Plate 37 - Egyptian Book of the Dead of Ani 𓄿𓈖𓇌𓀼 - Read Word for Word - Symbols & Text

Welcome back Egyptology lovers and to the final plate, plate 37 of the book of the dead. This is the final section. So thank you very much for tuning in if you've been watching the entire series and learning a lot about the myth and the understanding of the afterlife for the Egyptians. This will be the final one. So thank you again for tuning in. Follow me again on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and TikTok that I have now. You can enjoy more different content, but this will be the completion of my four year long project that I was really aiming to complete and done this year. So let's go ahead and do what we always do. Let's describe what's going on in this beautiful scenery. One of the most beautifully well drawn, well elaborate pieces here. So this is the final plate, meaning that we should consider this concluding scene to be a continuation of the preceding plate. So from the plate before, plate 36. The key element of the entire vignette is the unassuming representation of Ani's tomb. You could see it over here, right there with its pyramidal top in the bottom right corner. At this point in the papyrus, Ani certainly has achieved the goal of the document and will soon be going forth by day through the doorway. The tomb is shown nestled against the western mountains of thieves in which the tomb shafts were cut. Towering above the tomb is the slope of the desert cliff, indicated by the stripped and dotted pinkish soil. You can see it over here. So the tomb is as if it's been carved into the valley and that's the intention of the illustration. The mountain is surrounded by papyrus thickets. The papyrus stalks are connected not with the mountain but with the goddess Hathor whose head is shown emerging from the slope. You can see her right here, Hathor emerging from the slope. Now the thicket symbolizes the marshlands where the undomesticated cattle roamed in primordial times. The goddess's eye is in the form of the wadjet eye, which is the eye of Horus Ore, and she wears the minat collar around her neck. So the eye and the minat right there. Between her horns is the sundisk, surmounted by two ostrich feathers right over here. The sundisk and ostrich feathers. In addition to her other attributes, Hathor became a major deity in the afterlife in the new kingdom. A thief, she was particularly associated with the western mountains where the royal and private tombs were located at Deir el-Bahari. The section of the Theban necropolis where the splendid mortuary temple of the 18th dynasty queen Hatsheput was located. There was a cult of Hathor whose, according to legend, had appeared in a cave. Hathor then is shown emerging into the light, just as Ani hoped to do so himself. This illustration is a striking testament to the elusive character of the Egyptian art. So what it means is coming out into the day, which is the point of the book. On the left side of the plate, we see the most luxuriant elaborate pile of offering placed in two offering stands. So you see here the first one, very elaborate with meat, bread, fowl, herbs, emmer, spices, just many things. And over here as well, the floral garlands have been draped about the column stands and bouquets appear to both on top and directly in front, completing the most lavish representation of this kind in the papyrus. There is celebratory, triumphant feeling implicit in these abundant offerings. They seem to be intended both to mark Ani's successful passage through the These offerings appear directly before the odd figure of the goddess known as Tauret. You can see Tauret right over here, standing erect upon the shrine-like plinth. Her name, which means simply the Great One, belongs to a group of divine names such as Sethmet, the Powerful, Wosret, the Mighty, Amun, the Hidden, which are perchance for names considered too holy or too portentous for mere mortals to pronounce. This is akin to the substitution of the Adonai Elohim of the Hebrew faith, which is recited from the Torah. Tauret is a composite being. Her body and head are those of pregnant hippopotamus, but she has the fore and the hind legs of a lioness, and a crocodile tail at her back. She is often shown with pendulous human breasts, which are indistinctive in this representation. On her head she wears the low-diadem-shaped headdress known as the modius, on which cow horns with sun-disk are affixed, and wears an elaborate necklace about her throat. In one of her four paws she holds a lit torch, while the other paw holds an anthe, so the lit torch and the anthe, and rests upon a large saw sign, which means protection. You see this in many different blessing offerings. The main function of Tauret is a protector of women and children, especially in the dangerous moment of childbirth. Her appearance in this context is to fathom, unless it has something to do with her occasional epitaph mistress of the West. We don't really know why she's even here, unless because she is combined with Hathor, which means the goddess of the West. Her generally protective nature, or the rebirth implicit in Egyptian conception of the afterlife, so chapter 186 here, which normally appears, is actually not present. So the chapter itself, the text, is not here, and has been replaced by a string of epitaphs to the goddess Hathor. Eventually, women would claim this title. For example, it would be Tutu, the Hathor Tutu, as a feminine parallel to the male, for example, the Osiris Ani, as designated for the deceased book of the dead, and other mortuary literature. So there is the information. Let's go ahead and read this text. It's not very long, not very difficult, and we'll complete that, and that will be the end of the plates. All right, everybody, let's begin reading the text, starting from over here, and this is moving in the proper direction, even though it's not going from right to left. It's going from left to right, but the hieroglyphs are also moving from left to right. So this is moving towards the west, and it's moving in a proper way. So here we go. Starting here, it's the symbol of Hathor. So Hathor, lady of the west, who is in the great land, lady of the sacred land, the eye of Horus, which is in or on his forehead, kindly of countenance, in the bark of millions, a resting place of who has done the right thing, or truth, or justice, in and within the sacred bark of the blessed, which continues here, the blessed for plural, and who built the great bark, which continues here, bark, in order to cross, or for him to cross the waters of truth. So there it is. That's the completion of the hieroglyph, and basically making sure that Ani is on the boat of millions, and in that sacred bark, in order to be able to cross the waters, and ascend into the daylight from the darkness with Ra, and this is the end of the play. Thank you again, everyone, for following these plates. I hope you enjoy, and for those many who come down in the future, and wish to enjoy a little bit learning about the hieroglyphs, well, there you go. Nothing better than learning and reading the actual physical text itself to understand how the hieroglyph structure works grammatically. Thank you again, and enjoy. Have a wonderful day. Please follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and TikTok, which I have now, and hopefully future social media platforms. Have a wonderful day, and may the gods bless you, and be with you.