Duat
This is a concept in Ancient Egyptian mythology involving death. It’s most commonly seen as a domain where people go after they pass away.
What we know about the Duat comes mainly from funerary texts such as: the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Coffin Texts, the Amduat, the (Egyptian) Book of the Dead.
It’s typically known best as a dark subsurface realm that not only houses the deceased, but an assortment of deities. The deities shown in these texts are: Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, & Ma’at in various forms. While all of those documents/books involve the Duat. Each of them fulfilled a different purpose & showed the Duat in a variety of unique ways.
The Duat is divided into sections by 12 guarded gates that represented each hour of the night & are closely connected with the journey of Ra & conspicuously feature Osiris, the god of the Duat & the personification of rebirth.
The west bank of the Nile was affiliated with the dead. Funeral barges would mimic the sun god Ra’s journey through the sky during the day. The Duat also is often described as having many realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, paths, & lakes.
Texts also depict fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron, & trees of turquoise. These lands are described as being dark & were partitioned with a series of gates. They’re mostly identified as Shetit, a dangerous land translated as ‘The Beyond.’
There were important locations relating to the deceased would be ‘The Hall of Truth.’ It is often shown alongside the ‘Weighing of the Heart’ ritual in the Book(s) of the Dead & mentioned in the 6th hour of Ra’s journey.
If the dead are found to be virtuous, they’ll be allowed to live in A’aru. This is also known as ‘The Field of Reeds.’ It’s shown as a paradise where the dead could live their former life with their loved ones without pain or suffering.
There’s hundreds of different divinities of shifting importance related to the Duat throughout time with the most referenced being:
- Osiris: He’s believed to be the lord of the realm & personifies rebirth & the afterlife. In his own mythology, he himself is reborn after his brother, Set, kills him & Osiris’ wife partially revives him. He’s shown as a man with green skin, partially wrapped in bandages.
- Anubis: The son of Osiris & Nephthys. He weighs the heart of the deceased. His domains also cover the embalming & mummification process. As well as guiding souls to the Duat upon death. He’s shown with the black head of a canine. But most often assumed to be a jackal. Nephthys is a goddess of the night, mourning, & death.
- Thoth: He records the verdict of the ‘Weighing of the Heart.’ He’s most often shown as an ibis-headed with a stylus & tablet.
- Horus: The son of Osiris & Isis. He protects Ra during his journey through the Duet. He’s also the heir to Osiris.
- Ma’at: She’s both the goddess of order & the conception of order, balance, & truth itself. She’s the feather that’s weighed against the heart in the ‘Weighing of the Heart’ ritual.
- Ammit: She eats the hearts & souls of those who cannot pass the ‘Weighing of the Heart’ ritual. She’s often shown near the Scales in the Book(s) of the Dead with the face of a crocodile, the mane & front half of a lion, & the hindquarters of a hippopotamus.
- Ra: He’s the God of the sun who must journey through the Duat every night to be reborn every morning.
- Apep: The personification of darkness & true chaos who tries to devour Ra & bring about eternal chaos.
In order to receive judgment, the dead journeyed through the different parts of the Duat to be judged. If the deceased was successfully able to pass different challenges, then they would reach the Judgment of the Dead.
In this ritual, the deceased’s 1st task was to correctly address each of the 42 Assessors of Ma’at by name. While reciting the sins they didn’t commit during their lifetime.
After confirming that they were sinless, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis against the feather of Ma’at which represents truth & justice. Any heart that’s heavier than the feather failed the test, & was rejected & eaten by Ammit, the devourer of souls.
As these people were denied existence after death in the Duat. The souls that were lighter than the feather would pass this most important test, & would be allowed to travel to Aaru.
The Duat isn’t equal to the notions of Hell in Abrahamic religions. This is where the souls are condemned with fiery torment. The absolute punishment for the wicked in ancient Egyptian though, was the denial of an afterlife to the deceased, ceasing to exist in the intellectual form seen through the devouring of the heart by Ammit.
Each night, Ra journeyed through the Duat. Bringing revival to the dead as their main benefit. When in the underworld, he was in his ram-headed form, Af. Ra travelled under the world on his Atet barge from West to East. On the course of the underground journey, he was transformed from his aged Atum form into his young Khepri form – the new dawning sun.
The role of the dead king, worshipped as a god, was also central to the mythology surrounding the concept of Duat, often shown as being identical with Ra.
Along with the sun god, the dead king travelled through the Duat, the Kingdom of Osiris, using the special knowledge he was supposed to possess, which was recorded in the Coffin Texts. This served as a guide to the Hereafter. Not just for the king but for all the deceased.
According to the Amduat, the underworld consists of 12 areas signifying the 12 hours of the sun God’s journey through it. Battling Apep in order to bring order back to the earth in the morning. As his rays illuminated the Duat during the journey, the revived the dead who lived in the underworld & let them enjoy life after death during that hour of the night when they were in the presence of the sun god. After which they resumed their sleep, waiting for the god’s return the next night.
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