Hour Twelve of the Amduat

     The main event in the Book of the Amduat is the rise of the sun each morning. In the twelfth hour of the text Ra has regained his full power and is reborn in the eastern sky.

     In the middle register of this scene in the Tomb of Tuthmose III we see the sun god's boat being towed by twelve gods and thirteen goddesses toward a large snake (the "World Encircler"). The solar bark enters the snake at the tail and is reborn out the mouth of the serpent. The "old ones, weak from age" who are on the god's boat are rejuvenated along with Ra as they pass through the body of the snake. Finally the sun arrives at the eastern horizon where the it is reborn in the form of a beetle (the god Khepra).