Day Bark and Night Bark (Mandjet and Mesektet)

Definition

In Egyptian religion the sun god Ra crosses the heavens in two boats — a "bark" is simply a ceremonial boat. By day he rides the Day Bark across the visible sky from the eastern horizon to the western; by night he rides the Night Bark through the Duat, the underworld, from west back to east, to be reborn at dawn. Together they carry Ra around the full daily cycle. Their Egyptian names are usually given as the Mandjet (day) and the Mesektet (night), though the funerary texts often just call them the Day Bark and the Night Bark.

In Tradition

Egyptologists read the two solar barks as the vehicles of the daily solar cycle that lies at the heart of Egyptian religion. The Day Bark carries Ra across the daytime sky; the Night Bark carries him through the underworld during the twelve hours of night, where Ra often takes a ram-headed form. The pair encodes Ra's endless death-and-rebirth, the model on which the dead person's own hoped-for resurrection is built.

In Practice

For the dead, joining Ra in his barks is one of the central goals of the funerary spells. The dead person hopes to board the boats and travel the solar circuit alongside the god, sharing in his daily renewal. The Book of the Dead spell numbered 130 even gives a ritual: an image of the dead person is set in a model boat, "the Night Bark at its right side and the Day Bark at its left side," and the spell is recited on the birthday of Osiris, god of the dead. Another spell promises that "the Night Bark and the Day Bark have been given to him when he goes forth to the west and descends through the portals." The two barks turn up constantly on tomb and temple ceilings, where the solar journey is painted out hour by hour — so when you see two boats flanking a sun-disk in Egyptian art, you are often looking at the day-and-night circuit of Ra.

Historical Origin

The two solar barks run through Egyptian religious imagery from the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, about 2400-2300 BCE) onward. Their pairing in the funerary spells is translated in Thomas George Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Oriental Institute, 1960), spells 130 and 145 (pp. 214, 234). Allen renders them descriptively as "Day Bark" and "Night Bark"; the Egyptian names Mandjet and Mesektet are the standard Egyptological transliterations rather than Allen's own wording.

Further Reading

• Thomas George Allen (trans.), The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Oriental Institute Publications LXXXII)
• Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt