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Illustrated in b/w with 109 figures, 69 plates and 9 tables.
Collections of scenes and texts designated variously as the "Book of the Earth," "Creation of the Solar Disc," and "Book of Aker" were inscribed on the walls of royal sarcophagus chambers throughout Egypt's Ramessid period (Dynasties 19-20). This material illustrated discrete episodes from the nocturnal voyage of the sun god, which functioned as a model for the resurrection of the deceased king.
These earliest "Books of the Earth" employed mostly ad hoc arrangements of scenes, united by shared elements of iconography, an overarching, bipartite symmetry of composition, and their frequent pairing with representations of the double sky overhead. From the Twenty-First Dynasty and later, selections of programmatic tableaux were adapted for use in private mortuary contexts, often in conjunction with innovative or previously unattested annotations.
The present study collects and analyses all currently known Book of the Earth material, including discussions of iconography, grammar, orthography, and architectural setting.
Contents
List of Figures, Tables, and Plates
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
1.1 General remarks
1.2 Underworld Books
1.3 The Designation of "The Book of the Earth
1.4 Definition of the Corpus
1.5 Outline of Sources
1.6 Content and Internal Structure of the Book
1.7 The Notational System Used in the Present Study
2. Architecture
2.1 Development of the Royal Tomb in the Valley of the Kings
2.2 Underworld Cosmology and Architecture
2.3 Considerations on the Evolution of the Ramesside Royal Tomb: Precursors and Prototypes
2.4 Internal Orientation in the Mature Ramesside Royal Tomb
2.5 Catalogue of Monuments
2.6 The Symbolic Significance of the Ramesside Sarcophagus as akhet and Divine Birth Station
2.7 Excursus: The Sarcophagi
3. Orthography
3.1 General Remarks
3.2 Orthographic Variation among Individual Signs
3.3 Phonetic Change
3.4 Adaptations from the Hieratic
3.5 Shape Substitutions
3.6 Superfluous Signs
3.7 Miscellaneous
3.8 Cryptography
4. Grammar
4.1 General Remarks
4.2 The Introductory Formula
4.3 Pronouns
4.4 Prepositions
4.5 The Proclitic Particle
4.6 Circumstantial
4.7 Noun + sdm=f Construction
4.8 sdm.hr=f
4.9 Subject + Stative vs. Pseudo-Verbal Construction
5. The Vignettes
5.1 General Remarks
5.2 Catalogue of Scenes
5.3 The Merneptah Template
5.4 The Aker Group
6. The Texts
6.1 General Remarks
6.2 The Cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos
6.3 Merneptah
6.4 Tawosret
6.5 Ramesses III
6.6 Ramesses IV
6.7 Ramesses VI
6.8 Ramesses VII
6.9 Ramesses IX
6.10 Twenty-First Dynasty Mythological Papyri
6.11 Osorkon II
6.12 Pedamenopet
6.13 Mutirdis
6.14 Padineith
6.15 Horira'a
6.16 Sarcophagus of Nakhtnebef
6.17 Sarcophagus of Tjahorpta
6.18 Sarcophagi Inscribed on the Model of Ramesses III
7. Closing Remarks
7.1 The Internal Structure of the Books of the Earth
7.2 Date of Composition
7.3 The Original Function of the Books of the Earth, from the Later New Kingdom (Dynasties 19-20)
7.4 The History and Evolution of the Books of the Earth from the Third Intermediate Period and Later
Appendix 1, Tables
Appendix 2, Black and White Plates
Appendix 3, Text Plates
Bibliography
Indices