Pyramid Texts
The Pyramid Texts are the oldest religious texts ever written by humans. They are also the source from which all forms of funeral literature in ancient Egypt originated and developed. His first letter is on the inner walls of King Vanis’s pyramid; the last king of the Fifth Dynasty in the Old Kingdom (about 2300 BC), then this tradition continued in the pyramids of the kings of the 6th Dynasty, and before that no traces of it were found, but it was definitely taken from older texts – which has not yet been found – and it may have been an oral text that was kept in the hearts of the priests for many years before the Egyptian language developed to the level in which the texts were written.
The texts were discovered in the 1880s by Egyptologists Maspero and Heinrich Brugsch in the Vanis pyramid in Saqqara. Maspero first published these texts in 1884. German Egyptologist Kurt Sethe collected and translated over 700 chapters that have been the main source for scholars so far. With the renewal of excavations and the discovery of more pyramids, more spells have been found, now there are over 800 spells.
Stylistically, the texts can be divided into two main groups: the first group is the texts that were used to worship the gods and the (living) king in this world. Its existence is justified by the fact that it confirms the connection between kings and gods and guarantees the transfer of power to a new king. Another group are texts that were specially created for the king with the goal of the deities taking care of his ascension.
The subject of these texts concerns Ascension of the king. The ascent of the soul from the king to heaven, to the kingdom of his father, the sun god “Ra” among the jubilant deities.
So, we are talking about dramatic texts, funeral rites, spells, religious hymns and magic spells that give the deceased king a divine status and ensure eternal life, identifying with the gods, transferring their powers to themselves, destroying his enemies and reflecting all dangers. on your way, for example, hunger, thirst and snakebites, and avoid the upside-down world in the afterlife and the peaceful voyage of an immortal star on a boat with the sun god “Ra” in the sky.
These texts were mostly royal. We have not received any evidence that ordinary people took them to their graves.
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