Subscribe now for full access and no adverts
Ani has now reached the end of his journey through the underworld and has become a blessed spirit (akh). Plate 34 is one of the concluding scenes from the papyrus and shows several idyllic scenes of Osiris Ani in the afterlife.
The vignette is divided into various waterways or islands. On the left-hand side of the top register, Thoth is seen holding a pen and palette (presumably following on from the judgement scene in Plate 3 – see AE 147), showing that Ani has been successful in gaining a grant of land in the Field of Offerings (Hotep).
Ani and his ka (his double) are shown worshipping three deities with animal heads (hare, snake, and bull), who are presumed to represent what appear to be two Enneads, as indicated by the caption in front of them (or this might signify there are many of them). In the centre, Ani is shown steering a boat of offerings and saying something to a hawk (Horus?) on a plinth or pedestal.
The scenes in this vignette are very positive… and indicate that Ani has gained a life of perfection as a blessed spirit.
On the right of this register there is an altar containing a lotus (lily) flower placed between a hawk and a standing mummified god. The caption below the three oval shapes reads: ‘being at peace in the Field and having a breeze for the nostrils’. It is not clear from this whether the Field of Offerings is different from the Field of Reeds, but whatever the case they are both clearly some kind of idealised form of the life Ani had led on earth.
The second register has the caption ‘Osiris reaps’ and shows Ani reaping wheat. He encourages the oxen to tread the corn before raising his arms in adoration of the Benu-bird, symbol of creation. Ani kneels before two containers of wheat and barley which, as the caption above says, are ‘foods of the blessed dead’. He holds a baton. The three oval shapes at the end of the register are presumably further food supplies. We recall also that one of Ani’s jobs on earth was as an overseer of the granary of the Lords of Abydos.
Ani now proceeds in the third register to plough and reap with oxen in the Field of Reeds. There are then two lines of text in which a white hippo says that ‘the river is 1,000 measures long but whose breadth can’t be said. There are no fish in it nor serpents’. It is not really clear what this means, and there is also some ambiguity about the text in the fourth register which, however, does indicate that this is the ‘seat of the blessed dead, being seven cubits long with the wheat being three cubits and that it is the virtuous nobles who reap them’. Is this the area being assigned to Ani?
The lower circular waterway is called Ishet, and, to the left of the snake-headed boat, ‘Wennefer’ is mentioned (an epithet of Osiris). On the right of the boat is the caption ‘holy shore’, and on the far right is written ‘provisions’. It is not clear what the steps signify.
The scenes in this vignette are very positive compared with many other scenes in the papyrus, and indicate that Ani has gained a life of perfection as a blessed spirit.
Andrew Fulton reaches the final instalment of his series in the next issue, when he explores the importance of the goddess Hathor in the final scene of the papyrus.
All images: Robert B Partridge
