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Writings from the Ancient World #23
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts
Completely revised and updated James P. Allen provides a translation of the oldest corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the six royal pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (ca. 2350-2150 BCE). Allen s revisions take into account recent advances in the understanding of Egyptian grammar.
394 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2101
About the author
James P. Allen
35 books30 followersJames P. Allen (Ph. D., Univ. of Chicago, 1981), Wilbour Prof. of Egyptology, Brown University, has published extensively on ancient Egyptian language, religion, and history.
Allen, James P., 1945-, Library of Congress Authorities
Allen, James P., 1945-, Library of Congress Authorities
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 18, 2014
Unis is the sky’s bull, with terrorizing in his heart, who lives on the evolution of every god, who eats their bowels when they have come from the Isle of Flame with their belly filled with magic.
The ancient Egyptian pyramid texts are old. Like really, really old. They date to around 2400-2300 BCE and were inscribed on the inner-most tombs of Pharaohs’ pyramids. Considering writing was only invented around 3000 BCE, and they must have taken ~500 years to figure out it was useful for more than just counting sheep or taxes, we are looking at some of the oldest literary creations in history. And unlike the prosaic “Book of the Dead” these texts are vigorous and intimidating. Mostly incantations or spells that aided a Pharaoh’s journey into the afterlife, they were not meant for human eyes: the scribes were likely killed after inscribing them and the royal tomb was sealed off forever.
I’ll be looking at one text in particular, the Cannibal Spell for King Unis. Written ca. 2325 BCE, this spell presents the now-dead Unis as a newly born star or constellation, ascending the sky and devouring the other gods for their powers. The story is violent and methodical; as Unis moves inexorably across the horizon his servants aid him in butchering old gods, ending with him undisputed as king of the sky. He rules the universe and is immune from evil; the old deities merely shadows in his wake. I imagine Unis to mirror the sun’s ascendancy. As stars and lesser gods litter the night sky, the Pharaoh is the sun whose blaze wipes the horizon clean, only to perch at its center during mid-day (when life is in its prime). As night creeps back and the King weakens, he must be reborn the next morning. Or replaced? Regardless, it’s a spectacular process.
The spell is super fun to pick apart. We smell themes of human sacrifice (the ritual would likely have been performed by killing oxen, but I have my suspicions); a keen sensitivity to the constellations and the sun’s supremacy; a pre-civilized affinity with the natural world; magic as more significant cultural phenomena than institutionalized religion; political propaganda; and the eternal reality of death and rebirth: sons will take from their fathers, Kings will replace one another, and day will always succeed night. The visceral fascination with the body and its power is both horrific and actually refreshing. So often does later educated, civilized life attach significance to the soul, or intellect, or even the abstract ‘heart’ that we lose a basic sense of flesh-and-blood vigor. These writers, awed by the physical wonder of the human life-force, could express it only in terms of violent cannibalism. Playful nibbles during sex, sometimes escalated in the heat of the moment, retain much of the same primal intensity.
The key here is the power of artistic imagery. It’s something we’ve seen before with cave paintings and ancient music, but I relish seeing it in this medium. The spell would not work if the scribe lazily belched out commands at an indifferent cosmos. The magic is his ability to evoke scenes in our imaginations. He hopes the imagery translates into real life, but before we get skeptical let’s consider the possibility that he was successful. An Ancient Egyptian didn’t just see the sun rising and falling day by day. He saw the kings of his past. He saw them ascend to their rightful place in the heavens and consume all lesser deities in their wake. The Ancient Egyptian looked at the most common routine in the solar system—the orbit of celestial objects—and saw a magnificent story. To envision that story is nothing short of magical, and to communicate it well leaves us spellbound. I see no reason to doubt their incantation, factual or otherwise.
The ancient Egyptian pyramid texts are old. Like really, really old. They date to around 2400-2300 BCE and were inscribed on the inner-most tombs of Pharaohs’ pyramids. Considering writing was only invented around 3000 BCE, and they must have taken ~500 years to figure out it was useful for more than just counting sheep or taxes, we are looking at some of the oldest literary creations in history. And unlike the prosaic “Book of the Dead” these texts are vigorous and intimidating. Mostly incantations or spells that aided a Pharaoh’s journey into the afterlife, they were not meant for human eyes: the scribes were likely killed after inscribing them and the royal tomb was sealed off forever.
I’ll be looking at one text in particular, the Cannibal Spell for King Unis. Written ca. 2325 BCE, this spell presents the now-dead Unis as a newly born star or constellation, ascending the sky and devouring the other gods for their powers. The story is violent and methodical; as Unis moves inexorably across the horizon his servants aid him in butchering old gods, ending with him undisputed as king of the sky. He rules the universe and is immune from evil; the old deities merely shadows in his wake. I imagine Unis to mirror the sun’s ascendancy. As stars and lesser gods litter the night sky, the Pharaoh is the sun whose blaze wipes the horizon clean, only to perch at its center during mid-day (when life is in its prime). As night creeps back and the King weakens, he must be reborn the next morning. Or replaced? Regardless, it’s a spectacular process.
The spell is super fun to pick apart. We smell themes of human sacrifice (the ritual would likely have been performed by killing oxen, but I have my suspicions); a keen sensitivity to the constellations and the sun’s supremacy; a pre-civilized affinity with the natural world; magic as more significant cultural phenomena than institutionalized religion; political propaganda; and the eternal reality of death and rebirth: sons will take from their fathers, Kings will replace one another, and day will always succeed night. The visceral fascination with the body and its power is both horrific and actually refreshing. So often does later educated, civilized life attach significance to the soul, or intellect, or even the abstract ‘heart’ that we lose a basic sense of flesh-and-blood vigor. These writers, awed by the physical wonder of the human life-force, could express it only in terms of violent cannibalism. Playful nibbles during sex, sometimes escalated in the heat of the moment, retain much of the same primal intensity.
The key here is the power of artistic imagery. It’s something we’ve seen before with cave paintings and ancient music, but I relish seeing it in this medium. The spell would not work if the scribe lazily belched out commands at an indifferent cosmos. The magic is his ability to evoke scenes in our imaginations. He hopes the imagery translates into real life, but before we get skeptical let’s consider the possibility that he was successful. An Ancient Egyptian didn’t just see the sun rising and falling day by day. He saw the kings of his past. He saw them ascend to their rightful place in the heavens and consume all lesser deities in their wake. The Ancient Egyptian looked at the most common routine in the solar system—the orbit of celestial objects—and saw a magnificent story. To envision that story is nothing short of magical, and to communicate it well leaves us spellbound. I see no reason to doubt their incantation, factual or otherwise.
October 13, 2026
I read this 2 years ago and had a draft review that I have since updated to this.
James P. Allen's 2015 second edition of The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Text. The book is 381 pages including index's and appendix's. Add in 12 pages up front for a table of contents and preface and we are looking at 392 pages. Allen's 1st Edition is dated 2005. The major difference besides the addition of new lessor tombs to the genre is that he imposed his own numbering system in this earlier edition so that each tomb had its own unique numbering system that criss crosses in and out of tombs as Kurt Sethe set it up. It's a nice idea but most people wish to compare the Mercer, Piankoff, and Faulkner editions with his. This super or self-imposed numbering system made it harder to do despite a cross reference/concordance pages in the back of the book. Over it all it caused too much confusion and so he rewrote this book with Sethe's numbering system and ditched the concordance. Right move. The first edition is 471 pages with a 42 page Concordance that does not appear in the second edition. 2nd edition has an 8 page index of spells that was not part of the 1st edition. The 1st edition has a 26 page index that does not appear in the 2nd edition. The 1st edition has 20 page glossary and the 2nd edition has 19 pages.
Now, you stand at the Gate of Allen. Woe to you who has read, Mercer, Piankoff, and Faulkner, you should be rightfully confused having read them all. Blessed are you who have read Maspero and walked away, you know French. You may be cursed if you've read Sethe we can only assume since no English translation that I could find exists of this either, it's in German and is said to have multiple volumes. Would it help to invoke AI? Only if you have direct questions as it won't translate a copy for you. Welcome to the world of the Pyramid Text (PT) where truths abound, so just pick one. The odds of you being right only get worse if you continue on with Naydler, Morrow, or even the newest translation from Grey not because they are wrong but they simply add to the befuddlement that Kurt Sethe bequeathed us.
Allen has done some very laudable things with his second edition which we'll get too below and thus is useful, but he also did something else that makes his translation less useful. He followed the crowd, Sethe, Mercer and Faulkner and ignored what Piankoff did which is radically different as Piankoff begins his translation at the entrance and not in the Sarcophagus chamber. This makes a world of difference that is largely unremarked upon by Egyptology as it exposes new registers or layers of meaning that go ignored.
The orthodox view of the Pyramid Texts is that they are Funerary, Solar, and Celestial and give the earliest written view of Egyptian Theology and Cosmology. However if you read Piankoff, they become Funerary, Solar, Celestial, Terrestrial, Political and Historical while remaining the earliest written view of Egyptian Cosmology and to some extent deepen the Theology. This only happens when you understand the landscape and political climate of Unas's times. Piankoff is not going to explain this, but he is going to let you ponder such so that you can decide. A big part of the Landscape I speak of is the Faiyum and for that I'd suggest "The Fayum Landscape, Ten Thousand Years of Archaeology, Texts and Traditions in Egypt" by Claire Malleson. The political climate is the clash of Heliopolitan vs Memphite vs Hermopolitan theologies occurring at the time where Helopolis attempted supremacy during the 4th - 6th Dynasties and part of that plays out in the Pyramid Text of Unas. In a somewhat cryptic manner Unas writes of both, starting at the entrance, in the Ante chamber and you can still see it with the serpent spells that continue again in the Sarcophagus chamber.
If you follow the Sethe prescription for understanding the Pyramid text, which Allen does having followed Sethe, Mercer and Faulkner you will only see "the sky" since Unas is already an effective spirit (Ahk) when he enters out of the Sarcophagus chamber. Thus everything described is said to be "the sky". Piankoff touches on this in his introduction where he tells the reader why he chose to begin his translation at the Entrance and not the Sarcophagus Chamber.
I add quotes to "the sky" for two reasons. First is what is clearly an editorial markup made to Piankoff's translation that may or likely not be Piankoff's and I say this because Piankoff was dead when that book went to print in 1968 and additional editing was done to get the book to print.
That utterance along with 319 and other parts of the Entrance evoke the Faiyum, not (the sky). It's not just the entrance either that does this. Example UT 275 " Unas will become a Great One who resides in Crocodiloplis." (Pinkoff). Allen actually uses "Shedit" which would be Shedet, both are the same place in the Faiyum, the only place that does not get flooded from the Nile overflow allowed into Lake Moeris in Old Kingdom times. Faulkner's translation of 275 is actually best as he gives the utterance thus:
The second reason I mention "the sky" is Allen's paper "Cosmology of the Pyramid Text" that appears in Yale Egyptological Studies 3 "Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt" 1989 where Allen justifies "the sky" throughout the paper, as he lists off continuous occurrences of terrestrial features but calls them "the sky" while at the same time telling you many of determinatives used in the Hieroglyphs apply to terrestrial features but because he can find other Utterances, and most of his examples do not come from Unas but from the 6th Dynasty Kings and Queens, he's able to find Utterances that do apply to "the sky" and thus all of it is "the sky". He does this without ever examining that they may also be terrestrial features. In his defense I'd suggest the importance of the Faiyum to all kings of Egypt was not clear when he wrote that paper or even when he did this book.
Another important feature of that paper that has bearing burial chamber first or entrance first is that his final conclusions brings up the three ascensions that Unas takes to become a an effective spirit wherein he pretty much says what Piankoff says, but he's mapped this as circle and circles doing what circles do, it goes round and round and he's never identified (the Entrance) as the point where the circle begins at, but joins it instead in the second go around and so on because after all, Unas is an effective spirit when he leaves the burial chamber. Thus, never a start point. Just a continuing "… this new life is nonetheless cyclical, like the celestial cycle on which it is modeled" ("Cosmology of the Pyramid Text"/Allen). . Allen really should relook his work before he launches his possible new book "The Mind of Egypt" Hello Jan Assman, said based on a Wikipedia mention concerning his works. I'd suggest getting off the other Kings and Queens even if they do reinforce the theology and cosmology rightfully presented and focus on King Unas where there are countless examples of things that are not "the sky". The other Kings and Queens were following Unas and the Heliopolitan usurpation of the times, and serve mostly to water down Unas which was likely Sethe's desire when he deployed his conjuring trick to make everything appear as "the sky" since Unas if you did not know how to defend him, would make a poor model for Europe's Aristocracy in making a strong come back after the French Revolution. Even Seths's slow roll out to the public which still was not complete by the time Sethe died score years after he began his work seems suspect.
Anyway, I promised some other nice things to say about his book and given book reviews have character limits, I will forego other important criticisms and launch into the better, more laudatory things he has done in addition to what has been mentioned at the start of this review. First and foremost he has separated the Kings and Queen's Pyramid Text so you can actually tell where one ends and the next begins and each gets their own chapter followed by foot notes at the end of each chapter. This brings much needed clarity as Mercer simply began at Utterance 1 right up 714 and you never had a good idea from which Pyramid/King/Queen was being translated to you. Nor where one stopped or ended. Faulkner did the same thing but added better literary style, yet it was not always clear who was the doer of the action, still an improvement over the use of "N" that Mercer used instead of saying Unas or the King. Allen improves in that area as well. If one is reading the PT for the Cosmology and Theology bundled with the larger corpus of Kings and Queens, Allen is your guy, but if you want a wider and more realistic view of Unas, I'd highly recommend Piankoff but you're going to have to do the extra work and examine the Faiyum and the times of Unas.
Before we leave that trail of thought it's to be understood that Allen, like Faulkner before him and Mercer before Faulkner do translate the other 6th Dynasty Kings and Queens but I just noticed that Allen starts his translations in the Sarcophagus Chamber for each of them as well, thus we get the same problem with Allen's treatment of Unas as talked about previously. The same is likely true with Mercer and Faulkner as they all follow Sethe, but it takes more work to know which king or queen is being translated when using those translators. Also since Piankoff never did the other Kings and Queens, though that was his intent when he began his work with Rambova (not surprising since Mercer in my opinion unscrupulously published first) this then leaves room for someone to redo the entire corpus and present each King and Queen's Pyramid Text by starting from entrance, going in.
Now a last thing about Allen and you can take this as a pro or con, personally I take it as con where it concerns the Pyramid Text. Allen's mastery over the reading of Hieroglyphics is no secret, he's written several noteworthy books on the subject and has made himself an authority figure for such. He's arrived at a point where he can to a degree pick and choose meanings for a word among a group of words. In other words he's expanded the vocabulary and grammar. This shows up in this translation as you can see where Mercer, Faulkner and Piankoff used xxx space for a set of hieroglyphs in pretty much a uniform manner between the three of them with slight changes in word usage or meaning, but with Allen you get xxxxx. Or you get simply x. It swings both ways and it appears in about 5 to 15 percent of his translation where he is making certain utterances much longer or shorter than what the other translators proposed. This might be fine, but when you actually compare the size of those hieroglyphs from the stone they are carved into to his wording, he's either dramatically increased decreased that space. In other words he's saying too much or too little for the given space of certain utterances. That is an uneducated opinion but it can be seen. This means he can alter the meaning of certain utterances, making it more fluffy than it actually is or lessening it's content and thus meaning. Right or wrong, personally I'm not comfortable with it and am less apt to use his translation for certain passages, however in many cases he brings needed clarity, thus it cuts both ways.
End for now.
James P. Allen's 2015 second edition of The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Text. The book is 381 pages including index's and appendix's. Add in 12 pages up front for a table of contents and preface and we are looking at 392 pages. Allen's 1st Edition is dated 2005. The major difference besides the addition of new lessor tombs to the genre is that he imposed his own numbering system in this earlier edition so that each tomb had its own unique numbering system that criss crosses in and out of tombs as Kurt Sethe set it up. It's a nice idea but most people wish to compare the Mercer, Piankoff, and Faulkner editions with his. This super or self-imposed numbering system made it harder to do despite a cross reference/concordance pages in the back of the book. Over it all it caused too much confusion and so he rewrote this book with Sethe's numbering system and ditched the concordance. Right move. The first edition is 471 pages with a 42 page Concordance that does not appear in the second edition. 2nd edition has an 8 page index of spells that was not part of the 1st edition. The 1st edition has a 26 page index that does not appear in the 2nd edition. The 1st edition has 20 page glossary and the 2nd edition has 19 pages.
Now, you stand at the Gate of Allen. Woe to you who has read, Mercer, Piankoff, and Faulkner, you should be rightfully confused having read them all. Blessed are you who have read Maspero and walked away, you know French. You may be cursed if you've read Sethe we can only assume since no English translation that I could find exists of this either, it's in German and is said to have multiple volumes. Would it help to invoke AI? Only if you have direct questions as it won't translate a copy for you. Welcome to the world of the Pyramid Text (PT) where truths abound, so just pick one. The odds of you being right only get worse if you continue on with Naydler, Morrow, or even the newest translation from Grey not because they are wrong but they simply add to the befuddlement that Kurt Sethe bequeathed us.
Allen has done some very laudable things with his second edition which we'll get too below and thus is useful, but he also did something else that makes his translation less useful. He followed the crowd, Sethe, Mercer and Faulkner and ignored what Piankoff did which is radically different as Piankoff begins his translation at the entrance and not in the Sarcophagus chamber. This makes a world of difference that is largely unremarked upon by Egyptology as it exposes new registers or layers of meaning that go ignored.
The orthodox view of the Pyramid Texts is that they are Funerary, Solar, and Celestial and give the earliest written view of Egyptian Theology and Cosmology. However if you read Piankoff, they become Funerary, Solar, Celestial, Terrestrial, Political and Historical while remaining the earliest written view of Egyptian Cosmology and to some extent deepen the Theology. This only happens when you understand the landscape and political climate of Unas's times. Piankoff is not going to explain this, but he is going to let you ponder such so that you can decide. A big part of the Landscape I speak of is the Faiyum and for that I'd suggest "The Fayum Landscape, Ten Thousand Years of Archaeology, Texts and Traditions in Egypt" by Claire Malleson. The political climate is the clash of Heliopolitan vs Memphite vs Hermopolitan theologies occurring at the time where Helopolis attempted supremacy during the 4th - 6th Dynasties and part of that plays out in the Pyramid Text of Unas. In a somewhat cryptic manner Unas writes of both, starting at the entrance, in the Ante chamber and you can still see it with the serpent spells that continue again in the Sarcophagus chamber.
If you follow the Sethe prescription for understanding the Pyramid text, which Allen does having followed Sethe, Mercer and Faulkner you will only see "the sky" since Unas is already an effective spirit (Ahk) when he enters out of the Sarcophagus chamber. Thus everything described is said to be "the sky". Piankoff touches on this in his introduction where he tells the reader why he chose to begin his translation at the Entrance and not the Sarcophagus Chamber.
I add quotes to "the sky" for two reasons. First is what is clearly an editorial markup made to Piankoff's translation that may or likely not be Piankoff's and I say this because Piankoff was dead when that book went to print in 1968 and additional editing was done to get the book to print.
Utterance 317
507: To say:
"Unas came today, out of the overflow of the flood.
Unas is Sobek (the crocodile god), with green feather, with a watchful face, with uplifted brow, rushing up, coming from the leg and the tail of the Great One, she who resides in the brilliant light.
508: Unas came to his water currents, which are in the land of the flood of the Great Overflow (the sky), to the place of peace with green pastures, which is on the horizon.
509: Unas causes the grass to become green on the two banks of the horizon.
Unas brings the green brilliance to the Great Eye which resides among the pastures.
Unas takes his seat which is on the horizon.
510: Unas arises as Sobek, the son of Neith.
Unas eats with his mouth, Unas urinates, Unas copulates with his phallus.
Unas is the lord of seed, he who takes the women from their husbands, wherever Unas wants, according to the desire of his heart.
That utterance along with 319 and other parts of the Entrance evoke the Faiyum, not (the sky). It's not just the entrance either that does this. Example UT 275 " Unas will become a Great One who resides in Crocodiloplis." (Pinkoff). Allen actually uses "Shedit" which would be Shedet, both are the same place in the Faiyum, the only place that does not get flooded from the Nile overflow allowed into Lake Moeris in Old Kingdom times. Faulkner's translation of 275 is actually best as he gives the utterance thus:
The King, has come to you, you falcons, for your Horus-mansions are barred to the King.
His m'rk is on his hinder parts, of the hide of a baboon; the king opens the double doors, the King attains the limit of the horizon, the King has laid his msdt there on the ground, and the King becomes the Great One who is Shedet.
The second reason I mention "the sky" is Allen's paper "Cosmology of the Pyramid Text" that appears in Yale Egyptological Studies 3 "Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt" 1989 where Allen justifies "the sky" throughout the paper, as he lists off continuous occurrences of terrestrial features but calls them "the sky" while at the same time telling you many of determinatives used in the Hieroglyphs apply to terrestrial features but because he can find other Utterances, and most of his examples do not come from Unas but from the 6th Dynasty Kings and Queens, he's able to find Utterances that do apply to "the sky" and thus all of it is "the sky". He does this without ever examining that they may also be terrestrial features. In his defense I'd suggest the importance of the Faiyum to all kings of Egypt was not clear when he wrote that paper or even when he did this book.
Another important feature of that paper that has bearing burial chamber first or entrance first is that his final conclusions brings up the three ascensions that Unas takes to become a an effective spirit wherein he pretty much says what Piankoff says, but he's mapped this as circle and circles doing what circles do, it goes round and round and he's never identified (the Entrance) as the point where the circle begins at, but joins it instead in the second go around and so on because after all, Unas is an effective spirit when he leaves the burial chamber. Thus, never a start point. Just a continuing "… this new life is nonetheless cyclical, like the celestial cycle on which it is modeled" ("Cosmology of the Pyramid Text"/Allen). . Allen really should relook his work before he launches his possible new book "The Mind of Egypt" Hello Jan Assman, said based on a Wikipedia mention concerning his works. I'd suggest getting off the other Kings and Queens even if they do reinforce the theology and cosmology rightfully presented and focus on King Unas where there are countless examples of things that are not "the sky". The other Kings and Queens were following Unas and the Heliopolitan usurpation of the times, and serve mostly to water down Unas which was likely Sethe's desire when he deployed his conjuring trick to make everything appear as "the sky" since Unas if you did not know how to defend him, would make a poor model for Europe's Aristocracy in making a strong come back after the French Revolution. Even Seths's slow roll out to the public which still was not complete by the time Sethe died score years after he began his work seems suspect.
Anyway, I promised some other nice things to say about his book and given book reviews have character limits, I will forego other important criticisms and launch into the better, more laudatory things he has done in addition to what has been mentioned at the start of this review. First and foremost he has separated the Kings and Queen's Pyramid Text so you can actually tell where one ends and the next begins and each gets their own chapter followed by foot notes at the end of each chapter. This brings much needed clarity as Mercer simply began at Utterance 1 right up 714 and you never had a good idea from which Pyramid/King/Queen was being translated to you. Nor where one stopped or ended. Faulkner did the same thing but added better literary style, yet it was not always clear who was the doer of the action, still an improvement over the use of "N" that Mercer used instead of saying Unas or the King. Allen improves in that area as well. If one is reading the PT for the Cosmology and Theology bundled with the larger corpus of Kings and Queens, Allen is your guy, but if you want a wider and more realistic view of Unas, I'd highly recommend Piankoff but you're going to have to do the extra work and examine the Faiyum and the times of Unas.
Before we leave that trail of thought it's to be understood that Allen, like Faulkner before him and Mercer before Faulkner do translate the other 6th Dynasty Kings and Queens but I just noticed that Allen starts his translations in the Sarcophagus Chamber for each of them as well, thus we get the same problem with Allen's treatment of Unas as talked about previously. The same is likely true with Mercer and Faulkner as they all follow Sethe, but it takes more work to know which king or queen is being translated when using those translators. Also since Piankoff never did the other Kings and Queens, though that was his intent when he began his work with Rambova (not surprising since Mercer in my opinion unscrupulously published first) this then leaves room for someone to redo the entire corpus and present each King and Queen's Pyramid Text by starting from entrance, going in.
Now a last thing about Allen and you can take this as a pro or con, personally I take it as con where it concerns the Pyramid Text. Allen's mastery over the reading of Hieroglyphics is no secret, he's written several noteworthy books on the subject and has made himself an authority figure for such. He's arrived at a point where he can to a degree pick and choose meanings for a word among a group of words. In other words he's expanded the vocabulary and grammar. This shows up in this translation as you can see where Mercer, Faulkner and Piankoff used xxx space for a set of hieroglyphs in pretty much a uniform manner between the three of them with slight changes in word usage or meaning, but with Allen you get xxxxx. Or you get simply x. It swings both ways and it appears in about 5 to 15 percent of his translation where he is making certain utterances much longer or shorter than what the other translators proposed. This might be fine, but when you actually compare the size of those hieroglyphs from the stone they are carved into to his wording, he's either dramatically increased decreased that space. In other words he's saying too much or too little for the given space of certain utterances. That is an uneducated opinion but it can be seen. This means he can alter the meaning of certain utterances, making it more fluffy than it actually is or lessening it's content and thus meaning. Right or wrong, personally I'm not comfortable with it and am less apt to use his translation for certain passages, however in many cases he brings needed clarity, thus it cuts both ways.
End for now.
December 26, 2017
This was pretty difficult for me to read, and I feel like I would have done a lot better if I knew more about ancient egyptian religion and mythology. This must be how someone feels when they randomly decide to read one of the Vedas with no prior knowledge of Hindu mythology and religion. But in any case, it was pretty interesting. These are texts-- largely spells-- which come from an era of human religious evolution which is usually not preserved in texts. The texts usually pertain to individual kings who were ascending into heaven, and served a magical purpose and were in that sense technical or mechinistic, or transactional, rather than poetic or intended to serve the people hearing it. A lot of the texts are rather creepy, referring to conflict, dark horrors, or strange macabre happenings, opaque to me. One of the other reviews on this page elucidates one of the spells a bit. I feel the text would have been helped by having more footnotes to explain to a layman like myself what exactly is going on. But it is fascinating to read words written by people *this* long ago. Probably the oldest text i've ever read.
April 22, 2012
First of all this book is by James P. Allen, it is edited by Peter Der Manuelian. The "Pyramid Texts are older than the more famous "Book of the Dead" texts and belong to the Old Kingdom (2300 to 2100 BC). Yet both were concerned with re-uniting the dead person's personality soul (Ba, the sound of a baby babbling) with his life force (Ka, possibly the sound of the Bennu bird which may have originally been a crow instead of a water bird) so he could live forever with the gods. The Egyptian religion of the time was much more nature based and simpler than later. The Sun (the god Ra, Re, or Atum) was the source of all earthly life while the god Osirus regenerated the Sun's own life throughout the night so it could appear again the next morning. As the ruler of the day the Sun was identified with the Pharoah's personal power god Horus. Significantly, and unlike almost all other mythologies the sky was considered feminine (the goddess Nut) while earth was considered masculine (the god Geb).
September 16, 2018
I doubt at any point in my life I'll ever properly appreciate what the Pyramid Texts are, this books by James P. Allen or anyone else who dares to compile the Texts. I'm not versed in ancient Egyptian mythology, death rituals, or the reigns of the kings and queens of the Old Kingdom. I'll probably never will. It's just not something I'll be dedicating a large chunk of my life to. However, that won't stop me from appreciating what's accessible to me. The Ancient Egyptian Texts gives a quick introduction to the rulers and the layout of their tombs before transcribing the full death rituals--the instructions, the spells, everything. For just a few people included such as Unis and both Pepis, this book accumulated over 400 pages of text. Truly, Allen kept his descriptions brief and let the Egyptians author almost all of the book. Over 4000 year old written language, the third oldest surviving today, I can read in as raw form as the English language can take advantage of. Despite understanding so little, I appreciate so much.
July 29, 2022
Mi refugio es mi Ojo
Mi protección es mi Ojo
Mi fuerza es mi Ojo
Mi poder es mi Ojo
Oh vosotros qué podrías venir contra mi para obstaculizarme, venid a mi, venid a mi (como amigos), por qué soy el altérname ego de mi padre, la flor de mi madre.
Detesto viajar en la oscuridad, por que no puedo ver, y puedo caer en la confusión; aparezco hoy por qué puedo administrar justicia, ya que ella está conmigo, y no seré abandonado a vuestro temperamento, dioses.
Mi protección es mi Ojo
Mi fuerza es mi Ojo
Mi poder es mi Ojo
Oh vosotros qué podrías venir contra mi para obstaculizarme, venid a mi, venid a mi (como amigos), por qué soy el altérname ego de mi padre, la flor de mi madre.
Detesto viajar en la oscuridad, por que no puedo ver, y puedo caer en la confusión; aparezco hoy por qué puedo administrar justicia, ya que ella está conmigo, y no seré abandonado a vuestro temperamento, dioses.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2024
While I cannot speak to the accuracy of Allen's translations, they succeed at presenting the Pyramid Texts as written in a poetic and evocative language replete with symbolism and beauty. The nature of the texts does result in some longer, drier sections - even with lines seen in prior pyramids being removed from later ones - with some ideas repeating ad nauseam even within a single text. Between this and some of the pyramids simply having few truly striking verses, at times it can be a bit of a slog. However, this is in no way the fault of the author, and the text can provide even a reader less-learned in ancient Egyptian religion with an enticing view into a dense and interwoven set of beliefs.
May 20, 2021
Interesting to be sure.
It is amazing that a lot of Ancient Egyptian Mythology is based off of these texts, as it appears near impossible to glean such colorful storylines from such inscriptions/transcriptions, but this is coming from someone who has delved into this topic from a 'top-down' perspective, versus finding these texts and tearing them apart to further define a lost culture from the bottom. I'm sure if I were the original founder of these, connecting the dots would have been quite exciting. Now I will get more or less of a giggle when I see someone cite Pyramid Texts, but I can dig it.
It is amazing that a lot of Ancient Egyptian Mythology is based off of these texts, as it appears near impossible to glean such colorful storylines from such inscriptions/transcriptions, but this is coming from someone who has delved into this topic from a 'top-down' perspective, versus finding these texts and tearing them apart to further define a lost culture from the bottom. I'm sure if I were the original founder of these, connecting the dots would have been quite exciting. Now I will get more or less of a giggle when I see someone cite Pyramid Texts, but I can dig it.
May 15, 2025
Mostly just read Neith’s section, but all were basically variations of each other. I would’ve liked more visuals and better explanations of unpopular mythologies.
September 16, 2025
Save for some moments (‘your bone is boned and you are boned’) where I got rather giggly and juvenile, I do love reading this sort of ancient spell-text.
November 20, 2012
Not nearly as good as the Faulkner translation.
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