Chapter 7 (part 5)

Certain sections of it were considered to belong by traditional right to certain cities, e.g., Heliopolis, Memphis, Herakleopolis, Abydos, etc., each possessing its own "Other World" and gods of the dead, and all these had to be considered by the theologians who formulated general plans of the Tuat. How the Egyptians imagined the dead to live in the Tuat, or upon what, is not clear, but they seem to have thought that all their wants could be provided for by the use of words of power, amulets, talismans, etc. In the earliest times of all the souls of p. 91 the dead remained in the "Other World" which belonged to their town or city, but when Osiris attained to the supreme power over the dead, it was only natural that departed spirits should flock from all parts of Egypt to his kingdom, wherein the beatified enjoyed a life very much like that which they had lived upon earth. The celestial kingdom of Osiris, that is to say, Sekhet-Hetepet or Sekhet-Aaru, was originally a copy of some very fertile region in the Delta, and, to the very end of the period of native Egyptian rule, the Egyptian Paradise consisted of green fields intersected by streams of living, i.e., running water, with abundant crops of wheat and barley, and its appearance represented a typical middle-Delta landscape. So long as Osiris had his kingdom in the Delta, probably near the ancient city of Mendes, the souls of the dead travelled from south to north, but at a later period, when Osiris had absorbed the position and attributes of KHENT-AMENTI, perhaps the oldest god of the dead of Abydos, departed spirits made their way from north to south, so that they might enter the Tuat by the "Gap" in the mountains there. Still later, the Egyptians reverted to their old belief as to the situation of the domain of Osiris, and the books which deal with the Tuat always assume that it lies far away to the north, and were intended to guide souls on their way to it. The ultimate fate of the souls of human beings who had departed to the Tuat must always have been a matter of speculation to the Egyptians, and at the best p. 92 they could only hope that they had traversed the long, dark, and dangerous valley in safety. The same may be said of numbers of the gods, who in very early times were believed to possess a nature which closely resembled that of men and women, and to be in danger of extermination in the Tuat. Of the gods the only one about whose successful passage of the Tuat there was no doubt was Ra, or according to the priests of Amen, Amen-Ra, for he rose each morning in the East, and it was manifest to all that he had overcome whatsoever dangers had threatened him in the Tuat during the past night. This being so, it became the object of every man to obtain permission to travel in the boat of Ra through the Tuat, for those who were followers of Osiris could disembark when it arrived at his kingdom, and those who wished to remain with Ra for ever could remain in it with him. To each class of believer a guide to the Tuat was necessary, for up to a certain place in that region both the followers of Osiris and the followers of Ra required information about the divisions of the Tuat, and knowledge of the names of the Halls and Gates, and of the beings who guarded them and who were all-powerful in the land of darkness. For the worshippers of Amen, or Amen-Ra, the BOOK AM-TUAT was prepared, whilst the followers of Osiris pinned their faith to the BOOK OF GATES.