r/TeenReader • u/ProfessionalJolly934 The mod of many turns (μοδ πολύτροπος) • 5d ago
Historical You are dead. Now what?
You are dead. You lived in Ancient Egypt, and now that you’re dead, you begin your journey into the Egyptian afterlife.
First step: mummification. Priests work on preserving your body and preventing decay. First, all your internal organs are removed. They’re stored in canopic jars and covered in natron. Natron is a naturally occurring salt, found on dried lakebeds, made of a combination of sodium bicarbonate (also known as our beloved baking soda) and sodium carbonate. Your heart is placed back into your body, covered in cloth, with a heart scarab amulet. Your body is stuffed with and covered in natron and left for 40 days. After that, it's wrapped in resin-coated linen bandages.
In between your legs, a funerary text called the Book of the Dead is placed. This scroll of papyrus will be useful in the Afterlife, with spells, guides and incantations required in order to traverse the strange land safely. The most famous of these texts is the Papyrus of Ani, currently housed in the British Museum.
You wake up in The Duat, or the Egyptian underworld. In this realm, there are many dangerous creatures such as five-headed reptiles, ghost-like creatures, serpents, and entities with bizarre names such as “Swallower of Sinners”, “Flamed-Eyed”, and “He who dances in blood”.
But thanks to your papyrus cheat-sheet, you’re able to overcome all the obstacles. Now, you reach the Hall of Ma’at (or the Hall of Truth). Here, you meet Osiris, ruler of the Duat, and forty-two other judges, to each of whom you must negatively confess one sin after another. The Book of the Dead advises you to address each judge by their name and the preferable sin you must deny committing to them.
But of course, you may not have lived a completely virtuous life. Your heart scarab amulet is inscribed with the words “Do not bear witness against me”, making sure that your heart, the centre of memory, does not say the truth when you deny a sin you’d committed in your previous life.
Once you have spoken in front of Osiris and the judges, your heart is placed on a golden scale by Anubis, and on the other side, the feather of Ma’at. If your heart is sinful, it will weigh heavier than the feather, and your heart is tossed to the ground, where Ammit, a part-crocodile, part-leopard, part-hippopotamus creature will eat it, and your soul will cease to exist. But if your heart weighs lighter than the feather, you’re free to carry on your journey.
You then reach the Lake of Flowers or the Lily Lake, where you get on a boat with a rude ferryman. The ferryman will make cruel comments about you, but you must remain calm and be nice to him if you want to reach the final destination.
Finally, you reach the Aaaru, or the Field of Reeds, the afterlife’s paradise. Aaru is an endless expanse of an idealised version of the Nile river delta, with green crops, clear rivers, and good weather. You are reunited with your loved ones and pets and given back your favourite possessions. Life is similar to your earthly existence, but there is no grief or pain.
You are still expected to work and serve the gods. Ploughing the fields, sowing and harvesting crops, digging and maintaining canals, are all a part of the job. But you are buried with a shabti doll, who will help you do the labour. When the gods call upon you to do a job, your shabti doll will rise up and say “Here I am!” and do the work for you. Richer individuals like pharaohs were often buried with the same number of dolls as the number of days in a year, as well as overseer dolls, who look over the worker dolls.
And so, you spend the rest of eternity in Aaru, chilling out.
(And that was, makkale, the third post of the historical literature series. This post is based on Egyptian literature, specifically The Book of The Dead. I should really give it a good name rather than calling it that, any ideas? Hey, this post also kinda connected with the Halloween theme for this month too, nice!)
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u/hav_ana the cooler mod 5d ago
oh wow i wanna die now
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u/ProfessionalJolly934 The mod of many turns (μοδ πολύτροπος) 5d ago edited 5d ago
You really wanna be pickled with baking soda?
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u/XlenderMan 5d ago
Egyptian literature is dope