Among funerary pieces of literature found by archeologists in the Valley of the Kings there is an ancient funeral text called Amduat. Specialists discovered many excerpts of it in the tombs of New Kingdom pharaohs. Until they found the complete ancient document in the tomb of Thutmose 3 in the Valley of the Kings.
For many centuries this ancient manuscript was reserved exclusively for pharaohs only. The story in Amduat follows the journey of the Egyptian sun god Ra, who travels through the underworld, from sunset till dawn. After his death, says the text, pharaoh is taking this same journey. And in the end of it dead pharaoh becomes one with Ra and live forever.
Amduat tells us in details about gods and monsters of the underworld. Some of them are allies of the pharaoh and some are great enemies. In order to achieve his objective and become one with Ra, dead pharaoh must know the names of all good and evil in the underworld which is divided into twelve hours of the night.
So, this is when the Amduat comes handy as a reference for the pharaoh: it names all of these gods and monsters. With the help of Amduat he can call upon them for help or use their name to defeat them.
One of the sacred funerary texts found in the tombs and pyramids along with the Book of the Dead is the famous Book of Gates. Overall, this secret and mysterious manuscipt appears in the times of the New Kingdom, somewhere between 16th and 11th centuries B.C. Book of Gates is accompanying the Book of the Dead which facilitates the passage of a newly deceased into the next world. It is also most famous for depiction of the human races. In fact, Book of Gates tells us what races are known to ancient Egyptians. They are presented as four men entering the next world and names them as Syrians, Nubians, Lybians and Egyptians races.
There are some mysterious texts in Book of Gates that we still don’t fully understand. In the Book of Gates a deceased soul is guided to follow the journey of the sun through the underworld during the night. The text explains that at different stages of the journey the soul must pass through a series of gates. Book of Gates tells us that each gate is guarded by a different goddess and that a soul has to recognize her and act according to the character of that goddess. If the soul does what it is supposed to do then it will pass unharmed. It it makes mistakes then it will wind up in a lake of fire and face eternal torment.
All goddesses have different titles and clothes but they all wear a five pointed star above their heads. The appearance of these goddesses is astounding and up to this day remains a mystery. They are not mentioned in any other texts of Egyptian mythology. They are completely unique as they are not depicted anywhere else in Egypt, except in the Book of Gates.
Another mystery that still bothers scientists is of another origin. Although Book of Gates was reserved only for pharaohs and aristocrats, archeologists found it in the tomb of a common man named Sennedjem. He was an ordinary worker in the ancient village of artists and craftsmen who built pharonic tombs in the New Kingdom.
Originally, all documents and books were written by hand. This type of manuscripts lasted until the invention of printing in China in the 7th century and later in Europe in about 1450. The material used for hand-written ancient manuscripts differed depending on the geographical location. The ones that were preserved till our days included papyrus, various parchments, and even palm leaves and birch bark documents.
First ancient manuscripts were discovered in Egyptian tombs and mausoleums. They were either located inside the sarcophagi or even reused as mummy wrappings. Archeologists and adventurers were discovering scrolls of manuscripts in bizarre places like dry caves, desert burials, or within the secretly buried jars.
The world of antiquity was famous for its large libraries, the most famous and largest of which was the Library of Alexandria. There is a certain irony that most of the scrolls that were kept in these huge storage all over the ancient world were lost forever. They were either burnt in fire or destroyed during wars and turmoil.
Yet, there was another reason for the loss of all those invaluable scrolls. Generally, papyrus scrolls don’t last more than a couple of centuries. Those scrolls that were chosen not to be copied on parchment during the times of Christianity did not survive.
Even with the invention of printing European hand-written manuscript writing kept on going for another century. Printing was expensive and not accessible for everybody at those times. Each time when a copy of a document was created more and more errors were introduced with each copy. That is why, specialists have to compare different versions of the same document to figure out the most authentic parts of a document. As for private and governmental documents, they remained handwritten until the invention of the typewriter in the 19th century.
