New Egyptian Tombs Discovery Contains Texts for Afterlife Journey

57 Ancient Tombs, Mummies Unearthed In Egypt

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 23, 2010

Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities/AP

Archeologists have unearthed 57 ancient Egyptian tombs, most of which hold an ornately painted wooden sarcophagus with a mummy inside, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said Sunday.

The oldest tombs date back to around 2750 B.C. during the period of Egypt’s first and second dynasties, the council said in a statement. Twelve of the tombs belong the 18th dynasty which ruled Egypt during the second millennium B.C.

The discovery throws new light on Egypt’s ancient religions, the council said.

Associated Press

Egypt’s archaeology chief, Zahi Hawass, said the mummies dating to the 18th dynasty are covered in linen decorated with religious texts from the Book of the Dead and scenes featuring ancient Egyptian deities.

Abdel Rahman El-Aydi, head of the archaeological mission that made the discovery, said some of the tombs are decorated with religious texts that ancient Egyptians believed would help the deceased to cross through the underworld.

El-Aydi said one of the oldest tombs is almost completely intact, with all of its funerary equipment and a wooden sarcophagus containing a mummy wrapped in linen.

In 31 tombs dating to around 2030-1840 B.C, archeologists discovered scenes of different ancient Egyptian deities, such as the falcon-headed Horus, Hathor, Khnum and Amun, decorating some of the tombs.

The council said the findings were unearthed at Lahoun, in Fayoum, some 70 miles (100 kilometers) south of Cairo.

Last year, some 53 stone tombs dating back to various ancient periods were found in the area.

I will try to follow up on this story as more details become available. While the texts found are likely the usual familiar Book of the Dead material, I will report any new and interesting developments — DJL

The Orphic Gold Tablets: "The Longed-For Crown"

I return now to my overview/commentary on Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets by Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal (Brill: 2008). If you missed my first few posts on this topic, you can see them here: First, Second, Third, and Fourth.

One of the key features of the inscriptions found on these gold plates is the expression of the desire of the deceased to obtain a crown at the end of their long journey in the Netherworld.  On one tablet we find this phrase, a form of which is common to many of the inscriptions:

I launched myself with agile feet after the longed-for crown. ((From L 9, 6 as cited in Bernabé and San Cristóbal, p. 121))

The Greek term used here is στεφανος (stéphanos), which is commonly translated as “crown”.  Interestingly, although I would have thought the answer would be quite straightforward, scholars have debated what kind of crown we are dealing with here, and what its meaning is in the religious context of these texts (p. 122). A number of theories have been offered:

• That the “crown” was a given place in the Netherworld that the deceased was trying to reach. Because stéphanos can mean “a crown of fortifications”, the theory was that the term was used to refer to some sort of fence that encircled the kingdom of Persephone, or the dwelling of the blessed. This theory is improbable due to the lack of any description of such a fence in any Orphic or Greek myths.
• Another similar theory is that crown refers to a cycle or “orbit” that the deceased enters into after death — an astral cycle as opposed to the earthly cycle of life that one must endure until freed from it by following the correct path in the afterlife.  This theory, however, is also unacceptable because there is no mention anywhere in the tablets of an astral or heavenly part of the afterlife experience–it all takes place in the Underworld of the Earth itself.
• The third theory mentioned is perhaps the simplest, but most logical: that the term crown should be taken literally to mean a physical crown that is placed on the head.  There is much precedence in Greek culture and religion for the use of crowns, both for the living and for the dead.

It is this third theory that the authors argue for and which we will discuss here.  In Greek culture, literal/physical crowns were used in banquets, funerary rites, triumph in athletic competitions, certain rituals, and in many mystical symbols (p. 123).

The Orphic Gold Tablets: A "Ritual for the Dead"

In my last post on the Orphic Gold Tablets (“Arriving in the Afterlife and the Importance of Memory for Salvation”), I discussed the tablets’ instructions for the soul as it arrives in the Netherworld, and how the soul there encounters a scene very reminiscent of Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life and its surroundings.  The soul is to choose the fountain of living waters (of Memory) in order to progress towards immortal glory.  I also discussed the important role of Memory, both figurative and literal, in the soul being able to pass by the guardians in order to take the next step of their journey. (For more info on how to improve your own memory, check out www.4aBetterMemory.com)

We now move on to that next phase — a system the authors of Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets call “a ritual for the dead.” Our understanding of this ritual and its place in the journey of the Afterlife comes principally from two tablets found at ancient Pelinna in Thessaly. According to Bernabé and San Cristóbal, these inscriptions are extremely important and have revolutionized what is known about the “Orphic” afterlife journey (p. 61).  I post here the text of the longer of the two inscriptions:

You have just died and have just been born, thrice happy, on this day.

Tell Persephone that Bacchus himself has liberated you.

A bull, you leapt into the milk.

Swift, you leapt into the milk.

A ram, you fell into the milk.

You have wine, a happy privilege

and you will go under the earth, once you have accomplished the same rites as the other happy ones.

I don’t know about you, but this text just didn’t do much for me when I first read it. However, the commentary of the authors greatly enlightens the significance of these rather enigmatic words. The authors initially reason that they must either be part of funerary rites or a part of the initiation. The rather odd references to milk and wine should probably be understood as referring to offerings/libations that accompany the utterance of the formulas (p. 63).  Whether these rites were performed at a funeral or at the initiation is not known.

A Death that is Life — Rebirth into Godhood

The inscription begins with a narrator addressing the deceased, proclaiming that their death is a happy experience in which the individual is at the same time reborn.  Others of the Orphic tablets go into greater detail concerning this rebirth and the initiate’s newly acquired status (p. 64):

–You have been born a god, from the man that you were.

–Happy and fortunate, you will be god, from mortal that you were.

–Come, Caecilia Secundina, legitimately changed into a goddess.

The authors note that the inscriptions, without a doubt, have to do with a “mystery ritual, in which happiness after death is promised” (p. 64). This happiness (trisolbie — “thrice happy”) is linked to the achievement of a particular knowledge, generally proceeding from initiation. Sophocles, with regard to the mysteries, declared (cited p. 64):

Thrice happy those mortals who, having carried out the initiatory rites head for Hades, since life is reserved for them, whereas the others suffer great evils.

The Orphic Gold Tablets: Arriving in the Afterlife and the Importance of Memory for Salvation

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The writing of this post has been delayed a bit, but I’m excited to share more specific details about the Orphic Gold Tablets. Chapter One of Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets, by Bernabé and San Cristóbal is entitled “Arrival in the Subterranean World.” In this chapter, the authors concentrate on four of the most relevant inscriptions found which discuss what the soul of the initiate encounters when they first reach the Afterlife.  Although the tablets were discovered in diverse locations, the descriptions are very similar, often matching word for word — obviously a well known part of a widespread tradition.

In this post I will share the contents of these inscriptions and comment on their significance. I will subsequently discuss the importance of the Goddess Mnemosyne, the personification of Memory, who is featured as a major character in the tablets. Apparently, the Orphic tradition believed memory, or specifically the ability to remember certain key concepts, to be essential to one’s journey towards immortality.

Arrival in the Subterranean World

The four main tablets discussed in this chapter (those from Hipponion, Entella, Petelia, and Pharsalus) read very similarly. They start out describing what one sees as soon as he/she enters the realm of the dead. Interestingly, it appears that the initiate who is on his death bed should see these things before he dies, as something of a preview of what will happen, and that he should remember this vision and get it engraved in gold as a type of memory cue for when he actually dies.

Currier and Ives -- "Tree of Life", Public Domain Image

Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets

Introduction to the Orphic Gold Tablets

As I have been promising for some time now, I would now like to introduce you to the Orphic Gold Tablets, a series of small gold tablets/plates that have been discovered in southern Europe buried with the dead and offering to the same instructions regarding what they should do and say when they reach the Afterlife.  I am drawing my information on these finds almost exclusively from a monograph by Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal entitled Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

As I’ve mentioned previously, I consider these discoveries significant for the LDS audience, as the inscriptions found are on thin plates of gold (similar to Joseph Smith’s description of the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is derived) and give specific instructions for what the initiate is to do during their journey into the  Afterlife, including meeting a number of guardians and gods who will ask them questions and to whom they must give certain passwords.

Before I get into a more detailed description of the nature and content of these tablets, I would like to give a brief explanation of what “Orphic” refers to.  The label “Orphic” is here referring to the Orphic mystery cult/religion popular in the ancient Greek and Thracian world.  The mystery religions involved initiation into secret rites (including the performance of sacred dramas) that presented the initiate with hidden knowledge pertaining to the afterlife and the gods. Often there was a promise of immortality resulting from initiation into the cult. The mystery cults were very widespread, being found in various cultures and times. Although there were others, including the Eleusinian and Mithric, the Orphic cult followed the literature of the mythical poet Orpheus, who was believed to have gone down to the Underworld and then came back from the dead.  For a slightly more detailed treatment of the mystery religions, please see this post that I wrote on them a while back (also, Wikipedia actually has a decent description here.)

This is the Right Place

New Look

If you are a returning visitor to this site, you may not recognize this as the Heavenly Ascents you are familiar with.  I have completely changed the look of the site, although none of the previous content has been lost.  I will miss the antique, maroon and tan theme the blog has had over the past year since I first started it — I think it gave a certain character to the site that may be missed by some.  For those of you who subscribe by RSS feed, blog reader, or by email, you shouldn’t notice much difference.  The main purpose for the changes were to make the website brighter, less cluttered, and thus easier to read and to add new features.

New Content

I hope to continue providing quality content and plan to add new helpful features to the site in the near future.  As I have been promising for the past couple of months, I will very soon commence an extended series of posts on the topic of the Orphic Gold Tablets, a number of small gold plates that have been discovered buried with the bodies of presumed Orphic (an ancient mystery religion) initiates, containing written “instructions for the Netherworld.” The importance of this discovery is significant for the LDS audience, as the inscriptions found are on thin plates of gold (similar to Joseph Smith’s description of the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is derived) and give specific instructions for what the initiate is to do when they reach the Afterlife, including meeting a number of guardians who will ask them questions and to whom they must give certain passwords.  There are many other details of interest to LDS readers, and, I hope, to many others, as well.

I hope the new look and features of the site will be helpful to all visitors here. If you really miss the old look or can’t stand the new, please let me know by emailing me at david@heavenlyascents.com or by so stating in the comment area below this post.  Thank you for your interest, time, and support!