Chapter 14 (part 2)

The gods who stand on the other side of the corridor through which AFU-RA passes are all invoked by him, and they all are assumed to help him on his way, not because they are in duty bound to do so, but because he acknowledged their power by asking their help. Some of them he appealed to because he had created them, but others are manifestly the servants of Seker, and their duty it was to guard his kingdom. A number of them are gods who were set over the waters which lay in the northern part of the DIVISION, and it was all important for AFU-RA to have their friendly help when he left the back of the serpent and rejoined his own boat. In one portion of the region to the left of AFU-RA p. 137 we see the HETEP-NETERU, i.e., a company of eight prods, and the goddess QETET-TENT; the work of these gods is to be present at the destruction of the dead in the Tuat, and to consume their bodies by the flames which they emit from their mouths, and the goddess lives partly on the blood of the dead, and partly on what the gods give her. These gods are provided with blocks on which they cut in pieces the dead, and when they are not thus employed they sing hymns to their god, to the accompaniment of the shaking of sistra; they exist by virtue of the word of power which they have received, and their souls have been given to them (vol. i., p. 110). The dead who are here referred to are those who have succeeded in entering the dread realm of Seker, but who, for want of the influence over the gods there, which could only be obtained by sacrifices and offerings made upon earth, and by the knowledge of mighty words of power, were unable to proceed to the abode of Seker. When they arrived in the AMMAHET, some of them were cast into a lake of liquid fire, or of boiling water, and others were first cut in pieces, and then consumed by fire. Thus there is no doubt that there was a hell of fire in the kingdom of Seker, and that the tortures of mutilation and destruction by fire were believed to be reserved for the wicked. Of the rewards of the righteous in this kingdom we have no knowledge whatsoever, and it seems as if the scheme of the Other World of Seker made no provision for the beatified p. 138 dead; at all events, it provided for them no fertile fields like the Sekhet-Hetepet of Osiris, and no Boat of Millions of Years wherein as beings of light they could travel in the company of the Sun-god for ever. The religion of Seker proclaimed that the god lived in impenetrable darkness, in a region of sand, closely guarded by terrible monster serpents, and it had little in it to induce the worshippers of the god to wish to be with him after their departure from this world. The cult Of SEKER is one of the oldest in Egypt, and in its earliest form it, no doubt, represents the belief as to the future life of some of the most primitive inhabitants of the country; in fact, it must have originated at a period when some influential body of priests taught that death was the end of all things, and when snakes and bulls were the commonest forms under which the gods of the neighbourhood of Memphis were worshipped. The oldest presentment of the Land of Seker which we have is, of course, not older than the XVIIIth or XIXth Dynasty, and it must be remembered that it is the work of the priests of Thebes, who would be certain to remove any texts, figures, or details which they found inconvenient for their views.