Chapter 7 (part 1)

p. 80 CHAPTER IV. THE BOOK AM-TUAT AND THE BOOK OF GATES. "AM-TUAT," or SHAT AM-TUAT, i.e., the "Book of what is in the Tuat," is the name given by the Egyptians to the large funeral book in which the priests of Amen describe the Other World according to the views of their order, and the passage of their god Amen-Ra, through the mysterious country which he traversed during the hours of the night. Its object, in the first place, was to impress the followers of Amen and others with the idea of the absolute supremacy of that god in the realms of the dead, and to show that all the gods of the dead in every place of departed spirits throughout Egypt rendered to him homage in one form or another, and in return received benefits from him. And in the second place, the book, being an actual "guide" to the Underworld, with pictures of its various divisions and of the gods and demons of every kind that were to be met with in them, was invaluable for the faithful, who were able to learn from it, whilst they were living upon earth, how to find their way from this world to the next, and how to identify the beings who would attempt to bar their way, and what to say to p. 81 them. The BOOK AM-TUAT was a very lengthy work, and a complete copy of it occupied much space whether on walls or on papyrus, and, as poor folk could not afford tombs with chambers and corridors sufficiently large to hold all its texts and pictures, they were obliged to be content with sections, and smaller extracts from it. The need of a shortened form of the work was felt at a comparatively early period after it came into general use, and it is therefore not suprising to find that the priests collected all the facts, which were absolutely essential for the soul that had to travel by itself through the Other World, into a small book that may for convenience be called the "SUMMARY OF AM-TUAT." In this "Summary" all the lengthy speeches of Amen-Ra, and the answers of the gods, and, of course, all pictures are omitted. The oldest copies of the BOOK AM-TUAT are found in the tombs of Thothmes III., Amen-hetep II., and Amen-hetep III., at Thebes. 1 The most complete and best illustrated copy is that which is found on the walls of p. 82 the tomb of Seti I. at Thebes; here we have eleven out of the twelve sections of the BOOK AM-TUAT, and the first six divisions of the SUMMARY of the work. The texts and pictures of this fine copy have been completely published by M. Lefébure, assisted by MM. Bouriant, Loret, 1 and Naville, and M. Maspero has translated and discussed the work at length in one of the most important of his luminous dissertations on Egyptian mythology. 2 The next fullest copy is found in the tomb of Rameses VI., 3 and provides us with eleven divisions, but the drawings are less careful, and the texts are less accurate, and contain numerous additions which appear to represent beliefs of a later period. The history of the Book AM-TUAT shows us that the Egyptians treated it as they treated their older Books of the Dead; they first copied it on the walls of tombs, then on the sides of stone sarcophagi and wooden coffins, and next on rolls of papyrus. We have seen how the kings of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties had it copied on the walls of their tombs, and it must now be noted that Rameses III. decorated his red granite sarcophagus with scenes relating to the course of the sun in the Other World.