Book of Gates

• 1. Introduction

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  The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom, and it begins where most stories end: at the moment of death. A newly deceased soul stands at the threshold of the underworld, about to embark on a journey alongside Ra, the sun god, through the twelve hours of the night. What awaits is not simply darkness. It is a succession of gates, each guarded by a different serpent deity, each requiring the traveler to know something specific before they can pass. Get it wrong, and the consequences are severe. The text is blunt on this point: some souls will pass through unharmed; others will face torment in a lake of fire.

  The Book of Gates runs to one hundred scenes, making it one of the most elaborate funerary compositions from ancient Egypt. Each scene is broken into three horizontal registers, layered with figures, hieroglyphs, and detail. The script raises questions that take the whole of those one hundred scenes to answer. What does the soul actually encounter at each gate? What separates the blessed from the damned? And why did the ancient Egyptians believe that knowing a serpent's name was the difference between resurrection and destruction?

• 2. Origins and Discovery

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  The ancient Egyptians never gave this text a name. The title it carries today came from French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, who called it "Livre des Portes" - Book of Gates. Other scholars followed: Jean-Francois Champollion worked to decipher and translate it, while Erik Hornung and Alexander Piankoff each left their mark on how the text is organized today. Hornung created the designation of hours, and Piankoff established the system of divisions.

  The earliest known appearance of the Book of Gates is in the tomb of Horemheb, who died around 1295 BC, in the 18th Dynasty. That early version is incomplete. The text then spread through the 19th and 20th Dynasties, appearing across a range of royal tombs. Seti I holds a distinctive place in this history: his sarcophagus bears the first complete inscription of the Book, and the first half of the text decorates the pillared halls of his tomb.

  Before Horemheb, the Amduat had served as the funeral text of choice among royalty. Placing the Book of Gates on burial chamber walls instead was a departure. Horemheb's tomb carries the second through sixth hours on those walls, a choice that broke with what had come before. Ramesses VII, who died around 1130 BC, marks the later end of the period when these scenes were actively commissioned.

• 3. Who Displayed It and Where

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  Sennedjem was not a king. He was a worker in the village of Deir el-Medina, the ancient community of artists and craftsmen who built the pharaonic tombs of the New Kingdom. His tomb contains scenes from the Book of Gates, as does the tomb of Tjanefer, a priest of Amun. These examples tell us the text was not strictly royal property, though it did skew that way.

  For those outside the royal lineage, the Book of the Dead was more commonly displayed. Yet it was not unusual to find the Book of Gates alongside it. In some tombs, only a handful of scenes appear, worked in between passages from the Book of the Dead. Ramesses II's tomb has partial scenes inscribed on the pillared walls. Ramesses VII's tomb went even further in selection, carrying only certain hours.

  The partial displays raise a practical question the source text addresses directly: the Book of Gates and the Amduat together, according to scholar Mohamed Ragheb Dardir, appear in the same tombs because neither is sufficient on its own. The Amduat serves as a guide to the soul's journey and the deities it will encounter. The Book of Gates provides what to do about the dangers at each gate. Together they form a more complete set of instructions for navigating the underworld.

• 4. Gates, Serpents, and the Solar Barque

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  At the boundary of every hour stands a gate, and at every gate stands a serpent. The soul must know the name and attributes of each serpent guardian to cross safely. This is not a test administered once; it repeats twelve times across the night's journey.

  The Book of Gates and the Amduat share Ra's underworld passage as their subject, but they diverge on several details. In the Amduat, the solar barque is larger. In the Book of Gates, only two beings accompany Ra in the boat for the entire journey: Heka and Sia. On the far side of each doorway, two additional guardians and fire-breathing uraei wait. The Book of Going Forth by Day, a separate text, also contains comparable doorways in the underworld, suggesting these gateway structures were a widespread concept in Egyptian funerary thinking.

  The crew difference is not a minor editorial choice. It shapes how Ra's passage through the underworld feels. A barque with only Heka and Sia is stripped down, intentional in its isolation, moving through the dark with protection that is minimal rather than elaborate. The fire-breathing serpents on the far side of each door provide the threat that makes knowing each name matter.

• 5. Twelve Hours of Night

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  Hour 1 is unique among the twelve: it is the only scene where Ra and the deceased soul have not yet entered the underworld. Ra appears in the form of Khepri, the scarab god, surrounded by a protective snake on his solar barque. The boat sails through mountains, and bearded gods Set and Tat hold standards, one bearing a jackal head and one a ram.

  Hour 2 introduces the text's moral architecture. The serpent Saa-Set guards the door named Watcher of the Desert. Those aboard are categorized as damned or blessed by Ra. The blessed make offerings; the damned face destruction by the serpent named Winding One at the next door.

  By Hour 3, twelve mummies line a fire-lit corridor beyond the door named Piercing of Embers. A fire-breathing snake guards both ends. Ra commands the mummies to unwrap and receive breath, rewarding them for pulling the solar barque. The lake of fire here is navigated, not punished by.

  Hour 5 contains the Judgement Hall of Osiris, where the deceased soul's heart is weighed against evil. It is also the hour where Horus presides over the four peoples of the world: Egyptians, Asiatics, Nubians, and Libyans, sixteen figures in total, representing how all of humanity is welcome in the afterlife.

  Hour 6 shows Ra reuniting with his own ba, his soul. As this reunion occurs, the mummies guarding Ra receive resurrection themselves. Hour 10 carries a notable political image: Horus and Seth are reconciled, symbolizing the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt under the sun god.

  The final hour, Hour 12, shows Ra in the form of Khepri once more. Nun, the god of the primordial waters, lifts the solar barque upward into the arms of Nut, the sky goddess. Ra's night is finished. He takes his place in the sky again.

• 6. Four Peoples and Shifting Figures

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  One of the best-known scenes in the Book of Gates appears in the fourth division of the Fifth Hour: sixteen figures arranged in four groups of four, led by Horus into the afterworld. The four groups correspond to the four peoples the ancient Egyptians recognized: Egyptians, called Remetu; Asiatics, called Aamu; Nubians, called Nehsey; and Libyans, called Themehu. The message carried by the scene is explicit. All peoples must make this journey.

  The same scene appears across three royal tombs - those of Seti I, Merenptah, and Ramesses III - and careful comparison has revealed something scholars have not fully resolved. At the tombs of Seti I and Merenptah, the Nubian figures occupy the third position and are depicted consistently: beardless, with jet black skin, and a thick red sash across the chest that wraps around the waist and hangs down. At Ramesses III's tomb, a second figure of the same description appears in the first position, the position typically held by Egyptians. The hieroglyph normally associated with Egyptians sits next to this second figure in its traditional spot.

  Another irregularity surfaces with the Asiatic and Libyan figures. At Seti I and Merenptah, the Asiatic stands second, depicted with a cloth headband with two trailing ends, and the Libyan stands fourth, distinguished by a side-lock of hair and a loosely worn long garment leaving one or both shoulders exposed. At Ramesses III, these two figures have exchanged positions while the hieroglyphs beside them have not moved. One explanation is that a separate artisan rendered the figures after the hieroglyphs were already inscribed, leading to a mismatch. The question remains open.