals such as the opening of the mouth and eye ceremony were very important for the Pharaoh in the afterlife. This ceremony involved

1650-463: The kings in a few additional ways. Like those of the kings, the use of both the first and third person is present in these pyramid texts. Neith's name is used throughout the texts to make them more personal. Many of the pronouns used throughout her pyramid texts are male, indicative of the parallels between the texts of the kings and queens, but a few female pronouns can be found. The texts also contain spells and utterances that are meant to be read by both

1705-542: The layout and structure of those that belonged to these queens were much simpler. But the layout of the texts corresponded to similar walls and locations as those of the kings. For example, the Resurrection Ritual is found on the east end of the south wall. Due to the fact that the pyramid of Neith did not contain an antechamber, many of the spells normally written there were also written on the south wall. The texts of Queen Neith were similar and different from those of

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1760-424: The living; with your water lily scepter in your arm, and govern those of the inaccessible places. Your lower arms are of Atum , your upper arms of Atum, your belly of Atum, your back of Atum, your rear of Atum, your legs of Atum, your face of Anubis . Horus 's mounds shall serve you; Seth 's mounds shall serve you. The various pyramid texts often contained writings of rituals and offerings to

1815-508: The lyrics seem to describe Seker in the form of Seker-Osiris, not Ptah-Seker-Osiris, deliberately excluding the aspects of Ptah. The lyrics call him "ancient and dead", a trait held by Osiris, but also describe him as being “shunned by Ra,” which would place the Seker they describe in the context of Heliopolis rather than Memphis. The fantasy role playing game "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" includes Seker in its 1st edition, "Deities and Demigods", and

1870-478: The mummy of a man in the sarcophagus of the burial chamber. This time, he visited Mariette personally, who again rejected the findings, saying on his deathbed that "[i]n thirty years of Egyptian excavations I have never seen a pyramid whose underground rooms had hieroglyphs written on their walls." Throughout 1881, Maspero continued to direct investigations of other sites in Saqqara, and more texts were found in each of

1925-508: The north wall; it is arrayed into three horizontal registers. The set up and layout of the Unas pyramid were replicated and expanded on for future pyramids. The causeway ran 750 meters long and is still in good condition, unlike many causeways found in similar ancient Egyptian pyramids. In the pyramid of Unas, the ritual texts could be found in the underlying supporting structure. The antechamber and corridor contained texts and spells personalized to

1980-430: The oldest, and are the most difficult to interpret. These utterances were meant to be chanted by those who were reciting them. They contained many verbs such as "fly" and "leap", depicting the actions taken by the pharaohs to get to the afterlife. The spells delineate all of the ways the pharaoh could travel, including the use of ramps, stairs, ladders and, most importantly, flying. The spells could also be used to call

2035-406: The oral-recitational poetry of pharaonic Egypt, marked by allusive metaphor and the exploitation of wordplay and homophony in its verbal recreation of a butchery ritual. Apart from the burial of Unas , only the Pyramid of Teti displays the Cannibal Hymn. A god who lives on his fathers, who feeds on his mothers... Unas is the bull of heaven Who rages in his heart, Who lives on

2090-532: The period, the texts appeared in the tombs of royal wives. These are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period . Nearly half of the spells in the Coffin Texts derive from those in the Pyramid Texts. After the Amarna Period , a new set of funerary texts began to be used. These centre on representations of Nut , the sky goddess. They represent

2145-401: The pharaoh to reach the heavens, one of which is by climbing a ladder. In utterance 304 the king says: Hail, daughter of Anubis , above the hatches of heaven, Comrade of Thoth , above the ladder's rails, Open Unas 's path, let Unas pass! Another way is by ferry. If the boatman refuses to take him, the king has other plans: If you fail to ferry Unas, He will leap and sit on

2200-615: The presentation of an offering, and recitations which are predominantly instructional. These texts appear in the Offering and Insignia Rituals, the Resurrection Ritual, and in the four pyramids containing the Morning Ritual. The writing in these texts (Dramatic Texts) suggests the formulation of these texts may have occurred around the time of the Second and Third dynasties. The remaining texts are personal, and are broadly concerned with guiding

2255-509: The public. Debris was cleared away from the pyramid, while research continued under the direction of Audran Labrousse  [ fr ] . The corpus of pyramid texts in Pepi ;I's pyramid were published in 2001. In 2010, more such texts were discovered in Behenu 's tomb. To date, Pyramid Texts have been discovered in the pyramids of these pharaohs and queens: The spells, or utterances, of

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2310-683: The pyramids of Unas , Teti , and Pepi II . Maspero began publishing his findings in the Recueil des Travaux from 1882 and continued to be involved until 1886 in the excavations of the pyramid in which the texts had been found. Maspero published the first corpora of the text in 1894 in French under the title Les inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqarah . Translations were made by German Egyptologist Kurt Heinrich Sethe to German in 1908–1910 in Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte . The concordance that Sethe published

2365-404: The ruins of a large structure, which he concluded must be the pyramid of Pepi I of the Sixth Dynasty . During the excavations he was able to gain access to the subterranean rooms, and discovered that the walls of the structure were covered in hieroglyphic text. Maspero contacted the 'director of the excavations' in Egypt, Auguste Mariette , to inform him of the discovery. Mariette concluded that

2420-507: The sandy necropolis. One of his titles was 'He of Restau' which means the place of 'openings' or tomb entrances. Like many other gods, he was often depicted with a Was -scepter . In the New Kingdom Book of the Underworld , the Amduat , he is shown standing on the back of a serpent between two spread wings; as an expression of freedom this suggests a connection with resurrection or perhaps

2475-584: The spirit herself as well as others addressing her. After death, the king must first rise from his tomb. Utterance 373 describes: Oho! Oho! Rise up, O Teti ! Take your head, collect your bones, Gather your limbs, shake the earth from your flesh! Take your bread that rots not, your beer that sours not, Stand at the gates that bar the common people! The gatekeeper comes out to you, he grasps your hand, Takes you into heaven, to your father Geb . He rejoices at your coming, gives you his hands, Kisses you, caresses you, Sets you before

2530-516: The spirit of the concerned person to be preserved in the afterlife . They evolved over time, beginning with the Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom through the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom and into several books, most famously the Book of the Dead , in the New Kingdom and later times. The funerary texts of the Old Kingdom were initially reserved for the king only. Towards the end of

2585-476: The spirit out of the tomb, and into new life. They consist of provisioning, transition, and apotropaic – or protective – texts. The provisioning texts deal with the deceased taking command of his own food-supply, and demanding nourishment from the gods. One example of these texts is the king's response in Unas' pyramid. The transition texts – otherwise known as the Sakhu or Glorifications – are predominantly about

2640-419: The spirits, the imperishable stars... The hidden ones worship you, The great ones surround you, The watchers wait on you, Barley is threshed for you, Emmer is reaped for you, Your monthly feasts are made with it, Your half-month feasts are made with it, As ordered done for you by Geb, your father, Rise up, O Teti, you shall not die! The texts then describe several ways for

2695-446: The structure must be a mastaba , as no writing had previously been discovered in a pyramid. Maspero continued his excavations at a second structure, around one kilometre (0.62 mi) south-west of the first, in search of more evidence. This second structure was determined to be the pyramid of Merenre I , Pepi I 's successor. In it, Maspero discovered the same hieroglyphic text on the walls he had found in Pepi I's pyramid, and

2750-469: The texts in the Old Kingdom. Copies of all but a single spell, PT 200, inscribed in the pyramid appeared throughout the Middle Kingdom and later, including a near-complete replica of the texts inscribed in the tomb of the 12th-Dynasty High Priest Senwosretankh at El-Lisht . Unas' pyramid , situated between the pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemkhet in North Saqqara, was the smallest of those built in

2805-483: The time of their rule. These texts were used to both guide the pharaohs to the afterlife, but also to inform and assure the living that the soul made it to its final destination. The texts first appeared in the pyramid of the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, that belonging to Unas . A total of 283 spells appear on the subterranean walls of Unas' pyramid. These spells are the smallest and best-preserved corpus of

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2860-409: The tombs of kings, but those of queens as well. Queen Neith, who was the wife of Pepi II, is one of three queens of the 6th dynasty whose tomb contains pyramid texts. The pyramids of the other two queens (both also thought to be wives of Pepi II), Iput II and Wedjebetni, also contained tombs inscribed with texts. Those of Neith have been kept in much better condition. Compared to the tombs of the kings,

2915-476: The transformation of the deceased into an Akh, and their ascent, mirroring the motion of the gods, into the sky. These texts form the largest part of the corpus, and are dominated by the youngest texts composed in the Fifth and possibly Sixth dynasties. Apotropaic texts consist of short protective spells for warding off threats to the body and tomb. Due to the archaic style of writing, these texts are considered to be

2970-506: The wing of Thoth, Then he will ferry Unas to that side! Utterances 273 and 274 are sometimes known as the "Cannibal Hymn", because it seems to be describing the king hunting and eating parts of the gods: however, as Renouf pointed out when it was first published: As has been observed, the spell is echoing how the Goddess Nut (as the Sky) causing the stars to disappear at dawn is likened to

3025-412: Was expressed as the triple god Ptah-Seker-Osiris . The Faiyumic Coptic form ⲥⲓⲭⲟⲗ is possibly preserved in a personal name ⲥⲉⲛⲥⲓⲭⲟⲗ, "daughter of Sokar". Seker was usually depicted as a mummified hawk and sometimes as a mound from which the head of a hawk appears. Here he is called 'he who is on his sand' . Sometimes, he is shown on his hennu barque which was an elaborate sledge for negotiating

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