Pyramid Texts
The king's ascent to the imperishable stars is guaranteed by the correct recitation of spells, making the afterlife one of the earliest problems Egyptian civilization applied sustained written composition to solving.
- among the earliest known religious texts in the world
- afterlife reserved for royalty at first
- stellar and solar destinies for the dead king
- magical efficacy of the spoken spell
Among the earliest surviving bodies of religious literature in the world, carved into the burial chambers of pyramids beginning with King Unas of the Fifth Dynasty. The spells equip the dead king to rise, cross the sky, and join the circumpolar stars or the sun god's boat, treating the afterlife as a technical passage requiring exact words rather than only ritual offerings. Reserved for royalty at first, the same spells later broaden into the Coffin Texts and eventually the Book of the Dead.
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