Waters of Death and Creation

This is an in-depth study of a vital and fascinating aspect of ancient Egyptian religion as preserved in the Pyramid Texts of the Fifth Dynasty. The creative and life-giving powers of the waters that sustain this world are also present in the Egyptian underworld and enable the dead king who has lived in Truth (Maat) to live again in the endless cycles of nature: the journeys of the sun and the stars and the birth and growth of vegetation. Concepts such as the Winding Waterway, the Great Lake, the serpent and the abyss were used to describe both the dangers of the underworld and the process of regeneration.