At the beginning of the 20th century, the German Egyptologist Kurt Seth, on the basis of Masperot's collation, compiled and published the pyramid inscriptions of the five kings of Unas, Teti, Pepi I, Merienra, and Pepi II, and numbered the contents of the inscriptions, and the hieroglyphic version he compiled is still the most authoritative and classic version of the document.
Among them, among the pyramid inscriptions compiled by Seth, only the inscriptions in the pyramid of Unas were all collected and published.
In these pyramid inscriptions, their compositional pattern is not a combination of various pictorial elements, the 226 inscriptions all begin with "speech" and end with "sections", varying in length and order from top to bottom, and in terms of spatial distribution, the inscriptions appear in the coffin chamber, the former burial chamber and the wall that extends to the north within the Pyramid of Unas.
The content is also composed of a large number of mythological stories, prayers, funeral incantations, and hymns, recording the religious thought and kingship thought of that period.
When the academic community faces these ancient inscriptions, the most important work is to constantly translate the contents.
In terms of "incantations", the pyramid inscription contains three types of incantations, namely the sacrificial ceremony, the resurrection ceremony, and the early morning ceremony.
From these three mantras, we can also see the thoughts of the time.
The sacrificial ceremony was mainly to offer wine, food, incense, etc. to the dead king to provide material benefits to the dead king.
The resurrection ceremony, on the other hand, consisted mainly of purging, offering, and regeneration, allowing the dead king to ascend to heaven and be accepted by the world of God, and to be able to walk with God.
The final morning ritual is to wake up the dead king and live as he did before he died, and it also expresses the respect that these ancients had for the king.
In some parts of the coffin, there are also incantations to protect the mummies, which also keep snakes and scorpions away from pyramids and mummies.
Many borrowings and metaphors are used in these inscriptions, such as referring to snakes with unadorned calves, snakes with ropes, snakes with kilns, snake teeth with bone forks and pillars, etc.
A large number of studies have also made many inscriptions have also obtained relatively complete translations.
For example, the inscription "Unas" says: "Go over the white crown and bite off the tongue of the great serpent, and the white crown bites the great serpent until its tongue is no longer visible." ”
These are all incantations spoken from the first point of view of Unas, and they also bring a sacred image to the dead king.
In these "speeches", the three names are switching to each other, and the spatial distribution of the human names is regular.
The "pyramid inscription" presents the ritual process of transforming the dead king into a god in the form of a decorative inscription in the tomb space of King Unas, "commemoratively" presenting the eternal connection between the king and the tomb building, emphasizing that the rule of the kingdom comes from the question of the political legitimacy of the gods.
These features of the inscription, which give legitimacy to real power by the power of culture, also highlight the ruling power of the king.
In fact, this also has a lot to do with social attributes, the king has a very strong political significance, their death, will also cause political turmoil, at the same time, it also has a theological significance.
These "divine" monarchs were in charge not only of the government of Egypt, but also of the order of the "universe."
Behind these inscriptions, the rich use of the writing of the Unas Pyramid period can also be seen.
In the period of ancient civilizations, inscriptions had a unified and standardized form, which had departed from the original pictorial way of writing and had rich structural elements.
After these characters have been combined, although the characters are relatively small overall, there has been a preliminary development, with a relatively complete word construction mode, and some characters have been able to develop into more mature combinations.
Divine kingship and the belief in the afterlife converge in tombs
The "pyramid inscriptions" on the tomb wall do not have any titles themselves to divide the scope, and they are scattered on the wall.
It is not difficult to imagine that most of the meanings are related to religious meanings, and can be associated with "belief".
The "tribute list" is a common burial decoration content in the Egyptian Old Kingdom period, which lists the names of various tributes offered to the deceased in the lattice frame of the tomb wall, usually accompanied by a ceremonial picture of the tribute to the deceased.
These can also show that these pictures and texts have realistic pictures, such as "cattle and sheep walking towards the dead", "the crowd with tributes to the dead", etc., and for "resurrection", etc., indicating the continuity of faith.
The British Egyptologist Baines put forward a point of view: "Pyramid inscriptions" is a metaphorical technique that extends the status of kingship to the future world of the afterlife, as a funerary scripture that can be used in the burial environment, it is itself rooted in the soil of funerary culture and mythological beliefs in the Old Kingdom period.
Religious knowledge underwent a process of continuous development and enrichment, and in the late Old Kingdom, after absorbing various cultural elements, it formed a collection of religious texts.
Behind this, there is a strict set of knowledge system.
In a large number of archaeologies, historians have found that fictional myths of kings and gods protagonists from the end of the Second Dynasty of the Old Kingdom to the beginning of the Third Dynasty appeared on the burial items of the kings' tombs and on the reliefs of the temples, becoming their decorative texts.
The text connects the king and God, who is the Son of God and whose dominion is given by God.
In this way, some of the words in the inscription are well explained.
The ritual became textual, and the ritual of sound was transformed into a visual ritual, but the mode of oral expression was retained, and different scenes were added to it.
In this way, the ceremony of royal power and religious ceremony can be closely combined, highlighting the important position of the king.
And from relief to words and images, it is a new development in the expression of royal power.
These funerary verses carved into the tombs of the Pyramid of Kings are no longer simply texts, but have become spatial decorations with visual beauty and sacred charm, realizing the unity of divine royal power and the beliefs of the afterlife and visual arts in tomb monuments.
The inscription is also a kind of decoration, and it also extends the power of the king to the world of the "afterlife".
Therefore, the formation of this knowledge system is also a process of continuous expansion and superposition of royal power and theocracy.
