Amduat
An ancient Egyptian netherworld book describing the sun god's journey through the twelve hours of night. Like all Egyptian funerary literature, it names no author.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- Date not recorded
- Form
- Other works
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Unrecorded
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
The Amduat, meaning That Which Is in the Netherworld, is one of the great New Kingdom funerary compositions, painted in royal tombs from the sixteenth century BCE onward. It maps the sun god Ra's nightly voyage through twelve hours of the underworld toward rebirth at dawn. No author is named anywhere in the tradition. Egyptian religious texts were produced by priestly institutions across generations, and authorship in the modern sense did not apply. The work is anonymous not because a name was hidden but because the culture that produced it did not record one.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote Amduat?
Nobody knows. No author for Amduat has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read Amduat for free?
Yes. Amduat is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at the Internet Archive.
Related works
- Still unknown
Book of Caverns
An ancient Egyptian netherworld book depicting the sun god's passage over six caverns of the underworld. No author is recorded in the tradition.
- Still unknown
Book of the Dead
The ancient Egyptian collection of funerary spells guiding the dead through the afterlife. Tradition associates such texts with the god Thoth; no historical author exists in the record.
- Still unknown
Book of the Earth
An ancient Egyptian funerary composition showing the sun's night journey through the earth god Aker. Anonymous, like all Egyptian netherworld books.
- Still unknown
Book of the Heavens
A group of New Kingdom compositions charting the sun's passage across the sky and through the body of the sky goddess Nut. No author is recorded.