Field of Offerings

sekht-HO-tep

egyptian: sḫt ḥtp

Definition

The Field of Offerings (Egyptian sḫt ḥtp, also "Field of Peace") is a heavenly farmland of the Egyptian afterlife associated with food and drink for the blessed dead — a source of their offering-meals. It is a close companion of the Field of Reeds, and the two are related, partly overlapping regions: the funerary texts can place one within the other rather than dividing them cleanly. The Field of Offerings is linked with the god Hotep, whose name means "satisfaction," "offering," or "rest."

In Tradition

Egyptologists read the Field of Offerings as a heavenly source of provisions for the dead, closely bound up with the Field of Reeds. In the Coffin Texts it appears as the "Field of Offerings of Re." The two fields are so closely linked that the texts can speak of "the Field of Offerings which is in the Field of Rushes" — overlapping regions of the afterlife rather than two neatly separated zones.

In Practice

The Field of Offerings answers a very practical Egyptian worry: how will the dead be fed for eternity? On earth the dead depended on offerings brought to the tomb by the living, which could stop. The Field of Offerings makes provision self-sustaining — the dead person draws an unfailing supply directly from a heavenly field. In the funerary spells the dead declare, "I will live on bread in the Field of Offerings, I will have abundance in the Field of Rushes." In the Field of Reeds vignette of Book of the Dead spell 110, the god Hotep — "lord of the fields," "great god, lord of the sky" — presides over this domain, and the dead person is shown paddling across Hotep's lake. So when a spell promises the dead bread, beer, and abundance, the Field of Offerings is where that supply comes from.

Historical Origin

The Field of Offerings is attested from the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts (about 2055-1650 BCE) — Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts Vol I, spells 112, 137, 175, 184 (the transliteration sḫt ḥtp is the standard scholarly form). Its governing god Hotep appears in the Book of the Dead spell 110 vignette, translated in Thomas George Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Oriental Institute, 1960), pp. 184-185.

Further Reading

  • R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume I
  • Thomas George Allen (trans.), The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Oriental Institute Publications LXXXII)