Transfiguration (Ancient Egypt)

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Transfiguration in hieroglyphics
Old empire
S29 G25 Aa1
V1 		G43
N8

Sachu
S3ḫw
The one Ah is made
Constellation orion.jpg
The deity Saw (Orion) as a transfiguration

Transfiguration (also The Transfigured ) is an ancient Egyptian term from the liturgy of the dead and describes the point in time when a dead person's soul is transformed in order to be able to pass into the hereafter .

background

Origin of the term

The name Transfiguration is the Egyptological description for an ancient royal ritual , which is already described in the pyramid texts . The basis was the idea of the Egyptians that the King ( Pharaoh ) to his death in the afterlife of the gods and ancestors ruled after being in the in the northern sky location Qebehu has risen.

So that the deceased king could start the journey into the afterlife, the limbs of the king had to be ritually cleansed at the end of the mummification in order to detach the soul component of the axis from the body. During the funeral , the priesthood chanted the prescribed rituals in the antechamber entrance area of ​​the pyramid .

With pinpoint compliance with the funeral protocol, the additional caused beating in the chest , the descent of the sky deity Sah ( the descent Coming ) that made emerge the Ach and give it a bright starlight lent. At the end of the ceremony, the king's Achs rose to the constellation Orion ; Home of the deity Sah. Once there, the king was received by his ancestors and the other deities for his further heavenly reign.

Later mythology

By the end of the Old Kingdom emerging Osiris - cult , the additional identification was carried constellation Orion with the deity Osiris. In the beginning, Osiris functioned as the god of the dead of the human dead and enjoyed increasing popularity as a royal brother god among the upper class.

At the beginning of the Middle Kingdom the worldview of the Egyptians changed, to which the Duat was added as the third level. In the course of ancient Egyptian history, Osiris exercised the role of the deity, who transfigured the non-royal deceased and accompanied them into the duat.

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