Pyramid Texts

Definition

The Pyramid Texts are the oldest religious and funerary writings of ancient Egypt: spells carved in columns of hieroglyphs on the inside walls of Old Kingdom royal pyramids. They begin with the pyramid of Unas (Dynasty 5, late 24th century BCE) and continue through the pyramids of Teti, Pepi I, Merenre, Pepi II, and the queens of Pepi II (Dynasty 6, 23rd century BCE). In all, the corpus holds more than 750 numbered spells (German Sprüche) concerned with the king's afterlife in the sky.

In Tradition

Egyptologists treat the Pyramid Texts as the earliest sustained body of Egyptian religious thought. They show a fully formed Old Kingdom belief in a celestial afterlife: the dead king rises to the imperishable circumpolar stars, joins the sun god Ra in the solar barque, or becomes Sah (Orion). They are the root from which the Coffin Texts (Middle Kingdom) and the Book of the Dead (New Kingdom) later grow.

In Practice

The Pyramid Texts are the main evidence for what the Old Kingdom Egyptians believed about the sky. The spells name the imperishable circumpolar stars, the decans (the star-groups that mark the hours), the heliacal rising of Sopdet — Sirius — when it first reappears at dawn, the solar barque, and the layout of the night sky. Since Sethe in the early 1900s (his German edition, the Pyramidentexte) and Faulkner's English translation (1969), Egyptologists have reconstructed the celestial geography of Old Kingdom religion almost entirely from this corpus. Krauss gave it the major modern astronomical reading in Astronomische Konzepte und Jenseitsvorstellungen in den Pyramidentexten (1997), identifying particular stars and arguing for an Old Kingdom star-religion built around two families: the polar imperishable stars and the rising decanal ones.

Historical Origin

Composed in Dynasty 5-6 (about 2400-2300 BCE, by current Egyptological consensus); first systematically published by Sethe, Die altägyptischen Pyramidentexte (4 volumes, 1908-1922). The standard English translation is Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (1969, with revised editions). The major modern astronomical reading is Krauss, Astronomische Konzepte und Jenseitsvorstellungen in den Pyramidentexten (1997); the texts are also discussed in Belmonte and Lull, In Search of Cosmic Order, and in Clagett, Ancient Egyptian Science Vol II.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading