3

"O you who love life and hate death!" is an inscription that is constantly found on funerary stelae. "Life passes on earth," says King Ahtoi to his son, the prince of Merikar, " but it is not long. Happiness is the memory of it (on earth)... Do not hope for many years, they see 1 life time as [one] hour. They remain (cases) after the death of (a person), put them in a pile next to him. Stay there forever. A fool is he who does what they condemn. But the one who has achieved this without committing sin, he will be like God, walking freely, like the lords of eternity "(PM, 41; 54-57). For the Egyptians, the" free movement "inherent in the gods was the antithesis of the state designated in the texts as b3gi - "to be weakened, lifeless", nny - "to be sluggish, relaxed, motionless, unable to act", wrd - "to be tired". If we try to express in one word the purpose of the secret actions of the funeral cult, which are reflected in the entire complex of Egyptian funeral texts, this word will be an appeal to the deceased: "Rise up!" The indelible belief that, like the sun that passes through the darkness of night and overcomes it, appearing every morning in the eastern sky, the deceased can rise, death can become for him not the end, but the long-awaited rebirth, expected to pass to where, instead of thirst-quenching water, air and carnal pleasures, the deceased will find-3h- state 2, and instead of bread and beer-the world of the heart (htp-ib) (BD, 175, 10-12), the Egyptians carried through millennia. The content of this belief is revealed in texts related to the sacrificial ritual recorded in almost all the royal pyramids on the north side of the burial chamber.

During the sacrificial ritual, the "opening of the mouth and eyes" of the deceased Osiris N was performed, the offering of the Eye of Horus to him, as well as the offering of sacred vessels with oil, which, as the expiration of the Eye of Horus, filled the body of the deceased: "Osiris was filled with the Eye of the One whom He begot. O Pepi, I also came to you, I filled you with the oil that came out of the Eye of the Choir, I filled you with it. It will raise up your bones, reunite your limbs, and gather your flesh" (Pyr., 1800a-1801c). Immobility due to deafness 3 is opposed to the act of revolt of the deceased, a hundred years ago.

Ending. For the beginning, see: Vostok (Oriens), 2008, N 3, pp. 5-16.

1 Judges in the afterlife.

2 The epithet 3h precedes the personal name of the deceased already on early dynastic cylinder seals [Demaree, 1983, p. 199-200].

3 Cf.: "His outpouring will not go out ... if you are deprived of God" (n pr St. f [ ... ] sw. t(i) m ntr) (Pyr., 1037s) [Billing, 2002].

page 5
the new believer, by receiving the Eye of Horus and thereby gaining b3 and shm 4", is a powerful god, able to bring about the exodus from death to life:

"(You who are) on the brow of Horus is placed on the brow of this Unas. Make it sweet for him to be under you, make him, who possesses you, a blessed risen one (3h). Grant him to have his shm in his body, so that the fear of him may be in the eyes of all 3hw who look upon him, and in everyone who hears his name..." (Pyr., 52b - 53b).

"Enter the place where your father dwells, where he dwells." Geb! He will grant you that which is on the forehead of Horus, (that) you may gain strength (b3) (and) power (shm) thereby, (that) you have become the One who is at the head of the Western (hnti imntiw)5, through this" (Pyr., 139 b-d).

"Arise, Osiris, let the relaxed god (b3gi ntr) arise. God rises (ehe ntr), God has power (shm) in his body. Arise, Pepi Neferkara, let the paralyzed god arise. God rises up, God is powerful in his body (shm im dt. f)6" (Pyr., 2092a-2093b).

The funeral ritual recorded in the Pyramid Texts appeals to the same mythological model as the royal rituals associated with sm3 t3wy, namely, the event of reconciliation between Horus and Set. The division of the once unified kingdom due to hnnw corresponds to the disintegration of the body of Osiris. The discord in the divine Ennead, which brought evil and death to the world, now determines the state of deadness of the deceased - a state that, in fact, should be abolished, and the "battlefield" between both opposing forces: the power of life (Hor) and the power of corruption, decay (Set), is the deceased himself.

"Now this Unas comes forth in the true form of the living 3h, to end the struggle (eh3). He puts an end to discord (hnnw). Unas, the defender of Truth, comes out and brings it, (for) she (abides) with him" (Pyr., 318c-319b).

"The choir has gathered your members for you. He has restored you, there is no discord in you (n hnnt im. k)" (Pyr., 635a-b).

Horus, the lord of the living, under whose sole authority the integrity of the kingdom of Egypt is restored, appears in the funeral ritual as the restorer of the integrity of his father Osiris, who puts on the divine Eye intact, as it was before the discord, which implies the full manifestation in the deceased Osiris of the N Creator God, the first King of the universe. In almost all royal tombs, the sacrificial ritual is integrated with the ritual of granting the deceased insignia of power.7 In the pyramid of Unas, where the ritual of granting insignia of power is not recorded in writing, the resurrection of Unas's kingship is also directly related to the sacrificial ritual [Pavlova, 1999, p.207]. Having received the Eye of Horus and gained the fullness of divinity, Unas becomes Atum, and, by virtue of this, king:

"O Unas, you did not go dead, you went alive to sit on the throne of Osiris. eb3 - your scepter is in your hands, that you may give orders to the living. Your

4 Categories b3 and shm contain connotations of strength and power. At the same time, b3 is a more personal category, i.e. it is a divine force that gives life to the deceased, who becomes its embodiment and guide. Shm is a divine quality that denotes in funeral and cult texts the power of the bearer of this quality, symbolically expressed by the scepter of the same name and other royal attributes. In the New Kingdom, shm begins to mean "the image of God" (Hornung, 1996, p. 63).

5 "The one who leads the west" - Anubis or Osiris.

6 Osiris who passed from death to life is called shm ntr wr ("great divine power") or even p3 shm ntr ... shm e 3 n shmw ("divine power, the greatest of powers") [Iversen, 1988, p. 86].

7 The utterances related to these rituals are mainly found on the north wall of the sarcophagus chamber.

8 South wall of the sarcophagus chamber (Pyr., 134a-135c).

page 6
The lotus-pluton scepter (MKS NHBT) is in your hand. Command those who are in Mysterious places (st3w swt)9. Your hands are (hands) of Atum, your shoulders are (shoulders) of Atum, your belly is (belly) Atuma, your back - (back) Atuma, your seat - (seat) Atuma, your feet are (the feet of) Atuma, your face is (the face of) Anubis" (Rug., 134a-135b).

The power of disintegration, division, and destruction of life, personified by Seth, is doomed to defeat before the superior divine power and is forced to take the subordinate position assigned to it in the correct world order.:

"Horus came... he smote (and) bound Seth for you, for you are his k3. Horus crushed it for your sake, for you are greater than it; it floats under you; carrying you, it carries one who is greater than it; its followers look to you, for your strength is greater than his, and therefore they will not hinder you "(Pyr., 587a-588c).

The power of annihilation of life, over which the Chorus - God Above-triumphs in the deceased, can also be personified by the images of various serpents: hki, hkrt (Pyr., 429a), sdh (Pyr., 430a), or the serpent hni, on which the Chorus-Baby steps (Pyr., 663a - 664b). Later, from the idea of the severity of the struggle between life and death on the other side of death, detailed descriptions arise of the trials encountered on the path of the night journey of the boat of Ra, culminating in the union of Osiris and Ra, who is born in the morning from the womb of Nut as Khepri.

The Eye of Horus is an attribute of the carrier and "guide" of the creative power of God, which in the world of the living is the Tsar-Chorus. But the force that creates the world is the same force that raises the dead to life-hence the constant cosmogonic allusions in funeral texts, the internal logic of which is quite simple: anyone who has the power to rise from the dead is a king. Giving the deceased during the funeral ritual with the Eye of the Choir is typologically similar to the royal coronation. In both pyramid and sarcophagus Texts, the royal crowns that crown the brow of the conqueror of death are regularly called the Eye of Horus, and, like other insignia of royalty in the funeral cult, crowns are symbols of the triumph of life over death, light over darkness, and visible evidence of the great power of their bearer-the power that overcomes death:

"O Pepi, arise, put on the Eye of Horus, take it upon you, that it may unite with you, unite with your flesh, that you may go out in it, that the gods may see you clothed in it, that you may receive the Great Glory in the midst of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis. Oh Pepi, live! The Eye of Horus is brought to you, and it will not be removed from you forever "(Pyr., 844a-846b).

"Osiris Pepi Neferkara, Horus has placed his Eye on your brow, for her name is 'Wrt-hk3w'; Osiris Pepi Neferkara, you will shine forth as King of Upper and Lower Egypt " (Pyr., 1795a - b).

In the 63rd utterance of the Pyramid Texts, recorded in the pyramid of Pepi II, the royal attributes of power, mhn and isr, offered to the deceased during the sacrificial ritual, are presented as symbols of the Eye of Horus or, equivalently, of Horus itself:

"Osiris Pepi Neferkara, entrust yourself to your son Horus. Put it in yourself. MHN club, ISR club" (Pyr., 44a-b).

The deceased can emerge victorious from the battle between life and death only because God won, for "men die, (and) the gods soar" (Pyr., 459a). Coming out of the realm of the dead necessarily implies that the "departing one" has become a god, a possessor of shm, a king who is to sit on the throne of Osiris (Pyr., 752b-753b). The royal dignity and its corresponding attributes are an expression of divinity, fully manifested in the resurrected deceased, who for this reason is called the son of Shu (see: Pyr., 168a, 294a-c, 593a, 784a, 1615c, 1617b, 2053a) or otoj-

9 The abode of the resurrected 3 hw.

10 i.e. the Wrrt crown.

page 7
associated with Shu (see: Pyr., 603b, 1569a, 1870a) - the breath of life in the nostrils of Atum, giving life to all things (CT, I, 354b-358c; II, 42b-43h). The idea that the transition of the deceased from non-existence to being is conditioned by the manifestation of divine forces in him is conveyed by the designation of this transition with the same verb hei as the appearance of Ra on the eastern Horizon (Pyr., 1423c), and the accession of the earthly sovereign: "Pepi ascended to the portal (r3t), having shone (hei) as the king, being as tall as Upuat. He unites himself with the One Who is not exhausted" (Pyr., 1638a-c). In (Pyr., 2004a-b), the resurrection (ts) from the dead is accompanied by the acquisition of the royal regalia of the Choir: the hd rod and the 3ms scepter. In the utterances inscribed on the eastern pediment of the vestibule of the pyramid of Unas, the royal regalia is presented as a sign of the possession of the rising from death Unas colossal power, from the appearance of which the foundations of Heaven and Earth shake:

"The sky was overcast, the stars were dimmed, the bows (pdwt) were thrown into confusion, the bones of the gods of the Earth trembled (3krw) 11, all movement stopped when they beheld Unas appearing in glory (hei) powerful (b3), as the god who lives on the fathers feeds on the mothers!... Glory (spsw) Unas is in the Sky, his power (wsr) in the 3ht Horizon, like his father Atum, who gave birth to him. He gave birth to his strongest (wsr) Self ...We have the great strong (shm wr), the strongest (shm im shmw). Unas - ehmwthe greatest of Ehmw... Unas is the oldest god... Unas will shine again (hei) in the Heavens. He is crowned with a White Crown as the lord of the Horizon... He ate the Red One, he swallowed the Green One" (Pyr., 393a-410a).

Texts placed in the vestibule of the pyramid of Unas, mostly devoted to the ascent of the deceased king to Heaven, connect his acquisition of insignia of royalty with what the Egyptians called stsw s3hw13. The deceased king is here declared to be the son of Sekhmet (Pyr., 262b), a lotus appearing (hei) on the prow of Ra, the "Great Strong One" (shm wrt) (Pyr., 265a), freeing himself from the bonds (Pyr., 285c), i.e. emerging from the darkness of night. Unas, accompanying Ra, moves to the royal throne, overcoming all the forces of darkness that prevent the movement of the rook. The appearance of a force in Unas that surpasses all enemies leads to its ascendancy (Pyr., 269-271).

Source of All-conquering Power (wsrw, NHTW) Unasa is the Eye of Horus, which incinerates the enemies of Ra (Pyr., 290a). By this power, he wins victory over those who " acted against him, ... who put an end to the term of his life "(Pyr., 290c, 291c). Winning by Force (nhtw) Oka Hora (Pyr., 301c), Unas becomes the Only One (we), Bull of Heaven (Pyr., 293b), inherits the throne of Geb, Atum, Hora the Elder (Pyr., 301a - b). Victory over death is crowned with accession:

"Rejoicing in the heavens: "We are seeing something unprecedented!" exclaim the gods of primordial times. O Ennead, Chorus in the rays of the sun - the lords of images serve him, the two Enneads address him as he sits on the throne of the Lord Almighty (nb tm). Unas seizes the heavens, he opens the firmament. Unas is heading along the Khepri paths. Unas goes West, and the inhabitants of the Duat serve him. Unas shines forth again (psd) in the East, (and) Separating the contending 14, comes to him bowing down. "Serve Unas, O gods, he is older than the Great One," (he says). "He gained power in His place." Unas accepts hw15, eternity (nhh) is brought to him, si316 is placed at his feet. Praise Unas, he has mastered (it.n.f) the Horizon! "(Pyr., 304a-307c).

11 It is possible that pdwt and 3krw in this case mean the Sky (cf. Pyr., 1004b, 1143a) and the Earth (Merser, 1952, II, p. 183).

e hm-12 "the image of God" [Faulkner, 1962, p. 48].

13 " Making (the deceased) reborn and transfigured in 3h."

14 Thoth is God.

15 Speaking with authority.

16 Divine purpose, wisdom.

page 8
The mystery of the transformation of man into a god, and therefore into a king, is so great that it cannot be solved in any one way. Giving Osiris the N Eye of Horus and making him a 3h resurrected corresponds to his birth from the womb of Heaven. Being shm wr (Pyr., 1319a), it ascends into the Sky, enters, like the seed of Geb, into the womb of Nut - the niche of the rear wall of the columned courtyard of the pyramid temple later became known as the "gate of Nut" and is decorated with scenes depicting the goddess nursing the reborn deceased. In the funeral texts, the Chickpea, called" giving birth to God " (mswt ntr) (Pyr., 258d), appears as a mysterious space 17, where s3hw is performed - the great mystery of the transformation of the earthly into the divine. Since chickpeas belong to 3h, shm (Pyr., 779a - b)18 and the royal crowns of Horus and Set (Pyr., 823b - c), then anyone who is caught in her embrace becomes 3h and obtains shm, inheriting the possessions of Chickpeas and receiving royal titulature from her:

"I am Chickpeas, the Breadbasket. I proclaimed the name of Osiris Pepi: "Hor, beloved of the Two Earths", "n-sw-bity", "nbty, beloved of the Ennead", "golden Hor", "heir of Geb, his beloved Pepi"," beloved of all the gods, Pepi " (Pyr., 786a - 787a).

4

An analysis of the contents of funeral texts carved in the tombs of kings does not give sufficient grounds to consider them intended exclusively for kings, to "ensure" their resurrection and theosis. It is a well-known fact that even in private funeral texts, the restoration of the deceased to life is regularly described in terms of regnal status. This phenomenon is often explained by the fact that the funeral ritual, which was originally a privilege of the king, later, from the end of the VI dynasty, was used by people of non-royal rank. In the situation of the weakening of the tsarist power, the status of the ruler gradually decreased not only to nomarchs, but also to "representatives of other, less well-born strata of the population" (Kees, 2005, p.261). Ritual texts intended for the king were reproduced on sarcophagi, tomb walls, stelae of private individuals, who were assimilated royal symbols: uraeus, kilts with a bull's tail attached, double crowns, etc. From this it is concluded that the ritual for each "right-handed" deceased was formed "from borrowing ritual sayings of the royal and divine cults" [Kees, 2005, pp. 276-277].

Meanwhile, nothing in the Pyramid Texts clearly suggests that the possession of royal status after death was a privilege of the person who held it during his lifetime. Royalty appears in this source as the antithesis of deadness, lifelessness. But how can those whose origin goes back to God Himself be dead, who are "His likenesses that have come out of His body," as the king of Heracleopolis taught his heir Merikar, when he exhorted the prince to take care of people, "the flock of God" (PM, 131-132)? Only the appearance in the deceased Osiris N of divine power, which overcomes the terrible power of death, makes him a king, so that the royal regalia, according to the internal logic of the Pyramid Texts, should be an attribute of anyone who makes an exodus from death to life. This logic can be read both in pre-dynastic burial sites and in the funeral texts of individuals of the Middle and New Kingdoms, who persistently assert the essential kinship of God and man, which is the basis of the creation of the world.-

17 In the royal pyramids, it corresponds to the sarcophagus chamber, which is the belly of Chickpeas, in the Middle Kingdom-the sarcophagus itself.

18 The Nut-Sekhmet homology is interesting: "You are a daughter, powerful (shm t) in your mother, who originated as bity. Make N 3h in your womb, (so that) he does not die "(Pyr., 781a-b).

page 9
It is a necessary condition for the fulfillment of the mystery of resurrection in the flesh and the acquisition of royal dignity.

The belief in a bodily resurrection certainly existed in Egypt long before the establishment of the State. This is evidenced, in particular, by the use of solar symbols and grain symbols known to Neolithic communities throughout the Old World in burials 19. Burials in the sleeping or embryo position are ubiquitous in both Lower and Upper Egypt in prehistoric times. In brick-lined graves, two holes were made (forerunners of "false doors"), facing which the deceased was supposed to face - in this way, in all likelihood, living members of the community expressed the hope that he could"go out on the Day". By the 5th millennium BC there are graves with bodies dressed in clothes, with ornaments, weapons, vessels and dishes for food and drink-a sign that the deceased is alive 20. The findings made during recent excavations in the area of Hierakonpol indicate the existence of practices aimed at preserving the body in Egypt already in the prehistoric era [Wengrow, 2006, p. 119-120] 21.

In apparent contradiction to the custom of preserving the integrity of the body, burial practices are associated with the separation of various body members, often the head of the deceased, with their subsequent location in one way or another in the grave, in relation to the body, or, in the case of skulls, even a separate burial [Wengrow, 2006, p. 118-119]. Similar burials have been found in Naqad, Abydos, El Amr, El Gerz in the Fayum region, and more recently in El Adaym and Hierakonpol. However, the presence in many such burials of "prestigious" artifacts suggests that the practice of dismemberment applicable to members of the ancient Egyptian community, despite its external similarity to the custom of beheading defeated enemies (a sign of complete annihilation), may correspond to the Osirian tradition, in which the dismemberment of the body and its subsequent restoration played a central role [Wengrow, 2006, p. 118].

Burials from both the early and late periods of the Naqada culture contained vessels filled with scarab beetles (Petrie, 1917, p. 2; Murray, 1956, p. 95). The scarab is a symbol of resurrection, the "appearance" (hpr) of life in the deceased, emerging from the realm of death like the sun appearing on the eastern horizon at the dawn of a new day. In one of the graves of the Gerzean phase, a vessel filled with scarabs stood in front of a bull's head - the oldest symbol not only of the God-Giver of life22, but also of the resurrected deceased filled with divine power, regularly likened in pyramid Texts to a powerful bull (k3 wr), a powerful wild bull (sm e wr) or a bull of heaven (k3 pt23 [Merser, 1952, IV, p. 77-79]. Bull skulls, horns, and bone remains are not uncommon in Neolithic burials in Egypt and Sudan (Wengrow, 2006, p. 56-59).

In prehistoric burials, rudiments of the sacrificial ritual are also recorded 24. Already in the burials of the Badari culture, palettes, pieces of malachite and pebbles for grinding it are regularly found [Baumgartel, 1960, p. 82-83; Wengrow,

19 Burials in the sleeping position with emmer grains in the mouth or on the skeleton of the deceased, lying with the head to the south, facing east or west, are typical of the Lower Egyptian Merimde culture (late V-second half of the IV millennium BC).

20 Hunger and thirst are euphemisms for deadness. According to the funeral texts, the resurrected one will not "eat" hunger or "drink" thirst (Pyr., 131 a-b; cf.: Per., 119a, 382a-b, 551a-552d, 1876a-1277b).

21 The incorruptibility of the body achieved through mummification is an image of the indestructibility of a person who has in himself something that overcomes the forces of corruption, decay, and death.

22 In Egypt, the bull is often represented as Ra (Pyr., 809c, 1238b-c, 1432b) or Hor (Pyr., 2047c).

23 See, for example: (Pyr., 121b, 293b, 397a, 516c, 625b, 716e, 792a, 809c, 913d, 1145c, 1359a, 2156a-b).

24 For the existence of a prehistoric archetype of the sacrificial ritual recorded in the royal tombs of the Ancient Kingdom, see [Pavlova, 1999, p. 208].

page 10
2006, p. 50 - 51]. According to the Pyramid Texts (Pyr., 54d, 1681a-b), the offering of green paint during the sacrificial ritual symbolized the endowing of the deceased with a healthy Eye of the Choir (Merser, 1952, II, p. 35), and most likely, the prehistoric practice of using "malachite greens" in the funeral cult has the same meaning, as in the sacrificial ritual of the pyramid age 25: communion of the deceased with life, or rather - its Source 26. In the burials of the Badari and the subsequent Naqada culture, there are preserved objects that speak of the ritual "feeding" of the deceased, in particular, the leg of a sacrificial animal was offered to him - a well-known symbol of the Eye of Hora 27. Scenes of offering sacrificial gifts to the deceased are presented on black steatite cylinders found in pre-dynastic and early dynastic burials [Petrie, 1917, Pis. I - II]. The pss-kf tool used in the ritual of opening the mouth was placed in front of the deceased's face already in the burials of the Naqada II culture [Roth, 1993, p. 63], the ritual itself is first mentioned in the tomb of a private person named Mtn, dating back to the IV dynasty, other private tombs of the Ancient Kingdom also contain references to it [Bjerke, 1965, p. 206]. According to the texts inscribed on the tombs and sarcophagi of officials who served at the court during the Old Kingdom, the transformation of the deceased into an excellent 3h was also their destiny.28
The performance of a sacrificial ritual that served this purpose for persons of non-royal rank in the Pyramid era is also attested by sacrificial lists [see, for example, Strudwick, 2005, p. 427 - 430, 432 - 433], and tomb images: the tomb of Ankhmahor, called Zezi, in Saqqara contains an image of the scene of cutting off and offering for sacrifice. table "for Zezi and his k3" legs and hearts of a bull [Strudwick, 2005, p. 403]. It is also known that since at least the end of the Fifth Dynasty, in sacrificial formulas and lists, the name of Osiris, whose image invariably contains connotations of divinity and royalty, was attached to the deceased of non-royal rank. Both Lower and Upper Egyptian prehistoric burials contain insignia of power - maces and wands (Petrie, 1920, p. 22-24; Baumgartel, 1960, p. 110-114). The practice of placing stone mace pommels in burials was first documented in Khartoum in the fifth millennium BC (Wengrow, 2006, p. 52-53). In El Omari, an object similar to the 3ms baton (Hora's victory weapon) was found [Hayes, 1964, p. 246, Merser, 1952, IV, p. 58], in the necropolises of El Amra, Mahasna, Hierakonpol, Naqada - disc-shaped pommels of wands, similar to those depicted on some sarcophagi of the Ancient and Middle Kingdom and identified as the mnw wand [Baumgartel, 1960, p. 110], are not uncommon in the funeral context and other types of wands, including those with a pear-shaped pommel, as on the reverse of the Narmer palette. Thus, there is reason to believe that, although the offering of various royal regalia, which symbolized, like other types of sacrifices, the Eye of Horus, was recorded for the first time in funeral texts and images intended for private individuals, only from the Middle Kingdom era, it could have been performed for them during the sacrificial ritual and in the age of the pyramids [see fig.: Pavlova, 1999, p. 207].

The secondary nature of private funeral texts relative to royal ones is now questioned by many researchers, who note the need to review the correlation between Pyramid Texts and Sarcophagus Texts, the boundaries between which (not only chronological, but also substantive) are very conditional (Baines, 2004; Mathieu, 2004). With the fact that the Texts of the pyramids contain a record of the ancient zaupokoi-

25 In the Nakada II era, falcon-shaped palettes are found (Baumgartel, 1960, p. 82).

26 The facial bones of the deceased could also be colored green (see Wengrow, 2006, p. 59).

27 The meat of an ox's leg, swtt, is, according to (Pyr., 64d, 81a), the Eye of Horus.

28 See, for example, the tomb inscriptions and the inscription on the eastern side of the sarcophagus lid of Ankhmahor (Saqqara, beginning of the VI dynasty), "biographical" texts of Ankhmerirameriptah (Giza, reign of Pepi I), Bia (Saqqara, VI dynasty) [Strudwick, 2005, p. 264-269, 424].

page 11
The author of the last English translation of this source, J. Allen (Allen, 2005, p. 4 - 5), agrees with the author of the traditional ritual, the scope of which was not limited to the holders of royal status. In all likelihood, the "prerogative" of the kings in the Ancient Kingdom was not the funeral ritual, but only its extensive written recording, and the conjunction (both semantic and topographical) of the sacrificial ritual and the ritual of granting insignia of power, witnessed in the royal tombs, explicates the key theme not only of the "royal" editions of funeral texts, but also of the "royal" editions of funeral texts. pre-dynastic tradition.

The beginning of the historical period was marked in Ancient Egypt by a significant change in religious consciousness, the external expression of which is the "skew" in the distribution of material and labor resources of the country, most of which were now spent on providing the royal funeral cult, which was not caused by any external changes. The essence of the internal change, in all likelihood, was the formation and deepening of faith in the necessity and possibility of mediation by one in the salvation of many, which later, after the crises that befell the country, significantly weakened and formalized. In the prehistoric era, the funeral service was performed by the son of the deceased [Shafer, 1997, p. 12-13]. The beginning of statehood was marked by the transfer of this function to the king - the only person who fully corresponds to the divine world: sacrificial gifts for funeral rites were delivered to the tombs of royal subjects as htp-di-nsw ("the sacrifice that the king gives"). From the time of Djoser to Snefru, there are significant changes in the form of the royal burial complex, the dominant element of which is the giant pyramid erected over the burial chamber, and the main theme of wall images of burial structures, starting from the IV - V dynasties, is the offering of sacrifices to the king sitting in front of the altar. Under the shadow of the royal pyramid, both the living and the deceased sought to stay: "pyramid cities" appeared around the pyramids under construction, tombs of nobles were erected and burials of ordinary citizens were located. The mediation of the king, the high priest of Egypt, in the process of introducing his subjects to the life-giving power of God did not stop even after death. The resurrected king does not enter the gates of Nun alone; everything that happens to his human nature and is expressed in symbolic form in ritual actions must also happen to those who share this human nature of his 29 - those of his flock who were faithful to him, and, therefore, to his Master. Together with the king, his subjects also cross over to the eastern part of Heaven, i.e., pass from death to life, for " this Unas saves people (his own) as members of their own flesh" (nhm W pn peim.f)t m e t (Pyr., 371a). The king, conceived and born in Nuna, who dwells among those who accompany Ra, brings the bread he found in Nuna - food that communicates Otherness - to those "who exist" (Pyr., 131-132), to the blessed resurrected, endowing his subjects who have passed away with divine life, for the name of Ra is given to those who have passed away. his is " A choir at the head of its people "(Pyr., 644e). Osiris the king is like shepherds (minw) placing their calves (bhsw) "inside their arms", i.e., embracing them (Pyr., 1533a - b).

Just as the identification of the living King with the Eye meant the restoration of Egypt's lost connection with the Source of Life due to hnnw, the deceased king, by putting on the Eye of Horus, not only overcomes the power of death in himself, he overthrows the power of death in himself.-

29 Most likely, in (Pyr., 406-413), where it is said about the mysterious eating by the king of all whom he finds in the course of his "circumambulation" of the Two Heavens and Two Coasts, there is a soteriological meaning, because "eating" is an image of complete union (cf. "swallowing" of the deceased Chickpeas), which means those whose souls are in the king's belly, like him, live forever, for "the king's life span is eternity, its limit is longevity."

page 12
tomb stones are the "boundary lines" that separate the world of the dead from the world of the living, revealing themselves as the destroyer of death in general, the giver of the power of resurrection to the dead:

"Geb will lift Pepi up to Heaven, so that this Eye of Hora may receive Pepi! This Pepi has pushed your boundaries (w3dt), the dead; this Pepi has overthrown your tombstones (iswt), O you, (imyw-rd30-abiding) under the dominion of Osiris! Pepi avoided the paths of Set, passed the messengers of Osiris. None of the gods will hold Pepi back, no one will stand in Pepi's way. Pepi is the strongest of the gods. Atum calls Pepi to Heaven, for life. Receives Pepi the Eye of the Choir! " (Pyr., 1235c-1237e).

In (Pyr., 967a-969a), the deceased king appears as a priest-Chorus, endowing his father Osiris with divinity and royalty: "Pepi comes to you, Lord of Heaven, Pepi comes to you, Osiris. Pepi cleanses your face, puts you in the robes of God. Pepi does for you what Geb told him to do. He lays your hand on the enh-scepter, lifts your hand on the w3s-scepter. Pepi comes to you, Lord of Heaven, Pepi comes to you, Osiris. This Pepi cleanses your face and puts you in the robes of God, this Pepi (serves) you as a priest web. This is Horus, your son, born of you." But bearing in mind that the king is also a Choir for all his loyal subjects, as the htp-di-nsw formula clearly indicates, it can be concluded that by the king's priestly ministry they all become Osiris - the "fathers" of the Choir, i.e., those in whom the divine principle has triumphed over mortals and who, by virtue of the divine power, have become Osiris. instead, he also became a god and a king. This royal ministry does not apply only to those who during their lifetime positioned themselves as enemies of God and the king - it is for them, "people (rhyt) who have no name" (Pyr., 604c-d, cf. 655b, 876b, 1726b), and not for all royal subjects in general, that the gates of Heaven are closed 31. Their fate was most dreaded by the pious Egyptians, who always noted in their sepulchral "biographies" their loyalty to the king and his benevolence towards them, the most preferred expression of which was considered to be a gift, like htp-di-nsw, of certain objects of funeral worship, burial sites, tombs, or the establishment of funeral sacrifices by the king for that purpose. who was revered as im3hw 33.

The futility of hoping for a mediating king, which was revealed during the crisis that befell the country at the end of the third millennium BC, was a profound shock for the Egyptians, from which the Egyptian religious culture never fully recovered. Since the integrity of the state of Egypt was a kind of visible evidence of the union of the divine and the earthly, carried out through the king, the moral and ritual inadequacy of the latter as a connector of the worlds inevitably had to lead to the disintegration of this unity.34
After the fall of the Ancient Kingdom, the resurrection of each person became much less correlated with the resurrection of the king - the risk of being together with the unholy king on this side of the gate of divine Otherness was too great. The plundering and desecration of royal tombs became, especially in times of troubles, a matter of business.

Wb., 30 I, 74, 17 suggests translating imyw-rd as "enemy".

31 The word rhyt is used in the Pyramid Texts in various senses: in a neutral sense, they are subjects of the God-King, but in a number of utterances of the Pyramid Texts and other later texts, the same word is used in relation to those who "rebel against the established order of God, against God and against the king", who are unclean (meaning Both ritual and moral impurity are considered, because these categories are inseparable in Ancient Egypt) [Pavlova, 1998, p. 91-104].

32 See, for example, [Allen, 2006, p. 13-14].

im3hw hr 33 or, more rarely, n (nsw or ntr e 3) - a name regularly found in the tomb texts of individuals, conventionally translated as " honored (by the king or great god)", fixing the connection of a loyal subject with his master in their posthumous existence [see: Allen, 2006, p. 16-17].

34 On the ineffectiveness of the rituals performed by tsars as a cause of the disasters of the First transition period, the" time of illness", see: [Demidchik, 2005, pp. 44-49].

page 13
not impossible at all, so in the end, already during the New Kingdom period, it was necessary to completely break with the thousand-year-old tradition of burying the king in a pyramid. The living king continued to wear all his divine titles, perform rituals, his divine origin was now emphasized even with special ostentation in order to assure contemporaries of the legitimacy of his elevation to the throne, and ritual ceremonies acquired, especially during the New Kingdom, an extraordinary external solemnity, but the real religious role of the pharaoh became more and more formalized, moved to the external plan.

The idea of the need for a ritual equivalent of Horus resurrecting his father Osiris has given way to the notion that in the end only personal righteousness opens the gates of Heaven, and anyone who does Justice is Horus, the King of the Two Lands, justified in the judgment of Geb, "proceeding" from the dead Osiris. In the Middle Kingdom era, texts and images that thematize the entry of the deceased into the womb of Chickpeas, raising up the right voice (sts), turning it into a god - possessor of shm, into a divine 3h, and an inflexible star (ihm-sk) are regularly found on the lids, bottom and walls of sarcophagi:

"Your mother, Nut, has prostrated herself (pss) over you; she makes you a god (di.s wn.k m ntr) before your enemies" [CG 28085, cit. by: Billing, 2002, p. 126]; " O Nut, fall on your son, Osiris. Give him a hug...Transform it into 3h (s3h sw)" [CG 28035, cit. by: Billing, 2002, p. 129].

The endowment of the deceased with life that takes place in the womb of Chickpeas is transmitted both in the Texts of sarcophagi and in the Book of the Dead in terms of their acquisition of royal dignity, and, starting from the First Transition Period, royal regalia is regularly present among the objects attributed to persons of non-royal rank:

"Words spoken by Nut, the Great Protector (hnmt wr): I will take Osiris N, im3hy, in my arms, (giving him) life, so that he may not die. O Nut, you have captured Horus and the Mighty One in Hekau, you have captured Seth and the Mighty One in Hekau 35. Endow Osiris with your life, (for your name) is a Great Protector" (CT, VII, 9).

"The kingship of Geb is given to you; he is your father, who created your beauty. Your members are made your mother, Nut, who gave birth to the gods. She gave birth to you as the greatest of the five gods, and fixed the White Crown on your head. You held hk3t, the staff, and nh3h3, the whip in your womb before you came to earth "(BD, 183, 29-31)."

The trial between Horus and Set, which reveals the right one (m3e hrw), becomes a mythological prototype of the afterlife judgment of Osiris, during which the heart of each deceased person is weighed, and the feather of Maat serves as a weight. Maat (Truth, Truth, Justice), being the beloved creation of Ra - the Lord of Maat, who lives on Maat every day, His beloved "wife" and "daughter", who came from His body, remains with God from eternity, forming, on the one hand, the organic of the divine Otherness, and, on the other, - the inner order of the world in which God reigns. The idea of the eternal co-existence of God the Creator and Maat, their inseparable unity, found expression in the symbolism of earthly royalty as an epiphany of divine royalty: the earliest hieroglyphic designation of Maat resembles the foundation of a royal throne, "which, in turn, can be considered as a stylized image of the original hill" (Morenz, 1996, p. 113). so the very name m3e hrw can be called a royal epithet - it is known that this is how the tsar was greeted at the coronation. Since the time of the Ancient Kingdom, the king's consort has been regularly represented as Maat in both texts and images. In the coronation scenes captured in private Theban tombs, images of a consort or mate are used.-

35 This refers to the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt (cf. Pyr., 823 a-c).

page 14
the ri of the king and the Maat or Hathor accompanying the act of enthronement are interchangeable [Troy, 1986, p. 61]. In the above-mentioned image of cheb-sed Amenhotep III from the tomb of Cheruef, caretaker of the house of his wife Teye, the latter is represented standing behind the king sitting near Hathor. In the inscription related to this image, Amenhotep III is identified with Ra, and Teye with Maat: "She remains accompanying Your Majesty just as Maat accompanies Ra "(wn.n.s m sms hm. k mi M3 e t sms R e) [Troy, 1986, p. 182]. The daily ritual offering of the statue of the Deity in the temple by the living ruler of the statue of Maat in the form of a woman holding in one hand the sign e nh - the symbol of life, and in the other - the scepter w3s, was a symbolic expression of the constant creation of the king of Maat, the correction of the universe in accordance with the meaning

The space of divine epiphany, which every deceased person hopes to reach, is the space of Truth, and only those who, like God, have lived daily on Maat, which is, in fact, the divine seed of incorruption in man, can enter it. The attributes of royalty that accompany persons of non-royal rank, but recognized by m3e hrw, may then be an external expression of their communion with God. Thus, the justification of a person "before his enemies in the realm of the dead", which opens him the possibility of access to the divine world, is quite naturally accompanied by the accession of a right-wing winner.:

"The struggle is over, the discord is ended, the fire that came out is extinguished, the anger before the divine judgment is quieted. The judges took their seats for the trial in Geb's presence. Praise be to you, divine judges! N is justified before you today, just as Horus was justified before his enemies on the day he ascended the throne" (CT, I, 21-22).

The idea that the creation of Truth gives life to the soul, but the violator of Ma'at kills the life in himself, and therefore has no power to accomplish the desired outcome, being bound by the fetters of death, undoubtedly belongs to the oldest strata of the Egyptian religious tradition. The "royal" texts clearly state that the gates of Heaven are opened only to those who have no accuser, neither among the living, nor among the dead, nor among the gods (Pyr. 386a; 462a-b). A necessary condition for the transformation of the deceased, regardless of his lifetime status, into a 3h-risen one, and his ascension to Heaven, is the preservation of Maat, moral purity: "The heavens are at peace, the earth rejoices, (for) they heard that Pepi Neferkara put Maat (instead of Isefet 37)" (Pyr., 1775a-b) Unas will not be consigned to the divine fire, for he brought Maat with him (Pyr., 323c-d);" Pepi Neferkara, be pure when you cross to Heaven " (Pyr., 1423a).

In the Middle Kingdom era, the outcome of a posthumous trial has two alternatives : the one whose right-handedness is attested before the trial comes out - by virtue of homology, right - handedness N-right-handedness Hor-as a king "taking possession of his Two Lands", or, otherwise, he loses his life, dying a second time. But even in the Texts of the pyramids, the creation of Maat-royal dignity - rising from the dead are presupposed manifestations of the same "Osiric", i.e., containing the undying divine seed, the seed of royalty, the essence of man: "Osiris appears in glory (hei), pure, possessing shm, exalted, Lord of Maat "(Pyr., 1520a). The idea of the divinity and royalty of each resurrected person could well have preceded the Osiric myth, which took shape in the form we know when the belief in the presence of the divine undying essence in man, which goes back centuries, was interpreted in terms of the royal nature of the resurrection.-

36 In (Pyr., 1079c), the throne of Ra is called senht M3et ("Maat who gives life").

'Isft is the opposite of Maat (lies, chaos, injustice, etc.).

page 15
new features. According to Jan Assman, a call to the deceased: "Arise!" is older than his identification with Osiris. Texts have come down to us in which this call is addressed by the son to the father, and there is no" play "in mythical roles," therefore, the attitude to the world expressed in this call most likely did not arise under the influence of the Osiric myth, but, on the contrary, was one of its origins. The hope inherited from primitive times, the belief in the incompleteness of death... and the practice of the oldest funeral cult associated with this belief later led to the creation of a corresponding mythological "frame"... " [Assman, 1999, p. 199].

The transformation of each deceased person into a god, and therefore into a king, is thus the goal of all funeral rites. In this connection, the" democratization " of the royal funeral cult seems to be only a shift of the center of gravity from the ritual component (the need for an adequate Horus, the son of Osiris N, the performer of the ritual) to the moral one: each deceased person contains two forces-the force of attraction to the earth (Set) and the force drawing to Heaven (Horus), if he he was not among those who "did secret harm", did not kill - by breaking Maat-Hora in himself, 38 could hope to pass by the guardians of the gates of Heaven, be born from the womb of Nut as a divine 3h, knowing the Lord of eternity, Whose Name is mysterious, Who lives the Truth (see: CT, II, 468-471).

Summing up, we can say that pravoglasnost, divinity and royalty were traditionally synonymous concepts in Ancient Egypt, while the political connotations of royalty are secondary to its religious meaning. The mission of the living king is to extend the divine dominion over Egypt on earth; the mission of the converted king is to transform his loyal subjects into divine 3hw. Since the king of the earth is only an image of the King of Heaven, the regular assimilation of royal status and royal insignia to persons of non-royal rank in funeral texts and pictorial motifs since the end of the Ancient Kingdom era was, in all likelihood, not the result of the "democratization" of the royal cult and the adaptation of originally royal texts for private individuals, but an explication of the the divinity of each resurrected person, symbolically expressed by the royal regalia. It is also possible that it is precisely because of the indissoluble connection between divinity and royalty in ancient Egypt that the idea of the divinity of kings, at least formally, was preserved throughout Egyptian history.

list of literature

Assman Ya. Egypt: Theology and Piety of Early Civilization / Translated from German by T. Baskakova, Moscow, 1999.

Demidchik A. E. Bezymyannaya piramida: Gosudarstvennaya doktrina drevneegipetskoy Gerakleopolskoy monarkhii [The Nameless Pyramid: The State Doctrine of the Ancient Egyptian Herakleopol Monarchy].
Kees G. Zaupokonnye verovaniya drevnykh egiptiyan [Funeral beliefs of ancient Egyptians].

Pavlova O. I. Sacrificial ritual in the texts of the pyramid of Unas / / Ancient Egypt: language-culture-consciousness. Moscow, 1999.

Allen J. P. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Leiden, 2005.

Allen J. P. Some aspects of the non-royal afterlife in the Old Kingdom // The Old Kingdom Art and Archaeology. Proceedings of the Conference held in Prague, May 31 - June 4, 2004. Prague, 2006.

Baines J. Modelling Sources, Processes, and Locations of Early Mortuary Texts // D'un monde a Vautre: Textes des Pyramides & Textes des Sarcophages. Actes de la table ronde internationale "Textes des Pyramides versus Textes des Sarcophages". Le Caire, 2004.

Baumgartel E. J. The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt. II. London - New York - Toronto, 1960.

Billing N. Nut, the Goddess of Life. Uppsala, 2002.

38 Wed.: "Maat Hora (is) Maat Pepi of this" (Pyr., 1988a).

page 16
Bjerke S. Remarks on the Egyptian Ritual of "Opening the Mouth" and Its Interpretation // Numen. 1965. Vol. 12. Fasc. 3.

Demaree R. J. The 3h ikr n Re - stelae. On Ancestor Worship in Ancient Egypt. Leiden, 1983.

Faulkner R. O. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Oxford, 1962.

Hayes W. C. Most Ancient Egypt: Chapter III. The Neolithic and Chalcolithic Communities of Northern Egypt // JNES. 1964. Vol. 23. N4.

Hornung E. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt. The One and the Many. Ithaka, N. Y., 1996.

Mathieu B. La distinction entre Textes des Pyramides et Textes des Sarcophages est-elle legitime? // D'un monde à l'autre: Textes des Pyramides & Textes des Sarcophages. Actes de la table ronde internationale "Textes des Pyramides versus Textes des Sarcophages". Le Caire, 2004.

Merser S. A. B. The Pyramid Texts in translation and commentary. Vol. I - IV. New York - London - Toronto, 1952.

Murray M. A. Burial Customs and Beliefs in Predynastic Egypt // JEA. 1956. Vol. 42.

Pavlova O. Rhyt in the Pyramid Texts: Theological Idea or Political Reality // Literatur und Politik im Pharaonischen und Ptolemaischen Agypten. Caire, 1998.

Petrie W. M. F. Prehistoric Egypt. L., 1920.

Petrie W. M. F. Scarabs and Cylinders with names. L., 1917.

Roth A. M. Fingers, Stars, and the "Opening of the Mouth": The Nature and Function of the ntrwj-Blades // JEA. 1993. Vol. 79.

Shafer B. E. Temples, Priests and Rituals: an Overview // Temples of Ancient Egypt / Ed. by B. E. Shafer. Ithaca, 1997.

Strudwick N. C. Texts from the Pyramid Age. Leiden, 2005.

Troy L. Patterns of Queenship in ancient Egyptian myth and history. Uppsala, 1986.

Volten A. Zwei altägyptischen politische Schriften: die Lehre für König Merikare (Pap. Carlsberg VI) und die Lehre des Königs Amenemhet. Copenhagen, 1945.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PM The teaching of the King of Heracleopolis to his son Merikar [Volten, 1945. S. 3-81, Tf. I-IV].

BD Budge W. The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day or the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead. Vol. I - III. L., 1910.

CT Buck A. de. The Egyptian Coffin Texts. Vol. I - VII. Chicago, 1935 - 1961.

JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (London)

JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Chicago)

Pyr. Sethe K. Die altagyptische Pyramidentexte. Leipzig, 1908 - 1910.

Wb. Erman A., Grapow H. Worterbuch der agyptischen Sprache. Bd. I - V. Berlin, 1971.

Permanent link to this publication: