Running from the region of native Egyptian tradition, we touch finn ground with the prove derived from the memorials of the 2nd dynasty. A bas-relief continued at Aix in Provence remarks Aasen and Ankef, two of the priests of Sent or Senta, the fifth king of the 2nd dynasty, about B.C. 4000, and a stele at Oxford and other in the Egyptian Museum at Giza record the name of a third priest, Shera or Sheri, a "royal relative" On the stella at Oxford we have represented the broken and his wife seated, one on each side of an altar, which is addressed with funeral offerings of pious relatives; above, in right lines of hieroglyphics in relief, are the names of the objects offered, and below is an inscription which reads, "thousands of loaves of bread, thousands of vessels of ale, thousands of linen gannents, thousands of shifts of wearing clothes, and thousands of oxen." Now from this monument i is noted that already in the 2nd dynasty a priesthood gone in Egypt which numbered among its members congeneric of the royal family, and that a spiritual system which established as a duty the admitting of meat and drink offerings for the dead was also in engaged operation. The offering of specific objects goes far to prove the existence of a ritual or service wherein their import would be indicated; the conjunction of these words and the prayer for "thousands of loaves of bread, thousands of vessels of ale," etc., with the predict, "Anpu-khent-Amenta shall give thee thy thousands of loaves of bread, thy thousands of vessels of ale, thy thousands of vessels of balms, thy thousands of changes of clothes, thy thousands of oxen, and thy thousands of bullocks, enables us to recognise that ritual in the text inscribed upon the pyramid of Teta in the Vth dynasty, fron which the above promise is taken. Thus the traditional demonstrate of the text on the coffin of Menthu-hetep and the view on the memorial of Shera support one another, and in concert they prove beyond a question that a fonn of the Book of the Dead was in use leastways in the period of the earliest dynasties, and that rank ceremonies related there with were duly perfonned.
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Related Posts:
- What is the Book of the Dead?
- The History of the Book of The Dead
- The Book of The Dead in the First Dynasty