Egyptian Myth and Discourse Myth Gods and The Early Written and Iconographic Record

Egyptian Myth and Discourse: Myth, Gods, and the Early Written and Iconographic Record
Author(s): John Baines

Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 81-105
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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EGYPTIAN MYTH AND DISCOURSE: MYTH, GODS, AND THE

EARLY WRITTEN AND ICONOGRAPHIC RECORD*
JOHN BAINES,
University of Oxford
I. CHARACTER AND HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM
FOR decades, a number of Egyptologists have seen the definition and status of
myth as one of the most problematic aspects of Egyptian religion and texts. The
essential difficulty with the concept of myth has been, on the one hand, the divergence
between the ample attestation of many Egyptian deities and groupings of deities, and,
on the other hand, the near absence of narratives about the gods that can easily be
termed myths. Scholars have questioned the existence of myths in earlier periods and
have been perplexed by the variability of mythical motifs. This attitude contrasts with
those of students of many ancient cultures and most complex societies, in which myth is
seen as a central repository of values, many myths are known in the literary record, and
the problem of defining myth may be given a subordinate position.
* Abbreviations of works cited
frequently in this
article are as follows: Conceptions: Erik Hornung,
Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, trans. John
Baines (Ithaca, New York, 1982) (revision of Der
Eine und die Vielen: Altagyptische Gottesvorstellungen [Darmstadt, 1971]; French trans. Paul Couturiau [from the English], Jean-Paul Bertrand, ed.,
Les Dieux de l'Egypte: L'un et le multiple, Civilisation et Tradition [Monaco, 1986], with additional
revisions); GOF: Gottinger Orientforschungen IV.
Reihe: Agypten (Wiesbaden, 1973-); Lichtheim: Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature:A Book
of Readings, 3 vols. (Berkeley, 1973-80); Mythe:
Siegfried Schott, Mythe und Mythenbildung im alten Agypten, UGAA 14 (Leipzig, 1945); "Past":
John Baines, "Ancient Egyptian Concepts and Uses
of the Past: 3rd to 2nd Millennium B.C. Evidence,"
in Robert Layton, ed., Who Needs the Past?: Indigenous Values and Archaeology (London, 1989),
pp. 131-49; Seth: Herman te Velde, Seth, God of
Confusion, Probleme der Agyptologie 6 (Leiden,
1967); "Verborgenheit":Jan Assmann, "Die Verborgenheit des Mythos in Agypten," GM 25 (1977): 743; Verhaltnis: Eberhard Otto, Das Verhaltnis von
Rite und Mythus im Agyptischen, Sitzungsberichte
der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften,
[JNES 50 no. 2 (1991)]

@by The University of Chicago.
All rights reserved.
0022-2968/91 / 5002-0001$1.00.
phil.-hist. Ki. 1958, no. 1 (Heidelberg, 1958); "Wirklichkeit":Friedrich Junge, "Wirklichkeitund Abbild:
Zum innerigyptischen Synkretismus und zur Weltsicht der Hymnen des Neuen Reiches," in Gernot
Wiessner, ed., Synkretismusforschung- Theorie und
Praxis, Gottinger Orientforschungen:Grundlagenund
Ergebnisse 1 (Wiesbaden, 1978), pp. 87-108; "Zeugung": Jan Assmann, "Die Zeugung des Sohnes:
Bild, Spiel, Erzahlung and das Problem des agyptischen Mythos," in Jan Assmann et al., Funktionen
und Leistungen des Mythos: Drei altorientalische
Beispiele, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 48 (Freiburg,
Switzerland and G6ttingen, 1982), pp. 13-61.
This article is an initial discussion of the status
of myth in Egyptian texts. I do not consider attestation from periods after the New Kingdom, which is
uncontroversial. I hope later to present a study of
Egyptian myths on the basis of the position presented
here. For reasons of space, I omit non-German
traditions of scholarship and restrict discussion of
questions of definition.
A preliminary version was given at the University
of Chicago in March 1989. I am grateful for the
invitation to attend, to Stephen Parker for organizing my visit, and to participants for many useful
comments. That version was later presented to a
seminar at the University of Michigan to whose
members I am indebted for discussion. I should also
like to thank Christopher Eyre, Erhart Graefe, Rolf
Krauss, and Peter Machinist for comments on drafts,
and Richard Parkinson for much help. Work was
aided by a Humboldt-Stiftung fellowship at the University of Mtinster.
81

82
JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
This article offers a critique of the Egyptological approaches and suggests alternatives
to them, focusing on the German tradition, which is the only one with a continuing
discussion of the status of myth. Outside these discussions the problems of the presence
and absence of myths, and of the relation between the written record and whatever
myths there were in other contexts, have hardly been raised. The possibility that there
were no narrative myths in some periods should be taken seriously because societies
with few myths do exist,' but that might be rare in a complex state. It should also be
asked whether myths are as ideologically significant as is often assumed.
Early scholars, notably Heinrich Brugsch,2 tended to exploit the fragmentary evidence and assume that there had been numerous myths relating to the many deities; the
task was to order the material, especially in regional terms, and to reconstruct the cults
and assemble evidence for myths.3 The evidence they used is often scattered or consists
only of allusions or evocations. Brugsch's principal successor was Hermann Kees, whose
work culminated in Der Gdtterglaube im alten Agypten.4 This approach is appropriate
for late materials because of the amount of information they preserve, often regionally
organized; here it continues to be pursued.5 It assumes that available evidence is only a
fraction of what there was both in quantity and in range of genres.
Writers who have moved away from these approaches have attended more closely to
the form and statements of the sources themselves, partly to the exclusion of their
position in a wider context of religious conceptions and action. There has also been a
change of temporal focus. Whereas earlier Egyptology tended to concentrate on more
recent periods, especially for religion, later scholarship has turned increasingly to earlier
times, with their sparser and more problematic evidence. The growing emphasis on
sources contrasts with the rather absurd interpretation of Kurt Sethe, who suggested
(with reserve) in Urgeschichte und iilteste Religion der Agypter6 that relations between
gods could be mapped fairly directly onto events in order to model prehistory as far
back as the fifth millennium B.C. Such a construct could be proposed only if contexts
and mechanisms of spoken and written transmission were largely ignored. Because of
hypotheses such as this one, it is understandablethat these scholars' breadth of approach
should have been ignored or discredited.7 Sethe and Kees also showed a certain
rationalistic contempt for religion and reduction of its implications to politics and
factional struggle. The reaction against these aspects after World War II was probably
reinforced by antipathy to this reductionism and to the nationalism of these academically illustrious scholars.
I See, for example, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The
Zande Trickster, Oxford Library of African Literature (Oxford, 1967), pp. 31-32; general context
pp. 11-13.
2 Heinrich Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der
alten Aegypter (Leipzig, 1885-88, 1891).
3 For the nineteenth-century controversy on Egyptian gods, which is closely related to that mentioned
here, see Conceptions, pp. 17-26.
4 Hermann Kees, MVAG 45 (1941; 2d ed., Berlin
[East], 1956); historical outline: preface, pp. v-vii,
introduction, pp. 1-4, with acknowledgement of
Brugsch.
5 For example, Adolphe Gutbub, Textes fondamentaux de la thdologie de Kom Ombo, 2 vols.,
Bibliothbque d'Etude 47 (Cairo, 1973). Jean Yoyotte

has contributed many studies in this area.
6 Kurt Sethe,
Abhandlungen fdir die Kunde des
Morgenlandes 18:4 (Leipzig, 1930).
7 See positive assessment of Sethe's work in, for example, Jacques Vandier, La Religion egyptienne, 2d
ed., Les Anciennes Religions Orientales 1 (Paris,
1949), p. 31. J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus
and Seth from Egyptian and Classical Sources: A
Study in Ancient Mythology, Liverpool Monographs
in Archaeology and Oriental Studies (Liverpool,
1960), basically followed Sethe's reconstruction; see
Hans Bonnet's comments in his review of Griffiths in
OLZ 57 (1962): 472-74; Seth, pp. 74-80.

EGYPTIAN MYTH AND DISCOURSE
83
The first author of the post-Kees generation to discuss the problem of Egyptian myth
was Siegfried Schott.8 The point of departurefor his approach was the vast range of brief
statements, particularly in the Pyramid Texts, that allude to events in the world of the
gods. Studies of Giinther Rudnitzky9 and Eberhard Otto'o built on Schott's book on
myth, and on his study of the hypothetical function of the Pyramid Texts in royal
mortuary rituals,1"to elaborate a theory of the close connection between Egyptian myth
and ritual. This theory arose almost independently of the wider discussion-now largely
ignored-of the relation between myth and ritual and the putative origin of myth in
ritual.12
Schott's basic conclusion was that the Egyptians had no "true" myths before Early
Dynastic times and that traces of their formation could be seen in the Pyramid Texts.
His position has seldom been seriously disputed, as against being ignored or built
upon."3He considered that there was a time when "stories"or "folktales" about the gods
existed on the one hand-he called narratives Mdrchen and the early Egyptians' mental
universe mdrchenhaft14--and rituals were performed on the other, without there being
any essential connection between the two." There were thus "myth-free (mythenfrei)"
rituals16and myths perhaps developing separately from them. In that period, rituals
were believed to be innately efficacious, whereas by the Old Kingdom this conviction
withered, so that the rites then came to be associated with myths, whose authority
resacralized them and rendered them effective once more." Because ritual thus had
priority over myth, myths might be either created or distorted in the process of using
them in rituals. Many of the mythical elements encountered in ritual texts can be
reduced to just a few motifs, particularly the restitution of the healed eye of Horus. If
these important ritual texts were representative of the range that existed, or of oral
traditions and religious practices, there could hardly have been a coherent body of myth
behind this jumble.
The fullest and most sophisticated study in this area, by Jan Assmann,18 takes the
argument about myths, rather than the one about rituals, a stage further and proposes
8 Siegfried Schott, "Spuren der Mythenbildung,"
ZA'S 78 (1942): 1-27; Mythe-dedicated to Kees.
Schott reported (p. vii) on difficulties Heinrich Schaifer had experienced in assembling myths for a proposed collection of Near Eastern texts.
9 Giinter Rudnitzky, Die Aussage iiber "das Auge
des Horus": Eine altdgyptische Art geistiger Ausserung nach dem Zeugnis des Alten Reiches, Analecta
Aegyptiaca 5 (Copenhagen, 1956).
10
Verhiiltnis.
11Herbert Ricke, Bemerkungen zur
aigyptischen
Baukunst des Alten Reiches, vol. 2, with Siegfried
Schott, Bemerkungen zum iigyptischen Pyramidenkult, BABA 5 (Cairo, 1950); cogent critique, often
ignored: Hans Bonnet, "Agyptische Baukunst und
Pyramidenkult," JNES 12 (1953): 257-73.
12See, for example, Siegfried
Morenz, Agyptische Religion (Stuttgart, 1960), pp. 85-88, who
stated that in Egypt evidence for early relations
between myth and ritual was lacking. Aspects of his
approach, which distinguishes between "genuine
(eigentlich)" religion and "primitive"magic, are problematic. For a survey of the "myth-ritual" question,
see Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and
Myth, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 29-34.
13Schott's exposition is confusing, in organization rather than in style, and has consequently been
rather little used. His clearest formulation is the
summary "Die alteren G6ttermythen," in Literatur,
Handbuch der Orientalistik 1, 1:2, 2d ed. (Leiden,
1970), pp. 90-98.
14See, for example, Mythe, pp. 88-90.
15Essential exposition Mythe, chap. 4, pp. 83-109.
16See especially Otto, Verhiiltnis,p. 9; idem, "An
Ancient Egyptian Hunting Ritual," JNES 9 (1950):
164-77; see also "Verborgenheit,"pp. 15-16. Burkert
cites Otto in Homo Necans and also assumes a
priority of ritual over myth. While this must be true
of the evolution of mankind, it does not mean that
this priority need be posited for the rituals of any
accessible human culture.
17Some points derive from extensions of the
theory, notably by Otto.
18"Verborgenheit."

84
that there were no narrative myths until perhaps the Middle Kingdom, or more certainly
the New Kingdom (see sec. II, pp. 85-92 below). Assmann returned to this theme in a
discussion of the motif of the divine child centered on scene cycles of the divine descent
of the king and referring to sources ranging as far as the Greek Alexander Romance.19
In this article, which cannot be easily reconciled with the earlier one, Assmann concludes that the irreducible core in a myth is not its "narrativity" so much as its
"iconicity."20 This shift allows him to integrate his notion of a Konstellation (see sec. II,
p. 86 below) with that of myth, but it strays to the opposite extreme to his first article
in virtually eliminating transitivity or narrativity. Assmann's "iconic" analogy is problematic because, as he notes, there is little preserved representation of myth in pictorial
compositions. The term iconic is a metaphor for the tableau-like presentation of
religious conceptions, especially of solar beliefs,21 rather than a description of the scene
cycles or of myths.
After Assmann's first article, Friedrich Junge22 published a synthesis of Egyptian
"syncretism" and its position in religious beliefs. This usefully integrates relevant approaches. Junge brings together strands of scholarship which have tended to interpret
the character of evidence for Egyptian myths in different ways: as exhibiting unusual
features of the myths or of the structure of the pantheon. In his analysis, it exhibits both.
Emma Brunner-Traut's entry "Mythos" in the Lexikon der Agyptologie23 builds
partly on Assmann's first article and accepts his closer circumscription of myth. She sees
difficulties with his rejection of mythical content from the Pyramid Texts (see sec. III,
pp. 93-95 below) and remarks that so few texts are preserved from the Old Kingdom
that the absence of mythical narratives should not cause surprise. By implication, either
there could have been such narratives but they have not survived-as is largely true of
later periods-or narratives of myths were restricted to the oral domain and so have
disappeared; myths could then still have existed in early times.
There has been no outside evaluation of the discussion initiated by Schott.24Although
most scholars ignore these writings and continue to assume that the Egyptians had
myths in all periods25 and that the record for them poses no special problem, the issues
raised are important. Among questions that arise are the position of myth in the central
Egyptian cult of the gods and in beliefs about the underworld and the next world;
relations between the various contexts of use of mythical materials; the media in which
mythical materials were or were not recorded; and, more generally, the use of written
19"Zeugung."
20 Ibid., pp. 38-42.
21 Assmann has discussed textual and interpretive
aspects of these repeatedly, esp. Re und Amun: Die
Krise des polytheistischen Weltbilds im Agypten
der 18.-20. Dynastie, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 51
(Freiburg, Switzerland and G6ttingen, 1983); brief
exposition: idem, "Die 'Haresie' des Echnaton: Aspekte der Amarna-Religion," Saeculum 32 (1972):
111-16. For pictorial forms, known primarily from
coffins and vignettes to the Book of the Dead, see
Erik Hornung, "Die Tragweite der Bilder," EranosJahrbuch 48 (1981): 183-237.
22"Wirklichkeit."
23 LA, vol. 4, cols. 277-86.
24 Heike Sternberg,Mythische Motive und Mythen-
bildung in den iigyptischen Tempeln und Papyri der

griechisch-r6mischen Zeit, GOF 14 (Wiesbaden,
1985), pp. 14-20, summarizes the positions of Schott
and Assmann usefully but does not go beyond them.
She announces another relevant work entitled (p. 20,
n. 2): "Das Verhaltnis von Magie und Religion im
alten Agypten. Untersuchungen anhand der sog.
magischen Texten, insb. des NR und der SpZt (Teilthema: Mythische Motive in den magischen Texten.
Zur Verkniipfung von agyptischer Religion und
Magie), GOF."
25 For example, Rudolf Anthes, "Mythology in
Ancient Egypt," in Samuel Noah Kramer, ed.,
Mythologies of the Ancient World (Chicago, 1961),
pp. 15-92, drawing together the conclusions of
numerous articles of the 1950s.

85
records.26One important reason why sources constrain the way in which the problem
presents itself may be that they in turn are constrained by formal restrictions and by
their position in written tradition.27 The analysis of myth stretches what can be achieved
with available sources and brings out problems of the ancient deposition of evidence.
Before addressing some of these issues, I would like to review Assmann's and Junge's
views.
II. DISCUSSIONS
ASSMANN, "DIE VERBORGENHEITDES MYTHOS":THE LATERFORMATIONOF MYTH
Assmann's views on the scarcity of myth are stated more strongly in his earlier article
than in his later study,28 but he hardly indicates in the latter how far his views have
shifted. It is convenient to base a discussion on his first, more sharply formulated
exposition (cited in this section by simple page number).
Assmann does not define myth formally, but he understands a myth as a tale about
the divine world that has "true" narrative qualities, such as a beginning, middle, and
end.29 He shows that pre-New Kingdom mortuary literature is non-narrative, so that
this corpus-the principal body of available texts-cannot be used directly to substantiate the existence of myths in early periods. Events in the world of the gods that are
mentioned typically in the Pyramid Texts have been very variously interpreted, but they
do not form narratives and hence do not qualify as myths. To call them allusions to
myths is to weaken the implications of their presence in the texts, in which they enact,
rather than evoke, an identification between a ritual action and a divine occurrence;30
Schott therefore called them "citations," a usage that begs
they are "performative.""31
some questions by ascribing to the myth an existence separate from its "citation," while
perhaps not suggesting strongly enough the force of the myth's presence in a ritual.
Assmann denies mythical character to a category of Pyramid Texts which Schott
termed "hymns with a name formula (Hymnen mit der Namensformel)" (p. 14).
Similarly, the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus,32much discussed for possible mythical
associations, is not a narrative of a myth, but a ritual (of uncertain identification) that
draws heavily on events in the world of the gods (pp. 15-21). Assmann denies "mythical"
character to narrative fragments in Middle Kingdom texts, of which the most significant
is the Horus and Seth episode in a papyrus from Illahun; he suggests that this is part of a
magical spell rather than a separate narrative (see sec. III, pp. 85-86, 99 below).33 It
26 Cf. "Past."
27 Brunner-Traut
(n. 23 above) sees the issue in
this way.
28"Zeugung."
29 Pp. 20-21. The point is expounded more
fully,
but not very clearly, in "Zeugung," pp. 30-31 with
p. 54, nn. 85-86; pp. 56-67, n. 121.
30 A conclusion of Schott that is reiterated by
Assmann, for example, pp. 8-9 with nn. 2, 5; pp. 1820, esp. p. 20, n. 28.
31 Assmann has used this term in a related sense
(e.g., Re und Amun, pp. 50-51), but it is absent

from this article.
32 Kurt Sethe, Dramatische Texte zu altiigyptischen Mysterienspielen, UGAA 10 (Leipzig, 1928),
pp. 83-264.
33 P. 33 with n. 52. Text: F. Ll. Griffith, The
Petrie Papyri: Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and
Gurob (Principally of the Middle Kingdom) (London, 1898), pl. 3, no. VI.12, p. 4; see also Seth, p. 38
with n. 6.

86
would follow that the earliest securely attested mythical narratives were of New Kingdom date, most of them being narrowly literary or embedded in magical texts.34
Because no early mythical narrative is preserved, Assmann gives priority to what he
terms Konstellationen of deities--relatively fixed groupings of them and relations
among them;35this concept is central to his thinking about the pantheon. He sees the
divine and human or "real"worlds as being so close to each other in early periods as to
preclude people's conceptions of deities from being sufficiently detached for the formulation of myths (p. 14). This view raises questions about the shape and configuration of a
pantheon that has no mythical organization. Its apparent implication that myth is in
some way not serious, or less serious than a Konstellation, seems to involve assuming
that narrative myths of the type that is at issue cannot have a fundamental significance
(sec. III, pp. 99-100 below). Although the centrality of myth may indeed have been
overemphasized, it would be questionable to generalize this view to the rest of Egyptian
society, or more broadly to myths as a whole. It also seems to imply-perhaps unintentionally-that myths can be used for only one purpose in any period; there is no reason
why this should be so.
Assmann's separation of the divine and "real"worlds is problematic because it could
suggest that the world of the gods is not real. For the actors that world is real,36even if
its status may be less straightforward than that of the human world. Assmann subsequently distinguishes between the "real"world,37 which includes such sacred activities
as temple and mortuary cults, and the "everyday"world (Alltagswelt), in which magical
practices take place in an extra-temple setting. Yet although there is a distinction
between temple or mortuary cult and other religious practices, this need not be one
between the "real" and the "everyday." Many usages of magic occur in less tightly
ordered contexts, but in relation to magic and causality-as against sanctity and
decorum-the Egyptians do not seem to have distinguished sharply among contexts,
and they legitimized magic as something the creator had given to the created world in
general.38Magic was a distinct force that could also be personified as a major deity or
creator,39 but it was integral to the cosmos.
The "real" world which Assmann proposes is the elite Egyptian society and cosmos,
excluding anything outside official religious practices and beliefs and those who might
have access to them. One could distinguish between narrowly "instrumental"practices
and ones in which magic or religion was involved, but this distinction would cut across
analytical notions of the "real" and the "everyday." In addition, the instrumental or
34 This applies even to the Destruction of Mankind, which is preserved in royal tombs: see Hornung
et al., Der iigyptische Mythos von der Himmelskuh:
Eine Atiologie des Unvollkommenen, Orbis Biblicus
et Orientalis 46 (Freiburg, Switzerland and G6ttingen); Lichtheim, vol. 2, pp. 197-99 (part only);
Nadine Guilhou, La Vieillesse des dieux, Institut
d'Egyptologie Universit6 Paul-Valery (Montpellier,
1989). Scholars have reconstructed the skeletons of
numerous mythical narratives from such sources.
35P. 14 with refs.; "Wirklichkeit,"passim.
36 See
pp. 10-13, where Assmann argues in favor
of a perspective which is not that of the actors; but
see p. 18, n. 24 where he accepts the reality of the

world of the gods.
37Junge, "Wirklichkeit,"p. 89, applies Assmann's
terms more broadly, and I think more usefully, saying that the "real" world is the "entire factual (tatsiichlich) environment" of a person, the "experiential horizon of the religious subject" in nature and
society. This definition could be too broad because
it is hard to see what a "fact" would be here.
38 See Hornung, Conceptions, pp. 207-11.
39 Herman te Velde, "The God Heka in Egyptian
Theology," JEOL 21 (1970): 175-86.

87
obvious is itself culturally constructed and circumscribed.40 Except for its ignoring of
magic, Assmann's definition of the "real" world might have been acceptable to the
Egyptian inner elite, but a broader measure is needed. These notions may also be largely
dispensable.
Although there is a significant development in the New Kingdom and later attestation
of myths in magical texts, I see no easy way to connect this with changes in the status of
the "real," the "everyday," and their sanctity and relations. Further, the apparent
predominance of groupings of deities in earlier times may not be as directly related to a
strong presence of the "reality" of the gods on earth as Assmann proposes. These
groupings continued to exist later, in periods from which myths are more certainly
attested, and the groupings are in many ways abstract in character. Assmann, like
Morenz before him,41uses a model of secularization, into which this conception of the
"real" and the "everyday" is integrated. The model is problematic, and other writers,
including myself, have suggested an almost opposite pattern of development. The
difference in interpretation here lies partly in using definitions of religion that devalue
magic42and partly in views of such central social phenomena as kingship, where I would
see complex conceptions from an early date.43If by secularization were meant pluralization or the partial separation of social and power relations from religious life, agreement
might be possible. Even then, however, the diversity of social and ideological foci in
early periods may have been underestimated.
For later periods, especially the New Kingdom, Assmann cites magical spells and
calendars of lucky and unlucky days as being rich in narrative elements about the
gods.44 He concedes to these a more strongly mythical character, terming them "mythical statements (or 'realizations of myths': mythische Aussagen)," rather than myths. A
feature which demonstrates that some examples are not simply narratives of myths is
first-person form, which occurs in two texts incorporated in magical spells.45Myths are
almost universally narrated in the third person, as Schott implied when he termed them
"what people narrate about the gods."46 Epics often include first-person speeches by
deities but within a third-person framework. First-person form is characteristic of
non-narrative utterances of deities-aretalogies47-or of complex works of literature.48
The first-person form in the magical spells may lie between aretalogy and literature: it
adds to the weight of the deity's statement and assimilates the narrative to literary types.
40 See Clifford Geertz, "Common Sense as a Cultural System," in idem, Local Knowledge: Further
Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York,
1983), pp. 79-93.
41 Morenz, Agyptische Religion, pp. 6-15; idem,
"Die Heraufkunft des transzendentenGottes in Agypten," reprinted in idem, Religion und Geschichte des
alten Agypten: Gesammelte Aufsditze, ed. Elke Blumenthal et al. (Weimar, Cologne, and Vienna, 1975),
pp. 77-119.
42 See Morenz, Agyptische Religion, pp. 85-87.
43 For these points, see my articles "Interpretations
of Religion: Logic, Discourse, Rationality," GM 76
(1984): 47-50; "Practical Religion and Piety," JEA
73 (1987): 80-83; and "The Origins of Kingship in
Egypt," in David O'Connor and David P. Silver-
man, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship: New Investigations (in press).

44 Emma Brunner-Traut, Gelebte Mythen: Beitrdge zum altiigyptischen Mythos (Darmstadt, 1981),
pp. 18-33; idem, "Tagewahlerei," LA, vol. 6, cols.
153-56.
45 J. F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical
Texts, NISABA: Religious Texts in Translation
Series 9 (Leiden, 1978), nos. 90-91, both Late Period.
46 In Literatur, Handbuch der Orientalistik 1,1:2
(Leiden, 1970), p. 90; cited by Assmann, p. 13.
47 See Assmann, "Aretalogien," LA, vol. 1, cols.
425-34.
48 See my articles, "Interpreting Sinuhe," JEA 68
(1982): 35; "Interpreting the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor," JEA 76 (1990): 69-70.

88
Among other texts that constitute "mythical statements," Assmann cites the stories
about the gods, notably the late New Kingdom Horus and Seth, which he characterizes
as entertainment literature; for some purposes he also includes the narratives in magical
texts. There is an inconsistency here. Assmann grants the status of mythical statement to
narratives in New Kingdom magical spells but denies that status to the Middle Kingdom
Horus and Seth example because it may come from a spell. The only way that I can see
to save this interpretation would be to assume that a single example did not provide the
"critical mass" necessary to posit the existence of mythical narratives or statements in
the Middle Kingdom (sec. III, p. 99 below).
Assmann then presents a model of the relation between myth and "mythical statement." His central category of mythical statements consists of the texts which narrate
myths or episodes of myths. Although he states that the essence of myth is narrative
structure, the myth itself is not identical with any one narrative of its episodes or of a
selection of them. Mythical statements may stand in various relations to (presumably
narrative) myths. Assmann proposes three relations, which may be characterized as
(i) instrumental or analogical (handlungsbezogen); (ii) argumentative or etiological
(wissensbezogen); and (iii) literary or noninstrumental (situationsabstrakt). These types
correspond to the use of mythical material in such contexts as (i) magical texts;
(ii) encyclopedic or discursive material such as the "Memphite Theology";49 and (iii) literary narratives such as Horus and Seth.so These types and sources correspond one-toone in the model on his p. 37. Assmann seems to assume that these functional relations
operate transformations on the "myth"and thus produce the "mythical statement"-the
text or text passage. Thus, the myth is in some respects an analytical abstraction. It is a
fixed entity to which the different occurrences relate, but it is not available for direct
investigation. This status may be one the myth must assume in modern study, but it is
unlikely to be that conceived by the actors, and it is necessary to insist on the reality of
myths for them.
These are detailed problems in Assmann's model. It reifies the relation between myth
and mythical statement into a level or process of its own rather than a mode of
realization. Such an intervening level can be validly supplied if there is a strong
transformation between myth and mythical statement. This may happen with a magical
formula, where the narrative's structure is influenced by what the spell is designed to
achieve or by its formal properties. The model, however, reifies not just this relation but
also the structure of the myth. There is no clear reason for assuming that this structure
should be fixed. In many cultures different versions of myths vary widely, either in detail
or in basic features of their narratives. The relationship between mythical statement and
myth is thus one between two variables, not between a fixed entity and a variable one. In
addition, a realization or mythical statement may affect the underlying myth: their
relationship can be reciprocal.
Some features may prove resistant to transformation. Two magical spells that use the
sojourn of the infant Horus in the marshes as part of recipes against snakebite state that
49 Hermann Junker, Die politische Lehre von
Memphis, Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Ki. 1941:6 (Berlin,
1941), pl. 1; trans., Lichtheim, vol. 1, pp. 51-55.
50 Alan H. Gardiner,
Late-Egyptian Stories, Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca 1 (Brussels, 1932), pp. 37-60;
trans., for example, Lichtheim, vol. 2, pp. 214-23.

89
Isis was coming from the "weaving shop.""' Although this detail, which J. F. Borghouts
suggests alludes to the spinning of the shroud of Osiris, does not seem to be germane to
the spells, it is retained as coloring. In Assmann's terms, part of a mythical statement
has adhered to the myth and appears, without a specific function, in another mythical
statement.
The main difficulty with Assmann's three-level model is that it can imply almost the
opposite of what he proposes. His position is that myths may not have existed before
appropriate mythical statements are attested. Yet his argument otherwise suggests that
the absence of mythical statements would say little about the existence or nonexistence
of underlying myths. If so, there could have been myths in periods from which no
narrative evidence for them is preserved. He concedes this point at first (p. 9), but does
not return to it. The essential supporting arguments for the later stages of his exposition
are two: (1) the existence of myths implies an ontological distance between the divine
and "real" words (p. 23), and yet their inextricable involvement with each other, as
shown in early rituals, is incompatible with such a distance; and (2) the detaching of
divine and "real" involves a disenchantment and the creation of a temporal frame
between them. Assmann dates both of these assumed shifts to the First Intermediate
Period and later.52
If the posited resacralization of ritual through association with the world of the gods
is added to this picture, three stages would have led to the formulation of myths.
In the first stage, there were "myth-free" rituals that were efficacious without divine
involvement. The position and status of the gods and any possible myths would be a
separate question for this stage.
In the second stage, rituals acquired divine involvement, but from a pantheon that
was so strongly immanent and, it seems, so pliable in evocation, that myths were not
created or invoked; instead, smaller groupings of deities and divine events sacralized
rituals. Assmann terms this sacralization a "sacramental exegesis (sakramentale Ausdeutung)" (pp. 15-25). Here his analyses raise no problems and the term "sacramental"
is useful and revealing. He does, however, assume that a "mythical presence"would be a
contradiction in terms (p. 28, n. 28), and this seems to imply that myths could not be
incorporated into rituals, unless an extensive narrative were present." If the parallel of
the Passion story and its role in the Mass is used, both the Last Supper and the
Crucifixion and Body of Christ contribute to the "sacramental exegesis" of the consecrated bread and wine, but there are also narratives of the Passion in other contexts
(including ones that may be read out at another point in the same performance, perhaps
fusing two types of liturgy).54 For the outsider, the Gospel story is a myth, and its
mythical status and religious centrality will be strengthened rather than weakened by its
mobilization in crucial rituals. There are evident differences between the two cultural
contexts, but these need not suggest that the use of fundamental narrative events in
51 Borghouts, Magical Texts, pp. 25 (no. 34), 59
(no. 90), with p. 103, n. 91.
52 Esp. pp. 39-43. By implication, there would be
little point in looking for myths in a period in which
these preconditions were lacking. Assmann suggests,
however (p. 6, n. 6), that an effort would be
worthwhile.
53 Assmann formulates (pp. 20-21) conditions for

speaking of a myth being invoked in a ritual as
(1) "narrative coherence" and (2) a location in time
and place that would turn a ritual repetition into a
mythical evocation.
54 Whether this is a correct historical reading of
the origin of the Mass is not relevant here.

90
either should not be termed mythical. Neither an Egyptian ritual nor the consecration of
the bread and wine contains an extended narrative of a myth, but the treatment of the
divine world in this context is not revealing for the question of the presence or absence
of myths in the wider religion and culture.
In the third posited stage, divine and "real"worlds moved apart and myths came to
sanction some ritual actions, notably in magic, while also serving other functions in
other types of text. This usage was not "sacramental" and applied to more "secular"
affairs.
There is solid evidence for the third stage, and, if this were the sole point at issue, it
would remain only to discuss to which period such a description should apply. The
hypothetical first two stages, however, are based on some extent on arguments from
silence. If they are not accepted, a new hypothesis about the early status and presence or
absence of myth must be formulated; in part, this could apply the third stage to a period
earlier than that for which it was envisaged (sec. II, p. 93 below).
The thrust of Assmann's argument is to demonstrate how the formation of myths and
their integration into religious and non-religious life can be brought further down in the
historical period, beyond Schott's dating to the Early Dynastic Period or Otto's to that
time and earlier."5His recognition of this continuing potential for the emergence of
myths is valuable: myths could have originated or developed and varied throughout
historical times.56 Such development might be blocked if there were a canon of texts
encapsulating the truths of a culture or body of belief, like the sacred books of world
religions; even there, myths develop and change around a relatively fixed core. Alternatively, a small-scale and short-lived society's myths might focus around episodes of
origin which would lose their meaning if new ones appeared that were sited closer to the
present. Egypt is not like either of these cases, and Egyptian sources distinguish between
myths about the gods and "historical" traditions (which could also be termed myths)
about human beings; myths that form a historical charter might merge these two
categories rather more. These points do not qualify Assmann's contention about the
evolution of myth in later times, but they may suggest a range of possible forms of
myth." Conversely, as Assmann initially accepts, the continual evolution of myths does
not imply that none could have an early origin.
There is evidence against Assmann's view that the First Intermediate Period created a
disenchantment which allowed myths to appear. He cites as support for his position
Ulrich Luft's statement that only the Instruction of Ptahhotpe provides an Old Kingdom allusion to the notion of the rule of the gods on earth.58Assmann dates that text to
55 Verhiiltnis. Assmann says (p. 9, without references) that for most Egyptologists it is unthinkable
that myths originated in the historical period. The
approach of Sethe and Kees could tend to exclude
late formation, but, beyond an assumption (which
he accepts) that myths do not treat the immediate
present, it is not clear what he has in mind, and it
would be hard to find such views in other fields.
56 Here Sternberg, Mythische Motive, is useful.
See also Wolfgang Schenkel, Kultmythos und Martyrerlegende: Zur Kontinuitait des digyptischen Denkens, GOF 5 (Wiesbaden, 1977).
57 The presentation of the origins of society in

king lists, with their antecedent listing of dynasties
of gods, is relevant here. See Donald B. Redford,
Pharaonic King-lists, Annals and Day-books: A
Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of
History, SSEA Publication 4 (Mississauga, Ontario,
1986). For a Mesopotamian parallel, see Piotr Michalowski, "History as Charter: The Sumerian King
List Revisited," JA OS 103 (1983): 237-48.
58 P. 29, n. 43, citing "'Seit der Zeit Gottes',"
Studia Aegyptiaca 2 (Budapest, 1977): 47-78.

91
the Middle Kingdom59and thus would eliminate all such evidence. Although the dating
is plausible, the conclusion is invalid because formulas mentioning "antiquity," closely
related to that evoking the rule of the gods, are attested from the Fourth Dynasty,
among the oldest continuous texts.60 The Egyptians may thus always have had a
conception of an ideal, probably "mythical"antiquity, from which the imperfect present
world was temporally removed. It cannot be proved that this conception included the
rule of the gods on earth, and hence a mediation between divine and human as well as
descent from one to the other, but there is no good reason for excluding this possibility.61
On general grounds, it is preferable to credit early Egyptians with a more complex
and nuanced view of the cosmos than Assmann and others would allow because their
position implies a lasting blindness to the realities of existence which is hard to parallel
in other cultures. It suggests that fundamental transformations in cosmology took place
during later periods when display did not change so markedly. Political struggle
articulated in terms of conflict between gods occurred as early as the Second Dynasty.62
This use of the divine world in human affairs is unlikely to have manifested unreflectingly an inseparability of the two, as Assmann posits when he assumes a lack of
"ontological separation." Rather, it may show an awareness of interpretive possibilities-in the sense that people relate human events meaningfully and constructively to
divine ones-and of propaganda.
A low-level argument for the view that there was no one period when disenchantment
set in is that the gods do not simply live on earth.63In all accessible periods, they were
worshiped in cult images within shrines in temples, but they were not thought to be
identical with those images. The First Dynasty comb of King Wadj,64on which Horus is
depicted as a falcon in a bark in the sky while a second falcon surmounts the royal
serekh in the field beneath, shows the distant realm of the god while he is also manifest
on earth (in this case as the king, who is additional to his cult images). Since the gods
were not only or principally on earth, people might not apprehend them in any
straightforward way. One of the main purposes of the cult was to invoke their presence
on earth in their statues.
The connection between myth and disenchantment should be questioned in any case.
This notion seems to be derived from societies such as ancient Greece, in which defining
myths, for example in Homer, were distant from the present social realities of Classical
times and were the objects of some skepticism and open discussion.65 Even there,
however, the myths had serious significance and were discussed and mobilized for the
59 Cf. Assmann, "Schrift, Tod and Identitift: Das
Grab als Vorschule der Literatur im alten Agypten,"
in Aleida Assmann et al., eds., Schrift und Geddiichtnis: Beitriige zur Archdologie der literarischen Kommunikation (Munich, 1983), pp. 64-93.
60 Hans Goedicke, Re-used Blocks from the Pyramid of Amenemhet I at Lisht, Publications of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition
20 (New York, 1971), nos. 6, 60, pp. 20-23, 105-6;
see also "Past," p. 135.
61 This qualifies the position of "Past," p. 134.
Schott, "Die alteren G6ttermythen," p. 93, n. 2,
suggested that a dynasty of gods could have been
included on the Palermo Stone.

62 See "The Origins of Kingship in Egypt."
63 Conceptions, pp. 227-30.
64 Cairo Museum, JE 47176; R. Engelbach, "An
Alleged Winged Sun-disk of the First Dynasty,"
ZAS 65 (1930): 115-16; excellent photograph in
Jaromir Malek, In the Shadow of the Pyramids:
Egypt during the Old Kingdom (London, 1986),
p. 35.
65 Cf. Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their
Myths?: An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination,
trans. Paula Wissing (Chicago and London, 1988).

92
present, as in the tragedies performed at major Athenian festivals. The cults of the
Olympian gods continued for many centuries after the first signs of skepticism.
There are comparable discussions in Egyptian literary texts66--not as it happens in
mythical contexts-which do not seem to have led to any general skepticism. I see no
reason why discussions should not have occurred in periods from which they are not
attested. One may suggest that no specific time of disenchantment should be sought, and
that the gods could have been near and far, taken for granted and questioned in their
wisdom, in any period.67 Since they were not purely good, a simple attitude to them
would be difficult to maintain. The multiplicity of approaches to phenomena and of
relations between divine and human almost requires some detachment. Whereas the
"sacramental" use of the gods described by Assmann seeks to bypass detachment,
mythical narrative may belong in this broader context of negotiating relations between
the divine and the human and comprehending the human predicament. To model a
conceptual space for such phenomena is different from demonstrating that they occurred
(sec. III, pp. 99-103 below), but the notion that myth performs similar functions is a
cross-cultural commonplace.
In a sense, the view of early times as a period when divine and human were in close
contact is an Egyptological "myth" with some of the etiological function of many
ancient myths. In the modern context, such an age of innocence both legitimizes
conceptions of the pristine Egyptian state and fits an analogy between the duration of
Egyptian civilization and a lifespan that passes from innocence through experience to
senescence.68 It is one of many manifestations of the difficulty of comprehending the
duration of ancient cultures.69
This argument need not be pursued. The chief conclusions to emerge from reviewing
Assmann's contribution are that no easy line can be drawn between early periods, from
which myths are not attested in "mythical statements," and later ones in which they are
found; and that myths could have emerged throughout the historical period (pp. 39-43).
Assmann and Heike Sternberg70are probably right to say that the Late Period was the
heyday of Egyptian myths.
JUNGE: "WIRKLICHKEIT UND ABBILD"
Junge's rather schematic approach tends to see myth and religion mainly in terms of
aetiology and legitimation, but it is significant for its fusion of the ideas of Erik
66 See, for
example, Gerhard Fecht, Der Vorwurf
an Gott in den "Mahnworten des Ipuwer" (Pap.
Leiden 1 344 recto, 11, 11-13, 8: 15, 13-17, 3): Zur
geistigen Krise der ersten Zwischenzeit und ihrer
Bewiltigung, Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. KI., 1972:1
(Heidelberg, 1972); idem, "Agyptische Zweifel am
Sinn des Opfers: Admonitions 5, 7-9," ZAS 100
(1973-74): 6-16; Mordechai Gilula, "Does God
Exist?," in Dwight W. Young, ed., Studies Presented
to Hans Jakob Polotsky (East Gloucester, Mass.,
1981), pp. 390-400.
67 Because early sources do not include general
discussion of the sort known from later, it may be

very difficult to establish this point.
68 The purest example of such a vision, which also
informs much popular writing on ancient Egypt,
may be John A. Wilson's The Burden of Egypt: An
Interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Culture (Chicago, 1951).
69 For the
assumption that the First Intermediate
Period brought on the sense of loss see, for example,
"Verborgenheit," p. 42; Fecht (n. 66 above); Erik
Hornung, Geist der Pharaonenzeit (Zurich and
Munich, 1989), pp. 135-36.
70 Mythische Motive, pp. 15-16.

93
Hornung71and of Assmann. Hornung treats as central to the pantheon the ordering of

gods in numerical and other schematic groups which is one aspect of Assmann's
Konstellationen; he also emphasizes divine hierarchies and concepts of multiple manifestation.72 Gods partake in varying numbers of combinations. Those with more are
those who have more power, spheres of action, and prestige, but less clear-cut character.
Egyptian major gods tend to lack the coherent identity of the gods of Classical antiquity,
or of minor deities associated with single domains of nature or culture. This does not
imply that gods and their combinations were manipulated as counters in a power game
but that the formulation of such relations was a significant form of religious discourse.
This poor definition can have "narrative"implications (sec. III, p. 94 below). Weakly
defined figures might not be good protagonists of narrative, and deities may not be
easily characterized against one another. Caution is, however, needed because the
apparent narrative weakness of "mythical statements" in works of literature might be in
part the product of scholars' interpretive strategies.
With other writers, Junge believes that groupings and relations of gods can be
partially mythical or narrative. An example would be how the sequence of the Great
Ennead of Heliopolis from Atum to Horus models a span between pre-existence and
"history,"defining cosmogony and cosmos. Gods can emerge from, or be manifestations
of, a higher, more primeval and important god;73 this model could belong to the New
Kingdom and later. Both these relations are included under the term Konstellation.
Something like a mythical statement, even in Assmann's terms, will be present in every
discursive presentation of the first of these ideas (sec. III, pp. 95-96 below).
Junge's focus on the structure of the pantheon suggests how myth may be subordinate
in elite religious discourse and puts a positive gloss on Assmann's findings. His schematism does, however, involve difficulties. He presents this world as being a reflection of
models derived from the world of the gods, both in royal "historical" action and in the
conjurations of magical formulas.74 Such an understanding by the actors would tend
toward the mystical and seems to me not to incorporate adequately the significance of
events of this world or the urgency with which some of them are depicted on the
monuments. It is not necessary to emphasize models and schemas quite so strongly.
III.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES, RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
DEFINITION: INTRODUCTORY
So far, I have refrained from defining myth. If concepts of myth and Assmann's ideas
of Konstellation or grouping overlap, it may be possible to harmonize different positions. I exclude here modern extensions of the term myth to encompass central fictions
or defining ideas, even though these are potentially very valuable.
71 "Wirklichkeit," p. 103, n. 55; Hornung, Conceptions (this book is not about myth and does not
present Hornung's views on the subject).
72 See also "Verborgenheit,"pp. 10-15.
73 Assmann, "Primat und Transzendenz: Struktur
und Genese der igyptischen Vorstellung eines 'H6chsten Wesens'," in Wolfhart Westendorf, ed., Aspekte
der spitiigyptischen Religion, GOF 9 (Wiesbaden,
1979), pp. 7-42; Assmann, Re und Amun, pt. 2.
74"Wirklichkeit,"pp. 99-102.

94
The simplest definition of a myth is that it is a sacred or central narrative. In Egypt,

those narratives are almost all about the gods. Narratives are transitive: the situation at
the end is different from the beginning, or it involves a restoration. I do not, however,
follow Assmann's requirement that a myth have an Aristotelian beginning, middle, and
end (see n. 29 above). Assmann is unhappy with the inconsequentiality of some narratives, which he seems to explain by assuming that their episodes are related to those
found in magical texts and similar sources and are strung together to form the attested
versions.75Here, he may deduce too much from the texts' failure to meet the Aristotelian
criteria. Egyptian narratives as a whole contain leaps and changes of focus, and myths
need not be different; since they belong in a world where most things are possible, they
may exhibit this characteristic the more strongly.
Realizations of myths (another possible rendering of mythische Aussagen) might
range from a minimal transitive element7"to a tale with many episodes. A myth could be
mobilized in a non-narrative context, varying from short segments of ritual to more
extensive texts. Such a mobilization is distinct from a narrative realization, but its
occurrence is compatible with the contemporaneous existence of narratives. The underlying analytical abstraction of a myth posited by Assmann need not have a very extensive narrative character.
Two main strategies emerge from such a definition: to examine early texts and
representations for traces of myths, and to suggest a framework for the occurrence and
significance of myth in texts and in the dissemination of religious knowledge. Together,
these can address the scarcity of myths in early sources where no narrative can be
expected.
EARLY EVIDENCE
Since myths start with oral tradition, the written record can only point more or less
clearly toward early myths and how they entered written usage. This situation did not
change significantly until belles lettres appeared in the Middle Kingdom, where the use
of myth is within literary traditions and cannot simply reflect oral
transmission--quite
apart from influences of specific genres on what was composed.
Early texts include some suggestions of narratives about the gods. Assmann cites two
passages in the Pyramid Texts.7 One, in Spell 467 with a parallel in Spell 691, is rather
inconclusive. The other, in Spell 477, runs:
75"Verborgenheit,"p. 35.
This is the approach of Philippe Derchain in,
for example, Hathor Quadrifrons: Recherches sur la
syntaxe d'un mythe ?gyptien, Uitgaven van het
Nederlands Historisch Archaeologisch Instituut te
Istanbul 28 (Istanbul, 1972); entries in Yves Bonnefoy, ed., Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des socidtis du monde antique (Paris, 1981);
"Der digyptische Gott als Person und als Funktion,"
in Aspekte der spdtiigyptischen Religion, pp. 43-45.
77"Verborgenheit," p. 10, n. 6. Spell 467: PT
?? 886a-c, 2120a-c; see, for example, James P. Allen,
The Inflection of the Verb in the Pyramid Texts,
Bibliotheca Aegyptia 2 (Malibu, 1984), ?587A; R. O.
76
Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts

Translatedinto English: Supplement of Hieroglyphic
Texts (Oxford, 1969), ?2120a-c. The passage refers
to Re's having expressed the desire for a son and
answers that the deceased king is his son. This is so
closely fitted to the context and to the king's title of
"Son of Re" that it may not refer to any episode
outside itself. Spell 477: PT 956a-958a (translation
gives metrical divisions); Allen, Inflection, ?667.
Later parts of the spell relate to Orion (sih) and are
probably not closely connected to the court case,
but the introduction of Isis and Nephthys can be so
related (?960c). In the Pyramid Texts, beliefs about
Osiris are inextricably associated with Orion.

95
Reeling of the sky, quaking of the earth.

Horus comes, Thoth arises
that they may raise Osiris on his side,
that they may cause him to stand before the two enneads.
Remember, Seth,
take (it) to heart
this speech which Geb said,
this threat (?) which the gods made against you
in the Enclosure of the Leader (hwt-sjrw) in Heliopolis,
concerning your striking (ndj) Osiris down to the earth,
when you said, Seth,
that you had not acted against him
This uses narrative verbal forms to mobilize the murder of Osiris and subsequent
accusations against Seth in a court of the enneads. The passage could be based on a
narrative form of the Osiris myth, but, as often, its details are adapted to its poorly
understood context and may not report closely on a narrative myth.
Brunner-Traut78refers additionally to the clearest instance in the corpus, a statement
that "Horus insinuated (ncj, 'navigate') his semen into Seth's behind and Seth insinuated
his semen into Horus' behind."79This mentions an episode in the struggle of Horus and
Seth that adds a detail, rather than constituting a grouping or transforming a situation
(the context seems not to be narrative). The reciprocity of the action has more to do
with the structure of magical spells than with a narrative, where an asymmetrical
outcome would be normal; in later versions, Seth fails to conquer Horus homosexually.
The passage is not a "mythical statement" because it deviates far from a likely narrative,
but it is good evidence for a myth because it reports an episode known from an extended
version.
Features of the wider context support taking these passages as evidence for myths. In
a more abstract way, the composition of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis implies two
narratives, the first being a creation myth (p. 93 above) in which Atum emerged and
fathered Shu and Tefenet, Geb, and Nut and the second the Osiris myth, which is often
associated with the first through the epithet "children of Nut," applied to Osiris, Isis,
Seth, and Nephthys.so A spell which alludes to Atum's erection and describes his
masturbation in order to produce Shu and Tefenet points in the same direction.81Before
78 L4, vol. 4, col. 281 with n. 16.

79Jean Leclant, "Les Textes de la pyramide de
P6pi Ier(Saqqara): Reconstitution de la paroi est de
l'antichambre," CRAIBL, 1977, pp. 278-79, with
plate, col. 30; cf. D. Meeks, L'Annie lexicographique, vol. I, 1977 (Paris, 1980), no. 77.2005. The
forms are sdm.n.f and past in reference; see Allen,
Inflection, ?409.
80 Often noted; see H. te Velde, "Relations and
Conflicts between Egyptian Gods, particularly in the
Divine Ennead of Heliopolis," in H. G. Kippenberg
et al., eds., Struggles of Gods: Papers of the Gronin-
gen Work Group for the Study of the History of

Religions (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 239-57.
81 PT?1248. Wb. I, 57, 17, read *jwsDw,"masturbator" here (accepted by Kurt Sethe, Obersetzung
und Kommentar zu den altdgyptischen Pyramidentexten, vol. 5 [Gliickstadt, n.d.], p. 148, reading
mjsDw;see Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, p. 198, n. 2 ad
loc.). Allen, Inflection, ?171B, reads m jw s3w and
renders "Atum is... one who comes extended"
(referringto an erection of the penis). This removes a
hapax from the lexicon.

96
the Pyramid Texts were inscribed, Osiris had entered the iconographic repertory,82in
reliefs where large series of deities may have included meaningful groupings of gods,
such as enneads.
Crucial earlier iconographic evidence is in reliefs from a chapel of Djoser at Heliopolis.83The iconography of the gods in these earliest known reliefs with connected texts
is that of later representations of enneads. If it can be inferred that the Great Ennead of
Heliopolis existed by the Third Dynasty and had a fixed form and iconography, then
transitivity and interaction among deities, as well as groupings of them, could have
arisen by that time and possibly in that order. The existence and cult of numerous major
deities in the first two dynasties, which is demonstrated by personal names and such
sources as the Palermo Stone, suggests that transitivity, and so perhaps narratives,
could go back further. The period of unification must have been vital for the articulation
of the pantheon because regional traditions were fused into a political and cultural
unity. A number of deities became identified with the capital and the state more strongly
than with particular localities and hence were newly brought together.84
The familiar picture just sketched leaves open the question of the order in which
developments occurred and how they might relate in detail to transitivity and narratives.
Enneads and other schemas seem to have brought system into profusion. The schemas
may have evolved no earlier than relations among groups of the gods they encompassed-as against relations being produced by systematization. If the deities were not
strongly characterized, their relative placings might be arbitrary and they would probably not then occur in fixed sequences, as they normally do.85Proximity in a grouping
may not be enough to create a relationship with the extended transitivity of a narrative,
although the later prominence of divine triads shows that such a process could occur.86
More generally stated, without myths, the many deities who existed by the dynastic
period, and who were worshiped in temples and grouped in lists, would have formed a
rather abstract and bloodless world. Such pantheons are found, for example, among
Nilotic peoples,87 but with a small number of major deities who can easily be kept
distinct from one another. Egyptian gods overlapped, and groups of them could have
complementary roles. It would be remarkable if their interactions were not to have
narrative implications. Many later myths had etiological significance, and this could
have been the case earlier, whatever other raison d'ftre they might have had.
These arguments suggest that solar creation myths and the core of that of Osiris could
predate, perhaps considerably, the time of Djoser. These belief complexes are not
prominent in early material, so that their appearance fully formed emphasizes the
82 M. Eaton-Krauss, "The Earliest
Representation
of Osiris?," VariaAegyptiaca 3 (1987): 233-36.
83 William Stevenson Smith, A History of
Egyptian Sculpture and Painting in the Old Kingdom, 2d
ed. (London and Boston, 1949), pp. 132-38, esp. 134
with n. 1, figs. 48-53; cf. Winfried Barta, Untersuchungen zum Gotterkreis der Neunheit, MAS 28
(Berlin, 1973), pp. 185-86, who does not comment
on the iconographic argument for an ennead.
84 For all these points, see Conceptions,
pp. 44-49,
66-74.
85 See examples listed by Barta,
Untersuchungen,
pp. 61-73; "Bemerkungenzum Gdtterkreisder Neun-
heit," BiOr 33 (1976): 131-34. This material could be

extended, and inappropriate sources are frequently
cited.
86 Conceptions, pp. 218-20, with refs. An example
is deities at Kom Ombo. The consort of Haroeris,
Tsenetnofret, "The Good Consort," and the junior
member of the triad Pnebtawy "The Lord of the Two
Lands" (Gutbub, Textes fondamentaux, indexes,
pp. 19, 31, 37), appear to be idealized roles; perhaps
a narrative could arise on such a basis.
87 See Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion (Oxford,
1956); R. G. Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience:
The Religion of the Dinka (Oxford, 1961).

97
sparsity of the sources. The earliest record focuses on an iconography of Horus,

associated with the king, that has celestial associations but hardly points toward
narrowly solar beliefs. The deities of the Heliopolitan ennead appear to be omitted.
Reasons for this absence could include both lack of evidence and decorum, but these
deities could possibly have been quite recent arrivals in the pantheon.8
A more general argument for a late origin of gods and myths has been that there were
no anthropomorphic gods before dynastic times and that the gods had to take on such
forms before there could be myths.89 This view is based partly on a hypothetical
transition from the representation of gods in animal form to human figures.90 If it were
accepted, the political and cultural transformation of late predynastic times would also
be a religious one, in the important sense that the perceived and displayed nature of
the gods changed radically. This view is, however, untenable, as has been shown by
Bruce Williams's reading of the name of Narmer in a secondary graffito on one of
the anthropomorphic colossi of Min from Koptos,91 demonstrating that the statues are
earlier. Since a group of colossal statues is unlikely to be the point of departure for
anthropomorphic deities, their date of origin recedes out of sight. It would not be
meaningful to pursue this tradition back before the middle of Naqada II, around the
date of the decorated tomb at Hierakonpolis. If Elizabeth Finkenstaedt is right in
suggesting that Decorated Ware terminated at this time (Naqada IIc),92 representational
media were annexed completely for the state and for the system of decorum. Whether
gods are shown on Decorated Ware or not, its conventions are different from those of
later times.
There was probably some transformation of religion with the origin of the state and
related developments, but the forms of the gods and their iconography cannot easily be
assessed underneath the complexity and conventionality of pictorial material from
Dynasty 0. This should be interpreted within conventions of decorum and should not be
expected to show deities interacting with one another, or in human form, or still less
interacting with human beings, because it comes from contexts where these iconographies would be inappropriate.93These monuments are thus uninformative about the
origin of gods in human form or of myths.
88 Research of Rolf Krauss on astronomical aspects

of the Pyramid Texts may suggest that more allowance should be made for stellar beliefs than has been
done.
89 Iconographic exposition: Conceptions, pp. 1057; see also Mythe, pp. 88-109. Wolfhart Westendorf
has proposed a "mythical" world of animal powers
for early times (e.g., Altiigyptische Darstellungen des
Sonnenlaufes auf der abschiissigen Himmelsbahn,
MAS 10 [Berlin, 1966], pp. 1-9). Although there
could have been such a world, much in his approach
is problematic.
90 Some examples: Conceptions, 109, fig. 10.
91 Bruce Williams, "Narmer and the Coptos Colossi," JARCE 25 (1988): 35-59. The colossi in Oxford show signs of veneration in the form of pits in
the surface. These pits have later parallels into quite
modern times, but their form is different and they
were probably made with different implements; the

signs of use would then be early. The amount of
wear suggests that the statues were accessible for a
long time, presumably into the dynastic period.
92 E. Finkenstaedt, "On the Life-span of Decorated Ware in the Gerzean Period," ZA'S 112 (1985):
17-19, overestimating continuity between pottery
and tomb decoration.
93 See my Fecundity Figures: Egyptian Personification and the Iconology of a Genre (Warminster
and Chicago, 1985), pp. 68-75, 277-305 (system of
decorum); see also Bruce Williams and Thomas J.
Logan, "The Metropolitan Knife Handle and Aspects of Pharaonic Imagery before Narmer," JNES
46 (1987): 245-85, who argue that essential features
of iconography developed as early as the Hierakonpolis decorated tomb, at the beginning of the unification of the country.

98
JOURNALOF NEAR EASTERNSTUDIES
These arguments do not suggest that the gods or their iconography are immeasurably
ancient or, conversely, that they cannot have existed before Naqada II, but rather that
there is no good evidence for their age. The monuments contain some powerful and
perhaps mythical images, such as the cow goddess of the sky implied on the Narmer
Palette.94The argument from decorum implies that the anthropomorphic iconography
of gods, which existed before the dynastic period, may have been more widely used in
lost contexts, perhaps ones similar to the Heliopolis chapel of Djoser. It is then
conceivable that myths like those underlying the Great Ennead of Heliopolis existed by
the time the system of decorum was devised; such myths could have had anthropomorphic or animal protagonists. I can see no sure way of deciding whether such myths
were present at that time or not.
The assumption of Schott, Hornung, and, to some extent, Assmann, that gods must
have human form for myths to develop, should be questioned. Myths in many societies
have animal protagonists, and there is no clear reason why their protagonists in Egypt
should have human form. There are attested animal myths, such as that of the Eye of the
Sun,95 while many of the strongest iconographies, metaphors, and transformational
conceptions of deities exploit animal form. It is inappropriate to restrict mythical status
to the anthropomorphic.
Even the euhemerism of Sethe and Kees may have been excluded too rigidly. Its
rejection has contributed to the later dating of myths because features which those
scholars attributed to origins in prehistory have sometimes been related to later events,
after which the myths would then have arisen. Yet, if myths may have some historical
content or allusion, they could go back a long way toward the period which inspired
them (or they could have a referent nearer to present, later times).96Although dynastic
forms must have been radically changed by the evolution of pictorial and textual forms,
they need not have lost all earlier content.
The salient instance of a possible survival is Seth. The importance and antagonism of
Horus and Seth are demonstrated by the conflicts of the first two dynasties, which were
probably both political and religious.97Earlier relations between the two gods could be
irrelevant to these conflicts and how they were formulated, but Seth's early status as the
god of Naqada, recalled in his epithet nbwtj, "He of Ombos," probably did affect his
later destiny.98Naqada was definitively eclipsed by the early First Dynasty. Since royal
titles of the united state seem always to have focused on Horus, the "decline" of Seth
may have been contemporary with the decline of Naqada. Later developments in the
myth of Horus and Seth and in the character and role of Seth should be interpreted
94 See Kurt Lange and Max Hirmer, Agypten, 4th
ed. (Munich, 1967), pls. 4-5.
95 Franqoise de Cenival, Le Mythe de l'Oeil du
Soleil, Demotische Studien 9 (Sommerhausen, 1988).
96 Assmann has later emphasized Maurice Halbwachs's contention that "collective memory" can last
no more than three or four generations; Egyptian
monumental culture would create one version of an
alternate "mode" of memory, which he and Aleida
Assmann term "cultural memory." See "Kollektives
Gedichtnis und kulturelle Identitit" and "Stein und
Zeit: Das 'monumentale' Gedichtnis der altdigyptischen Kultur," in J. Assmann and T. H61scher,
eds., Kultur und Gedichtnis, Suhrkamp Taschen-
buch: Wissenschaft 724 (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 9-19,

87-114; Aleida and Jan Assmann, "Schrift, Tradition und Kultur," in Wolfgang Raible, ed., Zwischen
Festtag und Alltag: Zehn Beitriige zum Thema
'Miindlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit' ScriptOralia 6
(1988), pp. 25-49. On the theme, see, more generally,
Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (London,
1985).
97 See "The Origins of Kingship in Egypt."
98 See te Velde's survey, Seth, pp. 8-12. Much in
earlier discussions is problematic and suffused with
notions of race, but the positions are not to be
rejected altogether.

99
chiefly by reference to the times in which they occurred, and this principle should be
generalized,99 but by the same token, early conflict or change could have provided a
point of reference for myths. Such arguments do not imply that the reference of a myth
will be fossilized far back in prehistory. They suggest not that a narrative of conflict
might arise directly from relations between Naqada and Hierakonpolis or Abydos, but
that the form and transmission of the gods' relationship, which could have a distinct
religious dimension, might also be mediated by political events.
Other indirect arguments are relevant to later periods and materials. Assmann's
denial that the Middle Kingdom Horus and Seth narrative is a "mythical statement"
(pp. 85-87 above) can be countered from contemporaneous texts. Two narrativeswhich
use myth-like motifs are the Shipwrecked Sailor and the Herdsman's Story. Neither is a
myth because they are complex, first-person literary texts. The snake's narrative in the
Shipwrecked Sailor is formed from conceptions of the end of the world.' ? Myths are
not normally conceived as referring to the future, but this belief is quasi-mythical in
having a narrative structure and occurring in the realm of the gods. The Egyptians
presented special knowledge about past and future as belonging in comparable domains1'oand so supplied a rationale for connecting the two.
The Herdsman's Storyl?2 is a narrative of an encounter between a human and a deity,
and the deity acts as a seductress, in a role familiar in mythical texts. The human-divine
encounter has no good parallel in Egyptian literature, but is widespread in other
mythologies. The tomb biography of Simut-Kyky, who was divinely inspired to donate
much of his property to the goddess Mut, has the literary structure of a story and may
suggest that encounters with deities were expected to take narrative form.103 Such a
convention would make narrative more significant in the presentation of the gods than
Assmann would allow. Since these narratives are so rare in the written record, the
parallel may also suggest that they were more frequent in the oral sphere. This assumption would help to explain how two widely separated texts have a similar structure.
Thus, monumental inscriptions and narrowly literary texts can be fruitfully seen in a
context of hypothetical mythical narratives, which might have existed in the oral sphere,
in other literary compositions, or in both.
RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE:CONTEXTSAND FOCUS
Despite these arguments, hardly any direct early evidence for myths is preserved. Is it
possible to explain this gap?
The first question to ask is how significant myths were. Here, the Classicizing Western
view is relevant-,A religion without formal dogmas that is seen from the outside may be
99 See Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad, Image of the
World and Symbol of the Creator: On the Cosmological and Iconological Values of the Temple of
Edfu, Studies in Oriental Religions 10 (Wiesbaden,
1985), esp. pp. 21-23.
loo See my "Interpreting the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor," pp. 62-64, with refs.
101Hellmut Brunner, "Die 'Weisen', ihre 'Lehren'
und 'Prophezeiungen' in altagyptischer Sicht," ZAS
93 (1966): 28-35; reprinted in idem, in Wolfgang
R6llig, ed., Das hdrende Herz: Kleine Schriften zur
Religions- und Geistesgeschichte Agyptens, Orbis
Biblicus et Orientalis 80 (Freiburg, Switzerland and

Gottingen, 1988), pp. 59-65.
102Gardiner, Die Erziihlung des Sinuhe und die
Hirtengeschichte,HieratischePapyrus aus den Kdniglichen Museen zu Berlin 5 (Berlin, 1909), pls. 1617; Hans Goedicke, "The Story of a Herdsman,"
CdE 45/ 90 (1970): 244-66.
103John A. Wilson, "The Theban Tomb (No. 409)
of Si-Mut, Called Kiki," JNES 29 (1970): 187-92;
Pascal Vernus, "Litterature et autobiographie: Les
inscriptions de S?-Mwt surnomm6 Kyky," Revue
d'Egyptologie 30 (1978): 115-46.

100
easily accessible through myths. Myth may assume a different but comparable importance if, as in Christianity, much of a religion's teaching is integrated into its founding
narratives. Yet regular church services are not arranged around the narrative of Christ's
life, and this is still more the case with special ceremonies such as funerals, which could
be more closely comparable with material from Egypt. Egyptian religion centered
neither on narratives nor on dogmas; it was diverse and perhaps centered on ritual and
the cult of the gods.104 Few rituals narrate events in the world of the gods, and their
organization is more likely to relate to the functions they perform, such as caring for the
gods, or to sequences such as the seasons, than to narrative events.
Thus, myth may not have been very important to the core of religion. Mythical events
could be fundamental to the order of the world but seldom the subject of narratives,
rather as with the otiose creator gods of many religions. On another level, the structure
and themes of myths could incorporate central truths and values-either for the actors
or for analysts, who may identify these elements in texts that might not anciently have
had such pretensions. Classical writers, like modern ones, may have perceived the
significance of myth differently from Egyptians. They viewed the religion from the
outside and could relate to and recount myths; they were excluded from many practices,
or felt, as Herodotus sometimes did, that they should not describe them, or they found
them distasteful, as they did animal cults.
The primacy of ritual can be connected with two features of texts. First, before
relatively late times few rituals are attested in coherent form, myths still less so. One
reason for this disarray may be that the texts do not belong to central rituals and related
text corpora. The ritual of the daily cult of the gods is not known to any extent before
the later New Kingdom, or in full until its aftermath.1o5 Mythical content in such rituals
is not fully narrative and so can produce only limited evidence. As James P. Allen
remarks in a slightly different context, "Reconstructing Egyptian cosmology... from
such sources is equivalent to recovering the richness of medieval philosophy from a
Roman Catholic missal or the Book of Common Prayer."106The daily ritual is a good
example here because it includes a brief creation narrative and enumeration of the Great
Ennead of Heliopolis.?07The same passage occurs in Pyramid Texts Spell 600, a spell
for dedicating the pyramid, where it is probably secondary. The text of the ritual may
thus have been formulated before the Sixth Dynasty, using mythical motifs that were
current, if not in written form.
The complex position of this text exemplifies factors involved in assessing evidence
for myths. Texts from all periods are a tiny fraction of what there once was, and whole
104 For
typological discussion, see Morenz, Gott
und Mensch im alten Agypten (Leipzig, 1964),
pp. 15-40.
105New Kingdom: Amice M. Calverley and Myrtle
F. Broome, The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos,
vols. 1-2, ed. Gardiner (London and Chicago, 193335); A. Rosalie David, Religious Ritual at Abydos
(c. 1300 BC) (Warminster, 1973). Third Intermediate Period: Alexandre Moret, Le Rituel du culte
divin journalier en Egypte, Annales du Mus6e Guimet, Bibliotheque d'Etudes 14 (Paris, 1902).
106Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient
Egyptian Creation Accounts, Yale Egyptological
Studies 2 (New Haven, 1988), p. x.
107 Thomas
George Allen, Occurrencesof Pyramid
Texts with Cross Indexes of These and Other Egyptian Mortuary Texts, SAOC 27 (Chicago, 1950),
p. 94; add A. Mariette, Abydos: Description des
fouilles executies sur l'emplacement de cette ville,
vol. I (Paris, 1869), pl. 47b, cols. 3-8. For the spell
and its relation with the ritual of offering a broad
collar, see Otto, "Zur Oberlieferung eines Pyramidenspruches,"in Studi in memoria di Ippolito Rosellini nelprimo centenario della morte (4 giugno 18434 giugno 1943) (Pisa, 1955), pp. 223-37; Tohfa
Handoussa, "Le Collier Ousekh," SAK 9 (1981):
143-50.

101
categories are lost. There are scarcely any systematic texts of types suggested by lists of
books in late temples, or ones that might be compared to P. Edwin Smith.1'"Such texts
could have been kept in lost contexts; their systematic character would not necessarily
make them look familiar to us. The daily ritual is an instance of what is missing, and its
original form might be more transparent than excerpts in the Pyramid Texts; yet the
form of the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus has baffled scholars. Early systematic texts
would not have included narratives, which were not written down until late (see n. 59
above). Non-narrative genres have primacy. Those might be crucial vehicles of religious
discourse and more significant than myths.
This reasoning suggests three overlapping explanations for the sparsity of early
evidence for myths: they were not important to the main types of text;109those texts did
not have suitable forms for narratives; the discourse of the texts focused on other
concerns. Two positive points should be added: the original prestige form of recording
was in the mixed pictorial-written system of decorum, which hedged sacred matter
around with restrictions and was inimical to continuous writing and even pictorial
sequences;"1 and, when continuous writing appeared, its first known use was for brief
ritual speeches by gods to the king, which exclude myth and narrative and place value
on a circumscribed immediacy of the gods.
The essential early form of prestige record which I posit is the list, evidence for which
exists in the temple of Sety I at Abydos. This temple also contains--probably no
coincidence-the first longer texts from the daily ritual and such exceptional material as
a relief based on a vignette in the Book of the Dead and the earliest temple scenes of the
resurrecting Osiris."'
A list of sixty-three divine names related to Ptah and Memphis may go back as far as
the Early Dynastic Period.112 Some deities in the list are related to myths, examples
being: Isis and Nephthys, who are not closely connected with Ptah but-especially
Nephthys"3-can hardly be imagined without the Osiris myth; the epithet rs-wdc, "He
who Awakes Whole," associated with Osiris but also often used of Ptah;"14and a trio of
epithets, "Dry of Tears," "Still of Hand," and "Sweet of Life." These seem to allude to
creation. "Dry of tears" may be the creator's condition after his weeping which produced humanity."' "Still of hand" may refer to the end of the creator's masturbation
after engendering Shu and Tefenet, while "sweet of life (ndm-c'n)" could allude similarly to his sexual gratification (ndmmjt)"6 in his forming of "life," which is associated
108 See Kent R. Weeks, "Studies of Papyrus
Ebers," Bulletin de l'Institut d'Egypte 68-69 (197678): 292-99; Serge Sauneron, Le Papyrus magique
illustre de Brooklyn, Wilbour Monographs 3 (New
York, 1970), pp. viii-ix.
109This discussion necessarily omits a definition
of what would constitute a text in terms relevant to
early Egypt. The problem needs separate discussion.
l10 As discussed by Assmann, "Zeugung." See my
article "Communication and Display: The Integration of Early Egyptian Art and Writing," Antiquity
63 (1989): 471-82, with figs. 1-2.
Ill Both in the Chapel of Sokar, location in PM,
vol. 6, p. 24 (218)-(221).
112See "An Abydos List of Gods and an Old
Kingdom Use of Texts," in John Baines et al., eds.,
Pyramid Studies and Other Essays Presented to
I. E. S. Edwards, EES Occasional Publication 7

(London, 1988), pp. 124-33. One copy: K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1975),
pp. 173, 12-176, 9. Another list, of 120 deities and
places, which names three Fifth Dynasty solar temples that can hardly have existed after the Old Kingdom, must be early in part: Mariette, Abydos, vol. 1,
pls. 44-45.
113
Nephthys seems to exist principally as a complement to other figures in the myth.
comme 6pithete
114 See B. van de Walle, "Rs-wdDE
et comme entit6 divines," ZAS 98 (1972): 140-49.
115For example, Assmann, "Schipfung," LA, vol.
5, col. 681.
116 Used for "gratification" in the vision of the
end of creation in chap. 175 of the Book of the
Dead: E. A. Wallis Budge, The Chapters of Coming

102
especially with his first offspring, Shu.117 The organization of the list is hierarchical and
topographical rather than mythical: an initial section with the most important names is
followed by others arranged according to quarters of Memphis.
"Encyclopedic" and tabular material is a suitable focus of arcane knowledge, and the
use of part of the list by the owners of two Old Kingdom tombs shows such an emphasis
(see n. 112 above). The knowledge is so different from the narration of a myth that it
might be inimical to its recording.
The underworld books have similar characteristics."11In their fusion of text and
pictorial representation, they adhere more closely to early forms of presentation than
most material. They parallel descriptions of the solar cycle in hymns and relate to the
specialized hymns of the hourly solar ritual, to which Assmann ascribes an early date."119
These compositions are not mythical in that no narrative is presented, but they convey
central truths about the solar cycle and royal and human participation in it. As Edward
F. Wente has shown, the underworld books state that knowledge of them is good for the
knower on earth. Since they were not inscribed in an accessible place until quite late,
this knowledge is restricted, and its implications may be different from assertions of
knowledge in mortuary texts. The books, which several writers date to the Middle
Kingdom, develop the encyclopedic tradition for material that could have a mythical
formulation but does not receive it, and they limit access to the truths it conveys.120
These traditions could be inimical in several ways to recording myths as narratives.
They place a premium on non-narrative forms of recording and transmission, and look
to and legitimize themselves by ancient models. There is a hierarchical restriction of
fundamental religious knowledge. Written form, which is a necessary part of these
compositions, possesses extra value. Restriction is most effective if it both conceals and
proclaims its subject matter, devaluing more widespread and more easily transmitted
knowledge.121 All this may have subordinated myths long past the time when writing
became capable of recording them.
This orientation to restricted, encyclopedic knowledge seems to have become less
strong in the New Kingdom, the earliest period from which substantial narratives of
myths are preserved. One might connect these developments and assume that myths had
earlier formed part of restricted knowledge, but for various reasons this may be
incorrect. First, the religious strands which were most productive of myths, notably
Osiris and legends associated with him, were the focus of relatively popular beliefsthat is, beliefs spread far beyond the circle with access to the lists and underworld
books. Second, myth as narrative has its oral point of departure, and restricted oral
knowledge is hardly known. This is not a strong argument because such knowledge is
unlikely to leave traces, but nothing points clearly to its being important. Third, the
Forth by Day or the Theban Recension of the Book
of the Dead, vol. 3, Books on Egypt and Chaldaea
30 (London, 1910), p. 73, 1. 12.
117 See Herman te Velde, "Schu," LA, vol. 5, cols.
735-37.
118 Hornung, Agyptische Unterweltsbiicher,2d ed.,
Die Bibliothek der Alten Welt: Der Alte Orient
(Ziirich, 1984).
119See Re und Amun, pp. 22-53.
120 Wente,
"Mysticism in Pharaonic Egypt?,"JNES
41 (1982): 161-79. Dating: Wente; Hartwig AltenmiUller,"Zur Oberlieferung des Amduat," JEOL 20
(1968): 27-42 (criticized by Hornung, Das Amduat,
Tel III: Die Kurzfassung: Nachtriige, AgAbh 13
[Wiesbaden, 1967], p. ix); Assmann, Re und Amun,
pp. 22-39.
121See further "Restricted Knowledge, Hierarchy
and Decorum: Modern Perceptions and Ancient Institutions," JARCE 27 (1990): 1-23, esp. pp. 11-12.

103
context I propose for myth suggests that it did not have the same prestige as elite
encyclopedic knowledge. Finally, it would be perverse to argue away the indications of
mythical narratives presented in sec. III, pp. 94-99; yet, even though these come from
the privileged context of the monuments, their style of evocation may not fit well with
severely restricted access to myths. The oral character of myth could favor a different
and less esoteric restriction: the absence of narratives about the death of Osiris, in
contrast to endless allusions to the event, indicates that its recording was "taboo,"122 but
it was surely narrated in oral contexts, and it was widely known.
There might have been systematic narratives of myths in lost contexts, such as temple
libraries, perhaps of the New Kingdom and later. These texts would be "mythical
statements," not myths, but they might still be nearer to an "ideal" form than anything
preserved. This possibility may be suggested by the remarkably pure form of the
narrative of Plutarch in chapters 12-19 of De Iside et Osiride,123 which should relate,
however distantly, to a form of transmission in Egyptian. Appearances here could be
illusory. Preserved documents with several mythical narratives, including Papyrus
Jumilhac,124 exhibit different forms of systematization from narrative collections as we
might understand them. Complete narratives, such as that of the Eye of the Sun (see
n. 95 above), are literary and do not belong narrowly among religious texts. Temple
collections seem to have contained a range of literary texts and not to have focused on
the mythological.125
A final class of material Assmann discusses is temple relief, which includes hardly any
representation of myth.126 The birth cycle he analyzes has been seen as an exception by
Hellmut Brunner but on problematic grounds.127 The concept of the king's divine
descent may be a myth or mythical charter, but the cycle spells this out in an accompanying text rather than a picture, and it is not a narrative. The cycle's later phases show
essentially ritual acts.
Reliefs can usefully be related to the parallel notions of discourse and decorum. Like
religious texts and perhaps in precedence to them, reliefs are not primarily narrative and
should not be expected to contain what is alien to them. This does not mean that the
Egyptians could not represent myths or mythical statements pictorially, because examples like figures of the resurrecting Osiris do occur.128 More normally, reliefs are
122Cf. Assmann,
"Verborgenheit,"p. 41 with n. 78.
123J. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride
(n.p., University of Wales Press, 1970), pp. 135-47.
124Jacques Vandier, Le Papyrus Jumilhac
(n.p.,
n.d. [Paris, 1961]).
125See Gtinter Burkard, "Bibliotheken im alten
Agypten: Oberlegungen zur Methodik ihres Nachweises und Obersicht zum Stand der Forschung,"
Bibliothek, Forschung und Praxis 4 (1980): 79-115.
For a collection with a rather narrow focus, apparently without mythological texts, see Sauneron,
Papyrus magique, pp. viii-ix.
126 See
"Zeugung." Cf. Otto, "An Ancient Egyptian Hunting Ritual," JNES 9 (1950): 170 with n. 24,
who remarked that myths could have been represented before the system of decorum (as I term it)
crystallized. This is very uncertain.
127 Hellmut Brunner, Die Geburt des

GottkBnigs:
Studien zur Oberlieferung eines altiigyptischen
Mythos, 2d ed., AgAbh 10 (Wiesbaden, 1986).
Siegfried Morenz ("Die Geburt des aigyptischen
Gottkinigs," Forschungen und Fortschritte 40
[1966]: 366-71) and Winfried Barta ( Untersuchungen
zur Gottlichkeit des regierenden Kdnigs: Ritus und
Sakralkdnigtum nach Zeugnissen der Friihzeit und
des Alten Reiches, MAS 32 [1975]; idem, "Bemerkungen zur Existenz der Rituale ftir Geburt and
Krainung," ZAS 112 [1985]: 1-13) have argued
questionably that the reliefs depict a ritual; see
Brunner, pp. 233-36.
128See n. I11 above. As discussed, the material in
the temple of Sety I at Abydos is outside the normal
repertory of temple relief.

104
"performative"and creative,129bringing into existence a meaningful world of discourse

that cannot be reduced to such outside categories as myth. Similarly, decorum excludes
a vast range of content from pictorial representation. Genres of scene and decoration
need to be seen within its system. Here, the salient quasi-mythical feature is cosmography. The cow heads on the Narmer Palette could suggest a complex of myths not
fully attested in text and picture before the New Kingdom,13 but the motif is not a
narrative. The New Kingdom iconography, whose underlying myth may be referred to
in the earlier Instruction for Merikare,31 presupposes a narrative, and it cannot be
excluded that this existed at the time of the palette.
IV. CONCLUSION
My conclusions are both negative and positive. Negatively, attempts to define the date
of origin of myths in Egypt have been unsuccessful, except so far as they have opened up
the possibility of late evolution. Less than was hoped can be said about the form of early
belief. Positively, it may be possible to model early prestige discourse more fully, while
areas, such as myth, that appear to be excluded from that discourse, should be allowed
for in the wider religious and cultural context.
In suggesting approaches to early material, my strategy is directed to the general
nature of the preserved record, to identifying its most important and serious elements
and asking what can realistically be sought in it. The conventions of high culture
influenced strongly what was transmitted and what form the transmission took. In
writing, the development of narrative genres was so slow that a context for a myth
cannot be posited for many centuries, perhaps not until the Middle Kingdom. Pictorial
representation, which might report on myths, was so hedged about by decorum and
other conventions that it had little narrative potential.
For very early periods, these restrictions mean that much central cultural material
must have been confined to the oral sphere, but even then, the high status of iconographic and written forms will have told against recording and attaching value to
narrative. The list is one response to these constraints, while the living oral complements
to written forms like lists will have been transmitted in the restricted and possibly secret
contexts in which such knowledge was mobilized.
This bias toward non-continuous recording says nothing about whether myths existed,
only that they should not be credited with great significance in the mainstream of
tradition. Here, an unquestionable contention of Assmann, that a myth is not the same
as any single record of it, involves the inference, which he is reluctant to accept, that a
preserved record says little about the form of relations between the gods that was
transmitted in the elite oral sphere, let alone in the wider society. In Schott's terms,
"what was narrated about the gods" could always have included connected stories-that
is, myths.
129 Cf.
Derchain, "A propos de performativit6:
Pensers anciens et articles r6cents," GM 110 (1989):
13-18. This does not imply that reliefs bring into
being something that has literal reality.
130 See n. 94 above. Anthes began his presentation
of Egyptian myths with the figure of the cow accom-
panying the text of the Destruction of Mankind:

"Mythology" (n. 25 above), pp. 16-22.
131 Wolfgang Helck, Die Lehre fiir
K6nig Merikare, Kleine aigyptische Texte (Wiesbaden, 1977),
pp. 83-84; trans., Lichtheim, vol. 1, p. 106 with
n. 30.

105
Although such narrative forms would not have had the prestige of the groupings,
numerical sequences, and lists of central written tradition, that tradition was available
to few, and narrative structures are more suitable for broad, long-term transmission.
Essential features of the Osiris myth were transmitted from the time of the Pyramid
Texts and earlier to the Roman period, while the homosexual Horus and Seth episode
also has an impressive range of attestation, not to speak of demotic Horus and Seth
narratives.132 It is most cautious to assume both that oral tradition partook in this
transmission and that it used narrative forms. How stable the incidents of the narratives
were, and whether there were later systematizing written narratives of myths, are
questions that can be posed only in exceptional cases; for the early elite, they might have
seemed irrelevant or meaningless.
One early context for writing continuous texts, and a strand of transmission that
began to escape the dominance of lists, was ritual. The first recording of ritual texts can
hardly have been later than the early Fifth Dynasty. These rituals, which supply
material for performance more than for the transmission of knowledge, are not a
suitable context for narrative and contain it only in brief snatches like those quoted
above from the Pyramid Texts. They do, however, contain many invocations of the
world of the gods in the form of Assmann's sacramental exegeses. I consider this world
to have been organized in part by myths. The "myth-free"rituals, which were crucial for
Schott and Otto, would sit in a context which included myths. If the world of the gods
was only secondarily and variably introduced into those rituals, this cannot be explained
by reference to a lack of suitable material in early times. My arguments have not
contributed to the elucidation of this problem, but it is possible that here, too, decorum
is relevant.
It is desirable to return to a more diverse model of early religion, in which myths play
a part outside the central forms of written transmission. The structure which emerges is
more like those found in other cultures than some models that have been proposed.
What is distinctive for Egypt is not so much the configuration of belief and practice as
the restriction of the monuments and of high culture. Restriction fits well with the
dominant elite focus of early times.
132 Karl-Th. Zauzich, "Der Streit zwischen Horus
und Seth in einer demotischen Fassung," in HeinzJ. Thissen and Karl-Th. Zauzich, eds., Grammata
demotika: Festschrift fiir Erich Liiddeckens zum 15.

Juni 1983 (Wiirzburg, 1984), pp. 275-81.


Egyptian Myth and Discourse Myth Gods and The Early Written and Iconographic Record

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Egyptian Myth and Discourse: Myth, Gods, and the Early Written and Iconographic Record

Author(s): John Baines

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