The story begins with humans plotting against Ra because he has grown old and they feel he can no longer manage the affairs of the world.
Afterwards, Ra created the gods Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, known as the lesser-gods when compared with the creator-gods such as Ra and Nun. Prior to the beginning of the story, an audience would have been acquainted with the creation myth in which Ra, in his form of Atum, stood on the primordial mound in the presence of the god Nun and created order out of chaos with the help of Heka, the god of magic, and through the agency of magic, aided by the wisdom of Thoth. The tale begins after Ra had created the world and was king of the gods and humanity. mid-17th century BCE) or the Great Flood story from the Book of Genesis (earliest date of composition 15th century BCE, latest 6th century BCE), the Book of the Heavenly Cow may have inspired these later works as all deal with a strikingly similar theme. Since it was composed before the Atrahasis (c. The title of the work has been translated as the Book of the Cow of Heaven, the Book of the Celestial Cow, The Destruction of Mankind, and The Destruction of Humanity. The central narrative of humanity’s rebellion and the gods’ reaction, however, is complete. It is only by combining the different finds that scholars have been able to assemble the work and, even so, the conclusion has been lost. The famous photo of the interior of the tomb of Tutankhamun, from after it was opened in 1922 CE, shows a bed frame in the shape of the heavenly cow which, since it is surrounded by other objects, is more often overlooked than appreciated.Įxcept for the tomb of Ramesses VI, which contained the text on papyrus sheets, the myth was found inscribed on the walls of the tombs and none of them, on their own, are complete. The texts were found in the tombs of pharaohs Tutankhamun (r. The work is thought to have been known in some form during the First Intermediate Period (2181-2040 BCE) and written during the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) but the extant scripts all come from the New Kingdom (c.
The work has been compared with the Mesopotamian Atrahasis and the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood. The Book of the Heavenly Cow is an ancient Egyptian text dealing with the rebellion of humanity against the sun god Ra, his destruction of the rebels through the goddess Hathor, the reversal of this decision and Ra’s mercy, and his ascent into the higher heavens, leaving earth in a fallen state. The funerary bed is fashioned in the shape of the Celestial Cow as depicted in The Book of the Heavenly Cow, a text which adorned Tutankhamun’s tomb’s walls. 1327 BCE) taken in 1922 CE or early 1923 CE.