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.)

up the powers defeating the enemy. And these latter are, as we have seen, traditionally in close connection with the figure of a flame-breathing serpent in the New Kingdom netherworld books. So in that case the maker of the papyrus placed the creatures defeating the enemy on the serpent-body of the defeated enemy: the serpent connected with the figures of the netherworld has been transformed from a positive to a negative power. 7 Another composition frequent in the Twenty-first Dynasty and applied mainly on the sides of coffins, depicts three mummy-shaped gods usually with a ram's, a lion's and a jackal's head standing on a coiled serpent. As is the case with all the scene-types of contemporary papyri and coffins, great iconographie variety characterises that one as well.

78 The motif is significant for us because the defeat over Apophis (or Re-Osiris' enemy) is expressed with very similar tools to the Budapest papyrus: the defeaters are standing in the coils of the stabbed serpent.

79 The interpretation of the scene, however, is not easy in every case. When the serpent is depicted with knives in its body, the situation is evident; at times, however, it seems that even the makers were uncertain whether the serpent's role is positive or negative.

80 The other possibility is that they played with the twofold nature of the serpent deliberately, leaving in obscurity, as it were, its role in the particular picture.

81 DRAWING THE BARQUE AND LOOKING BACKWARDS Certain groups of creatures of the netherworld are connected with the enormous serpent representing a positive energy in other cases also. In the middle register of the 12th hour of the Amduat

82 twelve gods are drawing the sun-barque (and its passanger, the sun-god) through the body of a huge snake ("im Rückgrat der c

n h - ntrw-Schlange") to the East, in the direction of the sky.

83 At the end of the journey, the god comes out of the serpent's mouth rejuvenated and reborn. Time goes by backwards: the mystical journey, aimed at the rebirth of the god, proceeds from the tail to the head of the serpent; from east to west; while the aged god becomes a child again.

84 Those drawing the serpent are also looking backwards, in the direction of the barque. According to all indications, the makers of later versions still attached crucial importance to that momentum when depicting the sun-cycle. Those drawing the sun-barque appear frequently in the Amduat versions of the Twenty-first Dynasty funerary papyri. Their number may change, and at times the form and symbolism of the serpent is enriched with interesting motifs.

85 It was not only the Budapest papyrus that played with the combination of the defeated Apophis serpent and the one regenerating the sun god and embracing the world. In one case the stabbed serpent is placed at the feet of the figures drawing the barque with ropes ending in a serpent's head.

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