Book of Gates

THE BOOK OF GATES

The Book of Gates is a funerary composition whose original name is unknown. It appears in the Valley of the Kings in the tomb of Horemheb, then in the one of the first representative of the 19th Dynasty, Ramesses I.
It represents one of the books describing the nocturnal journey of the sun.
It replaces in this function (for Horemheb and Ramesses I) the previously used Book of the Amduat, from which it is extensively inspired.
From here on, one will meet excerpts from these two compositions used simultaneously as supplements of one another. It places the accent more especially on the royal person, which explains why this book will know very little diffusion in the private funerary documentation of later times.

The Book of Gates are rarely complete. The longest complete versions are found on sarcophaguses, notably the one of Sethy I, and probably the one of Ramesses II, as well as in the Osireion of Abydos (a version of the Book dating back to Merenptah).
The last long parietal version - and the only one - in the Valley of the Kings is in the tomb of Ramesses VI.

There are two distinct sources for the Book: one external to the Valley of the Kings, which is the long version. The short version, begins under Horemheb, on the walls of the tombs of Valley of the Kings. The two versions combine under Merenptah, the first sovereign to use in his tomb the elements of the last part of the Book. In fact, before him only the first six hours are used.

As with The Amduat, the Book of Gates is divided in sections and takes the general description of the nocturnal journey of the sun in a barque with a framework including three registers.

The principal innovation, is the appearance of a judgement scene before Osiris, after the 5th division. Thus the deceased king will pass before him in judgement.
There is no doubt that this great innovation was introduced because of the Amarnian episode: if by chance a new "heretic" came to occupy the throne of Egypt, it would be quite out of the question to ensure him having a - royal ! - funeral for the eternity, if he hadn't acted in accordance with Ma'at. The Book of Gates thus insists on punishment of the enemies of Ma'at.
The very concept of the courtroom, unlike that of the "Book of the Dead", is very austire. Note that Osiris is the only judge; there is no assembly of the gods or accessers to assist him as in a private tomb.

Another innovation is the use of cryptographs (a process, however, already present on the guilt chapels of Tutankhamun).
The two scenes which act as a prologue and a conclusion to the solar journey are also very original, mentioning the two horizons of the east and the west, the rising sun and the declining sun.

The main iconic characteristic of the Book of Gates is the presence of these gates, which are twelve in number (the Duat itself includes eleven divisions). Note: the first hour is followed by the first gate, which gives entry to the second hour, and so on, until the twelfth gate which gives entry to the day (the rebirth of the sun).
These gigantic portals, which punctuate the different stages of the journey of the solar barque, separate the hours of the night and make reference to essential elements of an Egyptian temple or the royal palace. Just like the doors which follow one another in a building, they seem to lead the traveller towards the heart of architectural space.
These gates, already quoted in the Book of the Amduat on the other hand were never represented there.

A snake watches over each of them and its body extends to the full height of the three registers. It is accompanied by other guardians with frightening names, these uraei spit fire.

The vignettes at the extreme of the Book of Gates mention the two horizons; the sun progresses therefore from west to east, a fact of which no visitor to a sanctuary needs reminding of course. The officiants had to pass through several doors before arriving to the shrine, which was the place of the manifestation of the god, just as the east is the place where the sun rises.

In the Book of Gates, the doors serve to close again (and no to open !…) the sections of the Duat and serve as airlocks, opening on the approach of the divine procession, to then be tightly closed again, prohibiting the passage of intruders and appearing to seal off the hours.
One has the impression that these doors, represent henceforth on the walls, are a rythmical reminder regulating the progression along the corridor leading toward the chamber of the sarcophagus, at least in Ramesside times.
We would thus have the expression in the decoration of the design of the tomb as a reflection of Duat itself, and the architectural whole of the tomb would be considered as a sort of complex and three-dimensional hieroglyph reproducing the other world.

The vignette at the beginning of the Book of Gates represents the entry into the Duat.
The solar barque circulates to the centre and is ready to pass between two mounds, like the double mountain which serves to write the word "horizon", likewise the two piers of the pylon at the entry to a temple.
The first portal is considered as a guardian to the other world which opens up to the confines of desert land. Its leaf is guarded by an immense snake which has the role of opening it to the approaching sun for its continuation.

On observing the sections of the Book of Gates, one immediately notices one of the major differences with the Book of the Amduat.
The very diverse and numerous characters (more than nine hundred) which animate the registers, replacing here the sober processions. The actors of the journey are considered henceforth as groups and act collectively. Their number makes reference to symbolic numbers. For example, there are often twelve (as the divisions of the time - hours of the day, but also as months of the year), nine (reference to the divine Ennead) or four (allusion to the directions of the created world).
One finds the same simplification in the crew of the divine barque.
The nocturnal sun is, henceforth, no longer accompanied by of two entities, Hu (Magic) and Sia (Knowledge). These gods were the tools of the creator when he generated the world, that it, the "First Time" or at the time of the daily renewal of the Cosmos.

Much more than in the Book of The Amduat, the texts which accompany here the vignettes are imprinted with human pre-occupations.
For example, in the section coming after the third gate (the fourth hour), time is symbolised by a long snake framed by twelve feminine forms, of the goddesses who guide the god sun and whose "face belongs in darkness and whose back is to the light". It is the personification of the hours of which the reptile, who represents time, is the parent. The commentary indicates that the hours are destroyed: at the end of every hour, it is "swallowed" or withdrawn".

Behind the fifth gate a special space opens up. The door itself seems to continue into a room of a courthouse where Osiris is seated. A reminder of a royal audience, the sovereign appearing in the doorway of a portal.
This scene of judgement was not current in the iconography of a royal tomb, but belonged rather to the rituals destined to mere mortals (chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead).

The last image of the Book of Gates describes the birth of the sun. The leaves of the gate, from the twelfth hour, once again closed, the star takes flight after removing itself from Nun, the environment of the primordial waters.
Isis and Nephthys, in the form of cobras, are reminders of the Osirian dimension of metamorphosis which he has just undergone.
Just as Atum, the god of origins, separated himself from Nun to create the universe, the ultimate stage of the race of the nocturnal sun passes through the waters of rejuvenation. The Nun raises the solar barque to make it emerge. The god's transformation into a visible and active entity is expressed by the Khepri scarab. In the uppermost section, a human body forms a loop; representing the personification of the Duat which it also gives to the world the regenerated star.

Thus one finds, even in the very heart of the necropolis, a description of the solar cycle, the idea that the gods themselves - just like the deceased sovereign who includes himself in their cortege - have to justify their existence.
This text of the Book of Gates is studded with allusions to the fact that the passage through the world created by any entity, whether it is human beings or gods illuminating the land, cause its deterioration. This corruption is inherent in the material universe where the attacks of chaos are directly and concretely perceptible. It is not without announcing certain elements which will be developed thereafter by gnostics.

Moreover, this new conception of the funerary domain has most certainly been influenced by Amarnian thought, which perceived nature as it is. Notice however, that the comparison stops there. As I showed it in my article on Akhenaton and the religion of Aton, one of the major characteristics of Amarnian religious thought is to have completely denied the existence of this great cosmic drama, that of the nocturnal journey of the sun.