Book of the Dead of Nakht
The Book of the Dead of Nakht is one of the most beautifully preserved and spiritually rich funerary papyri to survive from Ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom. Dating to the early 18th Dynasty, around 1400 B.C., it was created for Nakht, a scribe and astronomer of the Temple of Amun at Karnak, who held esteemed religious and intellectual authority in Thebes. His papyrus stands as both a sacred manual for navigating the afterlife and a testament to the aesthetic refinement of the early New Kingdom’s scribal and artistic traditions.
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1400 B.C.
British Museum. EA 10471.
Composed of carefully written hieroglyphic text and exquisite painted vignettes, the scroll offers a deeply personalised rendering of the journey through the Duat, the mysterious netherworld of Egyptian cosmology. Within its scenes, we find Nakht performing sacred rituals, confronting serpents, fiery beings, and beasts of chaos across the Fourteen Hills of Spell 149; a perilous terrain meant to test the soul’s moral strength and magical knowledge before it may reach the Fields of Reeds.
The papyrus is especially notable for its vivid iconography, including rare and enigmatic figures such as a solitary black bird perched on a mound, the strangling serpent and donkey, and Nakht’s own striking confrontations with demonic creatures. These visual spells were not merely decorative, but magical acts in themselves; medicine for the soul, as much as instruction, ensuring Nakht’s eternal triumph over the forces of disorder (isfet), and his union with the divine order of Ma’at.
Preserved today in the British Museum (EA 10471), the Book of the Dead of Nakht offers scholars and viewers a precious glimpse into the spiritual concerns, artistic elegance, and metaphysical worldview of an elite Egyptian priest preparing to pass from life into eternity.
Spell 149 and the “Inhabitants” of the Fourteen Hills
In Spell 149 of the Book of the Dead, the deceased encounters Fourteen Hills or Mounds, each inhabited or guarded by distinct entities. The spell names many of them: serpents, gods with knives, beings who breathe fire, etc. These are described as “those who live on the hill”, “guardians of the path of Ra”, or “those who destroy the enemies of Osiris.” The Fourteenth Hill is described as being inhabited by, “The gods who live on the horizon, who guard the path of the sun, who repulse the serpent in the eastern sky.”
The Fourteenth Hill lies at the edge of all known things, where fire flickers in the breath of serpents and the guardians of the Duat hold their final watch. Here, on this last ascent of Spell 149, the soul stands before beings whose eyes see truth and whose tongues speak flame. These are not demons of evil, but sacred wardens: lion-headed and serpent-bodied, wielders of knives and incantations. Only the justified may pass. Only the pure-hearted, the well-spoken, the one who knows the names of the gods and the paths of fire. This hill is both trial and triumph, the last gate before the soul steps into the radiant eternity of Ra’s embrace.
Usually, in Book of the Dead papyri, reading from right to left, in traditional Egyptian order, we encounter a sequence of vignettes above columns of hieroglyphic text. Each box represents a hill and/or mound or domain in the Duat, guarded by specific beings and obstacles the deceased must pass. These scenes are visual spells, meant to accompany and empower.
Amid the perilous journey of the deceased through the Fourteen Hills of the Duat, a solitary black bird perches atop a mound, watching in silence. Though unnamed in the text, its placement is deliberate and evocative; a sentinel or “Watcher of the Hill”, marking the threshold between trial and triumph. Its dark plumage, stark against the ochre background, evokes the liminality of dusk and the necropolis. Whether omen, guardian, or guide, this enigmatic bird embodies the tension of the final passage: the quiet stillness before the soul’s ultimate rebirth.
Birds of Ancient Egypt
Across these mythologies, ravens and crows are rarely just birds. They are watchers, messengers, and liminal guardians, associated with death, the unseen, and the thresholds of transformation. The black bird of Nakht’s papyrus fits seamlessly into this archetype; a “Watcher of the Hill,” marking the soul’s final step before eternity, much like Odin’s ravens circling the world, or the Morrígan’s crows perched on the battlefield of fate.
British Museum EA 10471
Nakht vs the Boar and Serpent
Nakht stands again with a weapon raised, facing and attacking a wild boar (possibly a black pig). Boars and black pigs are commonly associated with Set, the god of chaos, or with ritual impurity.
This scene symbolises the subduing of Setian forces, or casting out one’s impurities before the final ascent. It echoes the myth of Horus spearing Set in boar form.
British Museum. EA10471,14
This scene of Nakht saving a donkey ensnared by a serpent, comes from Spell 149 of Nakht’s Book of the Dead (British Museum. EA10471). The donkey caught in the coils of the serpent may symbolise the soul’s transport, the solar beast of burden, or a representation of the forces that threaten order.
Nakht intervenes, by wielding a spear or staff. This is the final battle before reaching the realm of eternal light.
The donkey (Egyptian: aA) in Ancient Egypt held a complex symbolic and practical role, and its meaning could shift depending on context, from humble labourer to chaotic force. While not as spiritually central as cattle, falcons, or snakes, donkeys did appear in art, literature, and ritual with a nuanced significance.
Like in much of the ancient world, in everyday life, donkeys served as humble yet essential working animals in Ancient Egypt. They were commonly used for transporting goods such as grain, water, and bricks, as well as for traversing the desert and assisting in agricultural labour. As a result, they came to symbolise the world of peasantry, hardship, and physical service, embodying the burdens of both material toil and metaphorical journeying.
Though donkeys rarely appear in tomb reliefs, likely due to their lowly status, donkeys are mentioned in various wisdom texts, folktales, and magical papyri. In certain religious and mythological contexts, however, the donkey assumed a more ominous character. It was at times associated with Seth (Set), the god of chaos and disruption.
Although Seth’s true emblem was the mysterious “Set-animal”, black donkeys or pigs were occasionally used in ritual settings to symbolise his destructive power and were ritually slain to suppress it. In the mythological rivalry between Horus and Set, the latter even takes the form of a black boar, a related symbol of unruliness and danger. Accordingly, in funerary spells and magical papyri, the donkey could represent disobedience, corruption, or the forces of isfet (cosmic disorder). One Middle Kingdom magical text refers evocatively to “the donkey of darkness,” a figure linked with blindness, confusion, and the threats that prowl the edges of the divine order.
Far from a simple beast of burden, the donkey depicted here within the mouth of a snake, appears as a symbol of vulnerability, perhaps reflecting the mortal aspect of the soul, or even a creature aligned with chaos, reminiscent of Set’s rebellious forms. The serpent’s assault may echo the ever-present threat of Apophic forces in the Duat, while Nakht’s intervention, stepping in to defend or sever the entanglement, speaks to the power of ritual purity and righteous action. In this light, the donkey becomes a loaded symbol, representing either that which must be rescued or that which must be overcome, a beast caught between burden and disorder on the soul’s final ascent.
