Volume 8 (2025)

First page of the paper.

Sous le Ciel Étoilé: Proscynème Cordial au Dr Nadine GUILHOU–AMBROISE

A Group of Northern Stellar Deities as a Reference to an orally transmitted Theological Depository

Winkler–Nemes, Gábor

Abstract:

A group of succeeding deities features in certain Coffin Text Spells, either in the context of «sun–folk» and «crew of Rēc», i.e.: members of the solar barque (CT 1126), or as a group of divinities identified with a particu­lar part of the boat of the ferryman who is supposed to navigate the deceased to the celestial Field of Rushes (CT404). These divinities make their appearance in the later corpus of the Book of the Dead, the ones of CT 404 in its later version Chapter 99 (BD 99), while five of them in the glosses of BD 17, as part of a group of seven 3ḫ–souls residing behind the «Bull’s Foreleg». Besides the interrelated corpora of the abo­ve–mentioned mortuary texts, these divinities appear in similar succession in the company of other deities, featuring in the representations of the northern constellations in royal and élite tombs of the New Kingdom and of later periods. In the Tomb of Petosiris near Atfīh dating to the Mid–Ptolemaic Era, they are labelled as the indestructible stars, i.e.: the circumpolar stars. Similarly to BD 99, BD 17 —also— has its own predecessor among the Coffin Texts, namely CT 335 and CT 336. Interestingly enough, the gloss mentioning these stellar deities does not feature in the older CT version, allowing for the presumption that their appearance is due to a later theological codification as part of the revision that resulted in the New Kingdom corpus of the BD. However, the presence of five of the seven deities in CT 404 and CT 1126 in the same context, i.e.: in the cele­stial region and in the same corpus as CT 335 and CT 336, leads to the likely assumption that they were alrea­dy known at the time of the formation of the CT. Therefore, their absence in CT 335 and reappearance in BD 17 was merely a question of choice of the theologians, and thus a reference to a larger, existing theological de­pository that was orally available and transmittable, and the written use of its constituent priestly wisdom was based on the decision of the body of priests who were responsible for its transmission.

Citation:

Winkler–Nemes, G. 2025. «A Group of Northern Stellar Deities as a Reference to an orally transmitted Theological Depository», JHIE 8: 55–73

DOI:

10.5281/zenodo.19045367

Language: en

Submitted on 2024-01-04; accepted on 2025-04-12

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