The Ancient Egyptian Book of Gates
“The BOOK OF GATES.
–This book was also written to be a Guide to the Tuat, and has much in common with the Book of the Two Ways and with the Book Am Tuat.
In it also the Tuat is divided into ten sections and has two vestibules, the Eastern and the Western, but at the entrance to each section is a strongly fortified Gate, guarded by a monster serpent-god and by the gods of the section.
The Sun-god of night, as in the Book Am Tuat, makes his journey in a boat, and is attended by a number of gods, who remove all opposition from his path by the use of words of power.
As he approaches each Gate, its doors are thrown open by the gods who guard them, and he passes into the section of the Tuat behind it, carrying with him light, air, and food for its inhabitants.
The Book of Gates embodies the teaching of the priests of the cult of Osiris, and the Book Am Tuat represents the modified form of it that was promulgated by the priests of Amen.
From the Book of Gates we derive much information about the realm of Osiris, and the Great Judgment of souls, which took place in his Hall of Judgment once a day at midnight.
Then all the souls that had collected during the past twenty-four hours from all parts of Egypt were weighed in the Balance; the righteous were allotted estates in perpetuity in the “land of souls,” and the wicked were destroyed by Shesmu, the executioner of the god, and by his assistants.
The texts that describe the various “Gates” of the Book of Gates, explain who are the beings represented in the pictures, and state why they were there.
And the Book proves conclusively that the Egyptians believed in the efficacy of sacrifices and offerings, and in the doctrine of righteous retribution; liars and deceivers were condemned, and their bodies, souls, spirits, doubles, and names destroyed, and the righteous were rewarded for their upright lives and integrity upon earth by the gift of everlasting life and happiness.
The most complete copy of this interesting work in England is cut on the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, about 1350 B.C.
This unique sepulchral monument is exhibited gratis in Sir John Soane’s Museum at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and every student of the religion of the Egyptians should examine it.”
—E.A. Wallis Budge, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 111-2.