Tuesday, 10 September 2019

The Coffin Texts of Ancient Egypt - Spell 11

Selected sources: B1P; B2Bo; B3Bo; B4Bo; B4C; B6C; T9C

You came, you came,
when you brought the "inner self"(?)(1).
— So says I.

You came, you came,
when you brought the great "inner self"(?)(1).

Encompass this NN, you gods(2)!
Do his bidding!(3)
Give him praise, you gods!
Come, you gods,
that you may see him,
        coming forth in peace(4) and
        being vindicated against his foes.

He(5) took possession of the White Crown.
He(5) steered(?)(6) the thrones of Geb, and
He took away and destroyed the other.


Notes
  1. Written tw with the seated god sign in almost all sources. Only B1P has twt. Faulkner believes this to be an error for twt - statue, image (Wb 5, 255.8-256.20). T9C has "the inner self(?) of NN" and later "his great inner self(?)". B4C changes the phrase to "you came today of creating the "inner self"(?)". The meaning remains obscure.
  2. "You gods" here is only written in T9C.
  3. Omitted in all sources but B2-4Bo.
  4. T9C changes this to "coming forth in the sight of his eye".
  5. T9C has "This NN".
  6. The word used here is xnt - "to sail southward/upstream" (Wb 3, 309.3-22) with the thrones of Geb as object. The grammar here is tricky and xnt is not used elsewhere with this meaning. 

Bibliography

A. de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts I-VIII, OIP 34, 49, 64, 67, 73, 81, 87, 132 (1935-1961).
L. H. Lesko, Index of Spells on Egyptian Middle Kingdom Coffins and Related Documents (Berkeley 1979).
H. Willems (ed.), The World of the Coffin Texts. Proceedings of the Symposium held on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Adriaan de Buck, Leiden december 17–19, 1992, EU 9 (Leiden 1996)
R. van der Molen, A Hieroglyphic Dictionary of Egyptian Coffin Texts, 15 (Leiden / Boston / Köln 2000).
J. Assmann, Totenliturgien in den Sargtexten des Mittleren Reichs. Altägyptische Totenliturgien 1, Supplemente zu den Schriften der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 14 (Heidelberg 2002).
L. Gestermann, Die Überlieferung ausgewählter Texte altägyptischer Totenliteratur („Sargtexte“) in spätzeitlichen Grabanlagen, ÄA 68 (Wiesbaden 2005).
R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. Spells 1-1185 (Oxford 2007). 

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