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Beuk o the Deid

Frae Wikipedia, the free beuk o knawledge
D21
Z1
M33
W24
Z1
O1
D21
X1
D54
G17O4
D21
G43N5
Z1
Beuk o Comin Forth bi Day
in hieroglyphs
This detail scene, frae the Papyrus o Hunefer (c. 1275 BCE), shaws the scribe Hunefer's hert bein weiched on the scale o Maat against the feather o truth, bi the jackal-headed Anubis. The ibis-heidit Thoth, scribe o the gods, records the result. If his hert equals exactly the weicht o the feather, Hunefer is allaed tae pass intae the afterlife. If nae, he is eaten bi the waitin chimeric devourin creatur Ammit componed o the deadly crocodile, lion, an hippopotamus. Vignettes such as these war a common illustration in Egyptian beuks o the deid.

The Beuk o the Deid is an auncient Egyptian funerary text, uised frae the beginnin o the New Kinrick (aroond 1550 BCE) tae aroond 50 BCE.[1] The oreeginal Egyptian name for the text, transleeteratit rw nw prt m hrw[2] is translatit as Beuk o Comin Forth bi Day.[3] Anither translation would be Beuk o emergin forth intae the Licht. "Beuk" is the closest term tae describe the loose collection o texts[4] consistin o a nummer o magic spells intendit tae assist a deid person's journey through the Duat, or unnerwarld, an intae the efterlife an written bi mony priests ower a period o aboot 1000 years.

References

[eedit | eedit soorce]
  1. Taylor 2010, p.54
  2. Allen, 2000. p.316
  3. Taylor 2010, p.55; or perhaps "Utterances of Going Forth by Day" - D'Auria 1988, p.187
  4. The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Anonymous (2 Jun 2014) ...with an introduction by Paul Mirecki (VII)