Pyramid texts on line (Unas: cannibal god)

Integrating both variables underlines the effort to bring out the dramatic & ritualistic features of these texts.

"The actual inscription of text on the walls of the Pyramid of Unas shows considerable redactional care, with a significant number of corrections, both to the original ink draft and to the carved signs, in ways that seem to imply copying and then collation from a more cursive original. There can indeed be no reasonable doubt that inscriptions themselves were copied immediately from papyrus text." - Eyre, 2002, p.12, my italics.

Discovered by Maspero in 1881, the Unas text had been buried and left undisturbed for ca. 4200 years. An untainted primary religious source ! Together with the texts found in the tombs of King Unas' successors, Pharaohs Teti, Pepi I, Merenre & Pepi II (ca. 2270 - 2205 BCE) of the VIth Dynasty, these compositions form the first known religious corpus in world literature, as well as the earliest example of extended writing worldwide (including a rich pallet of various styles, forms & intentions). The small pyramids of the three wives of King Pepi II (Neith, Ipwet and Oudjebeten) are also inscribed, as is that of King Iby (VIIIth Dynasty).

The quality of these inscriptions is however relatively crude and they are not part of the inventory realized by Sethe (1908), the "standard edition" of the Pyramid Texts, later translated into German. In 1952, Mercer published the first English version and in 1968, Piankoff translated the text in his The Pyramid of Unas. Finally in 1969, Faulkner published his The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the acclaimed standard English translation, with new & refreshing grammatical & semantic perspectives. For him, Sethe's work was bulky, incomplete and never revised by its author. Meanwhile, more material had come to light, enabling him to restore many lacunae, whereas in the last half of the previous century great advances in Ancient Egyptian had been made.

The list of tombs containing Pyramid Texts is apparently never final, nor has our knowledge of Ancient Egyptian stopped advancing. In 2005, Allen published The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, containing the texts found in 10 tombs (besides the canonical five, he also includes Ankhesenpepi II, Neith, Iput II, Wedjebetni & Ibi). This clear translation of the Unas text is in many ways remarkable and most welcome, in particular regarding the use of verbal forms, as well as offering translations of passages beforehand deemed untranslatable, calling for revision. No doubt, this translation by Allen excells Faulkner's and is a humbling experience for anyone studying these texts for years.

The Unas text was copied in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 1938 - 1759 BCE) tomb of the official Senwosret-Ankh, high priest of Ptah, suggesting the presence of a separate corpus (on papyrus ?), i.e. a continuous manuscript tradition and an underlying archival tradition. This is also the best preserved body of text representing a complete set, providing the standard approach to the theology of the Old Kingdom, dominated by Re-Atum of Heliopolis (Pepi II has the most complete surviving texts of the later pyramids, but suffering damage).

"... the Unas texts were evidently regarded as an integral work in their own right, and seem to have acquired 'canonical' status ..." - Naydler, 2005, p.149.

Maspero (1884, p.3) assumed these texts were exclusively funerary and divided them in ritual texts, prayers and magical spells. In the previous century, authors realized they include drama, hymns, litanies, glorifications, magical texts, offering rituals, prayers, charms, divine offerings, the ascension of Pharaoh, his arrival & settling in heaven, etc. They offer a glimpse of an African, anterational perspective on death, rebirth & illumination.

4. The interpretation of the Pyramid Texts

"They include very ancient texts among those which were nearly contemporary with the pyramids in which they were inscribed, imposing on the modern reader problems of grammar and vocabulary ; the orthography is apt to be unusual ; and there are many mythological and other allusions of which the purport is obscure to the translator of today." - Faulkner, 1969, p.v.

For Sethe (1908), the Pyramid Texts were a free collection of magical utterances, which, by virtue of their presence, assisted the divine king in his resurrection & ascension de opere operato, dispensing with the need for daily priestly offerings to his Ka (in the pyramid temple above) as well as elaborate monumental buildings. He himself uttered the words of power to regenerate himself and rise up. The sarcophagus chamber texts have to be read first. This is the standard funerary interpretation.

"Food offerings alone, however, even when they conformed to the prescriptions regarding purity and dietary taboos (e.g. no pork, no fish), did not suffice to maintain the divine forces. These forces were nothing without ritual and efficacious speech." - Traunecker, 2001, p.40, my italics.

The presence of offering-texts feeds the subtle bodies of the deceased. Sacred words or hieroglyphs not only describe objects, but embody their double (cf. the Lascaux pictures and the Eastern desert petroglyphs). Hence, once properly recited (by the dead and/or the living, the so-called "voice-offerings"), they become efficient (for all of eternity). The hidden, secret, dark potential of hieroglyphs is evidenced by the sacrificial rituals found in the extended mortuary literature. Words made these rituals work. The Ba of the deceased reads the words and the latter manifest their meaning, guaranteeing a safe passage to the afterlife.

"We have already pointed out that the spells of the so-called sacrificial ritual, i.e. the texts used in the provision of supplies, were inscribed in a prominent place where they could be seen by the dead person resting in his sarcophagus. (...) In other words, texts were written down so that the dead themselves could 'proclaim the provision of supplies' ("nis dbHt-Htp") instead of this being done by unreliable priests. This was the nucleus around which the texts crystallized." - Morenz, 1996, p.229.

Schott (1945) & Ricke (1950) advanced the thesis that at the time of the funeral, these texts were recited in the various chambers, corridors and courts through which the procession passed on its way to the pyramid. The valley temple corresponded to the vestibule, the causeway to the entrance corridor, the outer pyramid temple to the antechamber and the sanctuary to the burial-chamber. But it was not easy to identify where each spell was recited.

This view was challenged by Arnold (1977), who tried to discover the function of the pyramid complex by examining the wall reliefs, statues, inscriptions and architectural features of the complex itself. These refer little to funerary rituals ! Schott discovered three literary forms : (a) dramatic texts recited by the participants in a ritual drama, (b) hymns assisting the ritual drama and (c) transfiguration spells, in which the scene happens in the spirit worlds while the king speaks through the reciting priest. As for Scott the funerary procession terminated in the inner pyramid temple (corresponding with the sarcophagus room), we have to read the texts in the burialchamber last !

For Spiegel (1953 & 1971) the texts are an integral part of the funerary ritual performed in the tomb and hence recited in the area were they were inscribed. They reflect the royal burial ritual taking place solely in the tomb underneath the pyramid. Their placement reflects the entry of the funerary procession into the tomb. Hence, the text begins on the West wall of the entrance corridor, continue in the burial-chamber and re-enter the antechamber on its South wall, ending on the East wall of the entrance corridor ... Again a different order from that of Sethe, Scott and Ricke ! Spiegel is the first to claim the sarcophagus chamber represents the Duat and the antechamber the Akhet.

These conjectures were criticized. In 1960, Morenz wrote :

"This bold, learned and ingenious interpretation can properly be accessed only by one who has examined it in terms of the vast and diverse material. When this is done, it appears that quite serious objections may be levelled against numerous points in the argumentation and thus against the thesis as such." - Morenz, 1996, p.228-229, my italics.

According to Mercer (1952), only the offering liturgy (on the North wall of the burial-chamber) belongs to the funerary ritual proper. The purpose of the magical & mythical formulae, prayers, hymns and petitions was to guarantee the king's resurrection and new birth, involving transfiguration and deification, the king being immortal like the other deities. In his translation, Mercer follows Sethe's classification.

Likewise, for Piankoff (1968) the texts describe a postmortem mystical journey, culminating in union with the godhead, Re-Atum. It entails rebirth, ascent, traveling in the Solar Barque, absorption of the substance of the deities and exaltation in the embrace of Re-Atum. Like Schott, Piankoff begins to read the text in the corridor leading into the tomb, moves to the antechamber for the king's ascension and projects his final deification in the burial-chamber.

For Faulkner (1969), the Pyramid Texts are to be regarded as religious and funerary literature. They describe the king's postmortem journey to the stars and transformation into one (Faulkner, 1966). His translation again follows Sethe's classification.

Altenmüller (1972) agrees with Schott & Ricke that these texts were recited in the pyramid temple, as well as in the tomb, involving priests assuming the god-forms of Re, Horus, Seth and Thoth.

In the Unas text, he isolates three main sections : (a) the funerary procession and actions on the mummy (censing, libation, opening of the mouth), (b) the offering ritual and (c) the burial ritual on the West wall of the antechamber. He attempts to explain every utterance in terms of the mortuary rituals, relying mostly on mythological references and worldplay to determine which text corresponds to which representation. He based his order of the text 0n (a) the sequencing found in the tomb of Senwosret-Ankh and (b) his conjectured order of the royal funerary ritual as portrayed in the later Middle and New Kingdom private tombs.

"Schott, Spiegel, and Altenmüller all see the key to understanding the Pyramid Texts as lying outside the texts themselves." - Naydler, 2005, p.180.

Barta (1981) doubts whether the Pyramid Texts belong to the funerary ritual at all. The goal of these texts extended beyond the short duration of the actual funerary ritual. They serve the king in the afterlife. Barta returns to the interpretation of Sethe. The texts are used by the king in the afterlife, providing him knowledge and magical power, assisting him in the process of his deification. Barta accepts that the Duat might be accessible to the king while he is still living, but the texts themselves are intended to help the deceased king ...

Osing (1986) & Allen (1988) compared the location of the texts within the tomb of Unas with other Old Kingdom pyramids and the tomb of Senwosret-Ankh at Lisht. Allen was able to establish a coherent model describing the funerary ideology of these royal tombs without reference to conjectured stages of a funerary ritual. The position of particular groups of texts within Unas' pyramid corresponds with the placement of the same texts in other pyramids. Spells recited during the burial ritual were thus eternalized as divine words on the walls, further complementing the importance of symbolism in the general layout of the mortuary complex in general and the royal tomb in particular. The order is determined by the thematic relationship of the texts to the architectural symbolism of the two chambers and their four quarters. There is a spatial semantic at work.

"Allen's analysis of the sequence of spells in the pyramid of Wenis defines the architecture as a material representation of the passage of the king through death to resurrection, exploiting themes familiar in the Underworld Books of the New Kingdom. From the darkness of the earth he passes to life in the light of the sky, progressing from the burial chamber as underworld (duat) through the antechamber as horizon (akht) where he becomes Akh, through the doorway leading to the corridor -ascending by ladder- to heaven (pet), or passing like the setting sun from the west to his rising from the mouth of the horizon in the east, or exploiting the image of the king passing from his sarcophagus -the womb of Nut- through her vulva to birth at the door of the horizon. (...) Allen's analysis focuses on the principle whereby the position of discrete units of ritual text asserts a functional identity between the theology of the text and the architectural symbolism of the pyramid substructure, and so the reality of the king's passage to resurrection". - Eyre, 2002, p.44-45 & 47.

The direction of the texts was thus identical with the soul's path through the tomb, moving from the innermost parts of the burial-chamber (the "Duat" in the West), through the antechamber (the Eastern horizon or "Akhet"), to the outside of the pyramid via the second northern tunnel, flying to the Northern, circumpolar (imperishable) Stars, reaching the Field of Offering.

the Duat (burial-chamber) : though a part of the world (Earth), but neither Nun or sky, the Netherworld is inaccessible to the living and outside normal human experience. It is separate from the sky and reached prior to it. The Field of Reeds is the realm of the deceased and the deities and the mystery of Osiris. The Horus-king has perpetuated offerings, and stands at the door of the horizon to emerge from the Duat and start his spiritualization ;

the Horizon (antechamber) : "Axt" ("Akhet"), translated as "horizon", is both the junction of sky and Earth and a place in the sky underneath this point (before eastern dawn and after western dusk), a secret interstitial zone reached and crossed by boat. It is a zone of transition and a "radiant place", the "land of the blessed". The horizon is the place of becoming effective, the locus of the becoming "Ax" ("Akh"), an effective spirit. Note (as did Allen, 1988), that the Cannibal Hymn, thematically belongs in its place (the East Gable). It summarized the king's passage through the night sky to the Sun at dawn. The process of spiritualization ends with the emergence of the new light ;

the Imperishable sky (northern corridor) : the process of transfiguration (ultimate spiritualization) being completed, the Akh-spirit leaves the tomb and ascends to the northern stars, becoming an Imperishable One.

Eyre (2002) suggests the training and initiation of the funerary priests points to this-life rituals. Perhaps the king rehearsed his forthcoming burial during life ?

"The promise of divine assistance, resurrection, and safe passage to the afterlife is not, however, a concern purely of funerary ritual, and the markedly initiatory form of parts of the mortuary literature must be taken as a pointer to contemporary 'this-life' ritual that is otherwise lost from the archaeological record." - Eyre, 2002, p.72.

Recently, Naydler (2005), by suspending the funerary interpretation, evidenced that the Pyramid Texts in general and the Unas texts in particular, reveal an experiential dimension, and so also represent this-life initiatic experiences consciously sought by the divine king (cf. Egyptian initiation). These may be classified in two categories : Osirian rejuvenation (cf. the texts of the burial-chamber), already at work in the Sed festival, and Heliopolitan ascension (cf. the texts in the antechamber). Apparently the former was celebrated regularly, whereas the latter is foremost funerary.

According to Allen (2005), the Pyramid Texts :

"are largely concerned with the deceased's relationship to two gods, Osiris and the Sun. Egyptologists once considered these two themes as independent views of the afterlife that had become fused in the Pyramid Texts, but more recent research has shown that both belong to a single concept of the deceased's eternal existence after death - a view of the afterlife that remained remarkably consistent throughout ancient Egyptian history." - Allen, 2005, p.7.

conjectured symbolism of the compass points

Many variations regarding the reading direction of the pyramid texts of Unas prevail. Allen's interpretation of Spiegler's conjecture (identifying the burial-chamber with the Duat and the antechamber with the Akhet) seems very interesting and has been adapted. However, my sequencing of the texts differs from both Allen & Naydler, and this for variant reasons.

For example, Allen (2005) is not impressed that in the sacropagusroom, PT 219 on the South Wall continues on the East Wall, nor that in the antechamber PT 260 on the West Wall continues on the South Wall. For Naydler (2005), this points to the Solar & regenerative movement from West to East, as seen in the tomb, confirmed by what he sees as examples of inverse quioning, used in architecture to avoid making the joint between two blocks in the corner.

5. An integration of perspectives.

► the mind & magic of Re

Let us try to integrate these various perspectives, taking into consideration the cognitive texture of the ante-rational mind as well as the dramatic, ritualistic interpretation of these ancient magical texts.

If we understand these texts as magical devices, and realize each monarch had his own political and theological preferences, then it seems likely each divine king, to define his own royal cult, made his own, titulary choice out of the available body of religious literature (available on papyrus), maybe adding a few spells of his own. By doing so, he left to posterity an elaborated theo-literary testament with magical effectivity. If so, it became exemplary. This was his magical Great Speech, serving Pharaoh's welfare in the afterlife, elevating him above all possible beings and making him rise even above most deities (cf. the Cannibal Hymn). But also during life on Earth, his royal cult was active and assured his renewal (as the Sed festivals testify).

This magic is part of the logic of the Great Speech, which involved a return to the First Time ("zep tepi") of Atum-Khepri, the self-created essence of Re. This going back to the Golden Age lay at the core of both this-life and afterlife rituals. In the books of the Netherworld, they are represented near Re on his Sacred Barque ; Re with his functions :

"sia" (understanding) : often wrongly associated with "wisdom" ("saa"), "sia" is related to "knowledge", "perception", "intelligent plan", and might be equated with the mind of Re, or "understanding". In the Old Kingdom, Sia is the divine functionary at the right side of Re, holding the god's sacred papyrus scroll. He is mostly depicted or mentioned together with "Hu". For the Memphites, the mind of Re was the heart of Ptah (cf. Late New Kingdom) ;

"hu" (authorative utterance) : the creative word of the supreme creator-god is uttered by his tongue. To speak words of power is immediate and carries conviction, strength and weight. "Hu" is also deified, and is always depicted together with Sia. Both represent the basic functions of the divine mind : overarching understanding (overviewing the Two Lands) hand in hand with authority, weight & power of command. Both concepts pre-figurate the omiscience & omnipotence of the Judeo-Christian God ;

"heka" (magic) : the creative power contained in the divine word of Atum. "Heka" is used to denote (a) the "primordial Sa", the ever-dynamical energy of creation, issued from the word of Atum when he created himself as Atum-Kheprer, and (b) the "primordial field" underpinning creation. Sa-energy was present from the beginning, when Atum-Kheprer hatched out of the primordial egg floating in Nun. Not only does the king's Great Speech know it all and carry the power of conviction & authority, but it has immediate effectiveness and causal power. The king is such a powerful cause that creation bows before the son of the Creator ;

"maat" (truth & justice) : daughter of Re, and spouse of both Heka and Thoth (deities of magic), Maat represents the impersonal idea of cosmic order, embodied by the divine king, who offers "truth" to his father Re. Maat is the plummet of the balance of justice. In Middle Egyptian, the word "maat" ("mAat") is used for "truth" and "justice". Truth is an equilibrium (a bringing together hand in hand with a keeping apart), measurable as the state of affairs given by the image, form or representation of the balance :



U38 "mxAt", balance


"Pay attention to the decision of truth and the plummet of the balance, according to its stance."

Papyrus of Ani
18th Dynasty - Chap.30B, pl.3
Anubis measures & represents this precise attention of the divine guardian & psychopomp, while the input of sensation is recorded (mind) by Thoth.

This New Kingdom exhortation by Anubis, the Witness of the Balance, summarizes the Egyptian practice of wisdom and pursuit of justice & truth. By it, their "practical method of truth" springs to the fore : serenity, concentration, observation, quantification (analysis, spatiotemporal flow, measurements) & recording (fixating), with the sole purpose of rebalancing, reequilibrating & correcting concrete states of affairs, using the plumb-line of the various equilibria in which these actual aggregates of events are dynamically -scale-wise- involved. Responding likewise, but always from two different angles : on the one hand, the "common" view of "the heart", namely the end result of the activities of the living person, on the other hand, the divine view of truth & justice, the truth of the cosmic order of the world, represented by a feather (H6).

The activities of the divine king cause :

(a) Maat to be done for them and their environments and
(b) the proper "Ka", or vital energy, at peace with itself, to flow between all parts of creation (truth and justice are personified as the daughter of Re, equivalent with the Greek Themis, daughter of Zeus - cf. "maati" as the Greek "dike").

The "logic" behind the operation of the balance involves four rules :

inversion : when a concept is introduced, its opposite is also invoked (the two scale of the balance) ;

asymmetry : flow is the outcome of inequality (the feather-scale of the balance is a priori correct) ;

reciprocity : the two sides of everything interact and are interdependent (the beam of the balance) ;

multiplicity-in-oneness : the possibilities between every pair are measured by one standard (the plummet)

witnessing consciousness : the operation of measuring the whole balance is witnessed with precise and concentrated attention and recorded for further comparison and retuning.

Parapsychology, comparative religions and mysticology allow us to distinguish between psi-events (parapsychology), occultism (knowledge of the invisible worlds between heaven and Earth) and mysticism (direct, radical experience of the Divine, the "totaliter aliter"). Although in immature instances of meta-nominal experience (i.e. those falling outside empirico-formal consciousness - cf. Clearings, 2006), these phenomena cannot be distinguished, I avoid adjectives as "shamanic" or "shamanistic" (cf. Naydler, J. : Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts, 2005), and prefer "ecstatic", which is more neutral and devoid of the historical connotations implied by historical Shamanism (the art & science of controlled trance). The word "ecstatic" comes from the Greek "ex", "out" + "stasis", "standstill" or "statikè", "art of weighing", and refers to an extraordinary, unmeasurable, radical experience, clearly out of the ordinary. In my opinion, the Heliopolitan priesthood was too well organized to be called "Shamanistic", although this does preclude shamanistic components in the sacred spells (compare this with the presence of trance oracles & dagger-liberations in Tibetan Buddhism today). Can one do otherwise but disagree with a most rewarding sources of inspiration and learning, Erik Hornung, who wrote about the Egyptians :

"... any sort of ecstasy appears quite alien to their attitudes." - Hornung, 1986.

In Ancient Egypt, the variety of ecstatic experiences may be classified as personal piety (offerings, prayers, festivals, mystery plays), magic (psi-events), the occult (initiation, entering and leaving the Duat) and mysticism proper. The latter is found in the spirituality of the divine king and his high priests, meeting the deity "face to face" in their temples or transforming into one during life (as a living Osiris during the Sed festival).

► the royal cult

In order to understand the Pyramid Texts, the ecstatic, magical, occult & funerary elements should be combined. The pyramid-complex may well have been the place of the royal cult, both during and after the king's life. He was the "Great House" or "Great Mansion" of the Old Kingdom (Memphis), and he alone uttered the Great Speech. All areas of the temple complex may have been used in this magico-religious empowerment of the divine king, who was the sole reference-point here, in the invisible Duat as well as in the afterlife. Much later, with king Akhenaten, we witness the return of this royal Solar cult.

"In each instance Maat is in concrete forms undoubtedly the divinely-established pattern of government, and the pharaoh, by virtue of his divine nature, receives it substantially like a sacrament. It will at once be clear that in this process the king is not regarded as an individual person but as the bearer of the royal office. One must assume that the Maat at work in the ruler was thought to be of benefit to each individual Egyptian." - Morenz, 1996, p.121.

So the "djed medu" or the recitative use of these texts should not be surprising. With the tomb as cosmos, the material image of the texts magically assist the process of the Pharaonic rite of passage, transforming the king into a spirit efficient enough to bless his son with a "good Nile", guarantee of the unity of Egypt. But the royal cult was much more. During life, it was a means to continuously regenerate the powers of the divine king to perform his office efficiently, i.e. ti was accompanied by great magic & divine protection.

The overall Egyptian mentality seems to favour an enduring canon of broad schemes adaptable to immediate circumstances. As each divine king had his own titulary, or political statement, so he, as supreme High Priest, had his own regeneration-ritual & burial ritual, of course influenced by the prevailing dynastic theology, each Temple being the home of the "supreme" god of each system, one of the five local gods promoted to national deities : Osiris of Abydos, Re of Heliopolis, Ptah of Memphis, Thoth of Hermopolis or Amun of Thebes.

The royal cult was both regenerative as mortuary, reflecting a variety of local (nomic) traditions at work around the divine king and soliciting his favours. Of course, some compositions were considered more sacred than others, and the texts carved in Unas' tomb were and/or became canonical.

The Egyptians existed by the grace of the "good Nile" the king alone, being divine, could guarantee. His death was thus a major calamity, and could perturbate the agricultural cycle, leading to famine, conflicts and death. His burial provided him with a ladder between heaven and Earth, and so the first thing the glorified (spiritualized) king would do arriving in the sky (pet, heaven), was to provide Egypt with a new king and a "good Nile". The latter was the magical proof of the king being blessed by the spirit of his father ...

Ba of Ani rejoining the mummy - Ba leaving the tomb
Papyrus of Ani - ca. 1250 BCE - New Kingdom.

This reciprocal function of the tomb has to be emphasized. The Ba could return with its Ka. The liberated "Akh" has freedom of movement and time. It is bright, light, radiant and efficient. While they stay in the sky, the spirits make their souls and doubles come down and unite with their statues. Through them, they were present to the priests. The destruction of a tomb or a temple, implied the end of its role as "interphase" with "the other side" of the false door.

► the language of the texts

In the ca. 650 years between ca. 3000 BCE (the beginning of the Dynastic Period) and ca. 2348 BCE (the death of king Unas), the written language had considerably developed. But although words could be joined together in simple sentences and the latter in pragmatical groups (dealing with honors & gifts, offices, legacies, inventories, testaments, transfers, endowments, etc.), the additive, archaic quality of the literary style was pronounced and remains.

The Pyramid Texts pose their own particular problems & difficulties. Most, if not all, founding fathers of Egyptology accepted Maspero's funerary interpretation, in which these texts form a set of symbolical "heraldic" utterances (great speeches) dealing with the promotion of the welfare of the divine king in the afterlife. But, enjoying a broader perspective, conjecture these utterances were part of the ceremonies of the royal cult, especially those relating to the coronation, rebirth (Sed festival), death, resurrection (in the Duat or Netherworld) and ascension of the divine king (via Akhet, horizon, to Pet, sky).

These texts are to a large extent a composition, a compilation and joining of earlier texts which must have circulated orally or have been recorded on papyrus many centuries earlier. Certain registers go back to the oral tradition of the Predynastic Period, for they suggest the political context of Egypt before its final unification (as Sethe pointed out). Others, although the archeological record is limited, were used in this-life rituals (Naydler, 2005), and must have had initiatoric connotations.

"The Pyramid Texts were not the work of a single man or of a single age. They are entirely anonymous and of uncertain date. And they are religious literature which reflect more or less clearly the conditions of religious thought in ancient Egypt previous to the Seventh Dynasty - more like the Psalms than any other book of the Old Testament." - Mercer, 1956, p.2.

In the Old Egyptian of the Pyramid Texts, the composition between semantic groups is loose. Subjectivity is still objectified. Pre-operatoric activity is limited to the immediate material context. Older structures were mingled with new ones and many traces of earlier periods were left over. The language of these compositions, which has the style of the "records" of the Old Kingdom, is often additive and offers little self-reflection (which starts with the literature of the First Intermediate Period). Didactic poetry (precepts) and lyrics in which personal emotions & experiences are highlighted are nearly absent. Although proto-rationality is most of the time lingering, the overall framework of the composition is pre-rational (cf. cognition and epistemology). The tensions are not resolved but stratified, allowing for several registers to be identified : Predynastic, Heliopolitan, Hermopolitan, Osirian, royal, funerary, ecstatic, magical, occult, funerary, etc. The blend itself is most interesting, if not very difficult to understand.

Various types of parallelism occur : synonymous (doubling or by repetition), symmetrical, combined, grammatical, antithetic, of contrast, of constraint, of analogy, of purpose and of identity. Metrical schemes of two, three, four, five, six, seven or eight lines occur (the fourfold being the most popular). The play of words is the commonest literary feature, depending on the consonantal roots. Alliteration, metathesis, metaphors, ellipses, anthropomorphisms and picturesque expressions and puns are also found. Not surprising a thorough understanding of these texts is lacking.

Translating Ancient Egyptian literature calls for special considerations, which may be summarized as follows :

semantic circumscription (Gardiner) : to those unaware of the semantical problem in mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational thought and its literary products, the differences between various translations may be disconcerting. Ancient Egyptian literature is a treasure-house of this ante-rational cognitive activity, and its "logic" is entirely contextual, pictoral, artistic and practical. The meaning or conception of the sense of certain words, especially in sophisticated literary context, is prone to large discrepancies. Gardiner spoke of "interpretative preferences" (Gardiner, 1946).

Furthermore, despite major grammatical discoveries, Egyptian writing is ambiguous qua grammatical form. Some of its defects can not be overcome and so a "consensus omnium" among all sign-interpreters is unlikely. The notion of "semantic circumscription" was derived from this quote by Gardiner :
"If the uncertainty involved in such tenuous distinctions awake despondency in the minds of some students, to them I would reply that our translations, though very liable to error in detail, nevertheless at the worst give a roughly adequate idea of what the ancient author intended ; we may not grasp his exact thought, indeed at times we may go seriously astray, but at least we shall have circumscribed the area within which his meaning lay, and with that achievement we must rest content."
Gardiner, 1946, pp.72-73, my italics.
To the latter, more attention to lexicography (a discussion of individual words) and the rule that at least one certain example of the sense of a word must be given were considered as crucial. Personally, I would add the rule that one has to take into consideration all hieroglyphs (also the determinatives) and try to circumscribe the meaning by assessing the context in which words and sentences appears ;

the benefit of the doubt (Zába) : amendments should be introduced with great caution and for very good reasons. Indeed, some egyptologists change the original text with great ease, and consider that Egyptian scribes were careless and prone to mistakes. This is not the correct attitude. We all make mistakes. Zába prompted us to respect the original text and made it his principle. He wrote :
"Pour ce qui est la traduction d'un texte égyptien dans une langue moderne, l'étude de divers textes (...) m'a amené au principe dont je me suis fait une règle, à savoir de considérer a priori un texte égyptien comme correct et de m'en expliquer chaque difficulté tout d'abord par l'aveu de ne pas connaître la grammaire ou le vocabulaire égyptien aussi bien qu'un Egyptien. (...) et ce n'est donc qu'après avoir longement, mais en vain, consulté d'autres textes et ne pouvant expliquer la difficulté autrement, que je suis enclin à croire que le texte est altéré."
Zába, 1956, p.11.

multiple approaches (Frankfort) : one has to assimilate the Egyptian way of thinking before engaging in explaining anything. Their "method" being not linear, axiomatic (definitions & theorema) or linea recta. Frankfort (1961, pp.16-20) explains : "... the coexistence of different correlation of problems and phenomena presents no difficulties. It is in the concrete imagery of the Egyptian texts and designs that they become disturbing to us ; there lies the main source of the inconsistencies which have baffled and exasperated modern students of Egyptian religion. (...) Here then we find an abrupt juxtaposition of views which we should consider mutually exclusive. This is what I have called a multiplicity of approaches : the avenue of preoccupation with life and death leads to one imaginative conception, that with the origin of the existing world to another. Each image, each concept was valid within its own context. (...) And yet such quasi-conflicting images, whether encountered in paintaings or in texts, should not be dismissed in the usual derogatory manner. They display a meaningful inconsistency, and not poverty but superabundance of imagination. (...) This discussion of the multiplicity of approaches to a single cosmic god requires a complement ; we must consider the converse situation in which one single problem is correlated with several natural phenomena. We might call it a 'multiplicity of answers'."

integral acceptation (Zimmer) : in his study of Eastern religions and exegesis of Hindu thought, the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer introduced a principle which implies that before one studies a culture one has to accept that it exists or existed as it does and claims. One should approach and interprete its cultural forms as little as possible using standards which does not fit in, which focus on subjects which were of no interest to it (like the colour of the hair of royal mummies) or which reduces it to what is already known. This means that one, as does comparative cultural anthropology with its methodology of participant observation, accepts the culture at hand without prejudices and projections. Zimmer (1972, p.3) explains himself : "La méthode -ou, plutôt, l'habitude- qui consists à ramener ce qui n'est pas familier à ce que l'on connaît bien, a de tout temps mené à la frustration intellectuelle. (....) Faute d'avoir adopté une attitude d'acceptation, nous ne recevons rien ; nous nous voyons refuser la faveur d'un entretien avec les dieux. Ce n'est point notre sort d'être submergés, comme le sol d'Egypte, par les eaux divines et fécondantes du Nil. C'est parce qu'elles sont vivantes, possédant le pouvoir de faire revivre, capables d'exercer une influence effective, toujours revouvelée, indéfinissable et pourtant logique avec elle-même, sur le plan de la destinée humaine, que les images du folklore et du mythe défient toute tentative de systématisation. Elles ne sont pas des cadavres, mais bien des esprits possesseurs. Avec un rire soudain, et un brusque saut de côté, elles se jouent du spécialiste qui s'imagine les avoir épinglées sur son tableau synoptique. Ce qu'elles exigent de nous ce n'est pas de monologue d'un officier de police judiciaire, mais le dialogue d'une conversation vivante."

non-abstraction : egyptologists are aware that the cognitive abilities of the Ancient Egyptians were not the same as the Greeks. Thanks to Piaget's description of the genesis of cognition, we can assess the Egyptian heritage with the standards of ante-rational thought, to wit : the mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational modes of thoughts, which each have their specific modus operandi. Hence, when we try to interprete a text, the question before us is : in what mode or modes of thought was this written (which kind of text is this) ? Indeed, because of the multiplicity of approaches, the Ancient Egyptians left old strands of thought intact, with an amalgam of approaches placed next to each other without interference ;

spatial semantics : Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was more than a way to convey well-formed meaning (i.e. language), but tried to invoke the magic of the "numen praesens", involving the use of artistic space (a contemporary equivalent is the Zen garden) as a additional element in the composition of meaning. The Shabaka Stone, discussed earlier, is only one (late) example of the principles of spatial organization which governed Egyptian from the start (besides honorific or graphic transpositions). Unsightly gaps and disharmonious distributions were rejected. Groupings always involved the use of imaginary squares or rectangles ensuring the proportioned arrangement. This allowed for slight imperfections. Symmetry-breaks bring the importance of an item to the fore. Furthermore, important hieroglyphs were given their architectonic, monumental or ornamental equivalent. Spatial semantics was at work in large monumental constructions as well as in small stela or tiny juwelery and important tools (for Maat is at work in both the big and the small) ... Besides Schwaller de Lubicz, egyptologists have not given this aspect of Egyptian "sacred geometry" the attention it deserve leaving the horizon wide opened to wild stellar, historical & anthropological speculations ;

metaphorical inclination : Ancient Egyptians "spoke in images". This holds true in a linguistic sense (namely their use of pictograms), but also with regard to their literary inclinations. When somebody grabbed his meat violently, the Egyptian thought of the voracious crocodile who has no tongue and who has to grab his food with his teeth and swallow it in one piece. When they saw the Sun rise and heared the baboons sing, they associated this activity with praise and the glorification of light, etc. Some hymns speak in images, poetical phrases, metaphors and other sophisticated literary devices. Literary and metaphorical meaning overlap and interpenetrate (for example : "He who spits to heaven sees his spittle fall back on his face.") ... The epithets of the deities too are full of visual elements. Some egyptologists tend to rewrite this to comfort the contemporary readers. This harms the fluid nature of the texts and makes them dry and gray. The contrary (leaving these images intact) works confusing when Egyptian literature is new. As a function of their intention to try to really grasp the sense, translators make a compromize between literal and analogical renderings. I myself tend towards the analogical (which was closer to the Egyptian way of life), leaving room for explicative notes and comments.
"The only basis we have for preferring one rendering to another, when once the exigencies of grammar and dictionary have been satisfied -and these leave a large margin for divergencies- is an intuitive appreciation of the trend of the ancient writer's mind." - Gardiner (1925, p.5).

It goes without saying, that all the hermeneutical rules-of-thumb in the world will not guarantee a "perfect" translation, which simply does not exist. The Italian dictum "traduttore traditore" (the translator is a traitor), is especially true for Egyptian. As with all texts of Antiquity, large scale comparison of all available translations (in this case, those of Mercer, Piankoff, Faulkner & Allen) is the best option. Not only has the text to be contextualized, but one has to acquire the habit of looking up the same word or expression in various contexts across time (lexicography). But even then, one should be content with Gardiner's view that to circumscribe sense is the best one can do.

"Although we can approach its grammar in an orderly fashion (...) we are often puzzled and even frustrated by the continual appearance of exceptions to the rules. Middle Egyptian can be especially difficult in this regard ..." - Allen (2001, p.389).

Put aside the obvious difficulties encountered when trying to translate texts 4300 years old, a more subtle problem is posed by the mentality of the Egyptians themselves. We must not be entrapped by projecting on Ancient Egyptian literature our own rational approach, based on abstract cognitive activity initiated by the Greeks. Egyptian civilization is ante-rational. This means mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational strands are at work. In the Pyramid Texts, the pre-rational mode of thought is mostly at hand. Hence, no concrete "closure" is realized. In other parts (as in the ascension texts), proto-rationality is suggested.

"The ordinary consideration of the Egyptian symbol reduces it to a primary arbitrary, utilitarian and singular meaning, whereas in reality it is a synthesis which requires great erudition for its analysis and a special culture for the esoteric knowledge that it implies - which does not exclude the necessity of being 'simple', or knowing how to 'simply look' at the symbol." - Schwaller de Lubicz, 1978, p.55.

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