Book of Gates

The Book of Gates (Arabic: كتاب البوابات, romanized: Kitab al-Bawaabat) is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom. The text was not named by the Egyptians. It was named by French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero who called it 'Livre de Portes' (Book of Gates). The Book of Gates narrates the passage of a newly deceased soul into the next world, corresponding to the journey of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night. The soul is required to pass through a series of 'gates' at different stages in the journey. Each gate is associated with a different goddess, and requires that the deceased recognize the particular character of that deity. Depictions of the judgment of the dead are shown in the last three hours and the text implies that some people will pass through unharmed, but that others will suffer torment in a lake of fire. The Book of Gates serves as a guidebook so that the deceased pharaoh with the sun god, can navigate his way to the afterworld and toward his resurrection. The Book of Gates is long and detailed and consists of one hundred scenes.

The text and images associated with the Book of Gates appear in many tombs of the New Kingdom, including all the pharaonic tombs between Horemheb (d.c. 1295 BC) and Ramesses VII (d.c. 1130 BC). They also appear in the tomb of Sennedjem, a worker in the village of Deir el-Medina, the ancient village of artists and craftsmen who built pharaonic tombs in the New Kingdom.

The goddesses listed in the Book of Gates each have different titles, and wear different coloured clothes, but are identical in all other respects, wearing a five pointed star above their heads. Most of the goddesses are specific to the Book of Gates, and do not appear elsewhere in Egyptian mythology, and so it has been suggested that the Book of Gates originated merely as a system for determining the time at night, with the goddess at each gate being a representation of the main star appearing during the hour.