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Religious Pron - Egyptian Judgement: 1 of 2

Jun 8, 2023, 3:31 PM

It was pretty cool to be a pharaoh.

You got your choice of the ladies.

You got to be buried in cool buildings.

The Temple of Ramesses VI

The Temple of Thutmose III

And you got to wear a cool hat, called a pschent, that represented both the lower and upper halves of your kingdom.

Your pschent showed that you represented all your people. It was sort of the 2500 BCE version of this monstrosity.

But best of all, as pharaoh, you, and you alone, got a chance to be reborn in the afterlife.

The warming rays of Ra await you.

Sorry, no cats are allowed in the afterlife.

Eventually, though, the afterlife requirements were loosened enough to allow priests, and even regular folks, entrance. That probably ruined it. Like any hot nightclub, you know how a place can go downhill once just anyone is allowed in.

The first requirement to getting to the afterlife is dying. But dying is pretty easy. Almost anyone can do that. The hard part about the Egyptian afterlife was the judgement. And no one wants to be judged.

Easy, Karen. I’m not gonna judge you, but the gods are. Long before the ancient Hebrews were being held to accounts by their god Yahweh, the Egyptian gods were holding their own people, and specifically their pharaohs, accountable for their actions.

I know, I know. It sucks to be held accountable for your behavior. It just makes you want to scream.

It’s all well and good to be an a-hole to people here on earth, but you won’t be answering to humans in the afterlife. You’ll be answering to the gods, and they don’t put up with that shid. It’s gonna be a long and arduous journey, and the first step begins with your last breath. One handy way to get started would be to die in battle, like the pharaoh Senebkay.

Senebkay got a little too close to the action. His mummy was found with almost 20 axe and club blows to the skull, back and legs. So someone deaded him good.

So dying might hurt a little, but once you are dead, your afterlife journey is a simple three-part process.

1) First, you need to get both your physical and spiritual bodies prepared

2) Second, your Akh, (if you’ll remember, the combination of your Ba and Ka), will then run the Underworld gauntlet

3) And then finally, you’ll get to take the judgment test for everlasting life

Let’s hope you didn’t pixx off too many people while you were still here on earth, because you are going to need them to get to your afterlife. I mean, you might be able to mummify your pet, but you can’t very well make yourself a mummy once you are dead, now can you?

Back when priests had to be taxidermists, too

So just like your soul is a team effort, your afterlife is a team effort, too. You’re gonna get by with a little help from your friends. The living ones, and the dead ones.

Getting your body and soul ready is the easy part. A bunch of priests embalm you and pickle your important organs in canopic jars. Different gods watch over different organs. But your heart stays in you. You’ll need that. Unimportant stuff, like the appendix and the brain, just gets thrown away.

Gods watching over your pickled parts

Check out that cool chaise lounge. Let’s get you strapped in tight for your journey.

Here’s the real thing, looking just like the picture.

Now that your body is prepared, the priests break your mouth open, let your spirit, or Ahk out, and you can proceed to the underworld. Some religions just take you right on up to the Pearly Gates.

Imagine how nice and easy it would be to just live a good life and simply be welcomed right on into Heaven. Well dream on cupcake, this isn’t ancient Israel, this is Egypt.

Welcome to the Hell Week, Iron-man, Decathlon, obstacle course, marathon version of judgement.

Huah!

The Egyptians term for the underworld was Duat. Duat isn’t exactly hell, it’s just where the lost, the broken, and the dead people hang out. Sort of like Willy Brice on any random gameday.

But there are monsters and perils in Duat, so it’s not exactly a safe place. Also, sort of like Willy Brice.

Duat didn’t have meth-heads, needles, dumpsters full of freshly used condoms, and discarded Gamecock tees that no one would ever buy, but it did have a Lake of Fire guarded by baboons.

And magical gates guarded by knife-wielding monsters.

and five-headed snakes.

And a river of salt. So, not really a place you want to spend a lot of time in if you can avoid it. Hopefully, you’ll just be passing through, and not staying.

And fortunately, someone has already blazed a trail for you though this wasteland.

The perceptive among you will notice that every day, it seems that the sun goes down in the West, and every morning, it comes back up again in the East. That’s because every night, the sun god Ra travels under the earth, through Duat, on a 12-hour journey in his magic boat. And every hour on the hour, for 12 consecutive hours, his entourage fights his way through the perils of Duat. And we’re going to piggy-back his ride.

His, and your, route has been memorialized in the tomb of Thutmose III. You only have to get through once, but Ra has to do it every night, to bring his sun-shiney freshness to us in the morning.

Just follow the map on Thutmose III’s tomb. Each panel is a new hour, and a new fight.

Watch out for that giant snake on the right. He’ll be back.

If I could count the stars in the night time sky. But there are just so many!

The main event of every Duat journey is Ra’s climactic battle with the great serpent of chaos, Apep. Sort of snek Friday, only every single day. Thanks, Ra!

Here’s Ra, on his boat, having his helper fight that mean old serpent Apep.

Sometimes Ra takes the form of a cat to kill Apep. “…he will crush your head,
and you will strike his paw?”

Fortunately, Ra always wins, and always rises on the horizon the next day. Sometimes he even leaves his knives sticking in Apep.

Anyway, that’s where you’re headed next! To Duat! But don’t fret. You’ve got help. Some divine guides, and a super-duper cheat sheet called the Book of the Dead. And we’ll get you your eternal life in the next episode. Till then, let's enjoy the land of the living.

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Religious Pron - Egyptian Judgement: 1 of 2

It's hard to imagine you...

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Re: It's hard to imagine you...

Y'all much think I'm gay.

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