Pyramid Texts
c. 2400–2300 BCE · Old Kingdom · Saqqara, Egypt
The Pyramid Texts are the oldest surviving corpus of religious literature in the world, inscribed on the interior walls of five royal pyramids at Saqqara during the Old Kingdom. First written for Pharaoh Unas (c. 2375–2345 BCE) and subsequently adapted for other rulers, the 800-plus utterances were designed to ensure the pharaoh's safe passage to the sky and union with the gods. Many spells address Ra or Osiris, declaring the king divine: "You have not gone away dead, you have gone away alive." The Cannibal Hymn describes the king consuming lesser gods to absorb their divine powers. Other utterances describe the king ascending on celestial boats or on the wings of a great bird, joining the circumpolar stars that never set.
notes
The Pyramid Texts are the direct ancestor of the Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead, which democratised funerary literature beyond royalty. James Henry Breasted called them "the oldest existing body of any literature in the world."
currently held: In situ, pyramids of Saqqara
related texts
The Egyptian Book of the Dead — known to its creators as the Book of Coming Forth by Day — is a collection of magical spells and instructions intended to guide the deceased through the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, and into the afterlife. Spell 125, the most celebrated, depicts the Weighing of the…
The Coffin Texts are a collection of approximately 1,185 spells inscribed on the interior surfaces of wooden coffins during the Middle Kingdom period. They represent the democratisation of funerary literature previously reserved for royalty in the Pyramid Texts: now wealthy non-royal Egyptians could…