Even Gods Can Die

A number of Egyptian texts show that although the gods were not considered to be mortal in the usual sense, they could nevertheless die

. This is clearly implied in the so-called Cannibal Hymn of the Pyramid Texts, and is of great importance in the development of even some of the greatest cults of Egyptian religion particularly those of trie nether-world god Osiris and the sun god Re. Although the Osiris died ^almost certainly because such a state- Osiris died almost certainly because such a state- ment would be believed to magically preserve the reality of the gods death they, and later Classical commentators, do clearlv show that Osiris was slain at the hands of his antagonist Seth, and was mummified and buried. The great sun god Re was thought to grow old each day and to die each night (though for the same reason, specific mention of the gods death is not found), and then to be born or resurrected each day at dawn. This concept is clearest in late evidence such as texts found in the temples of Ptolemaic date, but it was doubtless an idea long speculated on by the Egyptians and is implicit in many of the representations and texts found in New Kingdom royal tombs. It is also found in several Egyptian myths which describe the sun god as immensely old and clearly decrepit. One spell from the Coffin Texts includes an overt threat

that the sun god might die (CT VII 419), showing that the idea of his demise extends at least as far back as Middle Kingdom times.

Divine demise

The principle of divine demise applies, in fact, to all Egyptian deities. Texts which date back to at least the New Kingdom tell of the god Thoth assigning fixed life spans to humans and gods alike, and Spell 154 of the Book of the Dead unequivocally states that death (literally, decay and disappearance) awaits every god and every goddess. Thus, when the New Kingdom Hymn to Amun preserved in Papyrus Leiden 1350 states that his body is in the west, there can be no doubt that this common Egyptian metaphorical expression refers to the gods dead body. Scholars such as Francois Daumas and Ragnhild Pinnestad have shown that there are clues in late Egyptian temples that the innermost areas were regarded as the tombs of the gods. There are also various concrete references to the tombs of certain gods with some sites such as Luxor and western Thebes being venerated as such from New Kingdom times at least. But all this evidence must be viewed in its proper context, for death need not imply the cessation of existence. From the Egyptian perspective life emerged from death just as death surely followed life and there was no compelling reason to exempt the gods from this cycle.This idea was aided by the fact that the Egyptians distinguished two views of eternity: eternal continuity djet) and eternal recurrence {neheh)> This is clear in statements such as that found in the Coffin Texts, lam the one Arum created I am bound for my place of eternal sameness It is I who am Eternal Recurrence (CT 15). The gods could thus die and still remain in the ongoing progression of time. As Erik Hornung has stressed, the mortality of Egyptian gods enables them to become young again and again, and to escape from the disintegration that is the inevitable product of time.

The end of time

Ultimately, a final end did await the gods. In Egyptian mythology it is clear that only the elements from which the primordial world had arisen would even-tually remain. This apocalyptic view of the end of the cosmos and of the gods themselves is elaborated upon in an important section of the Coffin Texts in which the creator Atum states that eventually,after millions of years of differentiated creation, he and Osiris will return to one place, the undifferen-tiated condition prevailing before the creation of the world (CT VII467-68). In the Book of the Dead this end of days* is even more clearly described in a famous dialogue between Atum and Osiris in which, when Osiris mourned the fact that he would eventually be isolated in eternal darkness, the god.Atum comforted him by pointing out that only the two of them would survive when the ally reverted to the primeval ocean from which all else arose Then, it is said, Atum and Osiris would take the form of serpents (symbolic of unformed perceive them (BD 175). Despite their seeminsrlY perceive them (BD 175). Despite their seemingly endless cycles of birth, ageing, death and rebirth,the gods would finally perish in the death of the cosmos itself, and there would exist only the potential for life and death within the waters of chaos.

by: hassan.sh

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