Cherti

Cherti (Eng. Kherty ), is the name of an ancient Egyptian underworld god , which is reliably attested from the middle of the Second Dynasty . In the pyramid texts of the outgoing Old Kingdom , he is considered to be the ferryman and guide of the non-royal persons in the realm of the dead of Osiris . The main cult places are Letopolis (northwest of Memphis ) and, according to the pyramid texts, Nesat ( Nz3t ). Cherti is mostly represented as a mummified lying ram .

Cherti in hieroglyphics

Cherti in the outgoing Old Kingdom

Cherti is mentioned as the god of the dead and necropolis in the dead domain names of the 5th and 6th dynasties in the Memphite area, but not in private graves of this time. It is often mentioned, especially in the pyramid texts.

The pyramid texts are actually royal texts that have only been democratized and used by private individuals from the First Intermediate Period . Nevertheless, non-royal ideas have also flowed into the texts. In the pyramid texts, Cherti is regarded as the ferryman who brings the dead across a river to the other side of the Osiris. The king, on the other hand, wishes for an afterlife on the solar barge of Re , but not in the underworldly realm of the dead of Osiris, which his officials want to enter. Against this background, the polarization and royal polemics against Cherti can be understood, as in Proverb 264 (Pyr. 350)

He (Re) has taken the Teti from Cherti's hand, not handing it over to Osiris

Teti did not die.

He was transfigured in the horizon, he became eternal in Heliopolis .

Later traditions

After the Old Kingdom, the evidence for cherti becomes more sparse.

Although the cult of Cherti persists in the Middle Kingdom and Cherti also appears in personal names , it is not documented in the coffin texts . In his place is the divine ferryman Aken , who has to be woken up by Mahaf in Proverb 396 . Cherti does not appear in the Egyptian Book of the Dead of the New Kingdom , which preserved and further developed much of the ideas of the coffin texts. Instead, Aken is mentioned again in Proverbs 99 A when the ferry to the hereafter is called.

In contrast, Cherti occurs in the 9th hour of the Amduat , an underworld book that is recorded in many royal tombs of the New Kingdom. There Cherti rests on a basket as a ram idol in the 5th scene of the 9th hour

which corresponds to the hieroglyphic symbol.

Annotated translations

Raymond O Faulkner: The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1969, ISBN 0-19-815437-2 .
Raymond O Faulkner: The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (= Modern Egyptology series. ). 3 volumes, Aris & Phillips, Warminster 1973–1978, ISBN 0-85668-005-2 .
Erik Hornung : Ägyptische Unterweltsbücher (= The library of the old world. Series: Der Alte Orient. ). Artemis, Munich / Zurich 1972, ISBN 3-7608-3507-4 .
Erik Hornung: The Egyptians' Book of the Dead (= The library of the old world. Series: The Old Orient. ). Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7608-3658-5 .
Kurt Sethe: Translation and commentary on the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. Volume II: Proverbs 261-325 ([Para] [Para] 324-533). Augustin, Glückstadt / Hamburg 1936.

literature

Hans Bonnet : Real Lexicon of Egyptian Religious History. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1971, ISBN 3-11-003365-8 , p. 135.
Peter Kaplony, in: Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto, Wolfhart Westendorf a. a .: Lexicon of Egyptology. Volume I: A - Harvest. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1975, ISBN 3-447-01670-1 , column 944f.
Raymond Weill: Le Dieu Hrti '. In: Miscellania Gregoriana. Raccolta di scritti pubblicati nel I centenario dalla fondazione del Pont. Museo Egizio Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie. Vatican 1941, pp. 381-391.

Individual evidence

↑ Kurt Sethe: The ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. based on the paper prints and photographs of the Berlin Museum. Volume II, unchanged 2nd photomechanical reprint of the 1st edition - Leipzig 1908–1922, Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1969, p. 214, Spruch 534.
↑ ^a ^b for example Kurt Sethe: Translation and commentary on the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. Volume II, Glückstadt / Hamburg 1938, p. 226f.
^ RO Faulkner: The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Oxford 1969, p. 74.

[1] Kurt Sethe: The ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. based on the paper prints and photographs of the Berlin Museum. Volume II, unchanged 2nd photomechanical reprint of the 1st edition - Leipzig 1908–1922, Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1969, p. 214, Spruch 534.

[sethe226-2] r example Kurt Sethe: Translation and commentary on the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. Volume II, Glückstadt / Hamburg 1938, p. 226f.

[3] RO Faulkner: The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Oxford 1969, p. 74.