Lecture: Egypt The Solar Boat Mandjet

Mandjet boat One of two boats or solar barques that carried the sun god Re across the sky each day. The Mandjet was the morning boat. In the morning, when Re was tired from his nightly ordeal in the Netherworld, he was ferried across the sky in his Mandjet boat,

According to Ancient Egyptian mythology the sun boat was believed to carry the solar god Ra across the heavens. The Sun Boat was a great ship, called the 'Barque of Ages' or "The Boat of a Million Years", in which Ra and his companion gods sailed through the sky giving light and heat to the world and then through the dangerous journey of the night, sailing through the underworld (Duat). The companion gods of Ra helped defend the solar god against the evil serpent Apep, an act that represented the victory of right over wrong. The Sun Boat was also the barge in which the gods traveled between the worlds of earth and heaven. There were many prayers and spells to help the solar god Ra and the other gods in the sun boat overcome Apep the evil serpent. These spells and prayers were incanted by the Egyptian priests and the worshipers at the sun temples.

A hymn to Ra is included in the Papyrus of Ani a Book of the Dead that includes reference to the Matet sun boat and the Sektet sun boat as follows:.

"Hail, thou Disk, thou lord of rays, who risest on the horizon day by day! Shine thou with thy beams of light upon the face of Osiris Ani, who is true of voice; for he singeth hymns of praise unto thee at dawn, and he maketh thee to set at eventide with words of adoration, May the soul of Ani come forth with thee into heaven, may he go forth in the Matet boat, may he come into port in the Sektet boat, and may he cleave his path among the never-resting stars in the heavens.

The companions of the solar god Ra in the sun boat included a variety of different gods, mainly those who featured in the mythology of the collection of nine gods called the Ennead of Heliopolis. The nine solar gods and deities were named Atum (Ra), Geb, Isis, Nephthys, Nut, Osiris, Set, Shu and Tefnut. The gods Horus and Anubis were the sons of Osiris and were part of the extended 'divine family'. A lesser known god called Anti was occasionally depicted on the sun boat. Anti was the 'Guardian of the sunrise', depicted as a Hawk-headed man on a crescent-shaped boat.



Picture of the Sun Boat, surrounded by the giant figure of the goddess Nut "She who protects". Ra is depicted at the front of the sun boat, crowned by the sun disk in the company of gods who featured in the creation myth

The ceremony of the opening of the mouth

This ceremony was performed after the funeral cortège (see lower register) had reached its destination. Its purpose was to return to the deceased the use of his organs in the Afterlife. He had to be able to feed himself, recite magical spells, give commands and see. 

In the case of statues of gods it was generally performed in the House of Gold, i.e. the atelier of the sculptor and goldsmith. The eyes and mouth were 'cut' open with a stp (setep) adze, thus enabling the god to see, speak and eat, and at the same time enabling all the other senses as well. The psS-kf (pesesh-kaf) was possibly used to cut the statue's umbilical cord symbolically, the last act of giving birth. In the Pyramid Texts it is used to prepare the mouth:

"O King, I fasten for you your jaws which were divided - psS-kf."

Faulkner: Utterance 37/30a:

Upuaut was the god of Lykopolis and had the form of a jackal. As a martial Opener of the Path his attributes were a mace and a bow. He was Leader of the Gods and his standard was first in royal processions. He preceded even Osiris and two of his standards were carried at the head of the funeral cortèges. Placed in the grave he guarded the deceased.

O King, I open your mouth for you with the adze of Upuaut… Horus has split open the King's mouth, using that with which he split open his father's mouth, using that with which he split open Osiris' mouth, with the iron which issued forth from Seth, with the adze of iron which split open the mouths of the gods.

A model of a calfs leg is instrumental as well, though its purpose is unclear. The ceremony is very ancient, dating to the Old Kingdom, though details are known only since the New Kingdom.
An important part of the ceremony were the offerings which the deceased would need in his afterlife. Loaves of bread, cakes, beer, fruit and vegetables, oil, fowl and meat carried in them a life force which could be extracted. 

The mummy was also annointed. Seven different kinds of oil were used for this purpose, setji heb, hekenu, seftji, nekhnem, twat, hatet ash, hatet tjehenu. The sem-priest offered the vessel and the kher-heb spoke the words:

"Osiris Unas, I have filled thine eye for thee with metchet oil."
"Osiris Unas, there hath been presented unto thee that which hath been pressed out from thy face."
"Osiris Unas, the Eye of Horus hath been presented unto thee, and [Set] hath been made weak in respect of thee thereby."
"Osiris Unas, the Eye of Horus hath been presented unto thee, that it may unite itself unto thee."
"Osiris Unas, the Eye of Horus hath been presented unto thee, that the gods may be brought unto thee thereby."
"O ye Oils, O ye Oils, which are on the forehead of Horus [place ye yourselves on the forehead of the Osiris Unas, make ye him to smell sweet in possessing you], make ye him to become a khu (i.e., Spirit) through possessing you, make ye him to have his sekhem (i.e., Vital Power) in his body, make ye him to have openings before his eyes, and let all the khu (i.e., Spirits) see him, and let them all hear his name. Behold, Osiris Unas, the Eye of Horus hath been brought unto thee, for it hath been seized that it may be before thee."

The Papyrus of Unas

E.A. Wallis Budge The Liturgy of Funerary Offerings, pp 88ff

Excerpt form Awakening Osiris, The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Becoming the Child

In seafoam, in swirlings and imaginings I am fish, tadpole, crocodile. I am an urge, an idea, a portent of impossible dreams. I lie between heaven and earth, be­tween goodness and evil, patience and explosion. I am innocent and rosy as dawn. I sleep with my finger in my mouth, the cord of life curled beside my ear. Like a child in its mother’s belly, I am with you but not among you. I know no ending for I have no beginning. I have always been here, a child in the silence of things, ready to wake at any moment.

I am possibility.

What I hate is ignorance, smallness of imagination, the eye that sees no farther than its own lashes. All things are possible. When we speak in anger, anger will be our truth. When we speak in love and live by love, truth in love will be our comfort. Who you are is limited only by who you think you are. I am the word before its utterance. I am thought and desire. I am a child in the throat of god. Things are possible—joy and sorrow, men and women, children. Someday I’ll imagine myself a different man, build bone and make flesh around him. I am with you but a moment for an eternity. I am the name of everything.

I’ve dreamed the nightmare a hundred times, that old revulsion of bone and flesh, waking in sweat, in a headlong rush toward the world, into the cool certainty of fires that burn in sudden stars, the heat in the body. That I am precludes my never having been.

What I know was given to me to say. There is more.

There are words that exist only in the mind of heaven, a bright knowing, a clear moment of being. When you know it, you know yourself well enough. You will not speak. I am a child resting in love, in the pleasure of clouds. I read the book of the river. I hold the magic of stones and trees. I find god in my fingers and in the wings of birds. I am my delight, creator of my destiny. It is not vanity.

There are those who live in the boundaries of guilt and fear, the limits of imagination. They believe limita­tion is the world. You can not change them. There is work of your own to do. You will never reach the end of your own becoming, the madness of creation, the joy of existence.

Dance in the moment. Reach down and pull up song. Spin and chant and forget the sorrow that we are flesh on bone. I return to the rhythm of water, to the dark song I was in my mother’s belly. We were gods then and we knew it. We are gods now dancing in whirling dark­ness, spitting flame like stars in the night.

In the womb before the world began, I was a child among other gods and children who were, or may be, or might have been. There in the dark when we could not see each other’s faces, we agreed with one mind to be born, to separate, to forget the pact we made that we might learn the secrets of our fraternity. We agreed to know sorrow in exchange for joy, to know death in ex­change for life. We were dark seeds of possibility whisper­ing. Then one by one we entered alone. We walked on our legs, and as we had said, we passed in well-lit streets without recognizing each other; yet we were gods sheathed in flesh, the multitude of a single spirit. Gods live even in darkness, in the world above your heads, in the crevices of rocks, in the open palms of strangers.

I am a child, the seed in everything, the rhythm of flowers, the old story that lingers. Among cattle and fruit sellers, I am air. I am love hidden in a shy maiden’s gown. I am the name of things. I am the dream changing before your eyes. I am my body, a house for blood and breath. I am a man on earth and a god in heaven. While I travel the deserts in frail form, while I grow old and weep and die, I live always as a child inside the body of truth, a blue egg that rocks in the storm but never breaks. I sleep in peace in my mother’s lap, a child mesmerized by sunlight on the river. My soul is swallowed up by god.

Out of chaos came the light.

Out of the will came life.