Motile mythologies:(Re) constituting ancient Egyptian ritual knowledge in the early 2nd millennium BCE

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Rune Nyord, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2021
• Publisher: Harrassowitz Verlag
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © bei den Autoren
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rune-Nyord/publication/347660388_Motile_Mythologies/links/618143940be8ec17a960ff8b/Motile-Mythologies.pdf
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Wissensoikonomien
• Volume: 18
• Start Page: 6
• End Page: 17
• Keywords: religious texts; burial practice; Wenis; tombs; sarcopagus; mortuary religion; ritual; Egypt
• Research Categories: Religion, History of; Anthropology, Archaeology

Abstract

In the middle of the 24th century BC E, the ancient Egyptian king Wenis introduced an innovation in burial practice that would influence Egyptian mortuary religion profoundly during the following millennia. The interior of earlier royal tombs had remained largely undecorated, while the decorative programme in the mortuary temples where the cult of the dead king was performed focused mainly on the status and achievements of the king on the one hand, and on the performance of his cult on the other. In contrast, Wenis had his burial chamber, antechamber, and the corridor leading down to them inscribed with a sizeable collection of previously unknown religious texts. Furthermore, the texts and the space where they were inscribed seem to have been carefully tailored together, so that texts belonging together thematically and ritually were not only placed next to each other, but were distributed in such a way that individual walls each have fairly distinct subject matters, especially in the sarcophagus chamber itself.