Lakhasly

PYRAMID TEXTS, a collection of funerary rituals and spells first inscribed on the sarcophagi and subterra- nean walls of nine Old Kingdom pyramids: those of Unas, last pharaoh of the fifth dynasty: his sixth dynasty succes- sors Teti, Pepy I, Merenre Antyemsaf, and Pepy II: three queens of Pepy I (Neith, Iput, and Wedjebteni); and the eighth dynasty pharaoh Ibi.
The pyramid of Unas, which preserves the most com- plete Old Kingdom corpus, contains 236 spells (some- times called "Utterances"), varying in length from a few words toseveral pages in translation. The pvramids of Un- as's successors have yielded another 750 spells, bringing the total to nearly one thousand. The exact number of spells in the Pvramid Texts cannot be determined, since most of the subterranean walls in the pyramids of Unas's successors have been damaged, with large portions lost.
C o p i e sof the Pyramid Texts were also inscribed on the sarcophagi, coffins, and tomb walls of nonroval burials from the First Intermediate Period onward. The most im- portant of these later sources is the twelfth dynasty tomb of Senwosret at el-Lisht, which contains a nearly com- plete copy of the collection of Unas, with some additions. Copies of Pyramid Texts that were made later than the Old Kingdom generally reproduce the texts of Unas, al- though a number of spells from the later Old Kingdom pyramids were also used, primarily in Middle Kingdom sources.
In the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom. the Pyramid Texts were re-edited and expanded with addi- tional spells, known as Coffin Texts. Both Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts are often interspersed in later sources. indicating that they were considered a single genre. Al- though many Coffin Texts can be identified as newer cre- ations, on the basis of content and differences in lan- guage, others are composed with the same grammar as that of the Pvramid Tests and mav actually have been a part of the original corpus. At least six spells that were initiallv identified bv scholars as Coffin Texts have since been found among the fragmentary texts of Tety and his successors, whereas others are essentially the same as older Pvramid Texts.
Despite their large number, the spells of the Pvramid
Texts may be grouped into a few distinct assemblages, on the basis of their content and location within the pvra- mids. The tombs of Unas and his sixth dvnastv successors each have the same basic interior arrangement; these con- sist of a sarcophagus chamber, an antechamber to its east,