The objects found in the graves of the predynastic Egyptians, i.e.,
vessels of food, flint knives and other weapons, etc., prove that
these early dwellers in the Nile Valley believed in some kind of a
future existence. But as the art of writing was, unknown to them their
graves contain no inscriptions, and we can only infer from texts of
the dynastic period what their ideas about the Other World were. It is
clear that they did not consider it of great importance to preserve
the dead body in as complete and perfect state as possible, for in
many of their graves the heads, hands and feet have been found severed
from the trunks and lying at some distance from them. On the other
hand, the dynastic Egyptians, either as the result of a difference in
religious belief, or under the influence of invaders who had settled
in their country, attached supreme importance to the preservation and
integrity of the dead body, and they adopted every means known to them
to prevent its dismemberment and decay. They cleansed it and embalmed
it with drugs, spices and balsams; they anointed it with aromatic
oils and preservative fluids; they swathed it in hundreds of yards of
linen bandages; and then they sealed it up in a coffin or sarcophagus,
which they laid in a chamber hewn in the bowels of the mountain. All
these things were done to protect the physical body against damp,
dry rot and decay, and against the attacks of moth, beetles, worms
and wild animals. But these were not the only enemies of the dead
against which precautions had to be taken, for both the mummified
body and the spiritual elements which had inhabited it upon earth
had to be protected from a multitude of devils and fiends, and from
the powers of darkness generally. These powers of evil had hideous
and terrifying shapes and forms, and their haunts were well known,
for they infested the region through which the road of the dead lay
when passing from this world to the Kingdom of Osiris. The "great
gods" were afraid of them, and were obliged to protect themselves
by the use of spells and magical names, and words of power, which
were composed and written down by Thoth. In fact it was believed in
very early times in Egypt that Ra the Sun-god owed his continued
existence to the possession of a secret name with which Thoth had
provided him. And each morning the rising sun was menaced by a fearful
monster called Aapep, which lay hidden under the place of sunrise
waiting to swallow up the solar disk. It was impossible, even for the
Sun-god, to destroy this "Great Devil," but by reciting each morning
the powerful spell with which Thoth had provided him he was able to
paralyse all Aapep's limbs and to rise upon this world. Since then the
"great gods," even though benevolently disposed towards them, were not
able to deliver the dead from the devils that lived upon the "bodies,
souls, spirits, shadows and hearts of the dead," the Egyptians decided
to invoke the aid of Thoth on behalf of their dead and to place them
under the protection of his almighty spells. Inspired by Thoth the
theologians of ancient Egypt composed a large number of funerary
texts which were certainly in general use under the IVth dynasty
(about 3700 B.C.), and were probably well known under the Ist dynasty,
and throughout the whole period of dynastic history Thoth was regarded
as the author of the "Book of the Dead."