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.)

In connection with the Mehen serpent and the rebirth from the serpent, Piccione

105 discusses in detail the "secret form" (m stlf) of Mehen that has two heads and through which the divine transformation and rising to the sky take place. That conception can be found already at the time of the Pyramid Texts in a textual form, then not much later its pictoral formulation is also created in the Coffin Texts. In the iconographie repertoire of the netherworld books of the New Kingdom its versions appear now and then.

106 The two-headed Mehen is a regenerative power which is connected to the rebirth of Re on the eastern horizon both in the Book of Gates and in the Book of the Day.

107 The two-headed, four-legged serpent of the 10th hour of the Amduat, out of which a falconshaped god comes at dawn, near the eastern horizon, to soar to the sky, can easily be identified with the falcon-god of the Pyramid Texts (§541) named WA

m as well as with the "secret", twoheaded Mehen figure of the New Kingdom netherworld books. The motif of the double serpent therefore is closely connected to the next scene, especially to one element of it: the many-coiled serpent under the sun-barque. (The second part of the article will be published in the next issue.) Eva Liptay is Head of the Egyptian Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. NOTES 1 Mention of the exhibition catalogues: E. Varga, Egyiptomi kiállítás. Vezető, Budapest 1974, 32, fig. 17; I. Nagy, Guide to the Egyptian Collection. Guide, Budapest 1999, 54-55, figs. 38/a-b. The Budapest papyrus bears the sign Budapest 1 in the catalogue of the work in question (A. Niwiiiski, Studies on the Illustrated Theban Funerary Papyri of the IV

1

' and 10

th Centuries B.C (Orbis Biblicus et Orientális 86), Freiburg and Göttingen 1989, 203-09 and 253). The datable pieces belonging to that group usually come from the second half or end of the dynasty: Minneapolis, Institute of Arts, 16.675 (Niwiiiski 1989, 343 and pi. 48b); Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, 51. 2547 (Niwiiiski 1989, 253 and fig. 77); Haag, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, 37 (Niwinski 1989, 308); London, British Museum, 9985 (Niwiiiski 1989, 325 and fig. 78). 3 Niwinski 1989, 204. 4 J. C. Darnell, The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity. Cryptographic Compositions in the Tombs ofTutankhamun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 198), Freiburg and Göttingen 2004, 276-373.