The Book of Caverns
Also known as: Book of Caverns, Livre des Cavernes
A Ramesside underworld book detailing the sun god’s nocturnal journey through six caverns where enemies are punished, gods and blessed dead receive offerings, and the solar deity is renewed for dawn.
Description
The Book of Caverns is a New Kingdom funerary composition, preserved chiefly on the walls of royal tombs, that narrates the nightly passage of the sun god through the depths beneath the earth. Structured in six sections often likened to caverns, it emphasizes judgment, punishment of the sun’s foes, and the restorative union with Osiris that ensures cosmic rebirth. Visual registers catalogue deities, demons, guardians, and groups of the justified dead alongside scenes of decapitation and immolation reserved for the enemies of order. Compared with related underworld books, the Caverns places sharper focus on retribution and the display of divine power that underwrites renewal. Its iconography and captions function liturgically: naming beings, mapping gates and spaces, and affirming the king’s knowledge of the netherworld. The work culminates in the rejuvenation of the sun and the emergence of dawn, reestablishing Ma’at for the coming day.
Historiography
Attested primarily in Ramesside royal tombs, the composition survives as wall decoration with captions rather than as independent papyri. The fullest, most coherent version adorns KV9 (Ramesses VI), while earlier or partial witnesses occur in other 20th-Dynasty contexts. Scholarly reconstruction relies on comparative arrangement of scenes, as order and captioning vary. Modern syntheses, notably by Erik Hornung, situate it among the corpus of New Kingdom ‘books of the netherworld’ alongside the Amduat and Book of Gates.
Date Notes
Ramesside royal-tomb composition; most fully attested in KV9 (Ramesses VI) with earlier fragments under late 19th–early 20th Dynasty.
Major Characters
- Ra
- Osiris
- Apophis
- Horus
- Isis
- Hathor
- Thoth
Myths
- Ra’s Passage through the Caverns
- Punishment of the Enemies of Osiris
- Resurrection of the Blessed Dead
Facts
- Preserved chiefly as monumental wall-texts and scenes in Ramesside royal tombs.
- Organized into six ‘caverns’ (sections) mapping the sun’s nocturnal path.
- Emphasizes the punishment and annihilation of divine enemies more than the Amduat.
- Culminates in the rejuvenation of Ra through association with Osiris.
- The fullest extant version is in KV9 (tomb of Ramesses VI) in the Valley of the Kings.
- Captions and labels name deities, demons, and collectives to be known and recited.
- Iconography includes binding, decapitation, and burning of foes in lakes of fire.
- Functions to secure royal afterlife knowledge and maintain daily cosmic renewal.
- Text order and scene arrangement vary between tombs, indicating fluid redaction.
- Belongs to the broader corpus of New Kingdom underworld ‘books’ alongside the Book of Gates.