the Book of the Dead ( PDF )

The Versions Of The Book Of The Dead.
6. Stromata, VI., 4, 35, ed. Dindorff, t. iii., p. 155.
7. On the sacred books of the Egyptians see also Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, ed. Parthey, Berlin 1857, pp. 260, 261; Lepsius,
Chronologie, p. 45 ff.; and Brugsch, Aegyptologie, p. 149.
8. ###.
9. ###.
10. ###.]
{p. xxvii}
Influence of the priests of Annu on its compilation.
pyramid texts are versions of ancient religious compositions which the priests of the college or school of
Annu[1] succeeded in establishing as the authorized version of the Book of the Dead in the first six
dynasties. Ra, the local form of the Sun-god, usurps the place occupied by the more ancient form Tmu;
and it would seem that when a dogma had been promulgated by the college of Annu, it was accepted by
the priesthood of all the great cities throughout Egypt. The great influence of the Annu school of priests
even in the time of Unas is proved by the following passage from the text in his pyramid: "O God, thy
Annu is Unas; O God, thy Annu is Unas. O Ra, Annu is Unas, thy Annu is Unas, O Ra. The mother of
Unas is Annu, the father of Unas is Annu; Unas himself is Annu, and was born in Annu."[2] Elsewhere
we are told that Unas "cometh to the great bull which cometh forth from Annu,[3] and that he uttereth
words of magical import in Annu."[4] In Annu the god Tmu produced the gods Shu and Tefnut,[5] and in
Annu dwelt the great and oldest company of the gods, Tmu, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set and
Nephthys.[6] The abode of the blessed in heaven was called[7] Annu, and it was asserted that the souls of
[1 Annu, the metropolis of the thirteenth nome of Lower Egypt; see Brugsch, Dict. Géog., p. 41; de Rougé, Géographie
Ancienne de la Basse-Égypte, p. 81; and Amélineau, La Géographie de Égypte a l'Époque Copte, p. 287. Annu is ###,
Genesis xli., 45; ###, Genesis xli., 50; ### Ezekiel xxx., 17; and Beth Shemesh, ### 4:11 Jeremiah xliii., 13; and the
Heliopolis of the Greek writers (H?liou'polis, Strabo, XVII., 1., §§ 27, 28; Herodotus, II., 3; Diodorus, I., 57, 4).
2. ###. Maspero, Unas, II. 591, 592; and compare Pepi I., II. 690, 691.
3. See line 596.
4. ###.
5. ###. Maspero, Pepi I., 1. 465, 466.
6. The Pyramid of Pepi II., 1. 665.
7. In reading Egyptian religious texts, the existence of the heavenly Annu, which was to the Egyptians what Jerusalem was
to the Jews, and what Mecca still is to the Mubammadans, must be remembered. The heavenly Annu was the capital of the
mythological world (see Naville, Todtenbuch (Einleitung), p. 27), and was, to the spirits of men, what the earthly Annu
was to their bodies, i.e., the abode of the gods and the centre and source of all divine instruction. Like many other
mythological cities, such as Abtu, Tattu, Pe, Tep, Khemennu, etc., the heavenly Annu had no geographical position.]
{p. xxviii}
the just were there united to their spiritual or glorified bodies, and that they lived there face to face with
the deity for all eternity.[1] judging from the fact that the texts in the tombs of Heru-hetep and Neferu,
and those inscribed upon the sarcophagus of Taka, all of the XIth and XIIth dynasties, differ in extent
only and not in character or contents from those of the royal pyramids of Sakkâra of the Vth and VIth
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