The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

182 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

whose invention the older mythology contributed. Fire-breathing
serpents are prominent among them, lighting up the darkness
for the friends of Ra, and burning his foes with their poisonous
[198] flames.^161
The artificial character of this picture of the other world is clear
at the first glance. With the pedantic attention to details which
characterised the Egyptian, every part of it has been carefully
elaborated. The names and forms of the personages who stand on
the banks of the infernal river or enter the boat of Ra, as with each
successive hour he passes into a new region, are all given; even
the exact area of each region is stated, though the measurements
do not agree in all the versions of the book. But the best proof
of its artificial nature is to be found in a fact first pointed out by
Professor Maspero. Two of the older conceptions of the other
world and the life beyond the grave, which differed essentially
from the solar doctrine, are embedded in it, but embedded as it
were perforce. In the fourth and fifth hours or regions we have a
picture of the future life as it was conceived by the worshippers
of Sokaris in the primitive days of Memphis; in the sixth and
seventh, the tribunal and paradise of Osiris.
The kingdom of Sokaris represented that dreary conception
of an after-existence which was associated with the ka. Like the
mummy, the ka was condemned to live in the dark chamber of the
tomb, whence it crept forth at night to consume the food that had
been offered to it, and without which it was doomed to perish.
Long before the age when the Book of Am Duat was written, this
primitive belief had passed away from the minds of men; but the
tradition of it still lingered, and had secured a permanent place in
the theological lore of Egypt. It has accordingly been annexed as
it were by the author of the book, and transformed into two of the
regions of the night through which the solar bark has to pass. But
the terms in which the kingdom of Sokaris had been described

(^161) For a translation and analysis of the Book of Am Duat, see Maspero,Études
de Mythologie et d'Archéologie égyptiennesii. pp. 1-163.