The Opening of the Mouth Performed by the Gods

            One other point can be made regarding the Opening of the Mouth. Flint “Pesh-en-Kefs” have been found in predynastic graves[1] and some Old Kingdom burials have been found to contain the various instruments used in the Opening of the Mouth[2]. If the Opening of the Mouth ceremonies had been carried out before the interment of the deceased, then placing these items in the burial would be superfluous. The assumption could be made that the Opening of the Mouth could be performed for the deceased after the burial. From several texts it would seem that the gods could be convinced to perform this ceremony if it had not been performed for the deceased before his burial. For instance, in Chapter XXXb of the Book of the Dead:

“Behold, thou shalt make a scarab of green stone with its rim(?) plated with gold and placed within the heart of a person, it will perform for him the Opening of the Mouth…”[3].

And in the Papyrus of Ani is found:

“The scribe Ani triumphant saith: May the god Ptah open my mouth, may the god of my city loose the swathings, even the swathings that are over my mouth. Moreover, may Thoth, being filled and furnished with charms, come and loose the bandages of Set that fetter my mouth; and may the god Tem hurl them at those who would fetter (me) with them, then drive them back. May my mouth be unclosed by Shu with his iron knife wherewith he opened the mouth of the gods”[4].

In Spell 690 of the Coffin Texts we read, “I will enter into the place where is that august [god] who is in […]; he will open my eyes for me [that I may see with them], he will split open my mouth…”[5].

            Thus it would seem that the deceased could magically have the Opening of the Mouth performed for him in the underworld. The obvious contradiction that if the Opening of the Mouth was not performed at the time of burial then the deceased could not utter the spells which would assure its being opened in the underworld, was ignored by the Egyptians in much the same way that they ignored the fact that some of the people who were interred with copies of the Book of the Dead were illiterate.

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[1] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. vii.

[2] William C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978), vol. I, pp. 117 – 118.

[3] Budge, Book of the Dead, 1967, p. 15.

[4] E. A. W. Budge, The Book of the Dead (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1923), pp. 133 – 134.

[5] Robert O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Vol. I, (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1977),  p. 255.

The Origins of the Opening of the Mouth

            According to Baly there are two distinct elements in the Opening of the Mouth. Baly claims that the purification ceremonies, the dressing of the statue and the opening of the mouth with the instruments are all Semitic in nature[1] while the sleeping of the Sem and the slaughter of the animals is Hamitic, or African, in origin[2].

            While Baly’s theory is interesting, the evidence for it is hardly conclusive. The major problem in this regard is the evidence for the Semitic origin of parts of the Opening of the Mouth. This evidence has been set forth by Blackman, who based his evidence on the comparison of a Babylonian ceremony, also called the Opening of the Mouth, to the Egyptian ceremony outlined in this paper. Blackman’s evidence may be summarized as follows:

• The statues used in both ceremonies were frequently purified with incense and water
• In both countries the statue is dressed and anointed with unguents
• At the end of the ceremonies in both countries the statue was borne away by nine courtiers
• The lips of the statue were washed during the course of the ceremonies in both countries
• The placing of the bandlets about the eyes and mouth of the statue in the Egyptian ritual has been compared to the placing of red, white and blue wools about the neck of the statue in the Babylonian rite
• The meal at the end of the Opening of the Mouth has been compared to the constant presentation of food and drink to the statue in the Babylonian ritual[3]

While this evidence will admit the possibility that the Babylonian and Egyptian rituals have a common ancestor at some point in the far past (as Blackman theorizes), it will not admit the possibility that the Babylonian ritual was directly derived from the Egyptian ritual (as Langdon speculates). One problem with Langdon’s theory is that the evidence could, in places, be explained by simple coincidence. For instance, the use of water and incense in purification rituals is a common feature in many religions throughout the world and their use in both the Babylonian and Egyptian rituals does not prove a thing.

           Another problem with Langdon’s theory becomes apparent when the difference between the two ceremonies is examined. In the Egyptian ceremony, the statue is placed facing south; in the Babylonian ceremony the statue is placed facing east. In the Egyptian ceremony, the statue is placed on a small heap of sand at the beginning of the rituals while in the Babylonian ceremony it is placed on a mat[4].The most important difference between the two rituals is in their basic purposes. The Egyptian ceremony is designed to re-unite the soul of the deceased with his body (or with a statue representing that body)[5] and to provide the deceased with the ability to eat, drink and breathe in the afterlife. The Babylonian ritual seems to be a dedicatory ceremony performed upon a newly carved or restored statue[6].

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[1] Baly, p. 176 – 177.

[2] Baly, pp. 177 – 180, gives several African parallels to the Opening of the Mouth.

[3] Blackman, pp. 53 – 56.

[4] Blackman, p. 53.

[5] Baly, p. 177.

[6] Baly, p. 181.

Conclusion of the Opening of the Mouth

            The next part of the Opening of the Mouth is referred to as the “dressing of the statue[1]”. It began with the placing of several bandlets upon the statue, followed by adorning the statue with a broad collar. The collar represented the gods Kheper and Atum and the straps with which it was fastened to the statue represented the arms of the gods (thus the deceased was magically embraced by both gods[2]). The statue’s mouth was anointed with “Medjet” oil and the eyes were anointed with “Mestem”. After the recitation of appropriate ritual passages, the statue was anointed with “Heken” oil. The Sem priest then presented the statue with an “Ames” scepter, a mace, an object called a “Mennu” (the exact significance of which is unknown)[3] and two garments. After being censed four more times, the statue was considered fully dressed and ready for the funerary meal.

           The ceremonies involved in the funerary meal do not belong to the “Book of the Opening of the Mouth”; rather, they represent acts of adoration paid to the statue, which has by now received the soul of the deceased.[4] In the Old Kingdom the offering list for the funerary meal is very short, but by the New Kingdom it has been greatly expanded and includes a bewildering variety of breads, beers, wines, joints of meat, cakes, incenses and water.

            After the funerary meal, the statue of the deceased was carried by nine courtiers to a shrine that awaited it. The remainder of the funeral services were then performed[5].

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[1] In Spell 68 of the Coffin texts, there is a reference to the goddess Seshat clothing the deceased. See: Robert O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Vol. I, (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1973),  p. 65.

[2] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, pp. 96 - 103.

[3] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, pp. 108 - 110.

[4] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. 121.

[5] Aylward M. Blackman, “The Rite of Opening the Mouth in Ancient Egypt and Babylonia”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 10, 1924, p. 56.

Photo: Censing the statue with incense. Copyright 2012 by John Freed

The Opening of the Mouth (cont.)

            All four priests now returned to the exterior of the tomb where the Sa-Mer.f awaits them. The Sem lead the Sa-Mer.f into the tomb and presented him to the statue with the words, “I have brought unto thee thy beloved son Horus and he shall open thy mouth for thee”. The Sa-Mer.f took in his hand an iron chisel[1] and a finger-like piece of metal and touched the eyes and mouth of the statue with them as the Kher-Heb says, “Sa-Mer.f, open the mouth and the two eyes of Osiris, the first time with the iron implement “Metchetfet” and the second time with the finger of “tcham” metal”. After this had been done, the Sem approached the statue and pressed his finger against its mouth and eyes[2].

            The Sem then took a bag filled with a red substance (red ochre?) and rubbed the lips of the statue with it (thus restoring color to the lips of the deceased)[3], after which he took a “nemes” bandlet (a strip of cloth or a kerchief) and drew it over the eyes and mouth of the statue[4].

            At this point a bowl of water, which represented the Eye of Horus[5], was presented to the statue. Then the Pesh-en-kef is laid upon the mouth of the statue[6]. Milk was rubbed on the mouth of the statue and then a feather of a “Nena” goose was waved four times beneath the nose of the statue[7] (does this feather impart the “breath of life” to the deceased?).The “Bull of the North” was now slaughtered and its foreleg and heart were offered to the deceased as when the “Bull of the South” was slaughtered. The Seb-Wr and Tun-Tet adzes were then used on the mouth and eyes of the statue as before, after which the statue was once again censed.

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[1] Robert O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Vol. III, (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1973),  p. 7. Spell 816 of the coffin texts mentions this portion of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.

[2] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, pp.78-81.

[3] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. 81.

[4] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. 82. Budge places this ceremony (Budge’s eighteenth ceremony) here because it is so placed on the coffin of Buthaiamon, However, only one other known text (the tomb chapel of Imenititis) places this ceremony here. Baly has shown that even the best of the texts contain inversions in the order of the ceremonies (Baly, pp. 175-6) and since the use of the “nemes” bandlet to adorn the statue is given as the twenty-sixth ceremony in the Seti texts, it would seem the placing of this ceremony here could be an error.

[5] All offerings to the deceased represented the Eye of Horus, see: Breasted, James, The Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1972), p. 59. But , see also: Robert O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Vol. I, (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1973), p. 62, where “white loaves are Anubis; your hnfw-loaves are Osiris; your hbnnt-bread is Nwt.k-nw”. Spell 71, and numerous others, in the Coffin texts (Faulkner, p. 67) do, however, refer to an offering of bread as the Eye of Horus. Additionally, spell 936 of the Coffin Texts lists eighty different offers to the deceased including oils, incense and various foods, and calls each of these offerings the “Eye of Horus”.

[6] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. 83.

[7] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. 84.

The "Sleeping of the Sem"

     After two further censings of the statue, the participants enacted a ritual that has become known as the “Sleeping of the Sem”. The Kher-Heb, Am-Khent and Am-As priests entered the tomb where they found a second statue of the deceased as well as the Sem priest, who was wearing an animal skin and pretending to sleep. With the entrance of the other three priests, the Sem sits up and engages the others in a conversation that refers to events that are unknown to us. Although the exact meaning of this ceremony is unclear, it is possible that the Sem represents Osiris when the latter aroused himself from the dead .

     The Sem then advanced to the statue of the deceased and smote it with a staff after which he presses his little finger to the mouth of the statue and said, “O Osiris, I have come to embrace thee. I am thy son, I am Horus, I have pressed for thee thy mouth. I am thy beloved son.”

     The priests then returned to the exterior of the tomb where the “Bull of the South” was slaughtered. This ritual involved the slaughter of a gazelle and a goose as well as the sacrifice of a bull. Originally, four of each of these animals were sacrificed (so that the deceased could function fully in each quadrant of the world), but by the time of the New Kingdom the East and North quadrants were paired, as were the West and the South quadrants, and only two of each animal were slaughtered . After the bull had been killed its heart was removed and its left foreleg cut off. The heart was offered to the deceased and the still bloody foreleg was pressed to the eyes and mouth of the statue .

     The Sem then used several instruments to open the deceased’s mouth. He took two adzes, the Seb-Wr and the Tun-Tet (the former is symbolic of Set and the latter is symbolic of Horus), and uses them to “cut open” the eyes and mouth of the statue. Next the Sem touches the eyes and mouth four times with the Wr-Hekau (a long, sinuous piece of wood which ends in a ram’s head that is surmounted by a uraeus). This ceremony seems to have transferred some of the vital power of the gods into the deceased and to have also transferred the words of power known by Horus and Set into the deceased.

     The next three ceremonies are very obscure and little can be said of them other than that they take place inside the tomb and that during these ceremonies, the lamentations of Isis and Nephthys for Osiris are described.

Photos: 
Top: The Sleeping of the Sem from the tomb of Rekhmire (New Kingdom) 
Middle: The Sleeping of the Sem (tomb of Menna - New Kingdom)
Bottom: Opening of the Mouth with an adze (tomb of Menna)


Photos copyright John Freed 2012

The Beginning of the Opening of the Mouth

The Opening of the Mouth, in its most elaborate form, first appeared in the Eighteenth Dynasty. At this time, the ceremonies may have lasted as long as four days , and it was performed in a chamber at the entrance to the tomb or on a spot outside the tomb, which had been made ceremonially pure . Participants in the ceremonies include the Lector (Kher-Heb) priest, the Sem priest, the Am-Khent priest, the Smer (who was probably a friend of the deceased), the Sa-Mer.f (who was either the son of the deceased or a chosen representative of the son), two women (one of whom represented the goddess Isis and the other of whom represented Nephthys), the Menhu (or slaughterer), as well as a group of people called the Heru-Shesu (the “Followers of Horus”) .

The Opening of the Mouth began with the placing of a statue of the deceased upon a heap of sand (which may have symbolized the primeval hill upon which the creator god appeared) that had been made ceremonially pure by the sprinkling of water. It seems to have been important for the statue to face south, although the significance of this is unknown .

The Kher-Heb priest, whose major function in the Opening of the Mouth was to read the ritual texts and to instruct the Sem priest on the proper actions to take, now ordered the Sem to don the “kniw” garment (which covered the Sem’s shoulders, breast and upper back) and to take a censer of burning incense and walk around the statue four times saying “Thou art pure O Osiris” .

The Sem next took four small “nemeset” vases filled with water and walked around the statue four times, emptying one vase of water upon the statue each time. The first time he did this he said, “Thou art pure. Thou art pure. Thy purifications are the purifications of Horus , and the purifications of Horus are thy purifications”. While emptying the second vase of water, the Sem priest repeated the same words except that Set was invoked, rather than Horus. The third and fourth vases were emptied in the name of Thoth and Geb respectively .

The Sem next took four “Dshrt” vases and repeated the same ritual that he had performed with the “nemeset” vases, after which he walked around the statue four times with a vase containing “Incense of the South” dissolved in the water. The Sem then circled the statue four more times with “Incense of the North” in his vase this time .

Development of the Opening of the Mouth

            Exactly when the Opening of the Mouth first came into use is unknown, although it might have been as early as the Predynastic Period since a flint Pesh-en-kef, which dates to this period, has been found [1]

In the early Old Kingdom the Opening of the Mouth was still a relatively simple ceremony, which began with the sprinkling of water and the burning of incense for purification purposes. The statue[2] of the deceased was next anointed with seven kinds of unguents and the eyes were anointed with two different kinds of eye paint. Two garments were presented, after which there was a censing and sprinkling of water. The statue was then considered ready for the funerary meal, which usually consisted of several kinds of cakes and breads served with beer[3].

            In the Fifth Dynasty the Opening of the Mouth becomes far more complex and references are now made to Horus performing funerary rites for his father Osiris. Budge[4] was of the opinion that the earlier, and less complex, ceremony may have been favored by the theologians of Memphis, while the priests who drew up the texts for the pyramids of Unas, Teti, and Pepi II were under the influence of a cult not accepted at Memphis (quite possibly that of Osiris).

            During the latter part of the Old Kingdom the Opening of the Mouth was still far less complex than it would become in the New Kingdom, but many of the rituals used later had already made an appearance by this time. For instance, from the texts of Unas we learn that the ceremonies opened with several purification rituals, which were followed by the touching of the eyes and mouth with the Pesh-en-kef and then with the “Iron of the North” and the “Iron of the South”. After this there followed a series of rituals in which food was offered to the deceased and the statue was anointed and dressed[5].

            As mentioned earlier, the Middle Kingdom provides archaeologists with no real knowledge of the development of the Opening of the Mouth. That this is extremely unfortunate as there can be no doubt, especially when one considers the relative simplicity of the Old Kingdom ceremony as compared to the complex set of rituals with which we are confronted in the Eighteenth Dynasty. There must have been a great deal of change in this funeral ceremony during the Middle Kingdom, but no evidence of the changes is available to us.

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[1] E. A. W. Budge, The Book of the Opening of the Mouth (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truber & Co., 1909, vol. I, p. vii.

[2] In some cases the actual body of the deceased might be used instead of a statue.

[3] Budge, vol. 1, pp. 2-3.

[4] Budge, vol. I, pp. 4-5.

[5] E. A. W. Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967), pp. cxxxix-cxli.