Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 104. (Budapest, 2006)

ÉVA LIPTAY: Between Heaven and Earth II: The Iconography of a Funerary Papyrus from the Twenty-First Dynasty (Part I.)

papyri and vignettes also in a different context." Another piece of the Egyptian Department of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts should be mentioned here: a coffin also from the Twentyfirst Dynasty, in the left-hand side closing scene of which a scarab is proceeding into the arms of the personified sun-disc, in the scene of entering the Hereafter.

32 THE NUN CHARACTER OF THE "GREAT GOD" The hand raising the sun to the sky may be not only that of Shu.

33 The sun-barque of the closing scene (Schlußszene) of the Book of Gates, and the scarab appearing on it with the sundisc

—as opposed to the Amduat versions

—is held not by Shu, but by Nun. (Shu appears in the barque as a member of the crew. Nut and Osiris represent a separate unit.

34

) In the Ramesses IX scene and its variants, the raised arm of the god of the eastern horizon

— beside the Shu character

—refers also to Nun's role played at the creation: the purification of the creator god (Atum-Re) in the primaeval water and his rebirth from that at dawn. The nature of the here discussed god, therefore, comprises that function/conception as well.

3

'' The arm of Nun-Osiris, similarly to those of Shu, symbolises the boundary of the two worlds, the critical stage of the Sun's journey. Both in the 10-11th hour of the Amduat and the 9-11th hour of the Book of Gates, the water of Nun is a key-motif, the scene before the creation from w

r

hich the rebirth will take place.

56 Simultaneously another important event also takes place: the destruction of the evil, the guilty (the damned) by fire.

37 The whole middle register of the 10th hour of the Book of Gates is dedicated, for example, to the fight against Apophis, and in the lower register of the 11th hour of the Amduat the punishment takes place in a sandy, desert-like area: that is the htmyt also mentioned in the Ramesses IX scene, where Florus in the underworld defeats the enemies of his father (Osiris). That is the main topic also in the 11th hour of the Book of Gates.

38 The red colour before the sunrise gets a twofold meaning in the Egyptian way of thinking: it is partly connected with the birth of the sun-child, partly with the destruction of the god's defeated enemies. The link between them is the red light of the rising sun and his fire of destructive powers.

39 THE MIN CHARACTER OF EHE "GREAT GOD" The pose of the ithyphallic god raising one arm suggests that here Osiris is identified with Min (/'/' r the one raising his ami) as well.

40 This identification is suggested even stronger by the (right) arm bent at the elbow of the Budapest version. The god figure of the Ramesses IX version raises his left hand;

41 the figures on the papyri, however, raise cosistently their right hand.

42