Duat

DOO-at

egyptian: Dwꜣt

Definition

The Duat (Egyptian Dwꜣt) is the Egyptian underworld — the place the sun god Ra crosses each night, and the place the dead must travel through on their way to the blessed afterlife. The Egyptians thought of it as in two places at once: below the earth, and also up in the sky, on the underside of the goddess Nut, who arches over the cosmos. The sun rises again in the east after passing through its 12 hour-regions.

In Tradition

In the work of Hornung (Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, 1999) and Wilkinson (Complete Gods and Goddesses, 2003), the Duat is the most fully worked-out place in all of Egyptian cosmology — filled with gods, demons, gates, and dangers that both the dead and the sun god must get past. It also gives the basic framework for the New Kingdom Books of the Afterlife — the Amduat, the Book of Gates, and the Book of Caverns.

In Practice

The Duat runs through Egyptian funerary writing from the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, about 2400-2300 BCE) onward, as the region the dead king — and, later, any private person — has to pass through to reach the blessed afterlife. Spells, maps, and descriptions of its layout in the Coffin Texts (Middle Kingdom) and Book of the Dead (New Kingdom and later) gave ritual guidance for the journey. In the New Kingdom Books of the Afterlife the Duat is laid out as 12 hour-regions, one for each hour of the night, each with its own gods, demons, gates, and ordeals; the pharaonic tombs in the Valley of the Kings painted these regions in detail on their burial-chamber walls.

Historical Origin

The Duat is first attested in the Pyramid Texts (Dynasty 5-6, about 2400-2300 BCE), where the dead king crosses it to join Ra. It is treated systematically in Faulkner's translation of the Pyramid Texts (1969), in Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife (1999), and in Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (2003).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading