The Amulet of the Tet

The Amulet of the Tet

The amulet of the Tet in all probability represents the tree body in which the goddess Isis secret the dead body of her husband, and the 4 cross-bars show the four cardinal points; it became a symbol of the highest religious grandness to the Egyptians, and the setting up of the Tet at Busiris, which represented the restructuring of the body of Osiris, was one of the about solemn of all the ceremonials performed in joining with the hero-worship of Osiris.

The Tet represents neither the mason's table nor a Nilometer, as some have thought, It is always associated with the (CLVth) Chapter of the Book of the Dead, which reads:

"Rise up thou, O Osiris! Thou hast thy backbone, O Still-Heart! Thou hast the fixings of thy neck and back, O Still-Heart. Place thou thyself upon thy wrong, I put water to a lower place thee, and I bring unto thee a Tet of gold that thou mayest triumph therein."

Like the buckle, the Tet had to be bowed in the water in which nkham flowers had been steeped, and laid upon the neck of the late, to whom it gave the power to reconstitute the body and to become a perfect Khu (i.e., spirit) in the underworld. On coffins the right hand of the late grasps the buckle, and the left the Tet; both are got of wood, not with straight the fact that the title to the Chapter of the Te orders the Tet to be got of gold.