A brief history of the Amduat and its context in the tomb of Seti I (KV17): between funerary discourse and royal tombs in the first part of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (c. 1550–1290 BCE)

Abstract

What is now referred to as the Amduat was an ancient Egyptian funerary discourse that narrated the journey of Ra through the Beyond (Duat), identifying the spaces and challenges the solar barque had to overcome. Extensive research has been conducted on this text within Egyptology; however, few analyses have focused on its materiality. This article aims to present a new perspective on this royal funerary discourse by interpreting it through the lens of Material Engagement Theory, an approach within cognitive archaeology. Our objective is to demonstrate how the Amduat was constructed as a royal funerary discourse from the Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550–1307 BCE) through the reign of Seti I (c. 1306–1290 BCE). This temporal scope was chosen to examine an innovation in the structure of Seti I’s tomb (KV17) that subsequent pharaohs continued throughout the rest of the New Kingdom. The article is divided into three sections. The first section introduces the Amduat as a research source for Egyptology. The second section analyzes this funerary discourse in tombs predating KV17, interpreting the intentions of the ancient Egyptians in its construction. In the third section, we examine the differences and similarities of KV17’s Amduat with previous versions, delineating the traditions and innovations that continued in later tomb projects. We found that the Amduat in Seti I’s tomb introduced greater circularity into the entire tomb, giving the pharaoh a broader scope for what he was to read in the afterlife than previous tombs did, thus ensuring that this funerary discourse would be read eternally across multiple cycles.