Book of the day
| Hours of the day in hieroglyphics | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
wenut-net-heru wnwt-nt-hrw hours of the day |
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The term book of the day is the designation of the only fragmentarily handed down title "Instructions for knowing the names of the hours of the day". As a book of heaven and the hereafter, it contains the daily twelve-hour voyage of the sun god Re in his barge , which lasts from sunrise to sunset .
Emergence
The book of the day is for the first time in the 20th Dynasty in the tomb of Ramses VI. (1145 to 1137 BC) documented. As an ancient Egyptian religious treatise, unlike the other books on the afterlife, it was not depicted on the walls of the burial chamber, but on the cosmologically designed ceilings. The hieroglyphs are written consistently in yellow on a black background.
Initially, the book of the day in combination with the Nutbuch was reserved exclusively for the tombs of kings ( pharaohs ). It was not until the 25th dynasty that it appeared for the first time in non-royal people without reference to the Nutbuch. One of the innovations made was , in particular, the representation on the tops of the sarcophagus lids , which symbolized the burial chamber ceilings of the kings . The outer sarcophagus thus functioned as a “burial chapel”.
construction
The book of the day contains numerous older texts on various topics, some of which go back to the Old Kingdom . New theological interpretations are therefore not always easy to recognize. Each hour of the day is assigned an hour deity who exercises patronage over the respective hour. In contrast to the Amduat and Port Book , the sky is shown without delimitations. The sun orbit of the day is made by Re in the sun barge, which moves along a heavenly water channel.
| Hours of the day and the corresponding hour deities | |||
| hour | Surname | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 hour | That makes the beauty of Re appear (The hour that satisfies) ( Maat or Heka ) | ||
| 2 hours | Who casts the darkness away ( Hu ) | ||
| 3rd hour | Who cheers the bas of the gods and sees millions ( Sia ) | ||
| 4th hour | Light of the rising ( asebit ) | ||
| 5th hour | The hour of the goddess Igeret | ||
| 6th hour | The one who rises in the grasping of Seth | ||
| 7th hour | That makes the heart wide ( Horus ) | ||
| 8th hour | Becoming and arising (jubilation of the gods over the prostration of Apophis ) ( Chons ) | ||
| 9th hour | Hour of Translation into Sechet-iaru ( Isis ) | ||
| 10th hour | Descend to the Seket boat to cross over ( hike-who ) | ||
| 11th hour | Straightening the ropes (who straightened the ropes ) | ||
| 12th hour | Perishing of this god (Re) in the Westland ( Re ) | ||
literature
- Markus Müller-Roth : The book of the day . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 3-5255-3453-1
- Jürgen Osing : The hours of the day and night . In: hieratic papyri from Tebtunis I . Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 1998, ISBN 8-7728-9280-3 , pp. 198-201.
- Alexandra von Lieven : Floor plan of the course of the stars - the so-called groove book . The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (among others), Copenhagen 2007, ISBN 978-87-635-0406-5
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ancient Egyptian title : seschmu en-rech renu en na-wenut-net-heru according to Markus Müller-Roth: Das Buch vom Tage . P. 61.