Beuk o the Deid
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| Beuk o Comin Forth bi Day in hieroglyphs |
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The Beuk o the Deid is an auncient Egyptian funerary text, uised frae the beginnin o the New Kinrick (aroond 1550 BCE) tae aroond 50 BCE.[1] The oreeginal Egyptian name for the text, transleeteratit rw nw prt m hrw[2] is translatit as Beuk o Comin Forth bi Day.[3] Anither translation would be Beuk o emergin forth intae the Licht. "Beuk" is the closest term tae describe the loose collection o texts[4] consistin o a nummer o magic spells intendit tae assist a deid person's journey through the Duat, or unnerwarld, an intae the efterlife an written bi mony priests ower a period o aboot 1000 years.
This detail scene, frae the Papyrus o Hunefer (c. 1275 BCE), shaws the scribe Hunefer's hert bein weiched on the scale o Maat against the feather o truth, bi the jackal-headed Anubis. The ibis-heidit Thoth, scribe o the gods, records the result. If his hert equals exactly the weicht o the feather, Hunefer is allaed tae pass intae the afterlife. If nae, he is eaten bi the waitin chimeric devourin creatur Ammit componed o the deadly crocodile, lion, an hippopotamus. Vignettes such as these war a common illustration in Egyptian beuks o the deid.