Ancient Texts
Egypt: Ancient texts
Ancient Texts pages that draw on Egypt, each with the sources shown. Start with Atum, Manetho, Pyramid Texts, Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor.
Gods · EgyptAtumIn the Book of the Dead, Egypt's creator god calmly tells Osiris that he will one day destroy everything he made and survive it as a serpent, while the earth returns to the waters. He had risen self-made from those waters; some texts say he sneezed out the first gods. What does he mean by an ending?People · Egypt (Greek-language history)ManethoEvery Egyptology textbook divides the pharaohs into thirty dynasties, and that scheme comes from a book nobody has read in full for well over a thousand years. Manetho, an Egyptian priest writing in Greek around 280 BCE, began with ages of gods and demigods. How do scholars rebuild a lost book from scraps?Texts · EgyptPyramid TextsThe great pyramids at Giza are silent inside, with no inscriptions at all; the oldest religious writing in Egypt appears only later, carved on the walls of burial chambers to send a dead king up to the stars. One spell, the Cannibal Hymn, has him hunt the gods, cook them and eat their magic. What did these spells promise him?Texts · EgyptTale of the Shipwrecked SailorA storm sinks a ship, one sailor washes onto an island, and a giant golden serpent with eyebrows of real lapis lazuli appears. It says a falling star burned up all seventy-five of its family; called the oldest known fantasy story, this Middle Kingdom papyrus has no known link to a real impact. What does the serpent want?Places · EgyptThe Imperishable StarsThe Egyptians called the stars circling the north pole "the ones that do not know destruction," because from Egypt they never dip below the horizon. The Pyramid Texts send the dead king north to join them; some think the builders even used two of these stars to find true north. How would that work?Gods · EgyptThothMillions of mummified ibis birds were buried in catacombs as offerings to Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of writing and the moon. Stories give him hidden writings too, including a Book of Thoth locked in nested boxes at the bottom of the Nile; reading it brought disaster on the man who took it. What did it say?Texts · EgyptTurin King ListWritten on the back of an old tax register, this papyrus from the time of Ramesses II tries to list every ruler of Egypt, with reigns counted to the day. It shattered into more than 160 fragments before reaching Turin; its opening columns name gods as the first kings. Who rules before Menes?People · EgyptUnasNearly two thousand years after he died, Unas was still being worshipped as a local god at Saqqara. His pyramid is the smallest finished one of the Old Kingdom, yet its walls carry the first Pyramid Texts ever carved, about 283 spells beneath a ceiling of stars. What did a king need so many spells for?
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