I recently purchased a
copy of the Papyrus of Ani (The Egyptian Book of the Dead), translated by
Raymond Faulkner, with some emendation by Ogden Goelet, Jr., Chronicle Books,
San Francisco, 1994. James Wasserman conceived the project. It is a beautiful
reproduction of an original papyrus from circa 1250 BC, in full color, but
reduced in size about 40% from the original. Apparently this is the first
reprint of the papyrus published in 1890 in full size by Wallis Budge under the
sponsorship of the Trustees of the British Museum. At that time the interested
reader was expected to purchase the text, transliteration and translation
published in 1895 in a separate volume. Budge repeats all hieroglyphs in the
latter to obtain his transliteration. ((Dover reprint, New York, 1967.)
My interest was a study
of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, and especially the role of Osiris. I
wanted to use the most original and reliable sources I could find, without the
intervening and possibly interpretative altering of the meaning of the text
from that intended by the ancient scribes.
In an Introduction
Wasserman states:
“Several issues
regarding this edition need to be discussed. My original idea, developed in
detail for several years, was to follow the Ani Papyrus word for word. I
planned to use Budge's translation, and his excellent key to the hieroglyphics,
to present the text and images on the same page. Dr. (Ogden) Goelet, however,
made clear, first, that Budge's translation falls far short of modern
standards, and second, that the hieroglyphic text of the Ani Papyrus itself is
of uneven quality, often much inferior to the excellence of its vignettes. He
proposed that we use Faulkner's translation below the images of the Ani
Papyrus, supplemented by his own translations where necessary. Our text would
then represent the best translation from the best Egyptological sources for the
specific chapter illustrated in the Ani Papyrus.
“Thus this volume
combines the finest modern scholarship with the most beautifully illuminated
ancient papyrus.”
I question that this is
an accurate statement.
This remark led me to
examine Budge’s publication, and to compare translations. Certainly, over the
past hundred years, much greater understanding of the ancient script has
evolved. Since Budge’s translation is still used widely among interested
laypersons I wondered what differences existed and were they important? How
might they affect my understanding and that of others?
I went through the
first 10 columns of text in conducting my comparisons, as a test sample. For
convenience I use Budge’s translation to show the differences.
I discovered the
following items:
1. Faulkner (Goelet)
stripped two phrases completely. The first is in Column One in the opening
remarks: “Behold Osiris Ani the scribe who records the holy offerings of all
the gods.” This was reduced to “by Ani.” The second was in Column 5: “to the ka
of Osiris, the scribe Ani, triumphant before Osiris.” This was reduced “to the
Ka of Ani.” A third removal is in Column 8 where the attributes “Prince, Life,
Health, and Strength” of Ra are ignored.
Why Faulkner should
remove these phrases is puzzling if he intended to be faithful to the text. Did
he feel they did not carry significant
meaning? How many phrases were removed through the rest of the text?
2. In Column 7 Faulkner
translates “Enneads,” the Greek word for “Nine gods.” Apparently the idea of
“nine” is common to the meaning of this glyph. Budge had trouble here, altering
the first part of the glyph to mean “substance” when a group designation should
be understood. I can see no reason why this glyph should not be read simply as
“many gods.”
Can anyone offer
suggestions?
3. In several cases
Faulkner translated “sky” instead of the older word “heaven” found in Budge.
This is a dramatic shift in understanding. All old people understood heaven as
a realm populated by spirit personalities who expressed desire, will, and
purpose. The Egyptians subscribed to just such belief. The word sky denotes the
vault containing merely the stars, without significance of being populated by
celestial personalities. Such translation betrays the intent of the scribes,
who reflected their culture. Hence, it virtually obliterates our ability to
penetrate their religious psychology. This alteration certainly is a
considerable deterrent to understanding the old text.
4. A similar betrayal
is seen when Faulkner in Column 9 translates “May Thoth and Maat write to you
daily.” Budge has “Thoth and Maat both are your recorders.” The idea of
celestial beings serving as recorders to the gods is again prevalent in the
beliefs of many ancient people. They are personalities who preserve a record of
the conduct of both mortals and immortals. This record then is used as a basis
by which judgment may be made on subservient personalities. That judgment is
the final determiner of survival in eternity. Egyptian religious belief is rife
with such concept. In my opinion Faulkner here truly subverts the intent of the
scribes.
5. Another interesting
alteration is found in Column 6 where I would translate “givers of ka and
celestial food.” The phrase follows the statement about the gods who pass
judgment on the dead. Budge offered, “who provide food and abundance of meat.”
Faulkner says, “who give food and provisions.” Clearly the context is
celestial, not terrestrial. The glyph for ka is definitely present, without
modifier as far as I can see. Why both these men should alter it to food I do
not understand. These gods have the power to give a ka. The translations
“provisions” and “abundance of meat” must then follow that sense but hopelessly
lost by removing the significance of the scribal intent. (Budge became creative
on this one.)
Other problems confront
me but this should be sufficient to show why I view the translation as not
faithful to the original purpose of the document.
Ernest
***************
The following continues
exposition of the text, with details important to our understanding.
Budge was fully aware
of, and described, the devolution of the Egyptian religious texts in the
preface to his edition. He compared many papyrus scrolls with one another and
with the pyramids texts of the Old Kingdom. I again offer full remarks in order
to show how more recent views may be contributing to further confusion on our
understanding of these important materials.
“Originally the text
was the most important part of the work, and both it and its vignettes were the
work of the scribe; gradually, however, the brilliantly illuminated vignettes
were more and more cared for, and when the skill of the scribe failed, the
artist was called in. In many fine papyri of the Theban period it is clear that
the whole plan of the vignettes of a papyrus was set out by artists, who often
failed to leave sufficient space for the texts to which they belonged; in
consequence many lines of chapters are often omitted, and the last few lines of
some texts are so much crowded as to be almost illegible. The frequent clerical
errors also show that while an artist of the greatest skill might be employed
on the vignettes, the execution of the text was left to an ignorant or careless
scribe. Again, the artist at times arranged his vignettes in wrong order, and
it is occasionally evident that neither artist nor scribe understood the matter
upon which he was engaged. According to M. Maspero the scribes of the VIth
dynasty did not understand the texts which they were drafting, and in the XIXth
dynasty the scribe of a papyrus now preserved at Berlin knew or cared so little
about the text which he was copying that he transcribed the LXXVIIth Chapter
from the wrong end, and apparently never discovered his error although he
concluded the chapter with its title. Originally each copy of the Book of the
Dead was written to order, but soon the custom obtained of preparing copies
with blank spaces in which the name of the purchaser might be inserted; and
many of the errors in spelling and most of the omissions of words are no doubt
due to the haste with which such " stock" copies were written by the
members of the priestly caste, whose profession it was to copy them.”
In other words,
preparation of these important religious documents later became strictly a
commercial enterprise. We must deduce that both the later scribes and the
purchasers did not understand the text, and were engaging is this exercise
purely out of rote. The beauty of the vignettes took upper place, while the
purpose of the original text was lost.According to Maspero this inversion of
importance began as early as the VIth dynasty, circa 2300 BC. This fact implies
that the text had a long history prior to that time. The remarks by Wasserman
suggest that the vignettes hold the greater importance once again, in contrast
to the text, regardless of its “uneven quality.” Hence, the current
translations also suffer from casualness of treatment.
I shall offer first the
translation of the first page of the papyrus as currently published, then the
translation by Budge, and finally a transliteration to show a possible shift in
scholarly attitudes over the past one hundred years.
I shall lay out the
passages side by side. The numbers in Budge’s list are the column numbers in
the papyrus, which read downward, and then from right to left. Budge’s
hieroglyphic figures are all reversed from the original. To maintain sense I
have sometimes rearranged the words of the literal order in the transliteration.
I refer to notes with small case letters. The notes offer more detailed review
than I showed in the Internet post above.
Refer to the
photocopies of the Papyrus of Ani from Faulkner and from Budge. Click on
pictures to obtain larger images.
Faulkner
Budge
Transliteration
(from Budge with
comparisons to facsimile volume)
Worship of Re when he
rises in the eastern horizon of the ski by Ani.(a) (b)
(1) A HYMN OF PRAISE TO
RA WHEN HE RISETH IN THE EASTERN PART OF HEAVEN.
Behold Osiris Ani the
scribe who recordeth the holy offerings of all the gods,
Adoration of Ra when he
rises in the eastern horizon of heaven.
Behold Awsar, the
scribe of the holy offerings of all the gods, Ani.(c)
He says: Hail to you,
you having come as Khepri, even Khepri who is the creator of the gods.
(2) who saith: Homage
to thee, O thou who hast come as Khepera,Khepera, the creator of the gods.
He says: Homage to you
who has come as Khepera, Khepera as the creator of the gods. (d)
You rise and shine on
the back of your mother (the sky), having appeared in glory as King of the
gods.
Thou risest, thou
shinest, (3) making bright thy mother [Nut], crowned king of the gods.
You rise, you shine,
making bright your mother, having appeared in glory as king of the gods. (e)
Your Mother Nut shall
use her arms on your behalf in making greeting.
[Thy] mother Nut doeth
homage unto thee with both her hands.
Mother Nut does to you
her two hands in the act of worship. (f)
The Manu-mountain
receives you in peace, Maat embraces you at all seasons.
(4) The land of Manu
receiveth thee with content, and the goddess Maat embraceth thee at the
twoseasons.
Manu receives you with
content. Maat embraces you at the double season. (g)
May you give power and
might in vindication
May he give splendour,
and power, and triumph, and
May he give splendor
and power with triumph and (h)
and a coming forth as a
living soul to see Horakhty – to the Ka of Ani. (i)
(5) a coming-forth as a
living Soul to see Horus of the Two Horizons to the ka of Osiris, the scribe
Ani, triumphant before Osiris,
a coming forth as a
living soul to see Heru of the two horizons to the ka of Awsar, the scribe Ani,
triumphant before Awsar.
He says: O all you gods
of the Soul-mansion who judge sky and earth in the balance, who give food and
provisions.
(6) who saith: Hail all
ye gods of the Temple of the Soul, who weigh heaven and earth in the balance,
and who provide food and abundance of meat.
Who says: Hail all the
gods of the Soul Temple, weighers of heaven and earth in the balance, givers of
ka and celestial food. (j)
O Tatenon, Unique One,
creator of mankind; O Southern, Northern, Western, and Eastern Enneads,
Hail Tatunen, One (7)
creator of mankind and of the substance of the gods of the south and of
thenorth, of the west and of the east.
Tatunen, One, maker of
mankind and the many gods of the south, north, west, and east.
(k)
Give praise to Re, Lord
of the Sky, the Sovereign who made the gods. Worship him in his goodly shape
when he appears in the Day-bark.
Ascribe [ye] praise
unto Ra, the lord of heaven, the (8) Prince, Life, Health, and Strength, the
Creator of the gods, and adore ye him in his beautiful presence as he riseth in
the atet boat.
Give praise to Ra, the
Lord of heaven, Prince, Life, Strength, Health, creator of the gods. Adore him
in his beautiful Presence, in his rising in the atet boat. (l)
May those who are above
worship you, may those who are below worship you,
(9) Theywho dwell in
the heights and they who dwell in the depths worship thee.
Shall worship you, the
beings above, the beings below.
may Thoth and Maat
write to you daily;
Thoth and Maat both are
thy recorders.
Record for you Thoth
and Maat every day. (m)
your serpent-foe has
been given over to the fire and the rebel-serpent is fallen, his arms are
bound, Re has taken away his movements
Thine enemy is given to
the (10) fire, the evil one hath fallen; his arms are bound, and his legs hath
Ra taken from him.
Your enemy is given to
the fire. The rebel serpent is fallen, his arms are bound. Ra has removed his
legs. (n)
and the Children of
impotence are nonexistent.
The children of (11)
impotent revolt shall never rise up again.
The sons of impotent
revolt shall never rise.
Over the past century
an evolution of concept has taken place in the scholarly world, from views of
God and heaven, with which the Egyptian works are replete, to new godless ideas
that profoundly alter the meaning. Worship becomes merely a cult observance;
heaven becomes the sky. According to the old views Heaven is populated by
intelligent and purposeful beings; the sky has no population. (Faulkner
substitutes sky three times in this short passage.) Thus we see an effort by
modern scholars to transform the intent of the ancient texts to their views,
not to express the intent of the ancient Egyptians. This is scholarly
perversion.It denies the meaning of the texts. It violates intellectual
integrity.
(b) An entire phrase is
eliminated in the Faulkner translation. “Behold Awsar, the scribe of the holy
offerings of all the gods.”
(c) The Egyptian name
for the Creator God more recently became pronounced as Wasir among some
Egyptologists, with an initial “W” instead of the guttural “a” we know from
Hebrew aleph, understood in Greek and English as “O” or “Aw.” Many examples of
the translation of guttural Semitic and Egyptian sounds to easier Greek or English
vowels can be cited. A prominent example is the Hebrew El = God, but pronounced
with the modern vowel.
In How to Read
Egyptian, Mark Collier and Bill Manley, University of California Press, 1998,
briefly mention this change, and the fact that the name is not written with
individual letters, but merely with glyphs that have no direct sound
equivalent.
Indeed there is still
some dispute as to the exact reading — in this book we adapt the more recent
suggestion to read asir rather than wsir, not least since this brings out the
parallel with the writing of the name Isis, ast.
The evolution is not
really hard to understand.
Since the Greeks knew
the word as Osar, with their habitual practice of adding “s” on the end of
words, this then became Osiris. Thus they understood the initial “Aw” or “O”
vowel.
In transcribing
Egyptian sounds it was common to write a “u,” as in “oo,” with a “w,” similar
to what the Welsh do. We see this often in English as dew, two, pewter, and so
on. The “w” can easily become a consonant by stressing the diphthong
elements.The word endow, pronounced commonly more as endau, went into dowager,
in mediaeval times as douagere, now stressing the “w” sound with the modern
spelling. Thus representations of sounds take on a life of their own and cause
linguistic evolution simply by the way we transcribe them.
Osiris was earlier
written with this “W” as representing a vowel, oosir written as wsir. This then
developed into the wasir with a distinct “w” sound.
(d) Budge Note:
The god Khepera is
usually represented with a beetle; the scarab, or beetle, was sacred to him.
The name means "to become, to turn, to roll," and the abstract noun
kheperu may be rendered by "becomings," or "evolutions."
The god was
self-created, and was the father of all the other gods; men and women sprang
from the tears which fell from his eyes; and the animal and vegetable worlds
owed their existence to him. Khepera is a phase of Tmu, the night-sun, at the
twelfth hour of the night, when he "becomes" the rising sun or
Harmachis (i.e., Horus in the horizon). He is also described as "Khepera
in the morning, Ra at mid-day, and Tmu in the evening."
The representation as a
scarab is due to the fact that the dung beetle of ancient Egypt would roll its
dung in little balls, hide them, and use them as a depository of its eggs. This
beetle then became sacred because it symbolized the "turning" or
"rolling," as symbolic of the method of incubation for creation
itself.
(e) Both Faulkner and
Budge insert words to help the reader understand the allusion. Faulkner follows
scholarly trends to interpret Nut as a mythological image of the sky rather
than a celestial personality. He also alters the meaning by putting further
mythological interpretation in the phrase “on the back of your mother” rather
than “making bright your mother.” The idea of Osiris as King of the Gods is
reflected in the religious traditions of many people who also had a King of the
Gods. Note the biblical phrase, Ps 95:3:
For Yahweh is a great
God, and a great King above all gods.
(f) In Faulkner’s
translation Mother Nut merely greets Awsar, rather than worshiping him.
Repeatedly we see Faulkner removing the religious meaning to reduce the text to
conform to modern godless theories.
(g) Faulkner inserts
the word mountain, Budge the word land, without textual support. We could
question the use of the word Manu. Both Faulkner and Budge held to the popular
conception that Manu is a geographical location, a mountain to the west. Egypt
had no mountains to the north or to the west. Therefore the people could not
assign the gods to a northern mountain, as did the Greeks in Mt. Olympus and
the Hebrews to Mt. Zion. Further, assignment to the smaller eastern hills along
the Nile would not provide the majesty that was required. Even more in
objection, the east held an altogether different meaning, as the origin of
creation (sun rising). The west was considered as the direction to which gods
and departed human beings would travel. Thus Manu was the ancient Egyptian home
of the gods, the regions of the west where the sun set. Some see the phrase
"lord of Manu," as a Libyan mountain.
Hence, this confusion
led to the question if Manu should be understood as a geographical location;
perhaps it should be understood as a spirit entity. If the former, the phrase
would not parallel the one about Maat. Further, the Manu name in celestial
context is known from Hindu religious literature:
Manu was the Appointed
One, author of the ancient Hindu holy law, progenitor of the human race and
Creator of the Universe. According to Hindu tradition a succession of Manus
recreated the earth anew at the end of each of the earth ages. In some
traditions the Manus were known as rulers of the planets
An Indian Flood myth
relates that Manu was washing in a river when a fish came into his hands. The
fish warned him that a great flood would carry away all creatures, and that if
Manu would rear him he would save Manu from the flood.
In other Hindu folklore
the slope of the northern mountains are often called "Manu's
descent." The flood swept away all creatures; only Manu was left.
Here we can see Manu
associated with a northern mountain, as in the myths of other people. A more
full account of the Indian Creation may be found in the Laws of Manu. See
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/manu-full.html
Some question exists
about the hieroglyph that Budge translates as “two seasons.” Faulkner may
capture it better with “all seasons.”
(h) Faulkner changes
the person to make sense according to his understanding. The “he” could refer
back to Maat.
(i) This is the second
case where Faulkner strips an entire phrase: “to the ka of Awsar, the scribe
Ani, triumphant before Awsar.” Faulkner replaces it with “Horakhty – to the Ka
of Ani.” Where Budge separates the hieroglyphs to translate “Horus of the two
horizons” Faulkner combines them into Horakhty. This translation buries the
literal expression of the original phrase.
(j) See comments at the
beginning of the document.
Here we have one of the
more difficult phrases within the document. Faulkner understands “who give food
and provisions.” Budge offers “who provide food and abundance of meat.”However,
the context clearly describes celestial powers. Literally the hieroglyphs show
“givers of ka and celestial food.” Both Faulkner and Budge did not grasp the
celestial significance and could only translate the certain ka into “food.”
Then, in keeping with their approach must follow it with “provisions” or
“abundance of meat.”
The word ka means
image, genius, disposition, or spirit. It was used to denote spiritual and
intellectual characteristics of man.
(k) See comments at the
beginning of the document.
Budge attempted to
interpret the phrase with the assumption that the hieroglyph was mistaken. With
better understanding Faulkner now translates it as Ennead, Greek for Nine Gods.
One can easily understand the phrase to mean simply “many gods.” Ennead is a
modern scholarly substitution without textual foundation.
(l) Faulkner strips the
words “Prince, Life, Strength, Health.” He reduces the phrase “beautiful presence”
to “goodly shape.” Both of these changes reduce the spiritual significance of
the celestial being who is the Father of all Creation. The meaning of the atet
boat is uncertain; Faulkner gives it a more direct meaning.
(m) See comments at the
beginning of the document.
Yet again Faulkner
reduces the significance of celestial recorders who write in the “judgment book
of life” the deeds are the deeds of the personalities of the universe, both
celestial and terrestrial.
(n) These phrases
reflect a very ancient symbolic designation for a rebel being, found in
Sumeria, Hebrew legend, and many other places. In the Bible he is known as the
serpent who betrayed Eve. Consignment to fire is also universal in the folklore
of people around the world.
This brief review shows
how modern scholarship will impose their understanding into the translations,
rather than representing what the ancients believed.
This can only be
regarded as a perversion of intent of the original authors.
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