Litany of Re with Scenes of Anubis
The Litany of Re is a royal funerary composition of the New Kingdom, centred upon the sun god Re and the deceased king’s transformation and union with him. Its ancient title can be translated approximately as “The Book of Adoring Re in the West” ;the “West” being the realm of the dead.
Its best-known section invokes Re in seventy-five different forms, each representing a particular manifestation or aspect of the sun god. The accompanying prayers identify the deceased king increasingly closely with Re, allowing him to participate in the god’s eternal cycle: the sun descends into the underworld each evening, is renewed during the night, and rises again at dawn. The king hoped for the same continual death, regeneration and rebirth.
It is therefore rather different from texts such as the Amduat. The Amduat describes Re’s twelve-hour journey through the night in considerable detail, whereas the Litany is more concerned with praising, naming and identifying the many forms of Re and assimilating the king with the solar god.
That makes its presence in Siptah’s tomb, KV47, particularly meaningful. The decoration of the early corridors associates Siptah with Re and incorporates him into the sun god’s daily cycle; farther into the tomb, he undergoes embalming under Anubis in the scene from Book of the Dead Spell 151, and eventually assumes an Osirian form. In other words, the tomb’s decoration charts his transformation from dead king to regenerated god.
The Journey of the Sun God Amun-Re
The sisters Isis and Nephthys flank the deceased King Siptah, each with a shen ring as a symbol of eternal protection, while Anubis prepares and tends to the body. The scene belongs to Spell 151 of the Book of the Dead, a funerary composition concerned with the embalming and magical protection of the deceased. Here, Anubis tends to the body of Siptah, preparing the king for his passage into the afterlife and eventual rebirth.
In Egyptian funerary belief, the deceased king was closely identified with Osiris, the god who had himself overcome death and been restored to life. Siptah is therefore presented not simply as the dead king, but in an Osirian state. Isis and Nephthys, the sisters and protectors of Osiris, flank him just as they protected and mourned Osiris, safeguarding Siptah’s body and assisting in his regeneration and eternal life.
The Lake of Fire in Ancient Egyptian belief
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1292-1189 BC. Tomb of Siptah (KV47), Valley of the Kings, West Thebes.
