ancient egypt: history and culture

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Aker

Aker

Aker with two lions protecting the akhet, the point of the horizon where the sun rises under the sky
Papyrus of Ani

    Aker was the embodiment of the earth. He carried the sun bark at night after it had left the sky and entered the underworld, the realm of Aker. He is sometimes shown as a serpent [1], but, more often, he is depicted as two guardians in human or lion shape protecting the eastern and western accesses of the underworld.
The bones of Aker, two-headed lion, guardian of the round flat earth's outer rim,
Let Aker's bones be shaken...
Pyramid Text 273
Jacob Rabinowitz: Isle of Fire
    Aker was generally a protective god who could heal people bitten by snakes. In the mythology he enclosed the snake Apophis after it was cut to pieces. When he appeared as Akeru, a plurality of earth-gods more ancient than Geb, he had to be warded off by spells. The rising of the akhu was an earth shattering experience
The heavens drop water, the stars throb, the archers go round about, the bones of Akeru tremble, and those who are in bondage to them take to flight when they see Unas rise up as a soul...
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, p. xxix, Courier Dover 1967


[1] Lepsius: Todtenbuch, 108.9: I have removed the Aker-serpent for Re.
 

 
© October 2005

 

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