The Ritual of the Hours of the Day on the inner vault of the qrsw-coffin of Nes(pa)qashuty from Deir el-Bahari

Abstract

In 1932–1933, a shaft tomb with several funerary ensembles of a family of Late Period priests of Montu was found on the Upper Terrace of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. Among them was the Qrsw-coffin of Nes(pa)qashuty, which is the first coffin to date containing a version of the Rituals of the Hours of the Day and the Night with excerpts from the daily hymns to the sun-god on the inner vault of the lid. The texts for the Ritual of the Hours of the Day, written in cursive hieroglyphs, are here represented as standard hieroglyphs, with destroyed or illegible parts supplemented, followed by comments and translations. The coffin contains three hymns unknown from other sources. Finally, there are some remarks on the transmission of this important text in general and on the series of private funerary texts divided into 24 hours and representing their corresponding deities.

Keywords

• Nespaqashuty
• Deir el-Bahari
• Ritual of the Hours of the Day
• Ritual of the Hours of the Night
• Hours-as-frame
• Dynasty 25